trump11bak
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/20/20</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">new tag in his honor: authrn
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">evil in 10, new derg tag in his dis-honor</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">bak 820</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 820</font></div><div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">m<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/medical-experts-speak-out-as-trump-repeats-false-claim-that-children-are-virtually-immune-to-19/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;">edical experts speak out as Trump repeats false claim that children are ‘virtually immune’ to COVID-19</a></font></h2><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jake-johnson/" title="Posts by Jake Johnson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jake Johnson</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">August 6, 2020</span></font></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Medical professionals were compelled to speak out Wednesday after President Donald Trump defended and doubled down on his claim that children are “virtually immune” to Covid-19, a dangerous falsehood the…</font></p></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 820</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/resource/intentional-disregard-trumps-authoritarianism-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/#" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">new report</a> published Wednesday details months of wilful failures to confront the coronavirus pandemic by the White House and paints President Donald Trump’s authoritarian tactics during that national crisis as an overt assault on the nation’s democratic institutions ahead of elections in November.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report by Common Cause—titled <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/COVIDReport_WEB3.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Intentional Disregard: Trump’s Authoritarianism During the Covid-19 Pandemic,”</a> (pdf)—highlights Trump’s coronavirus response as part of a larger effort by the president to attack U.S. democracy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As evidence to support its thesis, Common Cause points to the president’s repeated claim that mail-in voting—<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/05/voting-by-mail-elections-poll-391318" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">favored by 58% of Americans </a>according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday—will result in a “rigged” election. The report also shows how the administration is actively undermining the U.S. Postal Service by naming a top GOP donor with no USPS experience as postmaster general.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Trump administration’s failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented public health crisis leading to a worsening economic crisis. What is becoming clearer each day is President Trump’s intent to use this chaos to create a crisis for our democracy,” <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/08/05/new-report-focuses-trump-administrations-intentional-disregard-throughout-its" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">said</a> Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn....</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">dirty tricks gerry</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/the-dirty-republican-plan-to-cut-the-census-short-is-potentially-illegal/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/the-dirty-republican-plan-to-cut-the-census-short-is-potentially-illegal/</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-s-on-the-postal-service-are-hurting-democracy-and-thats-the-point/https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-s-on-the-postal-service-are-hurting-democracy-and-thats-the-point/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trumps-s-on-the-postal-service-are-hurting-democracy-and-thats-the-point/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">calabrisi</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-supporter-and-co-founder-of-the-federalist-society-says-the-presidents-latest-tweet-is-grounds-for-impeachment"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-supporter-and-co-founder-of-the-federalist-society-says-the-presidents-latest-tweet-is-grounds-for-impeachment</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-conservative-legal-establishment-lays-down-a-red-line-for-donald-trump/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-conservative-legal-establishment-lays-down-a-red-line-for-donald-trump/</font></a></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">dn 720 dog whistle to suburbs // lindsey g pix?</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243);"><li class="hidden-xs" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/30/headlines/trump_accused_of_blatant_racism_after_trumpeting_end_of_fair_housing_rule" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump Accused of “Blatant Racism” After Trumpeting End of Fair Housing Rule</font></a></li><li class="hidden-xs" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/30/headlines/police_raid_camp_for_unhoused_residents_of_denver_displacing_200" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Police Raid Camp for Unhoused Residents of Denver, Displacing 20</font></a></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hmmn, could this affect 2020 election? </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/29/headlines/teachers_union_prepared_to_strike_if_schools_arent_made_safe_from_coronavirus" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" text-align="text-align" center="center" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;">Teachers’ Union Prepared to Strike If Schools Aren’t Made Safe from Coronaviru</a>s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dn 720</font></div><div><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></p></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 720 kos good fail</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even in states long associated with coal production, the plants are closing. <b>At what was once the largest coal powered generating plant in the world, Paradise</b> Steam Plant in western Kentucky, the last of three huge turbines has made the switch to natural gas. That switch means that Paradise will still produce greenhouse gases, but it will no longer generate millions of tons of coal ash for the surrounding communities, or throw out a plume of both mercury and uranium that reaches a thousand miles to the sea.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The declining cost of renewables also means that what coal companies once viewed as the industry’s savior—exported coal—is also in decline. Coal exports were actually down 29% in the first five months of 2020. Companies have actually dropped several of the efforts to build export facilities as overseas markets evaporate even faster than those in the United States.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The industry crash also means that the efforts to save coal through “next generation” plants has completely crumbled. It’s been almost three years since what was <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">supposed to be the nation’s first “clean coal” plant announced that it would not burn coal at all, ending a $6 billion experiment in failure</span></b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> And on Tuesday, the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">only remaining commercial scale clean coal project in the United States was cancelled.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> As Oilprice.com reports, Petra Nova, which was supposed to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant near Houston, has been “mothballed.” There is another project out there—North Dakota’s “Project Tundra”—but it exists only on paper and is unlikely to ever move forward.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As with many industries, coal mining employment has fallen sharply during the pandemic, but even before COVID-19 made the news, mining jobs were already in a steep decline.</b></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/axios-reporter-reveals-most-shocking-revelations-trump-made-in-interview-about-russian-bounties/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/axios-reporter-reveals-most-shocking-revelations-trump-made-in-interview-about-russian-bounties/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha doh trump does what about both siderism all the time on issues he wants to duck? eg russian activ meas, we do it too</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Travis Gettys / Raw Story July 29, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump admitted he never confronted Russia’s president Vladimir Putin about bounties on U.S. troops, but the reporter who interviewed him said that wasn’t even the “most shocking” revelation he made.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Axios reporter Jonathan Swan interviewed the president about the bounties allegedly placed on U.S troops in Afghanistan and his recent call with Putin, but he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” what shocked him the most about their conversation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In some ways, the most shocking part of that clip is actually not the first part where he admits for the first time on the record that he hasn’t raised the issue of the bounties with Vladimir Putin,” Swan said. “That’s the least shocking part of that call, because actually, frankly, you know, you could have a debate within policy circles about whether it’s the appropriate thing.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I mean, that there are dissenting opinions within the intelligence community about this intelligence,” he added. “It certainly is serious intelligence, being taken seriously by the allies, and there is a very good argument for why the president should raise it with Putin.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that wasn’t the most surprising revelation Trump made, Swan said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The second question is actually more important, which is, fine, you don’t believe this intelligence, or you’re skeptical of it,” Swan said. “Let’s try and take the most good-faith interpretation of it. But you know that Russia has been supplying weapons and money to the Taliban because the man who ran your forces in Afghanistan, John Nicholson, under your administration, said this on the record when he worked for you, and for him to say then, well, I didn’t — I don’t know if I’ve heard about this, never reached my desk, and by the way, we gave them weapons, too.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I mean, like in a different era,” he added. “I just — honestly, it was one of the most shocking — I’ve covered president Trump for five years. I think it’s one of the most shocking exchanges I’ve ever had with him.”</b></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">hmmn, it's been bad in red states fr a while (but not mdwest?)</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-was-content-to-let-people-suffer-from-covid-19-in-blue-states-until-infections-soared-among-our-people-in-republican-states-report/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-was-content-to-let-people-suffer-from-covid-19-in-blue-states-until-infections-soared-among-our-people-in-republican-states-report/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">proof of effect?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/how-the-so-called-champion-of-american-business-fought-to-protect-profiteering-and-endangered-millions"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/how-the-so-called-champion-of-american-business-fought-to-protect-profiteering-and-endangered-millions</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As hospital intensive care units overflow again, and delays in COVID-19 testing reports reach record levels in many cities, a conversation I recently with Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, reminded me that I had forgotten something utterly critical: </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally disarm America in the face of the coronavirus invasion was urged upon him by an ostensible defender of American business: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the pandemic reached America, we weren’t ready — any more than we were ready when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. But Trump had the tools to do what the U.S. has often done: make up for lack of preparedness. The crucial gaps to fill in March were supplies for testing to limit the spread of the virus, and medical equipment to treat those who got sick — testing kits, swabs, reagents, masks, gowns and gloves — by the billions. Government health agencies estimated that if the pandemic took hold, the country would need, for example, 3.5 billion N95 medical masks. We had 12 million.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Presidents have available, and have routinely used, the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to overcome such critical supply shortages </b>— not just in wartime, but also to ensure adequate relief supplies after natural disasters. DPA can be used to put emergency purchases at the head of a supply chain, but also to require factories to convert their output to provide needed equipment in adequate volumes. Members of Congress urged Trump to appoint a military official as DPA czar to coordinate production and distribution of essential pandemic-related medical supplies, as was done in the Korean War.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In March, Trump was leaning towards robust use of the DPA, fashioning himself as a wartime president and the battle against the coronavirus as America’s “big war.” He invoked the DPA to require General Motors to speed up its production of ventilators. But he quickly discovered that he had an enemy within — not the virus as such, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Within days of Trump’s announcement that he would mobilize as if for war and use the DPA, the Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying army swung into action. Among the Chamber’s arguments: DPA would impose “red tape on companies precisely when they need flexibility to deal with closed borders and shuttered factories.” Unstated: if the government took charge of the supply chain for tests, masks and gowns, it could also prevent bidding wars from competing hospitals and states that would, and did, drive prices — and profits — through the roof.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In response, labor unions representing nurses, hospital staff and other frontline workers who were unable to be tested, or to obtain masks or gowns, protested and urged the Chamber to join a national mobilization</b> to defeat the coronavirus. The appeal was not answered. On March 23, <b>Markey and his Massachusetts colleague, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, wrote to the Chamber demanding an explanation. The Chamber’s response: Defense Production Act reliance was unnecessary, because “American companies will do whatever it takes to support America’s response to the pandemic and shore up the economy.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But what the workers had feared — insufficient production, soaring prices and profits, chaotic delivery mechanisms — took over the health care market during the first wave of virus spikes in the Northeast. Some hospitals were paying 15 times the usual price for masks.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Chamber continued its strenuous opposition to enabling the government to ensure an adequate supply of tests and PPE. Even Trump conceded that profiteering had taken over the market, and ultimately he did invoke the DPA to prevent it — but when it came to the export market.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supplies increased, but often at exorbitant prices. Only when the shutdowns of most of the American economy brought the number of hospitalizations down sharply did supply and demand come into temporary balance. Americans believed that if there was a second wave later in the year, at least health care workers on the front lines would have the tools they needed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump, denied by Chamber opposition of an easy pathway to acting like a heroic wartime president, seemingly lost interest. By June his focus had shifted from fighting the virus to reopening the economy and then reigniting the culture wars. Media headlines proclaiming his lack of interest didn’t even provoke “fake news” tweets from the East Wing of the White House.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The virus had a longer attention span. With major states like Florida, Texas and Arizona opening rapidly and prematurely, the holes in the jerry-built testing, tracing and quarantine systems each state had fashioned without federal guidance gave the virus its chance.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cases — although not, initially, fatalities — began to soar. Suddenly, what any nationally coordinated effort would have been tracking and resolving all along — that the nation had stepped up production of tests, masks and gowns to meet the needs of an economy in shutdown, but had nowhere near the level of supplies for a massive second wave — came home to roost. By early July, new cases were flooding the hospital capacity of even some of the nation’s major health care centers, such as Houston.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In New Orleans, testing centers had to close eight minutes after they opened. In 100-degree heat in Phoenix, lines at testing centers were eight hours long. San Antonio and Austin were forced to limit testing to those with symptoms, leaving the system utterly unable to detect asymptomatic cases, when research suggests that to 40% of infections take place. Wait times for test results soared with caseloads, so that even those who got tested might not find out they were positive until they were well past the contagious stage.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nurses were again forced to use one N95 mask for weeks at a time.</b> Prices for what was actually available soared. States reported they could only fulfill 10% of their orders. Even now, in July, the U.S. has nothing like the 3.5 billion N95 masks that we knew in January we would need. Indeed, how could we? No manufacturer could have guessed in March how severe the crisis would be by fall. With no one managing the system, it was clearly foolish for any private company to produce, on speculation, several billion masks. Market signals cannot prepare America for the massive increase in possible scale required by such a pandemic. Nor can individual cities and states trigger the necessary ramp-up of supplies. Only a systematic national plan designed to ensure that we were ready for the worst-case scenario could have protected us.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Inevitably, the “market solutions” favored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have failed America not once but twice. In failing, they have taken the nation’s economy over the precipice into a deep, long, economic decline. That the loudest voice claiming to represent U.S. business chose to defend profiteering, embrace short-term thinking and risk the collapse of the American health care system and economy is both shameful and shocking.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And that most Americans, including me, had already forgotten this is scary. This is not the first time the Chamber has successfully pursued policies that put us enormously at risk — for years it has been one of the major forces preventing Washington from adopting even the most modest efforts to accelerate a transition off fossil fuels to save lives and protect the climate. But if the Chamber can get away once again with having caused massive economic damage while risking the health of millions, and with its public reputation unscathed, it’s unlikely to change its behavior.</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-white-house-is-trying-to-throw-republican-governors-under-the-bus-by-rewriting-history"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-white-house-is-trying-to-throw-republican-governors-under-the-bus-by-rewriting-history</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">wtf? someone alluded to Chines active measures could rival ussr? i thot trade war was over; they PO'd on kung flu and Honk Kong?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/houstons-chinese-consulate-abruptly-ordered-to-close-by-trump-administration/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/houstons-chinese-consulate-abruptly-ordered-to-close-by-trump-administration/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><article style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="byline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span class="byline--item" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Anna Fifield, The Washington Post</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“<a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/22/houston-chinese-consulate-close-donald-trump/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Houston’s Chinese Consulate abruptly ordered to close by Trump administration</a></b>” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.</font></p><div class="content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="c-story-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CHANGSHA, China — The United States has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday, an abrupt move that opens up a new front in a battle for supremacy between the world’s two biggest economies.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Beijing immediately vowed to retaliate for the “unprecedented escalation,” leading to speculation it could order the closure of the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan, which has been shuttered since the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">coronavirus</a> epidemic spread across the city in January.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The confrontation in the diplomatic sphere widens a conflict that already incorporated trade and technology, freedom of the press and religion, students and scientists, as well as the novel coronavirus and the race for a vaccine.</b></font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Analysts on both sides say that bilateral relations are at their worst since before 1979, when the United States formally recognized the People’s Republic of China.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“At this rate, I wouldn’t even be surprised if Trump decides to sever diplomatic relations with China someday,” said Chu Shulong, a professor in American politics and diplomacy at Tsinghua University, suggesting that this was part of President Trump’s reelection strategy.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Trump has no limits, no principles and no morals, and that’s why he can stoop so low and yet few bother to raise an eyebrow,” Chu said.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump administration decided to order the closure of China’s Consulate in Houston, which was opened in 1979 and is situated in an area with a large Chinese community, “in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans’ private information,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The United States will not tolerate the PRC’s violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC’s unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs and other egregious behavior,</b>” she said, using the abbreviation for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The State Department did not elaborate on the alleged infractions, but Ortagus suggested that China had violated the Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic relations between states. Under the convention, diplomats must “respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State” and “<b>have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.”</b></font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Copenhagen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when asked by a journalist about the order to close the Houston consulate, cited the reporter’s question that noted the United States had “long complained” about alleged Chinese intellectual property theft.</b></font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Your point that this has been going on for a long time makes our point,” Pompeo told the journalist. “President Trump has said ‘enough.’ We’re not going to allow this.”</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first sign of the American order came when Houston <a title="twitter.com" href="https://twitter.com/KPRC2Tulsi/status/1285787738243989504?s=20" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">NBC affiliate KPRC2 </a>aired video showing people in the courtyard of the consulate apparently burning documents after 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Police and fire officials went to the scene in response to calls from neighbors but, in accordance with diplomatic rules, did not enter the building, the television station reported.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Witnesses in nearby apartment buildings told police that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, a police official told the <a title="www.houstonchronicle.com" href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Paper-being-burned-at-Consulate-General-of-China-15424795.php" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Houston Chronicle</a>. The consulate staff had been told they would be evicted from the building at 4 p.m. Friday, the paper quoted the unnamed official as saying.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry responded angrily to the order. The U.S. government “abruptly informed” China on Tuesday that it had to immediately close its consulate in Houston, Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters Wednesday.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions and staff working in China. So if the U.S. is bent on going down this wrong path, we will resolutely respond,” Wang said.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Analysts expect the Chinese government to respond by ordering one of them closed. Beijing was particularly incensed that the United States evacuated its consulate in Wuhan in January, as the virus began spreading rapidly across the city.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It has still not reopened, and the embassy and other consulates are operating with skeleton staffs, according to American officials.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hu Xijin, the firebrand editor of the Communist Party-affiliated Global Times newspaper who often shares information on Twitter that has not been officially announced, revealed the 72-hour time frame</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is a crazy move,” he wrote.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a title="twitter.com" href="https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1285849456613617664?s=21" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Global Times started polls</a> on Twitter and its Chinese equivalent, Weibo, asking: “Which US consulate general in China is most likely to be closed?” It gave four options: “Hong Kong and Macao, Guangzhou, Chengdu or other.”</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The order came amid American attacks on China’s political system, its harassment of Chinese diplomats and its intimidation of Chinese students, Wang said.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He said the consulate had been getting prank phone calls and even received a bomb threat on Monday. He added that U.S. authorities have opened China’s diplomatic pouches and searched Chinese diplomats’ property.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States and China have been locked in a tit-for-tat battle for supremacy that began at the start of the Trump administration, centered on trade and technology. Both sides have expelled journalists this year and have been slapping sanctions on each other’s officials.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the hostilities have become much more serious with Trump’s efforts to blame the Chinese government for the coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan at the end of last year and <a title="www.washingtonpost.com" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-administration-imposes-new-restrictions-on-chinese-state-propaganda-outlets/2020/06/22/2b53006c-b4b5-11ea-9b0f-c797548c1154_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_42" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">retaliatory actions over journalists</a> in the two countries.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>U.S. officials on Tuesday <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-china-covid-19-vaccine-research/2020/07/21/8b6ca0c0-cb58-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_44" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">accused China of sponsoring criminal hackers,</a> including two former engineering students, who were targeting biotech firms around the world working on coronavirus vaccines and treatments.</b></font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday renewed its travel warning for Chinese students in the United States, advising them to be aware of arbitrary interrogations, the confiscation of personal belongings and possible detentions.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wang Yong, a professor of international studies at Peking University, said certain people in Washington seem hellbent on promoting a cold war between China and the United States and the complete decoupling of the two countries, not just in the economic arena but across the board.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think they have political considerations, mainly around the election,” Wang said. “They are taking such a tough approach, demonizing and turning hostile to China, making China an enemy, to mobilize people domestically and reverse the unfavorable situation of President Trump in the election.”</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This would lead to international instability, he said. “In the end, it will harm U.S. interests and harm China. It won’t benefit the United States.”</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chu, the Tsinghua professor, agreed that there was potential for further tension.</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“China could always evict a U.S. Consulate in retaliation, and that could go on and on,” he said. “If the eviction stays a largely technical move, then the two governments should be able to reach a compromise in the next few months; but if it turns out to be strategic, then this risks escalating into Cold War 2.0.”</font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Many analysts in China view Trump’s campaign against the country as part of an effort to boost his chances of winning second term.</b></font></p><p class="t-align-left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“China is an easy target, and a ‘big bad guy’ that Trump is all too eager to open fire on in order to win conservatives over in his reelection campaign,” Chu said.</font></p></div></div></article><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Texas Tribune</a> at <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/22/houston-chinese-consulate-close-donald-trump/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/22/houston-chinese-consulate-close-donald-trump/</a>.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">capital gains cut</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/nytimes-investigation-finds-trump-administration-was-desperate-to-shift-blame-for-a-crisis-of-its-own-creation/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/nytimes-investigation-finds-trump-administration-was-desperate-to-shift-blame-for-a-crisis-of-its-own-creation/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Conducting over two dozen interviews with senior administration and public health officials, and consulting a cache of previously unavailable documents, the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/world/coronavirus-news.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage#link-42f4ecc1" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</em></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> has uncovered what now seems obvious to everyone except perhaps Trump’s dwindling and ignorant base of supporters: the Trump administration deliberately sought to shift blame for its botched handling of the Covid-19 pandemic to the states, in what the </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Times</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> authors aptly characterize as a “catastrophic policy blunder” and “one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in generations.”...</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">2009 climategate Copenhagen:</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After three weeks of relentless Climategate coverage, the <b>UN climate conference in Copenhagen, which was intended to lay the groundwork for an international agreement to slash emissions, began. It was supposed to be an inflection point,</b> in which the world would move past debating long-settled science and take serious steps to solve the problem. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In the lead-up to the talks, <b>even Trump signed on to a full-page ad in the Times calling on President Barack Obama and other leaders to take bold action to combat climate change</b>. Instead, the negotiations broke down—a diplomatic failure that set climate action back years.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Julian Gregory, the Norfolk, England, detective in charge of investigating the hack, the timing was obvious. The Climategate emails “were selectively taken and portrayed in a way…intended to undermine the scientists and therefore the validity of their science,” he later told Climatewire, <b>after a second batch of stolen emails was released shortly before another round of climate talks. “The conclusion you are led to is that it was done with the intention of influencing the outcome of those conferences.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The hack probably wasn’t the primary reason the Copenhagen talks collapsed. Even before the emails surfaced, there were warning signs that diplomats could be headed for an impasse. Former US officials who participated say they don’t remember Climategate coming up during negotiations. Instead, the Obama administration and other governments simply hadn’t done enough to bridge the divides between the United States, China, and the developing world.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But the scandal provided a convenient talking point for those seeking to block climate action</b>. Days before the conference began, Mohammad al-Sabban, the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> lead negotiator from oil-rich <b>Saudi Arabia</b>, told the BBC that the emails would have a “huge impact” on the talks. “It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change,” he said. <b>James Inhofe,</b> the Senate’s leading climate denier, traveled to Copenhagen, where he told throngs of reporters that Climategate was proof of what he’d been saying all along: Global warming was a hoax.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The most obvious fallout was in the United States, where the emails played an outsize role in the media’s coverage of climate change. According to a study by Matthew Nisbet, then a professor at American University<b>, more than 20 percent of the news and opinion stories about climate change published by five major outlets in December 2009 mentioned the hacked emails.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Perhaps even more significantly, the scandal seemed to have a big impact on US public opinion, helping climate change denial and obstructionism become even more entrenched on the right</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After Climategate, notes Podesta, “you see attitudinal change [in] people’s willingness to believe the scientific community that climate change is happening.</span>”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> It’s no coincidence that Trump publicly reversed his own views on the issue just three months later, when he joked that Al Gore’s Nobel Prize should be rescinded and cited the stolen emails. He’s been an outspoken denier ever since....</span></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">june 2016</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://grist.org/politics/donald-trump-climate-action-new-york-times/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://grist.org/politics/donald-trump-climate-action-new-york-times/</font></a></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As negotiators headed to Copenhagen in December 2009 to forge a global climate pact, concerned U.S. business leaders and liberal luminaries took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for aggressive climate action. In an open letter to President Obama and the U.S. Congress, they declared: “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the signatories of that letter: Donald Trump.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Also signed by Trump’s three adult children, the letter called for passage of U.S. climate legislation, investment in the clean energy economy, and leadership to inspire the rest of the world to join the fight against climate change.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” the letter tells the president and Congress. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix of whole ad]</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In every conceivable way, the letter contradicts Trump’s current stance on climate policy. On the campaign trail, Trump has said he is “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/22/this-is-the-only-type-of-climate-change-donald-trump-believes-in/" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">not a big believer in man-made climate change</a>.” Last fall, after Obama described climate change as a major threat to the United States and the world, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump--we-are-not-loved-by-many-muslims-576202819729" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Trump said</a> that was “one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics — in the history of politics as I know it.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The 2009 ad also argues that a shift to clean energy “will spur economic growth” and “create new energy jobs.</b>” But these days, Trump contends that U.S. action to limit greenhouse gas emissions would put the country at a competitive disadvantage. In 2012, he <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/265895292191248385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">went so far as to claim</a>: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Copenhagen conference that inspired the open letter was part of the same two-decade-long U.N. negotiating process that led to a <a href="https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-paris-climate-agreement/" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">global climate deal</a> in Paris last year. But whereas in 2009 Trump supported the process via the ad, now he wants to sabotage it, <a href="https://grist.org/politics/trump-goes-full-trump-on-energy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">promising recently</a> to “cancel” the Paris accord.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s signature on the ad, which ran in the Times on Dec. 6, 2009, stands out on a list dominated by liberal media and business figures, including the founder of Patagonia, the cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s, the president of CREDO Mobile, the executive producer of Al Gore’s <i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">An Inconvenient Truth</i>, celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, actors Kate Hudson and Adrian Grenier, media heavyweights Martha Stewart and Graydon Carter, and New Age author Deepak Chopra</span>.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>None of the signers that Grist interviewed this week could recall who had organized the letter or knew who had asked Trump to sign.</b> The website of the group listed on the ad, businessleaders4environmentalchange.us, is now defunct, and no information was available on who had registered it.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix/doc]</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Beyond the Times ad, Trump has supported climate causes and expressed concern about global warming at least twice before. In 2014, Trump <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/no-hoax-donald-trump-gave-5k-protect-winters-14-article-1.2565059" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">sent a $5,000 check</a> to Protect Our Winters, a climate advocacy nonprofit for skiers and snowboarders, after a <i style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Celebrity Apprentice</i> contestant requested his support.</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The second time was when climate change hit The Trump Organization’s bottom line: His golf course in Ireland is threatened by coastal erosion, so the company recently <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-climate-change-golf-course-223436" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">applied for a permit</a> to build a seawall to protect the property from “global warming and its effects.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other than that, Trump has been fairly consistent in his views on climate change — or consistent for Trump. Two months after signing the open letter, <a href="http://pagesix.com/2010/02/14/trump-cool-to-global-warning/" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">he told members</a> of the Trump National Golf Club that Al Gore should be stripped of his Nobel Prize because that winter had been cold. “Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn’t care less,” he said. “It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America’s stupidity.”</font></p><p droid="Droid" serif="serif" cambria="Cambria" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.25rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that sounds more like the Republican nominee.</font></p></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/deregulations-deadly-consequences-report-breaks-down-how-trumps-assault-on-government-exacerbated-pandemic/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/deregulations-deadly-consequences-report-breaks-down-how-trumps-assault-on-government-exacerbated-pandemic/</font></a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/20/corruption-full-display-trump-executive-order-directs-all-agencies-gut-business" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ongoing</a> efforts to roll back regulations designed to protect the environment, workers, and public health likely played a significant role in the spread of Covid-19 in the United States.</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s according to a new report released Tuesday by New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI), a nonpartisan policy think tank.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 45-page report titled “<a href="https://policyintegrity.org/files/publications/Weakening_Our_Defenses_Covid_Deregulation_Report.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Weakening Our Defenses</a>” (pdf) details how Trump’s far-reaching deregulatory push has exacerbated several major risk factors for contracting and spreading Covid-19, such as high levels o<b>f air pollution, hazardous working conditions, and lack of adequate health insurance.</b></font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“President Trump’s deregulatory agenda has affected all those factors, and, therefore, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">disproportionate racial and economic justice impacts</span> of deregulation are now most likely compounding in deadly ways in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the report says.</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Even before the pandemic,” the report continues, “those regulatory decisions collectively were already causing dire consequences for public health and safety, the environment, and economic conditions—but we now know that those regulatory decisions have likely also increased our collective susceptibility to Covid-19."</font></b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[twt]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the report cites the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/reclassification-major-sources-area-sources-under-section-112-clean" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">rollback</a> of restrictions on nearly 2,000 forms of hazardous air pollution in 2018, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/19/chorus-outrage-trump-admin-throws-climate-public-health-under-bus-killing-obama-era" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">weakening</a> of the Clean Power Plan, and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/30/trump-kneecap-obama-era-fuel-efficiency-standards-hurtling-nation-toward-more" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">gutting</a> of vehicle fuel efficiency standards in 2020 as examples of environmental deregulatory actions that left the U.S. more vulnerable to Covid-19. The U.S. currently has the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/14/coronavirus-world-map-which-countries-have-the-most-covid-19-cases-and-deaths" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">most confirmed</a> coronavirus cases and deaths in the world.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“These rollbacks have put all of us—especially low-income communities, Black people, and people of color, and essential workers—at higher risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19,” said </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>Gina McCarthy,</b><b> former Environmental Protection Agency administrator and current president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report also points to the Trump administration’s weakening of workplace safety standards at meatpacking plants, which have become major Covid-19 hotspots.<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6927e2.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> <b>According to</b></a><b> the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 16,200 meat and poultry processing workers have contracted Covid-19 at 239 facilities in the U.S.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In October 2019, the Trump administration’s Department of Agriculture finalized a rule to ‘modernize’ swine slaughter inspections,” IPI’s report says. “The new program, which pig processing plants may opt into, reduces the number of food safety inspectors in plants and removes caps on pig slaughter line speeds.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By forcing workers to perform their jobs in close proximity to one another, the report notes, the prioritization of speed over safety forces “likely puts meat processing workers at greater risk for Covid-19.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the Affordable Care and limit Medicaid eligibility by approving state-level work requirements also may have contributed to the spread of Covid-19, according to the new report.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Though some of these state requirements have since been invalidated by the courts, other state programs could yet be implemented, and even the temporary loss of coverage in some states could be significant—particularly during a pandemic,” the report says.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Kathleen Rest, executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s “failure to listen to and act on the best available science is irresponsible and dangerous.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“From day one, the Trump administration has attempted to roll back not only existing public health protections, but the scientific basis on which all public health protections are based,” said Rest. “That’s short-sighted and foolish at the best of times, but they have continued to dismantle safeguards even as the country faces the threat of Covid-19, one of the biggest public health crises in our history.”</font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 720</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">F<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">rom the full Editorial Board of the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-commutation-of-roger-stones-sentence-is-an-unforgivable-betrayal-of-his-office/2020/07/10/f5cac3a4-c309-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Washington Post:</a></span></font></div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THERE ARE no doubt thousands of people in federal prison who deserved a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-hes-looking-at-pardoning-roger-stone-ahead-of-prison-term/2020/07/10/d1a1e5ea-c2b7-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_1" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">presidential commutation</a> more than Roger Stone. But after President Trump’s intervention on Friday, Mr. Stone will serve none of his prison sentence. The president may have had the power to help his longtime friend. But that does not make it any less a perversion of justice — indeed, it is one of the most nauseating instances of corrupt government favoritism the United States has ever seen.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The United States is supposed to be a place in which laws apply equally to all. And while it never has — and never will — live up to that ideal in full, no modern president before Mr. Trump has so clearly renounced it. The president seems to be doing his best, within the confines of the U.S. constitutional system, to emulate the gangster leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man whose ruinous reign Mr. Trump has always admired. If the country needed any more evidence, Friday confirmed that the greatest threat to the Republic is the president himself.</font></p></blockquote><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/here-are-some-of-trumps-friends-and-family-who-were-cleared-for-millions-in-small-business-bailout-fund"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/here-are-some-of-trumps-friends-and-family-who-were-cleared-for-millions-in-small-business-bailout-fund</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">B<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">usinesses tied to President Donald Trump’s family and associates stand to receive as much as $21 million in government loans designed to shore up payroll expenses for companies struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to federal data released Monday.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A hydroponic lettuce farm backed by Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., applied for at least $150,000 in Small Business Administration funding. Albert Hazzouri, a dentist frequently spotted at Mar-a-Lago, asked for a similar amount. A hospital run by Maria Ryan, a close associate of Trump lawyer and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, requested more than $5 million. Several companies connected to the president’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, could get upward of $6 million.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no ban on businesses connected to Trump’s orbit receiving money. Democrats added a provision to the CARES Act excluding government officials and their family members from receiving some bailout funds, but not those from the PPP.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The firms sought funding under the Paycheck Protection Program, one of the Trump administration’s sweeping pandemic relief efforts. Created in late March by the CARES Act, it allowed small businesses — generally, those with fewer than 500 employees — to apply for loans of up to $10 million. The loans can be forgiven if used to cover payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The program paid out $521 billion to almost 4.9 million companies in an effort to provide relief for small businesses and their workers amid the sudden economic shock brought on by the pandemic. As applications slowed after the initial rush, $132 billion remained unspent, and Congress voted to extend the program.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After resisting releasing the names, the government bowed to pressure from critics and watchdog groups. On Monday, the administration disclosed only those entities that were approved by banks for loans over $150,000. A consortium of news organizations, including ProPublica, has <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-joins-news-organizations-in-suing-for-small-business-program-loan-info" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sued</a> the administration under the Freedom of Information Act to release the full list of recipients and loan details.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The program has been criticized for including <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/which-companies-are-returning-their-ppp-loan-here-s-list-n1194566" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">some loan recipients</a>, particularly large, publicly traded companies, and for favoring wealthier businesses that had existing relationships with banks. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/business/sba-loans-ppp-coronavirus.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">In some cases</a> customers could essentially skip the line. Overall, however, many economists praise the PPP for having gotten billions to companies relatively quickly.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Observer, the news website that Kushner ran before entering the White House and is still owned by <a href="https://www.observercap.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">his brother-in-law’s investment firm</a>, was approved for between $350,000 and $1 million, data shows. A company called Princeton Forrestal LLC that is at least 40 percent owned by Kushner family members, according to a 2018 <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1532799/000153949718001937/n1449_premktts-x2.htm" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">securities filing</a>, was approved for $1 million to $2 million. Esplanade Livingston LLC, whose address is the same as that of the Kushner Companies real estate development business, was approved for $350,000 to $1 million. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The loans to Kushner-related companies were <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-small-biz-rescue-bailed-out-kushners-family-obamas-aides-and-other-political-elite" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">first reported by The Daily Beast</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, up to $2 million was approved for the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, a nonprofit religious school in Livingston, N.J., that’s named for Jared Kushner’s grandfather and supported by the family.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">....</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and First Lady Melania Trump planned to visit Mt. Rushmore National Memorial on Friday for a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/03/politics/trump-mount-rushmore-fireworks/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Fourth of July celebration</a> that was expected to draw an estimated 7500 people. When <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/oglala-sioux-president-trump-doesn-t-have-permission-to-visit-mount-rushmore-86950469956?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_lw" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Julian Bear Runner</a>, president of the Ogala Sioux Tribe, appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” on Thursday night, he explained to host Lawrence O’Donnell why he believed the president’s plans for the event were disrespectful of Native Americans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I sent out a letter today to Mr. Trump advising him and stating reasons why he is not permitted to enter the treaty territory at this time due to the lack of consultation with the sovereign leaders of the Great Sioux Nation,” Runner noted. “There’s been no correspondence from his staff or himself to ever attempt to sit down, diplomatically, with the leaders of the Great Sioux Nation to obtain that permission or to contingently seek a plan on how to go about his Independence Day celebration. Right now, for me, it’s very hard for me to remain diplomatic in times like this due to the lack of consultation.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Runner went on to tell O’Donnell, “My people, it is in our DNA to fight for these lands, to defend these lands — and to protect what is sacred. And Mt. Rushmore is carved on one of our most sacred mountains within the Black Hills, and the people are angry. All I can do as a leader is stand back and support them.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to criticism from Runner, the event has drawn criticism from health experts who are warning that an event of that size should not be held at a time when coronavirus is infecting so many Americans.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a title="Trump’s ‘delusional’ GOP enablers are finally shaken by Bernstein’s reporting on president’s ‘uninformed’ calls with foreign leaders" href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trumps-delusional-gop-enablers-are-finally-shaken-by-bernsteins-reporting-on-presidents-uninformed-calls-with-foreign-leaders/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; width: 100%; line-height: 1.3em; letter-spacing: 0px; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump’s ‘delusional’ GOP enablers are finally shaken by Bernstein’s reporting on president’s ‘uninformed’ calls with foreign leaders</font></a></h3></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">putin paid KIA am 720</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-day-he-was-briefed-about-russian-bounties-trump-was-busy-meeting-actors-for-play-about-peter-strzok-and-lisa-page/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/the-day-he-was-briefed-about-russian-bounties-trump-was-busy-meeting-actors-for-play-about-peter-strzok-and-lisa-page/</a></font></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">putin paid KIA</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trumps-disastrous-record-on-foreign-policy-lost-wars-new-conflicts-and-broken-promises/" rel="bookmark" title="Trump’s disastrous record on foreign policy: Lost wars, new conflicts and broken promises" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" color="color" important="important" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump’s disastrous record on foreign policy: Lost wars, new conflicts and broken promises</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/pa-county-commissioner-joe-gale-shows-the-absolute-intellectual-emptiness-of-trumpism-and-the-gop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/pa-county-commissioner-joe-gale-shows-the-absolute-intellectual-emptiness-of-trumpism-and-the-gop</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tom petty family cease and desist to trump oklahoma 1st rally in covid era, "Won't Back Down"</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-incendiary-language-ive-documented-12-kinds-of-communication-that-lead-to-acts-of-violence-the-president-has-used-them-all"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-incendiary-language-ive-documented-12-kinds-of-communication-that-lead-to-acts-of-violence-the-president-has-used-them-all</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg in wake of milley and sec at st john 180, this pow #3?</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-nominee-for-key-pentagon-position-accused-is-an-islamophobic-conspiracy-theorist-who-called-obama-a-terrorist-leader/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-nominee-for-key-pentagon-position-accused-is-an-islamophobic-conspiracy-theorist-who-called-obama-a-terrorist-leader/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump nominee for key Pentagon position accused is ‘an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who called Obama a terrorist leader’</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson June 16, 2020</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>President Donald Trump has nominated retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata for a key position in the Pentagon, but Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to CNN, have vowed to oppose the nomination in light of Tata’s history of hateful anti-Islam rants. </b>That includes Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the leading Democrat on the SASC.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2018, CNN reported, Tata described Islam as the “most oppressive violent religion I know of” and called former President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader” for — as he saw it — being overly pro-Islam.</span> Tata was vehemently critical of the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran and claimed that it came about because of<b> Obama’s “Islamic roots.” Obama, Tata claimed, did more to “help Islamic countries than any president in history.”</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anthony J. Tata</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@ajtata</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If true, and it appears to be, #Obama and #Clinton are guilty of sedition and/or treason 18 U.S. Code 2384 #MAGA #trump2020 #ComeyMemos #Kanye2024 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384 … https://twitter.com/vachellindsay/status/988616258022076416 …</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8:31 PM - Apr 23, 2018</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See Anthony J. Tata's other Tweets</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to Reed, Senate Democrats who have told CNN they will oppose Tata’s nomination include Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Gary Peters of Michigan. Warren told CNN, <b>“An Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who called President Obama a ‘terrorist leader’ should not be #3 at the Pentagon. Anthony Tata is by far Trump’s most unqualified and ill-suited senior defense nominee</b>.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2018, Tata attacked former CIA Director John Brennan and tweeted, “Might be a good time to pick your poison: firing squad, public hanging, life sentence as prison btch, or just suck on your pistol. Your call. #Treason #Sedition #crossfirehurricane #Obamagate.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">andrew kaczynski??</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@KFILE</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> · 17h</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @KFILE</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The "Manchurian candidate" Obama conspiracy article shared and endorsed by Tata claimed that Obama let ISIS grow on purpose in Iraq and Libya, saying the "deviousness of the Obama sedition runs deep."https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/tata-pentagon-nominee-kfile/index.html …</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats on key Senate committee oppose Pentagon pick as more inflammatory tweets emerge</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Monday that they would oppose the nomination of retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata to oversee the Pentagon's policy shop.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cnn.com</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">andrew kaczynski??</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@KFILE</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tata accused Obama administration remembers of treason several times, saying former CIA chief John Brennan should "pick your poison: firing squad, public hanging, life sentence as prison b*tch, or just suck on your pistol. Your call</b>."https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/tata-pentagon-nominee-kfile/index.html …</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on TwitterView image on Twitter...</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 620</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-threatens-john-bolton-with-criminal-liability-to-keep-him-quiet/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump threatens John Bolton with ‘criminal liability’ to keep him quiet</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jon-queally/" title="Posts by Jon Queally" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Jon Queally</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump on Monday claimed that any conversation between himself and former National Security Advisor John Bolton is “highly classified,” threatening his far-right former top advisor with “criminal liability”…</font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-has-no-grand-strategy-and-hes-going-all-in-with-losers/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-has-no-grand-strategy-and-hes-going-all-in-with-losers/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ms 13</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wa mon tim scott, key note spkr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/what-republicans-really-mean-when-they-talk-about-law-and-order/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/what-republicans-really-mean-when-they-talk-about-law-and-order/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">meh</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/how-donald-trump-killed-america/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/how-donald-trump-killed-america/</font></a></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-administration-has-ripped-away-any-connection-with-truth-and-the-real-victim-is-democracy-itself/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-administration-has-ripped-away-any-connection-with-truth-and-the-real-victim-is-democracy-itself/</font></a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">meh</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/bill-barr-is-running-law-enforcement-like-a-middle-school-bully-because-he-used-to-be-one-op-ed/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/bill-barr-is-running-law-enforcement-like-a-middle-school-bully-because-he-used-to-be-one-op-ed/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/with-trump-in-charge-america-is-going-back-to-more-hostile-times"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/with-trump-in-charge-america-is-going-back-to-more-hostile-times</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tj alien theconv</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/heres-the-outrageous-oan-segment-that-led-trump-to-falsely-smear-a-75-year-old-protestor-as-an-antifa-provocateur/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/heres-the-outrageous-oan-segment-that-led-trump-to-falsely-smear-a-75-year-old-protestor-as-an-antifa-provocateur/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">also 70 yr old head wound via oann;</font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-takes-a-swing-and-a-miss-at-romney-for-joining-black-lives-matter-protest/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump takes a swing and a miss at Romney for joining Black Lives Matter protest</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-takes-a-swing-and-a-miss-at-romney-for-joining-black-lives-matter-protest/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/igor-derysh/" title="Posts by Igor Derysh" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Igor Derys</font></a></h3></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-use-of-religion-follows-playbook-of-authoritarian-leaning-leaders-the-world-over-140050"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theconversation.com/trumps-use-of-religion-follows-playbook-of-authoritarian-leaning-leaders-the-world-over-140050</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">was a striking moment: Donald Trump,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/politics/trump-st-johns-church-bible.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Bible in hand</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, posing for photos in an apparent moment of political theater made possible by the dispersal of protesters through the use of tear gas.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The president’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church, known as “<a href="https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc28.htm" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">the Church of the Presidents</a>,” came immediately after giving a Rose Garden <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-protest-president-law-and-order/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">speech framing himself</a> as “your president of law and order” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mobilizes-military-threatens-to-use-troops-to-quell-protests-across-us/2020/06/01/10212832-a416-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">threatening to send federal troops</a> to “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/politics/read-trumps-rose-garden-remarks/index.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">restore security and safety in America</a>.” The next day, Trump made another <a href="https://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2020/trump-visits-shrine-on-anniversary-of-st-john-paul-ii-visit-to-poland.cfm" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">high-profile visit</a> to a place of worship, this time Washington’s St. John Paul II National Shrine.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coming at a time of <a href="https://apnews.com/37d16fa47a8cbc13e12552eb8516cc61" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">social turbulence</a>, critics accused Trump of following authoritarian-leaning world leaders by sidling up to religion to reinforce an image as a strongman defending a particular brand of tradition. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington Mariann Budde <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/religious-leaders-lawmakers-outraged-over-trump-church-visit-n1221876" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">said as much</a>, commenting that Trump used the Bible at St. John’s “as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a <a href="https://www.clemson.edu/cbshs/faculty-staff/profiles/LAURAO" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">scholar who has researched the interaction of politics and faith for decades</a>, I know how potent religion can be as a political tool.</font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A powerful tool</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religion creates meaning in our lives by articulating values about how we relate to one another. But just as it can unite us, religion can also be a source of division – used to “other” people who are not of the faith and don’t share the same traditions and rituals.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When enough people perceive – or can be convinced – that traditional elements of the social fabric are at risk, religious signaling through the use of symbols and images can help would-be authoritarians cement their power. They present themselves as protectors of the faith and foes of any outsider who threatens tradition.</font></p><figure class="align-center zoomable" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; cursor: default;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caption" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Russian President Vladimir Putin sunbathes with a cross on display over his bare chest.</span> <span class="attribution" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-sunbathes-during-his-news-photo/826469180?adppopup=true" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word; display: inline; max-width: 100%;">Alexey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></font></figcaption></figure><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Russia, this phenomenon is seen in President Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/putin-wants-god-or-at-least-the-church-on-his-side/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">forging</a> of a strategic alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. For his part, Putin presents himself not just as a commanding leader, but also as a devoutly religious Russian. When he appears shirtless, for example, the large cross he wears around his neck <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-defends-shirtless-photos-i-see-no-need-to-hide-2018-6" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">is always visible</a>. Meanwhile, the Church promotes traditional moral values and maintains a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opinion/putin-russia-orthodox-church.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">distance</a> from the rest of the worldwide Orthodox Christian community, thereby separating the “truly Russian” from the outsider. In their most recent collaboration, Putin and the Church proposed <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51719764" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">amendments to the Russian constitution</a> that would enshrine Russians’ faith in God, define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and, tellingly, proclaim “the great achievement of the [Russian] people in defense of the Fatherland.” These changes, all of which are intended to reinforce Putin’s base of support, would be jarringly nationalistic additions to the constitution.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Putin benefits from this insider-outsider dynamic in advancing his goal of restoring Russia to his vision of its past territorial glory. In justifying the Russian incursion into Crimea, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-museum-survives-in-crimea" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Putin argued</a> that the region had “sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism.” Defending and expanding Russian territory is a much easier sell if it is framed as the defense of the holy.</font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religious imagery</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We see a similar dynamic in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s grip on power relies in large part on his embrace of a version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-prime-minister-modi-pursues-politics-of-hindu-nationalism-what-does-that-mean-117794" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Hindu nationalism</a> that elevates Hindus as “truly Indian” insiders and singles out Muslims as outsiders.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like Putin, Modi wraps himself in religious imagery. He makes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/india-modi-election-polls.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">high-profile visits to remote Hindu temples</a> while electioneering and <a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/world/zahir-janmohamed-narendra-modi-india-gujarat-man-who-refuses-wear-green" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">never wears green</a> because of its association with Islam.</font></p><figure class="align-right zoomable" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative; float: right; clear: right; width: 237px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 18px; cursor: default;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caption" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Then-prime minister candidate Narendra Modi visits a shrine on horseback while electioneering in 2014.</span> <span class="attribution" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indian-chief-minister-of-the-western-indian-state-of-news-photo/480642835?adppopup=true" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word; display: inline; max-width: 100%;">Strdel/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></font></figcaption></figure><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Modi’s Hindu nationalism cements his popularity among devout Hindus and builds public support for anti-Muslim policies, such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-restructuring-explainer/explainer-indias-kashmir-region-set-to-lose-autonomy-divided-idUSKBN1X9175" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">stripping the only majority-Muslim state in India</a> of its autonomy and enacting a controversial new <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50670393" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">law</a> preventing Muslim migrants from attaining Indian citizenship.</font></p><h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump as savior</font></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has stumbled in attempts to portray himself as personally devout, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/27/politics/donald-trump-favorite-bible-verses/index.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">declining to name a favorite passage</a> from the Bible and stating that he has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/trump-has-never-sought-forgiveness/index.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">never sought forgiveness from God</a> for his sins.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nevertheless, public opinion polls have consistently shown that <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2020/03/12/white-evangelicals-see-trump-as-fighting-for-their-beliefs-though-many-have-mixed-feelings-about-his-personal-conduct/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">white Christians comprise the core of Trump’s base</a>, although there are recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/us/politics/trump-polls-christians-evangelicals.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">signs of a dip even among this key group</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while it is important to note that many white Christians do not support Trump, <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2020/05/11/trump-the-anointed/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">29% of evangelicals</a> go so far as to say they believe <a href="https://theconversation.com/rick-perrys-belief-that-trump-was-chosen-by-god-is-shared-by-many-in-a-fast-growing-christian-movement-127781" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">he is anointed by God</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Where Trump succeeds is in presenting himself as a <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2018/07/17/the-christian-nationalism-of-donald-trump/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Christian nationalist</a>, much as Putin and Modi style themselves as the stout defenders of their countries’ dominant religions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One way Trump achieves this end is by making statements such as this one <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/01/04/in-speech-to-evangelicals-trump-says-god-is-on-our-side/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">on the campaign trail earlier this year</a>: “We’re going to win another monumental victory for faith and family, God and country, flag and freedom.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In their new book <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/taking-america-back-for-god-9780190057886?cc=us&lang=en&" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“Taking America Back for God</a>,” sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry contend that many of Trump’s white Christian supporters see him as their long-awaited savior – not just the protector of traditional religion, but also the defender of a bygone way of life.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In that imagined past, white men ruled the roost, families went to church every Sunday and outsiders knew their place. A deep-rooted desire for a return to that past may have been why Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan has proved so potent. As Yale scholar Philip Gorski <a href="https://politicaltheology.com/christianity-and-democracy-after-trump/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">has argued</a>, that phrase can be interpreted to mean “making white Christianity culturally dominant again.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As such, we should not be surprised that in the current moment of crisis Trump is attempting to use religion to reinforce differences between his supporters and his opponents. Like Putin, he is posing as the defender of a particular version of a glorious past. And echoing Modi, he is doing this by building support through the denigration of the outsider.</font></p><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/romney-joins-growing-protests-as-more-prominent-republicans-disavow-trump/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/romney-joins-growing-protests-as-more-prominent-republicans-disavow-trump/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div class="story-intro story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protests are expected to continue Monday after a weekend in which the tide continued turning away from Donald Trump’s attempts to promote division and violence, while a viewing is being held in Houston ahead of the <a href="https://apnews.com/9aeae005bdb193b6d039bb36309ea053" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">third memorial service for George Floyd</a>, to be held Tuesday. Also Monday, former officer Derek Chauvin will be appearing in court. <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/6/1951118/-Huge-number-of-protests-against-police-violence-encouraging-but-there-s-a-tough-fight-ahead" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Through the weekend</a>, protests <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/7/21283014/protests-george-floyd-cities-across-world-larger" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continued to grow</a> in many places<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/6/1951118/-Huge-number-of-protests-against-police-violence-encouraging-but-there-s-a-tough-fight-ahead" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">,</a> while the police response became less vicious, resulting in fewer conflicts and less violence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One such protest <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/06/07/romney-protest-black-lives-matter/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">included Republican Sen. Mitt Romney</a> marching with hundreds of evangelical Christians and saying he was seeking “a way to end violence and brutality, and to make sure that people understand that Black lives matter</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump, of course, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1269970024908894209" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">couldn’t resist an angry tweet</a>. Several Democrats, including widely cited vice presidential prospects Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have joined protesters, but Romney is the first Senate Republican known to have done so.</span></font></p></div><div class="row" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="col-sm-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="story-body story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Romney’s embrace of protest wasn’t the only sign this weekend of trouble for Trump among elite Republicans. Former Secretary of State <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/7/1951220/-Former-President-George-W-Bush-and-Colin-Powell-join-growing-list-of-Republicans-dumping-Trump" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Colin Powell said he will vote for Joe Biden</a>, while former President George W. Bush said he <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">wouldn’t</em> vote for Trump, though he didn’t go so far as to say he’d vote for Biden. If Trump gives <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/7/1951321/-Trump-ponders-giving-a-speech-on-race-as-if-most-of-his-speeches-weren-t-already" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a speech on race</a>, as he is reportedly considering, how many more will join them?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s unlikely that anyone in Trump’s base will be moved by Bush or Powell—even though many of these same people had a fervent devotion for Bush 15 years ago—but their defections may continue to shift media coverage if nothing else.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in other news:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/7/1951244/-On-Face-the-Nation-William-Barr-lies-repeatedly-and-brazenly-about-St-John-s-Church-attack" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">changed his story again</a> about whether he ordered the attack on protesters outside the White House to enable Trump’s walk to St. John’s Church. Not a good look. Again.</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Minneapolis City Council announced it <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/7/1951270/-Minneapolis-City-Council-to-announce-plan-to-dismantle-police-department-after-George-Floyd-s-death" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">plans to dismantle the police department</a> and instead have “community-led public safety.”</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</span> editorial page editor James Bennet <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/7/1951285/-New-York-Times-editorial-page-head-resigns-after-publishing-fascist-Tom-Cotton-op-ed" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">resigned as a result of the horrifying op-ed</a> by Sen. Tom Cotton calling for military action against protesters.</b></font></li></ul></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">EJ</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04062020/trump-pipeline-sign-amid-racial-justice-coronavirus"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04062020/trump-pipeline-sign-amid-racial-justice-coronavirus</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the nation convulsed by multiple crises, President Donald Trump returned to a favorite stand-by of his presidency—asserting his authority to sweep aside environmental restraints and speed up construction of oil and gas pipelines.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the executive order that he signed Thursday night—the third of his presidency aimed at expediting pipelines—is destined to spur more of the type of litigation that has rendered his previous directives ineffective so far.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House invoked the same legal authority the president has to expedite hurricane and flood response actions to declare an "economic emergency," that requires the waiving of environmental reviews and other regulations.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This order will be a sitting duck for the sorts of legal challenges that have been so successfully brought against other Trump environmental rollbacks," said Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "Few developers or lenders will risk millions on starting construction in reliance on this order surviving in court."</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House provided few details on the order before the scheduled signing at 4:30 p.m. "I can tell you it does have to do some of the permitting and energy as it relates to rebuilding this country," said presidential spokesman Hogan Gidley in a brief noon appearance before reporters.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By 6 p.m., the White House had provided no copy of the order. There was no live streaming of any signing, nor any public appearance by Trump at the White House, where workers spent the day erecting tall metal barricades around the perimeter of the complex. Outside, crowds of protestors flanked the presidential residence in one of the demonstrations for racial justice that have proliferated in cities across the nation since the police killing of George Lloyd.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, after 6:15 p.m., the White House made copies of the order available. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"From the beginning of my Administration, I have focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays," Trump said in the document. "Antiquated regulations and bureaucratic practices have hindered American infrastructure investments, kept America's building trades workers from working, and prevented our citizens from developing and enjoying the benefits of world-class infrastructure. The need for continued progress in this streamlining effort is all the more acute now, due to the ongoing economic crisis."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The president's critics were quick to point out that his order was poorly timed, since minority communities would be disproportionately affected by his move to waive the environmental review mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Today President Trump is dealing another blow to the Black community, during a worldwide pandemic and nearly a week into nationwide Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and structural racism," said Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, in a statement. "Gutting NEPA takes away one of the few tools communities of color have to protect themselves and make their voices heard on federal decisions impacting them."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second executive order of Trump's presidency, issued in January 2017 (after his plan to repeal Obamacare), was a directive to expedite oil and gas pipelines. In his speeches, he often repeats a line about creating 48,000 jobs in his first week in office by reviving the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and the Dakota Access pipeline in the midwest. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, environmental opponents of the Keystone project have so far been successful in preventing its advance with legal challenges to its water permit. And although the Dakota Access pipeline was completed, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in March won a court order for a sweeping new environmental review of the project; the judge is now considering whether the flow of oil should be stopped while the review is completed.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal experts expressed doubt that Trump's latest order could directly affect the outcomes in the Keystone XL or Dakota Access litigation. In the future, such litigation by states and tribes may be made more difficult by rules that the Environmental Protection Agency finalized this week in response to a 2019 Trump executive order.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement that it was clear that Trump is seeking to cut communities out of the process. </font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"By allowing projects to plow ahead without public engagement or input, this executive order will fast-track projects that could tear through communities, harm air quality, endanger drinking water sources, destroy critical habitats and threaten endangered species," said Carper. "Under the guise of immediate relief, this executive action will cause long-term damage that will not be easily undone."</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal experts noted that Trump's use of the economic downturn to invoke environmental waivers was unprecedented. "These emergency exemptions have traditionally been used for necessary fast responses to disasters, such as clearing away debris after a hurricane, or building field hospitals," said Gerrard in an email. "They have not been used as a backdoor way of creating construction jobs."</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jayni Foley Hein, natural resources director at New York University Law School's Institute for Policy Integrity, said Trump's novel legal theory could have an effect that is precisely the opposite of what the White House intends. "In a strange way, this could create more uncertainty for project developers, as their approvals will be on shakier legal footing," Hein said.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's hard to say if it's bluster and posturing or if it's wishful thinking or some combination," Hein said. </font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-988d530e-7fff-30f9-6d75-9d258d2cde2a" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But so far at least, despite his repeated efforts, Trump has been singularly unsuccessful in building pipelines with a stroke of his pen.</font></span></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; 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SPILLS/PIPELINES</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">POLITICS</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times 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Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">DONALD TRUMP</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/pipelines" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">PIPELINES</a></div> <div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">CLIMATE CHANGE</a></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/one-out-of-3-americans-used-bleach-in-non-recommended-high-risk-practices-to-battle-coronavirus-cdc/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">one out of 3 Americans used bleach ‘in non recommended high-risk practices’ to battle coronavirus: CDC</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash/" title="Posts by David Badash" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Badash</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement/" title="Posts by The New Civil Rights Movement" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One third of Americans used bleach or other household disinfectants “in non-recommended high risk practices” in attempts to reduce the spread of the deadly coronavirus, a new CDC survey finds.…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; font-style: italic;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement-and-the-downfall-of-a-president/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement-and-the-downfall-of-a-president/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They almost always begin to right wrongs: illegitimate wars; decades of discrimination on the grounds of gender or racial or sexual identity; killings of innocents by police or gun-toting lunatics; oppression by governments wielding unequal laws; the deeply embedded legacy of centuries of racism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement--and-the-downfall-of-a-president/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">first appeared in Salon</a>.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They are imperfect. Arising out of rage, they can be unfocused, inchoate, contradictory. Protesting violence, they often involve violence. Protesting oppression, they sometimes oppress by destroying public spaces, small businesses, even entire neighborhoods.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But sometimes they are large enough and powerful enough and righteous enough to bend the arc of history. We are in such a moment. There has been a turning. A protest against the murder of a black man by police in Minneapolis has become a movement. Demonstrations, which began almost two weeks ago, are ongoing. They are huge. They are nationwide. They are peaceful. They show no signs of stopping.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the extraordinary things about this moment is the fact that every single person who has taken to the streets to demonstrate is risking his or her life. People who only days ago were huddled inside their homes, afraid of a virus that has taken in excess of 110,000 lives in this country, are putting on their face masks and gathering by the tens or even hundreds of thousands, unafraid of the virus or the forces arrayed on the streets against them. They are protesting the death of a man who should not have had to die, and they are protesting the man who seemingly gave permission for him to be murdered by the intolerance and racism he has openly promoted for more than four years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If we had any doubts that our fellow citizens would turn out to vote in November because they would be afraid of the virus or intimidated by attempts to block their votes, we have our answer. More people will turn out to vote, not less, and this has Trump very, very worried.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The show of courage on the streets has frightened Trump and his allies in the Republican Party. If you have any doubts, all you have to do is watch the scene of <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/06/sorry-im-late-for-lunch-reporter-asks-13-republicans-about-trumps-church-photo-op-then-posted-their-answers/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Republican senators scurrying away from MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt</u></a> on Capitol Hill when she asked them to comment on Trump’s disgusting and disreputable photo-op at St. John’s Church on Monday.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has turned Washington into an armed camp. He has built a three-mile-long wall around the White House and cowered in a basement bunker as protests grew on the streets outside. But Trump’s threat to use active-duty soldiers to suppress dissent has encountered some profound pushback from an unexpected source: the United States military.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It began with a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">statement by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis</u></a> in reaction to the use of force, including National Guard soldiers</b>, to clear peaceful demonstrators from a street near the White House so Trump could make his now-infamous “walk” to St. John’s Church for his Bible-waving photo-op. “I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis wrote in The Atlantic:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation. We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And then something extraordinary happened. Mattis’ clarion call was joined by more senior military figures, beginning with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who had been the object of strong criticism for standing next to Trump during his Bible photo-op. Esper held a press conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday and announced that he was against invoking the Insurrection Act, which would (hypothetically) authorize the deployment of active-duty military on the streets of America. Trump is said to be very, very unhappy with Esper and reversed his order for elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to return to their base in North Carolina. By week’s end, however, Esper had prevailed, and the 82nd was on the way home.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Retired Adm. Mike Mullen</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Barack Obama, was next. He wrote a piece for The Atlantic entitled, “</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/american-cities-are-not-battlespaces/612553" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I cannot remain silent</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“t sickened me yesterday to see security personnel — including members of the National Guard — forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Retired General John R. Allen weighed in next, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/03/trump-military-george-floyd-protests/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">writing ominously in Foreign Policy magazine</u></a>, “The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>More retired generals weighed in later in the week,</b> including two former chairs of the Joint Chiefs, Martin Dempsey and Richard Meyers. Both were critical of Trump’s handling of protests and opposed the use of the military to suppress dissent.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But even more extraordinary than the retired officers who spoke out was the letter from the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley, which was <a href="https://www.journaloftheplagueyear.ink/blog/did-america-s-military-stop-a-coup-d-etat?fbclid=IwAR0RkIO0tZKpypnd5LhfMJyUIVgveZysmwW1Upu9yU6Q5uQ6H5QqzrXGKFs" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">leaked to conservative pundit Bill Kristol</u></a> on Thursday.<b> Milley </b>is said to have had a contentious meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday before joining him in his infamous “walk” down the street cleared by police and National Guard soldiers. According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-mattis-and-mullen-toppled-their-bridge-of-silence/2020/06/04/c71b8f58-a698-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David Ignatius of the Washington Post</u></a>, Milley, “whose temper can match Trump’s…was vocal in reiterating his advice to the president against mobilizing troops, according to three knowledgeable sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.” That is Washington-speak for “they were yelling at each other.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sent to all of the other chiefs of staff for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and commanders of combatant commands, Milley’s letter is unlike anything I have seen, and I’ve been around the military since I was born in an Army field hospital in occupied Japan in 1947.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He reminded everyone in uniform of their oath to support and defend the Constitution. I’ve never seen that done before. All service members take the same oath, but they don’t go around reminding each other about it. Milley wrote of the Constitution, “This document is founded on the essential principles that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. We in uniform — all branches, all components, all ranks — remain committed to our national values and principles embedded in the Constitution.” He went on to note specifically that the National Guard “is operating under the authority of state governors.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a military man, this comes close to a call for insurrection. Milley’s message is written in a code that everyone in uniform will understand implicitly. By reminding every member of the military that the soldiers currently deployed on the street around the country are not there under the authority of the president, and by reminding them of their oath to the Constitution, he is telling them that the military will not be carrying out any un-American orders issued by Donald Trump. Late Friday, Secretary of Defense Esper disarmed the National Guard doing riot duty in Washington, ordering them to turn in their weapons and ammunition. He also ordered all active duty troops amassed outside the capital earlier in the week by the White House to be sent home. He issued both orders without consulting the White House.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These generals are not politicians, but all their statements are as political as any I’ve ever seen by senior officers, retired or active duty. It’s the equivalent of lining up howitzers on Pennsylvania Avenue and aiming at the White House.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’ll bet Trump rues the day he appointed “Mad Dog” Mattis as secretary of defense. They don’t go out and make statements like this without talking to one another. Mullen and Mattis were said to have been aware of Milley’s confrontation with the president at the time they wrote their articles on Tuesday and Wednesday. Milley and his fellow generals and admirals are giving a clear sign that the military leaders are turning against Trump. Colin Powell will reportedly be next, in an appearance on one of the Sunday morning shows.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The military is the most reliably conservative institution this country has. But inside the military establishment, the signals are being sent. They have announced that they are more reliable as defenders of the rights of their fellow citizens than the police. Without stepping over the line into insubordination, they have made it as clear as they can that their loyalty isn’t to the president. It’s to the Constitution.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I don’t think we have to worry about the military following illegal orders from Trump. At least for now, they’re on our side.</font></p></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">--</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">620 an raw story </font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump is losing support from his evangelical base as he lurches from one crisis into another.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Numerous polls show that religious Americans, like most other Americans, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/us/politics/trump-polls-christians-evangelicals.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR0pIVycXh7IVqQCB4X8l6dT6ldW9jg7NRtKO0nU9HSKP2yLIUj8anj1EUA" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">disapprove of the president’s performance</a>, and that could imperil his re-election chances, reported the <span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</span>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nearly 80 percent of white evangelicals — a group that’s already shrinking as a share of the electorate — approved of Trump’s performance in March, but his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has bled 15 points from their support, according to a new poll from Public Religion Research Institute.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He had an opportunity in March when people were looking to him,” said Robert Jones, the institute’s chief executive, “and then within four weeks he squandered it.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Those losses could be offset by efforts from activist group’s such as Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition, which plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to identify and register new religious conservative voters and rallying right-wing Christians.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And another PRRI poll from last year found that 31 percent of white evangelical voters said there was almost nothing Trump could do to lose their support.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> i do not usually do psych stuff but </font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-american-fuhrer-fantasy-yale-psychiatrist-says-the-presidents-displays-of-false-strength-foreshadow-plan-to-question-election-results/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trumps-american-fuhrer-fantasy-yale-psychiatrist-says-the-presidents-displays-of-false-strength-foreshadow-plan-to-question-election-results/</font></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> a Yale psychiatrist who has repeatedly <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/23/yale-psychiatrist-bandy-lee-lockdown-protesters-resemble-child-soldiers-and-urban-gangs/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump’s mental health</a> warned that his “displays of false strength” foreshadow his reaction to the November election if he loses.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Bandy X. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist at Yale School of Medicine, author of the textbook “<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Violence%3A+An+Interdisciplinary+Approach+to+Causes%2C+Consequences%2C+and+Cures-p-9781119240686" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Violence</a>,” and editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” Lee, who heads the World Mental Health Coalition, focuses on public health approaches to violence prevention and has led various think tanks that seek to “draw connections between individual, community, and societal violence, as they are interrelated.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lee spoke to Salon after Trump <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/03/trump-thought-a-violent-crackdown-would-be-a-victory-for-him-but-the-protesters-are-winning/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">threat this week to deploy the U.S. military</a> onto American streets to quell protests and staged a photo-op in front of a church after <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/03/bill-barr-personally-ordered-white-house-protesters-gassed-for-trump-photo-op-report/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal forces stormed peaceful protesters outside the White House</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He may not start culture wars, or pandemics, but his psychological structure will occupy them and turn them far deadlier,” Lee warned in an interview with Salon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">she also about Trump’s threats, the president’s enablers and what this all means for the upcoming election. Lee stressed that she speaks only for the World Mental Health Coalition, as its president, and not for Yale.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump declared himself an <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/trump-declares-himself-ally-to-all-peaceful-protesters-threatens-to-crush-them-with-troops/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ally of peaceful protesters</a> on Monday before federal authorities tear-gassed protesters so he could get a photo-op in front of St. John’s Church holding a Bible. What were your takeaways from the cognitive dissonance on display?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Approximately nine months ago, I devised a formula for <a href="https://twitter.com/BandyXLee1/status/1172485339652481024" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“translating” Donald Trump’s tweets</a>, based on long-term, repeated, real-time testing of theories about his psychology. Part of it was that mere mention indicates a reality that is important to him and one he wishes to suppress by stating the opposite. This is not just cognitive dissonance but serious disorder of psychology: when he says he is “president of law and order,” he is actually “telling us” he is president of illegality and chaos.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This means he is no ally of “peaceful protesters” but their enemy, eager to designate them as “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others” — as he did in the next sentence. First, they are standing up for their rights, and democracy does not exist within a worldview where everyone must be an instrument of his “total authority.” Second, police brutality is something he enjoys and encourages, as when he said to a group of police officers, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-police-nice-suspects/story?id=48914504" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“When you guys put somebody in the car, please don’t be too nice</a>.” Third, he is obviously itching for an excuse to federalize the military and step in to rescue the day. His followers have been responding to his cues and many <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">police have been gratuitously aggressive</a>, never mind that the protests are against police brutality.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is how he keeps and expands illegitimate power, stays out of prison and declares himself American Führer — what he actually calls himself does not matter. A member of Congress said the president had <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJohnYarmuth/status/1267594058274353153" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">declared war on millions of Americans and the First Amendment</a>, and I must agree. As far as I have assessed, he declared war on reality and life itself long ago.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You’ve previously talked about Trump <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/15/yale-psychiatrist-trump-projects-his-sense-of-inferiority-by-calling-women-reporters-nasty/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">projecting his own flaws onto others</a>. Was his attack on governors, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/leaked-audio-trump-attacks-weak-governors-for-not-calling-in-military-after-he-hid-in-a-bunker/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">decrying them as “weak,”</a> after he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/politics/trump-underground-bunker-white-house-protests/index.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">retreated to the White House bunker</a> amid protests an example of that?...</font></strong></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">blm --> anti trump protest, loot--> shoot, "ominous force"</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">cohen plus macho BS, see retaliation</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">some say work for doj?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/department-of-justice-deploys-rogue-force-of-unidentified-armed-militia-to-patrol-dc"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/department-of-justice-deploys-rogue-force-of-unidentified-armed-militia-to-patrol-dc</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">white house dark like hiding from trick or treat?</font></div><div><div class="header-list-style" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="entry-title grid-title" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-claims-he-was-rushed-to-white-house-bunker-for-an-inspection-not-for-fear-of-protesters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump claims he was rushed to White House bunker for an ‘inspection’ — not for fear of protesters</font></a></h2><div class="grid-post-box-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-edwards/" title="Posts by David Edwards" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Edwards</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/raw-story/" title="Posts by Raw Story" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Raw Story</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">June 3, 2020</span></font></div></div><div class="item-content entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 18px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted that fear of protesters did not prompt him to be ushered into a White House bunker. Instead, the president said that he visited the…</font></p></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">st john's photo op fail</font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/defense-secretary-esper-splits-from-trump-i-do-not-support-invoking-the-insurrection-act/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">defense Secretary Esper splits from Trump: ‘I do not support invoking the insurrection act’</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash/" title="Posts by David Badash" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Badash</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement/" title="Posts by The New Civil Rights Movement" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a rare move Secretary of Defense Mark Esper split from President Donald Trump on the use of the U.S. Military in American cities.</font></p></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font 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size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnk an 620</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Inside Trump’s DC military operation: 2100 soldiers in riot gear armed with bayonets for operation ‘Divine Law and Order’</div><div>President Donald J. Trump walks from the White House Monday evening, June 1, 2020, to St. John’s Episcopal Church, known as the church of Presidents’s, that was damaged by fire during demonstrations in nearby LaFayette Square Sunday evening. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)</div><div>
</div><div>Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement June 3, 2020</div><div>President Donald Trump hasn’t stormed U.S. cities across the country yet but as Washington. D.C. is not a state, and therefore has no governor, he can pretty much do as he pleases.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That includes a military operation on the streets of the nation’s capital, called “Operation Themis.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In Greek mythology,” the Associated Press reports, “Themis was a titaness of <b>divine law and order,</b> whose symbols are the scales of justice.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump, who fancies himself a “wartime President,” as he has claimed, on Monday told America, “I am the President of law and order.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Up to 2100 U.S. military troops in riot gear will be mobilized to maintain that <b>“divine FE </b>law and order.” They will be armed, and have bayonets as well.</span></div><div>
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</div><div>Walter Shaub</div><div>@waltshaub</div><div>You may think it's only a small thing that the military used helicopters to intimidate American civilians in the nation's capital. It's not. A line was crossed tonight. There will be other lines. This is Trump conditioning them to cross those lines.</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>ivanka Trump ‘urged’ president’s church photo-op — which could become a ‘defining moment’ of his time in office: NYT</div><div>President Donald J. Trump and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump arrive to attend event supporting our nation’s small businesses through the pay check protection program Tuesday, April 28, 2020, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Bob Brigham / Raw Story June 3, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>First daughter and senior White House advisor Ivanka Trump “urged” her father to take part in a controversial photo-op with a Bible according to a new report from The New York Times.</div><div>
</div><div>“After a weekend of protests that led all the way to his own front yard and forced him to briefly retreat to a bunker beneath the White House, President Trump arrived in the Oval Office on Monday agitated over the television images, annoyed that anyone would think he was hiding and eager for action,” the newspaper reported.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“He wanted to send the military into American cities, an idea that provoked a heated, voices-raised fight among his advisers. But by the end of the day, urged on by his daughter Ivanka Trump, he came up with a more personal way of demonstrating toughness — he would march across Lafayette Square to a<b> church damaged by fire the night before</b>,” the newspaper reported.[9/11 rubble b43 redux?]</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Hope Hicks was reportedly the brains behind the photo-op.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Paula Chertok??</div><div>@PaulaChertok</div><div>Ivanka Trump carried the Bible prop Trump posed with in her $1,540 Max Mara designer handbag in infamous photo-op 'masterminded by Hope Hicks'https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8381977/Ivanka-Trump-carried-Bible-Donald-Trump-posed-1-540-Max-Mara-handbag.html … #Maddow</div><div>
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</b></div><div><b>Ivanka carried Bible Donald Trump posed with $1,540 Max Mara handbag</b></div><div>Ivanka Trump carried the bible President Donald Trump brandished in his controversial photo-op in her designer purse as she joined administration officials in the walk to St. John's Church.</div><div>
</div><div>dailymail.co.uk</div><div>
</div><div>“The only problem: A plan developed earlier in the day to expand the security perimeter around the White House had not been carried out. When Attorney General William P. Barr strode out of the White House gates for a personal inspection early Monday evening, he discovered that protesters were still on the northern edge of the square. For the president to make it to St. John’s Church, they would have to be cleared out. Mr. Barr gave the order to disperse them,” the newspaper reported.</div><div>
</div><div>“The scene of mayhem that preceded the walk — barely 1,000 feet from the symbol of American democracy — evoked images more commonly associated with authoritarian countries, but that did not bother the president, who has long flirted with overseas strongmen and has expressed envy of their ability to dominate,” The Times reported. <b>“But critics, including some fellow Republicans, were aghast at the use of force against Americans who posed no visible threat at the time, all to facilitate what they deemed a ham-handed photo opportunity featuring all white faces. Some Democratic senators used words like ‘fascist’ and ‘dictator’ to describe the president’s words and actions.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>“And when the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash at Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments,” the newspaper noted.</div><div>
</div><div>Read the full report.</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/george-floyd-protests-trump-puts-top-us-military-officer-in-charge.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/george-floyd-protests-trump-puts-top-us-military-officer-in-charge.html</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">waASHINGTON — In a contentious call with the nation’s governors Monday, President Donald Trump said he was putting America’s highest-ranking military officer “in charge” as protests over the death of George Floyd rock the United States for a seventh day.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“General Milley is here who’s head of Joint Chiefs of Staff<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, a fighter, a warrior, and a lot of victories and no losses.</span> And he hates to see the way it’s being handled in the various states. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">And I’ve just put him in charge,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">”</span> Trump told governors, according to audio obtained by NBC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It was not immediately clear what Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley would be tasked with as it relates to the domestic unrest across the nation. The Pentagon added few details. “The chairman will continue to advise the secretary of Defense,” Pentagon spokesperson U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As of this morning, 23 states and the District of Columbia had mobilized personnel in support of state and local authorities. Combined, they provided over 17,000 <b>National Guard troops</b> in support,” Mitchell added.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked to elaborate, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said she would not “get ahead of any actions that will be announced” on the matter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There will be <b>additional federal assets deployed across the nation</b> and there will be a central command center in conjunction with the state and local governments that will include general Milley, [Defense Secretary Mark] Esper and [Attorney General William] Barr, but I won’t go any further in announcing any actions,” McEnany said during a White House press briefing. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">NBC News reported that Trump has considered using the Insurrection Act, which was adopted in 1807. Under the move, he would deploy troops to respond to the demonstrations. The law was last invoked during the 1992 Rodney King riots in California, at the request of then-Gov. Pete Wilson, according to NBC</span>.[afte 63 kia? up to 1 bill$ damage?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The latest revelation comes as Trump called for governors on Monday to use force when confronting protesters, who have taken to the streets across the U.S. to protest Floyd’s death as well as police brutality. Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The officer was charged with third-degree murder. An independent autopsy found that asphyxiation was the cause of Floyd’s death.</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-tells-mayors-and-governors-most-of-you-are-weak-during-teleconference-rant-about-unrest-you-have-to-dominate/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-tells-mayors-and-governors-most-of-you-are-weak-during-teleconference-rant-about-unrest-you-have-to-dominate/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/listen-heres-the-leaked-audio-of-trumps-unhinged-call-with-governors-and-says-they-need-to-crack-down-on-protesters/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/listen-heres-the-leaked-audio-of-trumps-unhinged-call-with-governors-and-says-they-need-to-crack-down-on-protesters/</font></a></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">g<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/global-protests-erupt-in-solidarity-with-black-lives-matter-protesters-in-us/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">lobal protests erupt in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters in US</a></font></p><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/julia-conley/" title="Posts by Julia Conley" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Julia Conley</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Common Dreams</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People in a number of international cities violated bans on large gatherings over the weekend to show solidarity with protests against police brutality.</font></p></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 620</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-cant-bail-himself-out-by-stoking-white-peoples-fear-of-rioting-thugs/" rel="bookmark" title="Trump can’t bail himself out by stoking white people’s fear of rioting ‘thugs’" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" color="color" important="important" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">trump can’t bail himself out by stoking white people’s fear of rioting ‘thugs’</font></a></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/ex-fbi-official-slams-bill-barr-for-ignoring-the-right-wing-boogaloo-bois-infiltrating-protests/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/ex-fbi-official-slams-bill-barr-for-ignoring-the-right-wing-boogaloo-bois-infiltrating-protests/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ex-FBI official slams Bill Barr for ignoring the right-wing ‘Boogaloo Bois’ infiltrating protests</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Bob Brigham / Raw Story May 31, 2020</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Attorney General Bill Barr was slammed by the former assistant director for counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Saturday for misleading Americans about the source of violence at the protests over the killing of George Floyd while in police custody.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s evidence developing, Brian, that the organization we’re seeing of the most violent protesters is coming from a couple of disturbing places,” both, by the way, there’s disparate in terms in being from the right or the left. here’s what those who monitor these groups and sites are seeing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“We’re seeing a far-right group, one group for example known as the Boogaloo Bois, who on their private Facebook page and social media outlets are calling for violence, calling for people to show up,” Frank Figliuzz</b>i told MSNBC’s Brian Williams.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re seeing evidence in the protests that right-wing dangerous militia groups are there. We’ve seen flags and symbols that come from both Boogaloo Bois and dangerous militia groups,” he warned. “On the far-left, we’re seeing some evidence developing of global anarchists showing up.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So we’re seeing a strange alignment occurring by some groups who are anti-government on the right and therefore anti-police because they think the police are too oppressive to them, aligning themselves with people like Black Lives Matter and saying, ‘hey, we’re one because we both don’t like the police,’ but I’m here to tell you they are not one, their intention is to destroy government and the system of justice, as opposed to calling for justice within the system.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What do we do about it?” Williams asked.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Well, ordinarily we’d rely on our system and mechanisms and rule of law, but here’s two things significant that happened today that caused me to be deeply troubled about the summer ahead. The attorney general, William Barr held a press conference where he chose selectively just the intelligence that indicates there’s far-left agitators within the protest groups,” Figliuzzi noted.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Acyn Torabi</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Acyn</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AG Barr: it appears the violence is planned, organized, and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far left extremist groups using Antifa like tactics... it is a federal crime to cross state lines or to use interstate facilities to incite or participate in violent rioting</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5,003 people are talking about this</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“He politicized intelligence. We shouldn’t be surprised by it, but we should be disturbed that the whole truth is not getting out about all the groups that pose a threat because that goes toward whether or not law enforcement will take effective action against all groups that are violent and be allowed to take such action,” he explained.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“And then the second thing that should disturb us today is within the last hour, the president of the United States has tweeted he wants to use the unlimited power of the military with regard to these protests. Well, let me remind our viewers that we have laws in the United States that prevent the military from turning into law enforcement on the streets of America,” he reminded.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yet we see a direction of where this is headed: politicizing the intelligence so that only the far-left becomes the bad folks here, and then a president who seems inclined to use the military on our streets,” Figliuzzi warned.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s scary stuff,” Williams said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twet pix</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">mma 520</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><header class="editorial-fullheader" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h1 class="editorial-fulltitle page-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 0.45455em; padding: 0px;"><span property="schema:name" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">after the president threatened to massacre civilians, Fox News focused on Twitter’s warning sticker on the tweet</font></span></h1><p class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.3rem; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="bylinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">WRITTEN BY</span> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/author/eric-kleefeld" hreflang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">ERIC KLEEFELD</a></font></p><div class="dateline--group" style="box-sizing: border-box; align-items: center; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;"><p class="dateline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="datelinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">PUBLISHED</span> <time datetime="2020-05-29T10:25:49-0400" style="box-sizing: border-box;">05/29/20 10:25 AM EDT</time></font></p></div></header><div class="editorial-fullarticle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2.25rem;"><div class="field field--name-field-stories-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after midnight, President Donald Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">tweeted</a> about the <a href="https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-station-set-on-fire-protesters-march-downtown/570849592/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">ongoing civil unrest in Minneapolis</a>, following protests over the police killing of an African-American man, George Floyd: “<b>Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the Friday morning edition of <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fox & Friends</em>, however, the big story about the inflammatory tweet was this: Twitter soon hid that message behind a warning, declaring it violated the service’s rules about “glorifying violence,” but still allowed the message to be viewed after the user pressed a button on the screen.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One discussion over Twitter placing a flag on the tweet lasted for over eight minutes...</font></p></div></div></div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4673"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4673</font></a></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-notoriously-stupid-fox-news-host-inadvertently-let-slip-trumps-corrupt-plan-media-reporter</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">twt vi9d]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>although President Donald Trump has used Twitter incessantly to promote himself, he has been furious with the social media outlet this week for fact-checking two of his tweets — so furious that on Thursday, he issued an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/trump-twitter-social-media-executive-order/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">executive order</a> targeting social media companies and claimed that he did so to “defend free speech.</b>” Twitter hasn’t removed any of Trump’s tweets, but flagged or hidden them as inaccurate or violent. While legal scholars have been asserting that the order cannot withstand legal scrutiny, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/real-purpose-trumps-executive-order-intimidating-social-media-companies" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Media Matters’ Matt Gertz</a> stresses that it serves a useful purpose for Trump nonetheless — and that purpose has been identified by the “notoriously stupid” Fox News host Steve Doocy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“President Donald Trump capped off a multi-day tantrum at Twitter for appending a mild fact-check to one of his false tweets by retaliating with the power of the federal government,” Gertz explains. “The executive order he signed Thursday is slapdash and incoherent, rooted in a false premise, hypocritical and potentially unconstitutional, legally unenforceable yet dangerously authoritarian, with sections that read like a Fox News screed. But to analyze the executive order’s flaws is to miss the point entirely.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>That purpose, according to Gertz, is “raising the cost of defiance until his perceived enemies break” — and the executive order “forces Twitter to expend resources fighting it, but if the company bends to Trump and does what he wants, maybe it will just go away.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“Steve Doocy of all people — the notoriously stupid ‘Fox & Friends’ host who is one of the president’s favorite cable news personalities — (inadvertently) nailed it on Wednesday,” Gertz notes. “Social media companies would face ‘a big headache’ if Trump tried to repeal the section of federal law that the executive order targets, he exclaimed, so ‘they might think twice about putting a footnote on a tweet from the president of the United States.’”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gertz emphasizes that with his executive order, Trump is “drawing a line between companies that defy him and are punished and those that work to benefit him and receive praise.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> T<b>rump, Gertz observes, “lauded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for criticizing Twitter’s decision to fact-check him.”</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“Zuckerberg is the poster child for what Trump wants from the head of a social media company,” according to Gertz. “The Republican political operatives he hired to run Facebook’s policy wing have carved out exemptions from the site’s rules for Trump and his media allies. Trump is making clear that it is in the interests of other social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube to adopt that same corporate strategy — and he will continue to raise the temperature until they do.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/donald-trump-just-issued-his-most-serious-threat-yet-to-free-speech"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/donald-trump-just-issued-his-most-serious-threat-yet-to-free-speech</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon</font></div><div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-trolls-the-libs-with-100000-dead-and-39-million-out-of-work-and-his-fanboys-love-it/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-trolls-the-libs-with-100000-dead-and-39-million-out-of-work-and-his-fanboys-love-it/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">memorial Day weekend will likely be remembered by history as one marked by unimaginable tragedy. The official count of people dead from <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/as-the-us-mourns-100000-dead-from-covid-19-trump-gets-back-to-golfing_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">COVID-19 approached 100,000</a> — a milestone that will surely be passed on Tuesday or Wednesday — and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/coronavirus-death-toll.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">actual death toll is likely much higher</a>. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">weekend kicked off with new reports</a> of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/20/with-36-million-out-of-work-trump-signals-willingness-to-let-expanded-unemployment-benefits-expire_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">soaring unemployment</a>, putting the number of Americans who have filed benefit claims at 38.6 million, nearly one of every four workers in the United States.</font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump, who currently occupies the White House despite losing the 2016 popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million, could not care less about all this suffering among the people he is purportedly there to serve. We know this, because he spent his weekend ranting on Twitter about pretty much anything — including obviously false conspiracy theories about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough — except the crisis he prefers to pretend isn’t happening at all.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s equally upsetting is the soul-deadening knowledge that Trump’s voters, who could well hand him another electoral victory even in the face of a near-certain popular vote defeat, also don’t appear to care about his sociopathic behavior. On the contrary, many of them seem to relish the fact that Trump continues to “trigger the liberals,” even as the nation falls apart around him.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Over the weekend, Trump, who isn’t exactly svelte himself,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/25/donald-trump-twitter-coronavirus-golfing" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> retweeted a conservative pundit mocking rising Democratic star Stacey Abrams for her weight</a>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump also retweeted the same man calling Hillary Clinton a “skank” and claiming that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ugly. Sexualized harassment of women, of course, is easy to psychoanalyze away with the entirely correct assertion that pathetic men try to cover for their own inadequacies</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Trump is the supposed president of the United States, however, which puts the lie to long-standing but always untrue claims that ignoring such harassment robs it of its power.</span></font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-trolls-the-libs-with-100000-dead-and-39-million-out-of-work-and-his-fanboys-love-it/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-trolls-the-libs-with-100000-dead-and-39-million-out-of-work-and-his-fanboys-love-it/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">m<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">emorial Day weekend will likely be remembered by history as one marked by unimaginable tragedy. The official count of people dead from </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/as-the-us-mourns-100000-dead-from-covid-19-trump-gets-back-to-golfing_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">COVID-19 approached 100,000</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> — a milestone that will surely be passd on Tuesday or Wednesday — and the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/coronavirus-death-toll.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">actual death toll is likely much higher</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/21/unemployment-claims-coronavirus/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">weekend kicked off with new reports</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/20/with-36-million-out-of-work-trump-signals-willingness-to-let-expanded-unemployment-benefits-expire_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">soaring unemployment</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, putting the number of Americans who have filed benefit claims at 38.6 million, nearly one of every four workers in the United States.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump, who currently occupies the White House despite losing the 2016 popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million, could not care less about all this suffering among the people he is purportedly there to serve. We know this, because he spent his weekend ranting on Twitter about pretty much anything — including obviously false conspiracy theories about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough — except the crisis he prefers to pretend isn’t happening at all.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s equally upsetting is the soul-deadening knowledge that Trump’s voters, who could well hand him another electoral victory even in the face of a near-certain popular vote defeat, also don’t appear to care about his sociopathic behavior. On the contrary, many of them seem to relish the fact that Trump continues to “trigger the liberals,” even as the nation falls apart around him....</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-waging-a-war-on-reality-because-its-his-one-real-chance-at-reelection-columnist/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-waging-a-war-on-reality-because-its-his-one-real-chance-at-reelection-columnist/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alex h</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">f<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ollowing Memorial Day Weekend on Tuesday, the United States was moving closer to a grim milestone: 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Johns Hopkins University</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">researchers in Baltimore. But President Donald Trump seemed oblivious, calling for states to reopen non-essential businesses sooner rather than later. Journalist Greg Sargent, in his</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/26/trumps-war-reality-just-got-lot-more-dangerous/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Washington Post column</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, stresses that Trump’s salesman-like cheerleading is a key part of his game plan — and that he is pretending that “normalcy” is right around the corner.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Coronavirus deaths in the United States are rapidly closing in on 100,000,” Sargent asserts. “The economic depression is stretching out ahead of us as far as the eye can see. Joe Biden is holding a steady lead in polls. So, President Trump has decided he has only one real chance at reelection: to bet mostly on his magical ability to create the illusion that we’re rapidly returning to normalcy, rather than taking the difficult concrete steps that would make that more likely to happen.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sargent goes on to cite some examples of Trump’s “war on reality” — such as “new rage-tweets” aimed at North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper over “whether a full” Republican National Convention “will be held under coronavirus conditions,” and a “new federal testing blueprint that largely casts responsibility on the states.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All these things, in one way or another, show that Trump’s war on reality has veered into a new place,” Sargent explains. “Trump is responding to our most dire public health and economic crises in modern times with a concerted, far-reaching effort to concoct the mirage that we’re racing past both.”...</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/ralph-nader-here-is-trumps-top-betrayal/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/ralph-nader-here-is-trumps-top-betrayal/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Devastating critics like Dana Milbank, Republican Michael Gerson, Eugene Robinson, Margaret Sullivan, and conservative Max Boot of the Washington Post, or Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times have cogently taken Trump apart on very serious matters since 2017, yet they leave their readers without the obvious conclusion -Trump has to go. A clear daily peril to innocent Americans “I’m in total control”, why not try bleach, etc. The country cannot wait until January 2021 – assuming dictatorial Donald and his determined GOP don’t criminally suppress enough votes to postpone Trump’s departure until January 2025.</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">,,,</font></span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">authoritarian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-goes-ballistic-over-twitters-fact-check-but-he-has-no-idea-what-hes-talking-abou">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-goes-ballistic-over-twitters-fact-check-but-he-has-no-idea-what-hes-talking-abou</a>t</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">hat didn’t take long.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Around 5:30 PM Twitter slapped a label on two of President Donald Trump’s tweets, inviting social media users to “get the facts about mail-in ballot.” It’s the first time Twitter has placed what some are calling a “warning label” on any individual tweet.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while others say it’s not sufficient – Trump lies remain and the label isn’t especially strong – Trump went ballistic just two hours later.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite the fact that Trump was engaging in voter suppression, he is accusing Twitter of “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election</a>."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">'They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Actually, his tweets are filled with lies and falsehoods, no fact-checking required.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Trump did not stop there.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In yet another example of his belief that he is all powerful, Trump decreed, “<b>Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!</b>”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The President, who has never read the U.S. Constitution and little to no understanding of it, does not comprehend that he is using a private platform operated by a private company, and the only “free speech” guarantee is when the government “stifles” it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter can do what they want. And they have.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cody f</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Twitter finally took a minor step to address the deluge of distortions, lies, and blatant disinformation flowing from President Donald Trump’s account.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now, following a pair of Trump’s bogus tweets sent Tuesday morning spreading lies about mail-in voting, Twitter has inserted an alert telling readers to “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” as seen below:</font></p></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/twitter-finally-takes-a-step-to-counter-trumps-online-disinformation"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/twitter-finally-takes-a-step-to-counter-trumps-online-disinformation</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...[twet] C<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">licking the link brings readers to a page that addressed Trump’s falsehoods. It explained:</span></font></div><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Tuesday, President Trump made a series of claims about potential voter fraud after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an effort to expand mail-in voting in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It continued:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to “a Rigged Election.” However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.</font></span></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">– Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.” In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">– Though Trump targeted California, mail-in ballots are already used in some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nebraska.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While it’s important to rebut Trump’s attempt to manipulate the election and mislead the population about the integrity of American democracy, it’s easy to see how this solution from Twitter will raise further problems.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Conservatives will undoubtedly be outraged by the fact-check. Given how social media outlets have caved to faux and unjustified conservative outrage in the past, it’s easy to imagine that Twitter will respond poorly to these attacks.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It also creates the problem that the rest of Trump’s Twitter feed remains littered with disinformation and lies, including smears about President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden and a horrendous conspiracy theory insinuating baselessly that former Rep. Joe Scarborough murdered a congressional staffer. Correcting some lies and not others could create the appearance that Twitter is putting its seal of approval on misinformation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Some, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), have advocated that Twitter ban Trump completely because of his abuse of the platform.</b> Ultimately, someone like Trump leaves companies like Twitter in an incredibly difficult, perhaps impossible, situation. The best solution is to get reckless spreaders of disinformation out of power.</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">wa mo economy</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/heres-how-trump-sabotaged-americas-recovery-before-covid-19-even-began"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/heres-how-trump-sabotaged-americas-recovery-before-covid-19-even-began</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">n<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/new-lancet-study-on-hydroxychloroquine-shows-trump-as-usual-is-dangerously-wrong-on-covid-19-guidance/" rel="bookmark" title="New Lancet study on hydroxychloroquine shows Trump ‘as usual, is dangerously wrong’ on COVID-19 guidance" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" color="color" important="important" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">ew Lancet study on hydroxychloroquine shows Trump ‘as usual, is dangerously wrong’ on COVID-19 guidance</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 520</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-demanded-churches-re-open-after-polls-found-staggering-decline-in-support-from-christian-conservatives/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Trump demanded churches re-open after polls found ‘staggering decline’ in support from Christian conservatives</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-demanded-churches-re-open-after-polls-found-staggering-decline-in-support-from-christian-conservatives/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-demanded-churches-re-open-after-polls-found-staggering-decline-in-support-from-christian-conservatives/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></span></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash/" title="Posts by David Badash" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">David Badash</a><span style="text-align: right;"> </span><span style="text-align: right;">/</span><span style="text-align: right;"> </span><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement/" title="Posts by The New Civil Rights Movement" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Civil Rights Movemen</a>t</font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">atl mo unmanly op -ed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-pegged-as-the-least-masculine-president-in-modern-times-by-naval-war-college-professor-in-scathing-op-ed"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-pegged-as-the-least-masculine-president-in-modern-times-by-naval-war-college-professor-in-scathing-op-ed</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump’s supporters think of him as the ultimate alpha male, but <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/donald-trump-the-most-unmanly-president/612031/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a scathing op-ed in <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Atlantic</em></a> makes the case that he’s “the least masculine man” to be elected president in modern history.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Tom Nichols, a conservative professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, writes that he is baffled that blue-collar white men continue to support Trump even as the president has whiny tantrums about being treated unfairly in the media.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Courage, honesty, respect, an economy of words, a bit of modesty, and a willingness to take responsibility are all virtues prized by the self-identified class of hard-working men, the stand-up guys, among whom I was raised,” he writes. “And yet, many of these same men expect none of those characteristics from Trump, who is a vain, cowardly, lying, vulgar, jabbering blowhard.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The most damning aspect of Trump, writes Nichols, is his utter refusal to take any responsibility for his actions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">"In this category, he exhibits one of the most unmanly of behaviors: He’s a blamer,” Nichols writes. “Nothing is ever his fault. In the midst of disaster, he praises himself while turning on even his most loyal supporters without a moment’s hesitation. Men across America who were socialized by team sports, whose lives are predicated on the principle of showing up and doing the job, continually excuse a man who continually excuses himself.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/donald-trump-the-most-unmanly-president/612031/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Read the whole editorial here</a>.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/jeff-sessions-hits-back-at-donald-trump-after-the-president-endorses-senate-opponent/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/jeff-sessions-hits-back-at-donald-trump-after-the-president-endorses-senate-opponent/</a></font></font></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/can-lindsey-graham-win-reelection-as-a-trump-enabler/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/can-lindsey-graham-win-reelection-as-a-trump-enabler/</a></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">omfg baaaaaaccckkk!?</font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-terrifying-return-of-karl-rove-a-republican-character-assassin-joins-trumps-team/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-terrifying-return-of-karl-rove-a-republican-character-assassin-joins-trumps-team/</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">digby</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here have been many rumors in recent weeks that the Trump campaign is starting to disintegrate. This is not surprising. All you have to do is read Trump’s Twitter feed to see that the president does not like bad news and he will kill any messenger who brings it to him. Lately, there has been a whole lot of bad campaign news.</span></font></font></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/us/politics/trump-campaign-reelection-polls.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> that Trump has been getting so angry at the decaying poll numbers that he yelled at campaign manager Brad Parscale and threatened to sue him during a heated phone call. (Parscale reportedly replied, “I love you too,” and flew up to Washingon right away to mend fences.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Indeed, the polls have not been looking good for Trump, but then they haven’t looked very good his entire term. An impeached president whose approval rating has always hovered around 42% doesn’t have a lot of room for error to begin with. Now that he’s shown what a disastrous leader he is in a crisis, there very little prospect that it’s going to improve.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Naturally, Trump blames his campaign operatives for this because he will never accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong. Parscale has been just a bit too high-profile recently,</b> even getting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/magazine/trump-campaign-manager-coronavirus.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">celebrity treatment</a> from the New York Times, which is the sort of thing that makes the boss very angry. He doesn’t like to share the spotlight, particularly with someone who seems to be making buckets of money while working for him.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The Never Trumper PAC known as The Lincoln Project yanked Trump’s chain with that information this week, running another one of its ads pointedly designed to get under the president’s thin skin.[vids death star ]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>setting aside the macabre tastelessness of calling your campaign operation the “Death Star” while your candidate is recklessly mismanaging a runaway epidemic that has killed close to 100,000 of his own people, even as a pop-culture reference it’s absurdly off-base. Does Parscale know that things didn’t end well for the Death Star</b>?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Parscale has cultivated a close relationship with Jared Kushner, the son Trump never had, so he’s probably safe. But you never know with Trump.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> His 2016 campaign cycled through a number of campaign operatives, some of whom are now either in prison or awaiting sentencing. There have been whispers that Trump might bring back Corey Lewandowski or Steve Bannon, but Javanka never cared for either of them so they’re probably off the table. If things get really desperate, I suppose he can always pardon Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and bring them back on board.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The sad fact is that Trump’s options are limited. While the entire Republican establishment has not just capitulated to Trump but now eagerly supports him, it’s interesting to note that so many high-profile GOP campaign strategists have gone the other way. There simply aren’t very many experienced people Trump can call for help.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">But there is one guy: Karl Rove, the man they used to call “Bush’s Brain,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” whom George W. Bush affectionately dubbed “Turd Blossom.” Rove has backed away from active campaigning in recent years, preferring to drop his pearls of wisdom on Fox News and advise the dark-money super PAC American Crossroads, which he founded back in 2010. But </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/karl-rove-helping-trump-campaign-2020-5?op=1" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reports this week</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> suggest that despite Trump’s antipathy for the Bush family, Turd Blossom may be back in the saddle, advising Trump on how to salvage those swing states he sees slipping away.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/white-house-re-election-advisers-rise-coronavirus-task-force-fades-n1208161" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">NBC News</a>, Rove has been quietly worming his way into the campaign for some time:</font></font></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has consulted Rove since the 2018 midterm elections</b>, per three people familiar with the discussions. Before the pandemic, Rove had advised the Trump campaign it could be modeled, in some ways, after the Bush 2004 re-election race.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Of course he did. He certainly wouldn’t want to remind anyone of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/us/politics/roves-on-air-rebuttal-of-foxs-ohio-vote-call-raises-questions-about-his-role.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">his total meltdown</a> on Fox News on election night in 2012, when he refused to accept that Republican nominee Mitt Romney had lost Ohio, and with it the election, insisting that his own numbers were more reliable. Romney’s family had to call and tell Rove to back down so the candidate could concede with some measure of dignity.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fact, Rove is a perfect addition to the Trump team. For all his reputation as a “data guy” and number-cruncher,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b> he’s really just an old-fashioned Republican character assassin.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/politics/president-trump-coronavirus-pandemic-response.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New York Times has reported</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that Rove had a recent meeting with Trump and warned him “that he had fallen behind in the task of damaging [Joe] Biden, people familiar with the meeting said.” That’s the kind of tactic in which Rove specializes.</span></b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rove first came to national attention as George W. Bush’s campaign manager in 2000. According to James Moore and Wayne Slater’s book “<a href="https://amzn.to/2ZuvTqS" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential</a>,” Rove was personally behind one of the most scurrilous episodes in GOP campaign history. He allegedly came up with the <b>infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">push poll</a> used in South Carolina to undermine support for Sen. John McCain with outright racist innuendo:</b> “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But then, Rove was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/atwater/etc/synopsis.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a Lee Atwater protégé,</a> so what else would one expect?</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Crudely tearing down the opponent isn’t the only way in which Rove is particularly suited to be a Trump adviser. He was always exalted among the Beltway press for his supposed genius in figuring out that you should attack your opponents on their perceived strengths. For instance, the Bush campaign attacked John Kerry over his Vietnam War record in the 2004 election, when that was considered Kerry’s ace in the hole. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In reality, Rove was always projecting his own candidate’s weaknesses onto his opponent</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In that election, Bush had had to contend with the fact that he had started a useless war in Iraq and had himself dodged the draft, so the campaign’s best recourse was to make Kerry look like a liar and a coward.</span></font></font></font></p><article style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I hardly have to tell you how Trumpian that is. If Rove can get Trump to actually listen to him — which he probably won’t, since Trump won’t listen to anyone — it could be a formidable partnership.</font></font></font><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Karl Rove won elections through the clever manipulation of the media with lots of talk about “the math,” the supposed inevitability of Republican victory and his own inflated mystique. In that regard, he mirrors Parscale, the high-living Trump campaign manager who has snookered the press into believing he’s a high-tech genius possessed of secret knowledge and endless resources</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Both of them managed to slip their clients into a first term with a dubious Electoral College victory and a popular-vote defeat. It remains to be seen if Parscale can replicate Rove’s second-term victory in 2004, in which Bush won the popular vote, but almost lost the Electoral College.</span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bush’s Brain and Trump’s ego are going to ride Brad Parscale’s Death Star into November. Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy flight.</font></p></article><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-screwing-up-so-bad-he-may-finally-be-losing-older-voters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is screwing up so badly he may finally lose older voters</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-screwing-up-so-bad-he-may-finally-be-losing-older-voters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-screwing-up-so-bad-he-may-finally-be-losing-older-voters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/nancy-letourneau/" title="Posts by Nancy LeTourneau" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Nancy LeTourneau</a><span style="text-align: right;"> </span><span style="text-align: right;">/</span><span style="text-align: right;"> </span><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/washington-monthly/" title="Posts by Washington Monthly" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Washington</a> mo</font><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-is-screwing-up-so-bad-he-may-finally-be-losing-older-voters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">520 an</font></a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/another-trump-con-now-hes-cheating-frontline-workers-and-national-guard-troops/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/another-trump-con-now-hes-cheating-frontline-workers-and-national-guard-troops/</a></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">89 day deploy? trms</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-knows-most-americans-dont-want-to-re-elect-him-so-hes-cheating-like-crazy/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-knows-most-americans-dont-want-to-re-elect-him-so-hes-cheating-like-crazy/</font></a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">amanda</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">despite his off-the-charts narcissism, Donald Trump knows on some level that the majority of Americans don’t want him to be president and he cannot win in a fair election. He didn’t beat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote in 2016 — she got nearly 3 million more votes — and only won because of the outsize influence of smaller, rural states in the Electoral College. He has only grown less popular since then and is now well behind former Vice President Joe Biden in most national polls, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/trump-2020-analysis/index.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">usually by a margin of 5 to 8 points</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Trump has had a plan to win in 2020, ever since his re-election campaign kicked off the second he was inaugurated: Cheat like crazy.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trying to cheat in the presidential election is, of course, what Trump was impeached for in December, which no doubt feels like ancient history, due to the rising death tolls and exploding unemployment rate over which our “very stable genius” of a president has presided since then. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So here’s a refresher: Trump, anticipating (apparently correctly) that Biden would be his Democratic opponent, leveraged the power of the State Department in an effort to blackmail the Ukrainian president into publicly backing right-wing conspiracy theories about Biden, threatening to withhold military aid unless Ukrainian officials announced “investigations” into Biden. The idea was to create the 2020 version of “Clinton’s emails” by using phony investigations and innuendo to paint Biden as corrupt, even though there’s no evidence Biden did anything corrupt in his dealings with Ukraine.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Impeachment did a lot to shut down that scheme (though I have no doubt they’ll keep trying), but that doesn’t mean Trump has given up the hope that he can rig some kind of victory, even in an election when strong majorities of Americans oppose him. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Since shamelessness and callousness are among Trump’s central qualities, he’s perfectly happy to exploit the coronavirus crisis to do it. Yep, that same crisis that he made exponentially worse with his negligence and open hostility to science — now he wants to use it to deprive American voters of their chance to kick him out on his keister in November.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For obvious reasons, a numerous states have decided to dramatically increase the ability of voters to vote by mail in November, especially after the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/16/why-the-supreme-court-made-wisconsin-vote-during-the-coronavirus-crisis_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">forced in-person voting in April</a>, leading to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/20/after-wisconsin-republicans-forced-election-study-links-in-person-voting-to-spike-in-covid-19-cases/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a spike in coronavirus cases in the weeks afterwards</a>. No one can assume that the virus won’t still be a threat this fall, and it’s better to prepare now for the possibility that people won’t be able to vote in person in November.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">but Trump is certain — and for good reason — that if more people get to vote, he’s likely to lose. So he’s freaking out. He’s particularly sweating the possibility that voters in swing states will be able to vote by mail in large numbers, since he knows his best chance of winning those states lies in making sure that as few people vote as possible.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/20/trump-threatens-to-block-federal-funding-to-michigan-for-sending-absentee-ballot-forms-to-all-voters_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump tweeted on Wednesday, in typical hyperventilating style</a>. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He deleted and reposted the tweet later to reflect it was ballot <em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">applications</em> that were sent, not ballots themselves, but kept the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/politics/trump-michigan-vote-by-mail.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">more disturbing false claim that it’s illegal to mail ballot applications to voters</a>. He also threatened Nevada in similar fashion.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a32611763/trump-threaten-michigan-coronavirus-relief-vote-by-mail/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">As Jack Holmes of Esquire pointed out</a>, Trump is threatening two U.S. states in exactly the same way he threatened Ukraine: Claiming he will withhold funds authorized by Congress if the recipient doesn’t help him cheat in the 2020 election. This is election fraud and blackmail, but this time directed at Americans.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Not only are these tweets an effort to blackmail the states, but they are also a direct effort to scare ordinary citizens out of voting.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">As political analyst Judd Legum pointed out in his newsletter, Popular Information, “Telling someone that an absentee ballot application they receive was sent to them ‘illegally’ could dissuade them from voting.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Indeed, the tweets themselves are arguably voter intimidation, since Trump is literally trying to scare people into thinking they may be prosecuted if they fill out an application for a mail-in ballot. </b>Voter intimidation is a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/594" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal criminal offense that could lead to jail time</a> — except that Trump is hiding behind “executive privilege,” which has been used to argue against legal punishment for all his criminal behavior.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan literally warned the nation about this possibility during Trump’s impeachment hearings.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><twitter-widget class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" id="twitter-widget-0" data-tweet-id="1202271057253687297" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; visibility: visible; display: block; transform: rotate(0deg); max-width: 100%; width: 500px; min-width: 220px;"><div data-twitter-event-id="0" class="SandboxRoot env-bp-350" style="max-height: 10000px; direction: ltr; background: 0px 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.4; white-space: initial; position: relative;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--cta js-clickToOpenTarget" data-click-to-open-target="https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1202271057253687297" data-iframe-title="Twitter Tweet" data-scribe="page:tweet" id="twitter-widget-0" lang="en" data-twitter-event-id="1" style="overflow: hidden; cursor: pointer; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); border-radius: 5px; max-width: 520px;"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweetContainer"><div class="EmbeddedTweet-tweet" style="padding: 20px 20px 10px;"><blockquote class="Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded" cite="https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1202271057253687297" data-tweet-id="1202271057253687297" data-scribe="section:subject" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none;"><div class="Tweet-header" style="display: flex;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Karlan: “What would you think if, when your governor asked the federal government for the disaster assistance that Congress has provided, the President responded, ‘I would like you to do us a favor.’ I’ll... send the disaster relief once you brand my opponent a criminal."</font></span></div><div class="Tweet-body e-entry-content" data-scribe="component:tweet" style="margin-top: 13px;"><p class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[karlan vid]</font></p><p class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="Tweet-text e-entry-title" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; list-style: none; border: none; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: text; overflow-wrap: break-word; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">well, the day is here and Trump isn’t even being coy about it, but belligerently trying to use the pandemic to scare people into not voting, while threatening Democratic-led states with the loss of federal funding. To justify this, Trump told more lies Wednesday afternoon, <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1263244100339486721" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">claiming that “voting is an honor” (it is in fact a right)</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1263241979825192960" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"> that “they” mail in</a> “thousands and thousands of fake ballots,” an utterly false claim with zero evidence behind it.</font></p></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></twitter-widget></font></font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Trump is doing is illegal, and congressional Democrats know it. <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1263419522960240640" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sen. Kamala Harris of California noted on MSNBC </a>that, “it is a federal crime to withhold money from states with the purpose of interfering with people’s right to vote.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even threatening to do that is arguably a criminal act, especially if, as noted above, these threats are meant to scare people out of voting. Either way, it’s an abuse of power for the purpose of cheating in an election, which is precisely what Trump was impeached for last December.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I find myself physically exhausted even thinking about it, but it must be said: Democrats must consider the possibility of impeaching Trump again, and soon. What he’s doing now isn’t just as bad as what he did to Ukraine — it’s much worse, since he’s directly attacking American citizens and their constitutional right to vote. This is the Ukraine scandal on steroids. (And the Ukraine scandal was Watergate on steroids!)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s a terrible thing to think about, especially since Senate Republicans, who don’t care what crimes Trump commits, would just acquit Trump again. And it’s hard to imagine what another round of impeachment hearings, much less another impeachment vote, would look like in the age of the coronavirus.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, we know one thing about the first impeachment: It worked. It blew up Trump’s scheme to blackmail the Ukrainian president, and exposed the fraudulent nature of the conspiracy theory against Biden so thoroughly that the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/10/10/biden-calls-out-new-york-times-for-spreading-trumps-conspiracy-theories/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">even Trump-curious reporters like Ken Vogel at the New York Times</a> have been scared away from pretending there’s anything serious to these conspiracy theories about Biden.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As difficult and disheartening as another round of impeachment might be, it could be the only way to keep Trump from using the coronavirus to cheat in the 2020 election. If Democrats can impeach him for blackmailing Ukraine in this way, surely they can impeach him for blackmailing the governors of Michigan and Nevada in exactly the same way.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More important still, Trump has made no secret of his desire to cheat. He does it right out in the open, on Twitter, and will only continue to escalate these threats if there are no real consequences. A second impeachment, ugly as it will be, may be the only way to ensure a free and fair election during this pandemic.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-executive-order-directs-all-agencies-to-gut-business-regulations-amid-covid-19-the-corruption-is-on-full-display/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-executive-order-directs-all-agencies-to-gut-business-regulations-amid-covid-19-the-corruption-is-on-full-display/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>trump executive order directs all agencies to gut business regulations amid COVID-19: ‘The corruption is on full display’</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald J. Trump arrives in the House chamber and is greeted by members of Congress prior to delivering his State of the Union address Tuesday, Feb. 4, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In a move watchdog groups decried as an effort to reward big corporations at the expense of public health and safety, President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing the heads of every federal agency to “waive, suspend, and eliminate” all regulations that they consider unnecessary obstacles to economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>“And we want to leave it that way,” Trump said during a press briefing, indicating he would like to make the sweeping deregulation permanent. The president’s order could have enormous implications for workplace safety rules, environmental and labor policy, consumer protections, food and drug regulations, and more.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robert Weissman, president Public Citizen, said the executive order shows that “instead of real, direct help for the tens of millions of Americans struggling financially due to the pandemic, or a real plan to reopen the economy safely based on the best public health expertise, Trump wants to keep giving handouts to corporate interests.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Trump’s corporate-friendly executive order aimed at rolling back even more regulations that protect the public is<b> just the latest sign that his solution to the pandemic is the opposite of what the public needs</b>,” said Weissman. “The corruption of this administration is on full display as it uses this crisis as an excuse to further its corporate agenda while distracting the public from its utter failure to fight the virus.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public Citizen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Public_Citizen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is using this crisis as an excuse to further his corporate agenda while distracting the public from his utter failure to fight the virus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The corruption is on full display. https://twitter.com/cbsnews/status/1262828680943939586 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CBS News</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@CBSNews</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Trump says he will sign an executive order directing all federal agencies "to use any and all authority to waive, suspend, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"And we want to leave it that way," he adds http://www.cbsnews.com/live </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s deregulatory push amid the Covid-19 pandemic is a continuation of his administration’s policy of hacking away at as many restrictions on big business as possible prior to the crisis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As Common Dreams reported, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has already used the coronavirus pandemic to suspend reporting rules and other requirements for the fossil fuel industry, which green groups warned gives oil companies “a green light” to pollute the nation’s air and water with impunity.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The president’s executive order instructs agency heads to “determine which, if any, [deregulatory actions] would promote economic recovery if made permanent,” giving the EPA and other agencies the go-ahead to indefinitely lift regulations on big polluters and other corporations.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Remember when the EPA got all ‘how dare you’ about anyone saying their rollbacks were permanent? Well, now there’s an executive order that makes them so,</b>” tweeted climate journalist Amy Westervelt. “There will be many, many more. Oil and gas royalties? Bye. Restrictions on offshore drilling? Buh-bye. <b>This is unbelievably bad, reckless, and a complete fuck-you to democracy.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">While Trump presented his administration’s sweeping assault on regulations as an attempt to accelerate economic recovery from the coronavirus emergency, economists have disputed the longstanding right-wing notion that deregulation necessarily boosts activity and growth.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“This sounds exactly like the type of opportunistic political move that absolutely should not be attempted right now,” Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told the Washington Post last month. “Correlations between regulations and economic activity are far shakier than they assume, and I don’t believe this idea will help at all.”</b></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">several stories on flaunt rule of law; author pal eg tropic top 4 of 5 covid fails</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/an-8-billion-saudi-arms-deal-a-revolving-door-lobbyist-and-a-fired-inspector-general-is-pompeo-in-trouble"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/an-8-billion-saudi-arms-deal-a-revolving-door-lobbyist-and-a-fired-inspector-general-is-pompeo-in-trouble</font></a></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></div></div>