Before a coronavirus news briefing in Harrisburg on Tuesday, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine responded to a series of transphobic attacks directed against him. “While
these individuals may think that they are only expressing their
displeasure with me, they are, in fact, hurting the thousands of LGBTQ
Pennsylvanians who suffered directly from these current demonstrations
of harassment,” Levine began, according to PennLive.com. Among the
anti-trans incidents was a man who dressed as Levine for a dunk tank at
a local fair, an off-color menu item mocking Levine at a tavern and a
radio host who repeatedly called Levine “sir” during an interview. “Your
actions perpetuate the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against
LGBTQ individuals, and specifically transgender individuals,” Levine
said of the incidents. Social media has also been littered with
transphobic remarks about the secretary. Levine is one of the most senior transgender government officials in the country, according to WCAU-TV in Philadelphia. “We
have not made progress unless we have all made progress,” she added.
“It is in this space that these acts of intolerance live, and where we
need to continue to work against them.” Levine said she would accept sincere apologies but added that they are only the beginning of the conversation.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine speaks to
reporters in Harrisburg, Pa., May 29, 2020. (Associated Press)
he also thanked Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, the
Democrat who appointed her, for his support and the progress she said
the LGBTQ community has made under his administration, according to PennLive. Levine,
one of the main faces of Pennsylvania’s coronavirus response, has faced
criticism during the outbreak. A few months ago, she moved her
95-year-old mother from a nursing home while saying others could return
to nursing homes after recovering from the virus. "My mother
requested and my sister and I, as her children, complied to move her to
another location during the COVID-19 outbreak," Levine said in May. More
recently, state Republicans criticized her for not attending a hearing
for floundering restaurant owners asking for financial support, according to KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. "Why
not come forward and answer our questions?" state Rep. Martin Causer,
R-Coudersport, chairman of the state House Republican Policy Committee,
asked the station. "Why not sit in front of this House committee and
talk about the governor's order and answer members' questions?"
LOS ANGELES-- Democrat lawmakers in California are
reportedly gaining support for an initative that would provide state
residents with $600 extra per week in unemployment benefits in the event
that Congress does not renew the benefit.
The Los Angeles Times reported
that the state’s assembly—led by Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat and
head of the Assembly Budget Committee—identified many in the state
who rely on the additional funds to pay rent and put food on the table. Republicans
in the U.S. Senate have said that many recipients of the additional
funding pull in more money not working than if they actually took a job,
and the initiative—while important to stabilize the economy during the
outset of the pandemic—has run its course. They are now proposing the supplemental unemployment benefit to be reduced to $200 per week. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House majority leader, said his party could be willing to compromise on the $600 number. "Look,
it's not $600 or bust. ... [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi said the other
day, which I thought was a great line: 'We don't have red lines, we have
values.' We're going into these negotiations with values," Hoyer told CNN Tuesday. “To say that $600 or nothing, no, that's not where we are. We're prepared to discuss this.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said a $600 per week federal unemployment boost was not negotiable. The
L.A. Times pointed out that the federal supplement ended on July 25 and
the unemployment checks in the state will return to about $340 per
week. The paper reported Gov. Gavin Newsom did not comment on whether
he would back the measure but expressed optimism that Pelosi will carry
the day in Congress.
Fox News' Morgan Phillips and the Associated Press contributed to this report
The same day Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced federal agents sent to the city last week are demobilizing, the Trump administration reportedly began talks Tuesday with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to move agents out of Portland. The
drawing down of federal troops would be contingent on Portland stepping
up its own enforcement as the city continues to have large nightly
protests that frequently turn violent, a White House official who spoke
on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press. The talks are in the early stages and no agreement is in place, the official said. Federal agents have deployed to Seattle, Portland and other cities recently to protect federal property from continued protests. Meanwhile,
Trump continued his criticism of Portland’s leadership Tuesday. “We, as
you know, have done an excellent job of watching over Portland and
watching our courthouse where they wanted to burn it down, they’re
anarchists, nothing short of anarchist agitators," Trump said in a White
House press briefing. "And we have protected it very powerfully. And if
we didn’t go there, I will tell you, you wouldn’t have a courthouse.
You’d have a billion-dollar burned-out building.” Tactics used by
federal agents have been controversial, including not wearing
identifying uniforms and “arresting people without a warrant and
without probable cause,” according to Judge Andrew Napolitano. The
Wall of Moms and Don’t Shoot Portland have both sued the Department of
Homeland Security, claiming it unconstitutionally sent federal law
enforcement to disperse crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets. The
American Civil Liberties Union has also accused agents of violating a
federal ruling that bars them from targeting journalists and legal
observers at protests. Last weekend, U.S. Attorney Billy J.
Williams in Oregon said in an interview Portlanders should insist
“violent extremists” leave the protests. “Until that happens, we’re going to do what we need to do to protect federal property,‘' he told the Oregonian. Protesters
continually try to tear down a fence erected to protect the federal
courthouse, fires are set in the street and fireworks, Molotov
cocktails, bricks, rocks and bottles are often thrown at agents. In response, agents use tear gas, pepper balls and stun grenades to push back protesters. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo received another round of backlash on Tuesday over his repeated attacks on Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Cuomo
has raised eyebrows over the past several months, from his hostile
confrontation with a cyclist while breaking quarantine amid his
recovery from the coronavirus to the series of softball interviews he
conducted with his brother, Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. On
Monday, the "Cuomo Prime Time" questioned the legitimacy of recent data
from the sunshine state, which signaled an improvement in new COVID-19
cases. "Can we trust the data from florida’s governor?" Cuomo asked on Twitter The
next day, however, Cuomo was a bit blunter with his criticism towards
DeSantis in response to the praise he received from Vice President Mike
Pence, who commended the governor's "strong and steady leadership." "Head of task force praising gov who mishandled pandemic," the CNN anchor reacted. Cuomo
was blasted on social media for what critics suggest is a double
standard between his judgment of DeSantis versus his brother's handling
of the outbreak in New York. "If you think that's bad, you should
hear how the media is praising Governor Cuomo who implemented the worst
coronavirus policy in the world to disastrous effect," Daily Caller
opinion contributor Eddie Zipperer told the anchor. "Lately I've
been wondering if these people are just shamelessly dishonest or if
they've fooled themselves into believing this stuff," David Harsanyi,
National Review senior writer, tweeted. "NY Deaths: 32,708, FL Deaths: 5,933," Reagon Battalion pointed out. "You are one of the most unethical media people in America," Noam Blum, Tablet Magazine associate editor, declared. Through
much of the coronavirus outbreak, there has been growing scrutiny over
Gov. Cuomo's order in late March that forced nursing homes to accept
patients who tested positive for coronavirus, despite testing
deficiencies for both residents and staff. Cuomo signed an executive
order on May 11 reversing the policy, stopping hospitals from sending
infected patients back to nursing homes and ramping up testing for
staff. As
of last month, roughly 7,900 people have either been confirmed or
presumed dead from COVID-19 in nursing homes in New York, according to
the state's health department. That equates to approximately 25 percent
of all deaths in the state have occurred in nursing homes, per the
latest state total from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported
that “New York hospitals released more than 6,300 recovering
coronavirus patients into nursing homes during the height” of the
coronavirus pandemic under a “controversial, now-scrapped policy.”
He came, he saw, he ate their lunch. Bill Barr, denied a meal break, feasted instead on a gaggle of Democratic amateurs. Another congressional hearing,
another Dem disaster. They planned a public hanging of the attorney
general and spent weeks constructing their scaffold. He is corrupt, a
liar, a toady, they and their media handmaidens assured us, and the
House Judiciary Committee will reveal all. Two obstacles quickly
became apparent. The first is that the Dems were led by Rep. Jerry
Nadler, whose rabidness is exceeded only by his haplessness. The
start was delayed because Nadler was in a minor car accident. That was
obviously an omen, but Nadler doesn’t take hints, so he plowed forward
into a head-on crash with a heavyweight opponent superior in every way. Nadler
specializes in duds, demanding that former special counsel Robert
Mueller testify a year ago, only to see the Russia, Russia, Russia
hysteria collapse on national TV. Then Nadler, bearing a lifetime grudge
against President Trump, did such a terrible job in the first
impeachment hearings on Ukraine that Speaker Nancy Pelosi demoted him
and turned the task over to Rep. Adam Schiff. Yet Nadler is a slow
learner and there he was Tuesday, opening the ballyhooed attack on the
AG with a statement that was a farrago of lies, fake news and slanderous
attacks on law enforcement, Barr and Trump. It was so over-the-top, so
fact-free and unsupportable, that it had zero chance of setting the
stage for a meaningful interrogation. Then again, honest interrogation was not the intent. Pelosi’s House only does character assassination. Recently
caught on camera calling Antifa violence in Portland a “myth,” Nadler
repeated the gist of that. He said Barr had “endangered Americans and
violated their constitutional rights by flooding federal law enforcement
into the streets of American cities . . . to forcefully and
unconstitutionally suppress dissent.” So hundreds of black-masked
Antifa-types using guns, knifes, Molotov cocktails, commercial-grade
fireworks, lasers and Tasers to attack federal agents on federal
property is now called “dissent.” Got it. After the GOP’s Jim
Jordan countered with an attack on the FBI’s spying on Trump’s campaign
and played a video of pundits calling the violence in Portland and
elsewhere “peaceful protests,” the air had left the room before Barr
said a word. When he got his chance, he didn’t just defend his
tenure — he went on offense to demand an end to the “demonizing of
police” and the dangerous defunding movement. The war against law
enforcement, he said, is making police “more risk-averse,” and that is
part of the reason crime is soaring across America — leading to the
deaths of the very people the Black Lives Matter movement says it wants
to help. “The leading cause of death for young black males is
homicide,” he said, adding that about 7,500 are murdered each year, 90
percent by other black Americans. “Each of those lives matter,” the attorney general declared. Thankfully, somebody is not afraid the truth will get him canceled.
The
growing political violence, 99 percent of it from the far left, is a
direct consequence, yet most Democrats don’t dare denounce the
insurrection
It was the first of many times Barr
turned the tables on his would-be tormentors. He often appeared bored,
but when he was allowed to speak, his words cut through the room like a
knife. He called the attacks in Portland and elsewhere “an assault on
the government of the United States.” Later, he chided Nadler & Co. for their silence in the face of clear criminal activity. “This
is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great
political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and
condemning mob violence,” he said. “Can’t we just say the violence
against the federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like
that?” The room was silent. The attorney general challenged their
loyalty, and not a single Democrat objected. For them, it was just
another day at the office. Nearly every time I watch Barr in extended interviews or read one of his substantive speeches, I find myself saying, “If only.” If
only Barr had been Trump’s first attorney general, the last four years
would have been dramatically different. Bob Mueller could have stayed in
retirement because there was never real evidence of Russian collusion,
not even enough, we now know, to start an FBI investigation. It
was all ginned up to thwart Trump during the campaign, and then upend
his presidency. Yet because Trump picked Jeff Sessions to be AG, and
because Sessions, in a supreme act of selfishness, took the job knowing
he would recuse himself from overseeing the FBI probe, the nation got
put through the wringer. Dems were able to cow Deputy AG Rod
Rosenstein into appointing Mueller and succeeded in putting the White
House under a cloud of suspicion for nearly three years. All those
leaks and screaming headlines — they were all just a bunch of
nothingburgers. Some were Pulitzer Prize-winning nothingburgers. The
entire episode, starring Jim Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan,
Hillary Clinton and other unindicted co-conspirators of the Obama-Biden
administration, was the dirtiest dirty trick in American political
history. And although there was no collusion, Dems and much of the media
have never let go of the red-baiting insinuation that Trump is a
Russian agent and an illegitimate president. The
growing political violence, 99 percent of it from the far left, is a
direct consequence, yet most Democrats don’t dare denounce the
insurrection. They save their condemnation for the federal officers who
are under attack. At one point Tuesday, Barr said flatly, “We have to take a stand.” He was talking to Congress, but he meant all of us.
President Trump renewed his criticism of Twitter on Monday and called to question the social media giant’s Trending section that he called “disgusting.” Trump
tweeted that it is “disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called ‘Trending”,
where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one. They look
for anything they can find, make it as bad as possible, and blow it up,
trying to make it trend. Really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course,
very unfair.” Twitter declined to comment when reached by Fox News. Its website
says that these trends are “determined by an algorithm and, by default,
are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your
location.” Twitter claims that “the number of Tweets that are
related to the trends is just one of the factors the algorithm looks at
when ranking and determining trends.” Trump has publicly clashed with Twitter in the past.
The company has censored tweets from the president for allegedly
“glorifying violence” a few weeks ago during the outbreak of the George
Floyd protests. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George
Floyd, and I won’t let this happen. 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. Thank you.” Twitter added a disclaimer onto the tweet, which hide the message until users click "view." "This
Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However,
Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the
Tweet to remain accessible," the disclaimer read. Trump has been
joined by fellow Republicans who agree that Twitter favors Democrats and
left-leaning policies. Trump insisted that the censored tweet was taken
out of context but said the platform is quick to censor his speech but
does nothing to stop propaganda from China and the “radical left”
Democrats. In May, Trump signed an executive order that interprets Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) as not providing statutory liability protections for tech companies that engage in censorship and political conduct. The president's order,
which also cuts federal funding for social media platforms that censor
users' political views, came just two days after Twitter took the unprecedented step
of slapping a "misleading" warning label on two of Trump's tweets
concerning the fraud risks of nationwide mail-in balloting. The Commerce Department on Monday petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to begin the process, Politico reported. The
report pointed out that the FCC does not regulate these social media
companies but it has been tasked by the administration to come up with
ways that internet companies face certain transparency mandates. "President
Trump is committed to protecting the rights of all Americans to express
their views and not face unjustified restrictions or selective
censorship from a handful of powerful companies," Wilbur Ross, the
Commerce secretary, said in a statement. Fox News' Gregg Re, Joseph A. Wulfshon and the Associated Press contributed to this report
A Hampton Inn is shown Tuesday, July 21, 2020 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Immigrant children being detained in a Texas hotel are getting a reprieve from being deported and will be given a chance to stay in the U.S. The Trump administration,
through an emergency declaration issued on Monday, has agreed not to
remove a group of immigrant children it detained citing the coronavirus and will instead allow them to seek to remain in the U.S.
This comes after the Associated Press first reported on
the U.S. government's secretive practice of detaining unaccompanied
children in hotels before rapidly deporting them during the virus
pandemic. The U.S. had detained children nearly 200 times over two
months in three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in Arizona and two
Texas border cities, according to data obtained by the AP. The agreement only covers 17 people known to have been detained as of Thursday at the Hampton Inn in McAllen. The Trump administration has not said it will stop using hotels to detain children. The legal groups that sued Friday night plans to challenge the overall practice in court. “The
children in this hotel averted disaster only because we happened to
hear about them before they were deported, yet hundreds if not thousands
of other children are being sent back to harm in secret," said Lee
Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The
government must stop expelling children in secret without giving them
asylum hearings.”
The children will be transferred by immigration
authorities to shelters operated by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, where they will have access to lawyers and can pursue
asylum cases or other immigration relief to try to remain in the
country. A
spokeswoman for Hilton, which owns the Hampton Inn brand, said
franchisees owned all three Hampton Inns and the others in Phoenix and
El Paso, Texas, would also stop child detention in its hotels. Hilton
said in a statement that the company expected all of its franchisees “to
reject business that would use a hotel in this way.” The Associated Press contributed to this article.
CNN's chief media correspondent Brian Stelter may have landed himself in hot water, according to the attorney of Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann. Last
week, Sandmann announced that The Washington Post settled the $250
million defamation lawsuit he filed over its botched coverage of a viral
confrontation with a Native American elder that had portrayed the Kentucky teen as the aggressor. This followed the multi-million dollar settlement CNN made with the teenager back in January. However,
Sandmann's attorney Lin Wood spotted a retweet from Stelter of a tweet
written by attorney Mark Zaid, who speculated about how much money the
teen walked away with from the settlement. "Those with zero legal
experience (as far as I can tell) should not be conjecturing on lawsuits
they know nothing about. What kind of journalism is that?" Zaid asked.
"I've litigated defamation cases. [Sandmann] was undoubtedly paid
nuisance value settlement & nothing more." Wood accused the "Reliable Sources" host of breaching his network's own confidentiality agreement with his client. "This
retweet by @brianstelter may have cost him his job at @CNN. It is
called breach of confidentiality agreement. Brian Stelter is a liar. I
know how to deal with liars," Wood tweeted with a screenshot of
Stelter's retweet. Sandmann knocked the media guru, tweeting "Brian Stelter just can’t learn some basic lessons over at CNN." "I
can’t decide if it’s worse to be Brian Stelter or believe Brian
Stelter. He was never in any court hearing or meeting I was. So why does
he act like he knows anything?" Sandmann added. CNN analyst Asha Rangappa appeared to agree with Zaid as well. "I’d guess $25K to go away," Rangappa wrote.
Responding
to Rangappa's tweet, Wood wrote "Heads are going to roll at CNN or
@N1ckSandmann is going to filing another lawsuit & reveal truth." Wood
leveled a similar charge against Washington Post reporter Dan Zak, who
suggested on Friday that the Post settled "for a small amount... in
order to avoid a more expensive trial," later adding that it's the
"American way." Zak has since deleted the tweet, but he doubled
down on the assertion, writing, "I delete about 30 percent of my tweets
within 15 minutes. All are deleted within four months via Tweet Delete!
Except really old tweets, which Tweet Delete doesn’t reach. But I stand
by this theory! It’s the American way." A spokesperson for The
Washington Post told Fox News, "Dan’s tweet was taken down because it
had no basis in fact. Dan has no knowledge about the agreement." CNN and Lin Wood did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment. On Friday, Sandmann touted his victory against The Washington Post on Twitter. "On
2/19/19, I filed $250M defamation lawsuit against Washington Post.
Today, I turned 18 & WaPo settled my lawsuit. Thanks to
@ToddMcMurtry & @LLinWood for their advocacy. Thanks to my family
& millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me. I
still have more to do," Sandmann wrote. Sandmann offered a not-so-subtle warning to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "We have settled with WAPO and CNN. The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go. Don’t hold your breath @jack," he tweeted. Wood
similarly wrote, "For our present to @N1ckSandmann to celebrate his
18th Birthday, @ToddMcMurtry & I gave Nicholas the gift of justice
from . . . THE WASHINGTON POST #FightBack." A spokesperson for The
Washington Post told Fox News, "We are pleased that we have been able
to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims in this
lawsuit." In
March 2019, Sandmann's attorneys filed a suit against CNN for its
coverage of the incident before all the facts had surfaced. The teen was
seeking a whopping $800 million in damages from CNN, NBC, and the Post. Attorney Todd McMurtry previously told Fox News that lawsuits against “as many as 13 other defendants" would be filed. Among
them: ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, Slate, The
Hill, and Gannett, which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer, as well as
miscellaneous other small outfits, according to McMurtry. Sandmann
was swept up in a controversy after a video clip depicted the "MAGA"
hat-wearing student smiling at Nathan Phillips beating a drum and
singing a chant as he was surrounded by Sandmann's peers, who all had
joined in on the chant in front of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington D.C. However,
several mainstream media outlets, including CNN and The Washington
Post, portrayed the incident with Sandmann and the other teens as being
racially charged before additional footage later showed that a group
of Black Hebrew Israelites had provoked the confrontation, slinging
racial slurs at the students as they were waiting for their bus
following the March For Life event. The footage then showed
Phillips, who was in town for the Indigenous Peoples March, approaching
the students amid the rising tension between the two groups.
Sean Hannity rounded on the Democratic mayors of Seattle and Portland Monday, accusing them of "aiding and abetting all of this nonstop crime" after another weekend of lawlessness and violence in those cities. "[Seattle] Mayor
[Jenny] Durkan, [Portland] Mayor [Ted] Wheeler or city council
so-called leaders, how can you not see or care what this is all
resulting in and at what point do we blame these failed politicians for
aiding and abetting all of this nonstop crime and chaos and carnage?"
Hannity asked in his opening monologue Monday. Hannity praised President Trump for "taking bold action to restore law and order" after he cracked down on protestors in a tweet Monday night. "Anarchists,
Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse
in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States,
will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues & Monuments
Act," Trump wrote. "MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it! @DHSgov" "The
president has been offering these cities, these mayors and governors
help again and again to help them restore order and safety and
security," Hannity said. But, the host argued, Trump has been
repeatedly asked to stand down by "radical Democrats aiding and abetting
more anarchy and violence, and in some cases even marching with the
anarchists." Hannity called on the "irresponsible Democratic mayors and governors" to "step up and do their job. "Just accept the help that's being offered to them."
