Beltway Insider: Trump/Twitter War, Antifa, Jobs, Heroes Act, Pandemic Rage, George Floyd, Minneapolis

President Trump distanced himself from his radical left base by issuing an announcement designating Antifa, the Anti-Fascist militant group, a terrorist organization mainly for its use of violence including inciting riots, bombings, and civil unrest.

The President's job approval rating, according to the website fivethirtyeight.com, which tracked polls of likely or registered voters for the period ending May 17, 2020, increased by 1.1 percentage points to 43.1% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 53.3%. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.


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Trump Signals Changes in Radical Groups

Antifa, an umbrella organization for many other extremist subversive groups, has utilized the acute polarization of the American political arena to move its campaign of illiberalism, into the mainstream.

For each generation the need to be heard, recognized and understood, becomes more difficult as global messaging projects and targets the mind with issues that need attention, so much so that the individual becomes lost, and the ideals, liberal or conservative, lost also in the cacophony of discordance and dissension.

"Liberals were people who were supposed to be tolerant and fair and who wanted to give all sides a hearing. They cared about everyone, not just their own kind. By contrast, illiberal people were hardheaded in their opinions and judgmental about others' behaviors, hoping to control what other people thought and said and to cut off debate. In extreme cases, they would even use violence to maintain political power and exclude certain kinds of people from having a say in their government," the Heritage organization wrote.

Antifa often countered radical right wing protests by staging counter strikes, utilizing many different tactics including Molotov cocktails, gasoline bombs, violence, property destruction, and often uses the term by any means necessary, which has become an branch known as BAMN, of the same organization, to further their opinions, cause and recruitment.

The radical right often comprised of groups such as the Klu Klux Klan, whose history and heritage speaks for itself, whose rallies often draws counter protesters, Antifa brings its followers into peaceful crowds to incite, stir up hate, and become fueled by mob mentality.

Neither group's use of violence has a place in society. Ideals and beliefs, no matter how radical, are all part of the diversity makeup of America.

When it comes to the manifestation of those beliefs, targeting even a single member of a group, race or ethnicity, or crossing into violence, criminal actions, civil unrest, destruction of property, and murder then it becomes a domestic terror organization as it infringes of the safety and security of society.

Trump's Twitter War

Trump's twitter wedded bliss appears to be over as the President brought down the hammer on the social media giant. Trump, who has 80.3 million followers, gave a thumbs down as Jack Dorsey appeared to take sides placing a fact checking label on Trump's tweets.

"The choices that Twitter makes when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist, shadow, ban are editorial decisions, pure and simple.  In those moments, Twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform, and they become an editor with a viewpoint. This censorship and bias is a threat to freedom itself.  Imagine if your phone company silenced or edited your conversation.  Social media companies have vastly more power and more reach than any phone company in the United States.  More reach, than your newspapers, by far.  More reach than a lot of your traditional forms of communication," the president said after signing an Executive Order preventing online censorship.


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"He gained nearly 1.7 million followers in the past month, bringing his total to 80.3 million followers and making him the eighth most followed account on the site, according to social analytics company Social Blade.," The Washington Post reported.

The micro-messaging platform, which has 330million worldwide users has been accused in the past of indiscriminately closing accounts, targeting female influencers and without warning or notice closing both personal and professional accounts, and purging what they term as fake.

Dorsey, who has been fighting to keep control of his company has been described as someone who would rather be off doing other things, than running the company. Splitting his CEO duties with Square, he has been taken to task over his eccentric and nontraditional lifestyle choices, which sends an unspoken message of serving himself which presents contrasting business interests and therefore presents economic conflicts of interest, making his decision to serve himself first a challenge in providing effective leadership.

Many investors have had enough including "The powerful hedge fund Elliott Management [who] has bought a sizable stake in Twitter in hopes of bringing change to the social media company," NPR reported.

"Many accounts do lose some followers over time, most notably in 2018 when Twitter cracked down on fake accounts and suspended more than 70 million accounts in a two-month period. Later that year during a Twitter fake-account purge, Trump lost about 100,000 of his then 53.4 million followers. Former president Barack Obama also lost about 400,000 followers. Obama has the most followed Twitter account on the site with 117.98 million followers. He gained nearly 1.4 million in the last month," reported The Washington Post.

Jobs, Economy

An additional 2.1million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the last week, bringing the total to 40million Americans out of work, and the Bureau of Labor Statistic unemployment rate is at 14.7%. Unemployment for May will be released June 3, 2020.

HEROES Act

The HEROES Act, a follow up to the CARES Act passed March 25, 2020, passed the House of Representative on May 15, 2020, recognizes the short-term CARES Act bandage applied to hemorrhaging economy.

Even as the weekly totals of Americans filing for unemployment has decreased, the total of unemployed are ballooning to numbers only available in record keeping archives. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics announcement for May due to be released June 3, 2020, estimates place the totals at or above 14.7%, with economic experts voicing numbers far higher, nearing 20%, as BLS statistics don't include Gig economy workers.

The HEROES Act which builds on the short-term solutions of the CARES Act, provides additional supplemental unemployment compensation though January 2021, and extends an unemployment claim compensation period.

For the unemployed who survived the 2009 recession, a single claim, secured income for more than two years as lawmakers worked for the people with the long-term goal of economic solvency and political employment in range.

There are many elements of the HEROES Act that will be modified before it passes, blanket provisions for any ethnicity will be trimmed or deleted.

Rewarding a population for the dedicated service of the few, while sounds altruistic and beneficial, the realities create more problems then the solutions. Rewarding in the HEROES Act those front-line workers, across all industries, including the immigrant who performed back-breaking work to ensure the food supply chain was not broken, deserve recognition. The entire demographic of illegal immigrants do not.

With a general election scheduled Tuesday, November 3, 2020, the Republican lead White House will want Americans to understand they are dedicated to their financial solvency. A more realistic HEROES Act would be a two-part package, a short term solution package carrying Americans from July until October and a secondary package October through January, passing close enough to the election for Americans to understand who has an vested interest in their economic future.

Covid 19 Weekly Totals

The infection rates of the coronavirus have continued to rise around the world. With a weekly global increase of 719,500 confirmed cases, which represents a spike of 80,800 over the totals for the week ending May 24, 2020. This brings the total of confirmed cases worldwide increases to 6,048,200, and 368,913 deaths, an increase of 26,012, a decrease in deaths by 3,889.

Infections rates in the United States are also on the rise. A weekly increase of 148,346 cases which represents a spike of 27,446 cases over the totals for the week ending May 24, 2020 brought the total confirmed cases to 1,789,246 with 104,105 total deaths, a weekly increase nearly double of the deaths for the week ending May 24, 2020 at 14,320. (Data from The New York Times).


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Pandemic Rage

It didn't begin in Minneapolis. Pandemic Rage was evident in Michigan a few weeks ago, when militia stormed the capital armed with automatic weapons and claimed to come in peace. Pandemic rage, the cause of the moment, gave a nation of scared, concerned, frustrated, citizens, some right- and left-wing radicals, the opportunity to seed the fertile ground of dissidence, discord and rage.

Minneapolis police gave the population the cause they needed to ramp up the already rolling boil of rage over the pandemic and all related issues associated with the shutdown and subsequent free falling economy.

Injustice, always an underlying trigger whether it be injustice over a stolen election or race fueled anger. Coupled the recent released video of Ahmed Arbury, two isolated, non-related incidents, except for a belief that minorities are expendable.

The stark difference in demonstrations surrounding 2014 death of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man murdered when a NYPD officer placed him in an illegal choke-hold, which and the murder of George Floyd

The poignant silent protests, over Garner's murder including die-in's, were deafening, and birthed the Black Lives Matter movement. The violent rage, civil unrest, and property destruction and targeted hate toward authority is evidence of more than the rage over injustice.


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Minneapolis Excessive Force History

Three years ago, in 2017, an Australian female, Justine Diamond, thought she heard what sounded like an assault in the alley behind her home. She telephoned police and went outside to brief them on their arrival, within minutes, the blond, blue eyed finance of Don Diamond, was dead of a single gunshot wound fired by a Somali born officer, from the passenger side of the vehicle. He was found guilty and sentenced to a dozen years in prison.

Race hate is not only an American problem. It is not simply a big city, or density problem, race hate is deep seeded and generational, it blames without cause, marks a population, color, or ethnicity, as the sole reason for injustice. It accuses without cause; indicates without evidence, kills without caring.

Cities were not burned down in rage over Justine Diamond. White lives do not bear the same burden in the court of public opinion as lives of color.

History repeats itself. These words, "I can't breathe" have been heard before. Indicating a population over the recent killings of African Americans is equal to indicting all African Americans, or Immigrants, or Gays, or any group for the actions of the few.

The Murder of George Floyd Ignites Violence Across the Nation

Protesters have taken to the streets in more than 25 US cities, united allegedly behind demonstrating against the murder of George Floyd, an African American male, who was killed, in police custody as he was held on the ground, with officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck. Floyd repeated said, "I can't breathe." Those very audible words once again sparked outrage.

"There were violent protests in both Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., last night, as tensions over recent police killings escalated. A police precinct in Minneapolis was set on fire, and seven people were shot at a demonstration in Louisville. There were also protests in several other cities, including New York, Denver and Columbus, Ohio, and President Trump posted two angry tweets, one of which Twitter flagged for "glorifying violence,"' The New York Times reported.

Cities across America fought against the rising tide of injustice fueled by pandemic rage, to curb the violence. Los Angeles issued a citywide curfew after demonstrations turned violent. Manhattan saw multiple attacks on NYPD officers, and arrested a 21-year-old white female for attempted murder after tossing a Molotov cocktail at a van holding four officers.

Arizona has been the first state to issue a week long state wide curfew, "A statement from the Governors office read, "At the request of local leaders and in coordination with state and local law enforcement, I’m issuing a statewide Declaration of Emergency, with a curfew in place starting at 8:00 p.m. tonight and effective for one week,'" The Orange Street News reported.

The demonstrations were meant to honor the death of George Floyd unfortunately for many it has only drawn the comparison to the bad seed, those who believe that inciting violence is the answer to injustice, when in fact the Civil rights movement was founded on peaceful demonstrations.

Many will say, the Civil Rights movement didn't work. The violence inflicted upon those fighting became the rallying cry as millions witnessed the images of burning buses, lynching's, church bombings and the Selma to Montgomery march. Those images of peaceful demonstrators targeted, beaten, violently assaulted became the catalyst for change.

The images flooding the airwaves today, reinforce the belief that harsh civil penalty is the only answer to stop these violent demonstrators.

"Unrest following Mr. Floyd's death in custody gave way to a fourth night of demonstrations. Crowds shut down Los Angeles freeways, clashed with the police in Dallas and defaced the CNN Center in Atlanta, where Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms declared, "This is not how we change America," The New York Times reported.

For more information on President Donald Trump www.whitehouse.gov.

Sources: Various © Articles covered by Copyright protection

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