This blog is open to any who wish to comment on Australian society, the state of the environment or political shenanigans at Federal, State and Local Government level.
"The real truth is that I won by 400,000 votes at least"
[Donald J. Trump, 2 January 2021]
In a phone call on 2 January 2021, outgoing US President Donald J. Trump insisted he won the state of Georgia in the 2020 presidential election as well as the presidential election itself and, threatened vague legal consequences if votes were not "recalculated" and found for him - specifically 11,780 votes in Georgia
Here are excerpts from the hour-long call, which was obtained by The Washington Post.....
“The
honour [Legion of Merit] recognises Morrison for his “leadership in addressing global
challenges” and for “strengthening the United States and
Australia partnership”. Indeed, when Australia was facing one of
its biggest challenges this time last year, Morrison did show great
leadership, racing to one of America’s more tropical states to
further strengthen that partnership.” [Satirist Mark Humphrieswriting in The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 2020]
“ain't
it fun when you open your mouth and your parents fall out” [Frank
the Dasher,
Twitter
28 December 2020]
"Consistent with a “herd immunity” approach, the evidence obtained by the Select
Subcommittee shows that Dr. Alexander privately acknowledged to other appointees that “[w]e
always knew” that “cases will rise” as a result of the Administration’s policies. Yet even as he
advocated for letting the coronavirus spread widely, Dr. Alexander also attempted to pass blame
for the Administration’s failure to contain the virus to career scientists and public health
officials. He also urged colleagues to suppress scientific information about the risk posed by the
virus to minority communities that he admitted was “very accurate” out of concern that it would
be “use[d] against the president.....Documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee show that top Trump Administration
officials repeatedly communicated about pursuing a dangerous herd immunity strategy as far
back as June 2020, despite public denials that the Administration was adopting this approach.” [U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on the Corona Virus Crisis, Memorandum dated 16 December 2020]
On the morning of the day this article was published the number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA had reached 305,268 men, women and children, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at John Hopkins University.
A Trump administration official sought to speed the spread of the coronavirus among children and young adults in order to achieve “herd immunity,” according to documents released by a top House Democrat.
Paul Alexander, a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Humans Services, repeatedly encouraged adoption of a policy to increase the number of virus infections among younger Americans, saying they have “zero to low risk,” according to documents released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
In one email message, Alexander said “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc” should be used “to develop herd…we want them infected,” according to the documents released Wednesday.
“Achieving herd immunity before a vaccine is widely available — which requires a very large portion of the population to get infected with the coronavirus — has been widely rejected by scientists as a dangerous approach that would lead to the deaths of several hundred thousand Americans at a minimum,” Representative James Clyburn, chairman of the panel, said in the memo to members of the committee.....
In a series of messages during the summer, Alexander continued to make the case to other officials to open up college campuses and businesses to increase the spread among the young and relatively healthy, while maintaining distancing measures for the elderly.
“The issue is who cares? If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares,” Alexander said in a July message. “As long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests.”
Donald J. Trump returning to the White House after American media declared he had lost the presidency because the majority of votes in Pennsylvania went to Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Due to the inflammatory and dangerously untruthful nature of the video contents U.S media platforms ceased broadcasting it within the first few minutes.
President Trump just spoke at the White House, as key states continue to count votes. Shep has the facts: “What the President of the United States is saying, in large part, is absolutely untrue.” #Election2020https://t.co/E6DBt6OodDpic.twitter.com/HVa87qUCzB
However, it is worth noting the substance of what U.S. President Donald Trump is alleging before the final official vote count is completed and announced.
As a precaution against the YouTube video also being removed, the following is a basic partially corrected and incomplete text of what Trump said at this White House press briefing on Friday 6 November 2020 (Australian time) and readers are warned that this is a wildly inaccurate speech which is apparently meant to deliberately mislead and deceive the American people:
Thank
you very much. Good evening. I'd like to update the American people [on] our efforts to protect the [integrity of our very important 2020] election. If you count the legal
vote, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to
steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late,
we're looking at them very strongly. A lot of votes came in late.
I've already [decisively] won many critical states, including Florida, Iowa,
Indiana, Ohio, [to name just a few]. We've won [these and many others victories despite historic] election interference [from big media, big money and big tech]. As everybody saw,
we won by historic numbers. And the [pollsters] got it knowingly wrong, [they got it knowingly wrong. We had polls that were] so
ridiculous and everybody knew it at the time. There is no blue wave
that they predicted. They thought there was going to be a big blue
wave. That was false. [It was done for suppression reasons. But] instead, there was a big red wave and it's been
properly acknowledged by the media. I think they were very impressed,
but that was after the fact. That doesn't do us any good. We kept the
Senate, despite having twice as many seats to protect as Democrats.
And [in a] really, much more competitive states, we did a fantastic job
with the Senate. I think we're very proud of what's happened there [with many more seats to defend].
They spent [almost 200 million dollars] on senate races in South Carolina and Kentucky alone,
two races and hundreds [of millions of dollars overall] against us. [At a national level] our [opponents]major donors were Wall Street bankers and
special interests. Our major donors were police officers, farmers, and everyday citizens. [Yet] for the first time ever, we lost zero races in
the house. I was talking to Kevin McCarthy. He said he couldn't believe it. [Zero races, very unusual thing, zero. And actually] won new seats,
with many more on the way. This is also the year of the Republican
woman. More Republican women were elected to congress than ever
before. That's a great achievement. I won the largest share of
non-white voters of any Republican [in 60 years], including historic numbers
of Latino, African-American, Asian American, and Native American
voters, the largest ever in our history. We grew our party by 4
million voters, the greatest turnout in Republican Party history.
Democrats are the party of the big donors, the big media, the big
tech it seems, and Republicans have become the party of the American
worker, and that's what happened. And we're also the party of
inclusion. As everybody recognizes, media polling was election
interference in the truest sense of that word, by powerful special
interests. These really phony polls -- I have to call them phony
polls, fake poles, [were] designed to [keep out voters at home,] create the illusion of momentum for
Mr. Biden and diminish Republicans ability to raise funds. They were
what's called suppression polls. Everyone knows that now. [And it's never been used to the extent that its been used on this last election.] To
highlight just a few examples, the day before the election,
Quinnipiac, which was wrong on every occasion that I know of, had Joe
Biden up by five point in Florida. And they were off by 8.4 points
and I won Florida easily, easily. So, they had me [losing] Florida by
a lot and I ended up winning Florida by a lot. Other than that, they
were very accurate. They had him up four points in Ohio, and they
were up by 12.2 points. And they also won Ohio, the great state of
Ohio, there easily. They had Joe Biden up 17 points in Wisconsin, and
it was basically even. They were off by about 17 point. And they knew
that. They were not stupid people. They knew that, suppression. There
are states yet to be decided in the presidential race. The voting
apparatus of this state are run, in all cases, by Democrats. We were
winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually, and then our
numbers started miraculously getting whittled away, in secret, and
they wouldn't allow, legally permissible observers. We went to court
in a couple of instances and we were able to get the observers
put in. They wanted them 60, 70 feet away, 100 feet away, [or outside the building] to
observe [people inside the building]. [And we won a case, a big case and we have others happening. Lots and - there is lots of litigation even beyond our litigation]. There is tremendous amount of
litigation because of how unfair this process was. And I predicted
that. I talked about mail-in voting for a long time. It's really
destroyed our system. It's a corrupt system. [And it makes people corrupt, even if they aren't] by nature. [But they become corrupt.] It's too easy. [They want to find out how many votes they need and then they seem to be able to find them.] They wait and wait and [then they find them. And] you see that
on election night. We were ahead in North Carolina by a lot,
tremendous number of votes. And we're still ahead by a lot, but not
as many because they're finding ballots all of a sudden. It's amazing
how this mail-in ballots are all one-sided. I know it's supposed to
be to the advantage of the Democrats. But in all cases, they are
one-sided. We were up by 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. I won
Pennsylvania by a lot. And that gets whittled down to, now we're up
by 90,000 votes. They will keep coming and coming and coming and they
don't want us to have observers, although we won a court case. And
they're appealing. Actually, they're appealing. We won a case we want
people to watch, and they're appealing. That's interesting. I wonder
why they're appealing. Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot,
with a lead getting close to 300,000 votes on election night in Georgia -- and by the way, got whittled down, and now it's getting to
be to a point where I'll be winning by a lot by perhaps even being
down a little bit. In Georgia, a pipe burst, totally unrelated to the
location, and they stopped counting and a lot of things happened. The
election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats. We've had margins
of 300,000. Michigan, we won the state. In Wisconsin, we did
likewise, fantastically well. And that got whittled down. In every
case, they got whittled down. We're on track to win Arizona. We only
need to carry 55% of the remaining vote, 55% margins, and that's a
margin that we've significantly exceeded, so we'll see what happens
with that. Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election. We
will not allow the corruption to steal such an important election, or
any election for that matter, and we can't allow silence [or] anybody
to silence our voters and manufacture results. I've been doing a lot
of public things for a long time. I've never had anything that's been
as inspirational by people calling, talking, sending things to us.
I've never seen such love and such affection and such spirit as I've
seen for this. People know what happening and they've seen what's
happening. There are many instances, which will be reported very
shortly. There is tremendous litigation going on. And this is a case
where they are trying to steal an election. They are trying to rig an
election. We can't let that happen. [....Detroit and Philadelphia known as two of the most politically corrupt places anywhere in our country - easily -] cannot be responsible for
engineering the outcome of the presidential race. [A very important presidential race.] In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gone to the state supreme court to try to ban our
election observers very strongly. We won the case, but they're going
forward. They don't want anybody [in there, there don't want anyone] watching them as they count the
ballots. And I can't imagine why. There is [absolutely] no legitimate reason why
they would not want to have people watching this process. Because if
it's straight, they should be proud of it. Instead, they are trying
obviously to commit fraud. There's no question about that. In
Philadelphia, observers are kept far away, very far away. So far,
that people are using binoculars. There's been tremendous problems
caused, paper on all of the windows so you can't see in, and the
people that are banned are very unhappy and have become somewhat
violent. The 11th circuit ruled that in Georgia, the votes have been
in by election day, that they should be in by election day, and they
weren't. Votes are coming in after election day. And they had a
ruling already that you have to have the votes in by election day. To
the best of my knowledge, votes should be in by election day.
Democrats never believed they could win this election honestly. I
really believed that. Tremendous corruption and fraud going on.
That's why they mailed out tens of millions of unsolicited ballots
without any verification measures whatsoever. And I told everybody
that these things would happen. Because I've seen it happen. I've
watched a lot of different elections before they decided to go with
this big massive election with tens of millions of ballots going out
to everybody, in many cases totally unsolicited. This was
unprecedented in American history. This was by design despite years
of claiming to care about election security. They refuse to require
signatures, identities, or to make sure they are eligible or
ineligible to vote. People are walking in, they have no idea. They
are writing down things, doing a lot of bad things, we have a lot of
information coming that you'll see, will shake even you people up.
The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania, all part of a
corrupt democrat machine that you've written about for a long time.
You've been writing about a corrupt democrat machine. I went to
school there. It hasn't changed. It's gotten worse. In Pennsylvania,
partisan democrats have allowed the ballots to be received three days
after the election, and we think much more than that. And they are
counting those without any identification whatsoever. So you don't
have postmarks, you don't have identification. There have been a
number of disturbing irregularities across the nation. Our campaign
has been denied access to observe any counting in Detroit. Detroit is
another place. And I wouldn't say the best reputation for election
integrity. Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating ballots. When
our observers attempted to challenge the activity, they jumped in
front of the volunteers to block their view so they couldn't see what
they were doing. And it became a little bit dangerous. One major hub
for counting ballots in they covered up the windows with large pieces
of cardboard. So they wanted to protect and block the counting area
the final batch did not arrive until 4:00 in the morning. So they
brought it in. And the batches came in and nobody knew where they
came from. We've been denied access. Counting
was halted for hours and hours on election night with results with
held from major democrat-run locations only to appear later and they
all had the name Biden on them or just about all, which is a little
strange. I challenge Joe and Democrats to clarify that they only want
legal votes. I think they should use legal votes. We want every legal
vote counted. We want openness and transparency. No secret count
rooms. No mystery ballots, no illegal votes after election day. You
have election day and the laws are very strong on that. You have an
election day. We want an honest election and an honest count. We want
people working back there because it's a very important job. That's
the way this country will win. We think there's going to be a lot of
litigation because we have so much evidence and so much proof, but we
think there will be a lot of litigation because we can't have an
election stolen like this. I tell you, I've been talking about this
for many months with all of you. I've said strongly that mail-in
ballots are going to be a disaster, small very easy elections were
disastrous. This is a large scale version and it's getting worse and
worse every day. We're hearing stories that are absolute horror
stories. And we can't let that happen to the United States. It's not
a question of who wins, Republican, Democrats, Joe, myself. We can't
let that happen to our country. We can't be disgraced by having
something like this happen. So it will be hopefully cleared up, maybe
soon. I hope soon. But it will probably go through a process, a legal
process. As you know I've claimed certain states. He's claiming
states. So we can both claim the states. But ultimately, I have a
feeling that the judges will have to rule. There have been a lot of
shenanigans and we can't stand for that in the country.[This transcript was compiled from uncorrected Closed Captioning by https://www.c-span.org/ with additional missing dialogue inserted from briefing exerpts found on @realDonaldTrump]
Trump statement released to the media on 8 November 2020 after the U.S. media had declared the 2020 U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden:
Video in which Donald Trump admits he was advised to isolate in the White House and it was his idea to be admitted to hospital. That he intends to recommence election campaigning soon.
Video possibly shot in the kitchen of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centresix-room presidential suite.
NOTE: In political jargon, an "October surprise" refers to a game-changing event that can irreparably damage one presidential candidate's chances and boost the other's in the final month before polling day.
The
Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more
than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs,
an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.
Donald
J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the
presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another
$750.
He
had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years —
largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
As
the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in
danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and
hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has
personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit
battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a
$72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after
declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than
$100 million.
The
tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a
story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the
American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who
takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic
losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with
his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends
more and more on making money from businesses that put him in
potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as
president.
The
New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than
two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up
his business organization, including detailed information from his
first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns
for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s
findings; additional articles will be published in the coming
weeks…...
In just 37 days - on 3 November 2020 - United States citizens go to the polls to elect their 46th President. In person absentee voting has already started in Alabama, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Vermont, Missouri, Illinois and Michigan. Thirty-eight other states will begin in person absentee voting during October. Trump is replaying his threats of 2016 - presumably in an effort to discourage voter turn-out and/or lay the groundwork for justification of a legal challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court if he fails to secure enough votes to retain the presidency. Forbes,
23 September 2020:
President
Trump on Wednesday refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power
if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the election in November,
calling for the elimination of mail-in ballots, which he said would
ensure the “continuation” of his presidency…..
Trump
has been a vocal opponent of states’ efforts to expand mail-in
voting in response to coronavirus, often spreading unfounded or
outright false claims about widespread fraud from mail-in ballots and
even tweeting, “The 2020 Election will be totally rigged if Mail-In
Voting is allowed to take place.”
Pressed
further on committing to a peaceful transfer of power on Wednesday,
Trump called to “get rid of the ballots,” adding “we’ll have
a very peaceful- there won’t be a transfer, frankly, we’ll have a
continuation.”
Trump
also said at an earlier event on Wednesday that his push to get a
ninth justice confirmed to the Supreme Court before the election is
so the U.S. has a full slate of justices to rule on the “scam the
Democrats are pulling” with mail-in ballots.
The
comments come after Trump mused about passing an executive order to
prevent Biden from becoming president because, in his words, “You
can't have this guy as your president.”……
In
a series of interviews with Bob
Woodward, US
President
Donald
Trump revealed that he had a level of detail about the
threat of the SARS-CoV-2 virus earlier than previously known.
TRUMP: “We've got a little bit of an interesting setback with the virus going in China.”......
WOODWARD:
“And so, what was President Xi saying yesterday?”
TRUMP:
“Oh, we were talking mostly about the uh, the virus. And
I think he’s going to have it in good shape, but you know, it’s a
very tricky situation. It’s –“
WOODWARD:
“Indeed it is.”
TRUMP:
“It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than
the touch. You know, the touch, you don’t have to touch things.
Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s
passed.
And
so, that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s
also more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous
flus. You know, people don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people
a year here. Who would ever think that, right?”
WOODWARD:
“I know. It’s much forgotten.”
TRUMP:
“Pretty amazing. And then I say, well, is that the same
thing-”
WOODWARD:
“What are you able to do for –“
TRUMP:
“This is more deadly. This is five per- you know, this is
five percent versus one percent and less than one percent. You know?
So, this is deadly stuff.”
19
March 2020 – 52
COVID-19 deaths in USA
TRUMP:
“Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people, Bob.
Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It’s not
just old- older.”
WOODWARD:
“Yeah, exactly.”
TRUMP:
“Young people too, plenty of young people.”
WOODWARD:
“So, give me-”
TRUMP:
“So what’s going on-
WOODWARD:
“-a moment of talking to somebody, going through this with Fauci or
somebody who kind of, it caused a pivot in your mind. Because it’s
clear, just from what’s on the public record that you went through
a pivot on this to, ‘oh my god, the gravity is almost inexplicable
and unexplainable.’”
TRUMP:
“Well I think, Bob, really, to be honest with you-”
WOODWARD:
“Sure, I want you to be.”
TRUMP:
“I wanted to- I wanted to always play it down. I still
like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
May 2020 – by 1 May there were 1,795 COVID-19 deaths in USA
WOODWARD: “So now, I understand-”
TRUMP: “-it was too early.”
WOODWARD: “Your new national security adviser, O’Brien, said to you January 28, “Mr. President, this is going- this virus is going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency.” Do you remember that?”
TRUMP: “No, no. No, I don’t. No, I don’t. I’m sure if he said it – you know, I’m sure he said it. Nice guy.”
By
9 September 2020 the number who had died from COVID-19 infection in
the USA exceeded 170,000 people, according
to a Reuters report and “The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention had forecast last month that the U.S. death
toll will reach 200,000 to 211,000 by Sept. 26” while “The
University of Washington’s health institute last week forecasted
that the U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the
end of the year.”
Throughout 2020 Donald Trump continues to hold large public "Keep America Great" rallies without social distancing or face masks being required. On 20 March 2020 Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quoted as saying that "The country which has actually been responsible for a large amount of these (coronavirus cases) [in Australia] has actually been the United States". However in March he was still refusing to ban travel from the U.S. to Australia. By 20 March Australia had 846 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 41.7% of these occurring in New South Wales. In April 2020 Morrison chose to focus on economic recovery when he discussed the global pandemic with Donald Trump - rather than the impact in Australia of infections arriving from the U.S.
Since then community infection has taken hold in Australia and at least 788 people have died to date. As late as July 2020 airline passengers carrying the COVID-19 infection were arriving in New South Wales from the United States. With the pandemic clearly out of control out of control in America passenger flights from the U.S. to Sydney still continue to arrive.
"And,
at the ragged and unmasked end of it, he was an old and burned-out
magician who’d long ago hocked his cabinet and now was eating his
own rabbits for food. By the time he hit the middle-school history
textbook peroration of Thursday night’s extended violation of both
pandemic safety protocols and federal law, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago
could barely stand up for falling down.” [Jounalist
Charles
P. Pierce,
wring in Esquire
about U.S. President Donald J. Trump, 28 August 2020]
“An economy in historic recession. An aged care minister censured. A national cabinet at an obstinate impasse over borders. A distracting branch-stacking scandal. A COVID death toll of aged-care residents to hit 500. It has not exactly been a banner week for the federal government.” [The New Daily Political Editor Josh Butler writing on 4 September 2020]
CNN Politics, 4 August 2020: Washington (CNN) Jonathan Swan, a reporter for Axios, has revealed the magic words that expose President Donald Trump's lies for what they are. Who? What? How? No. In an interview that aired Monday night on "Axios on HBO," Swan demolished some of Trump's most dishonest talking points with a powerful tactic that has rarely been used by the people Trump has allowed to interview him: Basic follow-up questions. Many of Trump's interviewers are right-wing sycophants who have no interest in challenging him. But Trump has defeated even his other interviewers by employing a strategy we can call the hit-and-run -- saying dishonest stuff, then darting ahead to other dishonest stuff before the interviewer reacts. Swan -- like Fox News' Chris Wallace, to a slightly lesser extent, in an interview that aired July 19 -- came armed with facts and prepared to use them, even if he had to interrupt Trump like Trump interrupts others. And Trump wasn't ready to respond. Take their exchange about coronavirus testing. Trump uttered a version of his now-familiar refrain about how testing is overrated -- attributing this nonsense to unnamed "those that say." Swan pressed for details. Trump: "You know, there are those that say you can test too much, you do know that." Swan: "Who says that?" Trump: "Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books." Swan: "Manuals? What manuals?" Trump: "Read the books. Read the books." Swan: "What books?" Trump moved on without offering a direct answer. While Swan couldn't get the President to concede that he is making up these "manuals" and "books," he exposed him nonetheless. Swan had similar success when Trump returned to his laughably inaccurate claim that the virus is "under control," which he has now been making for more than six months. Trump: "Right now, I think it's under control. I'll tell you what --" Swan: "How? 1,000 Americans are dying a day." Trump: "They are dying. That's true. And you have -- it is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can. It's under control as much as you can control it." Again, Trump didn't explicitly surrender. But Swan's basic follow-up -- a "how?" and a single key statistic -- forced Trump into a de facto surrender ("It's under control as much as you can control it") and another revealing remark, "It is what it is." Other false claims Trump made at least 17 additional false claims in the 35-minute interview. (We're still reviewing the transcript, so the final total might be higher.).....
Read the full article here. The interview Trump participated in over the bodies of 4.7 million COVID-19 infected Americans and almost 157,000 dead:
There was no CNN footage showing an African-American child running away from a 'white' child as purportedly shown in this Donald Trump tweet. From start to finish the video in this particular tweet has first been manipulated to distort and then later truncated without the original crediting source.
Twitter labelled this "Manipulated media" with the explanation: - In September 2019, CNN reported on a viral video about a friendship between two toddlers - On Thursday, the president shared a version of the video which many journalists confirmed was edited and doctored with a fake CNN chryon. A parent of one of the then toddlers seen in the Trump-manipulated home video has since forced Twitter and Facebook to completely remove this video. As Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison almost slavishly follows Trump's election campaign playbook, Australian voters can expect similar Goebbels-like manipulation of images and videos over the next 14 to 27 months, as the milestone for the last possible date for the next federal general election of the House of Represenatives & half of the Senate arrives.
— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) June 18, 2020
After Twitter began to discuss certain election campaign ads being run on behalf of Donald Trump's re-election bid Facebook quickly removed the symbol. National Public Radio NPRreported on the same day that: The Trump campaign responded by drawing a lighthearted comparison to the red triangle symbol: "This is an emoji." The campaign also falsely claimed that the symbol is used by antifa groups and noted that it is not in the Anti-Defamation League Hate Symbols Database.
In an interview with NPR, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, pointed out that the database is not a collection of historical Nazi imagery. It should be noted that the triangle emoji approved in 2015 is an up pointing triangle. There is no down pointing approved emoji. Trump himself was not tweeting an immediate response to Facebook's action, nor did he do so in the following days. He appeared to be much more exercised by future US Supreme Court appointments (in light of the same court upholding the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program) and former national security advisor John Bolton's tell-all book "The Room Where It Happened" due for release soon.
North Coast Voices no longer allows the Facebook Button sited at the end of each blog post to activate when it is clicked on by a reader.
This button has been deactivated because it has become clear that Facebook Inc. is not now and has never been a corporation genuinely committed to principles of digital privacy and security of Internet users' personal information and other associated data.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
[Adopted and proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948]
Hi! My name is Boy. I'm a male bi-coloured tabby cat. Ever since I discovered that Malcolm Turnbull's dogs were allowed to blog, I have been pestering Clarencegirl to allow me a small space on North Coast Voices.
A false flag musing: I have noticed one particular voice on Facebook which is Pollyanna-positive on the subject of the Port of Yamba becoming a designated cruise ship destination. What this gentleman doesn’t disclose is that, as a principal of Middle Star Pty Ltd, he could be thought to have a potential pecuniary interest due to the fact that this corporation (which has had an office in Grafton since 2012) provides consultancy services and tourismbusiness development services.
A religion & local government musing: On 11 October 2017 Clarence Valley Council has the Church of Jesus Christ Development Fund Inc in Sutherland Local Court No. 6 for a small claims hearing. It would appear that there may be a little issue in rendering unto Caesar. On 19 September 2017 an ordained minister of a religion (which was named by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to 40 instances of historical child sexual abuse on the NSW North Coast) read the Opening Prayer at Council’s ordinary monthly meeting. Earlier in the year an ordained minister (from a church network alleged to have supported an overseas orphanage closed because of child abuse claims in 2013) read the Opening Prayer and an ordained minister (belonging to yet another church network accused of ignoring child sexual abuse in the US and racism in South Africa) read the Opening Prayer at yet another ordinary monthly meeting. Nice one councillors - you are covering yourselves with glory!
An investigative musing: Newcastle Herald, 12 August 2017: The state’s corruption watchdog has been asked to investigate the finances of the Awabakal Aboriginal Local Land Council, less than 12 months after the troubled organisation was placed into administration by the state government. The Newcastle Herald understands accounting firm PKF Lawler made the decision to refer the land council to the Independent Commission Against Corruption after discovering a number of irregularities during an audit of its financial statements.The results of the audit were recently presented to a meeting of Awabakal members. Administrator Terry Lawler did not respond when contacted by the Herald and a PKF Lawler spokesperson said it was unable to comment on the matter. Given the intricate web of company relationships that existed with at least one former board member it is not outside the realms of possibility that, if ICAC accepts this referral, then United Land Councils Limited (registered New Zealand) and United First Peoples Syndications Pty Ltd(registered Australia) might be interviewed. North Coast Voices readers will remember that on 15 August 2015 representatives of these two companied gave evidence before NSW Legislative Council General Purpose Standing Committee No. 6 INQUIRY INTO CROWN LAND. This evidence included advocating for a Yamba mega port.
A Nationals musing: Word around the traps is that NSW Nats MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis has been talking up the notion of cruise ships visiting the Clarence River estuary. Fair dinkum! That man can be guaranteed to run with any bad idea put to him. I'm sure one or more cruise ships moored in the main navigation channel on a regular basis for one, two or three days is something other regular river users will really welcome. *pause for appreciation of irony* The draft of the smallest of the smaller cruise vessels is 3 metres and it would only stay safely afloat in that channel. Even the Yamba-Iluka ferry has been known to get momentarily stuck in silt/sand from time to time in Yamba Bay and even a very small cruise ship wouldn't be able to safely enter and exit Iluka Bay. You can bet your bottom dollar operators of cruise lines would soon be calling for dredging at the approach to the river mouth - and you know how well that goes down with the local residents.
A local councils musing: Which Northern Rivers council is on a low-key NSW Office of Local Government watch list courtesy of feet dragging by a past general manager?
A serial pest musing: I'm sure the Clarence Valley was thrilled to find that a well-known fantasist is active once again in the wee small hours of the morning treading a well-worn path of accusations involving police, local business owners and others.
An investigative musing: Which NSW North Coast council is batting to have the longest running code of conduct complaint investigation on record?
A which bank? musing: Despite a net profit last year of $9,227 million the Commonwealth Bank still insists on paying below Centrelink deeming rates interest on money held in Pensioner Security Accounts. One local wag says he’s waiting for the first bill from the bank charging him for the privilege of keeping his pension dollars at that bank.
A Daily Examiner musing: Just when you thought this newspaper could sink no lower under News Corp management, it continues to give column space to Andrew Bolt.
A thought to ponder musing: In case of bushfire or flood - do you have an emergency evacuation plan for the family pet?
An adoption musing: Every week on the NSW North Coast a number of cats and dogs find themselves without a home. If you want to do your bit and give one bundle of joy a new family, contact Happy Paws on 0419 404 766 or your local council pound.
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