January 1, Trump’s Support Among Military Voters Is Tanking

This Day in History | 1774

The first session of the Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates.

Good morning Middle Americans, 

Several sources have come forward to confirm and deny the controversial Atlantic story about Donald Trump calling the World War I dead “suckers, and losers”. You can read a round up of them here. So what are we to believe? That is a very important question. If you are asking the Military, a new poll shows they are not buying the President’s denials. 

A Facebook video of a 16-year-old girl being sexually assaulted while unconscious at a house party in Providence, Rhode Island, has led to charges against eight men, police said. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office released newly unsealed court documents on Friday, including the 2nd-degree murder warrant, in the investigation of a man accused of shooting and killing Aaron “Jay” Danielson in downtown Portland last weekend. And The number of American young adults living with their parents is at or near an all-time high, and the coronavirus pandemic is likely the reason, according to a new analysis.

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-Fraser Dixon

Trump’s Support Among Military Voters Is Tanking

(Time) – At this point four years ago, then-candidate Donald Trump held a massive lead of 20 points over Hillary Clinton among military voters. This time around, he’s struggling to keep up. A new Military Times poll revealed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads Trump by about four percentage points among active-duty troops.

And that was before today’s bombshell report published in the Atlantic. The article outlines a number of instances when President Donald Trump derided U.S. service members, even describing the country’s war dead as “losers” and “suckers.”

Trump and several top aides have rushed to deny the allegations. Trump told reporters late Thursday that he “would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more.”

That hasn’t dampened a backlash on social media among military veterans. Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, a frequent Trump critic, urged Twitter followers to vote against the president, posting a widely shared video in which he relayed a story about how his father was shot down over Vietnam. “I am stunned that anybody in the United States military would consider you anything but a loser or a sucker,” Eaton said. “You’re no patriot.”

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Facebook Video of Rape Leads to Arrests

(NBC News) – A Facebook video of a 16-year-old girl being sexually assaulted while unconscious at a house party in Providence, Rhode Island, has led to charges against eight men, police said. The girl’s mother found the video, recorded it on her cellphone and took the recording to authorities.

Col. Hugh Clements Jr., chief of the Providence police, described the assault as one of the worst he could recall in his 35 years with the department.

“The incident was horrifying, devastating, disturbing on so many levels to this young girl, to her family and to this community,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. He said the suspects “should be held to the highest extent of criminal prosecution.”

Facebook Removes Pages of Right-Wing group Patriot Prayer After Portland Unrest

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc on Friday removed the pages of U.S. right-wing group Patriot Prayer and its founder Joey Gibson, a company spokesman told Reuters.

Patriot Prayer has hosted dozens of pro-gun, pro-Trump rallies. Attendees have repeatedly clashed with left-wing groups around Portland, Oregon, where one group supporter was killed this week. 

The victim, 39-year-old Aaron Danielson, was walking home on Saturday night after a pro-Trump demonstration in the city when he was shot. 

Facebook took down the pages as part of efforts to remove “violent social militias” from its social networks, spokesman Andy Stone said.

“Antifa groups murdered my friend while he was walking home, and instead of the multibillion dollar company banning Portland Antifa pages they ban Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson and several other grandmas that are admins,” he wrote. 

Antifa is a largely unstructured, far-left movement whose followers broadly aim to confront those they view as authoritarian or racist. 

Gibson espouses non-violence but is accused by anti-fascist groups of provoking confrontations. 

After the shooting of Danielson he cautioned supporters not to seek revenge, but rather “push back politically, spiritually.”

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Reports: Trump-Supporter’s Killer Hide in Garage, Followed Victim Before Shooting

(KOIN) – The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office released newly unsealed court documents on Friday, including the 2nd-degree murder warrant, in the investigation of a man accused of shooting and killing Aaron “Jay” Danielson in downtown Portland last weekend. 

Danielson, a supporter of the right-wing Patriot Prayer group, was killed near a pro-Trump rally and counterprotest on Aug. 29. 

The documents, released the day after Michael Reinoehl was killed by federal agents as they tried to apprehend him in Lacey, Washington, suggest Reinoehl obtained the gun he used to kill Danielson from his son in exchange for a quarter-pound of cannabis and $100.

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Great Depression-Like 52% of Young Adults Living With Parents

(CNN) – The number of American young adults living with their parents is at or near an all-time high, and the coronavirus pandemic is likely the reason, according to a new analysis.

A new report by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of young adults — 52% — lived with one or both of their parents in July. Pew’s analysis of monthly Census Bureau data notes that this is higher than any previous measurement.

“Before 2020, the highest measured value was in the 1940 census at the end of the Great Depression, when 48% of young adults lived with their parents,” says the report, published Friday. “The peak may have been higher during the worst of the Great Depression in the 1930s, but there is no data for that period.”

Pew defines young adults as 18- to 29-year-olds. The number of young adults living with parents grew to 26.6 million in July, an increase of 2.6 million from February, Pew said.

Learn more here