DebateGate

10 of the Worst Terror Attacks by Extreme Christians and Far-Right White Men
Most of the terrorist activity in the U.S. in recent years has come not from Muslims, but from radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.
By Alex Henderson / AlterNet July 24, 2013

From Fox News to the Weekly Standard, Neoconservatives have tried to paint terrorism as a largely or exclusively Islamic phenomenon. Their message of Islamophobia has been repeated many times since the George W. Bush era: Islam is inherently violent, Christianity is inherently peaceful, and there is no such thing as a Christian terrorist or a white male terrorist. But the facts don’t bear that out. Far-right white male radicals and extreme Christianists are every bit as capable of acts of terrorism as radical Islamists, and to pretend that such terrorists don’t exist does the public a huge disservice. Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev and the late Tamerlan Anzorovich Tsarnaev (the Chechen brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15, 2013) are both considered white and appear to have been motivated in part by radical Islam. And many terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who were neither Muslims nor dark-skinned.

When white males of the far right carry out violent attacks, neocons and Republicans typically describe them as lone-wolf extremists rather than people who are part of terrorist networks or well-organized terrorist movements. Yet many of the terrorist attacks in the United States have been carried out by people who had long histories of networking with other terrorists. In fact, most of the terrorist activity occurring in the United States in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from a combination of radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

Below are 10 of the worst examples of non-Islamic terrorism that have occurred in the United States in the last 30 years.

1. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. Sikhs are not Muslims; the traditional Sikh attire, including their turbans, is different from traditional Sunni, Shiite or Sufi attire. But to a racist, a bearded Sikh looks like a Muslim. Only four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was murdered by Frank Silva Roque, a racist who obviously mistook him for a Muslim.

But Sodhi’s murder was not the last example of anti-Sikh violence in post-9/11 America. On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented: he had been a member of the neo-Nazi rock bands End Empathy and Definite Hate. Attorney General Eric Holder described the attack as “an act of terrorism, an act of hatred.” It was good to see the nation’s top cop acknowledge that terrorist acts can, in fact, involve white males murdering people of color.

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

Tiller had a long history of being targeted for violence by Christian Right terrorists. In 1986, his clinic was firebombed. Then, in 1993, Tiller was shot five times by female Christian Right terrorist Shelly Shannon (now serving time in a federal prison) but survived that attack. Given that Tiller had been the victim of an attempted murder and received countless death threats after that, Fox News would have done well to avoid fanning the flames of unrest. Instead, Bill O’Reilly repeatedly referred to him as “Tiller the baby killer." When Roeder murdered Tiller, O’Reilly condemned the attack but did so in a way that was lukewarm at best.

Keith Olbermann called O’Reilly out and denounced him as a “facilitator for domestic terrorism” and a “blindly irresponsible man.” And Crazy for Godauthor Frank Schaffer, who was formerly a figure on the Christian Right but has since become critical of that movement, asserted that the Christian Right’s extreme anti-abortion rhetoric “helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen.” Neocon Ann Coulter, meanwhile, viewed Tiller’s murder as a source of comic relief, telling O’Reilly, “I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester.” The Republican/neocon double standard when it comes to terrorism is obvious. At Fox News and AM neocon talk radio, Islamic terrorism is a source of nonstop fear-mongering, while Christian Right terrorism gets a pass.

3. Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church shooting, July 27, 2008. On July 27, 2008, Christian Right sympathizer Jim David Adkisson walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee during a children’s play and began shooting people at random. Two were killed, while seven others were injured but survived. Adkisson said he was motivated by a hatred of liberals, Democrats and gays, and he considered neocon Bernard Goldberg’s book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, his political manifesto. Adkisson (who pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and is now serving life in prison without parole) was vehemently anti-abortion, but apparently committing an act of terrorism during a children’s play was good ol’ Republican family values. While Adkisson’s act of terrorism was reported on Fox News, it didn't get the round-the-clock coverage an act of Islamic terrorism would have garnered.

4. The murder of Dr. John Britton, July 29, 1994. To hear the Christian Right tell it, there is no such thing as Christian terrorism. Tell that to the victims of the Army of God, a loose network of radical Christianists with a long history of terrorist attacks on abortion providers. One Christian Right terrorist with ties to the Army of God was Paul Jennings Hill, who was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003 for the murders of abortion doctor John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett. Hill shot both of them in cold blood and expressed no remorse whatsoever; he insisted he was doing’s God’s work and has been exalted as a martyr by the Army of God.

5. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing, July 27, 1996. Paul Jennings Hill is hardly the only Christian terrorist who has been praised by the Army of God; that organization has also praised Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolph is best known for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics—a blast that killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others. Hawthorne wasn’t the only person Rudolph murdered: his bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998 caused the death of Robert Sanderson (a Birmingham police officer and part-time security guard) and caused nurse Emily Lyons to lose an eye.

Rudolph’s other acts of Christian terrorism include bombing the Otherwise Lounge (a lesbian bar in Atlanta) in 1997 and an abortion clinic in an Atlanta suburb in 1997. Rudolph was no lone wolf: he was part of a terrorist movement that encouraged his violence. And the Army of God continues to exalt Rudolph as a brave Christian who is doing God’s work.

6. The murder of Barnett Slepian byJames Charles Kopp, Oct. 23, 1998. Like Paul Jennings Hill, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder, James Charles Kopp is a radical Christian terrorist who has been exalted as a hero by the Army of God. On Oct. 23, 1998 Kopp fired a single shot into the Amherst, NY home of Barnett Slepian (a doctor who performed abortions), mortally wounding him. Slepian died an hour later. Kopp later claimed he only meant to wound Slepian, not kill him. But Judge Michael D'Amico of Erin County, NY said that the killing was clearly premeditated and sentenced Kopp to 25 years to life. Kopp is a suspect in other anti-abortion terrorist attacks, including the non-fatal shootings of three doctors in Canada, though it appears unlikely that Kopp will be extradited to Canada to face any charges.


7. Planned Parenthood bombing, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1994. Seldom has the term “Christian terrorist” been used in connection with John C. Salvi on AM talk radio or at Fox News, but it’s a term that easily applies to him. In 1994, the radical anti-abortionist and Army of God member attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others. Salvi was found dead in his prison cell in 1996, and his death was ruled a suicide. The Army of God has exalted Salvi as a Christian martyr and described Lowney and Nichols not as victims of domestic terrorism, but as infidels who got what they deserved. The Rev. Donald Spitz, a Christianist and Army of God supporter who is so extreme that even the radical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue disassociated itself from him, has praised Salvi as well.

8. Suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, Texas, Feb. 18, 2010. When Joseph Stack flew a plane into the Echelon office complex (where an IRS office was located), Fox News’ coverage of the incident was calm and matter-of-fact. Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa seemed to find the attack amusing and joked that it could have been avoided if the federal government had followed his advice and abolished the IRS. Nonetheless, there were two fatalities: Stack and IRS employee Vernon Hunter. Stack left behind a rambling suicide note outlining his reasons for the attack, which included a disdain for the IRS as well as total disgust with health insurance companies and bank bailouts. Some of the most insightful coverage of the incident came from Noam Chomsky, who said that while Stack had some legitimate grievances—millions of Americans shared his outrage over bank bailouts and the practices of health insurance companies—the way he expressed them was absolutely wrong.

9. The murder of Alan Berg, June 18, 1984. One of the most absurd claims some Republicans have made about white supremacists is that they are liberals and progressives. That claim is especially ludicrous in light of the terrorist killing of liberal Denver-based talk show host Alan Berg, a critic of white supremacists who was killed with an automatic weapon on June 18, 1984. The killing was linked to members of the Order, a white supremacist group that had marked Berg for death. Order members David Lane (a former Ku Klux Klan member who had also been active in the Aryan Nations) and Bruce Pierce were both convicted in federal court on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and violating Berg’s civil rights and given what amounted to life sentences.

Robert Matthews, who founded the Order, got that name from a fictional group in white supremacist William Luther Pierce’s anti-Semitic 1978 novel, The Turner Diaries—a book Timothy McVeigh was quite fond of. The novel’s fictional account of the destruction of a government building has been described as the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

10. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995. Neocons and Republicans grow angry and uncomfortable whenever Timothy McVeigh is cited as an example of a non-Islamic terrorist. Pointing out that a non-Muslim white male carried out an attack as vicious and deadly as the Oklahoma City bombing doesn’t fit into their narrative that only Muslims and people of color are capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. Neocons will claim that bringing up McVeigh’s name during a discussion of terrorism is a “red herring” that distracts us from fighting radical Islamists, but that downplays the cruel, destructive nature of the attack.

Prior to the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing McVeigh orchestrated was the most deadly terrorist attack in U.S. history: 168 people were killed and more than 600 were injured. When McVeigh used a rented truck filled with explosives to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, his goal was to kill as many people as possible. McVeigh was motivated by an extreme hatred for the U.S. government and saw the attack as revenge for the Ruby Ridge incident of 1992 and the Waco Siege in 1993. He had white supremacist leanings as well (when he was in the U.S. Army, McVeigh was reprimanded for wearing a “white power” T-shirt he had bought at a KKK demonstration). McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001. He should have served life without parole instead, as a living reminder of the type of viciousness the extreme right is capable of.

Alex Henderson's work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the Pasadena Weekly and many other publications. Follow him on Twitter @alexvhenderson.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/10-worst-terror-attacks-extreme-christians-and-far-right-white-men

Woman who plotted murder of her entire family still visited by her father in prison
Erin Caffey asked her boyfriend and his best friend to murder her mother, father and two brothers, and only her father survived 
Rachael Revesz

A father whose daughter allegedly masterminded the murder of their entire family still visits her in prison every month.

In 2008, 16-year-old Erin Gaffey was sentenced to life in prison for encouraging her boyfriend Charlie Wilkinson and his best friend Charles Waid to go round to their house in Emory, Texas, and kill her family.

The pair shot guns and wielded a samurai sword on her mother Penny, her father, Terry, and her younger brothers Matthew, 13, and Tyler, 8, before setting the house alight with BIC lighters.

Only her father, a preacher, survived, despite being shot five times.

"People will say: 'What was your process of forgiveness? Who did you forgive first?' And I always say Erin. That was my daughter. That was a struggle at first. But I was able to forgive her and rebuild our relationship," he said.

He added that he also forgave the murderers, sparing them all the death penalty, and learnt to "forgive himself".

Police arrested Erin after they found her asleep in her boyfriend’s trailer. She claimed she had been drugged and kidnapped from the house, but two days later the police discovered she had been involved.

Mr Caffey believes Charlie Wilkinson carried out the attack as Erin’s parents wanted her to break up with him.

Erin, now 24, is the subject of a new ITV documentary called “Killer Women”, presented by chat show host Piers Morgan.

The churchgoing family lived in a cabin in the woods, 60 miles east of Dallas.

Erin had a car, a job and admitted she was not maltreated.

Erin is held at the Hilltop Unit in Gatesville Texas, where she spoke with Mr Morgan for an hour and sang the song “Amazing Grace”.

When asked "what the hell happened", she said she had made “bad choices” at a young age, like “covering up one lie with another”, and did not realise those choices would have a wider impact.

She welled up with tears as she spoke of her father’s visit in prison and telling her he loved her.

Mr Caffey said his daughter started to change after she began dating Charlie Wilkinson.

Investigators remain convinced that Erin masterminded the murder, although she claimed her boyfriend had anger problems and she thought they were only joking when they talked about killing her family.

On 1 March 2008, Erin had promised the murderers she would keep the family dog quiet so they could park outside the house. She left the house door unlocked and waited in their car while they went inside.

As they drove away together, with Charles Waid’s girlfriend Bobbi Johnson in the car, Erin allegedly said: “Holy s***, that was awesome”.

Alabama drag queen is suspended chief justice's nightmare
May 10, 2016 02:51 PM
By JAY REEVES and KIM CHANDLER
Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - Wearing big hair, loads of makeup and high heels, small-town drag queen Ambrosia Starling is the new worst nightmare of suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Moore has called out Starling twice by name in recent days while defending himself against allegations of violating judicial canons with his opposition to same-sex marriage. During a news conference and in a written statement, Moore cited the cross-dressing entertainer as a reason he's at risk of losing his job for the second time since 2003.

That's fine with Starling, who helped lead an anti-Moore rally on the steps of the Alabama Supreme Court building in January. Opponents that day filled out more than 40 complaints against Moore, who already was the subject of other complaints and now faces removal from office if convicted of violating judicial ethics.

"If it takes a drag queen to remind you that liberty and justice is for all, here I am," Starling said Tuesday between sips of coffee.

Moore contends the effort to oust him is unfounded and politically motivated.

Born and raised in the southeast Alabama city of Dothan, Starling is a gay man who dresses up like a woman to perform drag shows. Most days, the 43-year-old Starling dresses like a male and goes to a regular job, referring to himself as "he."

But the entertainer prefers the pronoun "she" when dressed as Ambrosia Starling, a stage name for drag shows. Fearful of losing his day job or endangering others in a Deep South state where many gays still fear violence or discrimination, Starling agreed to an interview on the condition that only the stage name was used.

"I have a 71-year-old mother who lives with me that I have to worry about," Starling said. "Her well-being and safety is No. 1 for me."

Starling wore her drag outfit to that demonstration against Moore outside the Supreme Court five months ago. In a long blue dress and light-colored coat, Starling referred to Moore as a bigot and asked crowd members to submit complaints against Moore to the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, which accused the Republican Moore of wrongdoing on Friday, resulting in his suspension.

The complaint filed by the Judicial Inquiry Commission accuses Moore of willfully failing to respect the authority of federal court decisions that cleared the way for gay marriage, which Moore opposes on the basis of faith and the law. He issued an administrative order to state probate judges in January that said state laws against gay marriage remained in place months after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized gay marriage nationwide.

An attorney for Moore, Mat Staver, said Moore issued the order because probate judges were asking questions about how to proceed. Staver said Moore will file a response within 30 days asking the Alabama Court of the Judiciary to dismiss charges against him.

Moore has been tossed once before from the office of chief justice. Thirteen years ago he refused to abide by a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument Moore had erected in the rotunda of the state judicial building, resulting in judicial ethics charges and his removal by the Court of Judiciary.

During a news conference last week in that same rotunda, Moore said Starling and similar people would have been classified as having a "mental disorder" just a few years ago. Moore also accused Starling of performing a "mock wedding" in violation of a state court order against same-sex marriage, a claim Starling dismissed as untrue.

Describing himself as a churchgoing Christian who lives a normal life when not dressed in drag, Starling said he doesn't mind being singled out by Moore. Many more lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals and transgender people also oppose Moore's tactics, Starling said, it's just that not everyone can speak out.

"I'll take the hit for the entire LGBT community if it gets the message across," Starling said.

___

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.

All of Donald Trump’s Four-Pinocchio ratings, in one place
By Glenn Kessler March 22
 
Donald Trump. (Chuck Burton/AP)
There’s never been a presidential candidate like Donald Trump — someone so cavalier about the facts and so unwilling to ever admit error, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. At last count, 68 percent (26 of 38) of our rulings of his statements turned out to be Four Pinocchios, our worst rating. By contrast, most politicians tend to earn Four Pinocchios 10 to 20 percent of the time. (Moreover, most of the remaining ratings for Trump are Three Pinocchios.)

As a reader service, here’s a running list of our Four Pinocchio rulings. Since Trump never takes anything back — and often repeats the same false claims — voters are likely to hear these time and again during the campaign season. As an “honorable mention,” we also included a column in which we gave a Geppetto Checkmark to attacks ads disputing Trump’s claims about Trump University.

Click on the headline to read the original column.

Donald Trump’s false comments connecting Mexican immigrants and crime

Donald Trump repeatedly defended his claim that the Mexican government is sending criminals and rapists to the United States. But a range of studies shows there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. Moreover, the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants in prison do not belong in the category that fit Trump’s description: aggravated felons, whose crimes include murder, drug trafficking or illegal trafficking of firearms.
 

Trump’s bogus claim that he never said ‘some of the things’ claimed by Megyn Kelly

Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump a pointed question about his verbal treatment of women. On the Sunday shows, Trump refused to apologize — and further asserted that Kelly lists things he did not say. But there is ample evidence for each of the slurs against women uttered or tweeted by Trump. He had a small point that he attacks once he is provoked, but there is little doubt that the over-the-top language cited by Kelly was correct.
 

Trump’s zombie claim that Obama spent $4 million to conceal school and passport records

Trump, one of the most high-profile “birthers” during the 2012 presidential campaign, resurfaced this zombie claim that President Obama spent $4 million in legal fees to conceal records that would indicate his true citizenship. There is no proof that Obama spent $4 million in legal fees (personally or through his campaign) to keep his school application or passport application records away from the public. Federal campaign finance records show from 2008 through 2012, the Obama for America campaign paid more than $4 million in legal services to Perkins Coie, the law firm that defended the campaign in some of the eligibility lawsuits. But campaigns have in-house and outside counsel to vet a wide range of issues, not just those related to lawsuits.
 

Trump’s absurd claim that the ‘real’ unemployment rate is 42 percent

Trump’s made a ridiculous leap in logic to come up with his claim that the “real” unemployment rate was 42 percent — at a time when the official rate was 5.3 percent. He took an estimate for the number of people not working — 93 million — and assumed they were all unemployed. But the vast majority of those people do not want to work. Most are retired or simply not interested in working, such as stay-at-home parents. Even a President Trump would be unable to make much of a dent in this supposed 42-percent unemployment rate, given that most of the Americans he is counting as “unemployed” are not in the labor force by choice.
 

Trump’s tax plan and his claim that ‘it’s going to cost me a fortune’

Trump pitched his tax plan as being tough on the wealthy, saying “it’s going to cost me a fortune.” Trump has not released his tax forms — though he claims he made $604 million in 2014. In going through the details of his plan, it appears clear that it would significantly reduce his taxes — and the taxes of his heirs. This was later confirmed by an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.


Trump’s repeated claim that Obama is accepting 200,000 Syrian refugees

Like a broken record, businessman Donald J. Trump keeps repeating a statistic with little basis in fact — that the Obama administration wants to accept 200,000 refugees from Syria. It appears to be based on a misunderstanding — the Obama administration says it planned to admit 185,000 refugees over two years from all countries. For Syria, Obama has only directed the United States to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year. Ironically, that’s a number that Trump indicated was fine.
 

Trump’s baseless claim that the Bush White House tried to ‘silence’ his Iraq War opposition in 2003

Trump brags that he had the vision and foresight to oppose the Iraq War ahead of the invasion in 2003. He says his opposition was so vocal, and his reach so great, that the White House approached him and asked him to tone it down. There is scant media coverage of his supposed opposition ahead of the Iraq War. (We later compiled a complete timeline of Trump’s comments in 2002 and 2003 about the Iraq invasion, which showed he was not vocal about his opposition prior to the invasion, and they didn’t make headlines.) Trump ignored our request for the names of White House officials he supposedly met with, so we checked with former senior White House officials. None of the dozen people we contacted directly or through former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer could recall a meeting with Trump, concerns about his opposition, or even Trump’s views being on their radar prior to 2004.


Repeat after me: Obama is not admitting 100,000, 200,000 or 250,000 Syrian refugees

Trump had previously earned Four Pinocchios for falsely claiming President Obama was planning to admit 200,000 refugees from war-torn Syria. (The real number is 10,000; a total of 180,000 refugees from around the world will be admitted in 2016 and 2017.) Undeterred, Trump upped the number to 250,000 — and fellow novice politicians Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson followed up with claims of 100,000 refugees from Syria. All three earned Four Pinocchios.
 

Trump’s outrageous claim that ‘thousands’ of New Jersey Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks

GOP presidential hopeful Trump falsely and repeatedly asserted that he saw TV clips of “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. Despite an army of fact checks, including ours, and repeated debunking, Trump continued to assert he was correct, even though he could produce no evidence except a handful of news stories that made brief mentions of alleged celebrations — which never could be confirmed. He earned Four Pinocchios. Ben Carson, another GOP aspirant, briefly said he, too, had seen such a video. But to his credit, he withdrew the statement after realizing it was of Palestinians in Gaza, not New Jersey.
 

Trump’s false claim that the 9/11 hijackers’ wives ‘knew exactly what was going to happen’

In the wake of the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., involving a Muslim couple, Trump has emerged with the claim that the 9/11 hijackers sent their wives home before the attacks — and those wives knew “exactly what was going to happen.” But there is no support for Trump’s claims, as the exhaustive 9/11 Commission report states that virtually all of the hijackers were unmarried.  The report includes a number of references to the hijackers cutting off communication with their families: “The other operatives had broken off regular contact with their families. …The majority of these Saudi recruits began to break with their families in late 1999 and early 2000. …[The ringleader] complained that some of the hijackers wanted to contact their families to say goodbye, something he had forbidden.”
 

Trump’s claim that he ‘predicted Osama bin Laden’

In various speeches and interviews, Trump has claimed that two years before the 9/11 attacks, he warned that Osama bin Laden was a threat — going to “do damage” to the United States — and even predicted the rise of terrorism. This claim rests on some vague references in a book he published in 2000. The references have little relationship to how Trump portrays them now — and he ignores the fact that well before 9/11, experts, news organizations and even bin Laden himself said he planned to attack the United States.
 

Trump’s claim that the unemployment rate is 23 percent

After falsely asserting the “real” unemployment rate was 42 percent, Trump suddenly tossed out a new estimate of “22 to 23 percent.” But this was also wrong. His figure is still more than double the most expansive rate published by the U.S. government, which at the time was 9.9 percent. That means there are about 35 million “unemployed” who Trump has not accounted for — and as usual the Trump campaign refused to explain how he came up with his estimate.
 

Trump’s dubious claim that his border wall would cost $8 billion

After Trump put a price tag on the wall he wants to build on the 2,000-mile border with Mexico — $8 billion — we investigated whether this figure was in the realm of possibility. We concluded it was not — and after the fact check appeared, Trump increased the projected cost to $12 billion. That’s still too low. A reasonable estimate is $25 billion.


Trump’s truly absurd claim he would save $300 billion a year on prescription drugs

Trump said that he would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies, thus saving $300 billion a year. This made little sense, given that the prescription drug portion of the Medicare program costs only $78 billion a year. Total annual spending on prescription drugs in the United States is between $298 and $423 billion, which suggests Trump thinks he can eliminate virtually any cost to prescription drugs. Once again, we are confronted with a nonsense figure from the mouth of Donald Trump.
 

A trio of truthful attack ads about Trump University

This is in effect a reverse Four-Pinocchio rating, as we presented a rare Geppetto Checkmark to three ads attacking Trump’s involvement with Trump University. We concluded that Trump University appears to have been a classic bait-and-switch operation, designed to lure people into paying increasing sums of money. We also examined Trump’s false claim that Trump University received an “A” rating from the Better Business Bureau, when in fact its rating was D- before it started winding down. The BBB even felt compelled to dispute Trump after he made this claim again during a debate.
 

Trump’s false claim he built his empire with a ‘small loan’ from his father

Trump often says he started his business empire with just a $1 million loan from his father. But that is simply not credible. He appears to have inherited about $40 million. He also benefited from numerous loans and loan guarantees, as well as his father’s connections, to make the move into Manhattan. His father set up lucrative trusts to provide steady income. When Trump became overextended in the casino business, his father bailed him out with a shady casino-chip loan — and Trump also borrowed $9 million against his future inheritance. While Trump asserts “it has not been easy for me,” he glosses over the fact that his father paved the way for his success — and that his father bailed him out when he got into trouble.
 

Trump’s false claim that John Kasich ‘helped’ Lehman Brothers ‘destroy the world economy’

Trump blamed Ohio Gov. John Kasich for the collapse of the investment banking firm and helping start a global financial crisis, but it was a preposterous claim. Kasich was one of about 700 managing directors at Lehman Brothers and largely played a facilitator role, using his experience in government regulations and contacts in various sectors. He gave strategic financial advice to other companies and generated business by using his contacts in various sectors — not making risky mortgage investments. Kasich’s former boss at Lehman equated this attack by Trump to blaming a pilot for the failure of Trump Airlines.
 

Trump’s trade rhetoric, stuck in a time warp

We examined a series of Trump statements on trade, manufacturing and currency manipulation, in essence fact checking the economic world that he depicts in his speeches — a world in which the United States never wins at trade and is flooded by imports because China and Japan keep their currencies low, a world in which high tariffs would bring manufacturing back to Michigan and other states. We concluded that Trump appears to have little understanding of the economic reality of today’s interconnected world.
 

Trump’s smear of Time magazine as the source for his ‘facts’

In a contentious interview with a conservative radio host, Trump was quizzed on claims he made about Wisconsin at a time when Gov. Scott Walker (R) was still a presidential contender, in particular the false claim that under Walker the state had gone from a $1 billion surplus to a $2.2 billion deficit. Trump refused to apologize, saying the blame should be placed on Time Magazine; he claimed he was simply quoting the magazine. But we could find little evidence for Trump’s claim. While Time at one point has mentioned a $2 billion budget “shortfall,” that was different than Trump’s phrasing. Moreover, the budget issue had already been resolved two weeks before Trump started making the claim—and he didn’t change it even after being called out by fact checkers.
 

Trump’s nonsensical claim he can eliminate $19 trillion in debt in eight years

In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump asserted he could eliminate the nation’s $19 trillion in debt in just eight years, apparently through renegotiating trade deals. Using federal budget data, we demonstrated why Trump’s pledge is mathematically impossible. First, he has to eliminate the deficit that is adding to the debt year after year. (That is projected to add another $7 trillion in debt by 2024.) Even if Trump eliminated every government function and shut down every Cabinet agency, he’d still be $16 trillion short. Unfortunately, we only had Four Pinocchios to give for this whopper.
 

Donald Trump’s false claim that there have been no negative ads against Kasich

It’s fine to say far more ads have aired attacking Trump than John Kasich, but Trump went even further to say that no ads have attacked Kasich. That’s just not true. In fact, his own campaign has run an ad attacking Kasich. Attack ads sponsored by candidate committees and outside groups were fairly consistent earlier in the primary cycle, especially ones contrasting his record to other governors in the race.
 

Trump’s false claim that the Islamic State is ‘making a fortune’ on Libyan oil

Trump asserted that the Islamic State terror group had seized the oil in Libya and “is making a fortune now” in the country. But analysts said this is completely false. ISIS has attacked oil fields and destroyed equipment but it has not captured any – or even sought to control the fields. At best one can say ISIS has disrupted the flow of oil. But it is certainly not making any money from such tactics.
 

Trump’s claim that no foreign leader greeting Obama was ‘without precedent’

Trump claimed that the fact that President Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia and Cuba and was not greeted at the airport by the country’s leader was “without precedent.’ But we found numerous examples of this happening under Obama – and previous presidents. We don’t know where Trump comes up with this stuff, but once again he’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
 

Trump’s false claim that ‘scores of recent migrants’ in the U.S. are charged with terrorism

It’s unclear where Trump is getting this information but it appears to be a bungled reference to a list issued by a Senate office concerning 30  foreign-born individuals who were arrested on charges relating to terrorism in recent years. But the majority of the 30 cases involved naturalized U.S. citizens — people who came to the U.S. as children or had arrived before 2011. There is no evidence that “scores” of “recent migrants” are charged with terrorism.


No, Putin did not call Donald Trump ‘a genius’

Trump likes to brag that Russian president Vladmir Putin has “called me a genius.” But Putin said no such thing. The Russian president used a Russian word that means “colorful” or “lively” or even “flamboyant.” A handful of news organizations used the word “bright,” but not in the sense of intelligent. As usual, Trump stretched the meaning even further.


Trump’s false claim that the National Enquirer story on Cruz’s father was not denied

Donald Trump refused to apologize for citing a thinly sourced National Enquirer article alleging that Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael, worked with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Part of the reason, he said, was because it had not been denied. But actually, Cruz himself denounced Trump’s claim, calling the businessman a “pathological liar.” The Cruz campaign also dismissed the story as “garbage” and “false” when the Miami Herald published an article on it on April 22 — 11 days before Trump gave it national currency on Fox News. Meanwhile, reports in The Washington Post, PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org and CNN all had concluded the story was hogwash.

 
Donald Trump’s ridiculous claim that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement

On the day Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, he resurrected a zombie claim that has previously been debunked by fact checkers. The allegation that Clinton was the first, or even one of the first, to question President Obama’s birth certificate is simply false. Trump would be on safer ground if he blamed her supporters for stoking the birther rumors, since in spring 2008, some of Clinton’s supporters began circulating anonymous emails questioning Obama’s citizenship. But there’s no evidence that Clinton or her campaign questioned Obama’s birth certificate.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/22/all-of-donald-trumps-four-pinocchio-ratings-in-one-place/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na

It gets worse

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama politics are at a low point even by Alabama standards: In a state that trails the nation in many areas, three top elected officials are embroiled in scandal or facing removal from office while a former governor serves time in federal prison on a corruption conviction.

Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended from his job Friday and faces possible ouster over his attempts to block gay marriage following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. It's familiar territory for the Republican Moore, a Christian conservative who was previously removed from the same position in 2003 over a Ten Commandments monument and easily won re-election later.

Meanwhile, fellow Republicans tried to remove Gov. Robert Bentley by impeachment in the just-ended legislative session over a sexually charged scandal involving a top political aide, and an investigation continues. At the same time, GOP House Speaker Mike Hubbard awaits a state trial on 23 felony ethics charges that could result in his removal.

If convicted, Hubbard could even join the ranks of the imprisoned like former Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat who was convicted on federal influence-peddling charges.

All in all, it's some of the worst of times for Republicans who promised to clean up state government after seizing control from Democrats who dominated for generations.

"I never recall when the top leaders of all three branches of government were simultaneously accused of improper behavior," Bill Stewart, a retired political scientist from the University of Alabama, said Saturday.

It's hard for state government to concentrate on issues like Medicaid or improving a dilapidated prison system when so many officials are fighting for their jobs, he said.

"It's definitely a traumatic time," Stewart said.

Among the nation's poorest states, Alabama is troubled by problem areas including physical and mental health; comparatively low high school graduation rates; and too many occupational deaths, according to a report by the United Health Foundation. It consistently ranks high in college football — the University of Alabama is the reigning national champion — while struggling in so many other ways.

Yet the ranking leaders elected to sort out the mess face confounding troubles of their own.

In its list of civil charges against Moore, the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission said the 69-year-old chief justice abused his office by issuing an administrative order to probate judges in January telling them an Alabama court order and law banning same-sex marriages remained in effect despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming same-sex marriage six months earlier. Most counties issued same-sex licenses anyway.

In a statement after his suspension, Moore said the commission doesn't have the authority to police the order he issued. As during a news conference last week, Moore criticized the Judicial Inquiry Commission by referring to a recent protest outside his office that included gay and transgender people.

"The JIC has chosen to listen to people like ... a professed transvestite, and other gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals, as well as organizations which support their agenda," Moore said. "We intend to fight this agenda vigorously and expect to prevail."

The Court of the Judiciary will decide whether Moore violated judicial ethics, and he could be removed from office if found guilty. The same court removed Moore from office in 2003 for his refusal to follow a federal court order directing Moore to remove a washing machine-sized Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state's judicial building.

The governor faces very different problems.

In March, Bentley admitted to making inappropriate remarks to an aide, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, in a scandal that has included the public airing of secret recordings that captured Bentley professing love to someone and telling her how much he enjoyed kissing her and touching her breasts, and referencing a need to start locking his office door. The admission came seven months after the former first lady, Dianne Bentley, filed for divorce after 50 years of marriage.

Bentley has struggled to shake the scandal, and lawmakers obtained enough signatures to file impeachment articles during the legislative session that ended Wednesday. The House Judiciary Committee will review the claims to see if there are grounds to remove Bentley from office.

Hubbard, the House speaker, is at risk of losing his job because of criminal charges.

Hubbard is scheduled later this month on 23 felony ethics charges accusing him of using his position as speaker, and previous post as chairman of the Alabama GOP, to direct business to his companies, lobby the governor's office and to solicit investments and clients for his businesses. Bentley could be among the prosecution witnesses.

Hubbard, arguably the most powerful person in state government because of his influence and power to control the House agenda, argues the transactions were legal and separate from his public duties.

Hubbard will be automatically removed from office if convicted on even one felony count. He would join the ranks of Alabama politicians convicted of ethics violations or corruption that includes two recent governors, Republican Guy Hunt and Siegelman, the Democrat.

Hunt, a Primitive Baptist preacher, was convicted and removed from office in 1993 for using campaign and inaugural funds for personal expenses. He tried to mount a political comeback but failed before his death in 2009.

Currently imprisoned in Texas, Siegelman was convicted in 2006 on federal charges of selling a seat on a state health regulatory board in exchange for $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's campaign to establish a state lottery in 1999. A bipartisan group has asked President Barack Obama to pardon Siegelman, claiming his prosecution was unjust and tainted by politics.

Sadiq Khan is Mayor of London
Tom Peck

He shared a platform with an extremist in the end. As the results were read out there could be no disguising the fact that London’s first Muslim Mayor was standing happily alongside the man who has, over the past few weeks, stampeded over the line of acceptable public discourse. A man who has fought the dirtiest campaign in decades, and right up there with the most unsuccessful too.

The result was overwhelming. 1.3m votes for Sadiq Khan. 900,000 for Zac Goldsmith. ‘The largest popular mandate in British electoral history,’ is a phrase you’ll be hearing a lot of. What it means is that Londoners came out in large numbers and were entirely unambiguous in their choice.  From Hackney to Hammersmith, Barnet to Bexley, the terrorist-sympathisers’ grip upon the capital is total.

There’s no point acting surprised. It’s not like you haven’t been warned. Brave Zac Goldsmith’s been telling you for weeks. Sadiq won’t stand up for Hindus. He won’t stand up for Sikhs. If you’re Tamil, he’ll steal your family jewellery. All this was well known, thanks to the brave leafleteering of the once thought moderate face of Conservatism. It weighed not a feather in the balance. In the early evening, even his sister Jemima had disowned him. “Sad that Zac’s campaign did not reflect who I know him to be,” she said. Too late.

“This election was not without controversy,” Khan said in a very short acceptance speech, delivered beyond midnight, the results having been initially expected at five in the afternoon. “And I am so proud that London has today chosen hope over fear, and unity over division.”

More at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sadiq-khan-is-mayor-of-london-and-he-shared-a-platform-with-an-extremist-in-the-end-a7017346.html

Alabama's Supreme Court Chief Justice was suspended on Friday as he faces possible removal from the bench for ordering state probate judges not to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, despite contrary rulings by a federal court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission charged Chief Justice Roy Moore, an outspoken opponent of same-sex unions, with violating the state's judicial ethics laws, an allegation that could potentially remove him from office, according to news website AL.com.

The legality of gay marriage had been at the center of a national debate for years until the Supreme Court ruled in June that the U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry, handing a historic triumph to the American gay rights movement.

Despite the ruling and a federal court ruling that made gay marriage legal in Alabama, Moore issued in January an administrative order to state probate judges, ordering them not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, according to court documents.

"Chief Justice Moore flagrantly disregarded and abused his authority," the complaint said. "Moore knowingly ordered [probate judges] to commit violations...knowingly subjecting them to potential prosecution and removal from office."

Moore said in a statement that the commission has no authority over administrative orders or the court's ability to prohibit probate judges from issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

"We intend to fight this agenda vigorously and expect to prevail," he said.

Moore wrote in his order that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was at odds with a decision in March 2015 by the Alabama Supreme Court that instructed probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The conflicting opinions had resulted in "confusion and uncertainty," Moore said, with many probate judges issuing marriage licenses to gay couples while others refused to do so.

Until the Alabama Supreme Court decides the matter, probate judges "have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license," he said.

The complaint said Moore's order "was contrary to clear and determined law about which there is no confusion or unsettled question."

Moore, a Republican, has been a hero of conservative causes before. In 2003, he was removed from office after a federal judge ruled he was placing himself above the law by refusing to take down a Ten Commandments monument.

He won the chief justice job back in 2012, vowing not to do anything to create further friction with the federal courts.


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