Trump Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Florida Capital Star

Biden Admin Won’t Say How Much ‘Emergency’ Funding for Colleges Remains Unspent, Proposes Another $12 Billion Anyway

April 13, 2021April 20, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Disclosure: The writer of this piece served as the U.S. Department of Education’s Press Secretary from summer 2019 through the end of the Trump administration and was involved in the announcement of the creation of the Education Stabilization Fund transparency portal.

Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden enacted $40 billion in additional higher education relief funding without any public information on if, or how, the $21.2 billion allocated in December 2020 had been spent.

Even though colleges and universities were required to report their spending on January 28 and then again on February 8, the Department of Education’s Education Stabilization Fund transparency portal is still showing spending data as of Nov. 30 of last year.

Commentary: Behold DeSantis, Destroyer of Narratives

April 12, 2021April 20, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Those who are looking for someone who could be a post-Trump bearer of the MAGA standard within the Republican Party have had a keen eye on Ron DeSantis for a while now.

And this week it’s becoming perfectly clear why.

DeSantis was the subject of a tired and constant phenomenon in American politics: the 60 Minutes hit piece. That happened on Sunday, with a report by Sharyn Alfonsi alleging that DeSantis was running a “pay-for-play” scheme surrounding the state of Florida’s vaccine distribution.

Commentary: What Does the Republican Party Stand for?

March 26, 2021March 25, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

For two fleeting years after Trump was elected president, the GOP controlled the White House and both houses of the U.S. Congress. This level of one-party control for the GOP was almost without precedent. Apart from 2003-2007—the end of George W. Bush’s first term in office and the beginning of his second—you have to go back all the way to 1953, the first half of Dwight Eisenhower’s first term, to find a GOP president and a GOP-controlled Congress.

Commentary: Biden Will Prove Reagan Right About Big-Government Incompetence

March 23, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Respected Washington Post journalist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has thrown down the gauntlet by betting that President Joe Biden “can show us that Reagan was wrong” when the Gipper said that “government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.”

The headline in the Washington Post was “Biden is showing government can work,” and this assertion was supported by a commitment from a Biden White House official that “For people like us who believe in government, task number one is to make government work.”

CNN Losing Viewers Following Trump Exit

March 23, 2021March 22, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

CNN has been losing viewers at a record rate since former President Trump left office, dropping nearly 50% its audience in key metrics since January, Fox News reported.

The cable news channel had averaged 2.5 million primetime viewers from November 4 through Inauguration Day on January 20, according to a Fox News analysis of Nielsen data.

However, data shows once President Joe Biden took office the network averaged only 1.6 million total primetime viewers from January 21, through March 15, according to the report.

‘I Fought Back Tears’: Democratic Senator Says He Witnessed Separated Children at Biden Border Facility

March 22, 2021March 21, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said he “fought back tears” after witnessing a sobbing girl separated from her grandmother at a U.S. border facility Friday.

A young girl was seen sobbing at a border facility Friday while explaining through a translator how she had been separated from her grandmother, Sen. Chris Murphy said in a tweet after he toured the facility with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Murphy said he witnessed hundreds of kids packed into “big open rooms.”

“Just left the border processing facility. 100s of kids packed into big open rooms,” Murphy tweeted. “In a corner, I fought back tears as a 13 yr old girl sobbbed (sic) uncontrollably explaining thru a translator how terrified she was, having been separated from her grandmother and without her parents.”

‘That Is Not Leadership Position’: Pelosi Refuses to Back Effort to Remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from House

March 22, 2021March 21, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that Democratic leadership won’t back the effort to remove Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from the House.

California Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez introduced a resolution Friday to remove Greene from the House, saying the congresswoman “advocated violence against our peers, the Speaker and our government,” CNN reported. The resolution was backed by 72 House Democrats.

“I’m not gonna get into that,” Pelosi said. “Members are very unhappy about what happened here and they can express themselves the way they do. What Mr. Gomez did is his own view, and that is not leadership position.”

Man Sentenced for Threatening Trump Supporters Online, Brandishing Assault Rifle at George Floyd Protest

March 16, 2021March 15, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

A Texas man was sentenced to 46 months in federal jail over brandishing an assault rifle at a George Floyd protest, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Prerak Shah announced in a Wednesday press release.

Emmanuel Quinones, 25, acknowledged “he brought a loaded Smith & Wesson .223 caliber semi-automatic rifle” to the protest protesting Floyd’s death, plea papers said, according to the Department of Justice press release. Quinones also acknowledged he made threatening posts online before the protest.

Commentary: PolitiFact Says 90 Percent of Biden Stimulus Spending Not Directly Related to COVID-19

March 10, 2021March 9, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” could soon become law.

The budget-busting legislation, sold as emergency COVID response and “stimulus,” passed the Senate over the weekend. But even the liberal-leaning fact-checking website PolitiFact is pointing out that almost all of the bill’s spending is unrelated to the health effects of COVID-19.

“Total spending directly on COVID-19’s health impacts ranges from $100 billion to $160 billion,” fact-checker Jon Greenberg writes. “At the high end, direct COVID-19 spending represents about 8.5% of the bill’s $1.9 trillion cost.”

Joe Biden Reportedly Will Keep Trump’s Sanctions on Chinese Tech Threats

March 1, 2021February 28, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

President Joe Biden will reportedly keep a rule proposed by the previous administration that would allow government officials to stop some Chinese technology transactions, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Biden will allow the Commerce Department to impose the rule even as his administration continues its broad review of former President Donald Trump’s outstanding executive orders related to China, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Commentary: Biden Wants Unity Moving into the Democratic Party

March 1, 2021February 28, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Mainstream voters in both parties feel that neither major party represents them, and that their opinions and wishes hold little sway over government policy.

Establishment Republicans failed the average American by becoming captive to extreme Libertarian ideology that is divorced from the reality of most people’s lives.

Commentary: The U.S. Post-Trump Era

February 28, 2021February 27, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

These are only the opening days of what is supposedly the post-Trump era, and whether the country has really seen the last politically of Donald Trump is a matter that depends upon Donald Trump. The principal Trump-hate outlets are still pleased to refer to him as “the disgraced former president” but, of course, he has not been disgraced and there is no indication that he will be.

All of the Democrats and about a third of Republican officeholders are engaged in an elaborate and strictly observed pretense that Trump was a freakish and horrifying interruption of the normal, serene, bipartisan devolution of events in Washington. Like a dreadful meteor, he came and he went, pushed into the instantly forgotten past by a united effort of civilized Americans.

Analysis: Nine Things You Should Know About Ranked-Choice Voting

February 28, 2021February 27, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Proponents of overhauling elections to allow voters to have a backup plan if their candidate doesn’t win went 1-1 at the state level in the 2020 election, but are looking to change how elections work in other states.

More than 30 bills on ranked-choice voting have been proposed in state legislatures across the country, according to Fair Vote, the nonprofit group that is promoting the system nationally.

Trump Turns Down Nikki Haley Meeting Request

February 21, 2021February 20, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

Donald Trump this week refused to meet his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

Politico’s Playbook reported details of the meeting requested by the prospective 2024 presidential candidate, citing a “source familiar” with the incident, according to Breitbart.

Commentary: Republicans Acquit Trump, but Leave His Supporters Defenseless

February 17, 2021February 16, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

For years we have heard from Democrats about the obligation of Republicans to “stand up to Trump.” These lamentations have taken on new ferver since the GOP denied Democrats their latest wish, by voting to acquit Donald Trump of inciting “insurrection.”

Democrats tell us this acquittal was merely the latest attack on democracy by the Republican Party which, we are to believe, has totally devolved into QAnon-inspired “domestic extremism.”

Commentary: Koch Proxies Threaten to Destroy Conservative Populism

February 16, 2021February 15, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

A recent guest column in the Dallas Morning News offers new evidence that Conservatism, Inc. is bent on destroying conservative populism. The piece also underscores the primary streams of money in American politics: Trillions of dollars flow to progressives, billions flow to libertarians, and millions—on a good day—flow into the conservative populist movement.

The column is headlined “By supporting Trumpism, the GOP is in danger of losing libertarian support,” with the subtitle adding that “Many libertarians split from the party to vote for Biden.” The authors are Daniel Smith, an associate professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University and director of the Political Economy Research Institute, and Alexander Salter, an associate professor of economics at Texas Tech University and a research fellow at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute. But these two professors are not some random intellectuals. They are part of a billion-dollar machine, built to produce paid-for ideas.

Commentary: The Republican Ship of Fools Sails On

February 10, 2021February 9, 2021 Florida Capital Star Staff

In what CNN’s Chris Cillizza accurately described as a “gut punch” to the GOP’s Trumpian faction, the House Republican Conference decided against removing Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. Republicans voted 145-61 on a secret ballot in Cheney’s favor.

Cillizza zeroed in on Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, an ardent defender of the former president. “Make no mistake,” he wrote, “Gaetz, Trump, and the rest of that crowd wanted to make an example of Cheney. They, rightly, viewed her impeachment vote—and the ensuing controversy—as the first major battle for control of the post-Trump Republican Party.” He also notes that “Trump had released a poll last month purporting to show Cheney in trouble in Wyoming for her impeachment vote.” And according to The Dispatch’s Stephen Hayes, Trump was “calling R House members to encourage them to sack Cheney.”