Trump Denies Downplaying COVID Danger; ‘I Up-Played It’

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Trump Denies Downplaying COVID Danger; ‘I Up-Played It’

(Headline USA) Fielding compelling questions about voters’ real-world problems, President Donald Trump denied during a televised town hall that he had played down the threat of the coronavirus earlier this year.

In what could well be a preview of his performance in the presidential debates less than two weeks away, Trump cast doubt on scientific conclusions — disputed by some medical professionals — that strongly urge the use of face coverings. He also seemed to bat away the suggestion that the nation has racial inequities.

“Well, I hope there’s not a race problem,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about his campaign rhetoric the some think ignore the historical injustices carried out against black Americans.

Face-to-face with everyday voters for the first time in months, Trump was defensive but resisted agitation as he was pressed on his administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and why he doesn’t more aggressively promote the use of masks to reduce the spread of the disease.

“There are people that don’t think masks are good,” Trump said.

The event, hosted by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, was a warmup of sorts before Trump faces Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the first presidential debate on Sept. 29. Taped at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, it featured Trump taking questions from an audience of just 21 voters to comply with state and local coronavirus regulations.

Trump sought to counter his admission to journalist Bob Woodward that he was deliberately “playing it down” when discussing the threat of COVID-19 to Americans earlier this year. Despite audio of his comments being released, Trump said: “Yeah, well, I didn’t downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action.”

“My action was very strong,” Trump added. “I’m not looking to be dishonest. I don’t want people to panic.”

Trump also insisted he was not wrong when he praised China’s response to the virus in January and February, saying he trusted Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.

“He told me that it was under control, that everything was and it turned out to be not true,” Trump said.

Trump also suggested the virus would disappear without a vaccine, claiming the nation would develop a herd immunity with time.

“It’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen,” Trump said. “But with a vaccine, I think it will go away very quickly.”

He concluded by praising his own handling the virus, saying it had enhanced the reputation of some governors and that “we’ve made a lot of people look good that shouldn’t look good, to be honest with you.”

The questions from uncommitted voters were pointed and poignant: a diabetic man who said he felt he’d been thrown “under the bus” by mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic; a black woman with a disease that left her uninsurable until the Obama health care law came along who is worried that she could lose coverage again; a black pastor who questioned Trump’s campaign motto to “Make America Great Again.”

“When has America been great for African Americans in the ghetto of America?” the pastor asked.

Asked about what he was doing to address protests against racial injustice, Trump lamented a “lack of respect” and the absence of “retribution” for those who clash with or carry out attacks against police officers. Trump on Sunday called for the death penalty for the individual who shot and critically injured two Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies over the weekend.

Trump has been mum on his debate preparations ahead of the first debate, set to take place in Cleveland. On Tuesday, he told Fox News that he believes his day job is the best practice for his three scheduled showdowns with Biden.

“Well, I sort of prepare every day by just doing what I’m doing,” Trump said.

He noted that he had been in California on Monday and had been to other states before that to make the point that he’s getting out and about more than Biden.

One person likely to study the replay: Biden. Returning from a long day of campaigning in Florida, Biden said at his plane that he was preparing for the debates mostly by going back through what Trump has said in the past. But he suggested he had yet to initiate mock debates, saying he was unaware who would play the role of Trump in his preparations.

Trump, in a Fox interview, lowered expectations for his Democratic opponent’s performance, judging Biden “a disaster” and “grossly incompetent” in the primary debates. He assessed Biden as “OK” and “fine” in his final one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders before clinching the nomination.

Trump’s rhetoric on Biden marked a departure from the traditional efforts by candidates to talk up their rivals’ preparation for televised debates, in hopes of setting an unattainably high bar for their performance.

The second of the three scheduled debates, set to be held in Miami on Oct. 15, will feature a similar “town meeting” style.

Biden is to have his own opportunity to hone his skills taking questions from voters on Thursday, when he participates in a televised town hall hosted by CNN.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

NOT MESSING AROUND: Bail for Lancaster, Pa. Rioters Set at $1 MILLION

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NOT MESSING AROUND: Bail for Lancaster, Pa. Rioters Set at $1 MILLION

(Headline USA) This is how violent criminals who terrorize the public are supposed to be treated.

Rather than be released immediately back on the streets, 13 people who are accused of committing crimes while participating in riots in Lancaster, Pa. on Sunday night sat behind bars Tuesday, with bail for seven of them set at $1 million.

The eight for whom charging documents have been made public are accused of being instigators during demonstrations over the fatal police shooting of an armed man.

Authorities said the protests degenerated into rioting that damaged Lancaster’s police headquarters and produced an arson fire that blocked a downtown intersection.

Police in Lancaster — a diverse city of nearly 60,000 in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country — said Tuesday that they arrested five others on similar charges, a group that was awaiting arraignment and to have bail set.

The 13 defendants range from 16 to 43 years old and live in Lancaster and surrounding communities, as well as in York, Camp Hill and Mercersburg.

Among the eight for whom charging documents were available, not all face identical charges, accusations that include arson, rioting and institutional vandalism.

One has been charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

The father of Kathryn Patterson, 20, an undergraduate student at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, said she was acting as a “medic,” and claimed she has at other protests in the recent past.

Chip Patterson called Kathryn Patterson’s $1 million bail, set by a magisterial district justice, “obscene.”

“Everything that I know so far, which is not a lot, indicates that Kat is not guilty of those charges. But then again, we’ll have to wait and see,” said Mr. Patterson, who lives in Mercersburg, about 100 miles west of Lancaster.

He said he has not been able to reach his daughter since her arrest.

“I cannot tell you how long this night has been,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “I think regardless of what these people did or didn’t do, the bail amount is just outrageous and clearly against the Eighth Amendment,” which addresses bail.

The protests concerned the shooting death by police of a Ricardo Munoz, whose sister had called authorities in hopes of having him involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.

Police have made public the officer’s body camera video.

It showed Munoz, 27, approaching the officer with the knife in what appeared to be a menacing manner, before the officer, who has not been publicly identified, shot and killed him.

Munoz had been out on bond, awaiting trial for allegations he stabbed four people last year, including a teenage boy who was stabbed in the face.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

TDS-Afflicted Media ‘Fact Checks’ Trump’s #PedoBiden Retweet

Ben Sellers
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TDS-Afflicted Media ‘Fact Checks’ Trump’s #PedoBiden Retweet

Beneath a barrage of images marking a historic peace agreement in the Middle East, President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed on Tuesday included a retweet from @ConservUSA38 with the hashtag #PedoBiden.

Naturally, it became the lead story for the Trump-Deranged mainstream media.

Some, like the US version of England’s Sun newspaper were beside themselves trying to fact-check the retweet, which also included a GIF image of Biden sniffing the hair of Stephanie Carter, wife of former Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“While her age is unclear, it’s very clear that Carter is a woman and not a child or underage female,” said the Sun.

“There’s no evidence to suggest that Biden is a pedophile and claims that he is are unfounded and have no basis in fact,” it claimed.

The Sun noted that in a March 2019 blog post Carter had denied any impropriety or discomfort surrounding the notorious image.

There is, in fact, a considerable amount of documented visual evidence that shows Biden inappropriately touching other people’s children, as well as other people’s wives.

Biden’s personal anecdotes, such as an account of allowing children at a pool to feel his leg hair, also are consistent with the allegations.

Apart from one isolated public claim (Tara Reade‘s) alleging a sexual assault and several corroborating witness accounts, nothing has been furnished to suggest that Biden fully consummated his sexually deviant impulses.

However, the conservative transparency and accountability watchdog Judicial Watch is currently suing the University of Delaware to gain access to the records from Biden’s roughly 35 years in the US Senate.

Some suspect that the files may include corroborating evidence about Reade’s claim, as well as an alleged breast-cupping incident involving the wife of a Secret Service agent and potentially other damning allegations.

When the latter incident was reported by the Gateway Pundit another Secret Service agent who had worked on Biden’s detail accused the former vice president of “Weinstein level” abuses, in reference to convicted rapist and former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

It is unlikely, however, that Trump’s purpose in the retweet was to substantiate the accusations.

The original tweet included a statement, “We can beat them at their game ..”

Viral videos on Twitter have previously used the accusation as a counterpoint to the specious attacks leveled against Trump and his supporters by the media, including baseless claims of racism that rely heavily on out-of-context statements.

Some accounts suggested that the term #PedoTrump had also been trending alongside claims linking Trump to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, who has been tied with a number of high-profile Democrats.

Nonetheless, as the radical Left moves toward previously untenable positions such as supporting the defunding of law-enforcement, some are concerned that the cultural normalization of pedophilia may be on their wish list.

The issue erupted recently in the context of a controversial Netflix film that appeared to depict the sexualizing of underage girls, as well as in a newly passed California law that will remove some of the penalties for statutory rape if there is no greater than a 10-year age difference.

Trump Presides Over Signing of Israel-Arab States Peace Deal That He Brokered

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Trump Presides Over Signing of Israel-Arab States Peace Deal That He Brokered

(Headline USA) Declaring “the dawn of a new Middle East,” President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed historic diplomatic pacts with Israel and two Gulf Arab nations that he hopes will lead to a new order in the Mideast and cast him as a peacemaker at the height of his reelection campaign.

Hundreds of people massed on the sun-washed South Lawn to witness the signing of agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The bilateral agreements formalize the normalization of the Jewish state’s thawing relations with the two Arab nations in line with their common opposition to Iran and its aggression in the region.

“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history,” Trump said from a balcony overlooking the South Lawn. “After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East.”

The agreements do not address the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the UAE, Bahrain and other Arab countries support the Palestinians, the Trump administration has persuaded the two countries not to let that conflict keep them from having normal relations with Israel.

The agreements won’t end active wars, but supporters believe they could pave the way for a broader Arab-Israeli rapprochement after decades of enmity and only two previous peace deals. Liberal website Vox called the agreement with UAE “a big win for Trump.”

During the ceremony, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the brother of Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, thanked Israel for “halting the annexation of Palestinian territories.”

“Today, we are already witnessing a change in the heart of the Middle East — a change that will send hope around the world,” al-Nahyan said.

President Donald Trump, center, with from left, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump, and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan/AP Photo

Even the harshest critics have allowed that the agreements could usher in a major shift in the region should other Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, follow suit, with implications for Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Other Arab countries believed to be close to recognizing Israel include Oman, Sudan and Morocco.

“We are very down the road with about five different countries,” Trump told reporters before the ceremony.

In addition to the bilateral agreements signed by Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, all three are signing a document dubbed the “Abraham Accords” after the patriarch of the world’s three major monotheistic religions.

“This day is a pivot of history,” Netanyahu said. “It heralds a new dawn of peace.”

“Despite the many challenges and hardships that we all face — despite all that, let us pause a moment to appreciate this remarkable day.”

The Palestinians have not embraced the U.S. vision. Palestinian activists held small demonstrations Tuesday inthe West Bank and in Gaza, where they trampled and set fire to pictures of Trump, Netanyahu and the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain.

In Israel, where the accords have received widespread acclaim, there is concern they might result in U.S. sales of sophisticated weaponry to the UAE and Bahrain, thus potentially upsetting Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

Trump said he is OK with selling military aircraft to the UAE. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also welcomed the agreements but said she wants to learn details, specifically what the Trump administration has told the UAE about buying American-made F-35 aircraft and about Israel agreeing to freeze efforts to annex portions of the West Bank.

Bahrani Foreign Minister Abdullatif al-Zayani said Bahrain would stand with the Palestinians. “Today is a truly historic occasion,” he said. “A moment for hope and opportunity.”

Bahrain’s largest Shiite-dominated opposition group, Al-Wefaq, which the government ordered dissolved in 2016 amid a yearslong crackdown on dissent, said there is widespread rejection of normalization. Al-Wefaq said in a statement that it joins other Bahrainis who reject the agreement to normalize ties with the “Zionist entity,” and criticized the government for crushing the public’s ability to express opinions “to obscure the extent of discontent” at normalization.

The ceremony follows months of intricate diplomacy headed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and the president’s envoy for international negotiations, Avi Berkowitz. On Aug. 13, the Israel-UAE deal was announced. That was followed by the first direct commercial flight between the countries, and then the Sept. 11 announcement of the Bahrain-Israel agreement.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Chinese Virologist Releases Report Tying COVID to Wuhan Lab

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Chinese Virologist Releases Report Tying COVID to Wuhan Lab

A Chinese virologist who fled to the U.S. released a bombshell report this week detailing how the coronavirus was “conveniently created” in a Wuhan lab.

Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a former researcher at the Hong Kong School of Public Health, released a report, co-authored with two other Chinese scientists, that shows how “SARS-CoV-2 shows biologically characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus.”

The coronavirus, Yan writes, was created in the Wuhan laboratory setting in six months or less, she said.

China’s claims that the virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan are a “smoke screen,” she told the British talk show “Loose Women” on Friday.

“The first thing is the [meat] market in Wuhan … is a smokescreen, and this virus is not from nature,” she said, citing research and interviews with local doctors in Wuhan.

“The genome sequence is like a human fingerprint,” she said. “And based on this, you can identify these things. I will [use this] evidence to tell people why this has come from the lab in China, why they are the ones who made it.”

Yan fled Hong Kong in April after calling out China for its attempted cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

She also accused the Chinese government of wiping out her research from government databases in an attempt to “hide the truth.”

Congressional Republicans have questioned the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s role in the coronavirus pandemic from the very beginning.

A congressional report from earlier this summer found that the lab was directly connected to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military.

The Wuhan lab was run by CCP leaders, and it was taken over by a senior bioweapons expert in the People’s Liberation Army earlier this year, according to the report.

Crucial Democrat-Led Swing States Could Delay Election Results For Weeks

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Crucial Democrat-Led Swing States Could Delay Election Results For Weeks

Several crucial swing states will not release their final results until weeks after Election Day due to the influx of mail-in voting, according to a Politico review of the states’ election rules.

Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and, to a lesser degree, Minnesota and North Carolina, will likely decide this year’s election just as they did the 2016 election.

Except for Wisconsin, which has a bipartisan election commission, the elections in all of these states are being overseen and certified by partisan Democrats.

And none plan to begin processing their mail ballots until Election Day.

That means it may take several weeks for the final results to determine whether victory goes to incumbent Republican President Donald Trump, Democrat Joe Biden or one of several third-party candidates—including rapper Kanye West.

Vote fraud has long been a concern in mail-in voting, but due to the enormous influx of mail-in ballots this year, the threat of malfeasance is even greater.

Election officials have to do everything from opening envelopes, to checking voter signatures, to flattening ballots that have been crumpled in transit. They then have to log the millions of votes they will receive by mail.

In other words, the vote-by-mail process and its results are completely dependent on the partisan election officials running the show.

Michigan’s Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson already has warned her state’s residents that it will take at least a full week for her office to sort through all of the mail-in ballots.

“We should be prepared for this to be closer to an election week as opposed to an Election Day,” Benson told NBC News recently.

“The bottom line is we are not going to have the full results and a counting of all of our ballots on election night,” she said. “We already know that.”

Most states are allowed to begin processing mail-in ballots at least two weeks before Election Day.

Michigan clerks, however, are only allowed to verify the signature on the outside of the ballot envelopes—they cannot begin counting them until Election Day.

Minnesota can begin processing two weeks before Election Day, but the final tallies will not be run until election night.

Similarly, North Carolina can begin approving absentee ballots five weeks before Election Day, but the results will not be reported or finalized until election night.

Pennsylvania election officials cannot start processing ballots until the morning of Election Day, though state legislators are working to move up that processing date to ease the strain on election workers the night of the election.

And in Wisconsin, officials cannot begin processing and tallying votes until after the polls open. It’s unlikely the state legislature changes that date.

Even the states that can begin tallying the ballots before Election Day aren’t sure the results will be completely accurate.

“The question is, will it be conclusive or not?” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, told Politico.

“So if any candidate has a 4- or 5-percent lead on election night, and they’re winning by a million votes and there’s only a couple hundred thousand outstanding absentee ballots, then the contest is over, right?” he continued. “I think numerically, that’s pretty straightforward … But if it’s a tighter race … well, then yeah, you just can’t say that it’s a conclusive result yet at that point.”

A number of Democratic operatives, including failed 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton, are suggesting that Biden may refuse to concede the race under any circumstance, maintaining that the longer it drags out, the better chance Democrats have to overturn a Trump victory on election night.

In fact, some “war games scenarios” by the deceptively named left-wing Transition Integrity Project have proposed that even if Trump narrowly wins in battleground blue states, they may send a rival set of Biden electors to cast the decision into turmoil.

In the meantime, they may use massive social unrest by radical activists—similar to ongoing race-riots and Antifa-led protests—to bludgeon moderate congressional Republicans into “compromising” on a Biden victory simply to maintain peace and stability.

Trump allies have been predicting that mail-in voting will lead to an Election Day disaster ever since Democrats first introduced the talking point in March as a response to the coronavirus panic.

“They are talking about sending 51 million ballots out to anybody who, you know, nobody knows who is going to get them,” Trump told Fox News.

“It’s a horrible thing,” he continued. “It’s a fraudulent election. Everybody knows it, you don’t even have to know politics to know it. Fifty-one million ballots are going to be indiscriminately sent out to people who didn’t even ask for them, people who will say, ‘Hey, I just got a ballot, that’s great, let me vote,’ and it’s a terrible thing.”

Despite mounting evidence of election abuses during recent primaries, including multiple cases of ballot mishandling and conspiracy to commit fraud, Democrats and their mainstream media allies—now backed by ‘fact-checking’ social-media censors—have dogmatically maintained that no such evidence exists.

Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

Leftist Judge Claims ‘Unlawful’ Acting DHS Chief Lacks Authority to Enforce Asylum Policy

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Leftist Judge Claims ‘Unlawful’ Acting DHS Chief Lacks Authority to Enforce Asylum Policy

A Maryland judge blocked the Trump administration from enforcing new asylum restriction this week and ruled that acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf is serving in his role unlawfully.

Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee, was narrowly confirmed to the federal bench in 2016 after having served as an activist lawyer with a noteworthy track record of bias against law-enforcement.

In a 69-page ruling, Xinis claimed that former acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan was unlawfully appointed, so he therefore lacked the “authority to amend the order of succession to ensure Wolf’s installation as acting secretary,” CNN reported

As a result, Wolf does not have the authority to impose new asylum rules that more than 20 state attorneys general are challenging, Xinis said.

The new restrictions would limit access to employment authorization for asylum-seekers.

One of these rules would require asylum-seekers to wait a year before applying for employment authorization, and the second would eliminate requirements that employment authorization applications be processed within a month.

Xinis ruled that these requirements ignore the “critical impact” they would have on immigrants seeking employment, and demonstrate that the DHS has “never wrestled with the fundamental implications of deferring or denying advance work authorization.”

The Democratic state attorneys general argued in their lawsuit that these new requirements are an attempt to “punish” immigrants.

“Not only is this decision welcome news for asylum seekers who were unfairly targeted by the Trump Administration, but the courts have now found that Chad Wolf has no authority at the Department of Homeland Security,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said of Xinis’s ruling.

Xinis’s ruling does not require Wolf to leave his post, nor is it likely that he will do so.

Democrats have already tried to argue that his No.2, Ken Cuccinelli, was improperly appointed, but Cuccinelli continues to serve as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services regardless.

NC Teachers Union Tells Schools to Support Group w/ Ties to Cop-Killing Terrorist

Joshua Paladino
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NC Teachers Union Tells Schools to Support Group w/ Ties to Cop-Killing Terrorist

The president of a North Carolina teachers union asked school teachers to pledge their participation to the group Black Lives Matter at School’s “Year of Purpose” program, which was inspired in part by a convicted cop-killer who escaped prison.

At the bottom of its website, Black Lives Matter at School displays a quote from Assata Shakur, a black militant who was found guilty of executing a New Jersey police officer in 1973, reported conservative blogger A.P. Dillon.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love eachother and support eachother.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Shakur, who was born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, lives in Cuba as a fugitive from justice. The FBI’s Most Wanted List offers a $1 million bounty for her capture.

Tamika W. Kelly, president of the NC Association of Educators, shared the link to the BLM pledge on Twitter.

The petition is full of ‘woke’ terminology, including its description regarding the intentions of BLM’s “Year of Purpose.”

“The centerpiece of the Year of Purpose is asking educators to reflect on their own work in relationship to antiracist pedagogy and abolitionist practice, persistently challenging themselves to center Black [sic] lives in their classrooms,” according to the Change.org petition.

The petition states that there will be 12 “days of action” throughout the year, starting with “Black to School” day, in which participants create an “anti-racist action plan” and a “graffiti wall.”

Oct. 14 is Justice for George Floyd Day. Teachers are asked to “call for the defunding of the police.”

Other days include Transgender Day of Remembrance, Queer Organizing Behind the Scenes, Unapologetically Black Day, Revolutionary Black Arts, Black Radical Educator Day and Education for Liberation Day.

More than 800 people, including public school teachers, have signed the pledge.

“I pledge to be an anti racist teacher! #BLM,” a teacher wrote on the petition.

Anti-racism is a concept that comes from critical race theory, which teaches that human worth is determined by intersectional traits, including skin color, ethnicity, sex and gender orientation.

Critical race theory teaches that straight, white, American men oppress other people, while “people of color,” non-Americans, women and LGBTQIA+ people are oppressed.

The goal of anti-racism is the destruction of the American system of government: the Constitution, the rule of law, equal justice under the law, and property rights.

North Carolina Sen. Deanna Ballard, R-Watauga, called on the NCAE to renounce Black Lives Matter at School in a press release.

“It’s despicable that the far-left NCAE would encourage North Carolina teachers to pledge their support for a movement that openly embraces a cop-killing terrorist on the FBI’s most wanted list,” Ballard said.

“Police officers in Los Angeles were just targeted for assassination, and this movement honors a cop-killer,” she said. “The NCAE should withdraw its support, apologize to parents and teachers, and renounce violent attacks on police.”

The NCAE said it will continue to support Black Lives Matter at School. The group told Ballard, without explanation, to “get their facts straight.”

NFL Team’s Spanish-Language Broadcaster Loses Job for Supporting Trump

Joshua Paladino
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NFL Team’s Spanish-Language Broadcaster Loses Job for Supporting Trump

The NFL’s Carolina Panthers pushed out one of its Spanish-language broadcasters because of his personal support for President Donald Trump, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Luis Moreno Jr., 42, had served with his uncle Jaime Moreno as the play-by-play radio announcer since 2010.

The pair were known internationally for their energetic calls of exciting plays by Panthers players.

Moreno Jr. emigrated from Mexico at 14 years old, and he became an American citizen in August.

He said he did not dig into politics before the spring lockdowns, but he had newfound time because of the stay-at-home orders.

After researching American politics online, he “found out that there are a lot of things that are happening that I wasn’t aware of that make me support [Trump],” he told the Observer.

Moreno tweeted a post in support of Trump from his private Twitter page in April.

This prompted Eric Fiddleman, who manages radio and television for the Panthers, to contact him and request that he remove references to the Panthers from his account.

At this time, Moreno was not under contract with the Panthers.

As an independent contractor, he is not employed during part of the off-season.

But he complied, scrubbed his Twitter bio of Panthers content, and updated it to reflect his support of Trump.

“Listen … I’m not even under contract right now. I am not willing to participate in this project anymore if I’m going to be censored,” Moreno said, recounting the conversation with Fiddleman. “Because I am not OK with them censoring my freedom of speech in support of the president.”

Moreno continued to share content related to Trump and QAnon, which he called a group of “love and truth” trying to “wake up people.”

He said no one from the Panthers organization called to speak with Moreno after he changed his Twitter bio, so Moreno said he broke with the team.

“I’m hurt because this has nothing to do with my performance on-air. This has nothing to do with how good I am at what I do,” he told the Observer. “I’m one of the best, and I’ll put myself against anybody in country when it comes to what I do in Spanish.”

“None of my support for the president was done on any of their social-media pages, it was never done on any of the airtime — whether it was a podcast or a broadcast or anything related to the Panthers. This was solely on my personal time on my personal accounts,” he said.

Moreno said he and the Panthers could have reached an agreement if they had been willing to speak with him.

Rookie color analyst Antonio Ramos took over Moreno’s role on Sunday.

For now, Moreno said he will keep his job as a bartender and as a stay-at-home father for his 2- and 4-year-old children.

After he casts his first vote as an American citizen to reelect Trump, he said he will decide what to do next.

“Obviously, we are also waiting to see what the elections are like, what the results are, before making a long-term decision. … I think that it goes without saying that this is one of the most important elections in our lifetime,” Moreno said.

UPDATED: City of Louisville to Pay $12M to Breonna Taylor’s Mother, Reform Police

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UPDATED: City of Louisville to Pay $12M to Breonna Taylor’s Mother, Reform Police

UPDATE VIA AP: The city of Louisville will pay $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor and reform police practices as part of a lawsuit settlement months after Taylor’s slaying by police thrust the Black woman’s name to the forefront of a national reckoning on race, Mayor Greg Fischer announced Tuesday.

“I cannot begin to imagine Ms. Palmer’s pain, and I am deeply, deeply sorry for Breonna’s death,” Fischer said, referring to Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: (Headline USA) The city of Louisville, Ky. will pay millions to the mother of Breonna Taylor and reform police practices as part of a lawsuit settlement months after Taylor’s slaying by police thrust the black woman’s name to the forefront during a summer of national unrest over alleged “systemic racism” in law enforcement.

A person who has seen the settlement told The Associated Press it is the largest sum paid by the city for a police misconduct case.

The source asked not to be identified because the settlement has not been announced publicly.

Taylor’s death sparked months of protests in Louisville and calls nationwide for the officers to be criminally charged.

The state’s attorney general — Republican Daniel Cameron, who is black — is investigating police actions in the March 13 fatal shooting.

The lawsuit, filed in April by Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, alleged the police used flawed information when they obtained a “no-knock” warrant to enter the 26-year-old woman’s apartment in March.

Taylor was roused from her bed and her boyfriend fired at officers, before she was shot several times.

Police found no drugs at her home.

Palmer has said she is trying to be patient about the results of Cameron’s criminal investigation and the long wait, which is now six months since her daughter’s death.

In that time, her daughter’s slaying — along with George Floyd and others — has become a rallying cry for protesters seeking a reckoning on racial justice and police reform.

High-profile celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James have called for the officers to be charged in Taylor’s death.

Palmer’s lawsuit accused three Louisville police officers of blindly firing into Taylor’s apartment the night of the March raid, striking Taylor several times.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was in the apartment with her and fired a single shot that struck an officer in the leg.

Walker said he did not hear police announce themselves and said he thought he was guarding against an intruder.

The warrant was one of five issued in a wide-ranging investigation of a drug trafficking suspect who was a former boyfriend of Taylor’s.

That man, Jamarcus Glover, was arrested at a different location about 10 miles away from Taylor’s apartment on the same evening.

The settlement includes reforms on how warrants are handled by police. The city of Louisville is expected to announce the details Tuesday afternoon.

The city has already taken some reform measures, including passing a law named for Taylor that bans the use of the no-knock warrants.

Police typically use them in drug cases over concern that evidence could be destroyed if they announce their arrival.

Mayor Greg Fischer fired former police chief Steve Conrad in June and last week named Yvette Gentry, a former deputy chief, as the new interim police chief.

Gentry would be the first black woman to lead the force of about 1,200 sworn officers.

The largest settlement previously paid in a Louisville police misconduct case was $8.5 million in 2012, to a man who spent nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit, according to news reports.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

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