Joe Scarborough, one of the hosts of the show “Morning Joe” really hates Donald Trump. Scarborough has slammed Trump on multiple occasions, beginning earlier this year, but seems to really have hit his stride with Trump-bashing this week. In honor of Trump’s constant nicknaming of his political opponents, Scarborough has given Trump a moniker of his own: #AmnestyDon.

On the show Monday morning, Scarborough clearly mocked Trump’s speaking style and his flip-flopping on immigration issues in one go, saying:

They’re calling him Amnesty Don. Amnesty Don, that’s what people are calling him, I’m not calling him that. Amnesty Don. Hashtag Amnesty Don. For 14 months, Amnesty Don has been putting illegal immigration at the center of Amnesty Don’s campaign… And, yet, nobody in Amnesty Don’s own campaign can tell you what Amnesty Don’s position is after Amnesty Don won the primaries promising to deport 11 [million illegal immigrants].

Scarborough said that he would write a song about his new nickname for Trump, and he followed through. Today Scarborough put up a music video on Facebook in an attempt to continue his trolling of the Republican nominee:

The feud between Trump and Scarborough (and Scarborough’s cohost Mika Brzezinski) has been on and off since February. While Scarborough used to be friendly with Trump, Trump’s hesitance to disavow KKK leaders who were supporting him soured their relationship, and since then Scarborough has hit Trump on a number of issues. Last week that feud spilled over to Twitter (although not for the first time):

Tried watching low-rated @Morning_Joe this morning, unwatchable! @morningmika is off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2016

Joe Scarborough has officially descended into a professional Trump troll, and I can’t want to see what he comes up with next.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Joe Scarborough Makes Awesome and Bizarre #AmnestyDon Music Video appeared first on Law Street.

There’s been a lot of hub-bub in the political Twitter-sphere lately over a young man named C.J. Pearson. He’s 13, from Grovestown, Georgia, a conservative activist, and he catapulted to fame after making a video last winter criticizing President Obama for how he has responded to terror threats. Since then he’s been a relatively recognizable name, particularly in certain online circles. But now Pearson has made a splash on a whole new level–he’s claiming that the White House blocked him on Twitter, and incited a political shitstorm in the process.

The video that first landed Pearson some notoriety was published last February on Youtube, and entitled “President Obama: Do you really love America?”

Since then, he’s kept posting videos, often criticizing President Obama or other popular progressive figures. He’s even weighed in on the increasingly tumultuous 2016 Republican presidential primary, supporting Senator Ted Cruz. He’s been on Fox News, and profiled in multiple publications including USA Today and the Washington Times. Most recently, he released another video criticizing President Obama for inviting Ahmed Mohamed, the young man who was suspended from a Texas high school after bringing in a clock that was mistaken for a bomb.

While I personally disagree with many of the points Pearson makes, it’s undeniable that he’s an incredibly intelligent, articulate, and passionate young man. As as result, he’s attracted a loyal base of fans, particularly on Twitter and Youtube.

So, when he posted this tweet yesterday afternoon, it gained a lot of traction:

Well, this sucks. pic.twitter.com/S9jESl5ybi

— CJ Pearson (@thecjpearson) September 23, 2015

It appears to show that Pearson was blocked by the official presidential Twitter account. The posting garnered plenty of uproar, with many criticizing the President for blocking a vocal critic.

However, the White House has vehemently denied that Pearson was blocked–Assistant White House Press Secretary Frank Benenati responded to the controversy via Twitter, stating:

Public Service Announcement: Nobody is or has ever been blocked from the @POTUS twitter account

— Frank Benenati (@Benenati44) September 23, 2015

After the White House chimed in, plenty of Twitter observers, conservative media outlets, and commentators continued to rally in support of Pearson, claiming that the White House was probably lying.

Now, liberal sites are claiming that Pearson is lying, pointing out issues in his story like the fact that a similar picture was tweeted out by a parody site a few days ago, and the fact that the White House would choose to randomly block a kid is ridiculous, even if he is a vocal critic of the Obama administration.

The entire thing has devolved into an incredibly stupid mess, the kind that exists only in a perfect storm of narcissism, internet access, boredom, and an election cycle. So, did the White House block CJ Pearson? Probably not–it seems a little too unbelievable and far-fetched of a story. But it’s a fun distraction from the impending government shutdown, refugee crisis in Europe, and the mess that is the 2016 primaries.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Did the White House Really Block 13-Year-Old CJ Pearson on Twitter? appeared first on Law Street.

It’s been a good week for tech sites looking to prevent harassment. Earlier this week, Reddit banned revenge porn. Essentially, what that means is that it’s now prohibited to upload a naked or otherwise compromising photo to the site without the subject’s consent. That obviously won’t stop all instances of abuse and revenge porn, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. But it wasn’t just Reddit that took such steps–Twitter also has announced its plan to combat abuse on the site.

Twitter has long been plagued by “trolls.” For the uninitiated to the Twittersphere, we’re not talking about the kind of trolls that live in dungeons or under bridges. A Twitter troll is someone who constantly and incessantly posts inflammatory or abusive posts with the intent to rile or incite a reaction. It’s usually, though not always a form of internet harassment.

Twitter has consistently been the home to many trolls–and the recent #GamerGate discussion brought many out to play. #GamerGate is a virulent movement that attacks women, particularly a few vocal feminist critics of the misogyny inherent in the gaming industry and certain games. The #GamerGate trolls have consistently and repetitively attacked women, tweeting horrible threats of abuse, rape, and murder. The women attacked by #GamerGate aren’t alone–many people, men and women alike, have reported being harassed.

Twitter wants to help put a stop to that, and the company has realized that it’s done a pretty bad job of combating abuse in the past. CEO Dick Costolo wrote in a memo:

I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.

It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

He also wrote:

So now we’re going to fix it, and I’m going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and that we don’t equivocate in our decisions and choices.

It’s in light of these revelations that Twitter is introducing more tools to combat these trolls. For example, it’s started tracking the phone numbers of those who are reported as abusers. How will this help combat harassment? Well, often when users are banned, they are able to easily make new accounts by creating new email addresses. It’s much harder to obtain a new phone number than a new email address. In addition, Twitter is streamlining its process for reporting harm. The company also announced some other “enforcement actions” that will be rolled out in the weeks to come.

The fact that Twitter is trying to take more actions to combat abuse is a good thing, especially in light of the news from Reddit also coming in this week. That being said, it’s not going to solve all problems. Twitter has promised to be more vigilant–let’s hope it actually owns up to the promise.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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