President Trump Lied. People Died. The Polls Stayed the Same
The angst of simply existing in 2020 continues to ratchet up. Amid the very real problems in our everyday lives brought on by COVID-19, social and political unrest is everywhere.
We now have confirmation, via Bob Woodward’s latest book, that six million of us got sick and 190,000 lost their lives due to deliberate inaction by the Trump administration.
On February 7, the president knew the virus was airborne and highly contagious. Insiders, including two US Senators, were dumping their stock portfolios in anticipation of a market downturn.
We’re being told by a President, who’s taken fear mongering to new heights as a campaign tactic, wanted to downplay the seriousness of the coming pandemic so people wouldn’t panic.
In addition to the public relations gibberish coming out of the White House, the quislings over at Fox News are doing their best to provide cover.
Lou Dobbs went with commentary about Trump having a “great day.” Really. Sadam's Baghdad Bob would be proud.
https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1303804473400270854?s=20
A right wing legislator from Norway, known for contemptible views on just about everything, wrote a letter asking the Nobel Peace Prize folks to give the president an award. He wrote the same letter last year, by the way.
White Power Hour host Tucker Carlson was willing to admit that something bad had been revealed, but sought to blame Sen. Lindsey Graham for setting up the President.
Woodward’s book, “Rage,” isn’t being published until next week. You can bet that elsewhere among the EIGHTEEN taped interviews of Trump there are more nuggets. Remember, this is the president who couldn’t make time to be interviewed by Special Counsel Bob Mueller.
Tidbits like this one...
https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1304113659241693185?s=20
The coronavirus story is probably the most important one, in the sense that the only thing that has moved the approval/disapproval ratings of the President has been his handling of the pandemic.
There were plenty of other bad news stories on Wednesday, any one of which would have been enough to derail the campaign of a politician without a cult following.
It should be the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
The House Intelligence Committee released a whistleblower report based on testimony from ex-Department of Homeland Security principal deputy undersecretary Brian Murphy, of the department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
When preparing a report on national security threats, Trump official Ken Cuccinelli "stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe." After Murphy refused, Chad Wolf and Cuccinelli blocked that report from publication.
In May of this year, Wolf ordered Murphy to "cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States." He was instead instructed to "start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran.
In 2018, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified that over 3,700 "known or suspected terrorists" had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. In a meeting in preparation for her additional testimony in March 2019, Murphy "provided Secretary Nielsen with documentation reflecting that the number of [known or suspected terrorists] crossing the southwest border only consisted of no more than three individuals, not 3,755 individuals as she had previously attested to in her testimony." The response by Wolf and former official Miles Taylor was to tell Nielsen she should "claim the details were classified" and "deflect away from the addressing the significant discrepancy." When Murphy objected, he was removed from the meeting.
Also, Yahoo News revealed yesterday that screenings of international travelers for COVID-19 were ending next week.
Currently, travelers upon arrival to the United States are sent to health screeners who take their temperatures and conduct a basic health screening with questions about typical COVID-19 symptoms. After the health screening, passengers proceed through passport control and customs.
One aspect of the screening is that travelers provide contact information, which can be used to perform contact tracing for infections. Without that information, it likely won’t be possible to contact passengers on a flight who may have potentially been exposed to someone infected with COVID-19.
The orders to cease prescreening operations came from the White House, with strict orders to keep the information secret until a public announcement is made. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the various agencies — and contractors — involved in the airport screening operations are working frantically to prepare for Monday’s shutdown.
Feel safer yet?
Politico has obtained emails showing Trump administration HHS appointee Paul Alexander is trying to prevent Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children.
Specifically, Fauci was being asked to say that masks and COVID testing were unnecessary for children, despite mounting evidence the viral load in children is often higher than in adults, and that children may be responsible for a large number of cases specifically because they are often asymptomatic.
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Ground Control to Major Tom…(And other things you might have missed)
On another front, you’ll be thrilled to hear that personnel from our newly formed Space Force have been deployed to the Middle East in support of combat operations.
Although there have been well-publicized ceremonies inducting military personnel into the news branch of the Armed Forces, lots of decisions have yet to be made. (In other words, it’s a disorganized mess)
Last month, Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, Space Force's top enlisted adviser, said the branch was all ready to move ahead with announcing a rank structure until Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, proposed a new legislative amendment requiring the service to use Navy ranks...
...Other pending decisions include dress uniform updates, Space Force-specific insignia and a rank structure; officials are still also deciding what to call its members.
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Vice president Mike Pence is scheduled to speak at a fundraiser hosted by QAnon supporters, along with other top officials from the Trump campaign. The event in Montana next week is hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory in a series of social media posts.
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On Tuesday. The Justice Department moved to take over the president's defense team in a defamation case brought by journalist and author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s.
In a claim that baffled and alarmed observers, Justice Department lawyers said in new court filings that the federal government's intervention in the case is justified because Trump was acting in "within the scope" of his official capacity as president when he accused Carroll of lying about the rape.
Robbie Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, called the Justice Department's argument "shocking" in a statement late Tuesday, saying it "offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen."
As a result of a court decision last month, Kaplan noted, "Trump was soon going to be required to produce documents, provide a DNA sample, and sit for a deposition."
Finally, a bit of Good News
California hit its highest voter registration rate since 1940. The influx of registrations means that a record high of 21 million Californians — or 83% of eligible voters — are now registered.
Hard hitting ad!
https://twitter.com/realrevwindham/status/1302678479561846789?s=20
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