Monthly Archives: May 2020

The look on her face will be remembered as one of the defining images of the coronavirus crisis. As Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House response to the pandemic, sat listening to Donald Trump musing about disinfectant as a treatment for Covid-19, her eyes blinked, her mouth tightened, and she appeared to be in pain.

As a cellular immunologist, Birxs anguish was all too understandable. But she is not only a scientist, she is a diplomat, and since Trump made his contentious remarks last week she has declined to criticize his flight of fancy.

Other leading scientists have felt less obliged to be circumspect. Trumps constant antics are a danger to the American people, said John Holdren, a Harvard environmental scientist who was Barack Obamas White House science adviser through both his presidential terms.

Holdren told the Guardian the current approach to science and expertise within the Trump administration is a shame on many levels. Trumps talking nonsense risks misleading the public, and it distracts top scientists who spend emotional energy neutralizing the damage he causes when they should be tackling the virus.

Three months into the pandemic, with the number of confirmed cases passing 1 million, the tension that has been simmering for months between Trump and the scientific world is at boiling point. His improvisation about injecting disinfectant encapsulated the sense of demoralization of despair, almost that many American scientists now feel about the drift from evidence-based leadership.

They are doing everything they can to undermine science at a time when it is critically important, as are facts. We have come to an extreme level, said Gina McCarthy, who led the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until Trumps accession in 2017.

Science is so assailed at present that the situation raises a startling question: are we losing the fight for reason in the pandemic? McCarthy, who now heads the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said she frets America may prove incapable of withstanding the anti-science assault unleashed by Trump.

I have been worried that people wouldnt notice the attack happening. These things are difficult to explain they are not soundbites and our country has for a long time taken for granted the fact that we make science-based decisions. That is simply not true any more.

Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments Trump has made.

The accusation that in three short years Trump has succeeded in severing historic ties between the US government and science-based decision making is one of the more chilling charges leveled at his presidency. Science has after all been at the core of the American experiment, ever since Franklin Roosevelt created the White House Office of Scientific R&D in 1941.

Not only was scientific endeavor instrumental in winning the second world war through the atomic bomb and innovations such as radar and communications technology it was also central to Americas postwar economic success. In recent times, Obama inherited that legacy and ran with it, promising on his first day in office in 2009 that we will restore science to its rightful place.

In his first set of presidential appointments, Obama brought into his administration five science Nobel prizewinners and 25 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. They became known as the dream team.

By contrast, Holdren said, Trump is the exact opposite. Science has played no role in virtually all the top appointments he has made.

The roll call of officials Trump has entrusted with protecting Americans from Covid-19 tells its own story. With no Nobel laureates in sight, Trump relied initially on Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who is a lawyer and former drug company boss; followed by Mike Pence, a career politician and evangelical Christian; and most recently Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law, whose expertise lies in real estate.

Trumps top team have in turn promoted individuals in their own mold. As Reuters has reported, Azar gave the job of coordinating the fight against coronavirus within HHS, to an individual whose job immediately before joining the Trump administration was as a dog breeder running a small business called Dallas Labradoodles.

The clash between science and the White House is the culmination of a long confrontation. As Jeffrey Sachs, a globally renowned economist at Columbia University, told the Guardian: The Republican party has been on an aggressive anti-science campaign for decades, mainly because scientists are in favor of environmental regulations while the Republicans are the party of polluters.

In Trump Republicans have found a leader who regards his own innate abilities to divine the truth as superior to evidence-based science. In one of the most telling moments of his daily White House coronavirus briefings, Trump was asked what metrics he would use to decide when Americans could emerge from lockdown.

He raised his right hand, placed his index finger against his temple, and said: The metrics right here. Thats my metrics.

That faith in his own instincts over and above fact has been a characteristic for years. Trump is famous for believing that exercise is misguided, because people are born with a finite amount of energy in them, like batteries.

Until he entered presidential politics he was opposed to vaccinating children, claiming falsely that vaccines cause autism.

Given these tendencies, when Trump snatched unexpected victory in 2016 the scientific community braced itself for what they knew would be an uncomfortable ride.

The attack began in the very first week of Trumps presidency. Scientists, including public health experts, were barred from communicating with the public about their work and new restrictions were imposed on the EPA.

Since then the Union of Concerned Scientists has recorded no fewer than 139 major attacks from the Trump administration on scientific integrity. For the Unions Michael Halpern, the mindset was summed up by Sharpiegate in September 2019 when the White House redrew the path of Hurricane Dorian to include Alabama so that the president would not have to admit he made a mistake.

To the shock and dismay of the science community, the national weather agency was forced to play along.

Sharpiegate was the harbinger of whats happened with the pandemic, Halpern said.

When the nation is dealing with a hurricane that threatens the lives of thousands it is serious enough, but a pandemic threatening millions of Americans is on another level. The sidelining of expert advice that has been a trademark of this presidency has burst into full view, with Trumps belief in his own intellectual prejudices pitted directly often in front of TV cameras against the evidence-based advice of his own bewildered officials.

Many scientists were dreading that the president would be faced by a test just like coronavirus, Halpern said. It has had immediate and catastrophic consequences.

All the major mistakes that have been made by the Trump administration in handling the pandemic can be ascribed to this failure to listen to, and trust, scientific advice. Trump was slow to mobilise the federal government because he failed to heed scientific warnings; instead he chose to follow his hunch that a miracle would happen and the virus would disappear.

His obsession with the anti-malarial drug chloroquine as a potential game changer in treating Covid-19 caused havoc in the US and around the world, with recent studies suggesting the drug has no beneficial qualities and plenty of side-effects.

In contrast to other countries like South Korea where public health agencies have spearheaded successful efforts to contain Covid-19, in the US the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been sidelined. Its last press conference was in March.

The assault on science does not end with the White House. Trumps vocal disdain for evidence-based thinking has emboldened an army of quacks, pseudoscience groups and conspiracy theorists who have stepped up their proselytizing online and in protests across the country.

The presidents remarks about injecting disinfectant not only led to some people poisoning themselves by drinking cleaning fluid, it also encouraged peddlers of industrial bleach to reinforce their claims that they had a miracle cure for coronavirus.

Del Bigtree, a leading anti-vaxxer who produced the film Vaxxed based on the views of the disgraced British former physician Andrew Wakefield, told the Guardian that viewership of his online show the HighWire has increased exponentially during the pandemic.

If there is a silver lining in the current browbeaten state of American science, it lies paradoxically in the pandemic itself. The crisis has not only brought the confrontation to a head, it also offers a possible way out of it.

All the scientists consulted by the Guardian agreed that the cause of evidence-based leadership would emerge from the current crisis stronger.

Naomi Oreskes, an historian of science at Harvard, pointed out that Americans remain generally favorable to the scientific mission. A recent Pew survey found that 73% of Americans thought that science had a positive impact on society.

The impression that anti-science sentiment is on the rise is false its what the merchants of doubt try to stoke because they want us to think that, to distrust science, Oreskes said.

McCarthy believes that Covid-19 has handed science an unexpected gift. People are beginning to see the costs when you dont tell the truth and you sideline those who do.

McCarthy predicts that a final collision is coming between the merchants of untruths led by Trump and a majority of the American people demanding real facts and real science.

It will be the people against polluters, experts against those winging it, scientists against the peddlers of misinformation. The question is, who is going to win?

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Pandemic brings Trump's war on science to the boil but who will win? - The Guardian

Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back.

But much of the economy remains closed because of the pandemic. The number of infections and deaths continue to climb.

So what is Trumps re-election strategy? Reopen the economy anyway, despite the risks.

Remove income support, so people have no choice but to return to work.

Trumps labor department has decided that furloughed employees must accept an employers offer to return to work and therefore forfeit unemployment benefits, regardless of Covid-19.

Trumps ally, Iowas Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, says employees cannot refuse to return to work for fear of contracting the disease. Thats a voluntary quit, making someone ineligible for benefits.

GOP officials in Oklahoma are even threatening to withhold the $600 a week of extra unemployment benefits Congress has provided workers, if an employer wants to hire them. Safety is irrelevant.

If the employer will contact us we will cut off their benefits, says Teresa Thomas Keller of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.

Forcing people to choose between getting Covid-19 or losing their livelihood is inhumane. It is also nonsensical. Public health still depends on as many workers as possible staying home. Thats a big reason why Congress provided the extra benefits.

Hide the facts.

No one knows how many Americans are infected because the Trump administration continues to drag its heels on testing. To date only 6.5m tests have been completed in a population of more than 200 million adults.

Florida, one of the first states to reopen, has stopped releasing medical examiners statistics on the number of Covid-19 victims because the figures are higher than the states official count.

But its impossible to fight the virus without adequate data. Dr Anthony Fauci, the administrations leading infectious disease expert, warns that reopening poses a really significant risk without more testing.

Not surprisingly, the White House has blocked Fauci from testifying before the House.

Pretend its about freedom.

Weeks ago, Trump called on citizens to LIBERATE states like Michigan, whose Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, imposed strict stay-at-home rules.

Michigan has the third-highest number of Covid-19 deaths in America, although it is 10th in population. When on Thursday Whitmer extended the rules to 28 May, gun-toting protesters rushed the state house chanting: Lock her up!

Rather than condemn their behavior, Trump suggested Whitmer make a deal with them.

The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire, he tweeted. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely!

Meanwhile, the attorney general, William Barr, has directed the justice department to take legal action against any state or local authorities imposing lockdown measures that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.

Making this about freedom is absurd. Freedom is meaningless for people who have no choice but to accept a job that risks their health.

Shield businesses against lawsuits for spreading the infection.

Trump is pushing to give businesses that reopen a liability shield against legal action by workers or customers who get infected by the virus.

This week, he announced he would use the Defense Production Act to force meat-processing plants to remain open, despite high rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths among meatpackers.

Were going to sign an executive order today, I believe, and thatll solve any liability problems, Trump said.

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, insists that proposed legislation giving state and local governments funding they desperately need must include legal immunity for corporations that cause workers or consumers to become infected.

We have a red line on liability, McConnell said. It wont pass the Senate without it.

But how can the economy safely reopen if companies dont have an incentive to keep people safe? Promises to provide protective gear and other safeguards are worthless absent the threat of damages if workers or customers become infected.

The biggest obstacle to reopening the economy is the pandemic itself.

Any rush to reopen without adequate testing and tracing far more than now under way will cause a resurgence of the disease and another and longer economic crisis.

Maybe Trump is betting that any resurgence will occur after the election, when the economy appears to be on the road to recovery.

The first responsibility of a president is to keep the public safe. But Donald Trump couldnt care less. He was slow to respond to the threat, then he lied about it, then made it hard for states especially those with Democratic governors to get the equipment they need.

Now hes trying to force the economy to reopen in order to boost his electoral chances this November, and hes selling out Americans health to seal the deal. This is beyond contemptible.

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Donald Trump's four-step plan to reopen the US economy and why it will be lethal - The Guardian

US President Donald Trump has tweeted the following:

Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the USAlso, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner...

Geopolitical tensions between the US and China are heating up which should b a catalyst for risk-off. More on this here:

As for what currency to trade AUD/JPY is the FX markets risk-barometer and could be offering a short opportunity as outlined in the following article:

In recent trade, the Global Times wrote a piece in response to the news:Pompeo's anti-China bluff strategy reveals all-or-nothing mentality to fool US voters GT

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US President Donald Trump: Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct on China - FXStreet

If your sense of time has become a flat circle these last couple of months, it might be hard to remember what was going on in February 2020. But as a reminder, that was when Donald Trump declared that there would be no more than 15 coronavirus cases total in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, he nudged that number up just slightly, claiming that the disease would prove nowhere near as bad as the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak, which killed roughly 12,500 Americans. At the end of March, he shifted expectations a tad, saying that if the U.S. death toll clocked in between 100,000 and 200,000, it would mean his administration had done a very good job. Later, when strict social distancing measures began to flatten the curve, he opined that 60,000 dead Americans would be a win. Now, as the U.S. has surpassed that figure, the president has adjusted his yardstick for success once again, casually declaring that, actually, maybe 100,000 people will die.

Speaking to reporters before departing for a weekend at Camp David, Trump shared that hopefully were going to come in under 100,000 lives lost, and if thats the case, itll mean he saved something like 1 millions lives, or 1.5 million or hey, lets just call it 2.5 million lives.

The president did not take questions but if he had, and someone had asked him about the fact that he tacked on another 40,000 Americans from his latest prediction, one can assume he would have claimed to have never said such a thing because thats what he does every time hes caught in a monumental lie which is frequently. Presumably this wont be the last time between now and November that he revises both the number of dead Americans the country should consider a success, and how many hell take credit for saving. Next month, 250,000 coronavirus deaths will presumably mean he did a bang-up job and hey, how about those 300 million people he saved?

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Surprise: the Trump administration doesnt want Anthony Fauci testifying before Congress

Surely this has nothing to do with the White House wanting to avoid any expert testimony that could make the president look bad:

The White House issued a statement about Faucis testimony shortly after The Washington Post published a story Friday afternoon quoting a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, who said the White House was refusing to allow Fauci to appear at a subcommittee hearing next week. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a prominent face in the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus as a lead scientist in the coronavirus task force. He has walked a fine line in delivering scientific information to the public that at times has contradicted President Trumps statements. Trump at one point retweeted a Twitter post that called for Fauci to be fired, but he later denied he was considering firing him. Fauci has urged extreme caution as some cities and states move to reopen businesses, warning that doing so imprudently could lead to a resurgence of the coronavirus.

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Trump Casually Doubles the Number of Americans Hed Be Okay Losing to the Coronavirus - Vanity Fair

The 45th president, a deeply divisive leader, was running for re-election on immigration, trade and the economy. Then the coronavirus crisis hit.

73 years old

Born in Queens; recently changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Fla.

45th president of the United States

Former reality show host and New York City real estate developer who never ran for political office until his 2016 presidential campaign

Mr. Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic has not been a defining issue of his presidency for long, but how his administration has responded is likely to be critical not only to his legacy, but also to how some swing voters who are open to both him and Joseph R. Biden Jr. make their decision in November.

Before the coronavirus crisis consumed his White House, his 2016 rallying cry of build the wall still echoed in his re-election campaign. Construction of a wall along the countrys southern border, intended to halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country, has been slow going, but an immigration crackdown has remained one of the policy issues that enlivens his base. Mr. Trump has even tried to use immigration as a way to change the subject from criticism of his administrations handling of the pandemic.

Mr. Trump has also made eliminating federal regulations a priority, with a focus on dismantling Obama-era environmental regulations. So far, he has failed to achieve his top legislative priority when he came into office: repealing the Affordable Care Act. But he has pleased Republicans, in particular, with his commitment to appointing conservative judges to the federal bench at a record-setting pace.

Mr. Trump touts two trade deals as his signature policies, even as they mark a break from Republican free-trade orthodoxy in favor of a populist approach: an initial trade agreement with China, and his revised accord with Mexico and Canada. His foreign policy doctrine can be summed up by the phrase America First, a banner under which Mr. Trump has over the years questioned the founding tenets of alliances like NATO, and demonstrated a reluctance to engage in overseas military operations.

For almost the first time in his presidency, the answer appears to be no. The first two years of his administration were defined by the looming investigation of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who in March 2019 wrapped up his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice, but found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mr. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives months after the Russia investigation concluded, for seeking to pressure Ukraine to smear his political rivals. In February, after five months of hearings, Mr. Trump was acquitted in the Senate, along party lines, of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Many aides and allies have been making the case to Mr. Trump that he is no longer running against a political opponent, but rather against the virus, and that his re-election in November depends on convincing voters that his administrations response saved lives.

Through daily White House news conferences, Mr. Trump has been trying to reshape the narrative and convince voters that his response to the health crisis was adequate, despite the fact that he repeatedly played down the threat of the virus and was slow to absorb the scale of the risk. He has also been eager to restart the economy, so that he can claim credit for the economic gains that he was running on before the virus washed them away, while pinning the blame for the spread of the virus elsewhere, like on China or the World Health Organization.

Mr. Trump, famous for telling falsehoods and making inflated claims about himself, has long claimed to be a billionaire. The question of how much Mr. Trump is really worth has been a moving target, and one he refuses to answer. He has continued to refuse to release his tax returns, and its now a battle being fought in the courts.

He has tried to shield his tax returns from Manhattan state prosecutors, an effort that was rejected by a federal judge. The Justice Department has helped his attempt to block a subpoena demanding the release of eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

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Donald Trump: Who He Is and What He Stands For - The New York Times

Donald Trump receives questions from journalists on April 30.Jim Loscalzo / CNP via ZUMA Wire

For much-needed reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones newsletters.

A full-fledged right-wing freakout in the announcement planned by the FBI for the hope that then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn would lie in a January 2016 interview, was, inevitably, drawn to political operative Roger Stone. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested he could forgive Flynn and Stone, who have each been found to have lied to federal investigators about the Russia Russia scandal.

What they did to Gen. Flynn, and by the way, to Roger Stone and others, was a disaster and a disgrace, and it should not be allowed to happen again in this country, Trump said when asked about forgiveness to Flynn.

(embedded) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LTVOYYeZ60 (/ embedded)

Interestingly, Trump and his supporters, are not saying that Flynn and Stone are not lying to federal investigators. Instead they indicate that lying to investigators is not important.

Trump and his supporters begin on the premise that the Trump-Russia scandal is a fornication, a claim that has been initiated by the failure of special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional Democrats to prove a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia campaign. As a result, Tump and company say, investigations into their behavior are unfair, with any resulting product prosecution being overstated.

This is Trumps main gaslight. The lies of Flynn and Stone, and Trump himself, helped prevent investigators from finding out what really happened during the Trump and Russia campaign in 2016, benefiting Trumps first and foremost, who misrepresented so much that losses. In the pardon of Stone and Flynn, the president will reward them for that service, and will use the pandemonium and its mass of supporters to drown anyone who has noticed the con.

The argument that Flynn and Stone were railroads, long popular talking points on the right, came to light Wednesday, when the federal prosecutor in Flynns case revealed handwritten letters Bill Priestap, head of the FBIs counterintelligence, made before FBI agents in an interview with Flynn in the White House in January 2016. Agents know that Flynn spoke in December 2016 to Sergey Kislyak, the ambassador of Russia in the US, about sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia, is a clear violation of the Logan Act. Preistap wrote: What is our purpose? Truth / Admittance or for him to lie, so we can chase him or shoot him?

Those are material missteps in the investigation of Russian election interference.

While conservative pundits treat these records as smoking evidence that framed Flynn, legal experts say the FBIs tactics against Flynn are unusual. Federal agents often try to catch targets in situations where they will admit crimes or lies, which will open themselves up to prosecution. In a guilty plea, Flynn admitted to lying to FBI agents. (He also said under oath that he did not believe the FBI had entered him.) Flynns lawyers are trying to move his plea not to trespass, and also demand that the case be dismissed. The judge handling the case was not ruled on those requests.

Trump also confirms in Stones lawyers arguments that the self-described dirty cheater has been unfairly convicted because the DCs premier female judge in social media posts criticized Trump; the judge in the case denied this contention.

Stone and Flynns lies are part of a pattern. Muellers report, despite its oppressive conclusions, has undeniably revealed that the president and his advisers reacted to the declarations of Russias campaigns in perpetuity. Some lies are public: Trump claims there is no business in Russia. In fact, at the time his employees were looking for the Kremlin helped promote a Trump-branded project there. Trumps campaign spokesman Hope Hicks said in November 2016 that there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign. Mueller mentioned more than 100 contacts by campaign in Russia alone.

Along with Stone and Flynn, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos went to jail for lying to federal agents or lawmakers. Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates and campaign chairman Paul Manafort have been found lying to investigators, among other crimes. The Justice Department said in February that it was looking into whether Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and Trumps campaign adviser, had lied to the House Intelligence testimony in the 2017 testimony.

Reliable Trump boosters like Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), Rush Limbaugh, and Alan Dershowitz laughed at the perjury charges as a process of crime, suggesting they were charges brought by prosecutors because they couldnt find more serious thing. However, Mueller and prosecutors have repeatedly said that the Trump associates falsity is detrimental to their efforts. The investigation established that many individuals associated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their contact with Russia-related individuals and related matters, Mueller wrote. Those are material missteps in the investigation of Russian election interference.

Trump has no passive observer. He actively encouraged the organizations stonewall Mueller and Congress, hoping for forgiveness for those who refused to cooperate. Muellers report examined 10 instances in which Trump could have interfered with justice to interrupt the investigation. That includes Trumps pressure on former-FBI James Comey to stop investigating Flynn in 2017. And one of Trumps lawyers, John Dowd, left Flynns attorney in late 2017 suggesting that Trump would have supported Flynn if he had not been given evidence by prosecutors about Trump. (Dowd denies that this is an explicit offer of a pardon in exchange for silence.)

Trump himself declined to be interviewed by Mueller. And as reported by Mother Jones, the president appears to have lied to the written answers he gave Mueller in which he claimed to miss Stones 2016 communications about WikiLeaks. Stones trial testimony by Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon revealed that Trump spoke during a campaign with Stone about WikiLeaks, and campaign officials viewed Stone as a conduit to WikiLeaks.

Flynn and Stones attorneys argued that because prosecutors did not prove that their clients had conspired with Russia, their lies to investigators should be set aside. So most of this case has to do with the question: So what? Stone attorney Bruce Rogow said in his closing comments on Stones trial. Prosecutors and judges in those cases have repeatedly denied those claims.

Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, at Stones sentencing, spoke at length on Stones dishonesty, saying he had stopped a key part of the Russia House investigation. His pride in his own lies is a threat to our most fundamental institutions, he said, to the very foundation of our democracy.

He was not accused, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, Jackson said. He has been accused of disguise for president.

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Donald Trump's defense of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone is a giant gaslight - The Media Hell

The reason Congress was established is to bring together a reasonable number of people with different backgrounds so they could improve the lives of American people.

Impeachment of President Trump will or won't happen in November 2020.

Congress has wasted almost three years on a personal vendetta by a few members and the press against President Trump.

Global warming, yes everyone says it's happening, but do we do anything positive to prevent it? Congress's job is to fund new technology like wind turbines, solar power, etc.

In China, the auto worker earns wages and fringe a little over $3 or $7.50 per hour in Mexico. If they can produce a car with electronics and rubber plastic, they can produce anything.

Welfare reform works 40 hours per week for a unit of government at minimum wage. No show, no pay.

Give the people that use guns free room and board for at least 10 years. All that Congress and their staff is doing is wasting lots of time and money on something that might happen in November 2020.

On a PBS news broadcast, if I understood it right because it was a conference call with 26 people on it, including anonymous thought the president put pressure on someone to look into Joe Biden's son's job. I don't know anybody by the name anonymous.

I don't think anyone would propose something illegal on a conference call. Even Trump is smarter than that.

Walter J. Steffens

Johnsburg

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Letter: Reason for Congress, impeachment of Donald Trump - Northwest Herald

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash says he wont be a spoiler for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

Amash, who announced last week an exploratory committee to run for president as a Libertarian, addressed criticism that he would pull votes from Democrat Joe Biden and help Trump get re-elected in November.

The important thing is we dont know how the additional candidate changes a race. Its too impossible to figure out. There are too many calculations involved, Amash told Jake Tapper Sunday on CNNs State of the Union.

Amash, who left the Republican Party last summer, announced on Tuesday, April 27 that he launched a presidential exploratory committee.

After his announcement, some Trump critics said Amashs entrance into the race would only help the presidents re-election bid.

Former Republican Illinois congressman Joe Walsh wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post that, Amash cant win. But he can siphon enough votes from the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, to hand the election to Trump.

In Amashs home state of Michigan, Democrat Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes.

In the interview with Tapper, Amash called the two-party system dysfunctional and said most Americans are dissatisfied with their options. Tapper countered by saying that a CNN poll in March found that just over 10% of voters had an unfavorable view of both Trump and Biden.

When you look at a lot of different polling out there youll see that a good portion of the country, probably a plurality, is pretty independent, Amash said. If you make it a three-candidate field, and you have a compelling candidate, theyd be delighted to go to that candidate.

Related: Why Congressman Justin Amash believes he can win the presidency

Amash said his campaign is founded on respecting the constitution and fighting against the partisan death spiral in the Republican party that he left behind. He said that the polarization of politics has made it hard for Americans to work together.

These two factions that really control our political system are destroying our system, said Amash, who was first elected to Congress in 2010 during the conservative tea party wave. And making it impossible for the rest of us to, frankly, enjoy our lives.

Tapper also asked Amash to address the protest in Lansing in response to Gov. Gretchen Whitmers stay-at-home order.

Everyone has the right to protest and I think the governor overreached in a lot of ways and that upset a lot of people in the state of Michigan, Amash said. But when we protest we have to do it in a way that is appropriate.

Armed protesters stood in the Capitol expressing outrage over the stay-at-home order on Thursday, April 30. In the crowd on the Capitol steps were signs with swastikas and Whitmer doing a Nazi salute with a mustache similar to Adolf Hitler. Amash condemned those using Nazi symbols in their protest.

Whitmer, who was interviewed by Tapper earlier on Sunday, said the protest signs depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country.

More on MLive:

Meet Justin Amash: Michigan congressman exploring presidential bid as Libertarian

Gov. Whitmer supports Joe Biden despite sexual-assault claim by ex-aide

Michigan Congressman Justin Amash launches exploratory committee for presidential bid

Whitmer defends decision to continue coronavirus state of emergency, calls Capitol protest disturbing

Day of angry protests, political maneuvers sets stage for likely legal battle in Michigan

Michigan House adjourns without extending coronavirus state of emergency

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Justin Amash says his candidacy wouldnt tip 2020 election to Donald Trump - MLive.com

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor and executive editor of Special Report,will co-anchor a town hall with President Donald Trump on Sunday evening along with The Storyhost Martha MacCallum, against the dramatic backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial.

It will be Trumps first town hall with Baier and MacCallum since March 5, in Scranton, PA, just before unprecedented stay-at-home orders swept the country, the economy took a nosedive and more than 60,000 died of the coronavirus.

The crisis also has put some focus on the way that Fox News covered the emerging pandemic but that largely has been of the opinion side of the network, not for its news anchors and reporters. Sean Hannity, for one, has challenged claims that he downplayed the virus and this week eventhreatened to sue The New York Times, which is not backing down.

Baier has stressed a division between the news and opinion side of the network, and he points to a recent scoop on the origins of the virus as an example of type of reporting he has done for Special Report, which last month topped cable news ratings.

In an interview with Deadline on Thursday, he talked about what he wants to ask Trump on Sunday, how he feels about getting lumped in with opinion hosts, and about why Fox News chose to carry the presidents daily task force briefings live and uninterrupted. He also talked about media coverage of Tara Reades allegations against Joe Biden and whether there is a double standard in the way that sexual assault allegations are handled.

DEADLINE: The town hall with President Trump will be held at the Lincoln Memorial. How did that all come about?

BRET BAIER: I know that the [Fox News] executives talked with the White House folks about different venues. I am not sure who suggested what, but they got the approval, and its going to be pretty iconic. I dont remember an event being on the memorial like that. My focus now is on the questions and the follow-ups, but itll be quite a sight on the National Mall.

DEADLINE: Just the other day the president complained about Fox News on Twitter. Im sure you saw it. He said, [Viewers] want an alternative now. So do I. What do you think is going on there?

BAIER: You know, I have been on the backend of some tweets from the president, not happy with coverage of him on the news side of things. I know my colleague Chris Wallace has as well. Sometimes, thats the way this president operates. Do I love it? No. But, you know, weve got a job to do. Were going to provide both sides, and sometimes the good, the bad, the ugly, is not a good day for him, and sometimes he expresses himself that way. He does tweet about Fox a little bit, but we kind of go about our job and we still ask him the questions that we think viewers want to hear.

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DEADLINE: Do you think he was, quote unquote, working the refs a little bit. In other words, he was looking for more favorable coverage?

BAIER: I dont know. And hes tried, hes done that before. We had a town hall in Scranton; Martha and I last hosted that. And we had solid audience questions and tough but fair follow-ups to the president and elicited some substantive responses that I think went well. I mean, we didnt hold back. And obviously, this is where we are now. Its a different environment, really, with the country in the position it is now. I think when the president talks, just like those briefings, and I was just in one two weeks ago, theres pushback on some of the things he says. You know you want to get peoples questions answered. But you want to press him on some of the big issues of the day.

DEADLINE: How will you counter misinformation? For example, the president often says that his administration was early in its response in that instituted a travel ban from China, but there were exceptions to that.

BAIER: Right, and there definitely were thousands and thousands of people that came in from China most of them Americans, I should note. Right. We will note that. Some of the things he said numerous times in the White House briefing. You know, it follows a bit of a script on some of what hes talked about. So, of course, therell be some challenge to that. I think the focus of a lot the viewer questions, at least so far, is more forward-looking than it is back. But there will be some looking back to how the administrations handled this. You have to be ready for what you know the president will bring to the table, and thats part of preparation. This time, we found out confirmation [of the event] a little bit later, so we dont have as many days to prep. But Martha and I will be ready, and we look forward to it. You know its a great opportunity to not only ask the president questions whenever, but also in this time, when obviously so many people are paying attention to what the future is going to look like across the country.

DEADLINE: One of the major criticisms of the Biden campaign has been empathy, that the president has not shown it during the crisis. Is that something that you want to raise with him? I mean, I think this came up when he was boasting about the size of his audience for the briefings.

BAIER: Right. We know. I dont want to give you all the questions, but clearly the criticism will be noted on a number of fronts, and the president will address that for sure.

DEADLINE: What about what he saidlast week about disinfectants? You talked about this on-air last week. Is that something that you plan to raise with him? Some critics of the president believe this goes to the heart of why Trumps riffs can be dangerous, but the White House clearly wants to move on from that.

BAIER: I obviously made my feelings clear as I was asked questions on various shows about it. And, you know, it just was not sarcasm, looking at that briefing. I think Dr. [Deborah] Birx was pressed on it a couple of different times, a couple different ways. Who knows? We may go down that road, but again, a lot of the focus is going to be what America looks like going forward. Therell be opportunities. You know this was going to be a cross section from various kinds of folks all over the country dealing with various types of issues not all Trump supporters, not all Bidens supporters. Americans dealing with the circumstance that theyre in. And then Martha and I will be in position to follow up on that. Well see if that particular line of question comes up.

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DEADLINE: There has been some pressure on the news networks, when they were having the briefings, not to carry them live. What did you think about that? Other networks had kind of come in and out of the briefings for fact checking.

BAIER: Well, I just think, you can press the president, you can fact check I just think that those briefings provided information. And you didnt know when the doctors were going to be pressed about a question. I was there. I asked all different kinds of questions. I asked the first questions to the president about the whereabouts of Kim Jong-un. That led to a whole bunch of stories. The questions ran the gamut, and I think that, for our viewers, was important. Now, you could criticize how the president handles it or he talks too long. But coming out of those things was a lot of information, whether it was from [Dr. Anthony] Fauci or Dr. Birx or Vice President [Mike] Pence or the president.

DEADLINE: But what about this whole argument that the network should be fact-checking the president in real time?

BAIER: I think that is an interesting editorial decision, what you do with your on-air chyrons, I think that you have to trust the viewer. And you have to trust that they are following the coverage and you let it speak for itself and then afterwards you analyze different elements of it. Sometimes when you make an editorial decision definitively on the screen, it may be more nuanced than black and white. There may be more to it. And thats where you can get into trouble.

DEADLINE: I want to talk about Tara Reade because this is a big story right now. Theres been some criticism of the political media for not asking Joe Biden about these allegations in the media availabilities that hes had. [Biden appeared Friday, after this interview, on MSNBCs Morning Joe, to deny the allegations.]

BAIER: I dont know. I think that the egregious element of it is the disparity between the coverage of Brett Kavanaugh and the allegations against him and what were seeing now. You dont have to withdraw skepticism from any element of Tara Reades story. You dont have to say that shes 100% accurate, but you do have to look at how the media in general has covered one person who was in the spotlight, obviously in a Supreme Court hearing, and one person who is now the presumptive nominee for president, and that disparity is real. I hope she does an interview with someone who is tough but fair. I hope its on Fox.

DEADLINE: When do you think its fair game to raise with a presidential candidate.

BAIER: Well, if it was fair game with Brett Kavanaugh all of the things that flew against the wall in that time arguably Tara Reade has more dots connecting the past than when Christine Blasey Ford did at the time. So we covered both fairly. We did both sides on SpecialReport. We are going beyond, you know, to make sure that all sides are being heard. But the fact that Joe Biden has not been asked about it is kind of egregious.

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DEADLINE: The Trump campaign has been tweeting about her accusations, do you think that makes it fair game to ask the president about accusations against him, even on Sunday at this town hall?

BAIER: Sure, it opens the door to all kinds of things, once the Trump campaign opens the door to that. The president has been asked numerous times about his multiple allegations. Im not sure the town hall is going to be the place to go down those roads. This town hall is called America Together how we are trying to get together as a country to beat not only the health crisis but the economic crisis. Our focus really is going to be that, and ideally providing substantive information that helps people, and you know therell be other questions, therell be other topics. Im not sure thats going to be one of them.

DEADLINE: Fox News did extensive coverage of the protests of the stay-at-home orders on the news side and the opinion side. What about the criticism that this was excessive, especially since the network has its own social-distancing policies in place?

BAIER: On my show, we made sure to focus on the calls and the warnings from Tony Fauci and the CDC director about, if youre going to protest make sure theres social distancing. We also pointed out that there wasnt a lot of [that]. And we covered the side of concern about the businesses they see evaporating before their eyes and the concern about people in these various states. I think we handled it in my show, which Im really focused on, 6 to 7 [PM ET], the appropriate way.

DEADLINE: There was a Pew poll that said roughly eight of 10 of those whose main source Fox News said the media slightly or greatly exaggerated the risks of the pandemic. How do you account for the difference between how viewers of Fox viewed the pandemic versus other networks?

BAIER: I dont know. I dont go over the rundowns of the primetime shows. They dont go over mine. So I cant really speak to how from the beginning all of it was talked about. I do know that if you look back in time, the February-to-March timeframe, people like Tony Fauci were saying things like, Americans dont have a lot to worry about, or that largely people can go about their business. And I think some of that perspective is lost back in those days, in the early part of this pandemic. Clearly, the story changed. The story evolved. And the threat evolved before our eyes. The medical experts made their determinations and the administration made its about what policy were going to follow.

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DEADLINE: Do you have concerns that, working on the news side, you are mixed in with the same criticism that is aimed at the opinion hosts like Sean Hannity and some of the others in primetime.

BAIER: I have been at Fox for 23 years. There have always been people who paint with a broad brush, who lump in opinion and news together. I think our viewers know what theyre looking at. They know, just like a newspaper one side is an opinion page and one side is the news page. Each has a job to do. And each does it in a different way. I respect those folks, a lot, but my job is to have kind of blinders on from six to seven to make sure were as fair as we can be to all sides. Most people who look, who follow my wish that if they havent seen Fox to tune into my show and watch it three times, and then drop me an email, Facebook [message], or tweet, and tell me if you think it was fair. And most people who do that, come back and say it was.

DEADLINE: You have in the past said that Sean Hannity has called you and he asked how much trouble he causes the news side on a scale of 1 to 10, and you said a solid six. Has that changed?

BAIER: I was just on Seans show last week. Actually weeks ago and another time, we had broken the story about the U.S. intelligence community investigating the Wuhan lab and what happened with the virus in the very beginning. Today the [director of National Intelligence] confirmed our reporting [from] 11, 12 days ago. So I was on Seans show. Again he has a different job. He does his job as an opinion maker very well. I have a news job, and occasionally we intermix like that day. And weve talked back and forth about all of this, going forward.

DEADLINE: Hes been very upset over criticisms that he has received for how he has handled the coronavirus coverage. Do you think theyre unfair?

BAIER: Listen, I dont go over Seans rundown back in the day, and what he said exactly. I know what his defense is. And Ive heard it loudly. So Im gonna let him fight that battle for himself.

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DEADLINE: By going on his show, do you think that confuses the viewer ever because youre going on an opinion show yet you are on the news side?

BAIER: You know, we work for one company. And when the news side breaks a big story, and the opinion side says, Will you come on and talk about it? I think it behooves us to share the news that weve broken. Im not going on there as an opinion maker. Im bringing the facts that weve brought to the table, and both sides so I think its fine.

DEADLINE: This is a concern at other news organizations too. There was a study from the Committee to Protect Journalists that actually said that was one of the recommendations, that maybe news organizations should rethink having their news side personalities go on the opinion side.

BAIER: Unfortunately, its usually Fox thats the only one thats focused on. We get a lot of media spotlight, but thats okay. We also get the most viewers, so thats alright.

DEADLINE: Is there anything you would have done differently, since this crisis started, in the way that it was covered.

BAIER: I think some of the trusting now this comes from experts as well of the models that came out at the beginning. I think there were more questions to be had to medical experts at the beginning who were saying that 2 million people, or that one million plus, could die. Remember they all got scaled back. Those models drove policy decisions. We still have so much to learn about the coronavirus and how to treat it and what to do. Hopefully, were going to be better prepared the next time, and I know as a news organization, were going to be better prepared to ask the questions that everybody didnt see at the beginning.

DEADLINE: Personally, how have you handled this. What changes will you be doing in the next week or so?

BAIER: Im obviously antsy always. I love being up at the office. I havent been there. The home studio has worked out great. Fox jumped on this right away with being able to, technically, get all of its anchors up on the air, with really minimal disruption. I mean, kudos to the technical side to be able to do that. Theres a part of me that has really enjoyed being with my family every day. I prior to this had traveled nonstop, to town halls and election coverage. Now Im every day with my 12-year-old, my 9-year-old, my wife, my dog. Theres something nice about that. They probably want to throw me out, but its been its been kind of an interesting time. And its gonna be interesting to see how America gets back, including getting back to work every day.

DEADLINE: In so many of the briefings, Trump has attacked the media, do you think that that has an impact?

BAIER: It does have an impact. I mean, he tweets about the media as well. I dont think its great, just as a spectator of politics. He thinks that it stirs up his base. I will say that some of the questioning, sometimes, seems to have a personal tone to it, that is attacking. Not everybody. But sometimes, and it gives the president ammunition against press in general. And I think that journalists, all of us need to be careful to not go over our skis either way to enable that to happen. This president expresses criticism a lot more than any other, but every president says the media is against him, all the way back to FDR.

Read the rest here:

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The president-elect arrived in Washington under a cloud manufactured in Moscow and St Petersburg. Less than a month after Donald Trump took office, the national security adviser Michael Flynn was ousted for lying to the vice-president about a conversation with Russias ambassador. All that, however, was a prelude to the firing of the FBI director James Comey and years of resulting turmoil. The Kremlin had succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.

Under the subtitle The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare, Thomas Rid helps remind us how we reached this morass, one with antecedents reaching back to Czarist Russia and the Bolshevik revolution. To be sure, the US can use all the help it can get as it navigates the current election cycle and the lies, rumours and uncertainty that shroud the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rid was born in West Germany amid the cold war. The Berlin Wall fell when he was a teenager. He is now a professor at Johns Hopkins.

So what are active measures? Previously, Rid testified they were semi-covert or covert intelligence operations to shape an adversarys political decisions.

Almost always, he explained, active measures conceal or falsify the source.

The special counsels report framed them more narrowly as operations conducted by Russian security services aimed at influencing the course of international affairs. Add in technology and hacking, and an image of modern asymmetric warfare emerges.

Rid travels back to the early years of communist Russia, recounting the efforts of the government to discredit the remnants of the ancien rgime and squash attempts to restore the monarchy. The Cheka, the secret police, hatched a plot that involved forged correspondence, a fictitious organization, a fake counter-revolutionary council and a government-approved travelogue.

Words and narratives morphed into readily transportable munitions. The migr community was declawed and the multi-pronged combination deemed wildly successful. The project also served as an inspiration for future active measures. A template had been set.

Fast forward to the cold war and the aftermath of the US supreme courts landmark school desegregation case. The tension between reality and the text and aspirations of the Declaration of Independence was in the open again. Lunch-counter sit-ins and demands for the vote filled newspapers and TV screens. The fault lines were plainly visible and the Soviet Union pounced.

In 1960, the KGB embarked on a series of race-baiting disinformation operations that included mailing Ku Klux Klan leaflets to African and Asian delegations to the United Nations on the eve of a debate on colonialism. At the same time, Russian operators posed as an African American organization agitating against the KKK.

More than a half-century later, Russia ran an updated version of the play. Twitter came to host the fake accounts of both John Davis, ostensibly a gun-toting Texas Christian and family man, and @BlacktoLive, along with hundreds of others.

The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll factory, organized pro-Confederate flag rallies. As detailed by Robert Mueller, the IRA also claimed that the civil war was not about slavery and instead was all about money, a false trope that continues to gain resonance among Trump supporters and proponents of the liberate the states movement. According to Brian Westrate, treasurer of the Wisconsin Republican party, the Confederacy was more about states rights than slavery.

Depicting West Germany as Hitlers heir was another aim. At the time, some aging former Nazis still held positions of influence, Rid writes. In the late 1960s, encouraging anti-German tendencies in the West was very much a priority.

In 1964, with Russian assistance, Czech intelligence mounted Operation Neptun, sinking Nazi wartime documents to the bottom of the ominous sounding Black Lake, near the German border. The cache was then discovered media pandemonium ensued. Four years later the mastermind of the scheme, Ladislav Bittman, defected to the US.

Prior to 2016, Russias most notable active measure using the US as a foil was the lie that Aids was made in the USA. In retaliation for US reports of Soviet use of chemical weapons in Afghanistan, the KGB unfurled Operation Denver, a multi-platformed campaign that falsely claimed Aids was an American biological weapon developed at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Central to the effort was the earlier publication of an anonymous letter with a New York byline by an Indian newspaper. The forged missive claimed Aids may invade India: mystery disease caused by US lab experiments.

Rid writes that the letter was a masterfully executed disinformation operation, an amalgam of 20% forgery and 80% fact. The reality was that the Pentagon and the CIA had tested new types of biological weapons in densely populated areas of the US and Canada, and conducted research on disease and psychotropic drugs on an array of human guinea pigs.

The KGB doubled down and published a reworked version of the story in an English-language Soviet publication. At the same time and without any apparent nexus to the Soviet campaign, the Amsterdam News, a paper with a readership base in New Yorks African American community, opined that Aids was a likely result of US bacteria warfare. Once again, social mistrust helped weaponize a concocted narrative.

To be clear, Russian active measures did not tip the 2016 election to the Republicans. On that score, the FBI and Comey had a greater impact. Instead, the Russians caused the US to stare into a mirror, red and blue Americans each seeing what they expected.

Nor is an end in sight. According to the Senate intelligence committee, Russian disinformation efforts may be focused on gathering information and data points in support of an active measures campaign targeted at the 2020 US presidential election, with an emphasis upon gathering personal information from US-based audiences sympathetic to Russian disinformation topics.

America remains mired in a cold civil war. Active Measures is another book for such troubled times.

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Active Measures review: how Trump gave Russia its richest target yet - The Guardian