Monthly Archives: September 2021

Johnson wanted to ’embarrass’ Tory Cabinet members over drug use, Cummings claims – The National

Posted: September 2, 2021 at 2:23 pm

BORIS Johnson wanted to "embarrass"top Tories over their alleged drug use, Dominic Cummings has claimed.

The Prime Minister's former top aide claimed meetings he attended relating to drugs policy in Number 10 were like Brass Eye, Channel 4'ssatirical current affairs show which aired in1997.

Cummings went on to say that the Home Office was more concerned with "crackdowns"and "marketing campaigns"in relation to drugs policy.

The former Vote Leave chief made the comments above an article he shared regarding economics, the war on drugs and Afghanistan.

READ MORE:Nicola Sturgeon: SNP-Greens deal gives 'undeniable mandate' for indyref2

The article claims that the war on opium production failed and instead increased the strength of the Taliban.

It was based on an opinion piece by Jeffrey Clemens, an economist at the University of California in San Diego.

Cummings wrote: "Econ 101, opium, Taliban.

"(Few mtngs I ever had in No10 were more Brass Eye than listening to Home Office plans for 'crackdowns' and 'marketing campaigns' + BJ's desire to embarrass his Cabinet over their own drug use)"

It comes almost a month after Boris Johnson rejected pleasto allow safe drug consumption rooms in Scotland.

The Scottish Government, health experts and campaigners said that it would be a lifesaving facility, but Johnson instead vowed to take a hardline approach to criminal gangs.

Meanwhile, the article referenced by Cummings said that opium production did not decline in Afghanistan but underwent an "important shift"moving from areas underneath the Afghan government's control to provinces where they struggled to exert control.

Therefore, instead of poppy production being widespread across Afghanistan it became concentrated in areas where the government struggled to assert its authority.

READ MORE:Cambo oil field: UK Government 'misleading' public over powers

The article reads: "By the late 2000s, however, it had consolidated in areas dominated by the Taliban in the countrys southwest provinces, in particular in Helmand province, which regularly accounts for half of the land cultivated with opium poppies."

Former Tory party leader William Hague recently called on the UK to follow Portugal's lead and decriminalise drugs, tackling it as a health issue instead of a criminal one.

In 2020, drugs deaths in Scotland rose by 5% to a record 1339, the seventh year in a row the number of deaths has increased.

We previously told how Dominic Cummings spent three hours debating Brexit and Scottish independence with staff at an Ullapool hotel during a visit to the area in August.

Number 10 has been contacted for comment.

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Canadas drug crisis has killed at least 23,000. What has Justin Trudeau done about it? – Maclean’s

Posted: at 2:23 pm

More than 23,000 people have died in this country from drug overdose and drug poisoning in just the last five years.

Weve lost more people to this drug crisis than to COVID-19. Our life expectancy has stalled due to the scores of lives, particularly young ones, lost to the epidemic. Its likely 2021 will be the deadliest year on recordbeating last years record, which in turn beat 2018s record high, which surpassed 2017s horrifying death toll.

And its time we stop pretending Justin Trudeau is taking this crisis seriously. At every turn, his Liberal government has offered half-measures. Worse yet, they find themselves largely unchallenged on it. The indifference can only be explained by political expediency.

Canadas opposition leaders, to their credit, are at least rowing in the right direction.

On Tuesday, International Overdose Awareness Day, Trudeau was asked by reporter David Akin whether he would follow expert advice and take the first step of decriminalizing opioids for personal use and regulate the supply of the deadly drug.

In a roundabout answer the Liberal leader said: No.

Even if those policies would seem unthinkable just years ago, they are measures that experts say need to happen for every other harm reduction tactic to be fully efficient, to bring drug users out of the shadows and into society, and to end the costly and ineffective war on drugs.

But Trudeau has refused to go down that road. His former health minister and attorney general, Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould, advocated for decriminalization around the cabinet table and got a blunt response.

Decriminalization is not popular when you poll it, Philpott told me, after she and her colleague were pushed out of the Liberal Party caucus.

***

In order to understand an epidemic, you must be able to measure ita lesson weve learned all too well recently, glued to our computers and televisions awaiting updated COVID-19 data. But Canadas indifference to the opioid epidemic means we have a criminally incomplete picture of it.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada 21,174 people have died from opiods. That data, however, only stretches from January 2016 to December 2020: The agency wont release data from the first quarter of 2021 until the end of September. Manitoba still hasnt supplied its data from the last quarter of 2020. Quebec and British Columbia report non-opioid overdose deaths, but other provinces do not.

The Trudeau government promised repeatedly to improve national overdose reporting. It failed to do that. Health Minister Patty Hajdus talking points, posted online, even note that in order to have an effective response to the ever-changing crisis, a strong understanding and evidence-base is required to make informed and timely decisions. The talking points laud their own outdated, underreported, and inconsistent work.

The hardest-hit provinces are reporting this data, even if Ottawa wont deign to collect it. And the numbers show things are getting worse. Much worse.

British Columbia has reported that 1,011 people died between January and June of this year (a 33 per cent increase over last year.) Saskatchewan reported 221 deaths between January and August (already two-thirds of last years total deaths.) Ontario counted 638 deaths between January and March. (57 per cent higher than the same period last year.)

These numbers would be even more gruesome if not for the drug Naloxone, which is remarkably effective in reversing the effects of drug poisonings. Yet the United States is experiencing an acute shortage of the drug, and there are signs its coming to Canada: Harm reduction advocates in Winnipeg say they have received incomplete shipments in recent weeks. A lack of Naloxone could send deaths skyrocketing.

Even with Naloxone, there are tens of thousands more injuries and permanent disabilities that have come as a result of this endemic problem.

Its important to understand why these people are dying. For a long time, we exclusively referred to overdoses. But that word papers over a much more insidious reality of this crisis: Deaths rarely come from simply taking too much.

Its not an addiction problem, Donald MacPherson, director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, once told me. This is a supply-side problem.

I looked over MacPhersons shoulder, in his office at Simon Fraser University, as he showed me graphs charting heroin use and drug poisoning deaths in Vancouver. The drug use would stay relatively steady, but deaths would rocket up and downup in the 1990s, then back down; way up in 2015, and it hasnt come back down since.

Because there is no quality control, consistency in potency, or purity testing, its nearly impossible to guarantee that the drug a user uses one week is the same drug theyre using the next.

This governments strategy is actively making that problem worse, as it focuses on busts, arrests and prosecutions to disrupt a remarkably resilient supply chain.Police interdiction and supply chain busts means even ones long-time dealer may change their supply with little notice. Or when a dealer is taken off the street, a user in crisis may turn to someone new and less trustworthy.

The advent of fentanyl, and its hyper-potent cousin carfentanil, have driven scores of deaths. But increasingly potent methamphetamine and other synthetic opiates are increasingly driving poisonings.

Governments have talked endlessly about addressing addiction and ending users reliance on drugsbut no country, not even those which imprison drug users and publicly execute drug dealers, have found a solution to that problem.

Plenty of governments, including Trudeaus, have obsessed with clamping down on the supply of drugs, especially the more potent types. They have been complete and total failures. This government cant even restrict the ample supply of fentanyl and heroin in federal prisons, where they control everything that goes in-and-out of the institutions.

The consensus is mounting that the solution will not be ending demand, but ensuring a safe supply.

And behind that consensus is an unlikely coalition of medical experts, police officers, harm reduction experts and grassroots activists.

Together and separately, they have called for treating this crisis like a health issue, not a criminal one. Virtually every expert in this space has called for a serious expansion in the supply of safe, regulated drugs. Many have called for outright regulation, production and cultivation of some of these drugsperhaps emulating the legalization of cannabis, or in a more controlled, regulated manner.

They include:

Not on that list: Justin Trudeau.

***

Were treating it as a medical problem, Trudeau said on Tuesday.

But that isnt true.

In 2020, police in Canada laid more than 30,000 charges for drug possession (not including cannabis), a number that remained largely unchanged from 2019.

More than 4,000 people are in federal prison on drug offences alone.

To his credit, Trudeau has proposed removing all mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. But, to his detriment: That bill is not law, because it was killed when he triggered an early election nobody wanted.

We have moved forward significantly on measures around safe supply to fight the opioid epidemic, Trudeau said Tuesday. That, too, stretches the truth.

In his party platform, released Wednesday, Trudeau boasts spending $600 million to date on the drug poisoning crisis. (By contrast, the federal government budgeted about $160 billion on the COVID-19 pandemic over a year-and-a-half.) Little of that money, however, is targeted to the measures that are most effective.

Canada has only committed $50 million to safe supply projects in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. (With half the money going to Ontario.)

A set of talking points for the health minister even notes that some of the $600 million spent includes money for law enforcementnot exactly in keeping with a health focus.

Its indisputable that some of the measures Ottawa has fundedwhether they be to provide a regulated, controlled and tested supply of heroin or fentanyl; or to offer pharmaceutical analogueswork. Study after study have confirmed that they save lives, vastly reduce overdoses, and deny profit for criminal enterprise. As one study put it bluntly: The availability of a safer, unadulterated supply of opioids decreased [users] need to access the illicit drug market, significantly reducing their overdose risk.

But its becoming abundantly clear that these programs Ottawa is funding are running up against barriers that Ottawa itself refuses to bring down. Study after study has found that barriers, particularly criminalization, have limited the efficacy of these programs that Trudeau keeps touting.

A November 2020 review, commissioned by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (a government agency) found that restrictive laws and fear of discipline by professional bodies appear to limit access to safe supply. The health experts cited the immediate need to scale up these programs and rectify the barriers. The Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange reported recently that, when it comes to these safe supply programs, uptake has been limited across Canada.

British Columbia, which offers far-and-away the most support and services for drug users of any province or territory, estimates that some 50,000 drug users are not being reached by any of the current programming. Only about 3,300 people are on the kind of safe supply programs Trudeau keeps bragging about. Its a tragically small number, and yet it is far and away better than every other province.

B.Cs relative success has only been enabled because of a consensus from every authority involvedexcept Ottawato fully commit to the public health approach. The premier, mayor, and chief of police are all on the same page in rejecting the criminalization of drug possession.

Last year, Premier John Horgan and Mayor Kennedy Stewart called on Ottawa to issue a total exemption from the criminal prohibition on drugs for the city of Vancouver. To date, Ottawa has dragged its heels on the request.

Other cities are stepping up, too. Interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer told me earlier this summer that our officers do not lay simple possession charges. I provided that direction last fall, and were not doing that.

***

Capping off his self-congratulatory answer on Tuesday, Trudeau tried to score political points on his competitors.

I was pleased to see many other parties, including the Conservatives, talk about the opioid epidemic, but they wont go as far as safe supply and that is certainly something that we have invested in and will continue to stand for, Trudeau said.

Pointing fingers is a bold strategy from a Prime Minister on whose watch more than 30,000 have died.

Whats more, the Liberal platform offers no new course of action or strategy. It commits $500 million to the provinces and territories on treatment, and not much else.

And Trudeau is rightthe other party leaders have talked seriously about the epidemic. Erin OToole told reporters recently: People with addiction should not be the focus of the criminal justice system. People that are dealing and that are preying on people with addiction should be the focus. (Thats a far cry from 2019, when then-leader Andrew Scheer told me the focus of government should be getting people off dangerous and harmful narcotics, not on maintaining a life of addiction.)

While its true OToole hasnt committed to decriminalization, per se, nor a safe supply programwhich he should be rightfully vilified forhis platform does cement his position that the last thing that those suffering from addiction should have to worry about is being arrested.

Its worth noting the kilometers he has travelled, away from the Conservatives past policies of mass incarceration to fight drug use. He has dragged his party from doggedly regressive to modestly progressive, and deserves some credit for it.

Whats more, OToole would revise Canadas addictions and substance abuse strategies to reorient them to treatment and recovery and devote $325 million to expanding treatment capacity.

And its conspicuous who Trudeau doesnt mention, of course: Jagmeet Singh has endorsed drug decriminalization since first throwing his hat in the ring to lead the NDP.

I asked Singh recently what exactly differentiates his position from Trudeaus record. Hes been in power for six years, and this crisis has only gotten worse, Singh said. He called it a waste of resources to continue throwing criminal justice measures after drug users. The party confirmed to me that he would decriminalize drugs if elected, making him the only one of the three with a serious plan to avoid thousands of more deaths.

Green Party leader Annamie Paul, similarly, supports drug decriminalization. I do not understand the governments rationale for not immediately decriminalizing possession and working with the provinces to ensure a safe supply of drugs, and increased social and health supports for users, Paul said in a statement.

I do not understand either.

***

For the past year, Trudeau has bent over backwards to laud and celebrate public health experts. On the campaign trail, he has admonished his competitors for their supposed distrust of science and expert advice.

Yet, when it comes to Canadas other public health crisis, he constantly ignores and dismisses that advice: Stop arresting people for drug possession. Stop trying to use police and courts to end an epidemic. Find ways to vastly expand the access to a safe supply, in order to supplant more deadly or contaminated sources of these drugs. And find legal, regulatory, avenues to allow users to source and share safer drugs to reduce overdoses, poisonings and deaths.

Whenever he is asked about the crisiseach and every timehe offers an insulting platitude: There is no one silver bullet to counter the opioid epidemic. Yet to look at his record on the crisis: Justin Trudeau is talking about silver and offering us brass.

So lets stop pretending. Lets stop pretending that the status quo will result in anything but another 10,000 dead. Lets stop pretending that this government is proposing any new or serious solutions. Lets stop pretending that Trudeau and his Liberal Party would prioritize these people over their own electoral fortune. Lets stop pretending anything short of drastic action is necessary.

Lets stop pretending.

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Canadas drug crisis has killed at least 23,000. What has Justin Trudeau done about it? - Maclean's

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NASA Source: No Way Artemis Moon Mission Is Launching This Year – Futurism

Posted: at 2:23 pm

"Moving step by step, we are progressing toward launch while keeping our team as safe as possible."One Small Delay

NASAs Space-Launch System (SLS) rocket, which was supposed to launch the first Artemis Moon missions this year, now probably wont take flight until the middle of 2022.

Publicly, NASA is maintaining the expectation of a 2021 launch for the uncrewed Artemis Is trip around the Moon, but a source at the agency told Ars Technica that tests are so delayed that now the best-case scenario is a launch by spring but more realistically summer 2022.

Faced with those claims, a NASA spokesperson told Ars that yes, the SLS and its accompanying Orion spacecraft are delayed and that COVID-19 is to blame presenting yet another hiccup on the road to finally completing a rocket that was originally supposed to blast off back in 2016.

At the moment, NASA is completing vibration tests that are designed to make sure the SLS can hold together under the extreme conditions of a launch, and clue engineers in to any mid-flight adjustments that they may need to make. The agency hoped those tests would be done by July meaning everything that comes after has had to be pushed back.

The agency continues to monitor the rise of COVID cases in the Kennedy area, which combined with other factors such as weather and first-time operations, is impacting our schedule of operations, NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton told Ars. Moving step by step, we are progressing toward launch while keeping our team as safe as possible.

However, the SLS has already been delayed for years and surpassed budget expectations by billions of dollars. So while the pandemic has certainly thrown another wrench into the works, its not like things were progressing smoothly before the coronavirus struck. Regardless, Hambleton says that NASA should offer a revised schedule soon.

As always, we will fly only when we are ready, she told Ars Technica.

READ MORE: NASAs big rocket misses another deadline, now wont fly until 2022 [Ars Technica]

More on the SLS: We Interviewed the New Head of NASA About SpaceX, China, and Aliens

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Last Night’s Hurricane Devastation Shows That Climate Change Is Here – Futurism

Posted: at 2:23 pm

No more abstractions.Hitting Home

For many people in America, climate change has long been considered an abstract threat happening to polar bears and people elsewhere in the world.

But thats not the case. Climate change is a threat everywhere, as illustrated yet again by the horrific weather event on Wednesday night. Just look at the devastation of Hurricane Ida, which devastated New Orleans last weekend just to head northeast, causing rampant death and destruction in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania on Wednesday. As Western Carolina University geologist Robert Young wrote in a New York Times op-ed, the unusual destruction it caused is climate change manifested in our own back yards and the situation wont improve unless leaders take urgent steps to stop it.

Ultimately, we must also recognize that the coastal zone will be in ever-increasing peril until we tackle the changing climate in a meaningful way, Young wrote. All this resilience spending is just a Band-Aid, not a cure.

When it hit the NYC area, Hurricane Ida flooded streets, the subway system, and destroyed homes. Information is still coming in, but The New York Times reports that the storm killed at least 20 people in the northeast to say nothing of the still-rising death toll in Louisiana.

At one point, Central Park recorded 3.14 inches of rain in one hour. Newark Airport in New Jersey recorded 3.24. Such intense, record-breaking rainfall would normally be considered a once-in-500-years event, but as Axios notes, worsening environmental degradation will likely cause this caliber of storm to happen with increasing frequency.

Of course, what may have been a rude awakening for some is far from the first indicator that climate change is hitting the US. The Pacific Northwest has been on fire for months and droughts are plaguing a huge stretch of the country. Deadly floods are just another sign that were in trouble and that urgent, immediate action is necessary.

READ MORE: The Truth Is That You Cant Protect Everything From Every Hurricane [The New York Times]

More on Hurricane Ida: Todays Killer Hurricane Is Linked To Climate Change, Scientists Say

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‘They have better things to do’ Major Republican donors are staying away from Trump – CNBC

Posted: at 2:22 pm

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference announcing a class action lawsuit against big tech companies at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 07, 2021 in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Several of the Republican Party's biggest and most influential donors are signaling that they don't plan on helping fund former President Donald Trump's political operation, at least for the moment.

Wealthy financiers such as Stephen Ross and Larry Ellison have instead opted to spend money on the GOP's efforts to take back Congress during next year's midterm elections or have shown support for potential 2024 presidential candidates such as Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Donors are also concerned about how Trump's organization is spending the piles of money it has raised from smaller donations.

"Big money, sophisticated people are just losing interest in this s--- show," said an advisor to longtime Trump allies in Silicon Valley. Many donors are tired of seeing the former president use his resources on rallies during which he often makes false claims including that the election was stolen from him,this person said.

Trump has not ruled out running for president in 2024, and he has not made any official announcements. His political action committees have raised a great deal of money through email and text message appeals to supporters thatoften criticize President Joe Biden's performance,including, most recently, his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

TheTrump PACs had over $100 million on hand after the first half of 2021. CNBC has previously reported that his PACs spent nearly$8 million on legal feesandover $200,000on Trump's properties earlier this year.

"Donors don't contribute out of the goodness of their heart. And right now they're being asked to donate to an organization that has no other purpose than pumping cash into someone who doesn't need it and isn't using it," said a Republican strategist whorepresents financiers on Wall Street. "They have better things to do."

The donor consultants who spoke to CNBC declined to be identified in this story in order to avoid retribution from Trump and his supporters.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

The pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action super PAC, which raised over $1.5 million in July and August, is not without some wealthy donors, according to newFederal Election Commission filings. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who is an ardent spreader of false claims about the 2020 election, is among its donors, as are businesswoman and former GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Texas banking executive Andrew Beal and casino magnate Phillip Ruffin.

Read more of CNBC's politics coverage:

But bigger forces in Republican fundraising are instead focusing onHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and GOP leadership's efforts to retake the House and funding pro-GOP redistricting efforts such as the National Republican Redistricting Trust. Others are helping the reelection campaigns of potential 2024 presidential contenders such as Scott, Rubio and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Several people who previously backed Trump held a fundraiser recently for DeSantis' 2022 gubernatorial campaign in the upper-crust Hamptons on Long Island. Theinvitationto the July event shows that the co-hosts for the event included former Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, along with billionaire investors Stephen Ross, John Paulson and Ken Griffin.

Paulson was one of thefew Wall Street donors who backedTrump's 2020 bid for president during the final stretch of the campaign.

Stephen Ross, who is also the owner of the Miami Dolphins, came under fire in 2019 whenhe hosteda fundraiser in the Hamptons for Trump. Ross and other principals of Related Cos. are investors in the luxury fitness brand Equinox. SoulCycle and Equinoxdistancedthemselves from the Trump event as customers threatened to boycott.

Wilbur Ross and a representative for Paulson did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Stephen Ross declined to comment.

Neither Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison nor Oracle CEO Safra Catz have given large sums of money to Trump's PACs post the election. Both helped raise money for Trump's reelection campaign. Ellison's California home was the site of a Trump fundraising event last year. In June of this year, however, Ellison gave $5 million to a super PAC supporting Scott's reelection efforts in South Carolina.

A spokesman for Catz and Ellison did not respond to a request for comment.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, whose PACendorsed Trumpduring last year's election, is co-hosting a New York fundraiser for Rubio's 2022 reelection campaign in September, according to an invitation. The RJC's board of directors includes a slew of influential Republicans, including Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, former Trump advisor Jason Greenblatt and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Trump also might not be able to count on financial help from Miriam Adelson, a megadonor and the widow of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whodied earlier this year. The couple were among the few business leaders who supported Trump during the last election.They gave millions to a pro-Trump super PAC in the final months of the campaign.

Since her husband's death, Adelson has privately indicated to allies that for now she doesn't have any immediate plans to use much of her money in politics. That could change as the midterms approach. Records show that Adelson contributed $5,000 in June to the Stand for America PAC, a committee founded by potential 2024 contender and former Trump United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

A spokesman for Adelson's company, Las Vegas Sands, declined to comment.

Another key Trump and GOP financier is in legal hot water. Investor Tom Barrack was arrested on charges of illegally lobbying then-President Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Barrack has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Even if he weren't in trouble with the feds, Barrack had indicated that he might not have ended up supporting Trump, his longtime friend, for a 2024 run.

"Today it looks like it's a campaign of divisiveness, which I'm not interested in," Barrack told Bloomberg News before he was arrested.

A spokesman for Barrack did not respond to a request for comment.

Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah were big Trump supporters during the 2016 campaign, yet there's no indication they'll throw their backing to him in 2024. CNBC reported in 2018 that the Mercers were planning to scale back their financial support for Trump.

Records show that the Mercers have not written major checks to any of Trump's PACs after his presidency.

For the time being, they're backing a new face in GOPpolitics: "Hillbilly Elegy" author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance, who has adopted several Trump-style nationalist policy stances after having criticized the former president in the past.

Robert and Rebekah Mercer donated a combined $150,000 in March to a super PAC backing Vance's candidacy for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by retiring Republican Rob Portman.

Representatives for the Mercers did not respond to requests for comment.

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Opinion | The Trump News Show Is Over and Were All Healthier For It – POLITICO

Posted: at 2:22 pm

The causes behind the great media crash are self-evident. Last year was a campaign year, which always causes news consumption to spike. It was also the last year barring his reelection in 2024 of President Donald Trump. Trump was a one-man perpetual news machine, forever feeding reporters high-calorie, low-nutrition tidbits and serving dumpsters of coverable commotion, some of which was forgotten the day after it was reported. Remember when the White House promoted Melania Trumps jewelry line or when Kellyanne Conway hyped Ivanka Trumps clothing line? Sometimes he would uncork two or three mini-scandals a day. The press corps was sometimes unable to discern which of his threats were empty (Would he torch North Korea, inject the ill with bleach or stop the election count?) because so many of the threats turned out to be full (He did have reporters banned from the White House, he did back the murderous Saudis to the hilt, he did impose a Muslim travel ban, incarcerate children and declare the 2020 election fixed).

The saturation Trump coverage was justified journalistically a rogue and unpredictable chief executive is a very dangerous thing, and if he uses the Constitution as a kitchen towel youve got to call him on it. Preserving a record of Trumps transgressions was essential, so lets not quarrel with the volume of coverage. But in retrospect, once Trump had self-stereotyped himself as a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel and a crybaby, few of us had to read beyond the headline and first paragraph to get the message. We let the Trump Show become delicious breakaway entertainment, served in round-the-clock installments, like a bundle of your favorite Netflix serials. The more we read about Trump, the more we wanted to read about him, and the more we looked forward to the conveyor belt of books about Trump steered our way. We bolted down so much Trump news its a wonder readers and viewers livers didnt grow so enlarged you could make human foie gras from them.

Weve been indoctrinated since grade school to believe that partaking the news was essential to citizenship, democracy and our American way of life: Study the issues! Debate the issues! But nobody ever told us that a thing thats a nutrient at one dosage can become a poison when quintupled. During Trumpmania, billions of man-hours were needlessly burned reading and viewing Trump stories that could have better gone toward gardening, parenting, reading, hobbying, drinking, sexting and even sitting on the porch doing nothing. Each of us could have learned a foreign language or learned to play guitar instead of reading about him from day to night for four years. We really should have known better. Guy DeBord (Society of the Spectacle) and Daniel Boorstin (The Image) warned us in the 1960s that our appetite for mass spectacle would make us a target for political extremism if somebody appeared who knew how to use the media and exploit it. Trump appeared, he made for excellent copy and we all got hooked.

Having been towed to the depths by the news binge, we have only now surfaced to reorder our priorities. First, we must never forget the way we let Trumpmania upend our media diet and turn us all into fatted hogs. When Trump returns or the next Trump uses his attention-grabbing methods we should be prepared to resist his caterwauling. Somebody should create a browser add-in that would remind us when weve over-partaken of the news. CNN could add a product disclaimer to its programs noting that over-watching TV news can mess with your mind and that TV is only safe when taken as directed. I kid, but only a little. Like Facebook and YouTube, TV news narcotizes its clientele. Because we know the media cant and shouldnt show restraint in its coverage when it covers norm-flouting politicians, its up to us to know when to turn away.

If Trump deserves major blame for boosting viewership, Joe Biden should get some credit for relieving us of our 24/7 news duties. You dont have to be a Biden fan Im not to appreciate the way his conduct has reduced national political news from the totality of existence to something more like a companion. If anything, Biden has downplayed his role in the national drama to levels just below perception. Had we not bolted from Afghanistan, how much would we be reading about him? Sometimes I Google the name of the president of the United States to remind me who occupies the White House.

Ask anybody who has successfully lost weight, and theyll tell you the first task is portion control. To push the metaphor, go ahead and fill your plate with all the news you like, but use a nine-inch plate from the 1950s instead of a modern 13-inch platter. And as you read, consult your sense of satiety and act accordingly.

******

One reason for the decline the New York Times uniques is the newspaper ended its distribution deal with Apple News in June 2020. But its decline is still consistent with other outlets. Juice my email numbers with messages to [emailprotected]. My email alerts have a weight problem. My Twitter feed never turns its TV off. My RSS feed cant read.

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Senator Ron Johnson recorded saying Donald Trump lost Wisconsin – The Independent

Posted: at 2:22 pm

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, one of Donald Trump's most loyal allies in Congress, was caught on video blaming the former president for his election defeat in 2020.

Mr Johnson made the comments to a liberal activist pretending to be a conservative while she questioned him during an event in Milwaukee. The woman pretended to buy into Mr Trump's election conspiracy theories, and suggested that voter fraud was the reason the former president lost in Wisconsin.

Mr Johnson tells the woman that he disagreed, noting that there was "nothing obviously skewed about the results.

If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he would have won. He didnt get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and thats why he lost, Mr Johnson said.

Mr Johnson was asked about the incident by The Washington Post. He defended his comments, saying they were in line with his other public statements, but complained that a "Democrat political operative" recorded him without his knowledge.

Ever since the Electoral College met, I acknowledged that former vice president Joe Biden was the president-elect and repeatedly said I could not envision any scenario where any Biden electors would be rejected, he said.

He noted that in the past he acknowledged that we should respect our system of individual state certification of election results, and that in Wisconsin, there is nothing obviously wrong with the statewide results.

Despite his comments, the senator still backs an election audit in Wisconsin similar to the much-maligned audit in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Joe Biden defeated Mr Trump in the 2020 election by 21,000 votes, and despite numerous challenges and recounts, no evidence has ever emerged to suggest voter fraud occurred.

There were many irregularities that have yet to be fully explained, fully investigated, and solutions passed to restore confidence in future elections, Mr Johnson said. Ive investigated many of the irregularities, explained some, and have not gotten answers on many.

While previous calls for election audits have focused on conspiracy-driven concerns over the legitimacy of voting machines, Mr Johnson said "the last thing I'd focus on would be the machines," admitting that Republicans were "too concentrated on the machines.

Wisconsin's legislature recently approved diverting up to $680,000 in public funds to conduct an audit of the state's election results.

Much like the Maricopa County audit, Wisconsin's audit will be led by an avid Trump supporter who repeated the former president's election conspiracy theories, former state Supreme Court Justice Michale Gableman.

Wisconsin's Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said the audit was a "continued attack on our democracy," calling it "outrageous.

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Former US President Donald Trump Says Cryptocurrency is a Disaster Waiting to Happen – Gadgets 360

Posted: at 2:22 pm

Former USPresident Donald Trump is not a big fan of cryptocurrency. Trump has been vocal about his dislike for digital currency several times. On Tuesday, he told FoxBusiness that investing in crypto could be potentially a disaster waiting to happen. In an exclusive interview on the show Varney & Co., Trump was asked by host Stuart Varney, Do you have a dabble in Bitcoin or cryptos? Trump noted that he does not invest in Bitcoin or other digital currencies. I like the currency of the United States, he said.

Trump did not budge from his point and added, I feel that it (cryptocurrency) hurts the United States currency. Instead of supporting the digital currency, Trump kept his faith in the US dollar. He said, I think we should be invested in our currency.

His attack continued when he said that cryptocurrencies may be fake. He added, Who knows what they are? But they certainly are something that people don't know very much about.

Even earlier, Trump had expressed his dislike for towards cryptocurrency. Once, he had called it a scam and alleged that it was taking the edge off of the dollar and the importance of the dollar.

Trump's statements come at a time when cryptocurrency still remains unregulated under US legislation. However, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler looks like he's in favour of cryptocurrencies. He believes that the field is not going to reach any of its potential if it tries to stay outside of our laws.

Gensler also called cryptocurrency innovative technologies while also being aware of the risks in the industry.

Over the years, cryptocurrencies have had mixed responses from people. While they have received a lot of support from the likes of Elon Musk, there have been others like Trump who have slammed the digital assets. A few days ago, billionaire John Paulson had called cryptocurrencies a worthless bubble. He said that no matter where cryptocurrencies are trading now, eventually they will go to zero, once the exuberance wears off.

However, on the other hand, looks like defending US Open champion Naomi Osaka, has taken a keen interest in Dogecoin, which was spurred by all the noise around the meme-based cryptocurrency. In an interview a few days ago, Osaka said that she's even had discussions with her agent about cryptocurrencies and that she had read about Dogecoin as well. Dogecoin price in India was around Rs. 23 at7pm on September 2.

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Former US President Donald Trump Says Cryptocurrency is a Disaster Waiting to Happen - Gadgets 360

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Kanye West reportedly invited Donald Trump to Chicago Donda event – REVOLT TV

Posted: at 2:22 pm

Kanye West invited several celebrities to appear onstage at his Chicago Donda event, but there was one more person he reportedly wanted to attend. According to Radar Online, the 44-year-old rapper reached out to Donald Trump in hopes that the former president would join him onstage at the Soldier Field stadium.

Kanye reached out to Donald Trumps team to get the former president to make an appearance alongside him and join DaBaby, Marilyn Manson and Kim Kardashian in Chicago, a source reportedly told the outlet.

Getting a former president to help sell his new album would have been huge for Kanye, who was a big supporter of Donald Trump, the source added. ... Kanye loves to press buttons. Expect a lot more press stunts over the next few days.

After three listening events, Donda arrived without warning on streaming services on Sunday (Aug. 29). On Instagram, Kanye claimed the record was released by Universal Music Group without his permission. So far, the music company has not responded to Yes claims.

Donda also arrived on streaming platforms in a few different versions. Initially, the album was missing Jail pt 2, Kanyes collaboration with DaBaby. Furthermore, the Chris Brown-featuring track New Again was later replaced with a version that only hears Kanye and the Sunday Service Choir.

Aside from inviting him to the Donda event, Kanyes connection to Trump also returned to headlines this week in regard to Chrisette Michele. As reported by REVOLT, the singer posted about being canceled after performing at Trumps inauguration while Kanye, who openly supported Trump, continued to see commercial success.

Being compared to Kanye & Travis [Greene] for the last [five] years. Watching them soar into the highest realms of stardom. Waiting on Gods hand to show me exactly what my story will look like, she wrote online. Ive made a choice to stay full of gratitude and master peace, but today, this post has inspired me to allow the energy of comparison to enter my feed.

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Kanye West reportedly invited Donald Trump to Chicago Donda event - REVOLT TV

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Be Glad Donald Trump Isn’t Running the Show in Afghanistan – The New Republic

Posted: at 2:22 pm

As ever, Trump oscillates back and forth between the fantasy world of his mind where the Taliban quaked in such fear of him that they never would have done such a thing and the real world where he acknowledges the premise of Hewitts softball question. But the point is this: Based on what he said in that interview, hed have escalated matters and, at that moment, blown up the whole deal.

Trumps instinct against imperialist adventure was one of the few decent and humane notions the man entertained. But that decent instinct was forever at war within his tortured soul with his insatiable macho instinct to dominate and destroy. On the one hand, he wanted to negotiate with people like the Talibans Abdul Baradar and North Koreas Kim Jong Un to prove to the world that he was a master negotiator. On the other, he thinks theyre all shithole people hed like to destroy, as he did ISISs Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and Irans Gen. Qassem Soleimani. I have no objection to those two assassinations, but I also dont think they were the biggest thing to happen in the Middle East in 100 years, as he bragged to Hewitt.

Biden, after a rocky first week, has looked steadier on Afghanistan in recent days. His remarks after the 13 deaths of U.S. Marines were appropriate, and nobody doubts that Joe Biden, who has spent the past 20 years showing up without the media paying attention to the Dover, Delaware, air base to which military corpses are often returned, and who ends every speech with God bless our troops, cares about our soldiers.

Well see what the fateful next couple days bring. We cant know what will happen. But Ill say this much. Theres no doubt in my mind which president Id rather see in the White House. A megalomaniac whose first thought is his own personal glory, or a man who sees himself as an actual public servant whose first thought is the families of Americans in harms way. Its a pretty obvious choice.

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Be Glad Donald Trump Isn't Running the Show in Afghanistan - The New Republic

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