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Michael Flynn, Donald Trumps first national security adviser, was widely condemned after calling for the establishment of one religion in the US.

Religious freedom is enshrined in the first amendment to the US constitution, which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Regardless, at a rally staged in San Antonio on Saturday by the Christian nonprofit news media network American Faith, Flynn said: If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God.

In response, the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, said: These people hate the US constitution.

Mark Hertling, a retired general and media commentator, called Flynn, himself a retired general, an embarrassment to the US army.

His words are disgusting, Hertling said.

On Sunday, the veteran reporter Carl Bernstein told CNN that Flynn, as one of the knaves and fools and dangerous authoritarian figures with whom Trump surrounded himself in and out of office, was saying out loud things that have never been said by an aide or close associates to the president of the United States.

Bernstein added: It should be no surprise to know that Michael Flynn is saying the kind of things that he is saying, but whats most significant here is that much of the Republican party something like 35% in in exit polls said they favour Trump because Christianity is being taken away from them.

So Michael Flynn is not that far away from huge numbers of people in this country.

Flynn is no stranger to controversy. Fired from a senior intelligence role by Barack Obama, he became a close aide to Trump before resigning as national security adviser after less than a month in the role, for lying to the FBI about contacts with Russians.

Flynn pleaded guilty to one criminal charge under Robert Muellers investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, a plea he sought to withdraw before receiving a pardon from Trump.

He has since emerged as an influential figure on the far right, linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory and appearing to advocate armed insurrection.

In San Antonio, Flynn called the indictment of another Trump ally, Steve Bannon, over the investigation of the Capitol attack, an abuse of freedom of speech another first amendment freedom.

The Capitol was attacked on 6 January by Trump supporters seeking to overturn his election defeat. Flynn is himself the subject of a subpoena from the investigating House committee. On Friday, he told Fox News he had nothing to hide.

In Texas, Flynn called the House investigation a crucifixion of our first amendment freedom to speak, freedom to peacefully assemble.

His remarks about religion attracted support from a prominent contender in a vicious party fight for a Republican Senate nomination in Ohio.

Josh Mandel, a former Ohio state treasurer, tweeted: We stand with General Flynn.

Mandels own religion has been the subject of debate and controversy. In September, the Forward published an op-ed which asked if he was obscuring his Jewishness in order to appeal to far-right Christian voters.

In response, Mandel described himself as a Proud American. Proud Jew. Proud Marine. Proud Zionist. Everything Democrats hate.

Mandels religion was the subject of a controversial attack ad from another Republican hopeful, Mark Pukita, who denied charges of antisemitism.

Amid criticism of his support for Flynn, Mandel said freedom of religion [is not equal to] freedom FROM religion. He also said: America was not founded as a secular nation.

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Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for one religion in US - The Guardian

Former U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a member of the news media after attending a border security briefing with Texas Governor Greg Abbott to discuss security at the U.S. southern border with Mexico in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021.

GLASGOW, Nov 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Donald Trump did his damnedest to yank America from global efforts to combat climate change. The former president is not actually at COP26, the big UN climate conference in Glasgow, but his presence is palpable. And not just because he owns a Scottish golf club not so far away which played host to Indonesias delegation. A potential return to the White House hovers over the deliberations.

As nations sign up to long-term commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, banks pledge their balance sheets to assist and multinationals outdo each other with glossy promises to make their businesses cleaner and greener, many COP26 attendees wonder if Trump will return to the presidency in 2024. Their worry is that he will try to undo many of the things that have been agreed to try to keep the planet from warming up more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

Those fears are legitimate. For starters, soon after occupying the Oval Office, Trump pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, reached at a previous COP in 2015. There, signatories agreed to keep the earth from warming by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He then set about unwinding numerous environmental rules and regulations at home and shilled loudly for hydrocarbons. On the sidelines of the 2018 climate shindig in Poland, he even tried to stage a glitzy pro-coal event.

The hope among business leaders and policymakers in Glasgow is that things will be too far along to unwind should Republican Trump win the American election in three years and renege on commitments made by President Joe Biden, who would be both his Democratic successor and predecessor. That should lend greater urgency, as if the end of the human species were insufficient motivation, to the negotiations in the second and final week of COP26.

For the private sector, theres little chance of an easy backslide were Trump to become the first commander in chief since Grover Cleveland to hold two non-consecutive terms in office. The worlds biggest banks and corporations are baking net-zero ambitions into their strategies, incentive structures and the composition of their balance sheets and investment portfolios largely because customers, investors and employees are insisting they do so rather than politicians.

Climate change is a political issue. Inequality is a political issue. And as a business leader, you need to take a position on those things. However, we try to stick to things that are close to our own business operations, says Alan Jope, chief executive of the $135 billion consumer goods giant Unilever (ULVR.L), which is aiming for net-zero nirvana by 2039. The reason why we care about climate change is because a world that's on fire or under water is a terrible place for Unilever to do business.

With the possibility of a Trump 2024 victory becoming more conceivable following a string of electoral setbacks for Bidens party last week in state and local elections most notably the Virginia governorship - American leaders, including Biden himself and Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, are making extra efforts to convince delegates in Scotland that the United States is serious about combatting climate change. This reflects widespread distrust that Washington will be able to keep its word, even if its many multinational companies are largely on board with eradicating greenhouse gas emissions.

To wit, in a speech on Monday, Obama characterised Trumps tenure as four years of active hostility towards climate science. That followed Bidens promise the week before that the United States is not only back at the table but hopefully leading by the power of our example, adding my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words."

When pictures emerged appearing to show Biden closing his eyes during the conference, Trump blasted his followers with an email saying: Even Biden couldnt stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America, followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the No Collusion finding of the Mueller Report. It is fair to say Trumps characterisation of global warming is not widely accepted by the tens of thousands of COP delegates.

This is not just a case of ignorable domestic American politics, however. U.S. moral leadership, combined with economic might, is critical to arm-twisting climate laggards including China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia to accelerate their carbon reduction targets. If America is not on board, it will be difficult for the remaining developed nations to get China, for example, to move quicker on phasing out coal.

But its also about the money. One of the key announcements in Glasgow was an $8.5 billion package of grants and concessional loans and investments to support South Africas decarbonisation efforts. The deal was reached after months of high-level diplomacy between Germany, France, the UK, the European Union and Washington, and may prevent up to 1.5 gigatonnes of emissions over the next 20 years.

The South Africa agreement, with strong U.S. financial backing, is being heralded as a blueprint for enticing other poor countries, like Indonesia and Vietnam, to up their ambitions in leapfrogging hydrocarbons. That gives added urgency to sealing a few of these deals, with money firmly committed, before the 2024 U.S. elections.

Even if Trump runs and wins, American attitudes toward fighting climate change have shifted since he pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017. There is also an increasingly bipartisan support for certain policies, such as tax credits, to hasten the adoption of renewable energy. And many states have moved to insulate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions from federal policy. Thats according to David Livingston, senior advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, in a panel discussion on hydrogen moderated by Breakingviews last week in Glasgow.

One of the hidden benefits ofthe past four years is that the sort of reaction of much of the United States to the lack of leadership on the global stage under the Trump administration was to create these sorts of antibodies of state and local level and corporate leadership that we in the Biden administration are not trying to replace, Livingston said. We are trying to amplify and empower (them) because we know we need a diverse fabric of allies and policies moving forward on this.

So, while there is a strong whiff of Trump redux about the proceedings in Glasgow, there is also a sense that with effort and maybe a little luck, current U.S. momentum will be maintained.

Follow @rob1cox on Twitter

Editing by George Hay and Karen Kwok

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Cox: Whiff of Donald Trump redux hangs over COP26 - Reuters

This 2021 Astros team deserves your respect, regardless of past

The Astros know many will associate the cheating scandal of the past to this current World Series team, but this team has already proven it doesn't need trash cans to reach a title.

USA TODAY

ATLANTA Former president Donald J. Trump, returning to a region that dealt him a bitterly contested defeat during his failed reelection bid in 2020, attended Game 4 of the World Series on Saturday night at Truist Park, taking part in the Atlanta Braves' controversial tomahawk chop moments before gametime.

He was seated in an open-air suite down the right field line at Truist Park, arriving in public view about 15 minutes before first pitch, standing for the national anthem alongside his wife, Melania.

Herschel Walker, the former Heisman Trophy winner whose bid for a Georgia senate seat is backed by Trump, was also in the suite.

Trump, who lost the state of Georgia by less than 12,000 votes and later pressured its secretary of state to "find him" the number of votes to put him over the top, returned to the World Series for the first time since October 2019, when he attended Game 5 at Washington's Nationals Park during his third year in office.Trump was roundly booed that evening after he was shown on the stadium's video board.

Georgia had not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1992 before now President Joe Biden captured 49.5% of the vote to Trump's 49.2%. In suburban Cobb County, to which the Braves moved in 2018 when they opened Truist Park, Biden received 56% of the vote to Trump's 42%.

Trump informed Major League Baseball he would be attending Game 4, club CEO Terry McGuirk told USA TODAY Sports before Game 2. The club did extend invites to currently elected officials from both major political parties.

Yet Trump released a statement that he was invited to Game 4 by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and club president Randy Levine "of the great New York Yankees."

An MLB spokesman deferred to McGuirk's previous statement and said the president requested to attend.

After Manfred's April decision to pullthe July All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest of restrictive voting laws passed by the state of Georgia, Trump released a statement calling on supporters to "boycott baseball."

WORLD SERIES:Architects of both teams are at home,disgraced and out of the game

GEORGIA:Fall Classic in Atlantabecomes culture warbattlefield

"Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans, Trump said in a statement, "and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the radical left Democrats.

… Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with free and fair elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta and all?

Trump's World Series trip is among the more notable public appearances he's made as a former president, as he continues to stage rallies and raise money in advance of 2024. He has not announced whether he will seek election.

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World Series: Donald Trump does tomahawk chop at Game 4 in ...

Fundamentally, though, Youngkin did it his own way, not Trumps, and still turned out Trump voters in droves, while eroding Terry McAuliffes margins in areas where the Democratic advantage once seemed insurmountable. Youngkins path to victory was one that Trump himself or any of his epigones would have been incapable of, and Republican officials will duly take note, even if they dont explicitly say so.

For Trump, being radioactive had its uses it meant hed dominate news cycles, which he considered a good in and of itself, and bonded his base even more strongly to him. Youngkin thoroughly rejected this model. His approach from the beginning was to soften his image, assuming that base Republican voters would support him even if he was branded as a nice guy and voters otherwise not willing to listen to a Republican would give him a chance.

He was right.

Relatedly, Trump almost always eschewed unifying rhetoric unless giving a speech from a teleprompter. By inclination and design, he was fine with division so long as he could be assured that his people were with him. Youngkin couched his appeal in unifying rhetoric about bringing all Virginians together, on the common-sense assumption that it would make his candidacy and policy positions more acceptable to fence-sitters.

With all the focus on CRT, its easy to forget that exit polls showed that the economy was the top issue in the campaign. Youngkin emphasized the cost of living, and called for suspending an increase in the gas tax and ending the states grocery tax. According to the Washington Post, Youngkin won among voters who cared most about the economy, 55 percent-44 percent.

Youngkins approach here was entirely conventional. It ran in the well-worn, practical-minded tradition of how Republicans had won their last two gubernatorial victories in Virginia namely, Bob McDonnells Bobs for Jobs campaign in 2009 and Jim Gilmores campaign in 1997 promising to eliminate the personal property tax on automobiles.

It is undoubtedly true that Youngkin wouldnt have prevailed without hitting education hard, and that CRT is a winning cultural issue for the GOP. But Youngkins position on education was more complicated than commentators both celebrating and lamenting his victory sometimes acknowledge. What first brought education to prominence was widespread school closures during the pandemic, and a key part of Youngkins message was increasing educational standards and paying teachers more positions with obvious appeal to the center.

Nor is it the case that it is only because of Trump that the GOP has learned to fight on cultural terrain. The most successful Republican politicians, including even the patrician George H.W. Bush in his 1988 presidential campaign against Michael Dukakis, have always realized the power of running against cultural radicalism.

There is no doubt that Trump brought a new combativeness to the GOP, sensed a hunger among the partys voters for new departures on immigration and trade, and won the presidency in 2016 based on an electoral map few thought possible. But Trump has lived off the legend of 2016 only he knows how to win or fight, and he holds the key a working-class-based electoral coalition that no one else understands as instinctively or as well.

Trumps image as the wizard of winning was always doubtful. In 2016, some Republican Senate candidates notably outperformed him in their states. In 2020, Republican House candidates also outperformed Trump, not by enormous margins, but enough to make a difference. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution points out, if Trump had gotten the same number of votes in Georgia as Republican House candidates, he would have won the state by 16,000 voters, rather than losing it by 12,000, thus saving Sidney Powell the trouble of coming up with elaborate fantasies for why he lost and making the lives of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger much easier.

Trumps magic was to a large extent based on running against a very unpopular candidate, Hillary Clinton, and in a race where he could lean on the Electoral College. He never had to aim for 50 percent plus 1, but 47 percent and just the right breaks in the battleground states. This is not a sustainable or readily replicable model.

Now, Youngkin, who at the end of the day is a Glenn Youngkin Republican, exceeded Trumps 2020 margins in the reddest parts of Virginia. In Southside Virginia, Trump won by 22 points; Youngkin won by 36. In Southwest Virginia, Trump won by 45; Youngkin by 53. In the Shenandoah Valley, Trump won by 22; Youngkin by 33. In the Upper Tidewater, Trump won by 16; Youngkin by 28.

The danger to Trumps standing in the GOP isnt that hell be flatly repudiated or ever stop being popular, rather that hes no longer viewed as central or essential as he has been over the last five years.

Worried that hes not getting enough credit for Virginia, Trump said on Wednesday that theres no way Youngkin would have won without MAGA voters. True enough. Youngkin needed to get them out and did, without Trump campaigning for him and barely mentioning his name. Therein lies a tale.

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Opinion | Why Election Night 2021 Was Bad for Donald Trump - POLITICO

Bill McCann| Special to the Advertiser

Have you heard about TRUTH Social? No, it isnt a dating app for singles seeking an honest relationship. Its former President Donald Trumps newly announced venture to compete with social media giants like Twitter and Facebook. He hopes for a test launch this month and full rollout in 2022.

An angry Trump apparently cooked up the idea for his own social media network after being kicked off Twitter and Facebook following an insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump helped instigate the insurrection by spreading election-fraud lies.

In an announcement on Oct. 20, Trump said his social network would stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech. The problem is to borrow a line from Jack Nicholsons character in the movie "A Few Good Men" Trump cant handle the truth. Trump used Twitter as a major megaphone of misinformation throughout his presidency. During Trumps four years in office, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims, according to Washington Post fact checkers.

Aside from the fact that the words truth and Trump dont belong in the same sentence, Trumps history of failed businesses does not bode well for his new venture. His companies have filed for bankruptcy six times. Plus, he has had a lengthy list of failures, including Trump Airlines, Trump Steaksand Trump Mortgage. Who would fly in a plane, buy meat or borrow money from this guy? And dont forget Trump University, his real estate training school that paid a $25 million settlement to duped students.

While TRUTH Social states it encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology, its terms of service prohibit users from using the platform to disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site, National Public Radio reported. In other words, you can say any crazy thing you want as long as you dont diss Trump. Its the kind of free speech that only Trumpublicans could love.

One ominous sign for Trumps new social network occurred last spring when he yanked a blog called From the Desk of Donald J. Trump after only a month due to low readership. But some critics think that even if TRUTH Social doesnt resonate with social media users, he might enrich himself anyway. And thats always Trumps priority.

TRUTH Social will be the first product of a new company called Trump Media & Technology Group, which is merging with a special-purpose acquisition firm to form a publicly traded company. Critics suggest that if Trump can convince enough of his supporters to buy stock, he could end up with a pile of money.

In any event, Trump needs to find a better name for his new network. TRUTH Social is dull. It doesnt say what its really about. I asked a friend for ideas. Heres what we came up with to make it more appealing and accurate.

McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at Easywriter12345@yahoo.com.

Link:
Opinion: Donald Trump cant handle the truth - Austin American-Statesman