Oregon governor criticizes Trump for sending federal officers to Portland

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/507841-oregon-governor-criticizes-trump-sending-federal-officers-to

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) lashed out at President Trump and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf amid reports of federal officers detaining protesters in Portland, Ore.

“This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety. The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government,” Brown tweeted Thursday after Wolf defended sending the forces, claiming that the city of Portland has been "under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob."

Rep. Bonamici on Portland Arrests: ‘The President Is Acting Like A Dictator’ | MSNBC

Mary Trump 'Blown Away' By NYT Report Exposing Family Tax Schemes | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

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Anonymous security forcing citizens into cars is mark of dictatorship

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/opinions/portland-anonymous-security-forces-mark-of-dictatorship-ghitis/index.html

 In recent days, federal security forces have taken to the streets of Portland, clad in camouflage gear suitable for a war zone, and handling anti-racism protesters with tactics reminiscent of dictatorships.

How does coronavirus affect kids? Science has answers and gaps

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/07/17/breaking-news/how-does-coronavirus-affect-kids-science-has-answers-and-gaps/

“There are still a lot of unanswered questions. That is the biggest challenge,” said Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, a pediatrics professor at the University of Florida and former scientist at the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump Falsely Claims Biden Wants to Defund Police in Fox News Interview

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-biden-fox-news-defund-police-1518828

 During an hour-long interview due to air on Sunday, the president was quickly rebuffed by the interviewer.

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/17/fox-news-chris-wallace-fact-checks-trump-bidens-stance-police/5461970002/
 Fox News host Chris Wallace fact-checked President Donald Trump's inaccurate claim during an interview that former Vice President Joe Biden is in favor of defunding the police, leading to a testy reaction.

In a clip released between the "FOX News Sunday” anchor and Trump – the entire interview will air Sunday – the president blamed  "stupidly run" Democratic local governments for the increase in violence in some cities and implied the increase was the fault of the defund the police movement. 

'You can't do that': Fox News host Wallace confronts DeVos on threat to redirect funds from schools

"It’s gotten totally out of control and it’s really because they want to defund the police, and Biden wants to defund the police," Trump said in the clip about the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Portland mayor demands Trump keep federal agents 'in your own buildings, or have them leave our city'

https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-mayor-demands-trump-keep-federal-agents-in-your-own-buildings-or-have-them-leave-our-city

 

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is demanding that President Trump remove federal agents deployed to the city amid criticisms of a heavy-handed response against protesters and journalists and reports that militarized law enforcement personnel have refused to identify themselves.

“Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Wheeler said at a news conference Friday. "This is part of the core media strategy out of Trump’s White House: to use federal troops to bolster his sagging polling data. And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”

His remarks came on the same day the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Marshals Service for allegedly violating the rights of journalists and legal observers. The suit adds the federal agencies to an existing complaint to halt crowd control measures and the use of tear gas, rubber bullets against the media and legal observers during protests.

Trump and Pence attempt a campaign reset as public trust falters

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/politics/us-election-donald-trump-joe-biden-coronavirus/index.html

President Donald Trump attempted to right his faltering reelection campaign this week, looking to stem the steady decline of his poll numbers and shore up eroding support within his key voting bloc -- non-college-educated White voters -- by redefining his fight against Joe Biden and shaking up his campaign team after a series of stumbles.

Trump spent little time trying to lead America out of its coronavirus crisis this week, which was bookended by an erratic Rose Garden press conference Tuesday and a sharply worded campaign speech by Vice President Mike Pence in Wisconsin Friday afternoon. Clearly losing the battle on messaging, the President and his team sought to reframe the 2020 election as a choice between their agenda of "freedom and opportunity" and what Pence claimed is Biden's vision of an America under "growing control of the state" -- a future he said would lead to "socialism and decline."

Their aim -- in keeping with the President's relentless push to reopen the US economy regardless of the human cost -- is to get Americans to focus on anything other than the raging virus while distracting from the administration's flawed effort to control it earlier this year, a diversionary tactic that has not worked so far.

 

McCarthy warns if GOP doesn't win in November, Democrats 'will change the rules of the game'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/kevin-mccarthy-2020-election-dems-change-rules

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told "Hannity" Thursday that it is crucial for Republicans to win big the fall because otherwise, as he put it, "I don't know if we'll ever have an opportunity to win it again."

"They will change the rules of the game," McCarthy told host Sean Hannity. "How we vote, they will change -- you know in California, they allow people who are not even citizens to vote in school board races. You know, in California, they lowered the voting age to 17. Do you know, in California, that you could turn your ballot in 17 days after the election?

 We want to focus on bringing this country back," the top House Republican went on. "Rebuilding it, restoring it, and renewing it, and that means and law and order and justice."

In that vein, McCarthy said he would introduce legislation that would strip federal funding from states and cities whose leaders do not enforce laws against vandalism of public property.

"This is to protect American statues because what we want to do is tell the history," he said. "When you watch [San Francisco's] St. [Junipero] Serra [statue] get torn down or you watch Ulysses S. Grant's [statue vandalized], you watch Christopher Columbus, you watch Frederick Douglass, this is a real challenge because we have local officials who have a responsibility for the rule of law.

‘The Prodfather’: Orthodox rabbi with unorthodox criminal solutions

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s false security on kids and COVID-19

https://apnews.com/573acbe835b0025551ff90c1a1e2b6e8

 President Donald Trump may be giving parents a false sense of security when it comes to kids and COVID-19.

In remarks Monday, Trump expressed a desire to have K-12 schools reopen in the fall in “full blast” while minimizing the risk that children and adults who are around them may face from the coronavirus.

TRUMP, on children: “They’ve come out of this at a level that’s really inconceivable. By the way, the regular flu, other flus, other things, SARS or H1N1, any of them, if you look at the young people they were affected like everybody else, but for whatever reason with respect to COVID, the numbers are very, very low.”

 

THE FACTS: Although it’s true that children are less likely than adults to develop COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has nevertheless counted more than 86,000 infections by the virus in Americans younger than 18.

Fact check: Trump makes at least 19 false or misleading claims in wild anti-Biden monologue

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/14/politics/fact-check-trump-biden-speech-rose-garden/index.html

President Donald Trump has long been fond of turning supposedly official events into de facto campaign rallies. Even by his own standards, though, his Tuesday speech was extreme.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, at what was billed as a "press conference" in which he would give remarks about China, Trump delivered a rambling 52-minute monologue filled with pre-scripted attacks on Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

As usual, Trump's comments were filled with egregious lies and other false claims. We haven't yet had a chance to comb through the entire transcript, but here is a list of the 19 false or misleading claims we have counted so far:

 

GOP to Trump: Change tune on mail-in voting or risk ugly November

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/16/politics/republican-reaction-trump-mail-in-voting/index.html

 Republican officials throughout the country are reacting with growing alarm to President Donald Trump's attacks on mail-in ballots, saying his unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud are already corroding the views of GOP voters, who may ultimately choose not to vote at all if they can't make it to the polls come November.

Behind the scenes, top Republicans are urging senior Trump campaign officials to press the President to change his messaging and embrace mail-in voting, warning that the party could lose the battle for control of Congress and the White House if he doesn't change his tune, according to multiple GOP sources. Trump officials, sources said, are fully aware of the concerns.

The impact could be detrimental to the GOP up and down the ticket, according to a bevy of Republican election officials, field operatives, pollsters and lawmakers who are watching the matter closely. Every vote will count in critical battleground states, they argue, fearful that deterring GOP voters from choosing a convenient option to cast their ballots could ultimately sway the outcome of races that are decided by a couple of percentage points.