Trump Jr. warns election is 'about freedom versus tyranny, capitalism versus socialism and Communism'

 

The Democrats' "endgame" is to transform America into a far-left, Marxist state where dissent is not permitted, Donald Trump Jr. told "Hannity" Wednesday night.

Apparently referring to ongoing rioting in Philadelphia following the police shooting of a knife-wielding Black man, the president's eldest son told host Sean Hannity that "those are the Biden voters. That is the Democrat Party today. That's what people across America have to recognize: This is not your grandparents' Democrat Party ... this Democrat Party is a socialist and Marxist party.

"They don't represent hardworking Americans anymore," Trump Jr. continued. "They don't care if they shut down your business, your livelihood forever. Guess what? We'll put you on a government program. You'll be a Democrat voter for life."

The president's son went on to explain that "this election is about freedom versus tyranny, capitalism versus socialism and Communism. They're not even pretending that it's not anymore. They're welcoming that kind of analogy, which should scare all of us a lot."

Trump Jr. told "Hannity" that the modern Democratic Party is "shutting down the speech of those that they don't like" and is made up of "the people burning books in the streets [and] looting and rioting in inner cities all over the country."

Turning to the presidential campaign, the 41-year-old remarked that his rally in Florida was largely successful and drew about 3,000 people to the Treasure Coast.

"It was awesome," Trump Jr. said, joking that he wanted to confirm with the crowd that they knew the rally wasn't "for senior [but] for junior." 

Karl Rove: Promised Biden 'transition' from oil, fossil fuels would be death blow to Texas economy

Karl Rove

Joe Biden's promise to "transition" from the oil industry and fossil fuel exploration will kill the economy in Texas and other states while increasing energy costs and causing massive job losses, Fox News contributor Karl Rove told "The Ingraham Angle" Wednesday.

"Houston’s economy is driven by the fact that all of the exploration in the Gulf of Mexico is directed, funded, staffed and executed out of the city of Houston," Rove told host Laura Ingraham. "You take that business and the Houston economy will get hit hard," he said,

Rove added that "downstream" businesses, such as refineries, would have to shut down under a Biden presidency.

The former George W. Bush adviser also noted that while Democrats claim to be champions of public schools, the Texas oil industry is the second-largest source of tax revenue that benefits the state university system.

Other key states that account for a hefty proportion of the nation's fuel production include North Dakota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Rove then turned to Biden's promise to get the nation to "zero" carbon emissions by 2035, which he said would destroy the livelihoods of many Americans.

"By 2035, he wants to end the 70% of electricity generation from fossil fuels, virtually all of it from natural gas, though some is from coal and a small amount of oil -- 70% of electricity, he wants it gone," Rove said. 

The former deputy White House chief of staff then predicted that Biden would demand Americans use only electric cars, not realizing the increased demand for electricity combined with the reduced ability to produce it would cause a catastrophe.

 

Portland delays vote on $18M in police cuts: report

More than 150 people addressed the city council of Portland, Ore., on Wednesday regarding the panel’s plans to slash $18 million more from the city’s police budget, according to a report.

After an online meeting that lasted more than five hours, council members decided to seek more information from city budget officials and delay their funding decision until next week, OregonLive.com reported.

That means the decision will be made next Thursday – after voters decide Tuesday whether Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly will win new terms.

Eudaly cast the sole “no” vote to adjourn Wednesday’s meeting, with Wheeler and commissioners Amanda Fritz and Dan Ryan all opting not to decide on more than a dozen budget matters, the news outlet reported.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty left the meeting early, saying she was “disgusted by the lack of courage” from Wheeler, Fritz and Ryan in choosing to wait until after the election.

Eudaly and Hardesty have been leading the effort to move $18 million from the police department to other various other city programs, OregonLive.com reported.

They have proposed using $7.5 million for food assistance for city residents, $7.5 million for legal expenses for city residents facing evictions, and funding for portable toilets and other services for occupants of tent camps that have been sanctioned by the city.

Wheeler, 58, is seeking his second term after previously serving as a state treasurer and a Multnomah County commissioner. He has drawn frequent criticism from President Trump, among others, for his handling of the frequent riots and vandalism in the city in recent months – in which fatal shootings also have occurred. Wheeler also serves as the city’s police commissioner.

He’s facing a challenge from urban policy consultant Sarah Iannarone, who has referred to herself as an “everyday anti-fascist," Willamette Week reported.

Eudaly, 50, is a former bookstore owner and renters’ rights advocate who is also seeking a second term. She is involved in a runoff election against challenger Mingus Mapps, an activist who has helped manage the city’s Neighborhood Association and Crime Prevention Program, according to his campaign website.

 

Townhall Political Cartoons

 

In the frenetic final days, there’s still one major issue in this campaign

President Trump delivered on one of his core promises as Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in at the White House for a lifetime term on the Supreme Court.

Does that make it more likely that his supporters will turn out between now and Election Day? Or with three new conservative justices tilting the court sharply to the right, have Trump backers gotten what they wanted, making their choice less urgent?

It’s hard to know, amid a blizzard of polls and prognostication, what’s working and what isn’t in a campaign that most of the media expect Joe Biden to win.

Will the Hunter Biden allegations be a major factor? “I don’t think it moves a single voter,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told “Axios on HBO.” And I suspect he’s right.

Will Barack Obama’s stump speeches move the needle for his former vice president? Maybe slightly. Will Trump’s attacks on Obama--and he again hit Fox News for airing the ex-president’s speech and those of Biden--have an impact? I doubt it. (The network has a responsibility to air significant events by both sides.) Nor will Trump’s criticism of Lesley Stahl (whose interview helped “60 Minutes” draw 17 million viewers) or Kristen Welker (which gave way to praise after the debate) flip a swing state.

Even the censorship efforts by Twitter and Facebook, as heavy-handed as they are, aren’t likely to tilt the outcome.

What about the candidates’ travels? Biden spent yesterday in Georgia, a red state since 1996, either lured by neck-and-neck polls or in an attempt to make the president play defense on favorable turf. Trump was in Nebraska, a slam-dunk state for him, while noting that Omaha is near Iowa, which is tight. The president’s repeated visits to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are an effort to keep the blue midwestern states he snatched from Hillary Clinton four years ago.

But in this strange election, how much do these trips matter? Would Hillary really have won Wisconsin if she had bothered to visit the state in the final days? Ordinarily I’d say Trump’s far heavier schedule gives him an advantage. But Biden doesn’t want to make as much news, preferring to cede the spotlight to Trump and cast the election as a referendum of the incumbent. The president revels in his large crowds, but to Biden these are reckless events in the coronavirus era--including the ones by Mike Pence after his recent exposure to staffers who tested positive.

My take is that the election--and this is tied to the fact that more than 64 million Americans have already voted--will turn on the virus. The recent surge to about 75,000 new daily cases all but guarantees that.

It’s Covid that triggered the nosedive afflicting every part of the economy, from restaurants and theaters to major airlines. It’s Covid that has limited many schools and colleges to virtual learning. It’s Covid that touches everyone’s life.

The president, who himself wound up getting the virus, keeps insisting we’re “turning the corner,” but that hasn’t happened yet. He has recently started blaming the media for overhyping the pandemic, calling CNN “dumb bastards” because its coverage has been “Covid Covid Covid Covid.”

Whether or not Trump is right that he avoided millions of deaths, or that the higher numbers are the result of more testing, places like Utah and Tennessee are warning of health care rationing and hospital bed shortages. The virus has hit many red states as hard as it hit New York and California last spring.

It’s not entirely clear what Biden would do differently. But as he campaigns to small audiences in his trademark black mask, the virus is obviously his number one issue.

In the end, the targeted travel, the rallies, the ad spending and the news-of-the-day attacks may marginally help one candidate or the other reach the magic number of 270. But I believe we will always look back on this as the Covid election.

 

Trump campaign website briefly defaced by hackers making outlandish claims

President Trump’s campaign website was briefly hacked Tuesday, according to reports.

Trump 2020 spokesperson Tim Murtaugh said in a statement the campaign is “working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack.”

He added, “There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site. The website has been restored.”

The hackers claimed baselessly and without evidence that they had compromised “devices” from Trump and his family that gave them “full access” to classified information that proved the administration was involved in the “origin of the coronavirus,” according to a screenshot.

The hack was first flagged by reporter Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler of The Jewish News of Northern California. 

The hackers also claimed they could “discredit” the president, adding, “The world has had enough of the fake-news spread daily by president donald j trump."

The defacement lasted about half an hour and seemed to be related to cryptocurrency, according to The New York Times.

Website visitors were asked to donate Monero, a hard-to-trace cryptocurrency, after clicking either “Yes, share the data,” or “No, Do not share the data,” the newspaper reported.

In July, hackers also compromised a number of high-profile Twitter accounts, including Trump's Democratic opponent Joe Biden, in an attack related to bitcoin.

Three were arrested in that hacking, including a 17-year-old from Florida. 

 

Google, Facebook and Twitter CEOs head to Capitol Hill for grilling over censorship

The CEOs of major tech companies will be in the hot seat Wednesday as Republican senators accuse their internet platforms of censoring conservative viewpoints and demand changes to the federal law that protects them from lawsuits.

Republicans have long been concerned that Big Tech was biased against conservative viewpoints, but Twitter's effort to shut down the spread of the New York Post's reporting on emails allegedly from Hunter Biden's laptop was the final straw, prompting lawmakers to summon Google, Facebook and Twitter CEOs to testify before the election. 

At the heart of Wednesday's hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee is whether social media giants should still be afforded liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Republican critics believe that Twitter, Facebook and Google should no longer be shielded as a neutral platform when they operate more like a publisher, but not all Democrats -- including the Section 230 co-author Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., -- agree. 

BIG TECH CEOS CALLED TO TESTIFY WEDNESDAY BEFORE SENATE AMID CENSORSHIP UPROAR

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., has co-sponsored legislation to reform Section 230 to better define what tech companies can censor and to disincentivize them from editorializing posts with warning labels and fact-checks, which has happened in recent months to President Trump's tweets.

“Section 230 gave content providers protection from liability to remove and moderate content that they or their users consider to be ‘obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable,'" Wicker is expected to say in his opening statement Wednesday provided to Fox News. "This liability shield has been pivotal in protecting online platforms from endless and potentially ruinous lawsuits. But it has also given these internet platforms the ability to control, stifle, and even censor content in whatever manner meets their respective ‘standards.’ The time has come for that free pass to end.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey with testify before a Senate committee this week. (Reuters)

The 10 a.m. EST hearing entitled: “Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?" will feature Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google. The three tech titans will appear remotely. 

Lawmakers want to know how the tech companies make content moderation decisions, how they decide to deploy fact-checkers and the legitimacy of those fact checks, how they are using Section 230 when they are determining what content to remove. There's also concern from lawmakers on consumers' data privacy, media consolidation, election interference and Big Tech's negative impact on local journalism. 

WHAT IS SECTION 230?

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he'll be demanding answers on Big Tech's efforts to suppress free speech and interfere in the 2020 election by trying to shut down a story unflattering to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. 

“I have long said that Big Tech poses the single greatest threat to our First Amendment rights and the future of democracy," Cruz said. 

Facebook's Zuckerberg is advocating for changes to Section 230 saying more clarity from the government is needed.

"Congress should update the law to make sure it's working as intended," Zuckerberg is to say in prepared remarks while calling for bipartisan solutions.

"At Facebook, we don’t think tech companies should be making so many decisions about these important issues alone," he continued in a statement reviewed by Fox News. "I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators, which is why in March last year I called for regulation on harmful content, privacy, elections and data portability."

Alphabet's CEO expressed caution about changing the law, saying Section 230 has been "foundational" to U.S. leadership in the tech sector.

"I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to Section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and consumers," Pichai says in an opening statement obtained by Fox News. 

Twitter's Dorsey defended Section 230 and warned repealing the protections could backfire by having more content removed. 

TWITTER'S JACK DORSEY TO WARN 'ERODING' SECTION 230 COULD 'COLLAPSE' INTERNET COMMUNICATION

“Eroding the foundation of Section 230 could collapse how we communicate on the Internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies,” Dorsey said in written testimony obtained by Reuters ahead of the hearing. “We should also be mindful that undermining Section 230 will result in far more removal of online speech and impose severe limitations on our collective ability to address harmful content and protect people online.”

Section 230 shields companies from liability for user-generated content while allowing them to remove posts that are defined as "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable." Wicker's legislation, known as the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, takes aim at the "otherwise objectionable" language, arguing that Big Tech has used those words to take down posts executives just don't like. 

Wicker's legislation would replace that term with more concrete terms, including “promoting terrorism,” “unlawful,” and content that promotes “self-harm." It would also clarify that the definition of “information content provider” includes instances in which a person or tech modifies or editorializes a user's post. So if Twitter, for instance, puts a warning label on a tweet about it being misleading or glorifying violence, the company would become a publisher of that post and no longer eligible for the liability shield. 

Democrats have their own issues with Big Tech, including allowing foreign election interference in the 2016 election, stifling local journalism and the threat of growing monopolies that need to be broken up.

Wyden, who co-authored Section 230 with former Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said Section 230 has become a scapegoat for the anger that people have against Big Tech. But he defended the premise of the law and said he supports other legislation that would tackle the tech abuses, such as dusting off anti-trust laws, data privacy and addressing computer algorithms that produce bias. 

"I think Section 230 often is just seen as a kind of multi-purpose kind of opportunity to say you're angry about what goes on online," Wyden told actors Chris Evans and Mark Kassen in a conversation for "A Starting Point" posted Tuesdsay.  "Well, I'm angry too -- about misinformation and slime, and all of the horrendous stuff that goes on out there."

Wyden told progressives to be leery of advocating for repealing Section 230 altogether, saying that the law has given rise to movements like #metoo and Black Lives Matter that would have been ignored by the mainstream media. 

"The biggest advocate of getting rid of 230 is Donald Trump," Wyden said. "And the reason he wants to get rid of 230 is because he thinks he ought to be able to bully Twitter into printing his lies on issues like vote by mail."

Tech companies previously told Congress their platforms are not biased against conservative voices and they are expected to emphasize their impartiality again Wednesday. 

"We approach our work without political bias, full stop," Pichai said in prepared remarks.

But Republicans do have the perception they are being targeted and plenty of high-profile anecdotal examples to back them up. The Senate Commerce Committee prepared a 17-page report on "social media companies censoring prominent conservative voices" that goes far beyond the latest Hunter Biden email controversy and chronicles YouTube, Twitter and Facebook restrictions on pro-life, GOP and conservative posts dating back to 2016.

A Pew Research Center survey out in August found that 90 percent of Republicans say it is likely social media companies censor political viewpoints, compared to 59 percent of Democrats.

That being said, the top-performing links on Facebook routinely come from the right. On Oct. 26, the best performing links came from President Trump, Fox News, Franklin Graham and Don Bongino, according to Facebook's Top 10 monitoring. 

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said if social media companies lose Section 230 protections the companies would crackdown on content even more because they would now be exposed to lawsuits for defamation or libel, like a newspaper. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, said he disagrees with how Twitter handled the New York Post story, but said repealing Section 230 would make censorship of speech even worse.

"Those platforms basically will turn into places where you put pictures of your pets and maybe your kids, but almost nothing political," Khanna told Fox News.

Fox News' Kelly Phares contributed to this report. 

Trump denounces White supremacy '38 times' in new campaign video, amid Biden-Harris criticisms

The Trump campaign on Tuesday released a video compiling more than three dozen times President Trump has denounced White supremacy, as his Democratic rival Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California continue to claim this week on the campaign trail that he has failed to do so.

The Trump campaign rolled out a nearly 5-minute-long video of the president, featuring video clips from as recently as this month, to his 2016 presidential campaign, and dating all the way back to an interview Trump gave to Matt Lauer in the early 2000s, where he denounced White supremacy and “disavowed” White supremacist groups.

The video comes after Biden and Harris have criticized Trump, casting him as a racist and claiming he has not denounced White supremacy, and also comes as part of the Trump campaign’s final pitch to win over Black voters ahead of Election Day.

“President Trump wants to prosecute the KKK as a terrorist organization and has condemned White supremacy at least 38 times. 38 times!” a senior Trump campaign official told Fox News.

“The Biden campaign continues to sow division and inflame racial tension by spreading this false narrative,” the Trump campaign official added. “Enough is enough.”

The official called it a “dead issue” and said that “anyone who continues to ask about it is using a question to disguise their accusations and smear the president.”

The president has been questioned on his stance toward White supuremacy since 2017, when he said that there were good people on “both sides” after violence broke out between White nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va.

The issue came up again during the first presidential debate.

When asked, Trump responded: “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not the right-wing. I am willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”

The president’s response sparked an intense moment with the former vice president.

“Who do you want me to condemn?” Trump said. "What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”

Biden interrupted and said: "Proud Boys.”

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," Trump said. "But I’ll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody has got to do something about Antifa and the left. Because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”

The Proud Boys have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and have held multiple events across the nation, alongside other right-wing groups. The gatherings have sparked some violent clashes with left-wing counter-demonstrators.

Biden interrupted, calling Antifa “an idea, not an organization.”

Trump fired back saying, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“When a bat hits you over the head, that's not an idea,” Trump said. “Antifa is bad.”

The president, during a town hall earlier this month hosted by NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie, was asked to clarify his remarks during the first presidential debate.

“I denounce White supremacy, okay,” Trump said. “I denounce White supremacy, I have, for years.”

Trump quipped: “You didn’t ask Joe Biden if he denounces Antifa.”

The president added: “I denounce White supremacy, and you want to know something, I denounce Antifa.”

However, they are not equivalent. Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a small and loosely organized left-wing movement. According to the Anti-Defamation League, White supremacy is a full-fledged "ideology" that encompasses more than simple racism and bigotry.

The Trump campaign also pointed to the president’s plan for Black America, which designates the KKK and Antifa as terrorist organizations, and calls for making lynching a national hate crime.

“The person who needs to condemn White supremacy is Joe Biden, who praised a former KKK Exalter Cyclops as his ‘mentor’ and ‘friend,’” the Trump campaign said, referring to the former vice president’s relationship with late Sen. Robert Byrd, R-W.V..

Byrd was a former member of the Klu Klux Klan who later regretted that affiliation, renounced his past views supporting segregation and described it as a mistake. Byrd, who died at the age of 92 in 2010, was the longest-serving senator in American history. By the time of his death, he had allies even in the civil rights movement, with the NAACP at the time praising his legacy and his transformation from a former KKK member to a “stalwart supporter” of civil rights.

The Trump campaign also pointed to the former vice president’s running mate’s comments during the presidential primary, claiming Harris said Biden “coddled segregationists.”

But Biden campaign National Press Secretary Jamal Brown fired back, telling Fox News that “through his nearly four years in office, Donald Trump has only ever sought to divide us.”

“He had fanned the flames of hate and given comfort to those who spread it,” Brown told Fox News. “Vice President Biden today laid out a different vision for our future.”

Brown was pointing to Biden’s remarks during a campaign event in Warm Springs, Ga. on Tuesday, where he sought to deliver a unifying message.

“God and history have called us to this moment and to this mission: with our voices and our votes, we must free ourselves from the forces of darkness, from the forces of division, and from the forces of yesterday — from the forces that pull us apart, hold us down, and hold us back,” Biden said Tuesday. “And if we do so, we will once more become one nation, under God, indivisible. A nation united. A nation strengthened. A nation healed.”

Biden, however, also repeated during his speech his claim that Trump had failed to denounce White supremacy.

"Donald Trump fails to condemn White supremacy, doesn’t believe that systemic racism is a problem, and won’t say that Black lives matter," Biden said.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has released a series of ads in an effort to win over Black voters, while attempting to cast Biden as having a “history of racist comments.” One ad, titled “Joe’s Own Words,” compiles several comments Biden has made, dating back to the 1970s.

Other ads the Trump campaign is sharing include ones focused on criminal justice reform and featuring Alice Johnson; one featuring Herschel Walker, who discusses what the president has done for the Black community; one claiming Biden is “all talk, no action,” one about a homeless veteran who received a second chance, and credits the president; and another featuring Duke Tanner, who received clemency from the president.

The ads will be cycled in and out of the YouTube masthead, which the Trump campaign has secured already 20 times throughout the 2020 cycle. The masthead, according to the campaign, reaches more than 74 million voters a day.

A senior Trump campaign official told Fox News that the masthead is a seven-figure buy, and described it as “the most valuable piece of real estate on the internet.”

The campaign has also secured the YouTube masthead for the final 72 hours before Election Day.