TRUMP: Pentagon Leaders Want War to Keep Contractors ‘Happy’

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TRUMP: Pentagon Leaders Want War to Keep Contractors ‘Happy’

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump said Monday that top Defense Department leaders want to keep waging wars in order to keep defense contractors “happy.”

Trump continues to fight an anonymous smear published in left-wing magazine The Atlantic, owned by major Democrat donor Laurene Jobs, alleging that he made offensive comments about fallen U.S. service-members, including calling World War I dead at an American military cemetery in France “losers” and “suckers” in 2018.

Several former and current Trump administration officials who were on the trip, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton — who is now a foe of the president — deny he said it.

“According to what that article said, the president made disparaging remarks about soldiers and people buried in the cemetery in connection with the decision for him not to go to the ceremony that was planned that afternoon, and that was simply false,” Bolton said on Fox News Monday. “I don’t know who told the author that, but that was false.”

At a White House news conference Monday, Trump repeated his claim that the story was a “hoax” and said: “I’m not saying the military’s in love with me. The soldiers are.”

However, he added, “The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, whom Trump appointed, was defense contractor Raytheon Co.’s chief Washington lobbyist before he became Army secretary in 2017.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Kamala Harris Tells Jacob Blake She’s ‘Proud of Him’ in Wisc. Visit

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Kamala Harris Tells Jacob Blake She’s ‘Proud of Him’ in Wisc. Visit

(Headline USA) Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and President Donald Trump spent Monday diminishing each other’s credentials on the economy and understanding of the American worker as the presidential campaign entered its final, post-Labor Day stretch.

While workers live by an “American code,” Biden said Trump “lives by a code of lies, greed and selfishness” as he met with labor leaders in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a key swing state.

Trump, meanwhile, in a White House press conference said Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, would “destroy this country and would destroy this economy.”

Labor Day typically marks the unofficial start to the fall campaign season as candidates accelerate their activity for the final sprint to Election Day. Both campaigns reflected that urgency Monday, as Harris and Vice President Mike Pence each campaigned in Wisconsin, a state Trump narrowly won in 2016.

While the health of the American economy and status of workers were dominant Labor Day themes, both campaigns also focused on recent riots that have roiled Wisconsin and the rest of the nation after police shot Jacob Blake, a black man who resisted arrested and was a threat to officers, in Kenosha last month.

Harris, the first black woman on a major party presidential ticket, met privately with Blake’s family at the Milwaukee airport after arriving in the state, where she spoke with Blake by phone from his hospital bed. Harris told Blake she was proud of him and individually spoke to each of his family members, in person and on the phone, urging them to take care of their physical and mental health, Blake’s lawyers said in a statement.

Biden met with Blake’s family during a visit to Wisconsin last week. Trump did not during a trip of his own last week, instead meeting with law enforcement and business owners whose property had been damaged during protests. Nor did Pence, who touched on the protests during a speech in La Crosse, where he toured an energy facility.

“We will have law and order in every city in this country for every American of every race and creed,” Pence said.

After meeting with black business owners, Harris greeted a crowd of about 50 supporters outside as she left, removing her mask briefly while telling them, “We have to get this done, I need your help in Milwaukee.”

She noted in-person absentee voting begins in the state on Oct. 20, which is her birthday.

Harris also met with black business owners in Milwaukee, where she said her day of campaigning was focused on “the dignity of work and the dignity of human beings.”

Biden spoke to a small group of labor leaders in a backyard in Lancaster, where he criticized Trump for “refusing to deal with the problems that affect ordinary people” and called for strengthening unions.

His campaign announced endorsements from the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Elevator Constructors and the National Federation of Federal Employees, collectively representing hundreds of thousands of union workers nationwide.

Earlier in the day, Trump painted Biden as a leader incapable of handling the coronavirus and reviving the economy and pledged his own “undying loyalty to the American worker.”

He boasted of adding more than 10 million jobs since May, without mentioning that’s only about half of the jobs lost since the pandemic began. He also said the unemployment rate “plunged” to 8.4%. It was a sharper decline than many economists expected from the prior month.

He alleged Biden and Democrats would “immediately collapse the economy.”

The day marked Harris’s first solo foray onto the campaign trail for in-person events since she became Biden’s running mate nearly a month ago. Biden himself has stepped up his campaigning over the past week, traveling to Pittsburgh and Kenosha and holding two news conferences. Aides say to expect both Biden and Harris to increase their campaigning for the remaining weeks.

Polls consistently show the economy as an issue at the top of voters’ minds.

A strong economy that was Trump’s biggest asset for reelection has now become a potential liability, brought down by the coronavirus. Biden says Trump has had an inadequate response to the pandemic, resulting in more loss of life and jobs than necessary.

The U.S. economy has steadily rebounded from its epic collapse in the spring as many businesses have reopened and rehired some laid-off employees. Yet the recovery is far from complete. Only about half the 22 million jobs that vanished in the pandemic have been recovered.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Biden, Harris Cast Doubt on COVID Vaccine Even Though Fauci is ‘Sure’ It Would Be Safe

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Biden, Harris Cast Doubt on COVID Vaccine Even Though Fauci is ‘Sure’ It Would Be Safe

(Headline USA) The prospect of a vaccine to shield Americans from coronavirus infection emerged as a point of contention in the White House race as President Donald Trump accused Democrats of “disparaging” for political gain a vaccine he repeatedly has said could be available before the election.

“It’s so dangerous for our country, what they say, but the vaccine will be very safe and very effective,” the president pledged Monday at a White House news conference.

Trump leveled the accusation a day after Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ vice presidential candidate, said she “would not trust his word” on getting the vaccine.

“I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, but not Donald Trump,” Harris said.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden amplified Harris’s comments Monday after he was asked if he would get a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Biden said he would take a vaccine but wants to see what the scientists have to say, too.

Biden said Trump has said “so many things that aren’t true, I’m worried if we do have a really good vaccine, people are going to be reluctant to take it. So he’s undermining public confidence.”

Still, the former vice president said: “If I could get a vaccine tomorrow I’d do it, if it would cost me the election I’d do it. We need a vaccine and we need it now.”

The back-and-forth over a coronavirus vaccine played out as three of the candidates fanned out across the country on Labor Day, the traditional start of the two-month sprint to the election. Harris and Vice President Mike Pence campaigned in Wisconsin and Biden went to Pennsylvania. Trump added the news conference to a schedule that originally was blank.

Harris, a California Democrat, said in a CNN interview broadcast Sunday that she would not trust a coronavirus vaccine if one were ready at the end of the year because “there’s very little that we can trust that … comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth.”

She argued that scientists would be “muzzled” because Trump is focused on getting reelected.

Trump dismissed her comments as “reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric” designed to detract from the effort to quickly ready a vaccine for a disease that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans and infected more than 6 million others, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.

“She’s talking about disparaging a vaccine so that people don’t think the achievement was a great achievement,” Trump said, answering reporters’ questions as he stood at a lectern placed at the front door of the White House on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the mansion.

“They’ll say anything,” he said.

Trump insisted he hasn’t said a vaccine could be ready before November, although he has said so repeatedly and as recently as Friday.

The president then proceeded to say what he had just denied ever saying.

“What I said is by the end of the year, but I think it could even be sooner that that,” he said about a vaccine. “It could be during the month of October, actually could be before November.”

Under a program Trump calls “Operation Warp Speed,” the goal is to have 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine in stock by January. He has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on what amounts to a huge gamble since vaccine development usually takes years.

Concerns exist about political influence over development of a vaccine, and whether one produced under this process will be safe and effective.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN last week that it is unlikely but “not impossible” that a vaccine could win approval in October, instead of November or December.

Fauci added that he’s “pretty sure” a vaccine would not be approved for Americans unless it was both safe and effective.

Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, has said the agency would not cut corners as it evaluates vaccines, but would aim to expedite its work. He told the Financial Times last week that it might be “appropriate” to approve a vaccine before clinical trials were complete if the benefits outweighed the risks.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, meanwhile, has given assurances that Trump “will not in any way sacrifice safety” when it comes to a vaccine. And executives of five top pharmaceutical companies pledged that no COVID-19 vaccines or treatments will be approved, even for emergency use, without proof they are safe and effective.

Some concerns were sparked by a letter dated Aug. 27 in which Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked governors to help government contractor McKesson Corp. make sure vaccine distribution facilities are up and running by Nov. 1.

Redfield did not say a vaccine would be ready by then.

Three COVID-19 vaccines are undergoing final-stage, or Phase 3, clinical trials in the U.S. Each study is enrolling about 30,000 people who will get two shots, three weeks apart, and then will be monitored for coronavirus infections and side effects for anywhere from a week to two years.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

TOO MANY BOATS! Five Sink as Lake Overwhelmed w/ Trump Fans in Parade

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TOO MANY BOATS! Five Sink as Lake Overwhelmed w/ Trump Fans in Parade

(Headline USA) Five boats sank in a Texas lake during a nautical parade in support of President Donald Trump as tightly packed boats created large waves, officials said Sunday.

Boaters began calling for help “almost immediately” after the procession for Trump’s reelection got underway on a lake west of Austin on Saturday, according to Kristen Dark of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies ultimately responded to 15 distress calls and received three other reports of boats taking on water.

No one was injured or killed.

Images of the event show the water of Lake Travis choppy with the wakes of dozens of boats flying American, Texas and “Trump 2020” flags.

Dark said that weather on the roughly 19,000-acre lake was calm, but that the tightly packed boats created large waves in areas.

Deputies have found no evidence of foul play, she said.

The first call for help came at 12:15 p.m., and later distress calls were for boats taking on water, stalled engines and capsizing, Dark said.

Three of the boats that sank were towed to shore, while the other two were still at the bottom of the lake, she said.

Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services received no calls for service related to the parade, a spokeswoman said.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

JACOB BLAKE SPEAKS: ‘Every 24 Hours It’s Pain; Nothing but Pain’

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JACOB BLAKE SPEAKS: ‘Every 24 Hours It’s Pain; Nothing but Pain’

(Headline USA) Jacob Blake has spoken publicly for the first time since a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot him seven times from behind as he appeared to reach for a knife in his vehicle after resisting arrest and overcoming a Taser.

He said he’s in constant pain from the shooting, which doctors fear will leave him paralyzed from the waist down.

In a video posted Saturday night on Twitter by his family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, Blake said from his hospital bed that, “Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours it’s pain, nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side-to-side, it hurts to eat.”

Blake, a 29-year-old who has fathered six children, also said he has staples in his back and stomach.

“Your life, and not only just your life, your legs, something you need to move around and forward in life, can be taken from you like this,” Blake said, snapping his fingers.

He added: “Stick together, make some money, make everything easier for our people out there, man, because there’s so much time that’s been wasted.”

Blake, who is black, was shot in the back by a white police officer on Aug. 23 after walking away from the officer and two others who were trying to arrest him, disobeying their instructions.

Racial considerations were not an obvious motivation for the shooting.

The officer, Rusten Sheskey, opened fire after Blake opened his own SUV’s driver-side door and leaned into the vehicle, where a knife was later found on the driver’s floor.

The shooting was captured on a heavily edited video and posted online, sparking several nights of protests and unrest in Kenosha, a city of about 100,000 between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Sheskey and the other officers who were at the scene were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is regular practice in law enforcement in such cases.

None of them have been charged.

Blake, who had an outstanding arrest warrant when he was shot, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges accusing him of sexually assaulting a woman in May and waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

Blake appeared remotely via video conference from his Milwaukee hospital bed, wearing a dress shirt and tie.

He spoke only to respond to the judge’s questions.

The state Justice Department has said a knife was recovered from Blake’s vehicle, but it has not said whether he was holding it when officers tried to arrest him.

The man who made the widely seen cellphone video of the shooting, 22-year-old Raysean White, said he saw Blake scuffling with three officers and heard them yell, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” before gunfire erupted.

He said he didn’t see a knife in Blake’s hands.

The Kenosha police union said Blake had the knife and refused orders to drop it.

Blake fought with police, including putting one officer in a headlock, the union said.

Police twice used a Taser, which did not stop Blake.

Obama-Appointed Judge Orders State Department to Grant Diversity Visas

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Obama-Appointed Judge Orders State Department to Grant Diversity Visas

(Headline USA) A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to resume issuing diversity visas for immigrants from underrepresented countries.

The ruling partially reverses a pandemic-related freeze on a wide range of immigrant and temporary visas.

The U.S. issues up to 55,000 visas a year to people from countries with low representation in the U.S., many in Africa. They are chosen from millions of applicants by lottery.

Winners who aren’t vetted for green cards at U.S. consulates lose their spots if they don’t have their visas in hand by Sept. 30 of the year they were chosen.

The State Department had issued about 12,000 diversity visas for the 2020 lottery when President Donald Trump announced the freeze in April, leaving about 43,000 winners still waiting, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said.

“To be clear, there is no statutory requirement that every available diversity visa be issued each year, ” Mehta wrote in an 85-page ruling Friday in Washington. “But that does not mean that the State Department could effectively extinguish the diversity program for a given year by simply sitting on its hands and letting all pending diversity visa applications time out.”

Mehta, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, denied requests to take similar action on other visa categories subject to bans, including many family members, H-1B visas for high-tech workers and H-2B visas for seasonal workers.

Trump has long sought to scrap the diversity visa lottery, saying it brings “the worst of the worst.” While Mehta justified his order on grounds that delays were unreasonable, he made clear that he disagreed with Trump’s characterizations.

“Diversity visa lottery winners are people who have come to this nation, like millions before, to seek a better life for themselves and their families, and to pursue the American Dream,” he wrote in a politicized opinion. “They do not deserve to be caricatured as common criminals, or to be used as a political wedge issue.”

Trump imposed the visa freezes through the end of this year, calling them a way to protect American jobs from economic losses wrought by the pandemic.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

The judge told the administration to “undertake good-faith efforts … to expeditiously process and adjudicate” diversity visas for 2020 but stopped short of extending the Sept. 30 deadline. He scheduled a hearing for Sept. 25 to consider additional steps.

Attorneys for visa applicants welcomed the order but expressed disappointment that other visa categories were denied.

“Diversity visa applicants can finally exhale today,” said Karen Tumlin, director of Justice Action Center “The diversity visa lottery has allowed for substantial diversification of legal immigration, especially from Africa, and we’re thankful the court is protecting that.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Democratic Virginia Senator & Other Officials Charged with Conspiracy to Destroy Statues

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Democratic Virginia Senator & Other Officials Charged with Conspiracy to Destroy Statues

(Headline USA) The police chief in Portsmouth, Virginia, is on paid leave nearly three weeks after her department charged a state senator and several others with conspiring to damage a Confederate monument.

City spokeswoman Dana Woodson confirmed in an email on Friday that Chief Angela Greene is on leave and that an assistant police chief will assume her duties in the meantime.

The city declined to comment further. No one answered the telephone Friday at a number listed for Greene.

Allies of State Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Richmond, have called the felony charges against her legally weak and political. The case is based on words that police say Lucas spoke in the hours before vandals ripped heads off Confederate statues and pulled one down, critically injuring a demonstrator.

Some legal observers say that Lucas’ alleged statements are protected speech.

The charges were filed without the cooperation of the local prosecutor’s office. And they were issued the day before state lawmakers met to work on police reforms, including ones that Lucas — a high ranking-Democrat — has championed.

Lucas and several others face counts of conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument in excess of $1,000. Other people who were charged included a school board member as well as members of the local NAACP chapter and public defender’s office.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Utah Police Fume After Salt Lake Tribune Likens Cops to KKK in Cartoon

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Utah Police Fume After Salt Lake Tribune Likens Cops to KKK in Cartoon

(Headline USA) After months of riots around the nation for the sake of sparking a Marxist revolution, police groups in Utah say they have grown impatient with rhetoric they describe as unfair.

They called on the Salt Lake Tribune to apologize after it published an editorial cartoon linking the Ku Klux Klan with law enforcement.

Police supporters staged a protest outside the Tribune‘s printing press Thursday night after the Utah Sheriffs’ Association, and Republican U.S. Rep Chris Stewart demanded that the paper retract the cartoon and apologize.

Several police groups, including the state’s Department of Public Safety, have condemned the use of KKK imagery to portray law enforcement officials.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Jess Anderson said he found the cartoon extremely offensive and decided to speak out because it unfairly grouped local officers with the corporate media’s narrative about racism in policing.

He said there are areas in which local police departments can improve, but he is confident that in Utah “policing as a whole is good.”

“It was time as our silent voices have really been just in a listening mode of what all the concerns are now to say you know what enough was enough and you’ve crossed the line,” Anderson said Friday. “That’s completely inappropriate, completely inappropriate and uncalled for.”

The cartoon titled “The Deep Hate” shows a police officer and a doctor looking at an X-ray that shows a figure in a white Ku Klux Klan hood where the officer’s spine should be. The Salt Lake City paper does not plan to apologize, and the cartoon is still online.

“The cop in the cartoon is in for a check up because he felt something was wrong,” cartoonist Pat Bagley wrote on Twitter. “White supremacists have made it a point to infiltrate law enforcement. That’s a fact. That’s a problem.”

Bagley said the cartoon was never meant to imply that all police officers are racist.

Several police officials signed a letter saying the cartoon would only further divide people as officials are working to better serve people of color in their communities.

“The broad stroke used to widely disparage the law enforcement profession is disheartening, irresponsible, and does nothing to bring us together for the common good,” the letter said.

Utah’s largest police union voiced similar complaints this week, saying that some teachers have been making “disparaging comments” about officers and wearing Black Lives Matter shirts in the classroom.

In a letter addressed to the state superintendent, the Utah Fraternal Order of Police suggested that teachers are assigning books that portray police “evil, or unnecessarily violent toward persons of color” and giving speaking assignments “full of anti-police sentiment.”

“If teachers want to protest police, then it needs to be on their own time,” the union wrote. “The classroom is NOT the place for political indoctrination or social engineering based upon the political leanings of the teacher.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

Thomas Massie Praises Kyle Rittenhouse’s ‘Incredible Restraint’

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Thomas Massie Praises Kyle Rittenhouse’s ‘Incredible Restraint’

(Headline USA) A Kentucky congressman said a teenager charged with homicide during the riots in Wisconsin showed “incredible restraint” and acted in self-defense.

Rep. Thomas Massie also told a radio interviewer on Thursday that if he were on the jury, he would vote to acquit the teenager if the evidence was based on video he had seen of the melee.

Massie, a Republican, defended the Illinois teen, Kyle Rittenhouse.

Massie’s Democratic challenger in the November election, Alexandra Owensby, accused the congressman of continuing to “throw fuel on the fire.”

“When people are being killed in the streets, a representative should never praise the killer,” Owensby said in a statement. “I shouldn’t even have to say this.”

Rittenhouse has said he went to the Kenosha protests to protect businesses and people.

“What does it say about our country where this lawlessness is going on to the extent that a 17-year-old feels compelled to stop it?” Massie said during the interview this week with WVHU in West Virginia. “To be the one to turn the tide. I think it says a lot for the 17-year-old.”

On Aug. 25, Rittenhouse fatally shot two rioters who attacked him and had a weapon drawn on him, authorities said. One other person was also shot.

Rittenhouse, who is white, faces several charges, including first-degree intentional homicide. His attorney says it was self-defense.

Massie referred to video he had seen as the “strongest thing” in support of the teen, saying Rittenhouse was “fulfilling his obligation to retreat” from people chasing and attacking him.

The congressman said that Rittenhouse had “exhibited incredible restraint and presence and situational awareness. He didn’t empty a magazine into a crowd.”

In March, Massie was in the national spotlight when he attempted to force a roll call vote on a massive coronavirus aid package. While his effort failed, Massie’s action forced hundreds of lawmakers to return to the Capitol.

North Carolina Court Rules Criminal Fines Cannot Prevent Felons from Voting

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North Carolina Court Rules Criminal Fines Cannot Prevent Felons from Voting

(Headline USA) A North Carolina court ruled Friday that outstanding restitution, fees or other court-imposed monetary obligations can’t prevent convicted felons from voting if they’ve completed all other portions of their sentence.

The ruling, which may face appeals, could pave the way for an influx of thousands of felons to have their voting rights restored amid hotly contested races for the presidency and U.S. Senate in the battleground state.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many were affected by the ruling, but lawyers for the plaintiffs said it was in the thousands. A statement issued by Forward Justice, one of the advocacy groups involved in the challenge, said that the ruling would allow some convicted felons to start registering to vote immediately.

“This ruling is a major victory for the thousands of North Carolinians who have been denied access to the ballot due to an inability to pay financial obligations,” said Dennis Gaddy, executive director of Community Success Initiative, one of the organizations behind the legal challenge.

Asked whether the state government defendants would appeal, Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general’s office, said lawyers were reviewing the ruling.

The three-judge panel of Wake County Superior Court, which was considering a challenge to state law governing the restoration of voting rights, declined to settle the lawsuit’s arguments that probation, parole and post-release supervision are also unfair impediments to voting for those who have completed their incarceration.

The judges said further proceedings were needed to address those issues.

In North Carolina, felons can register to vote again once they complete all aspects of their sentence, which can range from prison time to court fees or restitution.

In a 2-1 decision, the judges ruled that a portion of state law requiring felons to pay all monetary obligations before voting again violates the state constitution because it conditions the ability to cast a ballot on one’s financial means.

In the majority opinion, the judges note that the state constitution requires that one’s property, or financial means, must not affect their ability to vote.

Yet, under current state law, “the ability for a person convicted of a felony to vote is conditioned on whether that person possesses, at minimum, a monetary amount equal to any fees, fines and debts assessed as a result of that person’s felony conviction,” the judges wrote in the opinion.

Therefore, they ruled that the provision of state law regarding the payment of financial obligations violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution.

A separate preliminary injunction issued Friday bars the state from stopping felons from registering to vote if the only remaining portion of their sentence is satisfying a monetary obligation.

An attorney for the plaintiffs has previously told the judges that an estimated 56,000 felons who completed their incarceration still couldn’t vote because of other unfinished aspects of their sentence. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of those were prevented from voting solely because of monetary obligations and would benefit from Friday’s ruling.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

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