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For Immediate Release
August, 19 2016, 12:15pm EDT
Contact:
Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
"New Trump Campaign Team: Anti-Women, Sexist and Misogynistic"
Paul Manafort is out, but sexism and misogyny are in. Donald Trump's new campaign team is proof positive that he is doubling down on his war on women. First, he brought Roger Ailes on board as debate coach and behind-the-scenes strategist. This is the same Roger Ailes who:
According to former Fox host Gretchen Carlson, told her, "I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better."
WASHINGTON
Paul Manafort is out, but sexism and misogyny are in. Donald Trump's new campaign team is proof positive that he is doubling down on his war on women. First, he brought Roger Ailes on board as debate coach and behind-the-scenes strategist. This is the same Roger Ailes who:
According to former Fox host Gretchen Carlson, told her, "I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better."
In the words of former Fox News booker Laurie Luhn, "psychologically tortured" her for 20 years after she accepted his quid pro quo offer of career advancement in exchange for sex. Luhn told New York Magazine that she was expected to hire attractive staffers and send them to Ailes, or "find me whores," as she said Ailes put it.
Sabotaged a major RNC contract for Kellie Boyle, a former Republican National Committee RNC field adviser, after she balked at his admonition that "you know if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys," and that "you might have to give a blow job every once in awhile."
At least 20 other women have contacted Gretchen Carlson's attorneys after Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes. But Donald Trump said as recently as July 24 that Ailes is a "very, very good person" and that "a lot of people are thinking he's going to run my campaign."
Stephen Bannon, the new campaign CEO, has used his own media platform to demean women and attack those who would defend their rights. Stephen Bannon ran stories on the Breitbart News website titled:
"There's No Hiring Bias Against Women In Tech, They Just Suck At Interviews"
"Sympathy for the Devils: The Plot Against Roger Ailes -- and America"
"Big Trans Hate Machine Targets Pitching Great Curt Schilling"
"Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy"
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, defends Bannon as "a brilliant tactician" who is "what Donald Trump needs."
What Donald Trump really needs is to stop waging war on women and attacking any woman who annoys him by reporting what he's actually said. Women know the truth about him -- Donald Trump is an insecure, sexist bully who rewards misogyny and surrounds himself with fellow racists and haters.
Memo to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell -- how much longer can you defend a candidate whose actions and language are so indefensible?
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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Trump Calls On GOP to Kill Bill Designed to Protect Journalists
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Journalists and press freedom advocates this week responded to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's attack on a proposed federal shield law with renewed calls for the Senate to pass the House-approved bill before he returns to office in January.
"REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!" Trump
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The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act, which passed the House in January, would bar the federal government from forcing journalists and telecommunications companies to disclose certain information, to protect sources and reporting materials, with exceptions for threats of terrorism or imminent violence.
Several states have various shield laws, but advocates have long pushed for one at the federal level. Given Trump's long-standing hostility toward the press—which he has called "the enemy of the people"—there were fresh demands for Senate action after he won the presidential election earlier this month.
Those same voices have reacted with alarm to Trump's Truth Social post calling on the GOP to block the bill.
Noting that "Democratic administrations abused their powers to spy on journalists many times, too," Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, toldCNN that the president-elect should reconsider his position because "the PRESS Act protects conservative and independent journalists just as much as it does anyone in the mainstream press."
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For example, Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) "are champions of the PRESS Act because it would protect all journalists, including many who reach primarily conservative audiences," he said. "That's good for the public, whether they voted Republican or Democrat."
Earlier this week, before Trump weighed in, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the bill's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, publicly said that "I'll be pushing as hard as I can these next two months to pass my PRESS Act to protect journalists from government spying and surveillance. Anyone who cares about protecting journalism and a free press should contact their senators and ask them to support the bill."
Although the bill has some Republican backers in the Senate, there are also opponents, particularly on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it has stalled. As The New York Timesdetailed Wednesday:
The committee, under the leadership of its chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has primarily been focused on approving as many of President [Joe] Biden's judicial nominees as it can before the session ends and Republicans take over leadership of the chamber next year.
The bill has also run into skepticism from several Republican senators, which makes it harder to bring it up for quick passage or to attach it to some other bill, like the Annual Defense Authorization Act.
According to congressional staff, the bill's primary adversary on the Judiciary Committee has been Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a hawkish Republican who gained public attention as an Army officer in 2006 while serving in Iraq by attacking The New York Times for its publication of an investigative article about a counterterrorism finances program. Another Republican committee member, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, is also said to have expressed some reservations.
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As reporters and media defenders urge passage of the PRESS Act, many are also sounding the alarm over H.R. 9495, a bill that passed the House on Thursday and would empower the Treasury Department to strip nonprofit status from various organizations—including news outlets like Common Dreams—by accusing them of supporting terrorism without due process.
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"If it's signed into law, the legislation would have a widespread chilling effect not only on nonprofit groups but on the millions of people across the United States who rely on these organizations to help them engage in the political process and access crucial services," she warned. "The bill has dangerously broad statutory language that would allow the incoming Trump administration to interpret its authority in any number of harmful ways."
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This is a developing news story... Please check back for possible updates...
Former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz on Thursday withdrew from consideration to lead the U.S. Justice Department under the incoming Trump administration, saying in a social media post that his "confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction."
Gaetz, who lasted just a week as President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general pick, didn't mention that his nomination was facing close scrutiny due to allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old and violated federal sex trafficking laws.
Gaetz's abrupt resignation from Congress last week effectively ended a yearslong House Ethics Committee probe into the allegations. On Wednesday, GOP-controlled panel voted against releasing the findings of the investigation.
"There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as attorney general," Gaetz wrote Thursday. "I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I'm certain he will Save America."
Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as CNNreported that "the woman who says she had sex when she was a minor with then-Rep. Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee she had two sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017."
The outlet noted that Gaetz announced his withdrawal "after being asked for comment for this story."
Additionally, The New York Timesreported Wednesday that "federal investigators have established a web of payments among Matt Gaetz and dozens of friends and associates who are said to have taken part with him in drug-fueled sex parties."
"Among those who received money from Mr. Gaetz were two women who have testified that he hired them for sex," the newspaper reported, citing a lawyer for the women. "The lawyer said payments to the women ultimately totaled around $10,000. The document obtained by the Times was assembled by federal investigators during a sex-trafficking investigation into Mr. Gaetz."
Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday that "Matt Gaetz was a ridiculous, horrible, and dangerous AG selection."
"That Republican senators were not willing to rubber-stamp his nomination is a hopeful sign that a modicum of sanity persists in Washington," said Weissman. "But Gaetz was not the only Trump nomination threatening America and there's every reason to worry about who Trump will appoint in Gaetz's stead. The Senate must insist on its constitutional duty to advise and consent on Cabinet and top-level nominations and block nominations that endanger democracy, the rule of law, consumer and worker protection, environmental sustainability, and more."
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As the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan draws to a close and the second presidency of Donald Trump approaches, nearly 300 organizations from almost 40 countries are calling on the Biden administration to do everything in its power to stop the buildout of liquefied natural gas infrastructure.
The 282 groups, which included the Sunrise Movement, Oil Change International, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Center for Biological Diversity, and several branches of 350.org and Friends of the Earth, sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday outlining several steps he and his administration could take to use "the time it has left" to scupper the LNG expansion ahead of Trump's second term.
"As we prepare to resist Donald Trump and his promises to unleash U.S. LNG on the world, you must use the remaining days of your presidency to lock in as much climate progress as possible," they wrote.
"Now is the time to safeguard communities and the climate against the threat of growing LNG exports, which the administration can do by putting a stop any more risky buildouts from Big Oil."
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- Order the DOE to reject all six permits for new LNG facilities awaiting approval, including Venture Global's "carbon bomb" Calcasieu Pass 2, which is vocally opposed by local Louisiana communities;
- Reach an agreement with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries to end export credit agencies' backing of fossil fuels abroad; and
- Cancel all U.S. government funding of foreign LNG infrastructure and revoke the more than $5 billion earmarked by the from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation for an LNG project in Mozambique.
"The Biden administration has mere weeks to protect the planet from the threat of more LNG infrastructure, and the growing LNG boom under his watch is something we cannot afford," Raena Garcia, senior energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S., said in a statement. "Now is the time to safeguard communities and the climate against the threat of growing LNG exports, which the administration can do by putting a stop any more risky buildouts from Big Oil."
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Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the expansion in U.S. LNG exports was partly sold as a way for it to help its allies in Europe gain energy independence from Russia and survive an immediate wartime shortage of Russian gas. However, most of the new projects pushed by the industry in both the U.S. and Europe would not begin operating until 2026 and therefore were more about locking in reliance on gas than meeting an immediate need.
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