The Trump administration is now the first U.S. administration to label a white supremacist group a terrorist organization. The move, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/terrorist-label-white-supremacy-Russian-Imperial-Movement.html">The New York Times</a> notes, &#8220;could cut against criticism that the Trump administration has played down the threat of white nationalist violence for political reasons.&#8221; The group also happens to be pro-Russia.
The State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Ambassador Nathan Sales, underscored in a statement to the Times Monday that by naming a white nationalist group a &#8220;specially designated global terrorist organization,&#8221; the Trump administration is doing something &#8220;unprecedented.&#8221;
&#8220;These designations are unprecedented,&#8221; said Sales, as reported by the Times Monday. “This is the first time the United States has ever designated white supremacists as terrorists, and this illustrates how seriously this administration takes the white supremacist terrorist threat. We are doing things no previous administration has done to counter this threat.”
&#8220;The State Department’s designation for the organization, the Russian Imperial Movement, sets up the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to block any American property or assets belonging to the group,&#8221; the Times explains. &#8220;It will also bar Americans from financial dealings with the organization and make it easier to ban its members from traveling to the United States.&#8221; Three of the group&#8217;s leaders — Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov — are being labeled individually as terrorists, officials told the Times, a designation that includes additional sanctions.
Officials told the Times that the group is not believed to be sponsored by the Russian government, but that its actions have been &#8220;tolerated&#8221; by President Vladimir V. Putin and it has &#8220;helped advance the Russian government’s external goals by recruiting Russian fighters to aid pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.&#8221; The organization has also supported neo-Nazi organizations in Scandinavia, which follows a larger Russian government strategy of &#8220;sow[ing] chaos in Western democracies,&#8221; the paper adds.
While Trump&#8217;s critics have frequently portrayed the president as &#8220;racist&#8221; and &#8220;empowering&#8221; white supremacists in his rhetoric, his administration has now taken multiple decisive and historic steps to counter the threat of white supremacism. As the Times notes, the White House added white supremacist groups to the federal government’s <a class="css-1g7m0tk" title="" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NSCT.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Strategy for Counterterrorism</a> in 2018.
In the document, the administration cites nationalist and separatists movements, including specifically neo-Nazis&#8217;, as potential global threats. Below is an excerpt from a passage describing the global threat posed by such groups:
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<blockquote>There is also a broad range of revolutionary, nation- alist, and separatist movements overseas whose use of violence and intent to destabilize societies often puts American lives at risk. For example, the Nordic Resistance Movement is a prominent transnational, self-described nationalist-socialist organization with anti-Western views that has conducted violent attacks against Muslims, left-wing groups, and others. The group has demonstrated against United States Government actions it perceives are supportive of Israel and has the potential to extend its targeting to United States interests. Similarly, the neo-Nazi National Action Group, a terrorist organization that was banned by the United Kingdom in 2016 for its promotion of violence against politicians and minorities, operates mainly in the United Kingdom but has engaged with like-minded groups in the United States, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, and Poland—expanding the potential influence of its violent ideology. Likewise, Babbar Khalsa International seeks, through violent means, to establish its own independent state in India and is responsible for significant terrorist attacks in India and elsewhere that have claimed the lives of innocent civilians. Such groups may avoid or deprioritize targeting United States interests for now to avoid detracting from their core goals but frequently conduct assassinations and bombings against major economic, politi- cal, and social targets, heightening the risk to United States personnel and interests overseas.</blockquote>
The document also describes domestic terrorists motivated forms of violent extremism not connected to radical Islam, &#8220;such as racially motivated extremism&#8221;:
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<blockquote>Lastly, the United States has long faced a persistent security threat from domestic terrorists who are not motivated by a radical Islamist ideology but are instead motivated by other forms of violent extremism, such as racially motivated extremism, animal rights extremism, environmental extremism, sovereign citizen extremism, and militia extremism.</blockquote>
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/first-european-country-announces-multi-step-plan-to-ease-coronavirus-lockdown">First European Country Announces Multi-Step Plan To Ease Coronavirus Lockdown</a>
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Donald Trump

Trump Administration First In History To Label A White Supremacist Group Terrorists

Nationalism

Racism

Terrorism

Trump Administration

White Supremacy

Canadian filmmaker Mostafa Keshvari has managed to write, shoot and edit an hour-long, “ultralow budget” coronavirus thriller that features a group of strangers stuck in an elevator with someone who has the coronavirus. 
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/movies/coronavirus-movie.html">The New York Times</a>, Keshvari conceived of the idea while reading news headlines in an elevator about xenophobia toward Chinese-Canadians. At the time he began working on the project, the filmmaker says, “nobody thought a white person could get it,” referring to the coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19. 
As president of the BC Minorities in Film &amp; TV Society, Keshvari advocates for “realistic representation of minorities in film,” and the movie “Corona” portrays a group of people from different backgrounds in a situation where their “true colors come out,” reports the news agency. 
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/27/corona-coronavirus-the-movie-is-somehow-already-here-but-are-we-ready-for-it">The Guardian</a> reports that the movie was completed by March 8, and a subsequent poster for the movie features a cast of six characters, wearing muted colors, staring down a single Asian woman in a bright yellow coat at the center of the elevator. 
A trailer for the movie posted on the same day maintains that racism and fear are the predominant themes in the film: “When unlikely neighbours are trapped in an elevator with a Coronavirus suspect, fear and racism spread among them faster than [the] virus.”
In the trailer, people inside of a crowded elevator try to shoo away the Asian woman, but then one man decides to let the woman on board. 
Once on the elevator, the woman begins to cough, and everyone else starts becoming restless, with one woman eventually beginning to openly worry that “we’re going to die in here.” Another person in the elevator, a man with a swastika tattoo on his forehead, rants about open borders and later pulls a gun on someone while proclaiming “d***it, she’s got the virus.” At another point in the trailer, a pregnant woman appears to go into labor. 
While it’s unclear how much time the cast spends in the elevator, the movie was filmed in a single take, a style that recently gained widespread attention after director Sam Mendez used a similar illusion to create the impression the film “1917” was made from a single cut. 
Since the film only appears to focus on how racism and fear manifest themselves in the elevator, there remain legitimate concerns likely outside the scope of the fictional thriller, such as how the Chinese authoritarian regime itself has handled the coronavirus outbreak — a concern that many people incorrectly assume is rooted in racism or xenophobia. 
 According to <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/30/-scene-british-reporters-say-chinese-markets-again/">The Washington Times</a>, the Communist government of China has allowed the country’s wet markets to reopen, places where cramped vendors sell live animals, including wildlife animals, for human consumption. 
The Wall Street Journal has called on China to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/abolish-asias-wet-markets-where-pandemics-breed-11580168707">permanently ban</a> wet markets, on account that they were also the source of the 2003 SARS outbreak. 
<blockquote>Chinese scientists have identified a “wet market”—where live and dead animals, including many wildlife species, are sold for consumption—as the chief suspect for the origin of the Wuhan coronavirus. The virus is closely related to the virus that caused the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which also was transmitted to humans from a wet market. China closed all markets that sell wildlife and temporarily banned the shipment and sale of wildlife throughout the country.
Beijing should make the ban permanent whether or not the Wuhan market turns out to be the source of the current outbreak, and other countries should follow its lead. There are similar markets in other cities across China and elsewhere in Asia. If these markets, and human consumption of wildlife, persist, the public will continue to face heightened risks of viral disease.</blockquote>

Elevator

Canadian Filmmaker Shoots Coronavirus Thriller About Racism

Coronavirus

movies

In the wee hours of Friday morning, the Chinese state-run media outlet Xinhua News agency tweeted an attack on President Trump, accusing him of using the term “Chinese Virus” to distract from his “lies and incompetence.”
The tweet read, “It’s a distraction tactic. Yes, it’s RACIST … but he’s doing it so people are talking about THAT instead of his LIES and INCOMPETENCE.”
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It&#39;s a distraction tactic. It&#39;s racist&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/2R1nBMbfps">pic.twitter.com/2R1nBMbfps</a>
&mdash; China Xinhua News (@XHNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/XHNews/status/1240895941256699904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Steven Crowder responded with a biting tweet that not only indicted the Chinese government but also the mainstream media in the United states, which has been incessantly harping on the supposed racism of labeling the coronavirus that originated in China the “Chinese virus.” Crowder fired back, “Ohhhhhhhhh. So THAT&#8217;S where the American media got their talking points from.”
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Ohhhhhhhhh. So THAT&#39;S where the American media got their talking points from. <a href="https://t.co/VcLZtoi4HL">https://t.co/VcLZtoi4HL</a>
&mdash; Steven Crowder (@scrowder) <a href="https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/1241019663598915585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As Crowder pointed out, the mainstream media has parroted the attack on Trump’s verbiage consistently in recent days; on Friday The Washington Post headlined an article, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">Trump Has No Qualms About Calling The Coronavirus The ‘Chinese Virus.’ That’s A Dangerous Attitude, Experts Say</a>.” The Nation titled an article, “<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/coronavirus-trump-racism/">The Media Is Helping Spread Trump’s Coronavirus Racism</a>,” which stated:
<blockquote>Faced with mounting pressure over the spread of the coronavirus and his administration’s sluggish response to the global pandemic, Donald Trump has gone running for his one true drug. That drug is “racism,” and he’s ingesting it with a chaser called “xenophobia.” Trump is now blatantly blaming the coronavirus on China. Instead of calling it by its scientific name, Covid-19, Trump is now using a geographic nickname (there’s no need to repeat it) and saying that the disease “comes from China.”</blockquote>
On Wednesday, The New York Times published an article titled, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html">Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.</a>” The Times opined, “The term has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage.”
The Times reluctantly noted, “ … a senior State Department official said on Wednesday that President Xi Jinping of China in early January repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the ‘Wuhan’ illness, and that many Chinese citizens still do.”
Also on Wednesday, CNN ran an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/18/opinions/trumps-malicious-use-of-chinese-virus-filipovic/index.html">op-ed</a> titled, “Trump&#8217;s malicious use of &#8216;Chinese virus’” in which ardent feminist Jill Filipovic vented:
<blockquote>When Donald Trump wants to rally his base and distract from his many screw-ups, he falls back on one thing: xenophobic racism. It looks like members of his administration have picked up this dirty trick … This President isn&#8217;t acting out of ignorance; he&#8217;s acting out of malice … n the midst of the crisis, we need … a whole lot less of the presidential fecklessness and Trump Team racism that puts us all at greater risk.</blockquote>
As John Daniel Davidson wrote at <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/19/the-media-are-embarrassing-themselves-over-trumps-use-of-chinese-virus/">The Federalist</a> on Thursday:
<blockquote>“Why do you keeping calling it the Chinese virus?” <a href="https://twitter.com/alx/status/1240315956192333831?s=20%27">asked</a> a seemingly indignant and bewildered Cecilia Vega of ABC News during Trump’s press briefing yesterday, citing “dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country.” Isn’t this racist? Trump’s answer was straightforward and bone-crushingly obvious: “Because it comes from China. It’s not racist at all, it comes from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want it to be accurate.”</blockquote>

Crowder

Chinese State-Run Media: Trump Using ‘China Virus’ To Distract. Steven Crowder Wrecks Them And Mainstream U.S. Media With One Tweet.

China

Media Bias

Steven Crowder

During this time of crisis, it is fortunate that Democrats and the media have remained focused on the most crucial issues. That is why, even now, as the number of infected rises and mass closures and shut downs threaten to send the economy into a tailspin, they are still enormously concerned with the words we use to describe the virus that precipitated all of this.
These valiant defenders of truth and virtue insist that we mustn&#8217;t call it the China Virus or the Chinese Virus or any variant, because this is not China&#8217;s fault. It&#8217;s very important, they say, that we absolve the totalitarian communist Chinese government of any and all blame in the small matter of the global pandemic that began in their country, under their watch.
At a press conference yesterday, a reporter <a href="https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1240317292946350081">asked</a> President Trump about his use of the &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; label, and claimed that the term is linked to &#8220;incidents of bias&#8221; against the Chinese. Trump gave an appropriately stern and dismissive response, but let&#8217;s really stop to think about this for a moment. There is a pandemic. Over 20% of Americans have had their hours cut or lost their jobs. We may be facing another Great Depression. This reporter has a chance to ask the President of the United States a question in the midst of all of this, and that&#8217;s what she wants to talk about?
She&#8217;s certainly not alone. Richard Engel of NBC launched into a <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1240328061721157632">lecture</a> on air about the terrible racism of people following the common practice of naming a virus after its place of origin. Engel explained, &#8220;This is a virus that came from the territory of China but came from bats. This is a bat virus, not a China virus. It doesn&#8217;t speak Chinese. It doesn&#8217;t target Chinese people.&#8221;
Oh, it doesn&#8217;t speak Chinese? That&#8217;s news to me. Next you&#8217;ll tell me French bread doesn&#8217;t speak French. I guess that explains why my loaves never respond to me when I try to talk to them. I always thought it&#8217;s because my accent is too thick.
<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/trump-tweets-about-coronavirus-using-term-chinese-virus-n1161161">Democrats in Congress</a> have made a significant issue out of this, too. And many breathless screeds have been written in many news publications defending China and its government against the &#8220;racism&#8221; of pointing out the simple fact that the virus came from China. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/03/17/trump-blames-china-virus-white-house-aide-makes-racist-joke-asian-reporter/">The Intercept</a> echoes the common claim that there has been &#8220;hatred&#8221; and &#8220;bias&#8221; against Chinese people. The only evidence they provide are two tweets by two different Chinese American women in media who both claim that they heard racist comments (we&#8217;ll leave aside the technicality that Chinese isn&#8217;t a race so it&#8217;s not actually possible to be racist against the Chinese).
Assuming these reports are true &#8212; which, to assume that, we&#8217;d have to beat ourselves over the head with a hammer until we forget all of the countless examples of entirely invented stories of politically convenient racism and discrimination in recent history &#8212; this would still be only two rude remarks said to a couple of women who, it seems, managed to survive the ordeal. Why are their hurt feelings a priority when many people are suffering in far worse ways at the moment?
And this is all much more sinister than simple stupidity and virtue signaling. The mainstream media and the Democratic Party are actively running cover for a communist regime that is in the middle of their own Chernobyl moment, but worse. This is a scandal on a scale rarely seen. The Chinese government &#8212; even according to CNN&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01/asia/china-coronavirus-truth-rumors-intl-hnk/index.html">own reporting</a> three weeks ago &#8212; interfered with early efforts to fight the disease by censoring doctors and health care specialists who tried to speak out. They <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-crisis-caused-by-decisions-chinese-government/">spread disinformation</a>, claiming, for instance, that the virus can&#8217;t be spread from human to human. Most incredibly of all, they ordered laboratories to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj">destroy evidence</a> of the virus when it was discovered back in December of last year.
And these are just the details we know about. If we had a real media, they&#8217;d be crawling over each other in an effort to investigate this scandal and see how deep it goes. This is, after all, one of the most extraordinary and consequential stories of our time. But our vanguards of truth, and their Democratic allies, are more interested in telling us about alleged &#8220;incidents of bias&#8221; against Asian media members in the United States.
One other point should be made here. Richard Engel is correct that the virus started in a bat. But how did it make it from the bat into a person? If there was a bat flying around my yard chock full of coronavirus, I wouldn&#8217;t have to worry much about the disease getting into my body. But that&#8217;s because I don&#8217;t eat bats, or anteaters, or donkeys, or dogs, or any of the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-19/how-did-coronavirus-start-how-long-will-it-last-google-questions/12068500">animals</a> that researchers think could have been the source of the outbreak. The media is worried about &#8220;stigmas&#8221; that might arise. Well perhaps there ought to be a stigma on eating the kinds of animals that are likely carriers of dangerous diseases. As much as it may hurt the feelings of some Chinese people to hear it, the fact is that Chinese dietary practices are also to blame. They should probably change those practices before we have to deal with yet another pandemic that starts on some Chinese person&#8217;s dinner plate.
You can bet that if a pandemic arose from gross and unhygienic behavior among white people in Alabama, the media would be happy to lecture them for their carelessness and to call the disease &#8220;the Alabama Flu&#8221; or &#8220;Redneckitis.&#8221; However you look at it, this is indeed a Chinese virus that has its origins in Chinese dietary habits and the corruption and incompetence of the Chinese government. And that&#8217;s an important point, no matter what the media says.

Chinese coronavirus

WALSH: Democrats And The Media Are Running Cover For A Communist Country To Blame For A Global Pandemic

President Trump has not backed away from his use of the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, even as his critics denounce the term as racist.
During his press conference on Wednesday morning, a reporter asked President Trump if the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; was racist, to which the president replied:  &#8220;It&#8217;s from China. It&#8217;s not racist at all, no. Not at all. It comes from China. That&#8217;s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.&#8221;
As reported by<a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-18-20-intl-hnk/h_b446ee20d5d4672864a6443c13a4616a"> CNN</a>, President Trump added that he condemns the lies that China has spread in response to COVID-19.
“I have great love for all of the people from our country, but as you know China tried to say at one point … that it was caused by American soldiers,&#8221; said the president. &#8220;That can’t happen, it’s not gonna happen, not as long as I’m president. It comes from China.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus?&quot; 
President Trump: &quot;Because it comes from China.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/HfmAtTUzny">pic.twitter.com/HfmAtTUzny</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1240315956368457734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Earlier on Wednesday morning, the president denounced the fake news and false narratives about the handling of COVID-19, asserting he always treated the &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; seriously.
&#8220;I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the &#8216;borders&#8217; from China &#8211; against the wishes of almost all,&#8221; the president tweeted. &#8220;Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful &amp; false!&#8221;
&#8220;I will be having a news conference today to discuss very important news from the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] concerning the Chinese Virus!&#8221; he later added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the “borders” from China &#8211; against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful &amp; false!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240243188708839424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As The Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-coronavirus-is-the-chinese-virus">argued</a>, the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; is not only accurate but necessary:
<blockquote>Make no mistake: The Chinese government is chiefly responsible for the explosion of this pandemic. The so-called wet markets of China — the meat markets that often include wild animals ranging from snakes to pangolins — exist for a variety of reasons, ranging from price to superstitious belief in medicinal properties of exotic animals.
Whatever the rationale, the communist Chinese government has been exceedingly tolerant of such markets, even though they have now been responsible for the spread of coronavirus, SARS, bird flu, Asian flu and swine fever.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government acted early to shut down the spread of information about the coronavirus, which paved the way for freedom of travel by carriers of the disease. When ophthalmologist Li Wenliang told fellow doctors about coronavirus in an online chat room in December, he was forced to swear by the Chinese government that he had been making “untrue statements.” He ended up dying of the disease.</blockquote>
Regarding the president&#8217;s seriousness in response to COVID-19, his critics have hit him on two fronts: delayed testing and supposedly dissolving the White House pandemic response team.
On the issue of delayed testing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dr-fauci-president-not-responsible-for-delayed-covid-19-testing-trump-biden-should-apologize">has already said</a> that neither President Trump nor the CDC were responsible for the delayed testing of COVID-19, alleging it resulted from a “technical glitch” out of the president’s control.
“It was a complicated series of multiple things that conflated that just, you know, went the wrong way. One of them was a technical glitch that slowed things down in the beginning. Nobody’s fault. There weren’t any bad guys there. It just happened,” Fauci <a href="https://www.hughhewitt.com/dr-anthony-fauci-and-senator-tom-cotton-on-coronavirus-and-day-two-of-the-great-american-shutdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Hugh Hewitt</a> on “The Hugh Hewitt” show.
“Was the glitch or anything about the production of the test President Trump’s fault?” Hewitt asked, as reported by <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/487985-fauci-neither-trump-nor-cdc-to-blame-for-testing-delay">The Hill</a>. “Or actually, let me put it more broadly, would every president have run into the same problem?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Fauci replied. “This has nothing to do with anybody’s fault, certainly not the president’s fault.”
Regarding the supposed dissolution of the White House pandemic team, Tim Morrison a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council, wrote a lengthy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/no-white-house-didnt-dissolve-its-pandemic-response-office/">piece in The Washington Post</a> debunking this argument. As it turns out, the president did not dissolve the pandemic team and only &#8220;streamlined&#8221; it:
<blockquote>It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducing-nsc-staff-places-trump-on-right-side-of">Defense Secretary Robert Gates</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/republicans-try-to-shrink-the-national-security-council/483596/">congressional oversight committees</a> and members of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_10&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_10">Obama administration</a> itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_10&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_10">reported</a> in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.</blockquote>

White House Coronavirus Task Force Holds Daily Briefing

WATCH: Reporter Asks If ‘Chinese Virus’ Is Racist. Trump Has The Perfect Response.

Media

On Tuesday morning, The New York Times reported that critics had singled out conservatives such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and  Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) for using the term &#8220;Wuhan&#8221; when describing the coronavirus that has affected various parts of the world. The Times tweeted:
<blockquote>Some conservatives, including Mike Pompeo, Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Paul Gosar, are using the term “Wuhan virus” to describe Covid-19. Critics accused the term, which goes against the recommendation of health officials, of being racist and xenophobic.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Some conservatives, including Mike Pompeo, Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Paul Gosar, are using the term “Wuhan virus” to describe Covid-19. Critics accused the term, which goes against the recommendation of health officials, of being racist and xenophobic. <a href="https://t.co/z31zlTHCaL">https://t.co/z31zlTHCaL</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1237417952955305987?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Times may have taken satisfaction in seeing prominent members of the GOP come under fire for alleged racist and xenophobic language, but it should take a look at its own house first. Check out these tweets from the paper that has boasted it featured &#8220;All the news fit to print&#8221;:
January 21: “Breaking News: The first U.S. case of the Wuhan coronavirus has been confirmed in Washington State, federal officials said. The virus has spread from China to at least 4 other countries.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Breaking News: The first U.S. case of the Wuhan coronavirus has been confirmed in Washington State, federal officials said. The virus has spread from China to at least 4 other countries. <a href="https://t.co/ahjgXTS9sM">https://t.co/ahjgXTS9sM</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1219690544936431616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 21: “Maps: Where the Wuhan coronavirus has spread.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Maps: Where the Wuhan coronavirus has spread<a href="https://t.co/vmgMbfsjgY">https://t.co/vmgMbfsjgY</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1219816978451439616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 23: “A Texas A&amp;M University student is being examined for a suspected case of the Wuhan coronavirus. Officials say they&#8217;re keeping the patient isolated at home while they do additional testing.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A Texas A&amp;M University student is being examined for a suspected case of the Wuhan coronavirus. Officials say they&#39;re keeping the patient isolated at home while they do additional testing.<a href="https://t.co/5NeFbKq4KD">https://t.co/5NeFbKq4KD</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1220481391361712129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 23: “A look at China&#8217;s battle with the Wuhan coronavirus, in photos.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A look at China&#39;s battle with the Wuhan coronavirus, in photos <a href="https://t.co/3sWfHBDnKJ">https://t.co/3sWfHBDnKJ</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1220325349575266304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 24: &#8220;The latest on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak: France has become the first country in Europe to report infections. Authorities confirmed one case in Bordeaux and another in Paris.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The latest on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak: France has become the first country in Europe to report infections. Authorities confirmed one case in Bordeaux and another in Paris. <a href="https://t.co/aGBQGOciRx">https://t.co/aGBQGOciRx</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1220795757156012032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 27: “The death toll of the Wuhan coronavirus climbed to at least 80 &#8211; Nearly 3,000 people have so far contracted the virus &#8211; China extended its Lunar New Year holiday by three more days to discourage people from traveling Latest updates here:”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&#8211; The death toll of the Wuhan coronavirus climbed to at least 80 &#8211; Nearly 3,000 people have so far contracted the virus &#8211; China extended its Lunar New Year holiday by three more days to discourage people from traveling
Latest updates here: <a href="https://t.co/oRy57fXbf8">https://t.co/oRy57fXbf8</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1221694345520152576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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January 27: “Videos circulating on Chinese social media show doctors straining to handle the enormous workload and hospital corridors loaded with patients, some of whom appear to already be dead. Here are the latest updates on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Videos circulating on Chinese social media show doctors straining to handle the enormous workload and hospital corridors loaded with patients, some of whom appear to already be dead.
Here are the latest updates on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. <a href="https://t.co/thOFNwafla">https://t.co/thOFNwafla</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1221719508882161664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
January 29: “China now has more cases of the Wuhan coronavirus than it had of SARS, but comparing the two is tricky —170 people have died. More than 7,711 cases have been confirmed. —Mask hoarders may raise the risk of an outbreak in the United States.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
—China now has more cases of the Wuhan coronavirus than it had of SARS, but comparing the two is tricky —170 people have died. More than 7,711 cases have been confirmed. —Mask hoarders may raise the risk of an outbreak in the United States
Live updates: <a href="https://t.co/LYRZ4OWir9">https://t.co/LYRZ4OWir9</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1222767316250873856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
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February 2: “The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to experts. But scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to experts. But scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is. <a href="https://t.co/u1KezmOoq2">https://t.co/u1KezmOoq2</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1224067508107386882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2020</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/10/republicans-face-backlash-racist-labeling-coronavirus-china-wuhan">The Guardian</a> reported on Tuesday in a piece titled, &#8220;Republicans face backlash over racist labeling of coronavirus,&#8221; that the Chinese government took umbrage with politicians using the term Wuhan to describe the virus:
<blockquote>China reacted furiously on Monday, with a spokesman for the foreign ministry <a class="u-underline" href="https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1753656.shtml" data-link-name="in body link">criticizing US elected officials</a>. “Despite the fact that the WHO [<a class="u-underline" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/world-health-organization" data-link-name="in body link">World Health Organization</a>] has officially named this novel type of coronavirus, certain American politician[s], disrespecting science and the WHO decision, jumped at the first chance to stigmatize China and Wuhan with it. We condemn this despicable practice,” said Geng Shuang.</blockquote>
The Guardian then issued its partisan shot: &#8220;Republicans’ attempts to associate Covid-19 overtly with China repeats a common theme of associating epidemics with certain countries, such as 1918 influenza pandemic being branded &#8216;Spanish flu.&#8217;”
No mention of The New York Times.

Oops computer keyboard close up

NY Times Notes GOP Leaders Get Accused Of Racism For Calling Coronavirus ‘Wuhan.’ Check Out These NY Times Tweets.

Mike Pompeo

New York Times

Tom Cotton

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), once of the Members of Congress currently under self-quarantine after encountering a CPAC attendee infected with coronavirus, set off a firestorm on social media late Sunday night, after referring to &#8220;coronavirus&#8221; by an earlier name for the disease, &#8220;Wuhan Virus.&#8221;
Reporters from MSNBC and representatives of various social justice organizations &#8212; dedicated leftists all &#8212; immediately jumped on Gosar, claiming that the term &#8220;Wuhan Virus&#8221; is &#8220;racist&#8221; and evidence of Gosar&#8217;s &#8220;anti-Asian bias.&#8221;
&#8220;I am announcing that I, along with 3 of my senior staff, are officially under self-quarantine after sustained contact at CPAC with a person who has since been hospitalized with the Wuhan Virus. My office will be closed for the week,&#8221; Gosar posted on Twitter Sunday.
Moments later, MSNBC&#8217;s Chris Hayes snapped back at the Congressman: &#8220;Just astoundingly gross to call it the Wuhan Virus.&#8221;
Hayes didn&#8217;t elaborate on why calling coronavirus &#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; was &#8220;astoundingly gross,&#8221; but one of his colleagues at MSNBC, David Gura, quickly filled in the blanks.
&#8220;FYI,&#8221; Gura tweeted. &#8220;Calling <a class="PrettyLink hashtag customisable" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash" rel="tag" data-query-source="hashtag_click" data-scribe="element:hashtag">#COVID19</a> the &#8216;Wuhan Virus&#8217; is racist.&#8221;
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) also got in on the action, tweeting that &#8220;Wuhan Virus&#8221; is &#8220;an example of the myopia that allowed it to spread&#8221; and that Gosar was actively contributing to misinformation about the disease.
The leftist organization Sleeping Giants even made fun of Gosar for potentially falling victim to the disease: &#8220;Hope you’re okay, but perhaps while you’re quarantined, you will realize how astoundingly xenophobic it is to call it the Wuhan Virus.&#8221;
&#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; is, of course, a reference to the city where the global outbreak finds its source and where most of the infected remain: Wuhan, China. Ahead of the virus making headlines in the United States, it appears many Chinese and Asian-based news organizations once referred to the virus by a similar name, &#8220;Wuhan pneumonia.&#8221;
There are a handful of instances where American news outlets have used &#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; to refer to the coronavirus. Most of those came back in January and early February, when the disease was new to American media. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/09/asia/wuhan-citizen-journalist-intl-hnk/index.html">CNN referred to</a> &#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; in January, and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-the-wuhan-virus-11579716128">The Wall Street Journal,</a> which has since changed its headline, appears to have referred to coronavirus as &#8220;Wuhan virus&#8221; around the same time. The original title for the WSJ piece appears in the site&#8217;s URL.
In early February, when coronavirus began to take root in the United States, organizations and news outlets started to refer to the disease as &#8220;coronavirus&#8221; or, more specifically (and accurately) as COVID-19. The Asian American Journalists Association also submitted guidelines for reporting on coronavirus to most major news organizations at that time, cautioning against the use of the term &#8220;Wuhan virus,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rep-paul-gosar-s-use-wuhan-virus-sparks-anger-debate-n1153021">according to NBC News</a>.
Gosar defended himself against allegations of racism, noting that he&#8217;d simply referred to the disease by its city of origin. It&#8217;s &#8220;just astoundingly ignorant to have all major media refer to it as #WuhanVirus for months but somehow, today, you’ve decided that’s #racist,&#8221; he tweeted in a follow up to his original note.
&#8220;Ignore the snowflake Leftists who think everything is racist. It&#8217;s a virus. It doesn&#8217;t care about your race,&#8221; he added.
Plenty of Twitter users rushed to Gosar&#8217;s defense, too.
&#8220;The virus that&#8217;ll kill us all is stupidity,&#8221; tweeted Neontaster.

Paul Gosar

Leftists Erupt Over Use Of The Term ‘Wuhan Virus,’ Claim Disease Name Is ‘Racist,’ Exposes ‘Anti-Asian Bias’

CPAC

Filmmaker Spike Lee, a frequent and devout critic of President Trump, compared the president’s black supporters to house slaves, essentially calling them Uncle Toms.
In an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NWfxuHQuT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">Instagram post</a> earlier this week, the &#8220;Do the Right Thing&#8221; director shared a photo of several of Trump&#8217;s supporters in the black community, including YouTube stars Diamond &amp; Silk, praying over him in the Oval Office.
Employing deeply racist language recalling that of a submissive southern house slave, Spike Lee wrote, &#8220;Massa, We Love You, Massa. We Gonna Pray Fo’ You Massa. Singing- &#8216;Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.'&#8221;
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</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NWfxuHQuT/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">&#34;Massa, We Love You Massa. We Gonna Pray Fo&#39; You Massa&#34;. Singing- &#34;Swing Low,Sweet Chariot&#34;.</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/officialspikelee/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Spike Lee</a> (@officialspikelee) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-03-01T22:57:59+00:00">Mar 1, 2020 at 2:57pm PST</time>
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Reactions to Spike Lee&#8217;s post were mixed, with some celebrating it and others condemning it.
&#8220;Lee loses his mind anytime another black person wanders off the plantation,&#8221; commented one internet user.
&#8220;Let people be. If they want to pray over him, let them,&#8221; said another user. &#8220;The bible even says to pray for your leaders. Some may pray for him to be removed, some may pray for God to save his soul, some may pray for God to save every person in the White House. People need Jesus that is the truth. My allegiance is to Jesus, not man. I can care less about Trump.&#8221;
&#8220;When will we ever learn that tap dancing for massa has no value or brings nothing to our community,&#8221; said another. &#8220;This picture is appalling in more ways than one. We need to unite on the front of getting this clown out of office. Simple and plain!&#8221;
Spike Lee&#8217;s post came during the same week in which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/on-air-tantrum-spike-lee-goes-on-espn-to-complain-he-cant-use-employee-entrance-is-being-harassed-knicks-rip-him-apart-in-statement">he had a public meltdown</a> for not being allowed to enter the employee entrance at Madison Square Garden in New York City with his VIP Access pass, prompting a public rebuke from the New York Knicks.
“The idea that Spike Lee is a victim because we have repeatedly asked him to not use our employee entrance and instead use a dedicated VIP entrance — which is used by every other celebrity who enters The Garden — is laughable,” the Knicks said in a statement. “It’s disappointing that Spike would create this false controversy to perpetuate drama. He is welcome to come to The Garden anytime via the VIP or general entrance; just not through our employee entrance, which is what he and Jim agreed to last night when they shook hands.”
Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-spike-lee-tells-al-sharpton-senators-will-burn-in-hell-for-acquitting-trump">Spike Lee said</a> that Republican Senators who helped to acquit President Trump during the impeachment trial will &#8220;burn in hell&#8221; if they swore on the Holy Bible.
“I wouldn’t want to be standing [next] to none of those guys because they’re gonna be struck by lightning,” Lee said.  “History will say they were on the wrong side of history. The wrong side, the wrong side. So everybody — here’s the thing. I’m not speaking for anybody but myself. This is me speaking, everybody. Whoever comes out of the Democratic convention I’m voting for, because we cannot have another four years of Agent Orange.”
Prior to that, Lee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/im-snakebit-sore-loser-spike-lee-furious-green-paul-bois">used his Oscar acceptance speech</a> after winning an award for screenwriting last year as a call to oust President Trump from office.
“The 2020 presidential election is around the corner,” said Lee. “Let’s all mobilize, let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing!”
President Trump ripped Lee on Twitter for his “racist hit,” mocking the director for being barely able to read his notes.
“Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes, or better yet not have to use notes at all, when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres!” he wrote.

SpikeTrump

‘We Love You, Massa’: Spike Lee Likens Trump Supporters To Uncle Toms

Hollywood

Spike Lee

Parishioners at a black church in Selma, Alabama, stood and turned their backs on former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as he spoke on Sunday morning, the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”
Video from the Brown Chapel AME Church, a historic black church, showed a group of people standing with their backs turned to Bloomberg as delivered remarks.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Members of a congregation turned their backs to Mike Bloomberg as he spoke at a church in Selma, AL. <a href="https://t.co/wuSP1mVjJR">pic.twitter.com/wuSP1mVjJR</a>
&mdash; The Hill (@thehill) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1234194807657988098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Images soon popped up across social media. &#8220;During @MikeBloomberg’s remarks at Brown AME Church on this 55th Anniversary Bridge Crossing Jubilee, several parishioners stood up and turned their backs to Bloomberg in a silent protest,&#8221; one Twitter user wrote.
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During <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MikeBloomberg</a>’s remarks at Brown AME Church on this 55th Anniversary Bridge Crossing Jubilee, several parishioners stood up and turned their backs to Bloomberg in a silent protest. Photo via <a href="https://twitter.com/BenPu_nbc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BenPu_nbc</a>’s feed <a href="https://t.co/ZkaeHJi445">pic.twitter.com/ZkaeHJi445</a>
&mdash; Maura Barrett (@MauraBarrettNBC) <a href="https://twitter.com/MauraBarrettNBC/status/1234173517664485376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Bloomberg then faced—from my vantage point—10 protestors who turned their back at him as he spoke. He seemed unmoved while and after it happened,&#8221; wrote another.
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Bloomberg then faced—from my vantage point—10 protestors who turned their back at him as he spoke. He seemed unmoved while and after it happened. <a href="https://t.co/2OaA5KqKfo">pic.twitter.com/2OaA5KqKfo</a>
&mdash; Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/MariannaNBCNews/status/1234191827391021056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Bloomberg was visiting the church on the 55th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when state troopers attacked black civil rights activists as they marched over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
The <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-mike-bloomberg-selma-alabama-protest-stop-frisk-20200301-jqxho72vknh5ffby4tqiit62rq-story.html">New</a> <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-mike-bloomberg-selma-alabama-protest-stop-frisk-20200301-jqxho72vknh5ffby4tqiit62rq-story.html">York</a><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-mike-bloomberg-selma-alabama-protest-stop-frisk-20200301-jqxho72vknh5ffby4tqiit62rq-story.html"> Daily</a><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-mike-bloomberg-selma-alabama-protest-stop-frisk-20200301-jqxho72vknh5ffby4tqiit62rq-story.html"> News</a> said that while protesters &#8220;didn’t utter a word, the signal they sent was loud and clear: They don’t want the ex-mayor who once championed stop-and-frisk for president.&#8221;
“I have tried to listen and I have tried to learn,” Bloomberg told the congregation. “I certainly gave people the opportunity to change my mind.”
In other remarks, Bloomberg cited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saying he &#8220;understood that the right to vote was only the first step in the march to true equality because true equality means that wealth in this country should have no relation to race or ethnicity. That’s what my Greenwood Initiative is all about.
“You may know about Greenwood, in Tulsa, Okla., but until a year ago, like so many other Americans, I did not. Greenwood was a thriving and prosperous black neighborhood until a white mob attacked and destroyed it back in 1921. More than 200 African Americans were killed. It was one of the worst tragedies in American history,” Bloomberg said. “But sadly, it was just another instance of black families being systematically robbed and exploited, something that didn’t end with slavery but continued with Jim Crow and redlining.”
Shortly after Bloomberg entered the race, he stopped at a black megachurch in Brooklyn and apologized for his stop and frisk policy.
“I now see that we could and should have acted sooner, and acted faster, to cut the stops,” he said. &#8220;I wish we had and I’m sorry that we didn’t, but I can’t change history. However, today I want you to know that I realized back then that I was wrong and I’m sorry.”
Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, also gave a speech on Sunday in Selma, saying &#8220;Fifty-five years ago, a few of our children attempted to march &#8230; across this bridge.
&#8220;We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here. We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before,&#8217; said Lewis, 80, who was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to give up. I&#8217;m not going to give in. We&#8217;re going to continue to fight. We need your prayers now more than ever before. We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America,&#8221; Lewis added.

AIPAC Holds Its 2020 Policy Conference

In Black Selma Church, Parishioners Turn Backs On Bloomberg

Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1252046/download">an amicus brief</a> in support of an organization suing Harvard and alleging their raced-based admissions process violates federal civil rights law and Supreme Court precedent.
The DOJ released <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-amicus-brief-explaining-harvard-s-race-based-admissions-process">a statement</a> announcing its amicus brief, saying Harvard accepts federal money and must adhere to civil rights laws.
“Race discrimination hurts people and is never benign,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division. “Unconstitutionally partitioning Americans into racial and ethnic blocs harms all involved by fostering stereotypes, bitterness, and division among the American people. The Department of Justice will continue to fight against illegal race discrimination.”
At issue is the accusation from Students for Fair Admissions, an education organization representing students and parents, that Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants during the application process. SFA has sued Harvard, and a district judge has denied Harvard’s attempts to get the lawsuit dismissed.
“Although the Supreme Court has held that colleges receiving federal funds may consider applicants’ race in certain limited circumstances, the district court’s factual findings demonstrated that Harvard’s use of race is anything but limited. The district court concluded that ‘more than one third of the admitted Hispanics and more than half of the admitted African Americans, would most likely not be admitted in the absence of Harvard’s race-conscious admissions process,’” the DOJ statement said. “And these race-based bonuses come at a significant cost to Asian-American applicants, who collectively suffer a substantial penalty under Harvard’s race-based admissions regime. Nevertheless, the district court concluded that Harvard’s use of race in the admissions process did not violate federal law or Supreme Court precedent.”
“The United States’ amicus brief explains that the evidence at trial showed ‘that Harvard actively engages in racial balancing that Supreme Court precedent flatly forbids,’” the DOJ continued. “The evidence also demonstrated that Harvard’s admissions officers consistently score Asian American applicants lower on the so-called ‘personal rating.’ ‘In other words,’ the brief explains, ‘Harvard’s admissions officers tended to evaluate Asian Americans, as compared to members of other racial groups, as having less integrity, being less confident, constituting less-qualified leaders, and so on.’ ‘That disparity,’ the brief points out, ‘is undisputed, and unexplained.’ For these and other reasons, the United States urged the appellate court to reverse the district court’s judgment.”
Here’s how Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans: First, admissions officers assign a numerical rating to each applicant, from 1 to 4. The numerical ratings refer to the academic, extracurricular, athletic, and personal ratings for each applicant. As the DOJ said in its brief, “Throughout the admissions cycle, admissions leaders closely monitor the racial composition of the applicant pool and tentatively admitted students and compare them to the previous year’s racial composition.”
The kick comes from the “personal rating,” where admissions officers used race as a factor in their rating, though officers testified they didn’t use race. Statistics showed that Asian-Americans had lower personal ratings, and that if those ratings were removed, the makeup of Harvard’s incoming freshman classes would be significantly different. It was argued in court that race was indeed a factor in the “personal ratings” for incoming applicants.

Harvard Admissions scandal

DOJ: ‘Harvard’s Race-Based Admissions Process Violates Federal Civil-Rights Law’

Education

Harvard

MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson has been benched from appearing on the network after bashing Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) staffers.
According to <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/msnbc-benches-contributor-jason-johnson-who-said-bernie-sanders-staffers-are-island-of-misfit-black-girls">The Daily Beast</a>, Johnson, who serves as an editor at The Root, came under fire last week after during an appearance on Sirius XM&#8217;s &#8220;The Karen Hunter&#8221; show, where he referred to Sanders&#8217; supporters as “racist white liberals” while charging the senator with doing “nothing for intersectionality.” He reserved his harshest critique for the black women on Sanders&#8217; staff.
“I don’t care how many people from the island of misfit black girls you throw out there to defend you,” Johnson said.
Shortly thereafter, Sanders’ national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray accused Johnson of racism and sexism. “I hope we can have political disputes without engaging in open racism and sexism. This misogynoir is disappointing, but not surprising from [Jason Johnson],&#8221; she tweeted.
Though calls erupted for Jason Johnson&#8217;s firing, MSNBC ultimately sidelined him and issued no official comment on the matter.
More from The Daily Beast:
<blockquote>Johnson’s temporary sidelining included him not being involved in coverage of last weekend’s Nevada caucuses or the post-game coverage of Tuesday evening’s South Carolina debate, which aired on CBS. In an email to media outlets hyping its post-debate plans, Johnson’s name was nowhere to be found.
The punishment appears to have also cost Johnson his chance to be on-air during the network’s coverage of this past Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, which Sanders won in a landslide.
Johnson’s absence has been noticeable, as he has become a staple of MSNBC’s Democratic primary analysis roster. Prior to his benching, he made nearly 40 appearances on the network in 2020 alone.</blockquote>
Prior to his benching, Jason Johnson was regularly featured on programs like &#8220;Morning Joe,&#8221; &#8220;The Beat with Ari Melber,&#8221; and &#8220;The 11th Hour.&#8221; He was also regularly featured on panels during the Nevada primary debate. His last appearance came on February 21, just hours before his comments about Sanders&#8217; staffers.
Most recently, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/msnbc-contributor-goes-bonkers-trump-could-shut-down-voting-in-california">Johnson asserted</a> that President Trump would shut down voting in California after the president’s attorney Alan Dershowitz argued during the impeachment trial that &#8220;abuse of power&#8221; was not an impeachable offense if the president did not commit a crime.
&#8220;And when people spout nonsense, whether its Dershowitz or whether it’s Fox News, Donald Trump always listens,&#8221; said Johnson. &#8220;The scenario that he set up yesterday, by basically saying the president can do what he wants; imagine Donald Trump deciding, sometime in June, well, I heard this conspiracy theory that a whole lot of illegal immigrants voted in California. So, I’ve decided that, during the presidential election, California has to undergo extreme vetting because we can’t trust their votes. We’re going to shut down voting in a state. This is literally the kind of thing he will do now. We’re not talking hypotheticals, anymore.&#8221;
He continued, “And that’s the part that I think disturbs me; for all of these people who were worried about their elections, we’re talking about the actual country. And anything he’ll do to Joe Biden, he’ll do to a senator, he’ll do to a senator in his own party. So why people aren’t concerned, why people don’t realize that this is step one to actual autocracy. Not the theoretical one, not the one we talk about in class, but an actual president who will say, ‘This state’s votes don’t count. These people don’t have a right to vote. These people can’t come into the country.’ That is what they are allowing to happen here. And I don’t understand how anyone can not be terrified, not just angry, but literally terrified about what the future’s gonna bring.”

JJohn

MSNBC Contributor Benched After Bashing Bernie Staffers: ‘Island Of Misfit Black Girls’

Jason Johnson

MSNBC

A group of college students who threw an off-campus coronavirus-themed party are now being investigated by their university for violating the school’s student code of conduct regarding racism.
The students, who attend the State University of New York at Albany, reportedly held a simple party, video of which was posted to the Barstool Albany Instagram account. The post has since been deleted. The video allegedly showed a bucket of Corona beers in ice and someone wearing a surgical mask. The caption for the video read, “Corona virus isn’t gonna stop anyone from partying.”
That was apparently enough to offend the Asian American Alliance, a student organization at the university, who called the party insensitive and racist, ABC7 <a href="https://abc7ny.com/5953288/">reported</a>. The Alliance posted a statement on its own Instagram account claiming the coronavirus “has led to not only mass stereotyping of Asian people, but also hundreds of deaths across the world.&#8221; The Alliance requested the university take several actions to address the alleged grievances:
<blockquote>The Dean of Student Office shall investigate this illegal student group and related UAlbany students, requiring them to delete this video and to apologize on their Instagram homepage
The Office of President shall inform all UAlbany students to stop racism and disrespectful slogans in any situation, especially coronavirus hate crime[s] against Asian students and scholars based on groundless suspicion of virus hosts. Your precaution will be essential to prevent this crime from reoccurring in New York state.
International Student and Scholar Office and Student Health Services shall take necessary actions to protect Asian students’ and scholars’ physical health and mental health.</blockquote>
Further, the Alliance said that diseases “that affect non-white populations are radicalized in a way that stems from the innate xenophobia of American society” and “serves to dehumanize the affected population.”
University officials on Thursday confirmed an investigation into the party, though the location of the party and names of the students being investigated were not released.
&#8220;The theme of this party was distasteful and hurtful and is not representative of UAlbany or its nearly 18,000 students,&#8221; university officials said. &#8220;Any allegations of conduct violations will be investigated and addressed through the University&#8217;s disciplinary process.&#8221;
WGY News Radio, who first <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/20/university-at-albany-students-face-heat-for-throwing-coronavirus-themed-party/">reported</a> on the investigation, said that a banner could briefly be seen in the since-deleted video that could be construed as racist.
“It’s college, where students look for any excuse to have a party. But there is also a shot of a white sheet with the word ‘virus’ and two faces. It is so quick, that if you blink, you miss it. And we missed it the first time around, and had to pause it to see more clearly. The two faces are on either side of a biohazard symbol. One has the letter X over each eye and looks like a sick face. The other is a frown, with what looks like straight lines for eyes. Is it supposed to be an Asian person with the virus? It certainly looks like it could be,” the outlet reported.
The outlet went on to suggest that the party was insensitive to those who have died but pointed out that it is not just Asian countries who are affected. The banner, however, may give validity to the complaints.

Coronavirus-Themed College Party Being Investigated For Racism

On Tuesday, President Trump granted pardons to seven people: Former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich; Edward DeBartolo Jr., Ariel Friedler, a technology entrepreneur; Tynice Nichole Hall; former New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik; financier Michael R. Milken; Judith Negron; Crystal Munoz, and Angela Stanton-King.
Faux comedienne and Trump-hater extraordinaire Chelsea Handler took umbrage with the pardons, snapping on Twitter, “While our president exonerates criminals and releases them from jail, notice what color they all are.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
While our president exonerates criminals and releases them from jail, notice what color they all are.
&mdash; Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) <a href="https://twitter.com/chelseahandler/status/1229916885275201537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
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She didn’t reckon with Stanton-King, who fired back a two-word message obliterating Handler: “I’m BLACK.”
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I’m BLACK ☝🏽 <a href="https://t.co/eIZblVKpWM">https://t.co/eIZblVKpWM</a>
&mdash; Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) <a href="https://twitter.com/theangiestanton/status/1229960784228298752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Stanton-King was not the only grantee of Trump’s pardons who didn’t fit Handler’s narrative; Tynice Hall, Judith Negron, and Crystal Munoz didn’t either.
Democrats have been eager to stifle any good feelings toward Trump among minority communities, portraying his good will toward them as a cynical ploy. Earlier this month Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-aoc-mocks-cancer-stricken-rush-limbaugh-suggests-conspiracy-behind-trump-reaching-out-to-blacks">ranted</a>:
<blockquote>I think again Trump knows exactly what he is doing, um, he has started, Donald Trump has started giving out cash to black Americans at his rallies, um, this whole State of the Union was like a game show where he was handing out prizes and surprises and reality moments and um, and this is exactly his political agenda and this is, it’s not just for political reasons but one of the reasons why I find it so frustrating that the rights of people of color are constantly negotiated and on the chopping block in politics in general is this is one of the concerns because when suddenly the rights of immigrants are controversial or issues pertaining to black Americans are controversial, but issues facing white Americans are not controversial and they are bread and butter issues, this is what starts to happen in our political discourse.
And I think that um, we need to be very careful about this, um, because it’s extraordinarily deliberate and it’s being done with a very specific agenda, um, that this also is in line with the fact that Trump decided to make a kind of bogus criminal justice reform advertisement in the Super Bowl. He’s being very deliberate in trying to look like he’s being great for, um, the black community, for communities of color, etc.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire reported in late November that support for President Trump has been rising in the black community:
<blockquote> Two polls released in the last week have confirmed what Republicans hope and Democrats fear: support in the black community for President Trump is rising. On Monday, Rasmussen reports noted, “ICYMI: Last Friday we showed Black Likely Voter approval for @realDonaldTrump at 34%. We then found out that a recent widely quoted @EmersonPolling Registered Voters based poll showed Black Voter approval for @POTUS at 34.5%.&#8221; The Emerson Poll, released November 21, indeed showed Trump with 34.5% of black registered voter approval. <a href="https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2019/11/24/game-over-for-dems-rasmussen-emerson-numbers-on-black-voter-approval-for-trump/">RedState</a> noted, “Thirty four percent approval for President Donald Trump. And that’s not an outlier with other Rasmussen tallies, the <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2019/black_approval_for_trump_returns_to_normal_range">average has actually gone up since last year when it was in the 20s.</a>”</blockquote>
&nbsp;

US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP

Hollywood Comedienne: Trump’s Pardons Are Racist. One Woman Pardoned Obliterates That In Two Words.

Chelsea Handler

Much has been written about the problems with The New York Times’ 1619 Project, criticisms the outlet has responded to with fingers in their ears.
It follows then that the creator of the project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, would take a similar attitude toward criticism. During a question-and-answer session at the University of Virginia on Monday, Hannah-Jones demonstrated her approach to the intricacies of history by dismissing the criticism as “not legitimate” and saying nothing more. Mind you, those criticizing the project are the country’s most prominent historians.
Commentary senior writer Christine Rosen attended the event and <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/asia/china/china-for-a-day-coronavirus/">reported</a> that Hannah-Jones didn’t offer any “substantive response” to the legitimate criticism but did say she “didn’t sit down and say, ‘I’m just going to make up some s**t about the Revolution.’”
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america">reported</a>, multiple historians have taken the Times to task over its “unbalanced, one-sided account” of history that lacks context. Pulitzer Prize-winner James McPherson, author of dozens of books and articles about the Civil War, said he was “disturbed by what seemed like a very unbalanced, one-sided account, which lacked context and perspective on the complexity of slavery, which was clearly, obviously, not an exclusively American institution, but existed throughout history.”
“And slavery in the United States was only a small part of a larger world process that unfolded over many centuries. And in the United States, too, there was not only slavery but also an antislavery movement. So I thought the account, which emphasized American racism — which is obviously a major part of the history, no question about it — but it focused so narrowly on that part of the story that it left most of the history out. So I read a few of the essays and skimmed the rest, but didn’t pursue much more about it because it seemed to me that I wasn’t learning very much new. And I was a little bit unhappy with the idea that people who did not have a good knowledge of the subject would be influenced by this and would then have a biased or narrow view,” McPherson continued.
James Oakes, author of two Lincoln Prize-winning books, said there’s “been a kind of standard bourgeois-liberal way of arguing that goes all the way back to the 18th century, that whenever you are talking about some form of oppression, or whenever you yourself are oppressed, you instinctively go to the analogy of slavery.”
Brown University’s Gordon Wood, also a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, said the project was “wrong in so many ways,” and cited Hannah-Jones’ attempt to paint the American Revolution as a rebellion to keep slaves.
It is these criticisms Hannah-Jones, who is not a historian, responds with such flippant remarks, as Commentary’s Rosen noted:
<blockquote>She also claimed that “historians objected to a non-historian doing public history,” especially because she is a “black woman who presents the way I do.” This is in keeping with her general approach to her critics. After McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, criticized aspects of the project, Hannah-Jones responded, “LOL. Right, because white historians have produced truly objective history.”</blockquote>
As Rosen concluded, “This isn’t a scholarly effort to challenge and correct the historical record; it’s an identity-politics version of National Treasure, except instead of an ancient tomb of riches being revealed, it’s the hidden venality of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and anyone else who fails the 1619 Project’s moral litmus test on race.”

Creator Of NYT’s 1619 Project Shows Just How Unseriously She Takes History

American History

The United Kingdom&#8217;s National Health Service (NHS) announced Tuesday that, under new rules for the agency coming in April, medical care providers can refuse to give non-critical care to patients who are &#8220;racist,&#8221; sexist,&#8221; &#8220;homophobic,&#8221; or are otherwise insulting and aggressive towards hospital staff.
Right now, the NHS can refuse to treat anyone who are &#8220;aggressive&#8221; or &#8220;violent&#8221; out of concern for the well-being of health care workers, but the new rules, set to take effect in April of 2020, expand who the NHS can turn away &#8212; though it&#8217;s not entirely clear how the NHS would know a possible patient was &#8220;racist,&#8221; sexist,&#8221; or &#8220;homophobic,&#8221; or whether there are procedures in place to separate the truly mentally ill from the merely problematic.
Sky News reports that much of the decision may be made by front-line hospital workers: &#8220;these protections will extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.&#8221;
The UK&#8217;s Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a conservative serving under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told NHS employees that &#8220;no act of violence or abuse is minor,&#8221; in a statement made earlier this week and that &#8220;[b]eing assaulted or abused is not part of the job.&#8221;
The NHS already allows medical workers to refuse to treat patients who are aggressive or violent and, theoretically, this rule would simply extend that allowance to cover those patients who are overtly insulting to staff, perhaps indicating that they do not want treatment from a woman or someone with specific religious garb, if what ails that patient is non life-threatening.
Hancock&#8217;s statement, though, seems to indicate that staff will make value judgements about patients even in emergency situations.
&#8220;Far too often I hear stories that the people you are trying to help lash out. I&#8217;ve seen it for myself in A&amp;Es, on night shifts, and on ambulances,&#8221; Hancock said, referring to UK hospitals&#8217; &#8220;accidents and emergency&#8221; departments, the equivalent of American ERs and EDs. Hancock added that he is &#8220;horrified that any member of the public would abuse or physically assault a member of our NHS staff but it happens too often.&#8221;
While the rule poses a host of problems, including who might be placed in charge of determining what behavior is considered racist, sexist, and homophobic, and what might constitute verbal harassment or abuse, the biggest concern appears to be for the mentally ill, who may seek treatment, even for non life-threatening ailments, but be unable to control their behavior. If they are labeled &#8220;abusive,&#8221; &#8220;aggressive,&#8221; or &#8220;harmful,&#8221; they will be turned away from medical care.
According to a study taken by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman last year, Sky News says, the issue is already a problem for the NHS: &#8220;one in five mental health patients do not feel safe in NHS care,&#8221; the study reported, and &#8220;[m]ore than half of people with mental health problems in England also said their treatment was delayed, while 42% said they were diagnosed too late.&#8221;
Johnson&#8217;s government is trying to get a handle, overall, on problem &#8212; specifically financial problems &#8212; that are threatening the longevity of the UK&#8217;s national health service, and the new rules are part of a plan to help stabilize the system, but they make come too little too late. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42572110">According to the BBC</a>, the NHS&#8217;s budget has exploded and 30% of Britain&#8217;s domestic spending now goes to public health.

Report: UK’s National Health Service Can Refuse To Treat ‘Racist,’ ‘Sexist,’ And ‘Homophobic’ Patients Under New Rules

Sexism

United Kingdom

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) unloaded on billionaire Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Thursday over recently released audio recordings, deemed by many as controversial.
Ocasio-Cortez made the attacks in response to Bloomberg News, owned by Michael Bloomberg, publishing a report on how Bloomberg &#8220;seeks to move past &#8216;stop and frisk&#8217; controversy.&#8221;
&#8220;Will people get their records expunged? Will young people sucked into the spiderweb of incarceration get their lives back?&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. &#8220;Unless there is restorative justice, there is no &#8216;moving on&#8217; from Stop &amp; Frisk. It’s just a billionaire trying to cover up authoritarian &amp; racist policy.&#8221;
&#8220;New York City is about 60% people of color,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez continued. &#8220;Stop and Frisk was an unconstitutional, devastating practice for the entire city that intentionally exempted White people from harm. It was one of the most racist policies I’ve ever lived through that deeply impacted the entire city.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
New York City is about 60% people of color.
Stop and Frisk was an unconstitutional, devastating practice for the entire city that intentionally exempted White people from harm.
It was one of the most racist policies I’ve ever lived through that deeply impacted the entire city.
&mdash; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1227979618248003585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The controversy ignited earlier this week when an audio clip surfaced of Bloomberg talking about crime control in 2015, after his term as mayor of New York City, and saying that &#8220;minority neighborhoods&#8221; are &#8220;where all the crime is.&#8221;
Bloomberg said, “95% of your murders – murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city and that’s where the real crime is.&#8221;
&#8220;You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed,&#8221; Bloomberg continued. &#8220;You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.&#8221;
&#8220;So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods,&#8221; Bloomberg continued. &#8220;Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them. And then they start say[ing], ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Share this far and wide. Unless the mainstream media picks it up, it will be isolated to twitter. <a href="https://t.co/Fm0YCi4ZRy">pic.twitter.com/Fm0YCi4ZRy</a>
&mdash; Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1227067093692055553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez promoted an attack on Bloomberg from far-left New York Times Magazine reporter N. Hannah Jones, (known on Twitter as &#8220;Ida Bae Wells&#8221;) over separate remarks that Bloomberg made about &#8220;redlining&#8221; &#8212; a lending practice that discriminated against minorities.
“It probably all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone,” Bloomberg <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/politics/michael-bloomberg-redlining.html">said</a> in a lecture at Georgetown University in September 2008. “Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.’”
“And then Congress got involved — local elected officials, as well — and said, ‘Oh that’s not fair, these people should be able to get credit,’” Bloomberg continued. “And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like.”
Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a tweet from Jones to her millions of Twitter followers, accusing Bloomberg of defending &#8220;redlining&#8221; in his remarks: &#8220;Redlining was an explicitly racist policy that ensured that until 1968 98 % of federally insured loans went to white Americans. It created one of largest white affirmative action programs we’ve seen and is a direct cause of the devastating black/white wealth gap.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Redlining was an explicitly racist policy that ensured that until 1968 98 % of federally insured loans went to white Americans. It created one of largest white affirmative action programs we’ve seen and is a direct cause of the devastating black/white wealth gap. <a href="https://t.co/P8WjFKyzZ2">https://t.co/P8WjFKyzZ2</a>
&mdash; Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) <a href="https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1227788375131901952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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AOC.

Ocasio-Cortez Unloads On Bloomberg: Engaged In ‘Cover Up,’ Had ‘Most Racist Policies’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

A viral video clip shows a female student at the University of Virginia complaining that there are &#8220;too many white people&#8221; in the campus&#8217; &#8220;Multicultural Student Center&#8221; and encouraging the white students to leave the area.
&#8220;Public service announcement! Excuse me!&#8221; the female in the video starts. &#8220;If ya&#8217;ll didn&#8217;t know, this is the MSC (Multicultural Student Center) and frankly there&#8217;s [sic] just too many white people in here and this is a space for people of color,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;So just be really cognizant of the space that you&#8217;re taking up because it does make some of us POCs (people of color) uncomfortable when we see too many white people in here.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s only been open for four days,&#8221; she said of the MSC, &#8220;and frankly there&#8217;s the whole university for a lot of ya&#8217;ll to be at. And there&#8217;s very few spaces for us to be at.&#8221;
&#8220;So keep that in mind. Thank you,&#8221; the student concluded, receiving applause.
The clip was posted to social media Wednesday by conservative group Young America&#8217;s Foundation (YAF) and quickly went viral, racking up millions of views.
According to <a href="https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2020/02/u-va-clarifies-that-the-multicultural-student-center-is-open-to-all-members-of-the-university-community">The Cavalier Daily</a>, the University of Virginia&#8217;s student newspaper, the female in the video is a student at UVA. She declined to comment on the paper&#8217;s report.
YAF said the original video has been deleted, and noted that they obtained the clip from a Twitter account with the handle @WafaFlafa_Flame, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/video-shows-black-woman-shouting-she-is-uncomfortable-by-too-many-whites-at-uva-multicultural-center">The Washington Examiner</a> reported Wednesday.
&#8220;Leftists at the University of Virginia are dictating who is and who isn’t allowed in the new Multicultural Student Center,&#8221; YAF captioned the video. &#8220;This kind of racist intolerance is NOT multicultural.&#8221;
Despite the overwhelming backlash online, &#8220;several other students tweeted in solidarity with the student in the video, saying that white people did not frequently visit the MSC when it was located in the basement of Newcomb Hall,&#8221; The Cavalier Daily noted.
Following the blowback, Brian Coy, a spokesman for the university, told the Examiner, &#8220;I believe deeply that we need to build a community that is not just diverse, but also inclusive.&#8221;
The University of Virginia also released a statement on Twitter: &#8220;UVA this month introduced four new and expanded student centers in Newcomb Hall. Since the opening, some questions have been raised regarding the scope or inclusivity of these centers and their missions.&#8221;
“In order to foster the diversity of experience and ideas that make UVA a great and good place to study and work, these centers are open to all members of the University community,” a statement from UVA said. “They complement existing student-focused spaces such as the 1515 Building on the Corner, opened in March 2017, and Ern Commons in the Alderman Road residential area, opened in March 2012.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
UVA this month introduced four new and expanded student centers in Newcomb Hall. Since the opening, some questions have been raised regarding the scope or inclusivity of these centers and their missions. UVA provided the following statement on Feb. 12 to address these questions: <a href="https://t.co/BJ3LZCvIrE">pic.twitter.com/BJ3LZCvIrE</a>
&mdash; UVA (@UVA) <a href="https://twitter.com/UVA/status/1227726467359895552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Discussions, designated areas, and other efforts centered around racial &#8220;diversity&#8221; and &#8220;inclusion&#8221; on college campuses have increasingly dumped out results anathema to the cause.
For example, as noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/college-holds-event-accusing-white-students-of-having-a-nasty-little-racist-inside-them">The Daily Wire</a> in January, Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota held an event, allegedly to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, &#8220;&#8216;for White people only&#8217; that sought to force them to &#8216;recognize and acknowledge that there is a nasty little racist inside them, and to do so without becoming angry or defensive and describe the skills of psychological flexibility that they must develop in order to make authentic choices in defiance of their racist tendencies.'&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Leftists at the University of Virginia are dictating who is and who isn’t allowed in the new Multicultural Student Center.
“Frankly there is just too many white people in here, and this is a space for people of color.”
This kind of racist intolerance is NOT multicultural. <a href="https://t.co/XkefKqfqLA">pic.twitter.com/XkefKqfqLA</a>
&mdash; YAF (@yaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/yaf/status/1227667993917870080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

University of Virginia

VIRAL VIDEO: University Student In ‘Multicultural’ Center Says Whites Should Leave: ‘Too Many White People In Here’

In an interview published Thursday, famed anthem-kneeler Colin Kaepernick announced plans for an upcoming memoir and a publishing company focused on &#8220;black and brown writers and authors.&#8221;
Kaepernick also claimed that he still wants to play football in the NFL and is hoping to get a call this offseason, despite the former quarterback <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kaepernick-skips-workout-organized-by-nfl-wears-t-shirt-comparing-himself-to-a-slave">ditching</a> an NFL-arranged tryout in November.
The upcoming memoir, which has yet to be named, and publishing company are all part of the former QB&#8217;s fight &#8220;against systematic oppression, dehumanization and colonization,&#8221; Kaepernick told <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/columnist/bell/2020/02/13/colin-kaepernick-interview-new-memoir-publishing-company-nfl-return/4736086002/">USA TODAY Sports</a>.
&#8220;I learned early on that in fighting against systematic oppression, dehumanization and colonization, who controls the narrative shapes the reality of how the world views society,” the multimillionaire said. “It controls who’s loved, who’s hated, who’s degraded and who’s celebrated.”
The publishing company, he explained, &#8220;is a way for me to be able to counteract that and begin to decolonize that and centralize the narrative of not only myself but other black and brown writers and authors.&#8221;
“I realized being able to control your narrative and tell your story the way you want to is very important,” added Kaepernick. “The manipulation, the colonization, the distortion of stories, narrative, history, has been done forever.&#8221;
The 32-year-old revealed that his memoir will address his polarizing national anthem protest, including lingering questions about the timing of the attention-grabbing kneeling.
“I’ve had a lot of questions surrounding what got me to the point of protesting. Why did I do it? Why did I do it at that moment? Why wasn’t it earlier in my career? A lot of questions surrounding what led me to that point,&#8221; Kaepernick said. &#8220;Which led me to wanting to share that story and give insight. So I think there’s a lot of interest around it, but time will tell when the book comes out.”
The former San Francisco 49ers QB first refused to stand during the national anthem during a preseason game against the Houston Texans on August 14, 2016. “The next week,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kaepernick-warns-against-capitalism-ends-up-demonstrating-how-its-a-force-for-good">The Daily Wire</a> reported at the time, “Kaepernick sat on the bench again for the playing of the anthem ahead of the preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, at which point, his private protest started to get national attention.”
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said of the protest, adding: “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Kaepernick, now a highly-paid Nike brand rep, skipped a private tryout in November, which was organized by the NFL with the intention of landing the free agent a job he insisted he wanted.
Though the move <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jay-z-disappointed-over-colin-kaepernick-publicity-stunt-report">sparked criticism</a> from even some of Kaepernick&#8217;s strongest supporters, the activist claims he still wants to play in the NFL.
“My desire to play football is still there,” Kaepernick told USA TODAY Sports. “I still train five days a week. I’m ready to go, I’m ready for a phone call, tryout, workout at any point in time. I’m still waiting on the owners and their partners to stop running from this situation. So I hope I get a call this offseason. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Colin Kaepernick

Kaepernick Announces New Plans, Says He’s ‘Fighting Against Systematic Oppression, Dehumanization And Colonization’

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who is (<a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/06/bloombergs-naked-bid-to-buy-the-white-house-is-an-assault-on-democracy/">quite literally</a>) currently attempting to buy the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination, has found himself in seriously hot water this week. A resurfaced audio clip from 2015 depicts the multibillionaire discussing in rather stark and unartful terms one key aspect of the famously aggressive policing policy he oversaw as New York City mayor. The clip can be <a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1227067093692055553">heard here</a>, and The Daily Wire&#8217;s James Barrett <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-tweets-deletes-newly-uncovered-audio-of-bloomberg-total-racist">wrote it up</a> yesterday:
<blockquote>“95% of your murders — murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg allegedly states in the audio. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16–25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city and that’s where the real crime is.” &#8230;
“So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods,” he stated. “Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them. And then they start say[ing], ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”</blockquote>
There is a lot to digest and break down here. First, Bloomberg&#8217;s statistics are <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/why-bloombergs-2015-stop-and-frisk-remarks-are-riddled-with-inaccuracies-john-lott">likely somewhat off</a>, at least using the FBI&#8217;s national Uniform Crime Reports as a helpful proxy for the local statistics in New York City itself. Second, Bloomberg&#8217;s line about &#8220;taking[ing] the description&#8221; of a suspect, &#8220;Xerox[ing] it, and pass[ing] it out to all the cops&#8221; is ugly and plays on some rather unsavory stereotypes. Third, and perhaps most importantly for those of us conservatives of a pro-police bent, Bloomberg&#8217;s rhetoric about &#8220;throw[ing]&#8221; kids &#8220;up against the walls&#8221; paints cops in an unfortunate light and does the thin blue line little in the way of justice or charity.
It would not be improper to describe this as racially charged rhetoric, even if it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-bloomberg-isnt-racist-but-he-is-a-nanny-state-megalomaniac-control-freak">not per se racist rhetoric</a> because it is far likelier than not that Bloomberg simply exaggerated/misstated his statistics to make an overarching point. The <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/topic-pages/expanded-homicide">FBI&#8217;s 2018 Uniform Crime Reporting Program states</a> that &#8220;[w]hen the race of the offender was known&#8221; in federal murders, &#8220;54.9% were Black or African American, 42.4% were White, and 2.7% were of other races.&#8221;
The underlying policing policy at issue is stop-and-frisk, which was largely implemented in the 1990s during then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani&#8217;s historic crime reduction in the Big Apple, and which was largely continued by then-Mayor Bloomberg during New York City&#8217;s tumultuous post-9/11 years. Contrary to Bloomberg&#8217;s inflammatory description in the leaked audio clip, here is how <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stop_and_frisk">Cornell Law School&#8217;s Legal Information Institute (LII) describes</a> a cop&#8217;s stop-and-frisk procedure: &#8220;A stop-and-frisk refers to a brief non-intrusive police stop of a suspect. &#8230; If the police reasonably suspect that the suspect is armed and dangerous, the police may frisk the suspect, meaning that the police will give a quick pat-down of the suspect&#8217;s outer clothing.&#8221;
I understand that conservatives, (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-here-are-three-reasons-why-i-plan-vote-josh-hammer">properly</a>) unified as the overwhelming majority of us are around Donald Trump&#8217;s hopeful re-election as president of the United States, see in Bloomberg&#8217;s audio clip an easy opportunity to score a cheap political shot. I also understand, as previously mentioned, that Bloomberg&#8217;s rhetoric is neither helpful nor (in all likelihood) truly statistically spot-on.
But conservatives, who largely defended stop-and-frisk policy while it was implemented by Giuliani and Bloomberg, must not now turn on it. Stop-and-frisk is (1) constitutional, (2) effective, and (3) proper.
The 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case of <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/1/">Terry v. Ohio</a> upheld standard stop-and-frisk procedure on Fourth Amendment grounds. &#8220;According to the Terry court,&#8221; LII notes, &#8220;a reasonable stop-and-frisk is one &#8216;in which a reasonably prudent officer is warranted in the circumstances of a given case in believing that his safety or that of others is endangered, he may make a reasonable search for weapons of the person believed by him to be armed and dangerous.'&#8221; The key words here are the multiple times &#8220;reasonable&#8221; (or some close derivative of it) is used. It is almost assuredly true that, while &#8220;probable cause&#8221; is traditionally required for the issuance of most search warrants, &#8220;reasonable suspicion&#8221; suffices as a legal standard to justify a mere stop-and-frisk of suspect believed to be armed and readily dangerous. The text of the Fourth Amendment, after all, prohibits &#8220;unreasonable searches and seizures&#8221; (emphasis added), and here there is necessarily &#8220;reasonable suspicion&#8221; for a Terry stop to be lawful. Some more libertarian-leaning conservatives may <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanurick/status/1227435098879995904">disagree</a>, but I recall well my criminal procedure professor at the University of Chicago Law School, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Epstein">Richard Epstein</a>, announcing to our class his belief in the constitutional soundness of Terry. And Richard Epstein, for what it&#8217;s worth, is the single most influential libertarian legal theorist of the past century.
Stop-and-frisk policy in New York City, furthermore, was undoubtedly effective. &#8220;Since 1990, major crimes have fallen 81.9% in a period that spanned the administrations of four mayors, both Republican and Democratic, including Michael Bloomberg, who switched from being a Republican to an independent during his three terms in office,&#8221; Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-crime/murders-in-new-york-city-rose-in-2019-defying-long-term-decline-in-crime-rate-idUSKBN1Z525V">reported</a> last month while lamenting the fact that murders in the Big Apple actually rose last year under the infamously anti-cop reign of Mayor Bill de Blasio. While it is ultimately impossible to disentangle stop-and-frisk from other aspects of the Giuliani/Bloomberg anti-crime public policy portfolio, such as so-called &#8220;broken windows policing,&#8221; the reality is that New York City became one of the safest big cities in America over the exact same time span that stop-and-frisk proliferated in popularity. It is nothing short of tragic that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jailbreak-is-to-blame-for-spike-in-nyc-crime-de-blasio-admits">de Blasio has reversed</a> these salutary trends.
Finally, stop-and-frisk, as implemented by Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, was a generally sound public policy initiative. It is simply true that law enforcement is beset by limited resources, and that police therefore have to routinely make decisions about how to maximize results — here, measured in terms of less crime and fewer criminals on the street — given those constraints. For example, prosecutorial discretion as a law enforcement concept has a centuries-long history in the Anglo-American tradition (that, of course, does not mean that prosecutorial secretion is not <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jeff-sessions-right-end-obamas-unlawful-approach-josh-hammer">sometimes bastardized</a>). Similarly, cops — the procedural antecedents, in a sense, to prosecutors — need to make on-the-ground decisions about where to best deploy resources in order to safeguard the public safety and the common weal. It is simply common sense that they would disproportionately target the neighborhoods where there is actually disproportionate crime committed.
By all means, conservatives can find proper bones to pick with Bloomberg&#8217;s resurfaced audio clip. But please do not lump in all of stop-and-frisk policy with those criticisms.

NYPD

HAMMER: Conservatives Should Not Oppose Stop-And-Frisk Policy

2020 Election

Bill de Blasio

Constitution

Crime

Democratic Party

Fourth Amendment

New York Police Department (NYPD)

Police

Early Tuesday morning, President Trump tweeted then deleted newly uncovered audio that features Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defending his stop-and-frisk policies during an appearance at the Aspen Institute in 2015. In the audio, released by podcast host Benjamin Dixon, Bloomberg appears to advocate for targeting minorities.
&#8220;WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!&#8221; Trump <a href="http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com">tweeted</a> along with the audio, before deciding to pull <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1227225975064276992">the tweet</a>.
&#8220;95% of your murders – murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,&#8221; Bloomberg allegedly states in the audio. &#8220;You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city and that’s where the real crime is.”
&#8220;You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;You want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.&#8221;
&#8220;So, one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods,&#8221; he stated. &#8220;Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the walls and frisk them. And then they start say[ing], ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.&#8221;
&#8220;Share this far and wide,&#8221; Dixon captioned the video in a tweet Monday. &#8220;Unless the mainstream media picks it up, it will be isolated to twitter.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Share this far and wide. Unless the mainstream media picks it up, it will be isolated to twitter. <a href="https://t.co/Fm0YCi4ZRy">pic.twitter.com/Fm0YCi4ZRy</a>
&mdash; Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1227067093692055553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/technocratic-racism-bloomberg-allegedly-advocates-for-targeting-minorities-in-explosive-audio">The Daily Wire</a> reported, Dixon followed up his post by tweeting out a 2015 article from The Aspen Times, noting that &#8220;Bloomberg requested the video not be released.&#8221;
&#8220;Michael Bloomberg representatives have asked the Aspen Institute not to distribute footage of his recent appearance in Aspen, where the three-term New York City mayor made pointed comments concerning minorities and gun control,&#8221; <a href="https://www.aspentimes.com/news/michael-bloomberg-blocks-footage-of-aspen-institute-appearance/">The Aspen Times</a> reported. &#8220;Both the Institute and GrassRoots TV, the organization that filmed the event, confirmed Thursday that they will not broadcast the footage online or on television as planned.&#8221;
&#8220;We basically honor the wishes of our speakers, and Mayor Bloomberg preferred that we not use the video for broadcast,&#8221; the Aspen Institute’s Jim Spiegelman told the outlet in an email. &#8220;He did not give a reason nor did we have any reason to ask for one. We often feature speakers who prefer that their presentations not be videotaped.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Bloomberg requested the video not be released. 
Perhaps because of his explanation for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/stopandfrisk?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#stopandfrisk</a>, admitting that all the cops are sent to minority neighborhoods and, “yes we’re arresting minorities for marijuana” but “that’s where the crime is,” <a href="https://t.co/MptDeupSbi">https://t.co/MptDeupSbi</a>
&mdash; Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1226974664280375297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In its report on the event, The Aspen Times provides a summary of his remarks. &#8220;Appearing before nearly 400 people in Aspen on Feb. 5, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg L.P. argued that in order to save lives, police should seize guns from male minorities between ages 15 and 25,&#8221; the outlet reports.
&#8220;These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,&#8221; the outlet quotes Bloomberg as saying. &#8220;So they just don’t have any longterm focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.&#8221;
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