Right-wing voices are dominating Facebook after the first presidential debate

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Nearly every top post is from a pro-Trump commentator, a major shift even from 2016.

Conservative media outlets heavily used Facebook to connect with voters in 2016, helping propel Donald Trump to the presidency. Since then, the right’s command of the platform has only intensified.

Right-wing voices made up nine of the 10 top-performing posts on Facebook since the presidential debate Tuesday. Many Americans who primarily get news from Facebook are living in a media ecosystem where the winner of the debate is clear: President Trump crushed Joe Biden. Continue reading.

Phillips Calls on Congress to Denounce QAnon Conspiracy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips took to the floor of the House of Representatives to call on his colleagues to disavow dangerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like QAnon that are weaponizing the political process.

WATCH: Dean Phillips speaks on the House floor

Remarks as prepared:

Thank you Mr/Madam Speaker,

“I rise today to urge a unanimous YES vote on Mr. Malinowski’s resolution.  EVERY ONE OF US here swore the same oath to defend our nation from enemies both foreign and domestic – and QAnon is a dangerous enemy lurking within our borders that must be forcefully and unanimously condemned.

Continue reading “Phillips Calls on Congress to Denounce QAnon Conspiracy”

U.S. Agency for Global Media unrecognizable under Trump ally

Michael Pack, the new head of the agency that is home to Voice of America, has dismayed members of Congress from both parties

It was, in essence, an oversight hearing of a relatively small government agency, but what it amounted to was yet another indictment of a bureau taken over by a Trump ally and made unrecognizable to the members of Congress — from both parties — who fund and monitor it.

Democrats and Republicans joined in expressing anger and dismay at what has happened to the U.S. Agency for Global Media since a supporter of President Donald Trump was confirmed as its director in early June.

The agency, with an annual budget just under $1 billion and a staff of 4,000 employees and 1,500 stringer reporters, is home to the U.S. government’s international broadcasting operations, including the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which have long been respected as trustworthy sources of information for people in authoritarian countries whose news is censored, restricted and blocked. Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement on Donald and Melania Trump Contracting COVID-19

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement on President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump contracting COVID-19:

“All of us at the Minnesota DFL Party wish the President and First Lady a swift and full recovery from COVID-19. We are praying for their health and the well-being of those they have come into contact with in the past few days.

“This troubling news underscores the ongoing threat posed to us all by the coronavirus pandemic. We must remain vigilant, follow the CDC guidelines, and abide by Minnesota’s mask order to limit the spread of this virus and protect our health and that of our friends, families, and communities.”

As Kim wooed Trump with ‘love letters,’ he kept building his nuclear capability, intelligence shows

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In a secret letter to President Trump in December 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un likened the two leaders’ budding friendship to a Hollywood romance. Future meetings with “Your Excellency,” Kim wrote to Trump, would be “reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.”

Yet even as he penned the words, Kim was busy creating an illusion of a different kind. At six of the country’s missile bases, trucks hauled rock from underground construction sites as workers dug a maze of new tunnels and bunkers, allowing North Korea to move weapons around like peas in a shell game. Southeast of the capital, meanwhile, new buildings sprouted across an industrial complex that was processing uranium for as many as 15 new bombs, according to current and former U.S. and South Korean officials, as well as a report by a United Nations panel of experts.

The new work reflects a continuation of a pattern observed by analysts since the first summit between Trump and Kim in 2018. While North Korea has refrained from carrying out provocative tests of its most advanced weapon systems, it never stopped working on them, U.S. intelligence officials said. Indeed, new evidence suggests that Kim took advantage of the lull by improving his ability to hide his most powerful weapons and shield them from future attacks. Continue reading.

Dean Phillips Votes ‘No’ to $2.2 Trillion COVID Package: Calls for Bipartisan Compromise

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On October 1, 2020, Rep. Dean Phillips voted against “HEROES 2.0,” the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill offered by Nancy Pelosi and House leadership, joining 17 other Democrats, 189 Republicans and one Independent as the bill passed the House 214 to 207. Phillips released the following statement:

“Having co-led the Problem Solvers Caucus working group that developed the March to Common Ground bipartisan COVID relief framework, my commitment to achieving a solution for Americans remains steadfast. 

In light of divided government, legislation must be designed to pass not just the House, but also the Senate, and be signed into law by the President. And, despite my belief in and support of the content of HEROES 2.0, it was not that bill.

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Trump Renews Fears of Voter Intimidation as G.O.P. Poll Watchers Mobilize

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Republicans are putting together what they call an army of Trump supporters to monitor election procedures.

The group of Trump campaign officials came carrying cellphone cameras and a determination to help the president’s re-election efforts in Philadelphia. But they were asked to leave the city’s newly opened satellite election offices on Tuesday after being told local election laws did not permit them to monitor voters coming to request and complete absentee ballots.

On social media and right-wing news sites and in the presidential debate on Tuesday night, President Trump and his campaign quickly suggested nefarious intent in the actions of local election officials, with the president claiming during the debate that “bad things happen in Philadelphia” and urging his supporters everywhere to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”

The baseless descriptions of the voting process in Philadelphia were the latest broad-brush attempt by the Trump campaign to undermine confidence in this year’s election, a message delivered with an ominous edge at the debate when he advised an extremist group, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by” in his remarks about the election. Continue reading.

Belligerent Trump debate performance stokes fears among Republicans about November

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The aftermath of the first presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden triggered a reckoning among Republicans on Wednesday about the incumbent’s incendiary remarks on white supremacy and his baseless claims of electoral fraud, with GOP officials privately expressing alarm about the fallout with key voters as the president’s allies argued that he electrified his core supporters.

Biden, who launched a train tour through the battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania, continued to pitch himself as a champion of working-class voters and saw Democrats rally around what they view as Trump’s threat to American democracy.

But few Republicans voiced outrage in the wake of Trump’s norm-shattering spectacle in Cleveland on Tuesday, including his statement that the extremist Proud Boys, a male-only far-right group known for street violence, should “stand back and stand by.” Responses ranged from silence to muted criticism, reflecting how the GOP remains convinced that an alliance with Trump and his voters is crucial for its survival. Continue reading.

Tuesday’s Debate Made Clear the Gravest Threat to the Election: The President Himself

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President Trump’s unwillingness to say he would abide by the result and his disinformation campaign about election fraud went beyond anything President Vladimir V. Putin could have imagined.

President Trump’s angry insistence in the last minutes of Tuesday’s debate that there was no way the presidential election could be conducted without fraud amounted to an extraordinary declaration by a sitting American president that he would try to throw any outcome into the courts, Congress or the streets if he was not re-elected.

His comments came after four years of debate about the possibility of foreign interference in the 2020 election and how to counter such disruptions. But they were a stark reminder that the most direct threat to the electoral process now comes from the president of the United States himself.

Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to say he would abide by the result, and his disinformation campaign about the integrity of the American electoral system, went beyond anything President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could have imagined. All Mr. Putin has to do now is amplify the president’s message, which he has already begun to do. Continue reading.

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the “head” of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands.

Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett has not commented publicly about her own or her family’s involvement, and a People of Praise spokesman declined to say whether she and her husband are current members.

But Barrett, 48, grew up in New Orleans in a family deeply connected to the organization and as recently as 2017 she served as a trustee at the People of Praise-affiliated Trinity Schools Inc., according to the nonprofit organization’s tax records and other documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Only members of the group serve on the schools’ board, according to the system’s president. Continue reading.