TheNewsGuru

Tag: Donald Trump

  • Russian mails: Trump defends son, says he is ‘open, transparent and innocent’

    President Trump on Wednesday stepped up his defense of his eldest son days after revelations surfaced regarding Donald Trump Jr.’s arrangement of a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer said to have damaging information on Democrat Hillary Clinton.

    Taking to Twitter early in the morning, the president praised Trump Jr.’s performance Tuesday night during a Fox News interview in which he sought to play down the significance of an email exchange before the meeting in which he welcomed the assistance of a “Russian government attorney.”

    “My son Donald did a good job last night,” the president wrote of his son’s appearance with Fox News host Sean Hannity. “He was open, transparent and innocent. This is the greatest Witch Hunt in political history. Sad!”

    Earlier, Trump, who’s remained out of public view since Saturday — retweeted the assessment of another Fox News host, Jesse Watters, who wrote that Trump Jr. was “the victim” in the episode.

    Trump remained silent over the weekend as news initially broke about the encounter with the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who on Tuesday said she had not sought the meeting on behalf of the Kremlin and was interested in a different subject altogether: Russian adoptions.

    Earlier Tuesday, as the New York Times was preparing to publish another story on the episode, Trump Jr. made public an email exchange in which he was told by an intermediary that the “high level” information he would be offered about Clinton was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump” and would be “highly useful for your father.”

    The younger Trump appeared to relish the opportunity. “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” he wrote back.

    Trump on Tuesday offered only a brief defense of his son, with deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reading a statement from the president in which he said Trump Jr. “is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency.”

    Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted to his 33.7 million Twitter followers that they should watch his son’s interview on “Hannity.”

    During the interview, Trump Jr. said that the meeting came when “things are going a million miles per hour” in the campaign and that nothing concrete resulted.

    “In retrospect I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr. said, adding: “For me, this was opposition research. They had something, you know, maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I’d been hearing about, probably underreported for years, not just during the campaign, so I think I wanted to hear it out.”

    Trump Jr. said there was no more to the meeting than a “wasted” 20 minutes.

    “There isn’t anything else,” he said, promising his team had scoured his emails and no other similar documents will emerge.

    The president also tweeted a warning Tuesday morning about the media.

    “Remember, when you hear the words ‘sources say’ from the Fake Media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist,” Trump wrote.

  • President Trump encouraging violence against reporters – CNN

    President Trump encouraging violence against reporters – CNN

    American basic cable and satellite television news channel, Cable News Network (CNN) is lamenting the tweet jabs US President Donald Trump is throwing at the TV network.

    GOP strategist and CNN commentator, Ann Navaro called the President’s tweets an incitement to violence against reporters.

    “This is just going way too far,” she said, adding: “The president of the United States is inciting violence against the free press. In America we cannot stand for it.”

    In what the president claimed was a “modern day presidential” use of social media, President Donald Trump tweeted a video of him assaulting a wrestler with the CNN logo superimposed on his face.

    He included #FraudNewsCNN and #FNN in his tweet, two hashtags he has recently introduced in his continued loggerhead attacks against the network owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner, and founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner.

    President Trump's Fake News Network CNN logo
    President Trump’s Fake News Network CNN logo

    “It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters.

    “Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, ‎dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behaviour far below the dignity of his office,” said CNN in a statement.

    “My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s modern day presidential. Make America Great Again!” Trump submitted in his modern day presidential tweet.

    However, CNN said, it is unfazed by the president’s antics.

    “It is disgusting by this president, yet one more disgusting act.

    “We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his,” the statement added.

    Donald Trump presidency has been matched by a steady flow of protests since after his election and inauguration, and his antagonism against the media is something else. It is yet to be seen when this antagonism will stop.

    https://www.facebook.com/ABCNews/videos/1471874462855991/

     

  • Video: How to use the CAIR civil rights app

  • Hate crimes: Islamic organization launches civil rights app

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has last week launched a new civil rights app that allows users report incidents of hate crimes.

    “It has been on the back burner for some time. Its development got accelerated though with the election of Donald Trump,” spokesman for CAIR, Ibrahim Hooper told CNN.

    “It’s on a daily basis now that we are issuing a statement about some hate crime somewhere in the country, some days multiple incidents.

    “One of the reasons we wanted to make the app is because that’s how so many young people access the world, they feel more comfortable using an app than making a phone call sometimes,” Ibrahim further stated.

    The Washington-based Muslim civil rights organization recently released a report showing a 57 percent increase in anti-Muslim incidents in 2016 over the previous year, according to a CAIR press release.

    This spike in anti-Muslim incidents, the CAIR press release states, was accompanied by a 44 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes during the same period.

    According to the release, the CAIR civil rights app is free to use, and offers advice about an individual’s constitutional rights.

    >>Video: How to use the CAIR civil rights app

    “We urge all American Muslims and their supporters to download CAIR’s app and to take advantage of its much-needed features, particularly the function allowing reporting of bias incidents,” CAIR National Executive Director, Nihad Awad said in a statement.

    CAIR is hoping that an easier reporting process will make the number of incidents reported closer to the number that actually occur.

    “A lot of these incidents go unreported so anything we can do to make it easier to report, we want to do,” Ibrahim said.

    TheNewsGuru reports CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

    Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

     

     

  • Tim Cook wants compulsory coding classes for US kids

    During Monday’s White House meeting with President Donald Trump, Tim Cook pushed for the U.S. government to make coding a required class for kids.

    This is something Cook has publicly discussed before. When Apple debuted its kid-focused Swift Playgrounds app, he said that, “We believe coding should be a required language in all schools”.

    In the meeting on Monday, President Trump called for a “sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology” program.

    Following the meeting, as well, Trump said that the government had to “catch up” with the private sector in everything from better services for citizens to stronger defense from cyber attacks.

    “Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution,” Trump said, adding: “We’re going to change that with the help of great American businesses like the people assembled.”

    This was the first meeting of the White House’s American Technology Council, which will see the Trump administration work alongside tech companies to bring federal bureaucracy up to date with the latest technology.

    Cook, and much of the rest of Silicon Valley, has so far enjoyed a turbulent relationship with Trump.

    Earlier this year, Cook criticized Trump’s executive order limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. More recently, he spoke out about Trump’s decision to take the United States out of the Paris climate agreement.

    From the sound of things, though, all parties involved are happy to overlook political differences if it means that shared progress can be made.

     

     

  • President Trump violates US constitution, rights institute declares

    President Trump violates US constitution, rights institute declares

    A free-speech institute on Tuesday sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding the prolific tweeter President unblock certain Twitter users on grounds the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

    TheNewsGuru reports some Twitter users had sued the President to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York saying he is violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed.

    Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account recently blocked a number of Twitter accounts that replied to his tweets with commentary that criticized, mocked or disagreed with his actions. The accounts are unable to see or respond to tweets from the personal account of the US President after the block.

    The Knight First Amendment Institute said in its letter that the blocking suppressed speech in a public forum protected by the Constitution.

    According to Reuters that reported the recent development, the White House did not respond to a request for comment, neither did Twitter Inc commented.

    Alex Abdo, the institute’s senior staff attorney, likened Twitter to a modern form of town hall meeting or public comment periods for government agency proposals, both venues where U.S. law requires even-handed treatment of speech.

    Eric Goldman, a Santa Clara University law professor who focuses on internet law, said that previous cases involving politicians blocking users on Facebook supported the Knight Institute’s position.

    If the institute should sue, Trump could claim his @realDonaldTrump account is for personal use and separate from his official duties as president, Goldman said. But he called that defense “laughable.”

    Trump also has a presidential @POTUS Twitter account. The Knight Institute said its arguments would apply with “equal force” to both accounts.

    Further details available here.

     

     

    Reuters

     

  • Twitter users blocked by Trump cry foul, take the President to court

    Twitter users blocked by Trump cry foul, take the President to court

    President Donald Trump may be the nation’s tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say he’s violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed after they posted scornful comments.

    Lawyers for two Twitter users sent the White House a letter Tuesday demanding they be un-blocked from the Republican president’s @realDonaldTrump account.

    “The viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional,” wrote attorneys at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York.

    The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The tweeters – one a liberal activist, the other a cyclist who says he’s a registered Republican – have posted and retweeted plenty of complaints and jokes about Trump.

    They say they found themselves blocked after replying to a couple of his recent tweets.

    The activist, Holly O’Reilly, posted a video of Pope Francis casting a sidelong look at Trump and suggested this was “how the whole world sees you.” The cyclist, Joe Papp, responded to the president’s weekly address by asking why he hadn’t attended a rally by supporters and adding, with a hashtag, “fakeleader.”

    Blocking people on Twitter means they can’t easily see or reply to the blocker’s tweets.

    Although Trump started @realDonaldTrump as a private citizen and Twitter isn’t government-run, the Knight institute lawyers argue that he’s made it a government-designated public forum by using it to discuss policies and engage with citizens. Indeed, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the president.”

    The institute’s executive director, Jameel Jaffer, compares Trump’s Twitter account to a politician renting a privately-owned hall and inviting the public to a meeting.

    “The crucial question is whether a government official has opened up some space, whether public or private, for expressive activity, and there’s no question that Trump has done that here,” Jaffer said. “The consequence of that is that he can’t exclude people based solely on his disagreement with them.”

    The users weren’t told why they were blocked. Their lawyers maintain that the connection between their criticisms and the cutoff was plain.

    Still, there’s scant law on free speech and social media blocking, legal scholars note.

    “This is an emerging issue,” says Helen Norton, a University of Colorado Law School professor who specialises in First Amendment law.

    Morgan Weiland, an affiliate scholar with Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, says the blocked tweeters’ complaint could air key questions if it ends up in court. Does the public forum concept apply in privately run social media? Does it matter if an account is a politician’s personal account, not an official one?

    San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. declined to comment. The tweeters aren’t raising complaints about the company.

     

  • Paris Accord: US tech firms dare President Trump again, ‘go unusual’

    Paris Accord: US tech firms dare President Trump again, ‘go unusual’

    Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are among hundreds of US businesses joining an effort to support the Paris climate agreement as part of a public campaign announced Monday.

    Dubbed “We Are Still In,” the launch of the initiative comes just days after President Donald Trump said the United States would withdraw from the international accord, stunning much of the world and breaking with a broad host of industry executives who supported the deal.

    The campaign’s participants, who also include hundreds of investors, universities, local officials and state governments, have pledged to support the Paris accord and “pursue ambitious climate goals,” according to an open letter the campaign released.

    The group also took aim at Trump, saying his decision “damages the world’s ability to avoid the most dangerous and costly effects of climate change.” The business leaders and officials described Trump’s move as “out of step with what is happening in the United States.”

    The campaign on climate is the latest example of some of the biggest players in Silicon Valley opposing Trump’s key policies. The president’s travel ban and ongoing litigation surrounding his immigration orders have also sparked widespread condemnation from the tech industry.

    After the president revealed last week that he intends to exit the agreement, several high-profile business leaders said they would end their advisory roles with Trump, in protest. Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk and Disney chief executive Robert Iger said last week that they would no longer serve on the president’s economic advisory council. Executives from Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Google also swiftly criticised Trump’s decision after his announcement.

    Dozens of states last week said they would forge ahead with their climate policies and their aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in response to the president’s move. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, D, also unveiled the largest renewable energy investment by any state, a $1.65 billion plan to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

     

  • Paris Agreement: Implication of Donald Trump withdrawal

    Paris Agreement: Implication of Donald Trump withdrawal

    President Donald Trump announced recently that he would begin the process of withdrawing the United States from the historic Paris Agreement, the world’s first global plan to address climate change.

    The historic agreement, approved in December 2015, commits nearly 200 countries to pursue all efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C to stave off some of the worst impacts of a warming planet.

    Even in a developing country like Nigeria it is becoming clear that the transition to a low carbon society is inevitable. Shifts in international geopolitics will only determine the pace of that transition and at what level temperatures will peak.

    The US withdrawing from the Paris agreement will delay the transition and could lead to temperatures peaking at higher levels, with concurrent climate change impacts on millions of people, but it cannot stop the economic transformation that is already underway.

    Ibrahim Usman Jibrin, Nigeria’s Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Environment, has said Nigeria will not pull out of the agreement.

    “Despite the pulling out of the United States from the Paris Agreement, I want to state categorically that Nigeria joined the Agreement as a Sovereign country taking into account its national circumstances and convection in a global approach to tackle climate change. Nigeria is committed to the provisions of the Paris Agreement as it is in National interest,” the Minister said.

    Ramping up Nigeria efforts to combat climate change will also help to address developmental challenges through building new industries in the low carbon sector and increasing the resilience of vulnerable communities to extreme weather events and other climate change impacts.

     

  • EU, AU reaffirm commitment to Paris Agreement

    EU, AU reaffirm commitment to Paris Agreement

    The European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) have reaffirmed their strong commitment to full implementation of the Paris agreement, and call on all partners to keep up the momentum created in 2015.

    Ahead of the COP23 in November they pledge to work together to finalize the Paris Agreement work programme.

    Climate change and renewable energy will figure on the agenda of the upcoming Africa-EU Summit in Abidjan on 29/30 November.

    This will be an opportunity to confirm the strong solidarity with those most vulnerable to climate change and the determination to work together to build strong and sustainable economies and societies resilient to climate change.

    The European Union and the African Union reaffirm their commitment to continuing to address the adverse effects of climate change on human and animal health, natural ecosystems and other social and economic impacts that threaten our developmental gains as a global community.

    Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States of America from the agreement.

    In a nationwide broadcast, President Trump said the US would either seek re-negotiation or remain withdrawn from the agreement that went into effect on November 4, 2016.

    The President of the US has, however, faced much criticism on home soil and abroad for backing out of the agreement, with the United Nations calling his withdrawal a “great disappointment”.

    “Fortunately, the Paris Agreement is bigger than any one nation or any one government. We can still achieve the promise of Paris, but we have no time to lose.

    “Countries around the world must seize the opportunity to unleash this potential, invest in renewable energy that eliminates harmful carbon pollution, and build economies that are more resilient, inclusive and prosperous,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate & Energy Practice Leader.