Supreme Court Conservatives Allow Execution of Muslim Prisoner Despite Religious Freedom Violation
Feb 8, 2019, 5:54pm Andrew L. Seidel
If you’re seeking justice or vindication of your religious freedom, this Supreme Court has just said non-Christians need not apply.
The five conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court were in such a rush to see Domineque Ray executed that they ignored the First Amendment. This is because the condemned prisoner was a Muslim, not a member of the favored religion: Christianity.
Two weeks before his execution, Ray met with the warden, who explained the process and told him that the prison chaplain—a Christian—would be present in the execution chamber.
Alabama law says that the prison chaplain, a Christian (always a Christian) may be present. It also allows the condemned to have his own “spiritual advisor” present. But the prison interpreted this to mean that the Christian chaplain must be in the execution chamber while any other spiritual advisor watches from a separate room. Ray, a Muslim, objected. If any religious official would be there, Ray wanted a fellow Muslim.
Five days after meeting with the warden and learning that a Christian chaplain would be foisted on him while his preferred religious counselor would be essentially excluded, Ray’s lawyers asked for the courts to stay the execution, just over a week away. The Eleventh Circuit, in a brilliant defense of the religion clauses of the First Amendment, correctly held that Alabama had violated Ray’s rights: “If Ray were a Christian, he would have a profound benefit; because he is a Muslim, he is denied that benefit.”
More...
https://rewire.news/religion-dispatches ... violation/
TRUMP AND ISLAM
Trump Still Won’t Name ‘White Supremacist Terrorism’ and His Base Loves It
Donald Trump understands his base better than anyone. He gets what makes them cheer and what turns them off. And Trump’s response to Friday’s horrific white supremacist terrorist attack in New Zealand that saw 49 Muslims murdered was coldly calculated to play to them, especially his refusal to use the term “white supremacist terrorism.”
But first there was to Trump’s reaction to the terrorist attack on Twitter where he spoke of standing, “in solidarity with New Zealand” and declaring, “We love you New Zealand!” Great sentiment but where was the mention of Muslims, as in, “I stand with the Muslim community today”?! After all, the 49 victims were all Muslims killed in their place of worship because they were Muslim.
There’s no doubt Trump’s failure to say any kind words about Muslims was by design. Trump understands that would likely upset his base whom he has fed a diet of anti-Muslim hate, from declaring that “Islam hates us” to calling for a total ban on Muslims coming to this country, and his 2016 comment that takes on a different meaning after Friday’s terror attack: “We're having problems with the Muslims coming into this country…You have to deal with the mosques, whether we like it or not.”
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspoli ... ailsignout
Donald Trump understands his base better than anyone. He gets what makes them cheer and what turns them off. And Trump’s response to Friday’s horrific white supremacist terrorist attack in New Zealand that saw 49 Muslims murdered was coldly calculated to play to them, especially his refusal to use the term “white supremacist terrorism.”
But first there was to Trump’s reaction to the terrorist attack on Twitter where he spoke of standing, “in solidarity with New Zealand” and declaring, “We love you New Zealand!” Great sentiment but where was the mention of Muslims, as in, “I stand with the Muslim community today”?! After all, the 49 victims were all Muslims killed in their place of worship because they were Muslim.
There’s no doubt Trump’s failure to say any kind words about Muslims was by design. Trump understands that would likely upset his base whom he has fed a diet of anti-Muslim hate, from declaring that “Islam hates us” to calling for a total ban on Muslims coming to this country, and his 2016 comment that takes on a different meaning after Friday’s terror attack: “We're having problems with the Muslims coming into this country…You have to deal with the mosques, whether we like it or not.”
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspoli ... ailsignout
In Attacking Ilhan Omar, Trump Revives His Familiar Refrain Against Muslims
WASHINGTON — President Trump has often seen the political benefits of stigmatizing Muslims.
During the 2016 campaign, he would not rule out creating a registry of Muslims in the United States. He claimed to have seen “thousands” of Muslims cheering on rooftops in New Jersey after Sept. 11, a statement that was widely debunked. And after the deadly attacks in Paris and California, Mr. Trump called for a moratorium on Muslims traveling to the United States.
“I think Islam hates us,” Mr. Trump told Anderson Cooper, the CNN host.
Now, with 19 months until the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme again. And this time, he has a specific target: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.
In Ms. Omar, a Somali refugee whose family received asylum in the United States when she was a teenager, Mr. Trump has found a perfect foil: a progressive whose embrace of the boycott-Israel movement and attacks on supporters of the Jewish state have already made her a divisive figure within her own party. As the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor — she pushed for a rules change to allow it — she is also a powerful, and visible symbol for Muslims and refugees.
Mr. Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. In February, the president pounced when Ms. Omar unleashed a firestorm with her comments on Israel, rejecting her subsequent apology and calling for her to resign.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/us/p ... 3053090416
WASHINGTON — President Trump has often seen the political benefits of stigmatizing Muslims.
During the 2016 campaign, he would not rule out creating a registry of Muslims in the United States. He claimed to have seen “thousands” of Muslims cheering on rooftops in New Jersey after Sept. 11, a statement that was widely debunked. And after the deadly attacks in Paris and California, Mr. Trump called for a moratorium on Muslims traveling to the United States.
“I think Islam hates us,” Mr. Trump told Anderson Cooper, the CNN host.
Now, with 19 months until the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is seeking to rally his base by sounding that theme again. And this time, he has a specific target: Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.
In Ms. Omar, a Somali refugee whose family received asylum in the United States when she was a teenager, Mr. Trump has found a perfect foil: a progressive whose embrace of the boycott-Israel movement and attacks on supporters of the Jewish state have already made her a divisive figure within her own party. As the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor — she pushed for a rules change to allow it — she is also a powerful, and visible symbol for Muslims and refugees.
Mr. Trump and his team are trying to make Ms. Omar, who is relatively unknown in national politics, a household name, to be seen as the most prominent voice of the Democratic Party, regardless of her actual position. In February, the president pounced when Ms. Omar unleashed a firestorm with her comments on Israel, rejecting her subsequent apology and calling for her to resign.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/us/p ... 3053090416
Trump Insults London Mayor as ‘Loser’ as He Pays Tribute to the Queen
Excerpt:
But the stately narrative carried a more rough-edged subtext. Even before Air Force One touched down outside London, Mr. Trump was on Twitter, accusing the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, with whom he has feuded since 2016 over immigration, terrorism and other issues, of being “nasty” to him, while misspelling the mayor’s name and mocking his stature.
“Kahn reminds me very much of our dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job — only half his height,” Mr. Trump said in a message posted on Twitter, as he invoked another pet target, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York. Mr. Khan, he said, should pay attention to London’s crime rate.
The dispute played out all day, with Conservative politicians stepping forward to defend Mr. Trump and criticize Mr. Khan. It was a jarring counterpoint to the gauzy images of the president meeting the royal family, but it played to Mr. Trump’s desire, even when visiting one of America’s closest allies, to have an adversary.
Mr. Khan, a Muslim of Pakistani extraction, had earlier described Mr. Trump as “just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat” and likened the president’s language to that used by “fascists of the 20th century.” In particular, he has singled out Mr. Trump’s effort to ban travelers from Muslim countries.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/worl ... _th_190604
Excerpt:
But the stately narrative carried a more rough-edged subtext. Even before Air Force One touched down outside London, Mr. Trump was on Twitter, accusing the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, with whom he has feuded since 2016 over immigration, terrorism and other issues, of being “nasty” to him, while misspelling the mayor’s name and mocking his stature.
“Kahn reminds me very much of our dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job — only half his height,” Mr. Trump said in a message posted on Twitter, as he invoked another pet target, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York. Mr. Khan, he said, should pay attention to London’s crime rate.
The dispute played out all day, with Conservative politicians stepping forward to defend Mr. Trump and criticize Mr. Khan. It was a jarring counterpoint to the gauzy images of the president meeting the royal family, but it played to Mr. Trump’s desire, even when visiting one of America’s closest allies, to have an adversary.
Mr. Khan, a Muslim of Pakistani extraction, had earlier described Mr. Trump as “just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat” and likened the president’s language to that used by “fascists of the 20th century.” In particular, he has singled out Mr. Trump’s effort to ban travelers from Muslim countries.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/worl ... _th_190604
Trump Renews Feud With London Mayor, Calling Him a ‘Disaster’
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday resumed his 3,675-mile feud with the mayor of London, calling him “a disaster” who should be turned out of office after a spate of stabbings in Britain’s capital.
“LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Sadiq Khan, the mayor he has been fighting with from a distance for three years. “Khan is a disaster - will only get worse!”
The president offered his harsh view while reposting a tweet on crime over the past day written by Katie Hopkins, a conservative commentator who referred to “20 hours in Stab-City,” in which four stabbings and a shooting resulted in three deaths. “This is Khan’s Londonistan,” Ms. Hopkins added, using a disparaging term referring to the city’s Muslim population. Mr. Khan is Britain’s first Muslim mayor.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspoli ... ailsignout
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday resumed his 3,675-mile feud with the mayor of London, calling him “a disaster” who should be turned out of office after a spate of stabbings in Britain’s capital.
“LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Sadiq Khan, the mayor he has been fighting with from a distance for three years. “Khan is a disaster - will only get worse!”
The president offered his harsh view while reposting a tweet on crime over the past day written by Katie Hopkins, a conservative commentator who referred to “20 hours in Stab-City,” in which four stabbings and a shooting resulted in three deaths. “This is Khan’s Londonistan,” Ms. Hopkins added, using a disparaging term referring to the city’s Muslim population. Mr. Khan is Britain’s first Muslim mayor.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspoli ... ailsignout
The Travel Ban Shows What Happens When the Supreme Court Trusts Trump
A cautionary tale for the census case before the Supreme Court.
A year ago, the Supreme Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, President Trump’s imposition of a ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision was gravely disappointing the day it was handed down. A year later, it looks even worse — particularly because it rested on three premises pushed by Trump Administration lawyers that have proven thoroughly unfounded.
The false premises should act as a cautionary tale: This term’s Supreme Court case on whether to allow a citizenship question on the 2020 census was similarly argued on what may turn out to be false premises.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opin ... y_20190625
A cautionary tale for the census case before the Supreme Court.
A year ago, the Supreme Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, President Trump’s imposition of a ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision was gravely disappointing the day it was handed down. A year later, it looks even worse — particularly because it rested on three premises pushed by Trump Administration lawyers that have proven thoroughly unfounded.
The false premises should act as a cautionary tale: This term’s Supreme Court case on whether to allow a citizenship question on the 2020 census was similarly argued on what may turn out to be false premises.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opin ... y_20190625
Immigration lawyers report Canadian Muslims being denied entry to U.S.
A number of Canadian Muslims have been turned away at the Canada-U.S. border in recent weeks, immigration lawyers say.
Those denied entry include a prominent Guyana-born Toronto imam who serves as a chaplain with the Peel Regional Police and an Iraqi Turkmen community leader who has family members fighting ISIS in the Middle East.
The two men — who were denied entry at different border crossings and were not travelling together — are among at least six Canadian Muslim men who have been denied entry at the U.S. border over the last two weeks.
The men and their families, all of whom are Canadian citizens, were given little in the way of explanation by border officials for the decision to deem them inadmissible.
Neither Guyana nor Iraq are among the seven Muslim-majority countries subject to U.S. President Donald Trump's "Muslim ban" executive order, which essentially blocks refugees and visitors from those countries from entering the U.S.
Both men were told to apply for visas at the U.S. consulate in Toronto before returning to the border to seek entry — an unusual process for people who hold Canadian passports.
The six men are represented by the Toronto-area immigration firm CILF — Caruso Guberman Appleby. Lawyers there say that if they're seeing this level of activity at their law firm, there may be many other Canadian nationals facing similar problems at the border.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/i ... ailsignout
A number of Canadian Muslims have been turned away at the Canada-U.S. border in recent weeks, immigration lawyers say.
Those denied entry include a prominent Guyana-born Toronto imam who serves as a chaplain with the Peel Regional Police and an Iraqi Turkmen community leader who has family members fighting ISIS in the Middle East.
The two men — who were denied entry at different border crossings and were not travelling together — are among at least six Canadian Muslim men who have been denied entry at the U.S. border over the last two weeks.
The men and their families, all of whom are Canadian citizens, were given little in the way of explanation by border officials for the decision to deem them inadmissible.
Neither Guyana nor Iraq are among the seven Muslim-majority countries subject to U.S. President Donald Trump's "Muslim ban" executive order, which essentially blocks refugees and visitors from those countries from entering the U.S.
Both men were told to apply for visas at the U.S. consulate in Toronto before returning to the border to seek entry — an unusual process for people who hold Canadian passports.
The six men are represented by the Toronto-area immigration firm CILF — Caruso Guberman Appleby. Lawyers there say that if they're seeing this level of activity at their law firm, there may be many other Canadian nationals facing similar problems at the border.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/i ... ailsignout
Trump Administration Adds Six Countries to Travel Ban
President Trump added Africa’s biggest country, Nigeria, as well as Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania, to his restricted travel list.
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday added six countries to his list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, a move that will virtually block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, and from Myanmar, where the Muslim minority is fleeing genocide.
Beside Nigeria, three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania, will face varying degrees of restrictions, as will one former Soviet state, Kyrgyzstan. Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims could also be caught in the crossfire.
All six countries have substantial Muslim populations. The total number of countries now on the restricted travel list stands at 13.
Immigrant visas, issued to those seeking to live in the United States, will be banned for Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan. The ban will also prevent immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania from moving to the United States through the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people a year.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/p ... 3053090201
President Trump added Africa’s biggest country, Nigeria, as well as Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania, to his restricted travel list.
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday added six countries to his list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, a move that will virtually block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, and from Myanmar, where the Muslim minority is fleeing genocide.
Beside Nigeria, three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania, will face varying degrees of restrictions, as will one former Soviet state, Kyrgyzstan. Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims could also be caught in the crossfire.
All six countries have substantial Muslim populations. The total number of countries now on the restricted travel list stands at 13.
Immigrant visas, issued to those seeking to live in the United States, will be banned for Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan. The ban will also prevent immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania from moving to the United States through the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people a year.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/p ... 3053090201
U.S. Supreme Court rule Muslim men can sue FBI agents over no-fly list
WASHINGTON -- A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Muslim men who were placed on the government's no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants can seek to hold federal agents financially liable.
The justices continued a string of decisions friendly to religious interests in holding that the men could sue the agents under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act for what it calls “appropriate relief.”
“The question here is whether `appropriate relief' includes claims for money damages against Government officials in their individual capacities. We hold that it does,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.
More...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-suprem ... -1.5225798
WASHINGTON -- A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Muslim men who were placed on the government's no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants can seek to hold federal agents financially liable.
The justices continued a string of decisions friendly to religious interests in holding that the men could sue the agents under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act for what it calls “appropriate relief.”
“The question here is whether `appropriate relief' includes claims for money damages against Government officials in their individual capacities. We hold that it does,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court.
More...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-suprem ... -1.5225798
Trump's disastrous end to his shocking presidency
CNN Mon, January 11, 2021, 11:05 PM CST
President Donald Trump is leaving America in a vortex of violence, sickness and death and as internally estranged than it has been for 150 years.
The disorientating end to his shocking term has the nation reeling from a Washington insurrection. The FBI warned Monday of armed protests by pro-Trump thugs in 50 states, which raise the awful prospect of a domestic insurgency. Health officials fear 5,000 Americans could soon be dying every day from the pandemic Trump ignored. Hospitals are swamped, medical workers are shattered amid a faltering rollout of the vaccine supposed to end the crisis.
It took 200 years for the country to rack up its first two presidential impeachments. Trump's malfeasance has led the country down that awful, divisive path twice in just more than a year. With House Democrats expected to formally impeach the President for inciting a mob assault on Congress on Wednesday, he will rely on the Republican enablers who refused to rein in his lawlessness to save him from conviction again.
Millions of Americans have bought into the delusional, poisoned fiction that an election Trump lost was stolen, and there are signs that some police and military forces have been radicalized by the grievance he stokes.
The city Trump has called home for four years is being turned into an armed camp incongruous with the mood of joy and renewal that pulsates through most inaugurations. In a symbol of a democracy under siege, the people's buildings -- the White House and the US Capitol -- are caged behind ugly iron and cement barriers.
This is the legacy President-elect Joe Biden will inherit in eight days when he swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution -- an oath that Trump trampled when inciting the Capitol attack last week from behind a bulletproof screen while buckling the cherished US chain of peaceful transfers of power.
With unintended irony, Biden's team has picked "America United" as the inaugural theme -- a motto that is now more apt in defining Biden's hoped for destination rather than the splintered land he will begin to lead.
Trump's pattern of violence
It is becoming ever more obvious that the horrific scenes on Capitol Hill on Wednesday were not a one-off. Instead, they now look part of a pattern including the White supremacist marches in Charlottesville that Trump refused to condemn, and the gassing of peaceful anti-racist protesters in the square outside the White House so he could hold an inflammatory photo-op.
In a chilling new warning, the FBI revealed the possible next stage in this now nationwide wave of radicalization, saying armed protests were planned at state Capitols in all 50 states between January 16 and Inauguration Day, January 20. Even as a nationwide sweep widens for the perpetrators of last week's outrage, the bureau said new protests were planned for Washington for three days around the inauguration.
There are threats of an uprising if Trump is removed by way of the 25th Amendment. The FBI said it was also tracking threats against Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In Washington, two Capitol Police officers were suspended and more are under investigation for allegedly helping the mob.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was shocked by the magnitude of the bureau's intelligence on possible new violence.
"I don't think in the entire scope of my career working counter terrorism issues for many, many years, I don't think I ever saw a bulletin go out that concerned armed protest activity in 50 states in a three or four day period," McCabe said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
Biden told reporters that despite the warnings, he was not afraid of taking the oath of office outside next week -- but the combination of a massive security effort to protect him from Trump's supporters and social distancing amid the Covid-19 pandemic mean his will be the most hollowed out inauguration in years.
Trump's acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf resigned on Monday, in a yet another sign that the country lacks effective government at a moment of stark danger. By contrast, senior officials from the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration worked closely together in the Situation Room on January 20, 2009, when there was concern about the authenticity of terror threat to the inauguration.
So far, after a massive domestic terror attack on the citadel of US democracy, there has been no major public briefing by any major federal law enforcement agency or the White House, an omission that fosters a sense of an absent government.
The current atmosphere of fear and wild political insurrection are a lesson in what happens when a figure as powerful as a President deliberately tears at America's deep racial and social fault lines as a tool of his own power. Trump's presidency revealed a new insight about the all-powerful modern presidency -- the character of the person in the Oval Office chair really matters.
A Congress that can't constrain a President
Momentum towards impeachment is now all but unstoppable in the House after Pelosi rejected a suggestion from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of some kind of censure motion.
McCarthy did acknowledge to Republican caucus members Monday that the President bore some responsibility for last week's insurrection, according to a person familiar with the call. But some of his other responses to the outrage -- an overhaul to the electoral certification process and legislation to promote voter confidence hinted at the insincerity of the Republican approach.
With a few exceptions, Republicans -- who indulged and in many cases supported Trump's blatantly false claims of electoral fraud for weeks -- have responded to the uproar over last week's Capitol attack by complaining that by pushing impeachment, Democrats are fracturing national unity. It's as if the last four years never happened.
There are also questions over whether Republicans understand the seriousness of last week's events. Remarks by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt are still reverberating through the Capitol.
"My personal view is that the President touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again," Blunt said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
His comment eerily recalled the rationalizations of Republicans who declined to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial after he tried to get Ukraine to interfere in the election to damage Biden.
America has emerged from many dark periods since the Civil War. The country was torn by resistance to the Civil Rights movement. And the Vietnam War turned generations against one another. But the fact that millions of people now appear to deeply mistrust the electoral system that is the basis of US democracy means that the country's internal political cohesion is now being tested as it has rarely been in the last century-and-a-half.
And the Republican indulgence of the President's repeated political arson has revealed a massive constitutional blind spot. When one party's lawmakers are in thrall to a strongman leader, their duty to ensure checks and balances to constrain presidential power is soon forgotten.
Trump to reemerge
Trump has not appeared in public for days. And the suspension of his social media accounts amid concern that he could stir up more violence mean the country has been unable to assess his mood.
But the President is due to make a trip to visit the border wall that he said Mexico would pay for but instead saddled the taxpayers with the bill. White House sources said that the President is determined to spend his last full week in office touting his achievements and is expected to release another round of controversial pardons. CNN reported Monday that former Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone have advised the President not to attempt what would be yet another epic abuse of power -- an attempt to pardon himself.
The virus is meanwhile running rampant. Eleven states and Washington, DC, just recorded their highest 7-day average of new cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began. For the first time, the country is averaging over 3,000 deaths from the pandemic per day. Trump's outgoing head of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield warned in a recent interview with McClatchy newspapers that the pandemic would get worse for the rest of January and parts of February and that the country could see 5,000 deaths a day.
And hopes that the nation could soon turn a corner are being tempered by the glitches in the vaccine roll out. Just as with the early stages of the crisis, poor coordination between federal and local and state authorities and the overall lack of a broader distribution plan are hampering the effort.
Like everything else, it will be up to Biden to fix it.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 35722.html
Note: Posting here instead of opening new thread.
CNN Mon, January 11, 2021, 11:05 PM CST
President Donald Trump is leaving America in a vortex of violence, sickness and death and as internally estranged than it has been for 150 years.
The disorientating end to his shocking term has the nation reeling from a Washington insurrection. The FBI warned Monday of armed protests by pro-Trump thugs in 50 states, which raise the awful prospect of a domestic insurgency. Health officials fear 5,000 Americans could soon be dying every day from the pandemic Trump ignored. Hospitals are swamped, medical workers are shattered amid a faltering rollout of the vaccine supposed to end the crisis.
It took 200 years for the country to rack up its first two presidential impeachments. Trump's malfeasance has led the country down that awful, divisive path twice in just more than a year. With House Democrats expected to formally impeach the President for inciting a mob assault on Congress on Wednesday, he will rely on the Republican enablers who refused to rein in his lawlessness to save him from conviction again.
Millions of Americans have bought into the delusional, poisoned fiction that an election Trump lost was stolen, and there are signs that some police and military forces have been radicalized by the grievance he stokes.
The city Trump has called home for four years is being turned into an armed camp incongruous with the mood of joy and renewal that pulsates through most inaugurations. In a symbol of a democracy under siege, the people's buildings -- the White House and the US Capitol -- are caged behind ugly iron and cement barriers.
This is the legacy President-elect Joe Biden will inherit in eight days when he swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution -- an oath that Trump trampled when inciting the Capitol attack last week from behind a bulletproof screen while buckling the cherished US chain of peaceful transfers of power.
With unintended irony, Biden's team has picked "America United" as the inaugural theme -- a motto that is now more apt in defining Biden's hoped for destination rather than the splintered land he will begin to lead.
Trump's pattern of violence
It is becoming ever more obvious that the horrific scenes on Capitol Hill on Wednesday were not a one-off. Instead, they now look part of a pattern including the White supremacist marches in Charlottesville that Trump refused to condemn, and the gassing of peaceful anti-racist protesters in the square outside the White House so he could hold an inflammatory photo-op.
In a chilling new warning, the FBI revealed the possible next stage in this now nationwide wave of radicalization, saying armed protests were planned at state Capitols in all 50 states between January 16 and Inauguration Day, January 20. Even as a nationwide sweep widens for the perpetrators of last week's outrage, the bureau said new protests were planned for Washington for three days around the inauguration.
There are threats of an uprising if Trump is removed by way of the 25th Amendment. The FBI said it was also tracking threats against Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In Washington, two Capitol Police officers were suspended and more are under investigation for allegedly helping the mob.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was shocked by the magnitude of the bureau's intelligence on possible new violence.
"I don't think in the entire scope of my career working counter terrorism issues for many, many years, I don't think I ever saw a bulletin go out that concerned armed protest activity in 50 states in a three or four day period," McCabe said on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
Biden told reporters that despite the warnings, he was not afraid of taking the oath of office outside next week -- but the combination of a massive security effort to protect him from Trump's supporters and social distancing amid the Covid-19 pandemic mean his will be the most hollowed out inauguration in years.
Trump's acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf resigned on Monday, in a yet another sign that the country lacks effective government at a moment of stark danger. By contrast, senior officials from the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration worked closely together in the Situation Room on January 20, 2009, when there was concern about the authenticity of terror threat to the inauguration.
So far, after a massive domestic terror attack on the citadel of US democracy, there has been no major public briefing by any major federal law enforcement agency or the White House, an omission that fosters a sense of an absent government.
The current atmosphere of fear and wild political insurrection are a lesson in what happens when a figure as powerful as a President deliberately tears at America's deep racial and social fault lines as a tool of his own power. Trump's presidency revealed a new insight about the all-powerful modern presidency -- the character of the person in the Oval Office chair really matters.
A Congress that can't constrain a President
Momentum towards impeachment is now all but unstoppable in the House after Pelosi rejected a suggestion from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of some kind of censure motion.
McCarthy did acknowledge to Republican caucus members Monday that the President bore some responsibility for last week's insurrection, according to a person familiar with the call. But some of his other responses to the outrage -- an overhaul to the electoral certification process and legislation to promote voter confidence hinted at the insincerity of the Republican approach.
With a few exceptions, Republicans -- who indulged and in many cases supported Trump's blatantly false claims of electoral fraud for weeks -- have responded to the uproar over last week's Capitol attack by complaining that by pushing impeachment, Democrats are fracturing national unity. It's as if the last four years never happened.
There are also questions over whether Republicans understand the seriousness of last week's events. Remarks by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt are still reverberating through the Capitol.
"My personal view is that the President touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again," Blunt said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
His comment eerily recalled the rationalizations of Republicans who declined to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial after he tried to get Ukraine to interfere in the election to damage Biden.
America has emerged from many dark periods since the Civil War. The country was torn by resistance to the Civil Rights movement. And the Vietnam War turned generations against one another. But the fact that millions of people now appear to deeply mistrust the electoral system that is the basis of US democracy means that the country's internal political cohesion is now being tested as it has rarely been in the last century-and-a-half.
And the Republican indulgence of the President's repeated political arson has revealed a massive constitutional blind spot. When one party's lawmakers are in thrall to a strongman leader, their duty to ensure checks and balances to constrain presidential power is soon forgotten.
Trump to reemerge
Trump has not appeared in public for days. And the suspension of his social media accounts amid concern that he could stir up more violence mean the country has been unable to assess his mood.
But the President is due to make a trip to visit the border wall that he said Mexico would pay for but instead saddled the taxpayers with the bill. White House sources said that the President is determined to spend his last full week in office touting his achievements and is expected to release another round of controversial pardons. CNN reported Monday that former Attorney General William Barr and White House counsel Pat Cipollone have advised the President not to attempt what would be yet another epic abuse of power -- an attempt to pardon himself.
The virus is meanwhile running rampant. Eleven states and Washington, DC, just recorded their highest 7-day average of new cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began. For the first time, the country is averaging over 3,000 deaths from the pandemic per day. Trump's outgoing head of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield warned in a recent interview with McClatchy newspapers that the pandemic would get worse for the rest of January and parts of February and that the country could see 5,000 deaths a day.
And hopes that the nation could soon turn a corner are being tempered by the glitches in the vaccine roll out. Just as with the early stages of the crisis, poor coordination between federal and local and state authorities and the overall lack of a broader distribution plan are hampering the effort.
Like everything else, it will be up to Biden to fix it.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 35722.html
Note: Posting here instead of opening new thread.
Gold statue of Trump appears at CPAC conference
Eleanor Sly
The Independent Fri, February 26, 2021, 7:59 AM
A golden statue of Donald Trump, wearing shorts in the print of the US flag and carrying a wand, has caused a stir on Twitter since a video of it being wheeled into the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) conference surfaced on the social networking site.
A Bloomberg reporter shared footage of staff at the conservative conference wheeling a golden statue of the former US president across the conference floor.
Voices in the background can be heard saying “awesome” and “that is so cool” in reaction to the golden model of Mr Trump. Others laugh and someone chants: “Four more years!” In reference to a chant popular with Mr Trump’s supporters when he was America’s president.
The statue of the former US president has caused a stir on social media, with Twitter users responding to Bloomberg reporter William Turton’s tweet calling it everything from “obscene” to “perfect.”
Other Twitter users went as far as to compare the model of Mr Trump to Moses’ golden calf in the Bible, with caricatures and even a spoof YouTube video springing up in response.
Launched in 1974, the annual CPAC conference calls itself the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.”
On Sunday, it will welcome Mr Trump onto its stage to give his first post-White House speech there.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 03222.html
Eleanor Sly
The Independent Fri, February 26, 2021, 7:59 AM
A golden statue of Donald Trump, wearing shorts in the print of the US flag and carrying a wand, has caused a stir on Twitter since a video of it being wheeled into the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) conference surfaced on the social networking site.
A Bloomberg reporter shared footage of staff at the conservative conference wheeling a golden statue of the former US president across the conference floor.
Voices in the background can be heard saying “awesome” and “that is so cool” in reaction to the golden model of Mr Trump. Others laugh and someone chants: “Four more years!” In reference to a chant popular with Mr Trump’s supporters when he was America’s president.
The statue of the former US president has caused a stir on social media, with Twitter users responding to Bloomberg reporter William Turton’s tweet calling it everything from “obscene” to “perfect.”
Other Twitter users went as far as to compare the model of Mr Trump to Moses’ golden calf in the Bible, with caricatures and even a spoof YouTube video springing up in response.
Launched in 1974, the annual CPAC conference calls itself the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.”
On Sunday, it will welcome Mr Trump onto its stage to give his first post-White House speech there.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 03222.html
Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ harmed health of Muslim Americans, study finds
When former President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order in 2017 banning Muslims from select countries from traveling to the United States, the sweeping decree quickly rippled down to affect health outcomes for Muslim-Americans, Yale researchers say.
A new study by the Yale School of Public Health and partner institutions found that a significant number of people in the Muslim community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area skipped their primary care appointments after the ban, and there was also an increase in their visits to the emergency department.
The findings, published July 30 in the journal JAMA Network Open, provides evidence that an abrupt change in federal immigration policy can directly affect health outcomes among people residing in the United States legally. The study is one of the first to measure the causal impact of how policy changes such as these may affect Muslim American immigrant and refugee communities.
Before the ban, primary care visits and diagnoses of stress for individuals from Muslim-majority nations were on the rise, the researchers said. In the year following the ban, however, there were approximately 101 missed primary care appointments beyond what would have been expected among people from Muslim majority countries not named in the ban. There were also approximately 232 more emergency department visits by individuals from nations targeted by the ban than would have been predicted.
“This offers support to the thesis that the Islamophobia fostered by former President Trump affected the health of Muslim-Americans in the United States and that immigration policies can have indirect and unexpected consequences for those targeted by such actions,” said Yale School of Public Health Associate Professor Gregg Gonsalves, the study’s senior author.
Trump issued Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” shortly after his inauguration to limit the travel of refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. The ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, only to be revoked by President Joe Biden in January 2021.
For the new study, the researchers examined more than 250,000 adult patients treated at a Minneapolis-St. Paul HealthPartners primary care clinic or in emergency departments in 2016 and 2017. These patients belonged to one of the following three groups: 1) born in a Muslim nation targeted by the ban, 2) born in a Muslim-majority nation not listed in the ban, and 3) non-Hispanic and born in the United States.
The study was co-authored by Pooja Agrawal, assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, and Elizabeth White, a doctoral student at the Yale School of Public Health, along with researchers and health practitioners from Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Medical College of Wisconsin, HealthPartners Center for International Health, University of Minnesota, Harvard University, and the Yale National Clinician Scholars Program.
https://news.yale.edu/2021/07/30/trumps ... tudy-finds
When former President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order in 2017 banning Muslims from select countries from traveling to the United States, the sweeping decree quickly rippled down to affect health outcomes for Muslim-Americans, Yale researchers say.
A new study by the Yale School of Public Health and partner institutions found that a significant number of people in the Muslim community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area skipped their primary care appointments after the ban, and there was also an increase in their visits to the emergency department.
The findings, published July 30 in the journal JAMA Network Open, provides evidence that an abrupt change in federal immigration policy can directly affect health outcomes among people residing in the United States legally. The study is one of the first to measure the causal impact of how policy changes such as these may affect Muslim American immigrant and refugee communities.
Before the ban, primary care visits and diagnoses of stress for individuals from Muslim-majority nations were on the rise, the researchers said. In the year following the ban, however, there were approximately 101 missed primary care appointments beyond what would have been expected among people from Muslim majority countries not named in the ban. There were also approximately 232 more emergency department visits by individuals from nations targeted by the ban than would have been predicted.
“This offers support to the thesis that the Islamophobia fostered by former President Trump affected the health of Muslim-Americans in the United States and that immigration policies can have indirect and unexpected consequences for those targeted by such actions,” said Yale School of Public Health Associate Professor Gregg Gonsalves, the study’s senior author.
Trump issued Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” shortly after his inauguration to limit the travel of refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. The ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, only to be revoked by President Joe Biden in January 2021.
For the new study, the researchers examined more than 250,000 adult patients treated at a Minneapolis-St. Paul HealthPartners primary care clinic or in emergency departments in 2016 and 2017. These patients belonged to one of the following three groups: 1) born in a Muslim nation targeted by the ban, 2) born in a Muslim-majority nation not listed in the ban, and 3) non-Hispanic and born in the United States.
The study was co-authored by Pooja Agrawal, assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, and Elizabeth White, a doctoral student at the Yale School of Public Health, along with researchers and health practitioners from Brown University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Medical College of Wisconsin, HealthPartners Center for International Health, University of Minnesota, Harvard University, and the Yale National Clinician Scholars Program.
https://news.yale.edu/2021/07/30/trumps ... tudy-finds
Re: TRUMP AND ISLAM
In Georgia, Harris’s Muslim Backers Push Her as Better Than the Alternative
The Mideast war is threatening Vice President Kamala Harris’s support among Muslim and Arab American voters, a traditionally Democratic constituency, in critical swing states.
Pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Georgia State Capitol in August. Arab American and Muslim support for Vice President Kamala Harris is precarious in Georgia and elsewhere.Credit...Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock
Two weeks ago, an influential group of 15 Muslim religious and business leaders convened at an office space in Dunwoody, Ga., a suburb north of Atlanta, to discuss Vice President Kamala Harris.
Most were wary of her.
In Georgia, as elsewhere, her standing among Arab American and Muslim voters, a traditionally Democratic bloc, is precarious. As the Biden administration stands firm in its support for Israel as it wages war in Gaza and now Lebanon, an erosion of support for the Democratic ticket could cost Ms. Harris in multiple battlegrounds, including Michigan, where these voters have traditionally made up a critical portion of her party’s winning coalition.
With polls still showing the presidential race a dead heat against former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Harris’s Muslim backers in Georgia are making a frantic push to reach voters who are angry and upset about the escalating violence in the Mideast. One attendee showed up to the gathering in Dunwoody with a message he hoped the others there would hear, and spread — that if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was their top concern, Mr. Trump and Republicans would be worse.
“We want them to move mountains for Gaza,” Omar Ali, an Atlanta-based businessman who is Black and Muslim, said of the Biden-Harris administration. “They can’t in the way that we want. But you rest assured we can get more with one particular party than the other party and that particular party has more of a heart than anything — and I’m talking about the Democratic Party.”
Georgia Democrats have credited the state’s Muslim and Arab American voters for helping them flip the state — winning it by fewer than 12,000 votes — in 2020. That year, election data showed roughly 57,000 Muslim and Arab American voters went to the polls in the state. The heads of some Muslim organizations in Georgia now put the figure at well above 100,000.
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Many of those voters were motivated to go to the polls in the last presidential election by animus toward Mr. Trump, who barred travelers from certain majority Muslim countries from entering the United States under his presidency and whose anti-immigrant talking points on the campaign trail have included broadsides against those from the Middle East.
But more than a year into the conflict, Muslim and Arab American voters now point to the White House under President Biden and Ms. Harris as complicit in the catastrophes. Israel’s war against Hamas in retaliation for the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced thousands more.
Despite Ms. Harris’s repeated calls to end the war and her expressions of dismay over the loss of life in both Palestine and Israel, she has not distanced herself much from Mr. Biden’s foreign policy stance — fueling the feelings of anger and discontent that Muslim and Arab voters say they intend to express at the ballot box. The fracture is playing out in Michigan, too, where the violence in the Mideast is also threatening Ms. Harris’s prospects.
Her supporters in Georgia have tried to pull voters back to her in the closing days of the presidential contest by arguing that Mr. Trump, who has claimed he “did more for Israel than anybody,” presents a far worse danger to their communities at home and abroad. While Mr. Ali said he thought he had persuaded some in his cohort, others outside that room have found the case less than convincing.
“I have yet to have a conversation with any Muslim person or any Arab person — literally not one — who has not brought this up as an issue. And the part that concerns me the most is how many of them follow that up with: ‘I can never vote for genocide,’” said Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American organizer and Georgia state House representative who has been encouraging Muslim and Arab voters in the state to support Ms. Harris, with limited success.
In a statement, Nasrina Bargzie, the director of Muslim and Arab American outreach for Ms. Harris’s campaign, said the vice president was committed to ending the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. She criticized Mr. Trump’s policies relating to Muslims and immigrants from majority Muslim and Arab countries.
“The Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans,” she said.
Some on the ground say they expect a larger share of Black Muslim voters in Georgia to support the Democratic ticket in spite of frustrations with Ms. Harris — because of Mr. Trump.
“It’s a difficult decision, but I’ve never been able to be a one-issue voter,” said Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, a Black Muslim organizer who has participated in some of the Harris campaign’s outreach to Muslim voters and is the former chair of the Muslim Voter Project, a Georgia-based group that focuses on political engagement among Muslims in the state. “I am disappointed with how the Democratic Party is intervening in the Middle East, but it is not enough for me to vote a third party. And I cannot vote for Trump.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
The Mideast war is threatening Vice President Kamala Harris’s support among Muslim and Arab American voters, a traditionally Democratic constituency, in critical swing states.
Pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Georgia State Capitol in August. Arab American and Muslim support for Vice President Kamala Harris is precarious in Georgia and elsewhere.Credit...Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock
Two weeks ago, an influential group of 15 Muslim religious and business leaders convened at an office space in Dunwoody, Ga., a suburb north of Atlanta, to discuss Vice President Kamala Harris.
Most were wary of her.
In Georgia, as elsewhere, her standing among Arab American and Muslim voters, a traditionally Democratic bloc, is precarious. As the Biden administration stands firm in its support for Israel as it wages war in Gaza and now Lebanon, an erosion of support for the Democratic ticket could cost Ms. Harris in multiple battlegrounds, including Michigan, where these voters have traditionally made up a critical portion of her party’s winning coalition.
With polls still showing the presidential race a dead heat against former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Harris’s Muslim backers in Georgia are making a frantic push to reach voters who are angry and upset about the escalating violence in the Mideast. One attendee showed up to the gathering in Dunwoody with a message he hoped the others there would hear, and spread — that if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was their top concern, Mr. Trump and Republicans would be worse.
“We want them to move mountains for Gaza,” Omar Ali, an Atlanta-based businessman who is Black and Muslim, said of the Biden-Harris administration. “They can’t in the way that we want. But you rest assured we can get more with one particular party than the other party and that particular party has more of a heart than anything — and I’m talking about the Democratic Party.”
Georgia Democrats have credited the state’s Muslim and Arab American voters for helping them flip the state — winning it by fewer than 12,000 votes — in 2020. That year, election data showed roughly 57,000 Muslim and Arab American voters went to the polls in the state. The heads of some Muslim organizations in Georgia now put the figure at well above 100,000.
Sign up for Breaking News:Sign up to receive an email from The New York Times as soon as important news breaks around the world.
Many of those voters were motivated to go to the polls in the last presidential election by animus toward Mr. Trump, who barred travelers from certain majority Muslim countries from entering the United States under his presidency and whose anti-immigrant talking points on the campaign trail have included broadsides against those from the Middle East.
But more than a year into the conflict, Muslim and Arab American voters now point to the White House under President Biden and Ms. Harris as complicit in the catastrophes. Israel’s war against Hamas in retaliation for the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023 — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced thousands more.
Despite Ms. Harris’s repeated calls to end the war and her expressions of dismay over the loss of life in both Palestine and Israel, she has not distanced herself much from Mr. Biden’s foreign policy stance — fueling the feelings of anger and discontent that Muslim and Arab voters say they intend to express at the ballot box. The fracture is playing out in Michigan, too, where the violence in the Mideast is also threatening Ms. Harris’s prospects.
Her supporters in Georgia have tried to pull voters back to her in the closing days of the presidential contest by arguing that Mr. Trump, who has claimed he “did more for Israel than anybody,” presents a far worse danger to their communities at home and abroad. While Mr. Ali said he thought he had persuaded some in his cohort, others outside that room have found the case less than convincing.
“I have yet to have a conversation with any Muslim person or any Arab person — literally not one — who has not brought this up as an issue. And the part that concerns me the most is how many of them follow that up with: ‘I can never vote for genocide,’” said Ruwa Romman, a Palestinian-American organizer and Georgia state House representative who has been encouraging Muslim and Arab voters in the state to support Ms. Harris, with limited success.
In a statement, Nasrina Bargzie, the director of Muslim and Arab American outreach for Ms. Harris’s campaign, said the vice president was committed to ending the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. She criticized Mr. Trump’s policies relating to Muslims and immigrants from majority Muslim and Arab countries.
“The Vice President is committed to work to earn every vote, unite our country, and to be a President for all Americans,” she said.
Some on the ground say they expect a larger share of Black Muslim voters in Georgia to support the Democratic ticket in spite of frustrations with Ms. Harris — because of Mr. Trump.
“It’s a difficult decision, but I’ve never been able to be a one-issue voter,” said Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, a Black Muslim organizer who has participated in some of the Harris campaign’s outreach to Muslim voters and is the former chair of the Muslim Voter Project, a Georgia-based group that focuses on political engagement among Muslims in the state. “I am disappointed with how the Democratic Party is intervening in the Middle East, but it is not enough for me to vote a third party. And I cannot vote for Trump.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
Re: TRUMP AND ISLAM
Trump, Who Once Proposed a Muslim Registry, Now Courts Their Votes
The former president is reaching out to Muslim and Arab American voters in Michigan, a key battleground state.
When he ran for president eight years ago, Donald J. Trump floated the idea of creating a national registry of Muslims and proposed banning immigration from Muslim countries. So it was striking to see him on Saturday at a rally in suburban Detroit celebrating endorsements from a handful of Muslim and Arab American leaders.
It was a political turnaround that would have seemed unthinkable during Mr. Trump’s first campaign, when he frequently spouted anti-Muslim rhetoric. As president, Mr. Trump blocked travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, creating travel chaos. And at moments during this campaign, he has drawn on the anti-Muslim sentiments from earlier in his political career.
But in a tight election, Mr. Trump and his campaign have been trying to win the support of Arab American and Muslim voters who may be disaffected with Democrats over President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and the party’s positions on social issues. Their support is seen as especially important in Michigan, a key battleground state with many Arab American and Muslim voters.
At Saturday’s rally in Novi, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, Mr. Trump invited a group of people that his campaign said included a number of Muslim and Arab American leaders to the stage, where they endorsed him. (Mr. Trump claimed they were “highly respected leaders,” but his campaign has not provided any details about who most of them were, making it difficult to assess their prominence.)
“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace,” Belal Alzuhiry, an imam from the Detroit area, said in front of hundreds at Suburban Collection Showplace, an exhibition center. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”
Mr. Trump has not provided a plan by which he would end the war in Ukraine or the widening one in the Middle East, which began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mr. Trump is also courting Jewish voters, and has repeatedly voiced his staunch support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, encouraging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job” there. And as he stokes fears around immigration, Mr. Trump has described some Middle Eastern immigrants as “known terrorists.”
Mr. Alzuhiry also cited Mr. Trump’s social views as a major reason for his support, noting that he and other Muslim leaders backed Mr. Trump’s “commitment to promoting family values and protecting our children’s well-being, especially when it comes to curriculums and schools.”
Arab Americans have been reliable Democratic voters for two decades. But that affinity has been strained by the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel’s military offensive and particularly in the war’s recent move to Lebanon.
Much of Mr. Trump’s outreach has been brokered by two close allies who have held private meetings with and pitched Muslim and Arab American leaders. Mr. Alzuhiry was one of two imams who met with Mr. Trump after a speech last week in Detroit, where he questioned the former president over some of his language around Muslim Americans.
But Mr. Trump has made more public overtures to voters, including two interviews with Arab media outlets last week.
Mr. Trump is hoping to pick up their support as he tries to flip Michigan, a critical battleground that he won in 2016 but lost four years later. During his rally in Novi, he once again spoke about his plan to restore the auto industry through a combination of tax incentives and tariffs. He also continued to criticize Detroit, as he did in a speech in the city earlier this month.
“I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” he said on Saturday.
More on Trump
A Muslim Mayor Endorses Trump, and a City of Immigrants Finds Itself Undone https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/h ... trump.html
Oct. 26, 2024
Trump’s In-Law Is Trying to Exploit Democrats’ Weakness With Arab American Voters https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/us/p ... icans.html
Oct. 17, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
The former president is reaching out to Muslim and Arab American voters in Michigan, a key battleground state.
When he ran for president eight years ago, Donald J. Trump floated the idea of creating a national registry of Muslims and proposed banning immigration from Muslim countries. So it was striking to see him on Saturday at a rally in suburban Detroit celebrating endorsements from a handful of Muslim and Arab American leaders.
It was a political turnaround that would have seemed unthinkable during Mr. Trump’s first campaign, when he frequently spouted anti-Muslim rhetoric. As president, Mr. Trump blocked travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, creating travel chaos. And at moments during this campaign, he has drawn on the anti-Muslim sentiments from earlier in his political career.
But in a tight election, Mr. Trump and his campaign have been trying to win the support of Arab American and Muslim voters who may be disaffected with Democrats over President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and the party’s positions on social issues. Their support is seen as especially important in Michigan, a key battleground state with many Arab American and Muslim voters.
At Saturday’s rally in Novi, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, Mr. Trump invited a group of people that his campaign said included a number of Muslim and Arab American leaders to the stage, where they endorsed him. (Mr. Trump claimed they were “highly respected leaders,” but his campaign has not provided any details about who most of them were, making it difficult to assess their prominence.)
“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace,” Belal Alzuhiry, an imam from the Detroit area, said in front of hundreds at Suburban Collection Showplace, an exhibition center. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”
Mr. Trump has not provided a plan by which he would end the war in Ukraine or the widening one in the Middle East, which began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mr. Trump is also courting Jewish voters, and has repeatedly voiced his staunch support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, encouraging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job” there. And as he stokes fears around immigration, Mr. Trump has described some Middle Eastern immigrants as “known terrorists.”
Mr. Alzuhiry also cited Mr. Trump’s social views as a major reason for his support, noting that he and other Muslim leaders backed Mr. Trump’s “commitment to promoting family values and protecting our children’s well-being, especially when it comes to curriculums and schools.”
Arab Americans have been reliable Democratic voters for two decades. But that affinity has been strained by the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel’s military offensive and particularly in the war’s recent move to Lebanon.
Much of Mr. Trump’s outreach has been brokered by two close allies who have held private meetings with and pitched Muslim and Arab American leaders. Mr. Alzuhiry was one of two imams who met with Mr. Trump after a speech last week in Detroit, where he questioned the former president over some of his language around Muslim Americans.
But Mr. Trump has made more public overtures to voters, including two interviews with Arab media outlets last week.
Mr. Trump is hoping to pick up their support as he tries to flip Michigan, a critical battleground that he won in 2016 but lost four years later. During his rally in Novi, he once again spoke about his plan to restore the auto industry through a combination of tax incentives and tariffs. He also continued to criticize Detroit, as he did in a speech in the city earlier this month.
“I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” he said on Saturday.
More on Trump
A Muslim Mayor Endorses Trump, and a City of Immigrants Finds Itself Undone https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/h ... trump.html
Oct. 26, 2024
Trump’s In-Law Is Trying to Exploit Democrats’ Weakness With Arab American Voters https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/us/p ... icans.html
Oct. 17, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
Re: TRUMP AND ISLAM
Trump’s Strange Bedfellows: Arab Americans and Right-Leaning Jews
Donald J. Trump won votes from Arab Americans and conservative pro-Israel Jews. Someone is likely to be disappointed.
Voting in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. President-elect Donald J. Trump increased his support in the majority Arab American city by 12 percentage points over 2020, though turnout may have been lower.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
In the final hours before Election Day dawned, some of Donald J. Trump’s top surrogates in Michigan were onstage in a Grand Rapids arena, distilling the choice in the campaign into a stark and striking message.
“Choose peace over war,” urged Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich.
Democrats, suggested Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights, Mich., were “a bunch of warmongers.”
And former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, welcomed “our Christian Arab friends, our Muslim Arab friends” and declared, “We all want a path to peace.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for being part of that coalition.”
It is an extraordinary new coalition. Along the way to his decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump drew at least some Arab American and Muslim voters who are outraged by the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. He managed to do so without alienating the right-leaning American Jews who see Mr. Trump as Israel’s strongest champion.
Even in an election marked by a reordering of the country’s traditional political teams, these strange bedfellows stand out.
The two groups hold sharply divergent expectations for the president-elect. And both strongly pro-Israel Trump voters and some of Mr. Trump’s Arab American backers are skeptical that his ascent this week is the start of a durable cross-ideological, interfaith coalition.
For Mr. Trump, the question is whether he can keep both happy — or if he will even try.
“This was not even a shotgun wedding — it was a blind-date wedding,” James Zogby, a founder of the Arab American Institute in Washington and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said of Mr. Trump’s new support from Arab Americans and Muslims. Mr. Zogby said many of those voters backed the former president to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza, not to affirm his campaign. He anticipated that Mr. Trump would “pursue policies that will make them more furious.”
“The more they see what’s going to happen, the less enchanted they’ll be,” he said of Arab Americans. “I don’t expect the right wing in the Jewish community to be disappointed at all, unfortunately.”
Image
Amer Ghalib speaks into a microphone as Donald Trump stands next to him. A Trump-Vance campaign sign is on the wall behind them.
Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., with Mr. Trump at a campaign office in the city last month.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Broadly speaking, American Jews tend to strongly favor Democrats. And it is not yet clear how many Arab American and Muslim voters overall backed Mr. Trump, who has a long history of Islamophobic statements and policies, and, of those who did, how many were simply casting protest votes.
But in Dearborn, Mich., a majority-Arab city, Ms. Harris won just 36 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results, a roughly 34-percentage-point drop from Mr. Biden’s share of the 2020 vote in similar results released after that election. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate to the left of Ms. Harris, picked up 18 percent of the vote. But Mr. Trump’s support also jumped — to 42 percent of the vote from less than 30 percent four years ago, though turnout was lower.
“Whatever he did on his campaign trail in last two months, I think he won the hearts and minds of many Muslims,” said Rabiul Chowdhury, a founder of Muslims for Trump who is based in Pennsylvania. “This guy is a Muslim-friendly guy.”
Mr. Trump is, of course, the same guy who blocked citizens of predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States during his last presidency, and who spent years demonizing and insulting Muslim Americans.
As president, he repeatedly made clear he supported the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, taking several steps that Muslim and Arab voters found inflammatory, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
And he is so beloved among right-wing Israelis that some named a settlement after him in the Golan Heights. He also has strong support among Orthodox Jews in the United States, who tend to be more conservative.
It is not clear how substantively different Mr. Trump’s position on the war in Gaza will be from Mr. Biden’s.
But in interviews throughout the campaign, Arab American and Muslim supporters said they were ready to take a chance on him anyway.
Some were already aligned with the socially conservative views of the Republican Party. Many were nostalgic for the relative quiet of 2019.
They also noted his efforts to campaign in Dearborn and the time spent in the area by his surrogates, especially Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and an in-law of Mr. Trump’s, and Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and acting intelligence chief.
By contrast, they said, they saw Ms. Harris as inaccessible to the community.
Image
Massad Boulos, wearing a suit and a striped tie, sits in a large armchair with his hands held together in front of him.
Massad Boulos, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, worked to build support for Mr. Trump in Michigan’s Arab American community.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with him and his policies with Israel,” said Samraa Luqman, an environmental and social justice activist who helped organize support for Mr. Trump in Dearborn. “I can say that he offered hope, whereas the Democrats offered none.”
Ultimately, she added, the devastation of Gaza — which followed the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — happened on the Biden-Harris administration’s watch.
“Nothing is worse than what is happening right now,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters in the pro-Israel Jewish community insisted that he would continue to be a stalwart supporter of Israel despite his broadly isolationist rhetoric.
“We have a four-year track record of knowing how he governs and how he views the world,” said Matt Brooks, the chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The idea that somehow he’s a totally different, 180-degree person from who he was four years ago, doesn’t pass the smell test.”
He also said there were areas of common ground, pointing to developments like the expansion of diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab states during the first Trump administration.
But Mr. Trump is also known to be highly susceptible to flattery and ideologically flexible. In a speech in Pittsburgh shortly before Election Day, Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, warned that if Mr. Trump thought it was in his interests, he “would turn his back on Israel and the Jewish people on a dime.”
Some Trump supporters from both the Jewish and the Arab American and Muslim communities acknowledged the obvious tensions now at play.
“I do have concern that these American Arabs, Dearborn Arabs, will try to pressure Trump to have Israel stop the defensive war before they complete their mission,” said Morton A. Klein, who heads the Zionist Organization of America.
But he expressed hope that the president-elect and his advisers would reach a different conclusion about Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza.
“He would never agree with these positions, I don’t believe,” Mr. Klein said.
Ms. Luqman, in Dearborn, expressed similar wariness of some of her fellow Trump voters.
“There are going to be people that do not wish to have us have a seat at the table,” she said. “That’s unfortunate that there are so many of them that are in the Republican Party.”
And in one sign that this unusual coalition may be fleeting, she said she still did not consider herself a Republican.
“They keep telling me, ‘You should,’” she said. “I’m not there.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
Donald J. Trump won votes from Arab Americans and conservative pro-Israel Jews. Someone is likely to be disappointed.
Voting in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. President-elect Donald J. Trump increased his support in the majority Arab American city by 12 percentage points over 2020, though turnout may have been lower.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
In the final hours before Election Day dawned, some of Donald J. Trump’s top surrogates in Michigan were onstage in a Grand Rapids arena, distilling the choice in the campaign into a stark and striking message.
“Choose peace over war,” urged Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich.
Democrats, suggested Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights, Mich., were “a bunch of warmongers.”
And former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, welcomed “our Christian Arab friends, our Muslim Arab friends” and declared, “We all want a path to peace.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for being part of that coalition.”
It is an extraordinary new coalition. Along the way to his decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump drew at least some Arab American and Muslim voters who are outraged by the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. He managed to do so without alienating the right-leaning American Jews who see Mr. Trump as Israel’s strongest champion.
Even in an election marked by a reordering of the country’s traditional political teams, these strange bedfellows stand out.
The two groups hold sharply divergent expectations for the president-elect. And both strongly pro-Israel Trump voters and some of Mr. Trump’s Arab American backers are skeptical that his ascent this week is the start of a durable cross-ideological, interfaith coalition.
For Mr. Trump, the question is whether he can keep both happy — or if he will even try.
“This was not even a shotgun wedding — it was a blind-date wedding,” James Zogby, a founder of the Arab American Institute in Washington and a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, said of Mr. Trump’s new support from Arab Americans and Muslims. Mr. Zogby said many of those voters backed the former president to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza, not to affirm his campaign. He anticipated that Mr. Trump would “pursue policies that will make them more furious.”
“The more they see what’s going to happen, the less enchanted they’ll be,” he said of Arab Americans. “I don’t expect the right wing in the Jewish community to be disappointed at all, unfortunately.”
Image
Amer Ghalib speaks into a microphone as Donald Trump stands next to him. A Trump-Vance campaign sign is on the wall behind them.
Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., with Mr. Trump at a campaign office in the city last month.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Broadly speaking, American Jews tend to strongly favor Democrats. And it is not yet clear how many Arab American and Muslim voters overall backed Mr. Trump, who has a long history of Islamophobic statements and policies, and, of those who did, how many were simply casting protest votes.
But in Dearborn, Mich., a majority-Arab city, Ms. Harris won just 36 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results, a roughly 34-percentage-point drop from Mr. Biden’s share of the 2020 vote in similar results released after that election. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate to the left of Ms. Harris, picked up 18 percent of the vote. But Mr. Trump’s support also jumped — to 42 percent of the vote from less than 30 percent four years ago, though turnout was lower.
“Whatever he did on his campaign trail in last two months, I think he won the hearts and minds of many Muslims,” said Rabiul Chowdhury, a founder of Muslims for Trump who is based in Pennsylvania. “This guy is a Muslim-friendly guy.”
Mr. Trump is, of course, the same guy who blocked citizens of predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States during his last presidency, and who spent years demonizing and insulting Muslim Americans.
As president, he repeatedly made clear he supported the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, taking several steps that Muslim and Arab voters found inflammatory, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
And he is so beloved among right-wing Israelis that some named a settlement after him in the Golan Heights. He also has strong support among Orthodox Jews in the United States, who tend to be more conservative.
It is not clear how substantively different Mr. Trump’s position on the war in Gaza will be from Mr. Biden’s.
But in interviews throughout the campaign, Arab American and Muslim supporters said they were ready to take a chance on him anyway.
Some were already aligned with the socially conservative views of the Republican Party. Many were nostalgic for the relative quiet of 2019.
They also noted his efforts to campaign in Dearborn and the time spent in the area by his surrogates, especially Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and an in-law of Mr. Trump’s, and Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and acting intelligence chief.
By contrast, they said, they saw Ms. Harris as inaccessible to the community.
Image
Massad Boulos, wearing a suit and a striped tie, sits in a large armchair with his hands held together in front of him.
Massad Boulos, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, worked to build support for Mr. Trump in Michigan’s Arab American community.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with him and his policies with Israel,” said Samraa Luqman, an environmental and social justice activist who helped organize support for Mr. Trump in Dearborn. “I can say that he offered hope, whereas the Democrats offered none.”
Ultimately, she added, the devastation of Gaza — which followed the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — happened on the Biden-Harris administration’s watch.
“Nothing is worse than what is happening right now,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters in the pro-Israel Jewish community insisted that he would continue to be a stalwart supporter of Israel despite his broadly isolationist rhetoric.
“We have a four-year track record of knowing how he governs and how he views the world,” said Matt Brooks, the chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “The idea that somehow he’s a totally different, 180-degree person from who he was four years ago, doesn’t pass the smell test.”
He also said there were areas of common ground, pointing to developments like the expansion of diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab states during the first Trump administration.
But Mr. Trump is also known to be highly susceptible to flattery and ideologically flexible. In a speech in Pittsburgh shortly before Election Day, Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, warned that if Mr. Trump thought it was in his interests, he “would turn his back on Israel and the Jewish people on a dime.”
Some Trump supporters from both the Jewish and the Arab American and Muslim communities acknowledged the obvious tensions now at play.
“I do have concern that these American Arabs, Dearborn Arabs, will try to pressure Trump to have Israel stop the defensive war before they complete their mission,” said Morton A. Klein, who heads the Zionist Organization of America.
But he expressed hope that the president-elect and his advisers would reach a different conclusion about Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza.
“He would never agree with these positions, I don’t believe,” Mr. Klein said.
Ms. Luqman, in Dearborn, expressed similar wariness of some of her fellow Trump voters.
“There are going to be people that do not wish to have us have a seat at the table,” she said. “That’s unfortunate that there are so many of them that are in the Republican Party.”
And in one sign that this unusual coalition may be fleeting, she said she still did not consider herself a Republican.
“They keep telling me, ‘You should,’” she said. “I’m not there.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
Re: TRUMP AND ISLAM
Sebastian Gorka, a right-wing commentator who backed barring entry to people from Muslim-majority countries in Trump’s first term, will return to the White House as an adviser.
In a statement, Donald J. Trump lauded the firebrand conservative commentator as a “tireless advocate” for his agenda. There was no mention that Mr. Gorka had been forced out of the Trump administration in 2017.
Sebastian Gorka in the White House briefing room in 2017.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Sebastian Gorka, the firebrand conservative commentator who worked in the White House briefly in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first term, was named by Mr. Trump on Friday to a senior advisory position.
In a statement, Mr. Trump named Mr. Gorka as a deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, describing Mr. Gorka as “a tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement” since 2015. He made no mention that Mr. Gorka was forced out of a similar role in 2017, only that he served “previously as strategist to the president.”
Mr. Gorka was a divisive figure in the Trump White House and a combative defender of the president. He was one of the most prominent proponents of a Trump administration ban of refugees and people from certain predominantly Muslim countries.
After being expelled from the White House, Mr. Gorka worked as a political commentator on Fox News, Newsmax and his own syndicated radio show.
Born in Britain to Hungarian parents, Mr. Gorka was described by Mr. Trump in his statement as a “legal immigrant to the United States with more than 30 years of national security experience.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/us/p ... 778d3e6de3
In a statement, Donald J. Trump lauded the firebrand conservative commentator as a “tireless advocate” for his agenda. There was no mention that Mr. Gorka had been forced out of the Trump administration in 2017.
Sebastian Gorka in the White House briefing room in 2017.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Sebastian Gorka, the firebrand conservative commentator who worked in the White House briefly in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first term, was named by Mr. Trump on Friday to a senior advisory position.
In a statement, Mr. Trump named Mr. Gorka as a deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, describing Mr. Gorka as “a tireless advocate for the America First Agenda and the MAGA Movement” since 2015. He made no mention that Mr. Gorka was forced out of a similar role in 2017, only that he served “previously as strategist to the president.”
Mr. Gorka was a divisive figure in the Trump White House and a combative defender of the president. He was one of the most prominent proponents of a Trump administration ban of refugees and people from certain predominantly Muslim countries.
After being expelled from the White House, Mr. Gorka worked as a political commentator on Fox News, Newsmax and his own syndicated radio show.
Born in Britain to Hungarian parents, Mr. Gorka was described by Mr. Trump in his statement as a “legal immigrant to the United States with more than 30 years of national security experience.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/us/p ... 778d3e6de3