Tag: violence

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Wisconsin: Poll Shows Support For BLM Dropping Amid New Protests

A new poll shows how Donald Trump could win the November election amid the recent violence that has happened in the aftermath of Jacob Blake being shot by Kenosha police officers. Democrats close to the Biden campaign are concerned the looting and violence in cities could help President Trump, especially among the few undecided or wavering Americans. From Axios:

In a Marquette Law School poll of registered voters in battleground Wisconsin, support for Black Lives Matters protests dropped 13 points from June to August, just ahead of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.

“There was an initial surge in support for and sympathy with BLM in June,” Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, told me.

“The shift to a more negative view in August is strongest among Republicans, but independents and Democrats also became less approving. The decline was across all regions except for the city of Milwaukee.”

[snip]

David Axelrod’s warning to fellow Dems about Trump’s effort to shift attention from COVID and unemployment to ‘law and order:’ 

“The timing of unrest in Kenosha has been a gift to him in that project.”

From the summary of the new poll on the issue of the Black Lives Matter movement:

In June 59 percent were favorable and 27 percent were unfavorable.

In August favorable views declined though a plurality held favorable views, 49 percent favorable to 37 percent unfavorable.

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Self-Proclaimed White Supremacist & Trump Supporter Slaps, Punches Woman

Nicholas Arnold Schock (screen captures)
A self-proclaimed white supremacist went on a loud, curse-laden rant at a restaurant in Sarasota County, Florida, and then slapped and punched a female employee. From Law & Crime:

The man was identified as Nicholas Arnold Schock, 36. He was booked into the Sarasota County jail on a count each of battery, and disturbing the peace. It is unclear if he has an attorney at this time. Records viewed by Law&Crime show the Wachula-resident was arrested Friday in the city of Nokomis. He was held on a $620 bond.

In the video, the man identified as Schock demands “Call Donald Trump.” He goes on like that.

“I’m a white supremacist,” he said. “The Aryan nation will rule the world!” he yells at the camera. “People covered in tattoos are going to be my closest relatives, I promise you.”

“Hey, we’ve got children in here,” a bystander said.

“I don’t give a fuck,” the suspect said. “Call Donald Trump, please.”

A bystander in a light cyan shirt tries to lead him off.

“Do you know Donald Trump?” the suspect said. “If you don’t know Donald Trump, I’m not going nowhere. I will butt-fuck this bitch on the table right now.”

He ambled off, and a woman stepped in front of him with her arms spread. The woman apparently said something about there being kids there, but the suspect then slapped her in the face. Bystanders rushed the man and took him down. One of them cinched in a chokehold.

Here’s the video clip. Warning: graphic violence.

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Chicago Mayor Sends Coded ‘F*** You’ To Trump

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (screen capture)
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Friday called out Donald Trump for trying to “foment violence” and offered a coded response for tweets that appeared to threaten Minneapolis rioters protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“We see the game he’s playing because it’s so transparent and he’s not very good at it. He wants to show failures on the part of Democratic local leaders to throw red meat to his base. His goal is to polarize, to destabilize local government and inflame racist urges. And we can absolutely not let him prevail,” Lightfoot said.

“I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It’s two words: It begins with F and ends with YOU.”

On Thursday night, President Trump took to Twitter as protesters surrounded a Minneapolis police station and set fire to it.

He characterized the protesters as “THUGS” and tweeted, “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

On Friday, Lightfoot accused the president with whom she has clashed repeatedly of attempting to “foment violence.” She made no apologies for the vulgar reference that ran contrary to the advice of former First Lady Michelle Obama’s infamous line that, “When they go low, we go high.”

“I am not Michelle Obama,” the mayor said.

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Battery Acid Thrown In Milwaukee Man’s Face After Being Accused Of Being In US Illegally

Mahud Villalaz (screen capture)
From ABC7:

Milwaukee police have made an arrest after a man was attacked and burned with acid in what officials say is a hate crime.

Mahud Villalaz suffered second-degree burns to his face after he was confronted by a man he says accused him of being in the country illegally. Villalaz, a U.S. citizen and Latino, says the man approached him in front of a restaurant Friday night, told him he didn’t belong in the country and threw acid from a container on him.

Surveillance video shows Villalaz stumbling away from the suspect, who police say is white.

This “type of racial verbal attack and now physical attack is condoned in the highest level of government in our country,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told reporters Monday, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. “This anger towards people of other countries is being fed by our president — and by his followers. What we saw over the weekend is a manifestation of that anger.” “Everybody knows what’s happening,” he continued. “It’s because the president’s talking about it on a daily basis that people feel they have a license to go after Hispanic people.” The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports Clifton A. Blackwell, 61, was arrested Saturday, hours after the Friday night confrontation that left Villalaz with second-degree burns on his face.

Blackwell’s mother told the Journal-Sentinal her son has been under the care of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Milwaukee for post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from earlier service in the Marine Corps.

That statement seems to justify Blackwell’s violence by calling him a veteran. How does being a veteran explain carrying a bottle of battery acid with you? And before people come after me, I come from a military family. My dad was a major in the Air Force serving in two wars. I have nothing against veterans, just racists.

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Fake Video Portrays Trump As ‘Media Slayer’ Shown At His Florida Resort

Screen capture from viral video showing a fake Donald Trump violently attacking the media
This video – depicting a violent scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing & assaulting members of the news media & his political opponents – was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort. From the New York Times:

Mr. Trump stops in the middle of the church, pulls a gun out of his suit jacket pocket and begins a graphic rampage. As the parishioners try to flee, the president fires at them. He shoots Black Lives Matter in the head and also shoots Vice News.

Some of those in the church try to apprehend Mr. Trump. He fends them off and makes his way toward the altar, knocking over several pews. He wrestles a parishioner with a Vice News logo as a face to the ground and then shoots the person at point-blank range. In the background, the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, is seen trying to get away.

From there, Mr. Trump attacks a range of his critics. He strikes the late Arizona senator John McCain in the back of the neck. He hits the television personality Rosie O’Donnell in the face and then stabs her in the head. He strikes Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California. He lights the head of Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential rival, on fire.

Also among the Donald’s victims in the video are former President Barack Obama, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; former President Bill Clinton; the film producer Harvey Weinstein; and Representative Adam B. Schiff. The video concludes with Trump driving a stake into the head of a person with a CNN logo for a face. The Trumpster then turns to view his carnage, smiling.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted Monday morning that Trump (who lives on Twitter where the video is trending) “has not seen the video” but he “strongly condemns” the video.

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Teen Homophobe Threatens YouTube After Being Booted From Video Site

Soph (screen capture)

A 14-year-old California girl who goes by the name “Soph” had her YouTube account terminated after posting an anti-LGBTQ video on July 31.

The high school freshman had amassed a following of over 800,000 subscribers via anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ commentaries before YouTube removed her account.

In the video that finally got her booted from the streaming video site, titled “Pride and Prejudice,” she mocked LGBTQ people for celebrating Pride Month.

“Unfortunately, as you know, last month was Pride, which meant we all had to endure 30-days of AIDS-carrying pedophile victims patting themselves on their backs for their lifestyles,” said Soph in the video. “I had an especially hard time considering that I live in California where there was a puddle of diseased load waiting for me whenever I dared to step out of my house.”

She went on to tell her audience that LGBTQ people criticize her and call her homophobic as a way to “detract attention away from the rates of STDs and pederasty involving homosexuals.”

The teen apparently laughs all of this off as ‘edgy internet humor.’

Soph also calls Pride a “fudge-packing fest” and tells followers to “make sure to blame me in your manifestos.” The word ‘manifesto’ refers to a kind of document left behind on far-right websites by people like the shooter behind the deadly Christchurch attack in March and the shooter accused of the recent El Paso shooting.

The account was canceled after the teen racked up three Community Guideline violations within 90 days. The Pride-bashing video violated YouTube’s hate speech guidelines.

After YouTube removed the channel, Soph tweeted a photo holding what appeared to be an assault rifle captioned, “YouTube headquarters here I come.”

The tweet was quickly removed. Then the teen wrote, “Gun tweet obviously a joke,” and seemed to ask for payments to her Bitcoin accounts.

This wasn’t Soph’s first ‘joke’ regarding violence and YouTube. In May, she threatened to murder YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki after her account was temporarily suspended and demonetized.

In a video directly addressing the YouTube executive, Soph said, “Susan, I’ve known your address since last summer. I’ve got a Luger and mitochondrial disease. I don’t care if I live. Why should I care if you live or your children? I just called an Uber. You’ve got about seven minutes to draft up a will. … I’m coming for you, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

Folks, this is YouTube in 2019.

(source)

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White House Says It’s ‘Absurd’ That Trump Encourages Violence At His Rallies

In the aftermath of a Trump supporter violently attacking BBC cameraman Ron Skeans at Donald Trump's El Paso rally this week, White House press secretary raised some eyebrows during an interview with Fox & Friends as she defended the president.

In the aftermath of a Trump supporter violently attacking BBC cameraman Ron Skeans at Donald Trump’s El Paso rally this week, White House press secretary raised some eyebrows during an interview with Fox & Friends as she defended the president.

“The idea that the president or anybody on his team or in his administration would encourage violence is absolutely absurd,” Sanders said. “The president stopped, asked and made sure everyone was okay before continuing on with the event. Certainly, we condemn violence in any form against anyone, and that certainly includes the press.”

As we all know, on several occasions, Trump has called for his supporters to address detractors with violence.

He has suggested “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” offered to pay the legal fees of supporters who “knock the crap” out of a protester, and even said himself, “I’d like to punch him in the face” regarding another protester.

Mediaite has much more of the Trumpster’s history of violent histrionics here.

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Trump Supporters Violently Attack Media During Trump Rally

A violent Trump supporter shoved a BBC cameraman and starting yelling profanities during Donald Trump's rally in El Paso, Texas, last night.

A violent Trump supporter shoved a BBC cameraman and starting yelling, “F*ck the media! F*ck the media!” during Donald Trump’s rally in El Paso, Texas, last night.

From NPR:

The BBC’s Ron Skeans was working in the area of a raised camera platform at Trump’s campaign event when, he says, a “very hard shove” came out of nowhere. At the time, Trump was touting recent economic numbers to a roaring crowd in the El Paso County Coliseum.

Skeans’ colleagues say the apparent attack came after repeated verbal assaults on the media during the event. The BBC says it is “clearly unacceptable for any of our staff to be attacked for doing their job.”

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Skeans said, according to the BBC, describing the moment when his camera suddenly skewed down and away from the stage. Video footage showed a Trump supporter yelling obscenities as he was restrained and taken away from the area.

The incident was apparently so wild and noticeable that even Trump stopped to check and see if the cameraman was fine asking, “You all right? Everything OK?”

The BBC’s Washington news editor, Eleanor Montague, tweeted that Trump had whipped the crowd “into a frenzy against the media” prior to the attack.

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Donald Trump Blames Media For Creating Violence By Asking Questions

Donald Trump

Donald Trump walked back his controversial remarks from yesterday when he told warned the refugee caravan that if they throw rocks at American soldiers, he would want them to shoot them with rifles.

“Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm,” Trump said. “Because there’s not much difference — when you get hit in the face with a rock, which as you know, that was very violent a few days ago. Very, very violent.”

Today, he reversed course on that plan saying he never said for soldiers to shoot.

The Trumpster also placed blame on the media when asked if his heated rhetoric might be responsible for increasing politically-related violence.

Pointing to Karen Travers of ABC News, he said, “You’re creating violence by your question…A lot of the reporters are creating violence by not writing the truth.”

As Travers points out, earlier this week White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump isn’t placing blame on others.

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Trump Praises Violent ‘Body-Slam’ On Reporter

Donald Trump

At a campaign rally last night in Montana, Donald Trump praised the state’s lone congressman, Rep. Greg Gianforte, for his now-infamous physical assault on journalist Ben Jacobs of The Guardian in the spring of 2017.

Via ABC News:

“Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!” Trump said to cheers.

“I was in Rome with leaders when I heard about it, and I heard that he body-slammed a reporter,” Trump said.

Trump said he was afraid Gianforte would lose after the moment, but then recalled, “Wait a moment, I know Montana.”

Gianforte pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service for the incident. He apologized on the night of his election victory, saying, “When you make a mistake you have to own it.”

Journalists everywhere were justified in their horror at an American president cheering on physical violence against a reporter.

This comes after Trump has spent days defending the Saudi Arabian government amid mounting evidence they were involved in the disappearance of Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi.