Розділ: Політика
Trump Questions Biden’s Mental Sharpness
U.S. President Donald Trump is questioning the mental sharpness of his November election opponent, former vice president Joe Biden, contending he is “not competent to be president.”
Trump, in a barrage of attacks aired in an interview on the “Fox News Sunday” TV show, said, “Biden can’t put two sentences together.” “They wheel him out. He goes up — he repeats — they ask him questions. He reads a teleprompter and then he goes back into his basement,” Trump contended. “You tell me the American people want to have that in an age where we’re in trouble with other nations that are looking to do numbers on us?” Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Alexis Dupont High School in Wilmington, Del., on June 30, 2020.The Trump campaign has aired ads that question whether the mental acuity of the 77-year-old Biden, who would be the oldest U.S. president ever if he wins the Nov. 3 election and is inaugurated next January, has diminished as he ages. At 74, Trump is now the oldest. Fox newsman Chris Wallace, in the interview conducted Friday at the White House, asked the U.S. leader whether he thought Biden was senile. “I don’t want to say that. I’d say he’s not competent to be president,” Trump responded. “To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things. … Joe doesn’t know he’s alive, OK? He doesn’t know he’s alive.” The Republican president claimed that if his Democratic opponent submitted to the same contentious questioning from Wallace as he was, Biden would end up sitting on the ground saying, “Mommy, mommy, please take me home.” Trump declared that he would defeat Biden, even as Wallace unveiled a new Fox national poll showing Biden ahead of Trump by a 49-to-41% margin, a finding similar to that of other recent university and news organization polls. A compilation of polls by the Real Clear Politics website shows Biden ahead by an average of 8.6 percentage points. One poll of registered voters showed that, contrary to Trump’s contention, many think it is Trump who lacks key characteristics to be president, with fewer than half thinking he exhibits the mental soundness (43%), intelligence (42%), and judgment (40%) to serve effectively. Biden tops Trump on each measure, with 47% expressing confidence in his mental soundness, 51% believing he is intelligent and 52% agreeing that he has the right degree of judgment. But Trump dismissed the polling as “fake” and said he will win the election “because the country, in the end, they’re not going to have a man who — who’s shot. He’s shot, he’s mentally shot.” Trump declined to say whether he would accept the results if he loses the election.”You don’t know until you see. It depends,” he said. He claimed, as he has in recent weeks, that mail-in voting, which Democrats and some Republicans have supported as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, “is going to rig the election.” “I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose,” he said. “I don’t lose too often. I don’t like to lose.” Only two U.S. presidents in the last four decades — Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992 have lost re-election bids after a single term in the White House.
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By Polityk | 07/20/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Seeks to Block Funding for CDC, Coronavirus Testing and Contact Tracing
The Trump administration is seeking to block congressional plans to provide additional billions of dollars to states for coronavirus testing and tracing, and for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies.Senate Republicans are attempting to craft another coronavirus relief bill to fight the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States, aid individual citizens whose unemployment funds may be running out, and reverse some of the most damaging impacts on the nation’s economy.The Trump administration’s stance “has angered some GOP senators,” according to a report in The Washington Post, as the politicians continue to work on ensuring the money remains in the bill.Preliminary plans for the measure include not only $25 billion for individual states for testing and tracing and another $25 billion for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, but also more billions for the Pentagon and State Department to combat the pandemic at home and around the world.Negotiations between Republicans and Democrats are continuing on what will likely be the last coronavirus relief bill before the November presidential election.Coronavirus relief measures that have already been enacted, including expanded unemployment benefits, are due to expire in the coming weeks.President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. infection rate is high because of widespread testing, but health officials say there has not been enough testing in the United States.Anonymous sources said the White House would like to see funding in the bill for projects that have nothing to do with the pandemic, including funding for a new FBI building.
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By Polityk | 07/19/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Mayor of Portland to Trump: Get Your Troops Out of the City
The mayor of Portland demanded Friday that President Donald Trump remove militarized federal agents he deployed to the city after some detained people on streets far from federal property they were sent to protect.”Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said at a news conference.Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere. It also serves as a distraction from the coronavirus pandemic, which is causing spiking numbers of infections in Oregon and the nation.Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said Friday that arresting people without probable cause is “extraordinarily concerning and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.”Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said she would file a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marshals Service, Customs and Border Protection and Federal Protection Service alleging they have violated the civil rights of Oregonians by detaining them without probable cause. She will also seek a temporary restraining order against them.ACLU: US Federal Officers’ Actions at Protests ‘Flat-Out Unconstitutional’Officials in the northwestern state of Oregon oppose federal troop presence in response to nightly demonstrations against police brutality The ACLU of Oregon said the federal agents appear to be violating people’s rights, which “should concern everyone in the United States.” “Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street we call it kidnapping,” said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. “The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.”Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Thursday. Some have been detained by the federal courthouse, which has been the scene of protests. But others were grabbed blocks away.”This is part of the core media strategy out of Trump’s White House: to use federal troops to bolster his sagging polling data,” Wheeler said. “And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.”One video showed two people in helmets and green camouflage with “police” patches grabbing a person on the sidewalk, handcuffing them and taking them into an unmarked vehicle.”Who are you?” someone asks the pair, who do not respond. At least some of the federal officers belong to the Department of Homeland Security.Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that its agents had information indicating the person in the video was suspected of assaulting federal agents or destroying federal property. “Once CBP agents approached the suspect, a large and violent mob moved towards their location. For everyone’s safety, CBP agents quickly moved the suspect to a safer location,” the agency said. However, the video shows no mob.In another case, Mark Pettibone, 29, said a minivan rolled up to him around 2 a.m. Wednesday and four or five people got out “looking like they were deployed to a Middle Eastern war.”Pettibone told The Associated Press he got to his knees as the group approached. They dragged him into the van without identifying themselves or responding to his questions and pulled his beanie over his eyes so he couldn’t see, he said.”I figured I was just going to disappear for an indefinite amount of time,” Pettibone said.Pettibone said he was put into a cell and officers dumped the contents of his backpack, with one remarking: “Oh, this is a bunch of nothing.”After he asked for a lawyer, Pettibone was allowed to leave. “Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a tweet. U.S. Attorney Billy Williams in Portland said Friday he has requested the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to investigate the actions of DHS personnel.In a letter Friday, Oregon’s two senators and two of its House members demanded that U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf immediately withdraw “these federal paramilitary forces from our state.”The members of Congress also said they’ll be asking the DHS inspector general and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the presence and actions of federal forces in Portland.”It’s painfully clear this administration is focused purely on escalating violence without answering my repeated requests for why this expeditionary force is in Portland and under what constitutional authority,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said.On Thursday night, federal officers deployed tear gas and fired non-lethal rounds into a crowd of protesters.Wolf visited Portland on Thursday and called the demonstrators, who are protesting racism and police brutality, “violent anarchists.”Wolf blamed state and city authorities for not putting an end to the protests. But Portland police said Friday they wound up arresting 20 people overnight. At least two protests occurred Thursday night, one near the federal courthouse and the other by a police station in another part of the city. Police told protesters to leave that site after announcing they heard some chanting about burning down the building. Protester Paul Frazier said Friday the chant was “much more rhetorical than an actual statement.”Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell told reporters Friday that his officers are in contact with the federal agents, but that neither controls the others’ actions.”We do communicate with federal officers for the purpose of situational awareness and deconfliction,” Lovell said. “We’re operating in a very, very close proximity to one another.”The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Oregon on Friday added the federal government to a lawsuit it filed earlier to halt the use of crowd control measures, including tear gas and rubber bullets, against journalists and legal observers at protests in Portland. “The lawsuit is one of many the ACLU will be filing against federal authorities in Portland for their unconstitutional attacks on people protesting the police killing of George Floyd,” the group said.Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks, particularly after an officer with the U.S. Marshals Service fired a less-lethal round at a protester’s head on July 11, critically injuring him.The protests following the police killing of Floyd in Minneapolis have often devolved into violent clashes between smaller groups and the police.
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By Polityk | 07/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Warns of Russian Election Meddling After Receiving Intelligence Briefings
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Friday he is now getting intelligence briefings and has been told Russia continues to try to meddle in November’s U.S. election.China also was conducting activities “designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome” of the 2020 election, Biden told supporters during an online fundraiser for his campaign.”We know from before, and I guarantee you that I know now, because now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact,” Biden said.He warned that if Russia continued to interfere there would be “a real price to pay” if he wins the November election against Republican President Donald Trump.It is unclear when Biden began receiving the intelligence briefings, which are normal for major party presidential nominees. His campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Biden said at a June 30 press conference he had not been offered a classified briefing and “may very well” ask for one in the aftermath of reports Trump did not act on intelligence reports that Russia had put bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.The former vice president under President Barack Obama has criticized Trump over reports he does not read his intelligence briefings.Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies found Russia acted to help Trump in the 2016 election, a charge Russia denies, and which Trump has repeatedly labeled a “hoax.”
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By Polityk | 07/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
US Congressman and Civil Rights Leader John Lewis Dies
John Robert Lewis, a champion of civil rights for African Americans and longtime U.S. lawmaker, has died. He was 80. The veteran congressman died Friday after a yearlong battle with advanced pancreatic cancer.John Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. At age 23, he worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. and was the last surviving keynote speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. During the historic gathering, Lewis reminded America of the power of the civil rights movement.“By the force of our demands, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. We must say: ‘Wake up America! Wake up!’ For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient,” said Lewis, overlooking a crowd of 250,000.Former U.S. President Barack Obama said, “In so many ways, John’s life was exceptional. But he never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country might do. He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, a longing to do what’s right, a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. And it’s because he saw the best in all of us that he will continue, even in his passing, to serve as a beacon in that long journey towards a more perfect union.”From humble beginnings to a civil rights leaderBorn February 21, 1940, outside Troy, Alabama, John Lewis was the son of sharecroppers who grew up in the racially segregated South. He was not able to vote, enroll in college or obtain a public library card because he was Black.Determined to be a part of the struggle for equal rights, Lewis graduated from Fisk University in Nashville in 1963 with a degree in religion and philosophy.As a student, he organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated “Whites Only” lunch counters and staged bus boycotts. Lewis was one of the 13 original “Freedom Riders” beaten and arrested for riding alongside white passengers on interstate buses in the South.Two years later, as chairman of the influential Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he helped register thousands of Black voters in places like Alabama and Mississippi. “I’ve always fought for what was right,” said Lewis.Life-changing eventsAs a 25-year-old activist, Lewis was badly beaten by white Alabama state troopers as he and 600 peaceful demonstrators marched for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. Lewis suffered a fractured skull. Television images of the incident known as “Bloody Sunday” caused a national awakening to end racial discrimination.“I was beaten bloody and tear-gassed, fighting for what’s right for America. Our country would never ever be the same, because of what happened on this bridge,” said Lewis of the history-making event.Later that year, Lewis stood next to President Lyndon Johnson when he signed the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The legislation outlawed discriminatory voting practices that kept Blacks from gaining political power.SuccessThe civil rights movement led John Lewis into a career of politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981. Lewis was elected to Congress in 1986, calling it “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 5th district.Sometimes called the “conscience of the Congress,” Lewis fought for income equality for minorities, criminal justice reform, gun safety and health care for all. In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2011.“Every day of John Lewis’s life was dedicated to bringing freedom and justice to all,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As he declared 57 years ago during the March on Washington, standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial: ‘Our minds, souls, and hearts cannot rest until freedom and justice exist for all the people.’ How fitting it is that even in the last weeks of his battle with cancer, John summoned the strength to visit the peaceful protests where the newest generation of Americans had poured into the streets to take up the unfinished work of racial justice.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Our great nation’s history has only bent towards justice because great men like John Lewis took it upon themselves to help bend it. Our nation will never forget this American hero.”While undergoing cancer treatment, he returned to Alabama to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before,” he said. “I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to give in. We’re going to continue to fight. We must use the vote as a nonviolent instrument or tool to redeem the soul of America.”Before his death, Lewis endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for president in April 2020. In one of his last public statements, the congressman said, “I cannot stand by and watch President (Donald) Trump undo the progress we fought so hard for.”Lewis’s longtime friend and fellow civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said Lewis will be remembered for risking his life to change America for the better.Fern Robinson contributed to this story.
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By Polityk | 07/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Bowman Topples Longtime US Lawmaker Engel in NY Democratic Primary
Former middle school principal Jamaal Bowman has toppled 16-term U.S. Representative Eliot Engel in New York’s Democratic primary in another upset victory for the party’s insurgent wing.Many votes cast by mail in the race have yet to be counted, but an AP analysis of absentee ballots returned so far indicated Friday that Bowman’s lead from votes cast in person was too large for Engel to overcome.Bowman declared victory in the race on June 24, a day after the primary.A political novice who has never held public office before, Bowman, 44, was a progressive African American challenger who said Engel, the 73-year-old chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had lost touch with his economically and racially diverse district.He earned his extraordinary win in a campaign season upended first by the coronavirus outbreak, then by protests over the death of George Floyd.Engel’s absence criticizedBoth candidates were unable to do traditional campaigning because of social distancing restrictions, but Bowman criticized Engel for staying at his home in Maryland as the pandemic turned his district in the Bronx and suburban Westchester County into one of the virus’s most deadly hunting grounds.Engel said he was working on behalf of the district from Washington.Then, after protests over Floyd’s death in Minnesota gave way to two nights of looting, Engel had a bad gaffe while appearing at a Bronx event where he joined other local politicians appealing for peace. “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care,” he said while pleading with the lead organizer for a chance to speak, in a comment picked up by a live microphone.Engel, who is white, said he has “always believed that Black lives matter” and said his comments were taken out of context, but Bowman, who has spoken of his own experiences with police brutality, said they illustrated why the district needed new leadership.By defeating Engel, Bowman replicated the success of democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated another powerful New York City Democrat, Joe Crowley, in a neighboring congressional district two years ago.Battle between party’s wingsThe campaign was the latest proxy battle between the party’s progressive and pragmatic wings. Bowman was endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez and U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren while Engel picked up support from Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer.Bowman grew up in public housing in New York City. He was a teacher and school counselor for several years before becoming the founding principal of a Bronx middle school, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action.Candidates Chris Fink, Sammy Ravelo and Andom Ghebreghiorgis also appeared on the ballot, although Ghebreghiorgis withdrew from the race and endorsed Bowman.The district is heavily Democratic, so the primary winner is virtually assured of victory in the general election in November.
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By Polityk | 07/18/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Q&A: What’s Behind the Twitter Bitcoin Hack?
Hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls on Wednesday in one of the most high-profile security breaches in recent years, highlighting a major flaw with the service millions of people have come to rely on as an essential communications tool.
The intent of the hack appeared to be to steal money from unsuspecting cryptocurrency enthusiasts — in particular, by using the compromised high-follower accounts to scam people out of Bitcoin. But it also raises questions about Twitter’s ability to secure its service against election interference and misinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
Here are some questions and answers about the breach:What Happened — And How?
On Wednesday afternoon, the Twitter accounts of famous figures began tweeting similar messages saying they were “feeling generous” and would double any Bitcoin payments sent to an address in the tweet. Among the individual accounts affected were former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, tech billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and celebrities such as Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West.
Companies like Apple and Uber, which respectively have 4.6 million and one million followers, were also affected.
Twitter soon locked down many accounts, including those of its “verified” users with blue check marks next to their names — a group that include many U.S. politicians as well as businesses, celebrities, journalists and news organizations. Twitter called the hack a “coordinated social engineering attack” by unknown people who “targeted” Twitter employees with access to the platform’s internal systems and tools.
The hackers, Twitter said, used this access to take control of many high-profile accounts and masquerade as their owners.What is Social Engineering?
Essentially, social engineering means taking advantage of human nature. Examples include phishing attacks and other ways people can be tricked into giving out compromising information, malware attacks that get people to download malicious software, and compromising people by offering something in return for information. Twitter did not say how its employees were compromised. Could The Attack Have Been Prevented?
Twitter said late Wednesday it has taken “significant steps” to limit employees’ access to internal systems and tools while its investigation is ongoing. But this is not the first time Twitter employees have wrecked havoc.
In 2017, a disgruntled employee deactivated President Donald Trump’s account for a few minutes. Last year, U.S. prosecutors charged two former Twitter employees with spying on user data for the government of Saudi Arabia. The incidents raise questions about Twitter’s internal security systems, and whether the company can trust employees with access to sensitive information.
What Does The Hack Mean for The 2020 Election?
The hack might be a simple demonstration of Twitter’s weak security controls as the U.S. heads into the 2020 presidential election, a contest in which social media is already playing a hugely influential role.
Among the political figures targeted, the hack mostly appeared to target Democrats or other figures on the left, drawing comparisons to the 2016 campaign. The White House said that President Donald Trump’s account was secure and wasn’t jeopardized.
U.S. intelligence agencies have established that Russia engaged in coordinated attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election through social media tampering and various hacks, including targeting the campaigns and major party organizations.
While Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies have since tightened their election security systems and policies, malicious actors trying to intervene have also improved their tactics. In other words, if a Bitcoin scam was so easy to pull off, what will prevent an attack on the U.S. election?
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By Polityk | 07/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
After Trump Campaign Swap, Questions — And Kushner — Remain
President Donald Trump’s long-in-coming campaign shakeup rearranged some big job titles but isn’t likely to change the identity of the person truly in charge of day-to-day operations: Jared Kushner.
Kushner wields his influence quietly and is rarely a presence in the campaign’s suburban Washington headquarters. Fittingly, he was nowhere to be seen Thursday when, in an emotional changing of the guard meeting, campaign manager Brad Parscale surrendered his title to onetime deputy Bill Stepien.
Facing strong electoral headwinds, it was Trump who demoted Parscale and elevated Stepien. But Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, is expected to remain the driving force behind a political operation built to respond to Trump’s instincts and give him another four years in office.
Parscale’s ouster reflects Trump’s willingness to shake things up as the coronavirus blocks him from holding his trademark rallies and as he grapples with polls showing him significantly trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden, according to some of the seven campaign officials and Republicans who discussed the shakeup on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
But it also shows a new willingness by Trump to diversify his inner circle, even if Kushner remains at the helm. Some Republican Party officials and outside allies have been encouraging Trump to listen to a broader array of political advice, believing that Kushner has filled the president’s ear with voices that echo Kushner’s.
That process began when Trump first elevated Stepien to senior adviser and returned Jason Miller to the campaign last month. Parscale, for his part, was once the hand-picked choice of Kushner, but the president’s son-in-law was among those who have soured on him in recent weeks.
Kushner’s White House portfolio is so vast that it has become fodder for late-night comics. But he also has been the ultimate decision-maker on the campaign, and some Trump allies said Parscale was paying the price for Kushner’s own lack of political expertise.
Despite the deficits, the campaign on Thursday began its new chapter with typical bravado.
“We have a better team, better voter information, a better ground game, better fundraising, and most importantly, a better candidate with a better record,” Stepien said. “With 109 days left, our goal is clear — to win each day we have left until Election Day.”
Trump’s willingness to accept new counsel was already in the works ahead of Wednesday’s shakeup, and some advisers were heartened by his speech this week in the Rose Garden that, although meandering, contained his most sustained attacks against Biden.
Trump was finally framing the election as a choice between two visions of America — not just a referendum on his own divisive presidency. In recent days he has repeatedly underscored the campaign’s new dystopian theme that Biden is under the control of leftist elements determined to destroy the American way of life.
Kushner has long been the driving force behind the campaign, which some Republicans felt had failed in recent months to negatively define Biden. The former vice president has risen in the polls as he largely stayed out of sight and as Trump’s own political standing spiraled during a pandemic that has killed nearly 140,000 Americans and put tens of millions out of work.
Miller praised Kushner’s vital role.
“Jared is a very important voice within President Trump’s orbit,” he said. “In addition to being a very smart and creative thinker, he is someone who always has President Trump’s back and looks out for him, not only as someone who is president of the United States, but as someone who is family.”
But some Republicans are worried that Kushner is spread too thin, with a West Wing portfolio that includes the coronavirus, immigration, reinventing government and, for good measure, the Middle East.
Kushner originally hired Parscale to run the 2016 campaign’s digital operation. Rather than parting ways completely, Parscale will remain involved in the campaign, in part because of the difficulty the campaign would have faced in rebuilding its digital advertising operation so close to the Nov. 3 general election.
While the Republican National Committee owns most of the campaign’s data, voter modeling and outreach tools, Parscale ran most of the microtargeted online advertising that Trump aides believe was key four years ago. Parscale left the campaign office Thursday misty-eyed about how the effort had started with five people and expressed amazement about the behemoth that had been built, according to several people in attendance.
But Trump had begun to sour on him earlier this year as Parscale attracted a wave of media attention that included focus on his glitzy lifestyle on the Florida coast that kept him far from campaign headquarters in Virginia.
And Parscale’s fate was sealed last month when he hyped a million ticket requests for the president’s comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that ended up drawing just 6,000 people. A furious Trump was left staring at a sea of empty seats.
Now, with just six weeks left before early voting begins in some states, polls show the president is trailing Biden in battleground states across the map, and those margins are only growing as COVID-19 ravages scores of states. It appears increasingly likely the election will be defined by Trump’s handling of the pandemic and the resulting economic collapse.
And Trump’s top weapon in his political arsenal has been holstered, at least for now. After the Tulsa debacle, the campaign tried to host a rally last weekend in New Hampshire — this time in an airport hangar to alleviate concerns about the spread of the virus.
But fears about low turnout, as well as a dicey weather forecast, led to its cancellation, and there are real questions about whether Trump can pull off rallies to rev up his base amid a pandemic.
Trump’s slide has also alarmed Republicans increasingly anxious about retaining control of the Senate. Despite the campaign shakeup, most in the GOP believe the candidate will determine his own fate.
“The title of campaign manager right now, with this particular president, is meaningless, because he is the message. He is the strategy,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who was a senior adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “Time is running out. This is not an election defined by Joe Biden. It is unavoidably defined by a global pandemic, the economic disruption it caused, and the president’s response to it.”
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By Polityk | 07/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden: Strong Commitment to NATO, Respect for Allies
U.S. presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has vowed to strengthen ties with NATO if elected in November and has warned that the post-World War II transatlantic alliance may not survive if President Donald Trump wins a second term. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine looks at Biden’s record on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, both as a senator and as a vice president.
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By Polityk | 07/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
McGrath Outpaces McConnell in Fundraising for Kentucky Senate Seat
Democratic challenger Amy McGrath continued her blistering fundraising pace in the spring, outdistancing Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for another quarter in their bruising, free-spending campaign in Kentucky. Despite her prodigious pace, McGrath ended the quarter with slightly less money in the bank after spending heavily at the end of her bumpier-than-expected primary battle against state Rep. Charles Booker. McGrath, who is trying to pull off an upset against the top-ranking Republican in Congress, raised $17.4 million in the April-through-June period. The former Marine combat pilot has raised a whopping $47 million since entering the race about a year ago. The bonanza partly reflects McConnell’s close ties to President Donald Trump, which has made him a lightning rod for Democrats across the nation. The question remains whether McGrath’s fundraising prowess will translate into votes in November. McGrath lost a congressional race in 2018 and barely won her primary last month. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks with reporters after meeting with Senate Republicans at their weekly luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 19, 2020.McConnell, a prolific fundraiser himself, is seeking his seventh term. He raised $12.2 million in the most recent quarter, lifting his total to nearly $38 million for the campaign cycle. McGrath’s campaign said its average donation was $39. It was $35 for McConnell, his campaign said. Both candidates have deep reserves to draw on for the final months of their high-spending race, based on the latest numbers posted by the Federal Election Commission. McConnell ended June with $16.6 million on hand, while McGrath had $16.2 million. The Democratic challenger spent millions on a late TV ad blitz to barely fend off Booker’s surprisingly formidable bid in the June primary. Booker gained the late momentum by highlighting protests in Louisville and elsewhere against the deaths of Blacks in encounters with police. McConnell’s campaign has characterized McGrath’s narrow primary victory as a sign of weakness heading into the fall campaign. “Chuck Schumer and the Washington Democratic establishment are pouring millions of dollars into Amy McGrath’s doomed campaign, but no amount of money can buy McGrath the support of a majority of Kentuckians,” McConnell campaign manger Kevin Golden said. Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, has become a touchstone for McConnell’s team in conservative Kentucky. McGrath’s campaign said its fundraising performance reflects a growing grassroots movement supporting McConnell’s ouster. It also questioned McConnell’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. “After 35 years of Mitch McConnell putting partisan politics and special interests ahead of doing what’s right, Kentuckians — especially the one million who have lost work at some point during this crisis — are outraged by Mitch’s repeated failed leadership and are demanding change,” said McGrath campaign spokesman Terry Sebastian. Both McConnell and McGrath have hammered each other in a series of TV ads that will likely intensify in the coming months. McConnell plays up his alliance with Trump, including putting conservatives on the federal bench and his ability to bring federal money back to Kentucky — a point he’s emphasized in traveling the state to tout coronavirus-relief flowing to the state. McGrath portrays McConnell as an out-of-touch Washington insider more interested in scoring political points than helping Kentuckians.
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By Polityk | 07/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
North Carolina Democrat’s Big Cash Haul Signals Perilous Tillis Reelection Bid
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was outraised nearly 3-to-1 by his Democratic challenger in the last quarter, according to campaign reports that signal a more precarious reelection bid for the Republican in the presidential battleground state.
Cal Cunningham’s campaign took in a whopping $7.4 million in the second quarter, compared to $2.6 million by Tillis, according to filings due late Wednesday at the Federal Election Commission. The two campaigns were essentially tied with cash in their coffers starting July 1 — Tillis had $6.8 million and Cunningham $6.6 million.
The flat fundraising for Tillis — slightly more than what he collected in the first quarter — contrasts with Cunningham, whose campaign said he took in the largest quarterly haul ever raised by a North Carolina Senate candidate. The fundraising period began April 1, during the depths of North Carolina’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order and weeks after both candidates won their respective primaries.
The money chase indicates trouble for Tillis, who is one of a handful of Senate Republicans considered vulnerable this fall. The Democrats need to net four additional seats — or three seats while winning the presidency — to take back control of the Senate.
“If you thought things couldn’t get worse for Senator Tillis, they just did,” Cunningham campaign manager Devan Barber said in a news release while crowing about the fundraising advantage. She predicted that after, November “Tillis will be quickly forgotten following a failed Senate career and unbelievably weak candidacy.”
Tillis campaign on Thursday noted that Tillis was outraised markedly in his campaign with Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan in 2014, only to win by just 46,000 votes. Tillis benefited from independent expenditure spending that attacked Hagan’s record, contributing to a race that at the time was the most expensive Senate race in history at $118 million.
Cunningham, a former state senator, Iraq War veteran and 2010 U.S. Senate candidate, was recruited to challenge Tillis by Senate Democrats, whose campaign arm endorsed Cunningham.
Tillis campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo said Tillis would win even if he were outspent.
“Voters are smart and they will reject the extreme liberal agenda that Cunningham, (Senate Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer and his deep pocketed cronies are trying to force on the people of North Carolina.”
This time, Tillis is running as the incumbent during a presidential election year in which President Donald Trump’s approval numbers have dropped during a pandemic and unrest. Trump last year endorsed Tillis, who then became one of the president’s strongest defenders during his impeachment trial and took every opportunity to hitch his wagon to Trump’s.
Tillis has pulled back and tried to be perceived as more consensus-oriented. During more than 50 online town halls since the pandemic, Tillis praised Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-at-home order and has consistently supported the wearing of face masks in public.
Cunningham has blasted Tillis for failing to get enough federal COVID-19 aid and resources to North Carolina residents.
He’s returned consistently to health care. On a conference call last week, Cunningham reiterated that Tillis helped pass a law while state House speaker that blocked expansion of Medicaid that could have allowed hundreds of thousands of people to have coverage now. North Carolina remains one of a dozen states that hasn’t accepted expansion.
“It’s clear that the occupant of this Senate seat has not served the people of North Carolina when we’ve needed it the most,” Cunningham said in a newspaper op-ed this month. “I’m ready to put this seat back to work.”
Tillis has pitched a more personal and populist message during the general election campaign, reminding people that he lived in a trailer park while a youth and who worked to become a partner at IBM. He said the strong economy before the COVID-19 crisis will win over voters.
“I know we’re going to win because people remember how good their lives were in February,” Tillis said at last week’s virtual state GOP convention. The two candidates have agreed to three televised debates, but Tillis has wanted more.
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By Polityk | 07/17/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Rapper Kanye West Files for Oklahoma Presidential Ballot
Rap superstar Kanye West has qualified to appear on Oklahoma’s presidential ballot, the first state where he met the requirements before the filing deadline. But confusion remains over whether he’s actually running. A representative for West filed the necessary paperwork and paid the $35,000 filing Wednesday afternoon, which was the deadline for a spot on the state’s Nov. 3 presidential ballot, said Oklahoma Board of Elections spokeswoman Misha Mohr. He was one of three independent presidential candidates to pay the filing fee prior to the deadline, she added. The others were concert pianist Jade Simmons and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce. The filing came a day after New York Magazine’s “Intelligencer” quoted West adviser Steve Kramer saying “he’s out” and noting that the staff he had hired were disappointed. However, TMZ reported that the West campaign had filed a “Statement of Organization” Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, stating that a Kanye 2020 committee would serve as principal campaign committee for a West candidacy. West has already missed the deadline to qualify for the ballot in several states, and it’s unclear if he is willing or able to collect enough signatures required to qualify in others. FILE – Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)West, who is married to reality television star Kim Kardashian West, initially announced his candidacy on July 4. Days later, he told Forbes magazine that he, who once praised President Donald Trump and said the two share “dragon energy,” was “taking the red hat off” — a reference to Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” cap. West, who said that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, told the magazine that he planned to model his White House on the fictional land in “Black Panther” if he won the presidency, adding “Let’s get back to Wakanda.”
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By Polityk | 07/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
GOP Restricts Convention Attendance Over Coronavirus Fears
The Republican National Committee is sharply restricting attendance on three of the four nights of its convention in Jacksonville, Florida, next month, as it looks for ways to move forward with the event while coronavirus cases are spiking in the state.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in a letter to RNC members that only the roughly 2,500 regular delegates to the convention would be permitted to attend the opening three nights of the convention. Delegates, their guests and alternate delegates would be permitted to attend the final night, Aug. 27, when President Donald Trump is set to deliver his acceptance speech.
The move comes after the GOP was forced to move most of the convention from Charlotte, North Carolina, after local officials ruled out a full-capacity crowd amid the pandemic.
“When we made these changes, we had hoped to be able to plan a traditional convention celebration to which we are all accustomed,” McDaniel said. “However, adjustments must be made to comply with state and local health guidelines.”
In recent weeks, Florida has seen significant increases in confirmed cases, with Jacksonville instituting a face-covering mandate and the state limiting gatherings to 50% of a venue’s capacity.
The RNC was still working to determine a programming lineup for the event. McDaniel said the convention was planning to use both indoor and outdoor spaces. GOP officials familiar with the planning said the marquee evening program, including Trump’s speech, were expected to take place outdoors to accommodate the largest crowd possible.
The GOP will be providing on-site temperature checks and face-coverings, and will have COVID-19 testing available for attendees.
“We can gather and put on a top-notch event that celebrates the incredible accomplishments of President Trump’s administration and his re-nomination for a second term — while also doing so in a safe and responsible manner,” McDaniel wrote.
The formal business of the renominating Trump will still take place in Charlotte, but with a far smaller group of delegates casting proxy votes.
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By Polityk | 07/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Ivanka Trump Defends Goya Post that Watchdogs Call Unethical
Ivanka Trump on Wednesday defended tweeting a photo of herself holding up a can of Goya beans to buck up a Hispanic-owned business that she says has been unfairly treated, arguing that she has “every right” to publicly express her support. Government watchdogs countered that President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser doesn’t have the right to violate ethics rules that bar government officials from using their public office to endorse specific products or groups. A twitter post shows a photo of Senior Advisor Ivanka Trump holding a can of black beans by Goya Foods, with the company’s slogan in English and Spanish written above, on July 15, 2020 in this screen grab obtained from social media.These groups contend Ivanka Trump’s action also highlights broader concerns about how the president and those around him often blur the line between politics and governing. The White House would be responsible for disciplining Ivanka Trump for any ethics violation but chose not to in a similar case involving White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in 2017. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters accompanying the president to Atlanta on Wednesday that he doubted Ivanka Trump would face any repercussions. Goya became the target of a consumer boycott after CEO Robert Unanue praised the president at a Hispanic event at the White House last Thursday. Trump tweeted the next day about his “love” for Goya, and his daughter followed up late Tuesday by tweeting the photo of herself holding a can of Goya black beans with a caption that read, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” in English and Spanish. Almost immediately, government watchdogs and social media commentators accused Ivanka Trump of violating ethics rules — an issue that was not addressed in a White House response statement that blamed the news media and the culture of boycotting certain views. “Only the media and the cancel culture movement would criticize Ivanka for showing her personal support for a company that has been unfairly mocked, boycotted and ridiculed for supporting this administration — one that has consistently fought for and delivered for the Hispanic community,” White House spokesperson Carolina Hurley said in an emailed statement. “Ivanka is proud of this strong, Hispanic-owned business with deep roots in the U.S. and has every right to express her personal support,” Hurley said. Ivanka Trump sent the tweet from a personal Twitter account that does double duty chronicling her work on various White House initiatives. Trump himself appeared to back up his daughter Wednesday by posting a photo on his Instagram account showing him in the Oval Office in front of various Goya products arrayed on his desk. As president, Trump is exempt from many of the rules that federal workers must follow. Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, said on Twitter that the tweets and photos amounted to “an official campaign by the Trump administration to support Goya, making it all the more clear that Ivanka’s tweet was a violation of the misuse of position regulations.” Shaub left government in 2017 after clashing with the Trump administration over ethics rules. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the rules are clear. “The ethics rules for executive branch employees say that you can’t use your official position to promote a private business,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of CREW. “It’s pretty clear that the context in which this came out is that Goya had been supportive of the Trump administration and the Trump administration was being supportive of Goya.” Craig Holman, the Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public Citizen, said the episode was reminiscent of a 2017 incident when, during a nationally broadcast cable TV interview, Conway urged Trump supporters to buy Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories after Nordstrom dropped the fashion line. The White House later said Conway had been “counseled” about her comments. Holman argued that Ivanka Trump’s action was less of a mistake given the Conway incident. “They decided to violate federal law thinking that it will benefit them politically,” he said. Trump is looking to improve his standing with Latino voters before November’s election. He won the votes of about 3 in 10 Latino voters in 2016. Meadows defended Ivanka Trump. “I don’t know from my standpoint I see this as a huge promotion of Goya Foods as much as it is expressing appreciation for someone who is willing to show great political courage,” the White House chief of staff said. The president often blurs the lines between politics and governing. President Donald speaks during an event on American infrastructure at UPS Hapeville Airport Hub, in Atlanta, July 15, 2020.Trump used a speech Wednesday at a UPS facility in Atlanta on environmental permitting to rail against allowing mail-in voting for the November election and against Democratic rival Joe Biden. He also used a Tuesday news conference in the White House Rose Garden, where presidents traditionally have refrained from politics, to lash out at Biden. Last year, Trump floated the idea of hosting a 2020 summit of world leaders at his private, for-profit golf club near Miami, but backed down after a bipartisan outcry over the conflict of interest. Separately Wednesday, CREW filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, against Meadows. The group alleges that Meadows violated the Hatch Act during recent television interviews in which he advocated for Trump and against Biden. The Hatch Act prohibits government officials from using their positions to influence political campaigns. The Office of Special Counsel said it could not comment beyond acknowledging receipt of the complaint. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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By Polityk | 07/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Four More Years? Trump Struggles to Outline Second Term Plan
President Donald Trump is adamant that he wants another four years in office. It’s less clear what he would do with them.
The Republican president repeatedly assailed Democratic rival Joe Biden during a rambling, hourlong Rose Garden news conference Tuesday that doubled as a reelection rally. But he offered few clues about what he would do if he remains in the White House. He similarly stammered through an interview last month when pressed by a friendly TV host to talk about what a second term would look like.
With the election less than four months away, Trump’s focus is more on winning than on how he would govern. He’s offered no substantive policy proposal, opting instead for heated rhetoric on race, crime and socialism aimed at his most loyal supporters. Biden, meanwhile, is releasing a growing number of proposals touching on topics including trade and climate change.
Trump is reshaping his campaign, announcing Wednesday that veteran GOP operative Bill Stepien will replace Brad Parscale as campaign manager. But it’s unlikely the move will change Trump’s preference to focus more on messaging rather than a policy agenda. Some Republicans said that reflects the challenge of asking voters for another term amid overlapping public health and economic crises.
“During a reelection campaign, you basically are making the argument that the status quo is really good and that the challenger is insufficient to do the job. And for more than three years, he could credibly make that argument about the economy,” said Mike DuHaime, senior adviser to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“The problem comes when the status quo isn’t good and there is hard data — both on the economy and with COVID — that shows that,” DuHaime said, referring to the coronavirus. “That makes it much harder to make an argument about the next four years.”
Still, the question of what to do with four years in the White House is one of the most basic elements of a presidential campaign — even for an incumbent. Trump’s challenge became apparent late last month when he struggled to answer the question during an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel.
“You know the story, riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our first lady and I say, ‘This is great,’ but I didn’t know very many people in Washington. It wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan,” Trump said as part of his answer, before eventually calling John Bolton, his former national security adviser, an “idiot.”
Trump didn’t name a single policy objective, and, in the days that followed, the messaging from the White House seemed to rely solely on the idea that because Trump presided over a strong economy once, he would be the right person to build it back. But it has yet to put forth much of a positive agenda, instead focusing on painting a dystopic picture of the nation if Biden came to power.
“There has never been an election where we’ve had this kind of difference” between the candidates, Trump said, before painting a bleak, crime-filled portrait of the Democrats’ governing philosophy. “It’s radical left, and it’ll destroy our country.”
His Rose Garden address on Tuesday haphazardly bounced from topic to topic, from China to statues to Biden and back again, resembling not an official government event but rather a facsimile of the campaign speech the president had wanted to give three nights earlier at a New Hampshire rally that was called off because of sparse crowds and a somewhat ominous weather forecast.
It was a display of Trump in full, an equal mix of braggadocio, grievance and vicious partisan politics. But what was missing were any specific plans to right the country’s economy or improve the fortunes of its citizens.
“There’s no agenda because he himself is the agenda,” said presidential historian Jon Meacham. “In 2016, Trump was a vehicle; now, amid a cataclysmic pandemic that he has failed to manage, fewer people outside the core base want to hear anything other than how do we get safely back to real life. Because he has no answer to that overarching question, he just talks — about, inevitably, himself.”
There have been presidential candidates in the past tripped up by the question “Why do you want to be president?” including, perhaps most notably, Ted Kennedy ahead of the 1980 election. But it is rare for an incumbent to have so little to detail as to why he should be able to keep his job.
When asked for the president’s second-term agenda, the White House pointed to Trump’s response to COVID-19 but offered little in the way of specifics.
“As the President continues to lead a whole-of-government response to a global pandemic, restore law and order to our communities, and rebuild the economy,” said spokesperson Judd Deere, “the White House is engaged in an ongoing policy process for a bold second term agenda that continues the ‘Transition to Greatness’ that ensures we are a safer, stronger, more prosperous America.”
White House officials also pointed to promises of better trade deals and maintaining law and order, but the lack of details gave Biden’s team an opening.
“This president’s inaction to get the virus under control has cost thousands of lives and millions of jobs. Why should voters continue to let him lead during this once-in-a-generation crisis?” said Biden national campaign spokesperson TJ Ducklo. “Don’t ask him, he doesn’t have an answer.”
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By Polityk | 07/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Path to White House Runs Through America’s ‘Rust Belt’
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are three industrial states Donald Trump narrowly won on his path to the White House in 2016 – and which Democrats hope to recapture this year. They are home to many communities where high-wage manufacturing jobs have disappeared in recent decades. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Wisconsin, where job losses have continued during the pandemic as voters gear up for the presidential election in November.
Producer: Kane Farabaugh
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By Polityk | 07/16/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trumps Tweet Support for Goya Foods Amid Boycott Campaign
U.S. President Donald Trump and his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump are rallying support for Goya Foods on Twitter, as social media pressure continues for boycotting the largest Hispanic-owned U.S. food company over its CEO’s effusive praise for Trump..@GoyaFoods is doing GREAT. The Radical Left smear machine backfired, people are buying like crazy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2020Early on Wednesday, the Republican president tweeted, without citing evidence, that “Goya Foods is doing GREAT. The Radical Left smear machine backfired, people are buying like crazy!” on his personal feed, which has 83.4 million followers, and the official presidential and White House feeds, with more than 50 million followers combined.That followed Ivanka’s late Tuesday post on Twitter of the company’s slogan, “If it’s Goya, it has to be good,” in both Spanish and English.Ivanka’s tweet, in which she is seen holding a can of Goya’s black beans, garnered over 35,000 retweets and 62,000 likes in a little over 4 hours.However, her comments could violate government ethics rules that prohibit the use of public office to endorse products or advance personal business gains.Goya CEO Praises Trump at White House, Backlash is Swiftfounded in Manhattan in 1936 by immigrants from Spain, Goya calls itself the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United StatesThe U.S. Office of Government Ethics did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.The hashtags #Goyaway and #BoycottGoya trended on Twitter after Robert Unanue, chief executive of the New Jersey-based company, appeared with Trump at the White House last week for the creation of an advisory panel on spurring Hispanic prosperity.”We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder, and that’s what my grandfather did,” said Unanue, the third generation of his family to run the business.The comment alienated many Goya consumers, who consider Trump racist against Hispanic people because of his immigration policies, his calling Mexicans “rapists” during his 2016 presidential campaign, and his reportedly calling El Salvador a “shithole country” at a 2018 White House meeting.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Distances Itself From Latest Attack on Fauci
The White House distanced itself Wednesday from a new attack on the handling of the coronavirus pandemic by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, even though a newspaper opinion article mirrored some of the same thoughts as those of President Donald Trump.White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an opinion piece in the USA Today newspaper that Fauci “has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”After the broadside was published, though, White House director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah, said Navarro’s article “didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone.”She said Trump “values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his administration.”The Peter Navarro op-ed didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone. @realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.— Alyssa Farah (@Alyssafarah) July 15, 2020When asked about the article at the White House, Trump said, “That’s Peter Navarro, but I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci.” Yet Trump himself, as he tries to boost the flagging U.S. economy in the face of the unrelenting advance of the coronavirus pandemic, has voiced skepticism in recent days about the assessments of Fauci and other government medical experts.The president, facing a tough reelection contest in November against former Vice President Joe Biden, has for months downplayed the impact of the virus and most recently claimed that the impact of the new surge in the number of cases in the U.S. is 99% “totally harmless.”
Trump on Fauci: ‘I Don’t Always Agree with Him’ The president offers little support after a weekend when the White House seemed to undercut its own virus expertThe U.S. leader told one interviewer, Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity, that he likes Fauci personally but that he had “made a lot of mistakes.” A few days ago, Trump retweeted a comment from former game show host Chuck Woolery, who, without evidence, claimed that “everyone is lying,” including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and “our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust.”Brett Giroir, a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and one of several physicians who have been the face of the government’s response to the pandemic in the United States, rejected that contention in an interview on NBC on Tuesday.“We may occasionally make mistakes based on the information we have,” Giroir said, “but none of us lie. We are completely transparent with the American people. None of us are 100% right. None of us are always right, and we admit that.”Navarro, in the USA Today article, said, “In late January, when I was making the case on behalf of the president to take down the flights from China, Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”The ban barred foreign nationals who had recently visited China, where the coronavirus originated, from entering the U.S. but did not exclude immediate family members of American citizens and permanent residents.Navarro claimed that in late January when he was warning of “a possibly deadly pandemic,” Fauci “was telling the news media not to worry.”Navarro also contended that Fauci had flip-flopped on the use of masks. However, Fauci for months now has urged Americans to wear them, even though Trump only wore one in public for the first time last weekend.“Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening,” Navarro said. “The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open.“So, when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution,” Navarro concluded.Giroir, in the NBC interview, said, “We are all very concerned about the outbreak” of thousands of new cases in the U.S.Giroir said that while the number of coronavirus patients in U.S. hospitals has dropped from a peak of 85,000 to 63,000, “as hospitalizations go up, we would expect deaths to also go up.”More than 136,000 Americans already have died from the virus, and more than 3.4 million have been infected. Both figures are far and away the biggest national totals across the globe.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Tuberville Defeats Former US AG Sessions in Senate Primary
Former college football coach Tommy Tuberville has defeated former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a Republican primary for a Senate seat representing the southern state of Alabama. Sessions held the seat for 20 years before stepping down to lead the Justice Department when President Donald Trump took office in 2017. He fell out of favor with Trump when he recused himself from the investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, and the president endorsed Tuberville in the primary. “Tommy Tuberville WON big against Jeff Sessions,” Trump tweeted late Tuesday. “Will be a GREAT Senator for the incredible people of Alabama.” Tuberville moves on to the November general election to face Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who in a similar fashion to Sessions criticized Tuberville as lacking the experience necessary for the job.Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, joined by family members, delivers his concession speech Tuesday, July 14, 2020, in Mobile, Ala.“The choice before the voters is an unprepared hyper partisan that will add to the divide in Washington, or my proven track-record to find common ground and get things done,” Jones said in a statement. In Maine, state House Speaker Sara Gideon won a three-way Democratic Senate primary battle against attorney Bre Kidman and activist Betsy Sweet. Gideon’s November opponent is Republican Senator Susan Collins. Democrats are targeting Collins as one of their top hopes in unseating a Republican and trying to gain the three seats necessary to flip the current slim Republican majority in the Senate. In Texas, combat veteran Mary Jennings Hegar won her primary runoff election against state senator Royce West and will be the Democrat going against Republican Senator John Cornyn in November. Cornyn has represented Texas for three terms, and polls ahead of Tuesday’s voting showed him leading Hegar by at least 8 points. There were also several House primaries in the three states Tuesday. In the 13th congressional district in Texas, Ronny Jackson, former White House physician during the Trump administration, won the Republican primary and in a strongly Republican district will likely win the seat in November. Former Congressman Pete Sessions won the Republican primary in the state’s 17th district, defeating Renee Swann, who was endorsed by retiring incumbent Congressman Bill Flores.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Toughens Talk and Action on China
Amid rising concerns that Beijing and Washington are drifting toward a Cold War, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday declared that China’s rise is not a positive development for the United States. Trump made the remarks in the White House Rose Garden, announcing he had signed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and issued an executive order ending preferential trade treatment for Hong Kong. “Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China,” Trump said of the order. The act imposes sanctions on people, entities and financial institutions connected to China deemed responsible for actions to remove autonomy from Hong Kong.Responding to a reporter’s question, Trump said he has no plans to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping anytime soon. The remarks came on the heels of fresh sanctions on China over its repression of minorities in Xinjiang and moves by Washington to cut off Chinese companies from American technology. FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping reaches to vote on a piece of national security legislation concerning Hong Kong during the closing session of China’s National People’s Congress in Beijing, May 28, 2020.The president spent much of his hour in the Rose Garden on Tuesday attacking his opponent in this year’s presidential election, blaming former Vice President Joe Biden for a calamity of errors regarding China and other matters during the Barack Obama administration. “Donald Trump is busy trying to rewrite his miserable history as President of caving to President Xi and the Chinese government at every turn,” the Biden campaign responded in a statement. “But try as he may, Trump can’t hide from a record of weakness and bad deals that consistently put China first and America last.” With the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic damage certain to be major topics of the election season, Trump continues to focus blame on China, where the infection was first reported. “We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world,” the president said. American Enterprise Institute research fellow Zack Cooper expects Trump to pull the United States out of its trade deal with China as the November election approaches to show that he is tough on Beijing. “But I’m not sure that that’s really going to get the job done, and it’s going to hurt the market a bit, too,” Cooper told VOA. “So, I think there’s some real downsides here for the president in making China such a big campaign issue.” FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington, July 8, 2020.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement Monday declaring a strengthening of U.S. policy and making clear that China’s “claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea — waters through which $4 trillion in trade pass annually — are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.” Pompeo added that “the world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire.” The U.S. statement “makes explicit things that had been implied by previous administrations,” said Gregory Poling, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And in that, it sets the stage for more effective diplomatic messaging and stronger responses to China’s harassment of its neighbors.” In response to Pompeo’s announcement, China’s embassy in Washington accused the United States of “throwing its weight around in every sea of the world.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a briefing that Beijing has never strived to build an empire in the South China Sea. “It has become so difficult for the U.S. to marshal an international alliance to counter China because the charges it directs at China are groundless and one-sided, stoked by its strategic anxiety,” the Communist Party-controlled China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday. “Only those willing to bet their future on the current U.S. administration are likely to be duped by its scaremongering.” Prior to the president’s remarks, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia said the Trump administration could apply additional sanctions on Chinese officials.“Nothing’s off the table,” David Stilwell, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said during an online event organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies China announced Tuesday it would sanction U.S. aerospace company Lockheed Martin over recent weapons sales to Taiwan, which Beijing claims is a rogue province of China. The Trump administration has pressured allies to cut ties for their development of 5G wireless technology with Chinese company Huawei, a move Britain took on Tuesday.Some influential voices inside and outside the Trump administration are pushing for U.S. technology companies to decouple themselves from China’s supply chain, perceiving the links as a long-term threat to national security. VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Biden Says He Would Spend $2 Trillion to Fight Climate Change
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is proposing to spend $2 trillion to fight climate change and cut carbon emissions from electric power to zero by the middle of the next decade. The presumptive Democratic nominee says his climate plan released Tuesday would also be a job creation plan with a focus on updating the country’s infrastructure through energy-efficient buildings and electric cars. “There’s no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis. Left unchecked, it is literally an existential threat to the health of our planet and our very survival,” Biden said. Biden’s plan includes incentives for the U.S. car industry to build electric-powered vehicles that are cleaner to run than cars that rely solely on gasoline. API voices concernsThe American Petroleum Institute says the Biden climate plan could force the U.S. to look overseas for oil and energy sources, pointing out that many of those countries have lower environmental standards than the U.S. “You can’t address the risks of climate change without America’s natural gas and oil industry,” API chief executive Mike Sommers said. Biden’s plan would also steer much of the job creation and clean-energy infrastructure spending toward underprivileged communities. “When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is hoax. When I think about climate change, the word I think of is jobs,” Biden said. Many liberal and progressive Democrats have expressed disappointment with what they believe has been Biden’s lack of urgency in talking about climate change. Pandering to liberals?Two Trump supporters — Republican congressmen Steve Scalise and Mike Kelly — say Biden is pandering to liberals and that the middle class will bear the brunt of the Biden plan through higher energy bills. There has been no response to the Biden plan so far from the White House. The Biden campaign said Tuesday his plan to fight climate change is part of what it calls his overall package to revive the U.S. economy, which has been stalled by the coronavirus. Campaign officials say Biden has already promised to boost taxes on corporations and turn back Trump’s tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Trump Administration Rescinds Rule on Foreign Students
Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic. The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and “return to the status quo.” A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said only that the judge’s characterization was correct. The announcement brings relief to thousands of foreign students who had been at risk of being deported from the country, along with hundreds of universities that were scrambling to reassess their plans for the fall in light of the policy. Under the policy, international students in the U.S. would have been forbidden from taking all their courses online this fall. New visas would not have been issued to students at schools planning to provide all classes online, which includes Harvard. Students already in the U.S. would have faced deportation if they didn’t transfer schools or leave the country voluntarily. Immigration officials issued the policy last week, reversing earlier guidance from March 13 telling colleges that limits around online education would be suspended during the pandemic. University leaders believed the rule was part of President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure the nation’s schools and colleges to reopen this fall even as new virus cases rise. The policy drew sharp backlash from higher education institutions, with more than 200 signing court briefs supporting the challenge by Harvard and MIT. Colleges said the policy would put students’ safety at risk and hurt schools financially. Many schools rely on tuition from international students, and some stood to lose millions of dollars in revenue if the rule had taken hold. Harvard and MIT were the first to contest the policy, but at least seven other federal suits had been filed by universities and states opposing the rule. Harvard and MIT argued that immigration officials violated procedural rules by issuing the guidance without justification and without allowing the public to respond. They also argued that the policy contradicted ICE’s March 13 directive telling schools that existing limits on online education would be suspended “for the duration of the emergency.” The suit noted that Trump’s national emergency declaration has not been rescinded and that virus cases are spiking in some regions. Immigration officials, however, argued that they told colleges all along that any guidance prompted by the pandemic was subject to change. They said the rule was consistent with existing law barring international students from taking classes entirely online. Federal officials said they were providing leniency by allowing students to keep their visas even if they study online from abroad.
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By Polityk | 07/15/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
White House Virus Task Force Member Says ‘None of Us Lie’
A top member of the White House coronavirus task force said Tuesday that “none of us lie” to the public, an accusation President Donald Trump had retweeted, and that while kids need to be back in school as Trump insists, “we have to get the virus under control.”
Adm. Brett Giroir’s comment came a day after Trump shared a Twitter post from a former game show host who, without evidence, accused government medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, of “lying.”
Trump himself has at times disregarded the advice of his medical experts on the task force and continues to play down the threat from the virus as it spikes across the country, forcing some states to slow or reverse steps to reopen their economies.
Asked on NBC’s “Today,” whether the CDC and other doctors are lying, Giroir allowed that mistakes have been made and that public guidance is updated when more is learned about the virus, “but none of us lie. We are completely transparent with the American people.”
Trump has said on several occasion that the virus will “just disappear.” Giroir said that is unlikely “unless we take active steps to make it disappear.” He appealed to people to wear masks, practice social distancing and to avoid bars and other tightly packed areas.
With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House has worked to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November.
The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now spiraling. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his reelection chances.
Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, onetime host of TV’s “Love Connection,” claiming that “Everyone is lying” about COVID-19. Woolery’s tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the CDC and most doctors “that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election.”
At the same time, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound.
“We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet,” he said Monday in a talk with the dean of Stanford’s medical school, calling for a “step back” in reopenings.
Last week, Fauci contradicted Trump about the severity of the virus during a FiveThirtyEight podcast. While Trump contends repeatedly that he has done a great job against the pandemic, Fauci said, “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.”
Trump later said Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes.” He pointed to Fauci’s early disagreement with him over the China travel ban and to the evolving guidance over the use of masks as scientists’ understanding of the virus improved — points the White House expanded on in statements to media outlets over the weekend.
Asked whether the president still had confidence in Fauci, a White House official on Monday insisted Trump did. The official said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was regarded as “a valued voice” on the White House coronavirus task force. The official spoke on condition of anonymity even though the president has repeatedly railed against anonymous sources.
“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” Trump told reporters Monday, calling him “a very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.”
That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort.
In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to The Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.” That includes, he said, downplaying the early risk of the virus and expressing skepticism over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which Navarro — who is not a doctor — has aggressively championed despite contradictory evidence on its efficacy and safety.
Asked by NBC News if he was bothered by the White House’s treatment of Fauci, Giroir didn’t answer directly but said “none of us are always right and that’s just the way things are.”
Giroir also appeared to disagree with Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who have been pressuring schools to fully open in the fall, even going as far to threaten those that remain closed with the loss of some federal funds.
Giroir said it was important to “get the virus under control” first. “And if we get the virus under better control, clearly kids can get back into school safely,” he said.
Fauci, who has not appeared at recent White House task force briefings and has been largely absent from television, told the Financial Times last week that he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 and hadn’t briefed him in at least two months.
He blamed the fact that he has refused to toe the administration’s line for its refusal to approve many of his media requests.
“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said.
Trump’s political foes put it more strongly.
“The president’s disgusting attempt to pass the buck by blaming the top infectious disease expert in the country — whose advice he repeatedly ignored and Joe Biden consistently implored him to take — is yet another horrible and revealing failure of leadership as the tragic death toll continues to needlessly grow,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Democrat Biden’s presidential campaign.
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By Polityk | 07/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Masks for Kids? Schools Confront Politics of Reopening
On one side are parents saying, let kids be kids. They object to masks and social distancing in classrooms this fall — arguing both could hurt their children’s well-being — and want schools to reopen full time.
On the other side are parents and teachers who call for safeguards that would have been unimaginable before the coronavirus pandemic: part-time school, face coverings for all or a fully online curriculum.
The impassioned tug-of-wars have put educators in the middle of an increasingly politicized debate on how best to reopen schools this fall, a daunting challenge as infections spike in the U.S.
“Don’t tell me my kid has to wear a mask,” said Kim Sherman, a mother of three in the central California city of Clovis who describes herself as very conservative and very pro-Trump. “I don’t need to be dictated to to tell me how best to raise my kids.”
With many districts still finalizing how they may reopen, President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure to get public schools back in business, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that don’t resume in-person classes. Without evidence, he’s accused Democrats of wanting schools closed because of politics, not health.
Similar mudslinging is happening at school board meetings, in neighbors’ social media clashes and in online petitions.
Some parents have threatened to pull their children — and the funding they provide — if masks are required.
Hillary Salway, a mother of three in Orange County, California, is part of a vocal minority calling for schools to fully open with “normal social interaction.” If the district requires masks for her son’s kindergarten class, she says, “I don’t know if my son will be starting his educational career in the public school system this fall.”
She wants him to feel free to hug his teacher and friends and can’t imagine sending him to a school where he’ll get reprimanded for sharing a toy. She started a petition last month urging her district to “keep facial expressions visually available” and helped organize a protest of over 100 people outside the district office, with signs saying, “No to masks, Yes to recess,” and “Let me breathe.”
Dozens have echoed her beliefs at Orange County Board of Education meetings, where the five-member elected body is majority Republican and is recommending a full return to school without masks or social distancing. The board makes recommendations but not policy, and its supporters argue that face coverings are ineffective, give a false sense of security and are potentially detrimental.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says masks may help prevent infected people from spreading the virus to others and urged students and teachers to wear them whenever feasible. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered Californians to wear them in public.
Brooke Aston Harper, a liberal parent who attended a particularly spirited board meeting recently, said it was “horrifying” that speakers were “imposing their small worldview on all of us.”
“I’m not looking for a fight, I just want us to take precautions,” said Harper, whose children are 4 and 6.
She also started a petition, calling on schools to follow state guidelines that include masks for teachers and students, constant social distancing on campuses and other measures.
“For each school board, the question is going to be: What does our community want, and who is the loudest?” she said.
Many parents, educators and doctors agree that the social, educational and emotional costs to children of a long shutdown may outweigh the risk of the virus itself, even if they don’t agree on how to reopen safely. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued guidelines supporting in-person school to avoid social isolation and depression in students. But it said science, not politics, must guide decisions where COVID-19 is spreading.
While children have proven to be less susceptible to the virus, teachers are vulnerable. And many are scared.
“I will be wearing a mask, a face shield, possibly gloves, and I’m even considering getting some type of body covering to wear,” says Stacey Pugh, a fifth-grade teacher in suburban Houston.
She hopes her Aldine district will mandate masks for students.
“Come the fall, we’re going to be the front-line workers,” said Pugh, whose two children will do distance learning with her retired father.
In Texas, a virus hot spot, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and education leaders say it’s safe to reopen schools in August. Districts must offer remote learning for students who opt to stay home, but the state didn’t issue safety guidelines, calling masks a local decision.
The Texas American Federation of Teachers and other unions have demanded clear guidelines.
“Texas AFT says a big ‘hell no’ to what looks like a return to normal in August,” president Zeph Capo said. “We won’t sacrifice our members and students for politics.”
The country’s two largest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles, say schools cannot fully reopen in the liberal cities.
While New York City officials say schools will likely combine in-person and distance learning, the Los Angeles school district announced Monday that its students will start the term with online classes from home. Other California cities, including San Diego and Oakland, also say their campuses will stay closed.
“A 10-year-old student might have a 30-year-old teacher a 50-year-old bus driver or live with a 70-year-old grandmother. All need to be protected,” LA Superintendent Austin Beutner said. “There is a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish.”
Besides masks, the CDC has recommended schools spread out desks, stagger schedules, have meals in classrooms instead of the cafeteria and add physical barriers between bathroom sinks.
Many small, rural communities argue they shouldn’t have to comply with the same rules as big cities, where infection rates are higher.
Craig Guensler, superintendent of a small district in California’s mostly rural Yuba County, says officials will try to follow state mandates. They have spent $25,000 on what he calls “spit guards, for lack of a better term” — clear Plexiglas dividers to separate desks — at Wheatland Unified School District’s four schools.
Eighty-five percent of parents said in a survey they want their kids in school full time. Officials will space out desks as much as possible but still expect up to 28 in each classroom, Guensler said. Many parents are adamant their children not wear masks, and he suspects they will find loopholes if California requires them.
“Our expectation is we’re going to get pummeled with pediatricians writing notes, saying, ‘My child can’t wear a mask,'” he said.
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By Polityk | 07/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
Former AG Sessions, Trump-Backed Tuberville Compete in Alabama Primary
Voters in three U.S. states cast ballots Tuesday in primary elections to finalize the candidates who will compete in some of the closely watched races as Democrats and Republicans battle for control of the Senate in the November national election. In a Republican runoff election in Alabama, voters are deciding between former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach who has the endorsement of President Donald Trump. The winner will go up against Democratic Senator Doug Jones in November. Sessions held the seat for 20 years, but resigned so he could lead the Justice Department when Trump took office in 2017. He drew Trump’s ire when he recused himself from the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election because of several meetings he held before election day with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Trump has continued to criticize Sessions, including a Saturday tweet calling him “a disaster who has let us all down.” Sessions dismissed Trump’s comments as “juvenile insults,” and he questioned Tuberville’s credentials, saying his opponent “relies on flashy, consultant-written talking points and TV ads instead of taking questions or debating because he’s scared he might accidentally give away the game he’s playing.” In Texas, there is a Democratic primary runoff between combat veteran Mary Jennings Hegar and state senator Royce West. The winner will go up against Republican Senator John Cornyn.U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) speaks to reporters after opening arguments concluded in the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020.Cornyn has represented Texas for three terms and polls show him leading against either Hegar or West. In addition to the Senate primary, there are a number of House primaries contested Tuesday in Texas, including a battle between former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions and Renee Swann, an eye surgery co-owner and political newcomer who has the endorsement of retiring incumbent Congressman Bill Flores. The Texas voting was originally set to take place in May, but was postponed due to concerns about having people gather at polling places during the coronavirus pandemic. Election officials in the state of Maine said they have received a huge number of mail-in ballots for Tuesday’s primaries, which include an important three-way race for the Democratic nomination to go up against Republican Senator Susan Collins. Democrats are targeting Collins as one of their top hopes in unseating a Republican and trying to gain the three seats necessary to flip the current slim Republican majority in the Senate. State House speaker Sara Gideon has been the front-runner in the race with the largest campaign donations as she faces attorney Bre Kidman and activist Betsy Sweet. As of Monday, voters had requested more than 203,000 absentee ballots, which officials said was about five times the number requested during the 2018 primary election. Mail-in ballots have been a focus for leaders in many states trying to maintain voter participation this year while adhering to stay-at-home measures meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As in Alabama and Texas, Maine also has a few House primaries Tuesday. In the state’s second congressional district, Adrienne Bennett, Eric Brakey and Dale Crafts are competing for the Republican nomination to go up against incumbent Democratic Congressman Jared Golden.
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By Polityk | 07/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
AP Fact Check: Trump Team’s False Comfort on Schools, Virus
President Donald Trump’s aides are misrepresenting the record on kids and the coronavirus as they push for schools to reopen. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday inaccurately characterized what the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said on the matter. A day earlier, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also was wrong in stating that the research shows there is no danger “in any way” if kids are in school. No such conclusion has been reached. Their comments came as Trump continued to spread falsehoods about a pandemic that is taking a disproportionate hit on the U.S. and is not under control. A look at recent claims and reality:Schools McEnanty: “Just last week you heard Dr. Redfield say that children are not spreading this.” — Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” The facts: No, Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, did not say that. He said officials don’t have evidence that children are “driving” infections at this point. But they have not ruled out that children spread the virus to adults. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, said last week the government doesn’t have enough data to show whether and to what degree kids can infect others. The bulk of data has been collected from adults and particularly from those who were sick, leaving questions about children still unanswered, Birx said. She said children under 10 are the least tested age group. The officials did not reach a conclusion that “children are not spreading this.” Nor does the evidence prove that they are. The government has counted tens of thousands of children who have been infected with the virus and in some cases hospitalized. Overall, public health officials believe the virus is less dangerous to children than adults. ——Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Education building, July 8, 2020, in Washington.Devos: “There’s nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous.” — Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.” The facts: Not so. Like McEnany, DeVos is suggesting certainty where none exists as she urged schools to provide full-time, in-person learning in the fall even with community transmission of COVID-19 rising in many parts of the U.S. It’s premature to claim that there are no risks “in any way” seen in data. How significant a risk has not been established. The CDC in April studied the pandemic’s effect on different ages in the U.S. and reviewed preliminary research in China, where the coronavirus started. It said social distancing is important for children, too, for their own safety and that of others. “Whereas most COVID-19 cases in children are not severe, serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization still occurs in this age group,” the CDC study says. In May, the CDC also warned doctors to be on the lookout for a rare but life-threatening inflammatory reaction in some children who’ve had the coronavirus. The condition had been reported in more than 100 children in New York and in some kids in several other states and in Europe, with some deaths. The agency’s current guidance for communities on the reopening of K-12 schools says the goal is to “help protect students, teachers, administrators, and staff and slow the spread of COVID-19.” The guidance says “full sized, in person classes” present the “highest risk” of spreading the virus and advises face masks, spreading out of desks, staggered schedules, eating meals in classrooms instead of the cafeteria and “staying home when appropriate” to help avert spikes in virus cases. ——Virus Trump: “Deaths in the U.S. are way down.” — tweet on July 6, one of at least a half dozen heralding a drop in daily deaths from the virus. The facts: It’s true that deaths dipped as infections spiked in many parts of the country. But deaths lag sickness. And now, the widely expected upturn in U.S. deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West, according to data analyzed by The Associated Press. “It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday. He advised Americans: “Don’t get yourself into false complacency.” The new AP analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University shows the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the U.S. increased to 664 on Friday from 578 two weeks ago, as deaths rose in more than half the states. That’s still well below the lethal numbers of April. “It’s consistently picking up,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious diseases researcher. “And it’s picking up at the time you’d expect it to.” ——Trump: “For the 1/100th time, the reason we show so many Cases, compared to other countries that haven’t done nearly as well as we have, is that our TESTING is much bigger and better. We have tested 40,000,000 people. If we did 20,000,000 instead, Cases would be half, etc. NOT REPORTED!” — tweet Thursday. The facts: His notion that infections are high only because the U.S. diagnostic testing has increased is false. His own top public health officials have shot down this line of thinking. Infections are rising because people are infecting each other more than they were when most everyone was hunkered down. It’s true that increased testing also contributes to the higher numbers. When you look harder, you’re going to see more. But the testing has uncovered a worrisome trend: The percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is on the rise across nearly the entire country. That’s a clear demonstration that sickness is spreading and that the U.S. testing system is falling short. “A high rate of positive tests indicates a government is only testing the sickest patients who seek out medical attention and is not casting a wide enough net,” says the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, a primary source of updated information on the pandemic. Americans are being confronted with long lines at testing sites, often disqualified if they are not showing symptoms and, if tested, forced to wait many days for results. —— Trump on the coronavirus: “We have the lowest Mortality Rate in the World.” – tweet Tuesday. The facts: This statement is wholly unsupported. An accurate death rate is impossible to know. Every country tests and counts people differently, and some are unreliable in reporting cases. Without knowing the true number of people who become infected, it cannot be determined what portion of them die. Using a count kept by Johns Hopkins University, you can compare the number of recorded deaths with the number of reported cases. That count shows the U.S. experiencing more deaths as a percentage of cases than most other countries now being hit hard with the pandemic. The statistics look better for the U.S. when the list is expanded to include European countries that were slammed early on by the virus but now appear to have it under control. Even then, the U.S. is not shown to be among the best in avoiding death. Such calculations, though, do not provide a reliable measurement of actual death rates, because of the variations in testing and reporting, and the Johns Hopkins tally is not meant to be such a measure. The only way to tell how many cases have gone uncounted, and therefore what percentage of infected people have died from the disease, is to do another kind of test comprehensively, of people’s blood, to find how many people bear immune system antibodies to the virus. Globally, that is only being done in select places. ——Economy Trump: “Job growth is biggest in history.” — tweet Wednesday. The facts: Yes, but only because it is following the greatest job losses in history, by far. The U.S. economy shed more than 22 million jobs in March and April, wiping out nearly a decade of job growth in just two months, as the viral outbreak intensified and nearly all states shut down nonessential businesses. Since then, 7.5 million, or about one-third, of those jobs have been recovered as businesses reopened. Even after those gains, the unemployment rate is 11.1%, down from April and May but otherwise higher than at any point since the Depression. ——Trump: “Economy and Jobs are growing MUCH faster than anyone (except me!) expected.” — tweet Wednesday. The facts: Not really. It’s true that May’s gain of 2.7 million jobs was unexpected. Economists had forecast another month of job losses. But most economists projected hiring would sharply rebound by June or at the latest July, once businesses began to reopen. The gains kicked in a month earlier than forecast. Now, though, coronavirus cases are rising in most states, imperiling the climb back. In six states representing one-third of the economy — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and Texas — governors are reversing their reopening plans, and the restart is on pause in 15 other states. Such reversals are keeping layoffs elevated and threatening to weaken hiring. —— Trump team on BidenTrump campaign ad, playing out a scenario where a person needing help calls the police in a Biden presidency and gets a voice recording: “You have reached the 911 police emergency line. Due to defunding of the police department, we’re sorry but no one is here to take your call.” The ad closes with the message: “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.” The facts: Biden has not joined the call of protesters who demanded “defund the police” after Floyd’s killing. He’s proposed more money for police, conditioned to improvements in their practices. “I don’t support defunding the police,” Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support tying federal aid to police based on whether “they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.” Biden’s criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for “training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths” and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve. Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs. That adds up to more money for police, not defunding law enforcement. Biden also wants the federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime. Democrats, meanwhile, have pointed to Trump’s repeated proposals in the administration’s budget to cut community policing and mediation programs at the Justice Department. Congressional Republicans say the program can be effectively merged with other divisions, but Democrats have repeatedly blocked the effort. The program has been used to help provide federal oversight of local police departments. Despite proposed cuts, Attorney General William Barr last month said that the department would use the COPS program funding to hire over 2,700 police officers at nearly 600 departments across the country. ——Vice President Mike Pence: Biden “said that he would, quote, absolutely cut funding for law enforcement.” — remarks Thursday in Philadelphia. Republican National Committee email: “In the wake of rioting, looting, and tragic murders ripping apart communities across the country, Joe Biden said ‘Yes, absolutely’ he wants to defund the police.” — email Wednesday from Steve Guest, RNC’s rapid response director. The facts: That’s misleading, a selective use of Biden’s words on the subject. The RNC email links to an excerpted video clip of Biden’s conversation with liberal activist Ady Barkan, who endorsed Biden on Wednesday after supporting Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries. A full recording of that conversation, provided by the Biden campaign to The Associated Press, shows he again declined to support defunding police. Barkan raises the issue of police reform and asks whether Biden would funnel money into social services, mental health counseling and affordable housing to help reduce civilian interactions with police. Biden responds that he is calling for increased funding for mental health providers but “that’s not the same as getting rid of or defunding all the police” and that both approaches are needed, including more money for community police. Asked again by Barkan, “so we agree that we can redirect some of the funding,” Biden then answers “absolutely yes.” Biden then gives the caveat that he means “not just redirect” federal money potentially but “condition” it on police improvements. “If they don’t eliminate choke holds, they don’t get (federal) grants, if they don’t do the following, they don’t get any help,” Biden replied. “The vast majority of all police departments are funded by the locality, funded by the municipality, funded by the state,” he added. “It’s only the federal government comes in on top of that, and so it says you want help, you have to do the following reforms.” ——Biden on TrumpBiden: “President Trump claimed to the American people that he was a wartime leader, but instead of taking responsibility, Trump has waved a white flag, revealing that he ordered the slowing of testing and having his administration tell Americans that they simply need to ‘live with it.” – statement Wednesday marking the rise in U.S. coronavirus infections to more than 3 million. The facts: To be clear, the government did not slow testing on the orders of the president. Trump at first denied he was joking when he told a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally on June 20 that he said “to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please'” because “they test and they test.” Days later he said he didn’t really mean it. In any event, a succession of his public-health officials testified to Congress that the president never asked them to slow testing and that they were doing all they could to increase it. But testing remains markedly insufficient.
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By Polityk | 07/14/2020 | Повідомлення, Політика
