TARGET 2

age of trump:<div>
</div><div>see main for earlier</div><div>see also dirty tricks</div><div>
</div><div>html ends sniffs</div><div>
</div><div>t 3 premature 420</div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-spent-easter-weekend-calling-friends-about-dr-fauci-as-white-house-allies-begin-smear-campaign-report"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-spent-easter-weekend-calling-friends-about-dr-fauci-as-white-house-allies-begin-smear-campaign-report</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"><b>Trump spent Easter weekend calling friends about Dr. Fauci as White House allies begin smear campaign: report</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story April 13, 2020</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Daily Beast is reporting that Donald Trump hunkered down in the White House over the Easter weekend, watching cable news programs and calling friends and allies asking what they think of Dr. Anthony Fauci who has become, for many, the only reliable face on the White House coronavirus task force.</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);">According to the report, the president thinks he made the infectious disease expert a “star” by featuring him prominently during his almost daily press conferences and is reportedly looking for feedback.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“’What do you think of Fauci?’ the president repeatedly worked into his phone conversations over the past few days, the three sources said, as he pulsed his broader network of informal advisers, industry allies, and current staff on their opinions on the news of the day,” the Beast’s Asawein Suebsaeng reports. “At one point this weekend, Trump remarked that he’s made Fauci a ‘star’ and that barely anybody would have known who the doctor was were it not for the president putting him front and center in the administration’s coronavirus response, televised press briefings, and media strategy.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to one source, the president, “.. did not sound bitter about it, I wouldn’t say that. It just sounded like he thought it was worth a reminder.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What may have set off the president was an appearance by the Fauci on CNN’s “State of the Union,” where, in a roundabout way,the doctor  admitted that the White House dropped the ball on getting ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic that has already led to over 22,000 deaths in the U.S.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Fauci’s comments did not go over well with certain officials working in the White House or on the president’s campaign, according to multiple aides, or with Trump supporters who are publicly protective of the president and his image,” the report states. “‘ Dr. Fauci needs to be more careful choosing his words on #Coronavirus, & if he’s going to be critical, make clear what he personally could’ve done better,’ Jason Miller, a former senior Trump adviser, posted to Twitter on Sunday.”</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);">According to the report, Miller was not the only critic of the doctor who is close to Trump and the White House, with Suebsaeng writing, “By Sunday afternoon, prominent Trump allies and surrogates were circulating links and documents showing how Fauci had been inconsistent or made faulty predictions about the virus in recent months, encouraging each other to share them or use them as talking points.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Of note, late Sunday the president retweeted a Twitter post that contained the hashtag: #Fire Fauci.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can read more here.</font></div></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" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">pounder definer PR, soros had to hire security, press inq on soros, threats</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/16/bombshell_investigation_how_facebook_fought_critics">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/16/bombshell_investigation_how_facebook_fought_critics</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Delay, Deny and Deflect.” That’s the name of a new bombshell investigation by The New York Times revealing that Facebook executives, including </span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CEO</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, were aware of a Russian misinformation campaign on the social media network and took a series of extraordinary private actions to preserve the company’s reputation, launching an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat critics and spread misinformation. The New York Times investigation reveals that Facebook hired the Republican opposition-research firm Definers Public Affairs to discredit critics of Facebook, linking them to the billionaire liberal donor George Soros. Facebook also allegedly lobbied the Anti-Defamation League to condemn criticism of the company as anti-Semitic. Since the publication of the investigation, Facebook has announced it will cut ties with Definers. We speak with Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, one of the organizations targeted by Definers Public Affairs. We also speak with Siva Vaidhyanathan, the author of “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.” He is a professor of media studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. Vaidhyanathan’s new article for Slate is titled “Facebook Is a Normal Sleazy Company Now.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">GUEST POST WRITTEN BY</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ms. Kelly is a cooking instructor and food writer. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Stier is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Don’t let his bespectacled, mild-manner fool you: Mark Bittman is the foodie version of a war-monger.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s a war here,” the New York Times columnist proclaimed at a food conference last year. His battle is America’s next social justice crusade much like civil rights and suffrage. But this time, the oppressors are McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and Monsanto. From soda to sugar to meat, Bittman has declared war on nearly every ingredient in the American food system.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And if the pen is mightier than the sword, Bittman is the literary Napoleon of the progressive food movement. He depicts our food system as enemy territory that must be conquered then ruled by the omnipotent culinary elite in Manhattan and San Francisco with support from taxpayer-funded bureaucrats in Washington, DC.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His latest book, “A Bone to Pick” (Penguin Random House, May 5), is a collection of Bittman’s NYT columns on how to "un-invent this food system" that has been “a major contributor to climate change, spawned the obesity crisis, poisoned countless volumes of land and water, wasted energy and tortured billions of animals.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Like all good social warriors, Bittman is armed with a plan for victory. The introduction of the book is his “Food Manifesto for the Future,” which lists a number of government-controlled remedies from the rational (limit subsidies) to the banal (mandate more labeling) to the outlandish (offer cooking classes for everyone and even give free cookware and cooking assistance to poor people.) Nearly every solution requires the reach of the federal government—which Bittman refers to as the “entity that is supposed to be vigilant regarding our health and welfare”—and the largess of the American taxpayer.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Other entries are somewhat comical, such as his suggestion to convert suburban lawns into vegetable gardens.</b> “If you want to plant a lawn, that’s fine though it’s a waste of water and energy…Lawns are an attempt to dominate and homogenize nature.” Another column fantasizes about his “dream food label” designed as a stoplight for witless American consumers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But few of Bittman’s strategies are revolutionary; in fact, many have been tried with limited or no success. Consider his repeated call to limit consumption of soda, sugar and processed foods by children. He cites California’s ban on sugary drinks and restrictions on unhealthy snacks in public schools over the last several years. The result? By 2010, California’s childhood overweight/obesity rate dropped—by 1%. It’s still an eye-popping 38% among adolescents despite massive statewide efforts to stem the crisis.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">He often promotes taxing unhealthy food to fund subsidies and access to healthier food, such as his idea to convert “soda machines to vending machines that dispense grapes and carrots.” Pushing fresh produce is a big goal for many urban leaders and is being tried at great expense and unknown results. The CDC’s Putting Prevention to Work fund is one such example: The federal government gave local governments money to reimburse corner stores to buy refrigerators to sell produce.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></p><p><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">Even when food corporations try to satisfy Mr. Bittman’s agenda, he questions their motives and integrity. McDonald’s is one example; it’s a frequent target in his book. He mocks the company’s efforts to please him, writing that McDonald’s wants foodies like “…me to stop kvetching and instead acknowledge that they’re making great strides in promoting health.” He sniffs that “only the most gullible will buy” McDonald’s attempts to offer healthier menu choices. Bittman has pointed to “the decline of McDonald’s” as a win for the food movement.</font></font></font></font></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">==</font></font></font></p></div>