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    Gretchen Whitmer accuses Donald Trump of inciting domestic terror

    The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.Thirteen men have been charged over a plan to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, whom Joe Biden considered naming as his running mate for the November election before picking Kamala Harris.The men, some of whom were members of a rightwing, self-styled militia group, discussed blowing up a bridge and bundling Whitmer into a boat. Another plan involved killing Whitmer on her doorstep, according to the authorities.The fallout from the thwarted kidnapping – which was set to take place before the 3 November election – has further pulled back the curtain on the ideological polarization in US society, and descended into a growing political row.On Friday Biden accused Trump of “giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country”, as Trump attacked Whitmer hours after the plotters were named.Trump, who has spent months criticizing Whitmer and other Democratic governors over measures to try to control the coronavirus pandemic as it surged across America, on Thursday said Whitmer had “done a terrible job” in Michigan, and complained that she was yet to thank him for the FBI stopping the plot.Speaking on Friday morning, Whitmer said Trump was “creating a very dangerous situation”.“Each time he has tweeted about me, each time that he has said ‘liberate Michigan’ and said I should negotiate with the very people who are arrested because they’re ‘good people’, that incites more domestic terror,” Whitmer told ABC News.“And I am not the only governor going through this. Certainly it’s been worse for me than most, but it is not unique to me, it is not even unique to Democrats. This White House has a duty to call it out and they won’t do it – in fact, they encourage it.”Meanwhile, it was disclosed that Whitmer and her family were at times moved around by authorities as law enforcement tracked the men who allegedly plotted for months to kidnap her, the state’s attorney general said Friday.Dana Nessel disclosed the detail to CBS This Morning. She said the Democratic governor was consistently updated about the investigation over the past couple months.“She was aware of things that were happening,” Nessel said. “At times, she and her family had been moved around as a result of activities that law enforcement was aware of.”Whitmer became a hate figure for rightwingers throughout the spring, when she was among a number of state governors to issue stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.In April, thousands of protesters, many armed, besieged the Michigan state capitol, in Lansing, to demonstrate against Whitmer’s order.From the White House, Trump cheered the mostly white protesters, tweeting: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” as he repeatedly attacked Whitmer.The FBI said on Thursday that the plan to kidnap Whitmer began around the time of those demonstrations, and was months in the making.“Snatch and grab, man,” Adam Fox, one of the conspirators, unwittingly told an FBI informant in July.“Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude – it’s over.”Plotters twice surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home, including in mid-September, as they developed plans to take her hostage.The men attempted to construct explosive devices and held combat drills, and planned to blow up a bridge to Whitmer’s home to slow down police.Seven of those arrested are backers of the so-called boogaloo movement, NBC News reported. Experts say boogaloo is a far-right, violent anti-government movement, and some adherents are also tied to neo-Nazi groups.Of the president’s response to the revelations, Whitmer said on Friday: “A decent human being would pick up the phone and say, ‘Are you OK? How’s your family doing?’“That’s what Joe Biden did. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people that are vying to lead our country for the next four years.”Biden, who is leading Trump in opinion polls in several key swing states – including Michigan – criticized the president in the early hours of Friday morning.“When Governor Whitmer worked to protect her state from a deadly pandemic, President Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Biden said in a tweet.“That call was heard. He’s giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country – and we have to stop it.”Pro-Whitmer demonstrators held a gathering of support for the governor outside the state capitol building in Lansing on Thursday evening.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    Biden blasts Trump for not condemning Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot – video

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    Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump for not condemning right-wing militias following the foiled kidnapping plot against Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Speaking from his campaign in Arizona, Biden criticised the president for not watching his words after Trump previously tweeted ‘Liberate Michigan’ in response to the state’s Covid restrictions. ‘You saw what the head of the FBI said a couple of days ago. He said the greatest terrorist threat in America is from white supremacists,’ Biden said. ‘Why can’t the president just say, stop, stop, stop, stop, and we will pursue you if you don’t”
    Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer

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    Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer slams Trump in response to kidnapping plot – video

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    Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer called for unity and condemned Donald Trump for stoking division during the coronavirus outbreak during a press conference in which she addressed a plot to kidnap her.
    Members of two domestic terrorist groups have been charged with Whitmer’s attempted kidnap, which she said she ‘never could have imagined’ when she took office.
    Referencing the first presidential debate, when Trump told far-right group the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and standby’, the governor said he is ‘rallying’ groups such as the ones that plotted her kidnap
    Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer
    Trump campaign pushes debate delay as Pelosi teases discussion on his fitness for office – live

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    Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer

    Six people have been been charged with a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced.Additionally another seven people were charged with plotting to target law enforcement and attack the state capitol building. The state attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced additional charges under Michigan’s anti-terrorism law. Seven men, all in custody, are linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen.They are suspected of attempting to identify the homes of law enforcement officers to “target them, made threats of violence intended to instigate a civil war”. They also planned and trained for an operation to attack the Michigan capitol building and to kidnap government officials, including the governor, Nessel said.The news sent shockwaves through a country facing one the most contentious elections in its history and already marred by accusations of voter suppression, civil unrest linked to police brutality and sometimes violent incidents and protests by heavily armed rightwingers.The FBI said in an affidavit that the plot to kidnap Whitmer had involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia. The criminal complaint states that the alleged plot involved her second home in northern Michigan.“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in the document. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”The six men charged with plotting against Whitmer were arrested on Wednesday night and each faces up to life in prison. US attorney Andrew Birge called them “violent extremists”.“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” the Detroit US attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters.The affidavit was filed on Wednesday hours after FBI agents raided a home in Hartland Township, a community about an hour outside of Detroit.The criminal complaint identified the six as Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, all of Michigan, and Barry Croft of Delaware.Whitmer, a Democrat, has been the frequent target of protests by often heavily armed anti-lockdown groups who have launched numerous demonstrations against her efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. She put major restrictions on personal movement throughout the state and on the economy, although many of those limits have been lifted.Whitmer’s moves once caused Donald Trump to tweet “Liberate Michigan” as an exhortation to his supporters against her policy. As news of the foiled plot unfolded, many commentators fingered the president’s words as a contributing factor to the alleged conspiracy.Former FBI agent and national security commentator Asha Rangappa asked pointedly: “Who knew that Trump and Fox News’ exhortations to “liberate Michigan” might lead to an attempt to harm the governor and lead a coup? Completely unforeseeable.”The Detroit News reported that the investigation dated to early 2020 when the FBI learned via social media that individuals were discussing a violent overthrow of several state governments. A confidential paid informant then recorded a meeting between more than a dozen people from several states that took place in Dublin, Ohio.“The group talked about creating a society that followed the US Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” the affidavit said. “They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. At one point, several members talked about state governments they believed were violating the US constitution, including the government of Michigan and Governor Gretchen Whitmer.”Through electronic communications, two of the alleged conspirators then “agreed to unite others in their cause and take violent action against multiple state governments that they believe are violating the US constitution”, the FBI said.One of the alleged conspirators, Adam Fox, said he needed 200 men to storm the capitol building in Lansing and take hostages, including the governor, according to the FBI. He said he wanted to try Whitmer for “treason” and would execute the plan before the 3 November election, the government said.Later, however, the group shifted to targeting the governor’s vacation home, the FBI said. More

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    Covid cases could surge in battleground midwest during Labor Day holiday

    As health officials warned that gatherings on the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States could fuel the spread of coronavirus, political observers are closely watching attitudes about the virus in the midwest, where Donald Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a struggle that could decide the presidential election.Two new national polls published on Wednesday found that Trump retained the support of 40%-41% of voters – within the narrow band of support he has held since he took office, even as the confirmed death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 200,000.One of the polls, for Grinnell College by the highly reputed Selzer & Company, found that Trump enjoys a 49-45 lead over Biden among voters ages 55 and older – precisely the group most vulnerable to serious complications or death from coronavirus.But in midwestern states such as Iowa and Minnesota, in particular, new warnings about coronavirus are being sounded just as the presidential election enters its final weeks and absentee voting begins.“We cannot afford to have this Labor Day weekend further accelerate the community spread, because if that happens, what comes next is going to be worse,” Jan Malcolm, the Minnesota health commissioner, told local MPR News on Monday. “For a while now, we feel we’ve been kind of walking on the edge of a cliff.”A White House coronavirus taskforce sent Iowa health officials a report this week warning that the state has the highest rate of cases in the United States, according to the Des Moines Register.The state has recorded just over 1,000 deaths from Covid-19, and the more than 65,000 confirmed cases have disproportionately affected communities tied to regional packing plants.Biden was scheduled to speak on Wednesday about Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and on Thursday the former vice-president planned to hold a community meeting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of protests after the shooting of Jacob Blake by a white police officer last month. More

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    'Please for the love of God do not vote for my dad': Republican's daughter voices opposition

    Robert Regan blames daughter’s ‘socialist university’ but says he’s ‘happy she feels confident’ to oppose him publicly Robert Regan’s campaign photo from Facebook. Photograph: Facebook It’s not the usual rallying cry one might expect from a political candidate’s child as their father runs for office, but the daughter of a Republican candidate has urged people […] More