US Far-Right Extremist Candace Owens Refused Entry To Australia

Josephine Harvey
Mon, October 28, 2024 

Far-right conspiracy theorist Candace Owens won’t be taking her speaking tour to Australia after her visa was denied due to her hateful rhetoric.

“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [Nazi physician Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Australian immigration minister Tony Burke, a member of the center-left Labor government, told local media over the weekend.

“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan, of the center-right Liberal Party, had also said in August that the government should block Owens’ visa on character grounds to prevent the spread of “hateful messages.”

In July, Owens suggested on her podcast that the gruesome experiments Mengele conducted on twins at Holocaust death camps never happened, saying “that just sounds like bizarre propaganda.”

The right-wing provocateur’s Australian speaking tour had been slated to kick off on Nov. 17, with shows scheduled in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.

She’s also slated to speak in Auckland on Nov. 14. New Zealand officials are reportedly assessing her visa application.

Her tour website advertises the show as an “electrifying evening” with Owens. “In a world full of safe spaces, Candace cuts through the fluff, delivering raw and unfiltered commentary on politics, culture, and everyday life,” it reads.

Tickets to the event ranged from roughly $63 USD for general admission to around $990 for a private pre-show dinner and meet and greet with Owens.

Owens has not yet reacted publicly to the visa decision.

The Anti-Defamation Commission, an Australian civil rights organization that was among several Jewish groups that called for Owens to be barred, called the decision “a victory for truth.”

“Australia has no place for those who mock the suffering of genocide survivors and insult the memories of the 6 million Jews who perished,” chairman Dvir Abramovich said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In March, The Daily Wire ended its relationship with Owens after she clashed with its co-founder, Ben Shapiro, over her antisemitic views. In the lead-up to her departure from the right-wing outlet, she had amplified a series of unhinged conspiracy theories, including one about Jews being “drunk on Christian blood.”

Colin Allred is in a tight race with Ted Cruz. Here's how he's planning to become Texas' first Democratic senator in decades.

John L. Dorman

Tue, October 29, 2024

The marquee Senate race between Colin Allred and Ted Cruz could reveal a lot about Texas' identity.


The Lone Star State has been a GOP bastion for decades, but voting shifts are changing that dynamic.


BI spoke with Colin Allred in Houston about the race and how he views Cruz's tenure in office.

For decades, Democrats have sought to reclaim their former glory in Texas, but they've repeatedly come up short.

The party hasn't won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994, which has largely deprived it of the sort of bench that Republicans have cultivated for years through their dominance of state government.

So when Rep. Colin Allred — a three-term lawmaker who represents the Dallas-area 32nd Congressional District — entered this year's Senate contest against two-term Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, many Democrats felt that his bipartisan credentials would bolster his run.

Allred, 41, believes that he can be a change agent for Texas. And with less than a week to go before the election, he remains locked in a competitive contest with the 53-year-old Cruz.

A late October New York Times/Siena College survey showed Cruz with a four-point edge over Allred (50% to 46%) among likely voters, but in the same poll, former President Donald Trump led Vice President Kamala Harris by ten points (52% to 42%). And other polls of the race, including ones from Marist College, Morning Consult, and the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs, all showed Cruz with single-digit leads.

The competitiveness of the race led the Senate Majority PAC — the Democratic political action committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York — to pour $5 million into the contest in recent days, as the Texas race is now widely viewed as the party's best opportunity to flip a red seat this year. In total, Allred has raised more than $80 million for the Senate race, according to his campaign.

But one key fact remains: Allred will have to overcome the state's Republican lean in order to oust Cruz.
Reproductive rights and the economy

I sat down with Allred before a recent block walk kickoff event in Houston, where the former NFL player and civil rights attorney laid out his case against Cruz's reelection bid.

But something significant stuck out during our conversation.

In the past, red-state Democrats often shied away from speaking out too forcefully regarding reproductive rights. However, after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court, along with the passage of Texas' strict abortion ban, Allred lambasted "extremism" that he argued would seriously affect the economy.

In the Times/Siena poll, likely voters in Texas ranked the economy as their top issue, with 27% of respondents expressing this opinion. (The second-and- third ranked issues were immigration and abortion, with 15% support for each issue.)

"The individual stories of people denied miscarriage care or denied care when pregnancies weren't viable and having to leave the state are horrific," Allred told me after he spoke at a reproductive rights-focused rally headlined by Harris, which also featured an appearance by Beyoncé. "I know many of these women that have come forward. It's personal. It's also impacting every other aspect of Texas life, from our medical schools to our universities to our business climate."
The electoral map

In 2018, then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke traversed Texas during his Senate campaign and in the process visited all of the state's 254 counties.

While Cruz eventually won, he bested O'Rourke by only 2.6 percentage points, or by roughly 215,000 votes out of more than 8.3 million ballots cast.

Cruz was first elected to the Senate in 2012.Brandon Bell/Getty Images

O'Rourke's campaign that year worked to energize Democratic voters — with a focus on young and progressive voters — and his town hall events became a signature part of his campaign.

Allred's campaign approach is a bit different than the one pursued by O'Rourke, who represented the El Paso area in Congress from 2013 until 2019. He's seeking to maximize Democratic turnout as well, but he's conducted serious outreach to independents and Republicans to be a part of his moderate-minded campaign.

"I have a record of being the most bipartisan Texan in Congress," he told me during our conversation.

It's the sort of ethos that Allred takes with him on the campaign trail across Texas, a behemoth of a state that contains huge cities and scores of medium-sized and smaller cities and towns in between. It can take around thirteen hours to drive across Texas from the east to the west.

"This is a massive state, and what happens in one part of the state is not always known in the other part of the state," Allred told me, adding of his experience: "I don't come across any Texans who are looking for a handout, but I come across Texans who are looking for somebody who's going to be on their side."

Democrats in Texas already perform strongly in cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. But in the Trump era, Democrats have also increasingly won over more suburban voters, a phenomenon that has helped the party immensely in other Sun Belt states like Arizona and Georgia. And if Allred is to defeat Cruz, he'll have to put up extremely strong numbers with suburban voters across the board.

Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, told me in a interview that Cruz is in a tougher spot compared to other Texas Republicans because he lacks substantial "crossover" support. Republicans for decades have flexed their political muscle in the state based on their strong support from the party faithful and conservative-leaning independents.

But Cruz, a onetime GOP presidential candidate, has cut a polarizing profile both in Texas and on the national stage.

"He doesn't have much appeal to the sort of soft Republicans, independents, and moderate-to-conservative Democrats in the same way that Gov. Greg Abbott or Sen. John Cornyn do," Jones said. "And it's not a large amount, but he starts off at a disadvantage in that he needs to pretty much win all of the Republican vote and make sure that Republicans turn out."
Cruz 'too small' for Texas

On the campaign trail, Allred has targeted Cruz's infamous 2021 trip to Cancún, Mexico, which occurred while many Texans were without power due to a severe winter storm.

During our conversation, Allred depicted Cruz as someone who doesn't have a broader vision for one of the fastest-growing states in the country, which now boasts over 30 million residents.

Business Insider has reached out to the Cruz campaign for comment.

"Texas is incredibly diverse and dynamic, but we have been governed by extremists who I think have put at risk all of the positives about our state," Allred told me. "Ted Cruz, in particular, is someone who I think is just too small for Texas. His vision is too small for us. And to me, it's kind of the opposite of the Texas that I know."

Allred, who would be the first Black senator from Texas should he defeat Cruz, also spoke about the difficulties of change in a state where Republicans have long held a firm grip on power.

"When you have a one-party rule state for so long, you can get an impression that there's no changing it," Allred told me. "There's always a sense that we should have change. But can we break through?"

Elon on Economy Crashing if Trump Wins: ‘Sounds About Right’

Nikki McCann Ramirez

Rolling Stone
Tue, October 29, 2024


Economists have repeatedly warned that a second Trump administration would be a boon to the ultra wealthy and a backslide for everyone else. As the 2024 campaign season enters its final days, the former president’s most prominent billionaire backer is in agreement, and he wants regular Americans to just suck it up.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk — the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) and Tesla — agreed in a social media post that Donald Trump’s return to office would likely crash the economy.

“If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit – there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy,” user @FischerKing64 wrote on X. “Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy,” he added.

“Sounds about right,” Musk replied.

The billionaire has been heavily campaigning for Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, including by hosting a potentially illegal cash-for-signatures scheme and million-dollar raffle for registered voters in key swing states. The former president has, in turn, vowed that Musk will be appointed as the head of a “government efficiency commission” under his administration, and be tasked with slashing wasteful spending.

On Friday, Musk explained how he felt such an appointment would play out during a virtual town hall hosted on X.

“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said, that will “involve some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

It’s unlikely that the world’s richest man will feel any sort of material economic hardship as he takes scissors to the federal budget. If Musk’s own corporate record cutting costs is anything to go by, the results could be disastrous. Musk’s two-year tenure as the owner of the platform formerly known as Twitter resulted in a drastic shrinking of the company’s workforce, as well as an estimated 80 percent reduction in the company’s value and sharp decline in revenue.

When not railing about immigration, the Trump campaign has made economic wellness a central talking point of its electoral message, promising explosive growth and endless prosperity to prospective voters. Economists say the former president’s actual proposals will do the opposite.

In June, a coalition of Nobel Prize-winning economists warned that Trump will “reignite” inflation and “have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy.”

Other macroeconomic experts have warned that Trump’s proposal to implement broad-based tariffs on all imported goods would not only raise the prices of common goods for Americans, but send shockwaves throughout global markets.

Musk, who benefits from extensive government subsidies and federal contracts to fund and produce his technological projects, has opposed Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposal to implement more stringent tax burdens on billionaires. Under Trump, Musk would not only be granted a tax boon, but a position in the federal government where his decisions would — by his own admission — steamroll Americans desperate for economic stability.

Rolling Stone

Elon Musk agrees: Trump’s economic plans will lead to ‘hardship’ and cause markets to ‘tumble’

Alex Woodward
Tue, October 29, 2024 

The world’s wealthiest man appears to believe that a Donald Trump presidency must crash the economy in order to benefit Americans.

Elon Musk agreed on Tuesday that proposed drastic cuts to the federal government, coupled with Trump’s sweeping deportations, will likely cause global markets to “tumble.”

Last week, Musk said during a virtual town hall that Americans will experience a “temporary hardship” for “long-term prosperity.”

“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” said Musk, who has pitched himself as the director of a new “Office of Government Efficiency” under a second Trump administration.

He claimed on Friday that he would “balance the budget immediately,” adding that “a lot of people who are taking advantage of government are going to be upset about that” and that he will “probably need a lot of security, but it’s got to be done.”

“And if it’s not done, we’ll just go bankrupt,” he said.

His political action committee has similarly stated that “America is in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” There is no evidence that the United States will become “bankrupt.”

On Tuesday, Musk agreed with a social media post on his X platform that Trump’s proposals will have a “severe” economic impact.

“If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit — there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy,” @FischerKing64 wrote on X. “This economy propped up with debt (generating asset bubbles) and artificially suppressed wages (as a result of illegal immigration). Markets will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy.”

“Sounds about right,” Musk replied.

Donald Trump’s ally Elon Musk said he would cut the US budget by one-third during his remarks at Madison Squae Garden on Octobr 27 (REUTERS)

Trump and Musk have proposed an Office of Government Efficiency that would perform “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” with “recommendations for drastic reforms,” the former president said last month.

Before introducing Melania Trump at the former president’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Musk said he could eliminate “at least $2 trillion” from the federal budget — roughly one-third of existing spending.

“Your money is being wasted,” he said. “We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocket book.”

Musk is one of the most prolific spenders when it comes to elections, funneling at least $132 million into campaigns to get Trump and Republicans elected this year, according to federal campaign finance documents.

The Tesla CEO and X owner was sued by Philadelphia’s district attorney for a potentially illegal scheme to randomly award $1 million every day to voters in swing states who signed his PAC’s petition. The Department of Justice issued a warning to his PAC last week.

He’s not alone among Trump’s wealthy and influential allies promoting the idea of economic collapse as a necessary byproduct of Trump policy.

Last week, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, a co-chair of Trump’s 2025 transition team, agreed that Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports would raise the price on consumer goods, despite Republicans arguing that President Joe Biden’s administration and Vice President Kamala Harris have failed to lower everyday costs for Americans.

“Correct: If I raise the tariff on just this particular idiosyncratic product, yes, right, it will be more expensive,” he said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Musk wants to run an ‘Office of Government Efficiency’ under Trump’s potential administration (AFP via Getty Images)

Trump’s running mate JD Vance also suggested that those higher costs would be offset by higher wages, of which there is no guarantee.

“Anything that you lose on the tariff from the perspective of the consumer, you gain in higher wages, so you’re ultimately much better off,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press this summer.

Trump has proposed a 20 percent tariff on all imported goods, including 60 percent tariffs on goods imported from China, a 100 percent tariff on goods from countries that have shifted away from trading with the dollar, and a 2,000 percent tariff on vehicles built in Mexico.

He has also floated an improbable idea to potentially eliminate all federal taxes and rely solely on tariffs to support the nation’s multi-trillion dollar annual budget.

Elon Musk Says Trump Will Bring 'Temporary Hardship' For Americans

Arthur Delaney, Jonathan Nicholson
Updated Tue, October 29, 2024

Former President Donald Trump’s biggest financial backer and top campaign surrogate, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, says he and Trump plan to inflict “temporary hardship” on American citizens if the Republican nominee wins the White House in November.

Trump has said Musk would lead a commission on how to reduce government spending, and Musk has said he would identify trillions in cuts.

“We have to reduce spending to live within our means. That necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity,” Musk said last week during a “Telephone Town Hall” hosted on his social media website.

Musk, the tech billionaire who has spent more than $130 million backing Trump and regularly spreads racist conspiracy theories about immigration and voting, acknowledged that steep cuts would trigger political opposition, but said Trump would support the idea of everyone “taking a haircut,” an informal financial term for when an asset loses value.

“President Trump is supportive that everyone’s taking a haircut here because America’s got to live within its means, and we can’t be a wastrel,” Musk said.

On Tuesday, Musk offered a similar sentiment. On X, the website formally known as Twitter until Musk bought it, a user wrote Trump’s plan for mass deportations, “combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit” could cause a “severe overreaction in the economy,” with markets tumbling, followed by “a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy.”

“Sounds about right,” Musk replied.

Economists in both parties say removing millions of people from the country abruptly and imposing tariffs would quickly lead to price spikes and reignite inflation. When coupled with Trump’s plans to further cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations, his economic policy would in effect raise taxes on lower- and middle-income Americans to pay for high-income tax cuts.

Any tax changes or spending cuts, however, would need to be OK’d by Congress, and cuts of the magnitude Musk has suggested would be unlikely to win approval from lawmakers.

Presidential campaigns usually don’t tell voters their candidate’s policies will increase material hardship. Trump himself typically describes the prospect of him serving another term in the White House as something that will bring unparalleled prosperity to the American people.

“We will end inflation. We will stop the invasion of criminals coming into our country and we will bring back the American dream,” Trump said at a Monday rally in Atlanta, Georgia. “Our country will be better and bolder and richer and safer and stronger than ever before. This election is a choice between whether we will have four more years of incompetence and failure, or whether or not we will begin the four greatest years of the history of our country.”



Spokespeople for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has said he would appoint Musk to a “government efficiency” commission that would identify wasteful spending. Musk suggested Sunday he could easily slash more than $2 trillion from the federal government’s annual $6 trillion in spending.

Trump has in the past often derided fellow Republicans for being too focused on balancing the budget — and especially for suggesting cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two of the biggest and most popular government programs. Musk’s budget-trimming plans would impose on Congress a politically impossible choice: Cut them, or make much sharper cuts to other programs in order to leave them alone.

“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Trump insisted in an interview with right-wing news site Breitbart in March. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”

(Trump repeatedly proposed cuts to Social Security’s disability insurance programs when he was in office.)

Musk did not say where he would start cutting if Trump wins and he were put in charge of government efficiency, but he sounded confident the task would not be difficult.

“The reality is there is so much government waste, it’s kind of like being in a room full of targets. You can’t miss. You fire in any direction, you’re going to hit a target,” he said.

Musk also compared government finances to those of individuals, a framing the overwhelming proportion of economists reject. Countries, unlike individuals, are not meant to have finite lifespans. The global economy does not rest on currency issued by private individuals but is reliant on the U.S. dollar as a commonly accepted means of trade, a status that has given the U.S. economy unique advantages.

“If you’re an individual and you’re racking up crazy debt, well obviously the thing to do is reduce some spending and you’ve got to start paying down that debt. The same is true of a country. So that’s what I’d like to do,” Musk said, adding if it were possible he’d like to balance the budget “immediately.”

“Obviously, a lot of people who are taking advantage of the government are going to be upset about that. I’m probably going to need a lot of security. But it’s got to be done.”

Column: Has Trump just repeated the P.R. disaster that cost Herbert Hoover his reelection?

Michael Hiltzik
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Donald Trump addresses the New York rally Sunday at which speakers uttered unrelenting ethnic and racial slurs. (C-SPAN)
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways


"Well, Felix, this elects me."

The speaker was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was at home in Albany with his friend and advisor Felix Frankfurter, monitoring radio reports of a political disaster unfolding in Herbert Hoover's Washington.

It was 1932. Hoover had dispatched the military to break up a camp of World War I veterans who had massed to demand immediate payment of a bonus they had been promised for serving. News of the cavalry's gassing and trampling of civilians — the slain including an infant born during the nationwide march of the so-called Bonus Army — would dominate the front pages and tar Hoover's public image through the presidential campaign.

Flash forward 92-plus years to Donald Trump's rally Sunday at New York's Madison Square Garden, a bleak, lurid festival of racist hate and profane vituperation so vile that even fellow Republicans, who have turned a blind eye to Trump's character for years, are distancing themselves from the event.

Read more: Column: A conservative think tank says Trump policies would crater the economy — but it's being kind

Their fear may be that with this heavily promoted event, the fundamental loathsomeness of Trump's political persona and behavior may break through to the undecided voters he needs to win reelection.

The occasion evokes the line sometimes attributed (perhaps apocryphally) to Mark Twain that "History doesn't always repeat itself, but it often rhymes." For the attack on the Bonus Army and the Madison Square Garden rally share features that could bind them together as campaign turning points.

As Twain might have acknowledged, the comparison isn't perfect — among other differences, the Bonus Army attack occurred on July 28, 1932, in the middle of the presidential campaign, while the Trump rally came only 10 days before election day and after early voting by mail and in person has already started in many states. Trump threatens to turning the military on American citizens to quell demonstrations; Hoover actually did so.

But the events do rhyme. Let's take a look.

Start with the main characters. Hoover and Trump became president after winning their first campaigns for elective office, and both entered the White House as wealthy men. The similarities end there, however.

Hoover had made a name for himself in public service. During World War I he had served as chair of the Belgian Relief Commission, which shipped food to that German-occupied nation, and subsequently as head of the U.S. Food Administration, which aimed to keep food prices stable while the U.S. participated in the war. After war's end, he became director of the American Relief Commission, which provided food relief to the war-torn countries of Europe.

Hoover served as Commerce Secretary for Warren Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge — in which role he oversaw the interstate negotiations that would clear the way for construction of the great dam that would bear his name. Trump's public service prior to his election as president was nonexistent.

Well, Felix, this elects me.

Franklin Roosevelt to Felix Frankfurter, upon hearing of Hoover's attack on the Bonus Army

The two came to their wealth by different paths. Hoover was a self-made man, having earned a degree in engineering as a member of the first graduating class of Stanford University and making a fortune as a mining engineer. Trump inherited his wealth from his father, a real estate developer.

Hoover, like Trump, saw himself as a savior of the nation. "He has wrapped himself in the belief," his secretary of state, Henry Stimson, wrote in his diary, "that the state of the country really depended on his reelection." Trump often claims to be the only person who can save America from war and economic depression. Neither, obviously, saw themselves clearly.

On the Democratic side, Roosevelt and Kamala Harris were scorned by critics as intellectual lightweights, despite having had successful careers in government — Roosevelt as a New York state senator, assistant Navy secretary under Woodrow Wilson, and governor of New York; Harris as San Francisco district attorney, attorney general of California, U.S. senator and vice president.

Read more: Column: Trump's glorification of the 1890s in America displays his dangerous ignorance of economics and history

Despite that, FDR was disdained by former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. as having "a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Walter Lippmann, the reigning public intellectual of his era, deprecated FDR as "a highly impressionable person, without a firm grasp of public affairs. ... A pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President."

Trump and his cohorts incessantly demean Harris as — to quote the ever-fading Tucker Carlson at the Sunday Trump rally — a "low-IQ former California prosecutor."

The Republican Parties of 1932 and 2024 were fragmented entities when they nominated their presidential candidates.

Hoover had proven during his term to be a technocrat utterly without political skills. GOP insurgents (led by Harold Ickes, who would go on to serve FDR as interior secretary) had mounted a "dump Hoover" movement at their national convention; it collapsed for lack of a candidate to take up the colors.

Trump prevailed at the 2024 GOP convention, though not without challenges from candidates fearful of his lack of appeal outside a core right-wing base — former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley collected a strong 40% of the vote in a series of primaries, but not enough to carry her to the nomination.

That brings us to what might be the turning points in both Republican campaigns.

For Hoover, it was his response to the Bonus Army. This was a national movement for early payment of a stipend Congress had voted for veterans of the war at a cost of up to $4 billion — but which was not scheduled to be redeemed until 1945. Veterans could borrow from the government against their bonus certifications, but only at a high rate of interest.

As the Depression tightened its grip on the nation in 1931 and amid soaring unemployment and the spread of shantytowns of dispossessed Americans known as "Hoovervilles," veterans began to gather in Washington, uncorking fears of civil disorder.

Read more: Column: The Nazi roots of the Trump-Vance smear of Haitian immigrants

Among their targets was Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who was steadfast against early redemption. (Among Mellon's grandchildren is Timothy Mellon, who is the largest individual contributor to the Trump campaign and other Republicans in this election cycle.)

The Bonus Expeditionary Force, as the Bonus marchers called themselves, originated in Portland, Ore., with an unemployed ex-sergeant named Walter W. Waters as its commander. They started to move east — "hundreds of thousands of men, women, children, and babies ... walking, hitchhiking, hopping freights," as Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen reported in their 2004 book about the Bonus Army.

Most of the marchers fell away en route, but by the end of June a Hooverville-like camp housing as many as 15,000 bedraggled men and their families had sprung up in the desolate, muddy Anacostia Flats area of Washington. They were fed with donated food, treated at a medical clinic set up on the grounds, and mounted a series of marches to Capitol Hill, where a bill to accelerate the bonus payments to the present day was being debated. (It passed the House but was defeated in the Senate.)

Hoover and his aides became progressively more fretful about the settlement at Anacostia Flats, especially when its organizers began to talk about making it permanent. There was talk about its having been infiltrated by Communists and rumors of planned violence. Hoover decided early in July to have the marchers evicted and placed the responsibility in the hands of the Army chief of staff, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

MacArthur assumed the task of deploying tanks, bayonets and tear gas on fellow citizens enthusiastically, calling the camp residents "insurrectionists." The prospect appalled MacArthur's adjutant, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who claimed later that he tried to convince his superior that the job was beneath his dignity. MacArthur rebuffed him.

On July 28, the attack began, including cavalry troops under the command of Major George S. Patton. Two veterans were killed in the operation and 55 injured. A 12-week-old baby died after being tear-gassed. The tent camp in Anacostia was burned to the ground.

The following day, Hoover issued a statement explaining that he had acted to prevent the government from being "coerced by mob rule." He kept petulantly defending his actions to the end of his life. In his memoirs he accused the Democrats of distorting the event, implying "that I had murdered veterans on the streets of Washington." He charged that the Bonus march had been largely "organized and promoted by the Communists and included a large number of hoodlums and ex-convicts."

As it happened, Roosevelt as president was no more willing to pay the bonus early than Hoover and Mellon had been. In 1936, Congress overwhelmingly passed a measure to pay the bonus immediately — over FDR's veto.

The ramifications of the Bonus Army attack live on. It set the stage for the creation of a vast administrative infrastructure of aid for service members and veterans, starting with enactment of the GI Bill, which paid for tuition, textbooks and supplies (and $50 a month for living expenses) to grant returning veterans a college education, making American society into a meritocracy.

The bill was signed by Franklin Roosevelt in June 1944, a couple of weeks after allied troops cross the English channel on D-Day.

It also stands as a warning for Trump that taking military action against civilians will inspire a massive public backlash, which in that case contributed — no one can say how much — to Franklin Roosevelt's landslide defeat of Hoover just over three months later. Roosevelt's presidency established a new principle in American politics through the New Deal, that government exists to succor all its people, not just the wealthy.

Michael Hiltzik
Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Harris vows to launch Puerto Rico task force

Tara Suter
Sun, October 27, 2024

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Vice President Harris vowed to launch “a new Puerto Rico Opportunity Economy Task Force” in the case she wins the presidency in a video posted Sunday to Instagram.

“As president, I will bring down the cost of housing, invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs and fight to finally secure equal access to programs that strengthen the health care system and support children, seniors and working people,” Harris said in the video.

“I will create a new Puerto Rico Opportunity Economy Task Force, where the federal government will work with the private sector, with nonprofits and community leaders to foster economic growth and create thousands of new, good-paying jobs in Puerto Rico, including for our young people,” the vice president added.

Puerto Rico has faced hardships including a debt crisis, devastation from 2017’s Hurricane Maria and problems with its electric grid all within the last decade. The island also lacks voting power in Congress, as well as having no say when it comes to who wins the White House every four years — though Puerto Rico does participate in presidential primaries.

Harris’s video came on the same day as a speaker at a Trump rally went after the Caribbean island and U.S. territory, drawing backlash from her campaign, other Democrats and some Republicans. In his comments at the rally, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe said, “I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

In response to a clip from a Twitch stream featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), criticizing the comments Sunday night, Hinchcliffe said in a post on the social platform X that it is “[w]ild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.”

“I love Puerto Rico and vacation there,” Hinchcliffe added in his post. “I made fun of everyone…watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change your tampon.”

Puerto Rican rapper and superstar Bad Bunny also shared Harris’s Instagram video featuring the comments about the task force on his Instagram story Sunday.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Puerto Rico Catholic archbishop: 

Important that Trump personally apologize for comedian’s comments

Sarah Fortinsky
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Roberto González Nieves, archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico, called on former President Trump to apologize personally for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke comparing Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage.”

In an “open letter” addressed to the former president, the archbishop said he “consulted with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico” and was “dismayed and appalled” by Hinchcliffe’s joke, which the controversial comedian delivered Sunday at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally ahead of the GOP presidential nominee’s speech.

“I call upon you, Mr. Trump, to disavow these comments as reflecting in any way your personal or political viewpoints,” the letter reads. “It is not sufficient for your campaign to apologize. It is important that you, personally, apologize for these comments.”

Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, has faced significant backlash from figures across the political aisle since delivering the joke. His set also included jokes targeting Jews and Black men, but it was his comments about Puerto Rico that generated the most attention and criticism.

“There’s a lot going on. Like, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said on stage Sunday, eliciting mixed reactions from the crowd. The comedian has also defended his remarks amid scrutiny.

The archbishop sharply pushed back on Hinchcliffe’s remarks in his open letter.

“Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage. Puerto Rico is a beautiful country inhabited by a beautiful and noble people, which is why in Spanish it is called ‘un encanto, un edén’,” he wrote. “More Puerto Rican soldiers died in the Vietnam War as part of the United States military than soldiers from any state of the United States.”

“I enjoy a good joke,” González Nieves continued. “However, humor has its limits. It should not insult or denigrate the dignity and sacredness of people. Hinchcliffe’s remarks do not only provoke sinister laughter but hatred.”

He added, “These kinds of remarks should not be a part of the political discourse of a civilized society.”

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Comedian who made anti-Asian remarks spews more racist 'jokes' at Trump rally

Carl Samson

NEXT SHARK
Tue, October 29, 2024 a


[Source]

Stand-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe sparked outrage on Sunday after launching a series of racist jokes at a Donald Trump rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. His remarks, denounced by members of both political parties, bring back to memory his history of making anti-Asian comments.

What happened: Hinchcliffe delivered a set filled with racist slurs targeting various minority groups at the rally, which was meant to serve as a key event before Election Day. His most inflammatory comments included derogatory references to Latinos, describing them as having an uncontrolled population growth. “[They] love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country,” he quipped. Hinchcliffe also disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The rally’s tone darkened further as Hinchcliffe’s jokes extended to antisemitic and Black stereotypes. His performance was met with groans and sporadic laughter from the crowd but sparked fierce criticism outside the venue. In an X post, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) said Hinchcliffe’s racist rhetoric “does not reflect GOP values,” while Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-New York) noted that “the only thing that’s ‘garbage’ was a bad comedy set.” Meanwhile, Democrats capitalized on the uproar, with figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying, “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico ‘floating garbage,’ know that that’s what they think about you.”

The big picture: Sunday’s controversy follows a familiar pattern for Hinchcliffe, who faced backlash in 2021 after openly mocking Chinese American comedian Peng Dang with a racial slur and a fake Asian accent. His comments, which ridiculed Asian stereotypes, occurred amid rising anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. and were widely condemned on social media. Dang at the time told NextShark that he was shocked and upset, recalling the moment he introduced Hinchcliffe to the stage in Austin, Texas, only to be called a “filthy little f*cking ch*nk.”

Last week in Austin, I got to bring up Tony Hinchcliffe. This is what he said. Happy Asian (AAPI) Heritage Month! pic.twitter.com/9XG6upit2a

— Peng Dang (@pengdangcomedy) May 11, 2021


Trump Campaign Knew Exactly What It Was Getting With Tony Hinchcliffe’s Racist Jokes

Eboni Boykin-Patterson
Mon, October 28, 2024 

Tony Hinchcliffe

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe set the internet ablaze and invited condemnation even from the campaign he was supporting on Sunday when he made several racist “jokes” that may have alienated potential Donald Trump voters at the former president’s New York rally on Sunday. But the controversial host of the “Kill Tony” podcast has long been known for that type of “comedy.”

Hinchcliffe took the stage at Madison Square Garden and attacked several groups of people during his remarks, like when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” and said Latinos “love making babies.”

“There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that,” he added. “They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” He also used a racial trope when he aligned a Black man in the crowd with watermelon, among other incendiary comments.

On Monday the Trump camp said in a statement, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” But considering Hinchcliffe had already garnered a reputation for making racist remarks in his comedy, the statement doesn’t hold water.

In 2021, Hinchcliffe was dropped from his agency and had several upcoming performances canceled after he called comic Peng Dang a racial slur on stage and mimicked an Asian accent while making comments about soy sauce. He doubled down once he gained new representation and appeared on the YouTube show “TRIGGERnometry,” where he insinuated Dang was a “Chinese spy” and called fallout from his using a slur “an orchestrated attack by the Chinese media.”

Three years later, Hinchcliffe has never expressed any regret for his comments, and in April told Variety of the incident, “I knew that what I had done was not wrong,” and “comedians should never apologize for a joke.” He also agreed (without naming Dang) that “being offended is one hundred percent a way to advance in the business.”

Hinchcliffe is also known for making “jokes” about the public murder of George Floyd. He told Variety, “I have a George Floyd joke that I do.” Not getting said joke shows, according to Hinchcliffe, that one is not a “high-level stand-up fan,” or “doesn’t know comedy.” All that taken into account, it’s hard to believe Trump’s campaign wouldn’t have known what they were getting when Hinchcliffe was invited as a speaker.

The comedian last drew outrage earlier this year, when he used a homophobic slur and crassly joked about Kim Kardashian at Tom Brady’s roast on Netflix. “A whale’s vagina, which reminds me, Kim Kardashian’s here. She’s had a lot of Black men celebrating her end zone,” he said, adding, “Kim, word of advice, close your legs. You have more public beef than Kendrick and Drake.”

Elsewhere in the Variety interview, the comic pushed right-wing talking points, including the idea that being offended by a racial comment is “virtue signaling,” as is masking against COVID, which may have been all Trump’s team cared about before they recruited him to speak at MSG.

Trump, meanwhile, has made disparaging comments about immigrants and potential Black and Latino voters for years that Republicans have repeatedly downplayed. Now, Trump’s campaign staff is saying Hinchcliffe’s “joke” about Puerto Rico being garbage Sunday night was “in poor taste,” as both Republicans and Democrats alike (not named Marjorie Taylor Greene) agree the jokes went too far.

With only a few days to go before a neck-and-neck election, alienating a significant portion of the population—including nearly one million Puerto Ricans in swing states—may not seem like the smartest move. But it’s one the Trump campaign should have seen coming.

Opinion: As a Puerto Rican professor, I worked to help my class process a racist joke

Benigno Trigo
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Over the weekend, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico during a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City.

He made a joke, and Puerto Rico was the butt of the joke.

He said: "I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now ... I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

I’m a professor of Spanish, and on Monday, one of my students brought up the subject in my medicine and literature class.
Jokes, like dreams, are obscuring. So said Freud

I was born in Puerto Rico so when the subject came up during the class, I felt that I had the responsibility to address it.

I’ve always felt that part of my job as a teacher is to challenge stereotypical views about the island of my birth and its people.

I told my students that jokes were like dreams.

They are mechanisms that allow us to turn what we don’t want to face directly into something unfamiliar, but also into something that allows us to experience an emotion, a feeling, a wish, that we cannot experience directly.

Opinion: ‘Kill Tony’s’ Puerto Rico joke was the real garbage

I told them that the thing about jokes is that they don’t allow you to think about their mechanism.

How is it that they “land” (or not, as the case may be)? Jokes, like dreams, are about obscuring the way they work, so that we don’t have to face what drives them.

I was quoting Sigmund Freud.
Does writing about Hinchcliffe's joke continue to recirculate it?

I challenged my students to think about the form rather than the content of Hinchcliffe’s clearly racist joke, in order to think past the butt of the joke, and to consider what might be behind it.

They came up with some interesting possibilities. One of them said that the joke really was about the loss of control of migration. Another one said that the joke was about the fear of the power the island of Puerto Rico.

It was a paradoxical exercise for me. On the one hand, I managed to redirect the racist energy of the joke, calling attention to the joker rather than the butt.

My students successfully inverted the dynamic of the joke. Like good analysts, they revealed the unspoken fears and anxieties of the comedian. Bringing him down a notch.

On the other, hard as I tried not to take the joke personally, and to turn it into a symptom of a racist pathology, it also made me feel bad to repeat it, and to see myself through the eyes of the comedian, as the butt of his ill-conceived joke.

After further reflection, perhaps by writing this essay, I’m doing more than recycling the comedian’s pathological garbage.

Perhaps I’m also turning our racist stereotypes into food for thought.

Benigno Trigo
Benigno Trigo is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, Spanish and Portuguese College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University.

Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania

Meredith Lee Hill
Mon, October 28, 2024 

US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)More

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.

Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularlynearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.

Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.

And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.

“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.
“It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania.

“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

“If we weren't engaged before, we're all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president.

In response to questions on the comments, and whether Trump was planning to publicly denounce them, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Due to President Trump's plans to cut taxes, end inflation, and stop the surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border, he has more support from the Hispanic American community than any Republican in recent history.”

Local Democrats like Dominguez argue the fallout at the very least reminds Puerto Rican voters of Trump’s previous comments about the island, calling it “dirty” and tossing paper towels to survivors during a 2017 visit after Hurricane Maria devastated the island and killed more than 2,000 people.

And in a sign of how worried local residents are, a school district in Allentown announced Monday morning that it had canceled classes for Tuesday, when Trump visits.

The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the comedian’s comments about Puerto Ricans and Latinos. Danielle Alvarez, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Sunday evening that the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Another Trump adviser said the speakers’ remarks were not vetted prior to the rally. Key Republican lawmakers in Florida, New York and other states with large Puerto Rican populations quickly denounced the comments, saying it didn’t reflect GOP values.

But other Trump allies, and his running mate JD Vance, have downplayed the rhetoric as just jokes. During a rally in Wisconsin Monday, Vance said that he had not heard the joke and that “maybe it's a stupid racist joke” or “maybe it’s not” but Harris saying people should get offended by a comedian’s jokes is “not the message of a winning campaign.”

“Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”

At a rally on Monday night in Racine, Wisconsin, Vance said that he was not worried “that a joke that a comedian who has no affiliation with Donald Trump’s campaign told,” would cost the campaign votes among minority groups in swing states. “I just don’t buy that. I don’t think that's how most Americans think, whatever the color of their skin,” he said.

Donald Trump Jr. and other MAGA Republicans have shared social media posts with a similar message.

But at least one local Republican is denouncing the remarks.

"The comments made by this so-called ‘comedian’ at Madison Square Garden weren’t funny, they were offensive and wrong,” state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie told POLITICO. The Republican is locked in a close race against Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who represents Allentown and a key part of the swingy Lehigh Valley. Mackenzie said he was still looking forward to Trump’s visit.

And, some Pennsylvania GOP strategists, even as they tried to downplay the electoral fallout, acknowledged it was an unforced error at the very least.

Jimmy Zumba, a Latino GOP strategist based in the Lehigh Valley, called them “stupid comments,” that were clearly not based on the immigration and crime themes that Republicans have tried to hammer this cycle.

“Obviously I would love to be talking about that, to be on the offense on that, but right now we’re on the defense trying to defend comments that are not from the campaign or President Trump,” Zumba said, adding he didn’t believe the matter is “going to shift completely a Latino vote.”

But many local Puerto Rican community members are unwilling to let go of the comments.

Roberto L. Lugo, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, said the nonpartisan group will be releasing a letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, condemning the comments and urging Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans not to vote for Trump. Lugo, who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Philadelphia, said Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are “really disturbed” over the comments.

“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I'm independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”

“We held Trump and his campaign responsible for this disgraceful act,” he added.

State Rep. Danilo Burgos, co-chair of the “Latinos con Harris” group in Pennsylvania, said residents have spread the comments on social media and within Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community.

“I saw two ladies in particular saying they were considering voting for Trump, but they're not now,” he said, “because of the comments.

He also said that Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny’s endorsement of Harris could be a game changer in Pennsylvania, arguing that a third-party candidate in Puerto Rico’s governor's election surged from a double-digit deficit because the superstar got involved. Bad Bunny has not endorsed a candidate in that race, but has paid for billboards opposing Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon’s New Progressive Party.

“She was running away with the election,” he said. “Now that election is a statistical tie.”

Notably, Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, made a stop in Allentown on Monday, ahead of a planned event in Coplay, Pennsylvania, a Lehigh Valley borough outside Allentown.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday also noted Trump made the choice not to distance himself from the comments.

“If Donald Trump really wanted to disassociate himself with that, the first thing he would have said when he came onto the stage at Madison Square Garden was, ‘hey, listen, I heard that person's attempt at humor. It was not funny. I stand with the Puerto Rican community,’” Shapiro told a local talk news radio station in northeast Pennsylvania. “He didn't do that.”

Republicans have been eager to peel away Puerto Rican and Latino voters from Democrats in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Trump actually made gains among voters in North Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican-dominated neighborhoods in 2020. Harris sought to shore up her support in the neighborhood during a Sunday visit to Freddy and Tony’s, a local Puerto Rican restaurant, where she was speaking about her plans for the island around the same time that Trump’s rally featured the disparaging comments.

Kenny Perez, an employee at Freddy and Tony’s, said in an interview at the restaurant on Monday that he’s often turned off by politics and normally doesn’t vote. But he condemned the Trump rally comments and said while he’s still deciding, this year, he thinks he’ll vote for Harris and "definitely not for Trump.”

“I think he gave Kamala a boost,” Perez added.

Other Puerto Ricans want an apology from Trump himself.

“They should think before they put a person in front of millions of people to talk like that and joke like that,” said Ivonne Concepion, who also lives in North Philadelphia. “He’s gotta say ‘perdon,’ not just sorry, but from here,” she said pointing to her chest.\\

Puerto Ricans in must-win Pennsylvania say Trump rally joke won’t be forgotten

Bernd Debusmann Jr - BBC News
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

In the North Philadelphia neighbourhood of Fairhill, signs of Puerto Rico are never far off.

The US island territory's red, white and blue flag adorns homes and businesses, and the sounds of salsa and reggaetón boom from passing cars and restaurants selling fried plantains and spit-roasted pork.

The area is the beating heart of Philadelphia's more than 90,000-strong Puerto Rican population and forms a key part of Pennsylvania's Latino community, which both the Democrats and Republicans have sought to woo ahead of the 5 November election.

But on Monday morning, many locals were left seething at a joke made at Donald Trump's rally the night before in New York, in which comic Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage".

The joke, some said, could come back to haunt the Republicans in a key swing state that Democrats won by a narrow margin of 1.17% - about 82,000 votes - in 2020.

"The campaign just hurt itself, so much. It's crazy to me," said Ivonne Torres Miranda, a local resident who said she remains disillusioned by both candidates - Republican Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris - with just eight days to go in the campaign.

"Even if he [Mr Hinchcliffe ] was joking - you don't joke like that.

"We're Puerto Ricans. We have dignity, and we have pride," she told the BBC, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish with a strong Puerto Rican accent.

"You've got to think before saying things."

In the aftermath, the Trump campaign was quick to distance itself from Mr Hinchcliffe's joke, with a spokesman saying the remark "does not reflect the views" of Trump or his campaign.

The Harris campaign pounced on the joke, with the vice-president pointing to the comment as a sign that Trump is "fanning the fuel of trying to divide" Americans.

Her views were echoed by Puerto Rican celebrities Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez, who both endorsed Harris on Sunday.

A campaign official told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the controversy was a political gift to the Democrats.

Some Puerto Rican residents agree with that assessment.

"[The joke] just put it in the bag for us. He literally just gave us the win," said Jessie Ramos, a Harris supporter. "He has no idea how hard the Latino community is going to come out and support Kamala Harris."

Residents of Puerto Rico - a US island territory in the Caribbean - are unable to vote in presidential elections, but the large diaspora in the US can.

Across Pennsylvania, about 600,000 eligible voters are Latino.

More than 470,000 of them are Puerto Ricans - one of the largest concentrations in the country and a potential deciding factor in a state where polls show Harris and Trump in an extremely tight race.

North Philadelphia in particular has been a target for Harris, who on Sunday made a campaign stop at Freddy & Tony's, a Puerto Rican restaurant and community hub in Fairhill.

The same day, Harris unveiled a new policy platform for Puerto Rico, promising economic development and improved disaster relief and accusing Trump of having "abandoned and insulted" the island during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Whether or not this will sway Puerto Rican voters remains to be seen.

Freddy & Tony's owner, Dalma Santiago, told the BBC that she is not sure whether the joke will make a difference but that she believed that it was heard "loud and clear" in Fairhill and other Puerto Rican communities.

"Everybody has their own opinion," she told the BBC. "But nobody will be forgetting that one."

Kamala Harris has accused Donald Trump of neglecting Puerto Rico during his time in the White House, including by withholding disaster aid during Hurricane Maria in 2017. [Getty Images]

Similarly, Moses Santana, a 13-year US Army veteran who works at a harm reduction facility in Fairhill, said he is unsure of the joke's impact.

In an interview with the BBC on a Fairhill street corner, Mr Santana said the area is traditionally weary of politicians of all kinds, with many believing that both parties have failed to address socio-economic issues, crime and drug abuse there.

"Folks around here tend not to get what they ask for," he added. "Even when they vote."

On Tuesday, Trump will campaign in Allentown, a town of about 125,000 in Pennsylvania where about 33,000 people identify as Puerto Rican.

But even among Trump supporters in Pennsylvania's wider Latino community, the joke was poorly received.

That included Republican voter Jessenia Anderson, a Puerto Rican resident from the town of Johnstown about 240 miles (386 km) west of Philadelphia.

Ms Anderson, a military veteran who was born in New York's heavily Puerto Rican Lower East Side, is a frequent attendee of Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.


She described the joke as "deeply offensive" and said the routine felt "wildly out of place" - and implored her fellow Republicans to engage in "thoughtful and respectful conversations".

But Ms Anderson has no plan to switch her vote.

"My belief in the party's potential to make a positive impact remains strong," she said.

"I hope they will approach Latino voters with the respect they deserve."

[BBC]


Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania

Meredith Lee Hill
Mon, October 28, 2024

US comedian Tony Hinchcliffe speaks during a campaign rally for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024.

 (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) 

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.

Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularlynearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.

Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.

And the arena Trump is speaking at is located in the middle of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.

“It’s spreading like wildfire through the community,” said Norberto Dominguez, a precinct captain with the local Democratic party in Allentown, who noted his own family is half Republican and half Democratic voters.

“It’s not the smartest thing to do, to insult people — a large group of voters here in a swing state — and then go to their home asking for votes,” Dominguez said.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump. Almost a week before Election Day, he’s pushing to cut into Harris’ margins among Latinos, especially young men who are worried about the economy. But the comments from pro-Trump comedian Tony Hinchcliffe Sunday night, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” has reverberated throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere, prompting even the former president’s Republican allies to defend the island and denounce the comments. And with the race essentially a toss up, every vote counts — especially in Pennsylvania.

“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

“If we weren't engaged before, we're all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president.

In response to questions on the comments, and whether Trump was planning to publicly denounce them, Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “Due to President Trump's plans to cut taxes, end inflation, and stop the surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border, he has more support from the Hispanic American community than any Republican in recent history.”

Local Democrats like Dominguez argue the fallout at the very least reminds Puerto Rican voters of Trump’s previous comments about the island, calling it “dirty” and tossing paper towels to survivors during a 2017 visit after Hurricane Maria devastated the island and killed more than 2,000 people.

And in a sign of how worried local residents are, a school district in Allentown announced Monday morning that it had canceled classes for Tuesday, when Trump visits.

The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the comedian’s comments about Puerto Ricans and Latinos. Danielle Alvarez, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said Sunday evening that the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Another Trump adviser said the speakers’ remarks were not vetted prior to the rally. Key Republican lawmakers in Florida, New York and other states with large Puerto Rican populations quickly denounced the comments, saying it didn’t reflect GOP values.

But other Trump allies, and his running mate JD Vance, have downplayed the rhetoric as just jokes. During a rally in Wisconsin Monday, Vance said that he had not heard the joke and that “maybe it's a stupid racist joke” or “maybe it’s not” but Harris saying people should get offended by a comedian’s jokes is “not the message of a winning campaign.”

“Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”

At a rally on Monday night in Racine, Wisconsin, Vance said that he was not worried “that a joke that a comedian who has no affiliation with Donald Trump’s campaign told,” would cost the campaign votes among minority groups in swing states. “I just don’t buy that. I don’t think that's how most Americans think, whatever the color of their skin,” he said.

Donald Trump Jr. and other MAGA Republicans have shared social media posts with a similar message.

But at least one local Republican is denouncing the remarks.

"The comments made by this so-called ‘comedian’ at Madison Square Garden weren’t funny, they were offensive and wrong,” state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie told POLITICO. The Republican is locked in a close race against Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, who represents Allentown and a key part of the swingy Lehigh Valley. Mackenzie said he was still looking forward to Trump’s visit.

And, some Pennsylvania GOP strategists, even as they tried to downplay the electoral fallout, acknowledged it was an unforced error at the very least.

Jimmy Zumba, a Latino GOP strategist based in the Lehigh Valley, called them “stupid comments,” that were clearly not based on the immigration and crime themes that Republicans have tried to hammer this cycle.

“Obviously I would love to be talking about that, to be on the offense on that, but right now we’re on the defense trying to defend comments that are not from the campaign or President Trump,” Zumba said, adding he didn’t believe the matter is “going to shift completely a Latino vote.”

But many local Puerto Rican community members are unwilling to let go of the comments.

Roberto L. Lugo, President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, said the nonpartisan group will be releasing a letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, condemning the comments and urging Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans not to vote for Trump. Lugo, who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Philadelphia, said Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans are “really disturbed” over the comments.

“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I'm independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”

“We held Trump and his campaign responsible for this disgraceful act,” he added.

State Rep. Danilo Burgos, co-chair of the “Latinos con Harris” group in Pennsylvania, said residents have spread the comments on social media and within Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community.

“I saw two ladies in particular saying they were considering voting for Trump, but they're not now,” he said, “because of the comments.

He also said that Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny’s endorsement of Harris could be a game changer in Pennsylvania, arguing that a third-party candidate in Puerto Rico’s governor's election surged from a double-digit deficit because the superstar got involved. Bad Bunny has not endorsed a candidate in that race, but has paid for billboards opposing Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon’s New Progressive Party.

“She was running away with the election,” he said. “Now that election is a statistical tie.”

Notably, Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s son, made a stop in Allentown on Monday, ahead of a planned event in Coplay, Pennsylvania, a Lehigh Valley borough outside Allentown.


Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Monday also noted Trump made the choice not to distance himself from the comments.

“If Donald Trump really wanted to disassociate himself with that, the first thing he would have said when he came onto the stage at Madison Square Garden was, ‘hey, listen, I heard that person's attempt at humor. It was not funny. I stand with the Puerto Rican community,’” Shapiro told a local talk news radio station in northeast Pennsylvania. “He didn't do that.”

Republicans have been eager to peel away Puerto Rican and Latino voters from Democrats in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Trump actually made gains among voters in North Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican-dominated neighborhoods in 2020. Harris sought to shore up her support in the neighborhood during a Sunday visit to Freddy and Tony’s, a local Puerto Rican restaurant, where she was speaking about her plans for the island around the same time that Trump’s rally featured the disparaging comments.

Kenny Perez, an employee at Freddy and Tony’s, said in an interview at the restaurant on Monday that he’s often turned off by politics and normally doesn’t vote. But he condemned the Trump rally comments and said while he’s still deciding, this year, he thinks he’ll vote for Harris and "definitely not for Trump.”

“I think he gave Kamala a boost,” Perez added.

Other Puerto Ricans want an apology from Trump himself.

“They should think before they put a person in front of millions of people to talk like that and joke like that,” said Ivonne Concepion, who also lives in North Philadelphia. “He’s gotta say ‘perdon,’ not just sorry, but from here,” she said pointing to her chest.

In a small Wisconsin church, Trump's threat of refugee crackdown looms

Tue, October 29, 2024 
By Kristina Cooke and Ted Hesson

APPLETON, Wisconsin (Reuters) - On a fall Sunday in the U.S. election battleground state of Wisconsin, Masomo Rugama and fellow Congolese community members danced and sang to worship songs in their native Kinyamulenge. The women donned colorful dresses, the men mostly suits. Small children in their Sunday best ran up and down the aisles. They prayed for a good outcome in the presidential election.

This Congolese church is one of several in the city of Appleton that have sprung up to serve a growing number of refugees who have settled there after fleeing the war-torn African nation.

Rugama, 31, came to the United States in 2016 after six years in a refugee camp in Uganda. It was just months before Donald Trump would win the presidency and decimate the refugee resettlement program that had legally brought him there.

Rugama, who became a U.S. citizen in 2022, is new to American politics but is keenly aware that Trump has repeatedly painted Congolese immigrants as formerly imprisoned criminals - despite any evidence of widespread criminality among them - and is expected to again greatly reduce entries of refugees from abroad.

Rugama gives Trump the benefit of the doubt. “I think, maybe, he has never met a Congolese,” he said.

Rugama’s brother and sister, his nieces and nephews as well as his mother-in-law are still waiting in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya hoping to complete the long vetting process for resettlement. They are watching the U.S. presidential election campaign that sees Trump up against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris from afar, he said, wondering what the outcome could mean for their hopes to resettle there.

While the refugee resettlement program has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the past, Trump has portrayed it as a security vulnerability. The difference between the two candidates on the issue could not be more stark.

Trump is expected to temporarily suspend the U.S. refugee admissions program and then slash refugee entries if reelected, mirroring what he did during his 2017-2021 presidency.

Trump’s first-term efforts to clamp down on refugees, reducing the admissions cap to a record low 15,000, was part of a broader effort to restrict both legal and illegal immigration that he has pledged to take even further if he wins. The inflammatory rhetoric on immigrants has also been uncomfortable for some conservative pastors, who point to the Bible’s call to care for the refugee.

"Congo, Africa, just released a lot of people, a lot of people from their prisons and jails and brought them into the United States of America," Trump said at a May press conference. There is no evidence for this claim.



Asked about his plans for refugees, the Trump campaign said in a statement that the Biden administration had "unconscionably abused our refugee and asylum systems" and that Trump would "restore his effective immigration policies" and implement "brand new crackdowns."

It has taken President Joe Biden’s administration nearly four years to ramp the refugee program back up as the deep cuts during Trump's time in office meant resettlement organizations had to reduce staff and dismantle infrastructure that took time to rebuild.

But last fiscal year, the U.S. resettled more refugees - 100,000 - than it has in 30 years. Of those, Congolese made up the largest nationality, with around 20,000 resettled, according to U.S. State Department data.

The prospect of his relatives’ cases being delayed worries Rugama, who is sending them money he earns as a team lead at Nestle to support them as they wait.



Rugama is a member of the Banyamulenge, a tribe in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo that has long faced discrimination and violence due to their ethnic link to Rwanda's Tutsi community. During Congolese elections last year, the Banyamulenge faced hate speech and voter suppression.

"We come from a place of war, where we were discriminated against," he said. "We don't want to see discrimination."

Rugama will be voting for the first time in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election in Wisconsin, one of the seven battleground states that could decide the presidency. Trump lost the state to Biden, a Democrat, by about 21,000 votes in 2020 and polls show a tight race against Harris. Outagamie County, a Republican-leaning area where Appleton is located, went for Trump in 2020 and 2016 but backed Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.

At a different Congolese church in Appleton, Mia Mukendi, 34, pushed her 3-month-old baby out of a service. Mukendi, who came to the U.S. in 2016 as a refugee, said she was hurt by Trump's comments. "It's crazy, it's not true. He hates people for no reason." Now a U.S. citizen, she said she was voting for Harris.



Her pastor, Robert Mutombo, said Trump’s remarks about the Congo had been shared widely in local Congolese WhatsApp messaging groups.

Some people, he said, thought it was simply campaign bombast or Trump was given wrong information. Others were worried about possible fallout from the rhetoric. Everyone remembered his prior actions on refugees.

"Even myself being a Congolese, I may feel ashamed to say somewhere that I am Congolese, because everyone would think 'Oh, these are the guys that President Trump was talking about,'" Mutombo said.

At a recent event Mutombo attended with several evangelical pastors, another pastor apologized to him for Trump’s comments, he said.

This month, several hundred conservative evangelical Christian leaders and pastors across the country signed an open letter to both candidates that urged them to avoid "offensive" dehumanizing language about immigrants.

The letter also cited a January 2024 poll by Lifeway Research that found more than two thirds of evangelicals believe the United States has a moral responsibility to accept refugees.

Joel Zeiner, lead pastor at Christ the Rock church in the Appleton area, said he signed the letter because the partisanship and rhetoric around refugees worried him.

After several members asked the church to talk about issues in the election, he put together a series of sermons called "the politics of Jesus" in which he suggested people think twice about putting out yard signs, for example, to avoid alienating others in the community.

"The message was lead with your faith, lead with your identity as a follower of Jesus and be very careful how you express your political identity," Zeiner said. "Love God with all your mind and your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

He said that for some church members this message was "challenging."

Last Sunday, after giving an impassioned sermon about thankfulness, Pastor Mutombo headed home to get ready for his night shift as a machine operator in a cheese factory.

(Reporting by Kristina Cooke in Appleton, Wisconsin and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken and Alistair Bell)