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Commander-in-tweet
Whether he’s calling the city of Baltimore a “rat and rodent infested mess” or referring to Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff as “Liddle,” President Donald Trump has a knack for firing out tweets that offend, wound and – perhaps most importantly – draw the media’s rapt attention.
On this week’s episode, we’re taking a close look at the important stories obscured by some of the president’s most explosive Twitter tirades.
First in the hour, Reveal’s Will Carless breaks down a common occurrence: “Again and again and again, we saw the same pattern play out,” he tells host Al Letson. “Some negative or embarrassing story starts to break, and immediately it gets hidden by some offensive or outrageous tweet that the president sends and the media endlessly discusses.”
A recent example: In July, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen of color, colloquially known as “The Squad,” should “go back” to the countries from which they came. (They are all U.S. citizens, by the way.) As the predictable media firestorm ensued, a massive international story got glossed over: The president vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have limited the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia to be used in the ongoing war in Yemen.
Next in the hour, Al chats with a man who writes about the far-right conspiracy theory “QAnon” under the pen name Travis View. View, who has written for outlets such as The Washington Post, uses a pseudonym to protect himself from the more dangerous corners of the internet. He says Trump’s tacit boosting of QAnon’s most faithful adherents – his Twitter account has retweeted QAnon accounts more than 25 times – is a testament to how intertwined his base is with conspiracy theorists on the far right.
Finally, Al sits down with NYU professor Jay Rosen and award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien to try to understand the president’s effect on the news cycle.
HEAR THE EPISODE
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Hundreds of cops are in extremist Facebook groups. Why haven’t their departments done anything about it?
At the beginning of the summer, we brought you a new investigation showing how hundreds of police officers across the country were members of closed racist, Islamophobic, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook.
We wanted to know what police departments were going to do about it. So we sought reaction from more than 150 law enforcement departments about their officers’ involvement in these extremist groups.
More than 50 departments originally promised investigations, but few have taken any other steps. Only one department has publicly taken any significant action. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Houston fired Detective James “J.T.” Thomas for his racist posts.
In Oregon, the Portland Police Bureau said “no jurisdiction existed” for it to take any action against an officer whose Islamophobic comments were posted before he joined the agency. The New York Police Department said it couldn’t substantiate reporting showing one of its officers had posted misogynistic comments, even though we obtained screenshots.
Missouri Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Crites was – and still is – posting anti-Muslim rants on his personal Facebook page.
In Georgia, despite warnings from his chief, Abbeville police Officer Joel Quinn continues to post a steady stream of conspiracy theories and right-wing memes on Facebook, including recently sharing an anti-Semitic meme.
In his latest story in the series, Will Carless explores how to make police departments more accountable for their officers’ behavior.
READ THE FULL STORY
More from the series:
- Part 1: Inside hate groups on Facebook, police officers trade racist memes, conspiracy theories and Islamophobia
- Part 2: The American militia movement, a breeding ground for hate, is pulling in cops on Facebook
- Part 3: American cops have openly engaged in Islamophobia on Facebook, with no penalties
- The list: These police officers were members of extremist groups on Facebook
- The podcast: Hate is all around you
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Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.
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Documents show: Forwarding this email to a friend will help you liberate the vulnerable.
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