Conservative Blogger
Monday, September 2, 2019
Not so easy to prevent the spread of mass shooters’ names
When law enforcement
authorities gathered to discuss details of a mass shooting in West Texas
that left seven people dead, there was one bit of information they
refused to provide on live television: the name of the gunman.
Instead, they decided to release the name through a Facebook post. Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke made it plain why he wouldn’t mention the name at the news conference: “I’m not going to give him any notoriety for what he did.”
Even with such restraint, it remained a challenge to curb the spread of the gunman’s name. The Odessa Police Department has fewer than 25,000 followers of its Facebook page, but the social media platform easily reaches millions of Facebook’s members around the globe and the post was shared hundreds of times. Within minutes, Twitter was lit up with posts mentioning his name. Journalists and advocates on both sides of the gun debate also began spreading the word, spewing a firehose of information about the suspect.
In this era of a saturation of social media and around-the-clock news, it’s next-to-impossible to keep a lid on such information.
“Ultimately, the police department can only directly control what they do, and that name, that information can be reposted and retweeted and republished hundreds of thousands of time,” said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters. He and others appeal to the media to limit the volume of information about these perpetrators, saying it does little to understand the reasons for the violence or stop it in the future.
The “No Notoriety” movement first started to take hold after the 1999 Columbine school shooting outside Denver. The gunmen became household names and even in death appeared to motivate a whole new crop of mass shooters.
In recent years, it has gained momentum amid a seemingly steady stream of mass shootings. The idea is to urge news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to curb the volume of biographical information about them. In New Zealand, after a mass shooter there killed 51 people at two mosques, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to mention the perpetrator’s name at all.
FBI leaders, leery of inspiring copycat killers and hesitant to give them what they see as undue attention, have occasionally been reluctant in recent years to refer to them by name.
Former FBI Director James Comey expressed that concern in a briefing with reporters the day after a 2016 rampage at an Orlando nightclub, repeatedly referring to gunman not by his name but simply as “the killer.”
“You will notice that I am not using the killer’s name, and I will try not to do that,” Comey said. “Part of what motivates sick people to do this kind of thing is some twisted notion of fame or glory, and I don’t want to be part of that for the sake of the victims and their families.”
FBI special agent Christopher Combs, who previously worked at FBI headquarters leading the bureau’s efforts to respond to mass shootings, has held to that view. As the top FBI official in San Antonio, he has overseen the bureau’s response to multiple mass shootings in Texas, including a 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherland Springs that killed 26 people.
At a news conference after the shooting where officials refrained from naming the gunman, Combs said, “We don’t talk about the shooter.”
And in a television interview after the shooting, Combs said he understood that the media had to name a shooter “once,” but “after that, we certainly don’t want to draw any type of positive attention to the shooter. And we have found through studies that there are people out there that are troubled, and when they see that, they believe this is how I can show the wrongdoings that have been done to me.”
All these years later, the Columbine attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who earlier this year stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman in New Zealand was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
University of Alabama’s Lankford urges journalists to refrain from using shooters’ names or go into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls, he said, and media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Experts call it the “contagion” effect.
Lankford lauded the approach in Texas to avoid mentioning the name on live television. That medium is especially problematic, he said.
“There’s the issue of B-roll where the sound bite can be played over and over and over again,” he said. “They’re trying to set a moral position and a lead they hope the media will follow.”
Tom Manger, senior associate director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said there are a number of challenges. The name of the shooter is considered public information that must be disseminated, and there’s a general thirst for information about mass shooters. As Americans consider ways to prevent future shootings, knowing more about the gunman might help figure out effective solutions.
But there are practical issues at play too: How can the information be contained?
“It goes out in a hundred different ways,” Manger said. “Once it goes out on social media, it goes everywhere.”
For Caren Teves, the issue is personal. Her son, Alex, was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. She and her husband, Tom, created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details.
“It is a tough thing to navigate. But it’s a start,” Teves said. “We’ve never said it’s the only solution. It’s just one of them.”
___
Lisa Marie Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C., and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
Instead, they decided to release the name through a Facebook post. Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke made it plain why he wouldn’t mention the name at the news conference: “I’m not going to give him any notoriety for what he did.”
Even with such restraint, it remained a challenge to curb the spread of the gunman’s name. The Odessa Police Department has fewer than 25,000 followers of its Facebook page, but the social media platform easily reaches millions of Facebook’s members around the globe and the post was shared hundreds of times. Within minutes, Twitter was lit up with posts mentioning his name. Journalists and advocates on both sides of the gun debate also began spreading the word, spewing a firehose of information about the suspect.
In this era of a saturation of social media and around-the-clock news, it’s next-to-impossible to keep a lid on such information.
“Ultimately, the police department can only directly control what they do, and that name, that information can be reposted and retweeted and republished hundreds of thousands of time,” said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, who has studied the influence of media coverage on future shooters. He and others appeal to the media to limit the volume of information about these perpetrators, saying it does little to understand the reasons for the violence or stop it in the future.
The “No Notoriety” movement first started to take hold after the 1999 Columbine school shooting outside Denver. The gunmen became household names and even in death appeared to motivate a whole new crop of mass shooters.
In recent years, it has gained momentum amid a seemingly steady stream of mass shootings. The idea is to urge news organizations to refrain from naming the shooters in mass slayings and to curb the volume of biographical information about them. In New Zealand, after a mass shooter there killed 51 people at two mosques, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to mention the perpetrator’s name at all.
FBI leaders, leery of inspiring copycat killers and hesitant to give them what they see as undue attention, have occasionally been reluctant in recent years to refer to them by name.
Former FBI Director James Comey expressed that concern in a briefing with reporters the day after a 2016 rampage at an Orlando nightclub, repeatedly referring to gunman not by his name but simply as “the killer.”
“You will notice that I am not using the killer’s name, and I will try not to do that,” Comey said. “Part of what motivates sick people to do this kind of thing is some twisted notion of fame or glory, and I don’t want to be part of that for the sake of the victims and their families.”
FBI special agent Christopher Combs, who previously worked at FBI headquarters leading the bureau’s efforts to respond to mass shootings, has held to that view. As the top FBI official in San Antonio, he has overseen the bureau’s response to multiple mass shootings in Texas, including a 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherland Springs that killed 26 people.
At a news conference after the shooting where officials refrained from naming the gunman, Combs said, “We don’t talk about the shooter.”
And in a television interview after the shooting, Combs said he understood that the media had to name a shooter “once,” but “after that, we certainly don’t want to draw any type of positive attention to the shooter. And we have found through studies that there are people out there that are troubled, and when they see that, they believe this is how I can show the wrongdoings that have been done to me.”
All these years later, the Columbine attack continues to motivate mass shooters, including the two men who earlier this year stormed their former school in Brazil, killing seven people. The gunman in New Zealand was said to have been inspired by the man who in 2015 killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
University of Alabama’s Lankford urges journalists to refrain from using shooters’ names or go into exhaustive detail about their crimes. These attackers are trying to outdo previous shooters with higher death tolls, he said, and media coverage serves only to encourage copycats. Experts call it the “contagion” effect.
Lankford lauded the approach in Texas to avoid mentioning the name on live television. That medium is especially problematic, he said.
“There’s the issue of B-roll where the sound bite can be played over and over and over again,” he said. “They’re trying to set a moral position and a lead they hope the media will follow.”
Tom Manger, senior associate director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said there are a number of challenges. The name of the shooter is considered public information that must be disseminated, and there’s a general thirst for information about mass shooters. As Americans consider ways to prevent future shootings, knowing more about the gunman might help figure out effective solutions.
But there are practical issues at play too: How can the information be contained?
“It goes out in a hundred different ways,” Manger said. “Once it goes out on social media, it goes everywhere.”
For Caren Teves, the issue is personal. Her son, Alex, was among those killed in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in 2012. She and her husband, Tom, created the No Notoriety movement, encouraging media to stick to reporting relevant facts rather than the smallest of biographical details.
“It is a tough thing to navigate. But it’s a start,” Teves said. “We’ve never said it’s the only solution. It’s just one of them.”
___
Lisa Marie Pane reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C., and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
US envoy meets Afghanistan’s president over US-Taliban talks
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A
U.S. envoy has met with the Afghan president in the capital, Kabul, to
brief him on the latest round of talks with the Taliban as a deal nears
on ending America’s longest war, an official said Monday.
President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, confirmed Sunday night’s meeting at the presidential palace shortly after envoy Zalmay Khalilzad arrived from Qatar, where the ninth round of talks ended without a final agreement.
Khalilzad over the weekend said the U.S. and the insurgent group are “at the threshold of an agreement” — even as the Taliban attacked the capitals of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in the north.
“We are on the verge of ending the invasion and reaching a peaceful solution for Afghanistan,” said the Taliban spokesman in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen.
Unrest continued Monday outside the Baghlan capital of Puli Khumri as the Taliban blocked the main road leading south to Kabul with fuel tanker trucks, opening fire on any security forces that tried to approach, provincial council member Mabobullah Ghafari told The Associated Press.
The Taliban also blocked the two main highways heading north from Puli Khumri as gun battles continued, he said. The situation inside the city was calm but residents remained fearful of attack, he added.
At least 47 wounded people had been taken to hospitals since the attack began on Sunday morning, said Jawed Basharat, spokesman for the provincial police chief. He said around 50 Taliban had been killed by security forces. He confirmed there were casualties among security forces but could not say how many as sporadic fighting continued.
Separately on Sunday night, six pro-government soldiers were killed and three were wounded when Taliban fighters ambushed their patrol in Qarabagh district of eastern Ghazni province, said Arif Noori, spokesman for the governor.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks in recent months to strengthen their negotiating position while the United Nations and others say civilians have suffered , often caught in the cross-fire as government forces, backed by the U.S., have pursued the militants with airstrikes and raids. Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest conflict in 2018.
A U.S.-Taliban agreement on ending nearly 18 years of fighting is expected to be followed by intra-Afghan talks that include the Afghan government, which so far has been sidelined from the negotiations. The Taliban have refused to talk with the Afghan government, calling it a U.S. puppet, but have expressed openness to speaking with Afghan officials in their personal capacity.
The insurgent group is at its strongest since the U.S.-led invasion to topple its government after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. The Taliban now control or hold sway over roughly half of Afghanistan.
The Taliban want all of the estimated 20,000 U.S. and NATO forces to leave the country and already portray their departure as the insurgents’ victory. For its part, the U.S. seeks Taliban assurances that Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for extremist groups to plan and launch global terror attacks. A cease-fire also has been discussed.
Few details have emerged from this latest round of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, adding to the uncertainty as violence increases.
The agreement with the Taliban “will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable & sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country,” the Afghan-born Khalilzad said on Twitter before his Kabul arrival.
A U.S. official with the negotiation team added that “any potential peace deal will not be based on blind trust, but will instead contain clear commitments that are subject to our monitoring and verification.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
The official added that “if and when we are able to announce an agreement, the process will pivot to intra-Afghan negotiations where the Taliban will sit with other Afghans and together they will commit to a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire.”
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Guelph, Canada, contributed to this report.
President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, confirmed Sunday night’s meeting at the presidential palace shortly after envoy Zalmay Khalilzad arrived from Qatar, where the ninth round of talks ended without a final agreement.
Khalilzad over the weekend said the U.S. and the insurgent group are “at the threshold of an agreement” — even as the Taliban attacked the capitals of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in the north.
“We are on the verge of ending the invasion and reaching a peaceful solution for Afghanistan,” said the Taliban spokesman in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen.
Unrest continued Monday outside the Baghlan capital of Puli Khumri as the Taliban blocked the main road leading south to Kabul with fuel tanker trucks, opening fire on any security forces that tried to approach, provincial council member Mabobullah Ghafari told The Associated Press.
The Taliban also blocked the two main highways heading north from Puli Khumri as gun battles continued, he said. The situation inside the city was calm but residents remained fearful of attack, he added.
At least 47 wounded people had been taken to hospitals since the attack began on Sunday morning, said Jawed Basharat, spokesman for the provincial police chief. He said around 50 Taliban had been killed by security forces. He confirmed there were casualties among security forces but could not say how many as sporadic fighting continued.
Separately on Sunday night, six pro-government soldiers were killed and three were wounded when Taliban fighters ambushed their patrol in Qarabagh district of eastern Ghazni province, said Arif Noori, spokesman for the governor.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks in recent months to strengthen their negotiating position while the United Nations and others say civilians have suffered , often caught in the cross-fire as government forces, backed by the U.S., have pursued the militants with airstrikes and raids. Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest conflict in 2018.
A U.S.-Taliban agreement on ending nearly 18 years of fighting is expected to be followed by intra-Afghan talks that include the Afghan government, which so far has been sidelined from the negotiations. The Taliban have refused to talk with the Afghan government, calling it a U.S. puppet, but have expressed openness to speaking with Afghan officials in their personal capacity.
The insurgent group is at its strongest since the U.S.-led invasion to topple its government after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. The Taliban now control or hold sway over roughly half of Afghanistan.
The Taliban want all of the estimated 20,000 U.S. and NATO forces to leave the country and already portray their departure as the insurgents’ victory. For its part, the U.S. seeks Taliban assurances that Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for extremist groups to plan and launch global terror attacks. A cease-fire also has been discussed.
Few details have emerged from this latest round of U.S.-Taliban peace talks, adding to the uncertainty as violence increases.
The agreement with the Taliban “will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honorable & sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country,” the Afghan-born Khalilzad said on Twitter before his Kabul arrival.
A U.S. official with the negotiation team added that “any potential peace deal will not be based on blind trust, but will instead contain clear commitments that are subject to our monitoring and verification.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
The official added that “if and when we are able to announce an agreement, the process will pivot to intra-Afghan negotiations where the Taliban will sit with other Afghans and together they will commit to a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire.”
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Gannon in Guelph, Canada, contributed to this report.
Record-setting Hurricane Dorian keeps pounding north Bahamas
McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) — In a slow, relentless advance, a catastrophic Hurricane Dorian kept pounding at the northern Bahamas early Monday, as one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded left wrecked homes, shredded roofs, tumbled cars and toppled power poles in its wake.
Full Coverage: Hurricane Dorian
The
storm’s top sustained winds decreased slightly to 165 mph (265 kph) as
its westward movement slowed, crawling along Grand Bahama island early
Monday at 1 mph (1.6 kph) in what forecasters said would be a daylong
assault. Earlier, Dorian churned over Abaco island with battering winds
and surf during Sunday.There was little information from the affected islands, though officials expected many residents to be left homeless. Most people went to shelters as the storm approached, with tourist hotels shutting down and residents boarded up their homes.
“It’s devastating,” Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, said Sunday afternoon. “There has been huge damage to property and infrastructure. Luckily, no loss of life reported.”
On Sunday, Dorian’s maximum sustained winds reached 185 mph (297 kph), with gusts up to 220 mph (354 kph), tying the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall. That equaled the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before storms were named. The only recorded storm that was more powerful was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 190 mph (305 kph) winds, though it did not make landfall at that strength.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an order Sunday for the mandatory evacuation of his state’s entire coast. The order, which covers about 830,000 people, was to take effect at noon Monday, at which point state troopers were to make all lanes on major coastal highways one-way heading inland.
“We can’t make everybody happy, but we believe we can keep everyone alive,” McMaster said.
A few hours later, Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, ordered mandatory evacuations for that state’s Atlantic coast, also starting at midday Monday.
Authorities in Florida ordered mandatory evacuations in some vulnerable coastal areas. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned his state that it could see heavy rain, winds and floods later in the week.
Dorian first came ashore Sunday at Elbow Cay in Abaco island at 12:40 p.m., then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbour at 2 p.m.
“Catastrophic conditions” were reported in Abaco, with a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet (5.5-7 meters).
Video that Jibrilu and government spokesman Kevin Harris said was sent by Abaco residents showed homes missing parts of roofs, electric lines on the ground and smashed and overturned cars. One showed floodwaters rushing through the streets of an unidentified town at nearly the height of a car roof.
In some parts of Abaco, “you cannot tell the difference as to the beginning of the street versus where the ocean begins,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said. According to the Nassau Guardian, he called it “probably the most sad and worst day of my life to address the Bahamian people.”
Bahamas
radio station ZNS Bahamas reported that a mother and child on Grand
Bahama had called to say they were sheltering in a closet and seeking
help from police.
“The winds are howling like we’ve never, ever experienced before,” said Mills, who was riding out the hurricane with his family in the concrete home he built 41 years ago on central Abaco.
Jack Pittard, a 76-year-old American who has visited the Bahamas for 40 years, also decided to stay put on Abaco for Dorian, which he said was his first hurricane. A short video from Pittard about 2:30 p.m. Sunday showed the wind shaking his home and ripping off the siding.
The Bahamas archipelago is no stranger to hurricanes. Homes are required to have metal reinforcements for roof beams to withstand winds into the upper limits of a Category 4 hurricane, and compliance is generally tight for those who can afford it. Risks are higher in poorer neighborhoods, with wooden homes in low-lying areas.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Dorian is forecast to be 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 kilometers) off Florida, with hurricane-force wind speeds extending about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to the west.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Florida’s East Coast from Deerfield Beach north to the Georgia state line. The same area was put under a storm surge watch. Lake Okeechobee was under a tropical storm watch.
Mandatory
evacuation orders for low-lying and flood-prone areas and mobile homes
were in effect starting either Sunday or Monday from Palm Beach County
north to at least the Daytona Beach area, and some counties to the north
issued voluntary evacuation notices. Weekend traffic was light in
Florida despite those orders, unlike during the chaotic run-up to
Hurricane Irma in 2017 when the unusually broad storm menaced the entire
state.
President Donald Trump already declared a state of emergency and was briefed about what he called a “monstrous” storm.
“We don’t know where it’s going to hit but we have an idea, probably a little bit different than the original course,” Trump said. “But it can change its course again and it can go back more toward Florida.”
___
For AP’s complete coverage of the hurricane: https://apnews.com/Hurricanes
Hong Kong students boycott classes after weekend of violence
 |
| A riot police holds his shield at a Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station in Hong Kong, China, September 2, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis |
September 2, 2019
By Jessie Pang
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Thousands of Hong Kong university and school students swapped classes for democracy demonstrations on Monday, the latest act of defiance in an anti-government movement that has plunged the Chinese-ruled city into its biggest political crisis in decades.
The boycott follows a weekend marred by some of the worst violence since unrest escalated more than three months ago, with protesters burning barricades and throwing petrol bombs, and police retaliating with water cannon, tear gas and batons.
Riot police on Monday patrolled the subway, known as the MTR, where some of the most violent clashes have erupted.
Hundreds of students gathered outside the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of the city’s largest, taking turns to make speeches from a stage with a black backdrop embossed with “Students in Unity Boycott for our City”.
“I come here just to tell others that even after summer holidays end we are not back to our normal life, we should continue to fight for Hong Kong,” said one 19-year old student who asked to be identified as just Chan.
“These protests awaken me to care more about the society and care for the voiceless.”
On the first day of the new school year, secondary students were seen singing, chanting and forming human chains, some wearing hard hats and masks. Many primary schools were closed because of a typhoon warning.
Matthew Cheung, Hong Kong government chief secretary, told reporters that schools were no place for protests.
Students have turned out in significant numbers at recent rallies and were also prominent during the 2014 pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” that foreshadowed the current unrest.
“It’s very different from what happened back then. People are more mad now,” said Summer, a 20-year-old student who only gave his first name.
“I think this situation is a deadlock now. Both government and protesters won’t back down.”
Protesters had called for a general strike but most people appeared to return to their daily lives with shops open, trains operating and workers making their way to offices across the global financial hub.
Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport on Sunday in a bid to draw world attention to what they see as ever-tighter control by Beijing over the city, despite the promise of autonomy.
Airport authorities said 25 flights were canceled on Sunday but transport services were largely back to normal.
China denies meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and accuses Western countries of egging on the protests. It says Hong Kong is an internal affair.
Several editorials in Chinese state media on Monday condemned the protesters.
One published by the state news agency Xinhua warned that “the end is coming” for protesters who should “never misjudge the determination and ability of the central government”.
ANGER AT CHINA
After leaving the airport on Sunday, some demonstrators targeted the MTR subway station in nearby Tung Chung district, ripping out turnstiles and smashing CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles. Police moved in and made several arrests.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, a lightning rod for protesters’ anger at a city government they say is controlled by Beijing, said on her Facebook page on Monday that 10 subway stations were damaged by “violent offenders”.
Police and protesters had clashed on Saturday night in some of the most intense violence since unrest escalated in mid-June over concerns Beijing is eroding the freedoms granted to the territory under a “one country, two systems” agreement, including the right to protest and an independent judiciary.
John Lee, government secretary for security, told media that nearly 100 petrol bombs were thrown in various locations on Saturday with two found on a 13-year-old boy who was arrested inside an MTR station.
The unrest began over a now-suspended extradition bill that would have allowed people in the city to be sent to China for trial in courts controlled by the Communist Party.
The turmoil has evolved over 13 weeks to become a widespread demand for greater democracy. China is eager to quell the unrest before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1.
With Hong Kong facing its first recession in a decade, China has also warned of the damage the protests are causing to the economy.
Shares of Hong Kong rail operator MTR Corp Ltd <0066 .hk=""> fell as much as 3.9% to HK$43.65, their lowest since Feb. 15.
With protesters and authorities locked in an impasse, speculation has grown that the city government may impose emergency law, giving it extra powers over detentions, censorship and curfews.
Lam has said the government would consider using all laws at its disposal to bring unrest to an end.
(Reporting by Jessie Pang, Joyce Zhou, Farah Master, Donny Kwok, Clare Jim and Twinnie Siu; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)
Sunday, September 1, 2019
President Trump slams former Director Comey, calls him a ‘crooked cop’
 |
| FILE – In this Dec. 17, 2018, file photo, former FBI Director James Comey speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill Washington. The Justice Department’s inspector general says former FBI Director James Comey violated FBI policies in his handling of memos documenting private conversations with President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) |
President Trump slams fired FBI Director James Comey, following a bombshell report from the Department of Justice.
On Twitter Saturday, the president said he was right about Comey, whom he then called a crooked cop.
The president’s remarks come after the release of the DOJ’s inspector general’s report on the former FBI chief.
The report concluded that Comey violated policy by writing, keeping, and then leaking memos he made about his conversations with President Trump.
However, the Justice Department decided not to bring a case against him.
I was right about Comey, CROOKED COP!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2019
U.S. set to hit China with new round of tariffs on Sunday
 |
| In this Aug. 6, 2019, photo, a container ship is docked a port in Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong province. U.S. President Donald Trump angrily escalated his trade fight with China on Friday, Aug. 23, 2019, raising retaliatory tariffs and ordering American companies to consider alternatives to doing business there. (Chinatopix via AP) |
The U.S. is expected to impose another round of tariffs on China this weekend.
Speaking to reporters Friday, President Trump said the tariffs are set to go into effect Sunday, and noted Beijing and his administration, are still working on hashing out a trade deal.
Once in effect, Customs and Border Protection will begin collecting 15% tariffs on $112 billions worth of Chinese imports. The president also stated the move puts the U.S. in a favorable position for negotiations.
“The tariffs have put us in an incredible negotiating position and I say that to China directly,” President Trump said to reporters Friday. “And it’s only going to get worse for China. But I say it to China directly, because of the tariffs we’re in an incredible negotiating position and we happen to be taking in billions and billions and billions of dollars.”
The president also weighed in on China’s involvement in Hong Kong, saying he told Beijing officials he wants the situation to be handled in a “humane fashion.”
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