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Trump largely silent as health officials sound COVID-19 alarm | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...officials-sound-covid-19-alarm

trump health coronavirus pandemic

shared by hannahcarter11 on 04 Dec 20 - No Cached
    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 04 Dec 20
       
      Ah yes, because protesting for civil rights and against police brutality is equally/less important than a holiday party for the 1%.
  • Doug Heye, a GOP strategist, said that “in a normal world with a normal president,” it would of course be beneficial to have the president messaging front and center. But with Trump, “the president is not only absent, but if he were engaged, we don’t know based on everything that we saw that he’d be a force of good.”
  • Instead, many of his public statements have focused on election conspiracy theories and his refusal to accept the results
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  • President TrumpDonald John TrumpBiden says GOP senators have called to congratulate him Biden: Trump attending inauguration is 'of consequence' to the country Biden says family will avoid business conflicts MORE has been largely silent when it comes to warning the public about the need for precautions or announcing major new steps aimed at curbing the spread of the virus before a vaccine is widely available.
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield warned on Wednesday that December, January and February are “going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
  • Even though some of those warnings were aimed at the public, the White House did not release the report and instead sent it privately to states. The document came to light only after it was leaked to the press.
  • The U.S. is already being hit with 150,000 new cases a day, as well as a record 100,000-plus coronavirus patients in hospitals and more than 2,500 deaths from the virus on Wednesday alone. Those numbers are expected to worsen as more people test positive after a surge of Thanksgiving travel and gatherings.
  • The White House coronavirus task force sent a report, dated Sunday, to states sounding the alarm on several fronts, including that “a further post-Thanksgiving surge will compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall” as hospitals are overwhelmed.
  • state responses “remain inadequate” in “many areas” and called for measures like limiting or closing indoor dining, which many states have not done.
  • Trump administration health officials are issuing increasingly dire warnings about the coronavirus and its rapid spread across the country, drawing a sharp contrast to the president’s reluctance to acknowledge the severity of the crisis head-on.
  • Some health experts said that given Trump’s history of making skeptical and at times misleading remarks about the coronavirus, his relative silence on the topic might be better than having him undercut the messaging from public health agencies.
  • “I’d rather he be quiet than step on the message of the CDC, which appears to be waking back up and providing useful guidance.”
  • “He's been hard at work,” she added. “He's done I don't know how many coronavirus task force briefings from this podium. But the work he's done speaks for itself.”
  • When Trump has spoken about coronavirus recently, it has been to tout progress on the vaccine, which has indeed progressed at record speed and shown very promising safety and efficacy results. But the vaccine will not be widely available for several months, highlighting the need for other measures in the short term to get through the brutal winter months.
  • “If you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in protest, you can also go to a Christmas party, you can celebrate the holiday of Christmas, and you can do it responsibly.
hannahcarter11

Warnock leading Loeffler, other Georgia Senate runoff race deadlocked: poll | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...te-runoff-race-deadlocked-poll

georgia senate runoff poll Senate control

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    • hannahcarter11
      hannahcarter11 on 04 Dec 20
       
      It's interesting how race factors in here. The disparity in the poll points in the Black vote shows just how pivotal the Black vote is in Georgia.
  • Men gave Perdue a 10-point lead over Ossoff and Loeffler a 9-point lead over Warnock. Women gave Ossoff an 11-point lead over Perdue, as well as a 19-point advantage for Warnock.
  • . If either Republican wins, the GOP will retain control of the Senate.
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  • However, if both Democratic candidates win, the parties will be evenly split in the upper chamber, allowing Vice President-elect Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisBiden says GOP senators have called to congratulate him Biden says family will avoid business conflicts Biden says China must play by 'international norms' MORE to cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation.
  • Democrat the Rev. Raphael Warnock holds a lead over GOP Sen. Kelly LoefflerKelly LoefflerTop Senate GOP super PAC raises million ahead of Georgia runoffs Republican senators introduce bill to protect government workers from being targeted at home Republicans scramble to counter calls to boycott Georgia runoffs MORE (Ga.) in a poll of one of two Georgia runoff races that will determine the balance of the Senate.
  • Warnock leads Loeffler 52 percent to 45 percent
  • Democrat John Ossoff is narrowly leading Sen. David PerdueDavid PerdueRepublican senators introduce bill to protect government workers from being targeted at home Republicans scramble to counter calls to boycott Georgia runoffs Georgia Republicans push for photo ID for future absentee voting MORE (R-Ga.) 50 percent to the Republican’s 48 percent in the state’s other runoff election that will take place in January.
  • White voters in the Peach State gave Perdue a 43-point lead and Loeffler a 37-point lead, according to the poll.
  • Among Black voters, Ossoff led in his runoff race with an 87-point advantage and Warnock with an 83-point advantage.  
hannahcarter11

Expect a 'flurry' of pardons before Trump leaves office, source says - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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trump pardons transition biden politics

shared by hannahcarter11 on 03 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • The public should expect a "flurry" of pardons before President Donald Trump leaves office, a source close to the White House says, as has happened at the end of previous administrations.
  • some of the President's advisers believe that it would be perfectly fine for Trump to pardon his family members and other associates preemptively, even though they haven't been charged with any crimes.
  • Trump's allies in Congress and conservative media have said the President should pardon himself
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  • CNN reported on Tuesday that associates in Trump's orbit, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have approached the President to seek preemptive pardons.
  • The President has also been talking with advisers about preemptively pardoning several people close to him, including his children and son-in-law, the White House adviser Jared Kushner.
  • Donald Trump Jr., the President's son, was under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller for contacts he had with Russians, but was never charged. And Kushner provided false information about his foreign contacts when applying for his security clearance, but Trump issued him one anyway.
  • Nine individuals in Trump's orbit, including his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime friend Roger Stone, have been indicted or found guilty of crimes related to a constellation of alleged criminal conspiracies.
  • The pardoning discussions come on the heels of the President's decision to grant Flynn a full pardon, absolving him of charges related to lying to federal agents over his contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
hannahcarter11

After Biden Win, Nation's Republicans Fear the Economy Ahead - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...economy-survey.html

biden economy republicans trump survey

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  • After President Trump’s loss to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., more than 40 percent of Republicans who were polled for The New York Times said they expected their family to be worse off financially in a year’s time, up from 4 percent in October.
  • The new polling, by the online research firm SurveyMonkey, reaffirms the degree to which Americans’ confidence in the economy’s path has become entwined with partisanship and ideology.
  • Democrats in November were nearly three times as likely as they were in October to say they expected good or very good business conditions in the country over the next year.
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  • Republicans were actually more likely to say that they were doing well in November, compared to October. But nearly three in four said they expected “periods of widespread unemployment or depression” in the next several years, up from three in 10 in October.
  • Nancy Veits, a Republican voter in Los Angeles County, said the economy was a major factor in her decision to vote for Mr. Trump. A retired small-business owner, Ms. Veits, 81, said that she appreciated the president’s commitment to deregulation — and that she feared for the economy after his departure.
  • Mr. Keyston, 66, said that he didn’t like Mr. Trump’s penchant for Twitter or his demeanor in office. But he said he liked many of Mr. Trump’s policies, like his tax cuts and his promise to build a border wall and to keep the United States out of wars
  • . He worries that Mr. Biden will impose new restrictions that will cripple the economy, including a nationwide lockdown, a charge that Mr. Trump repeatedly leveled against Mr. Biden, though Mr. Biden did not call for such a lockdown.
  • Big partisan shifts in confidence have become common following elections in recent decades.
  • “It reflects what we’ve seen in the survey data the whole time, which is that everyone is tying their own political beliefs to their views of the economy,” said Laura Wronski, a research scientist for SurveyMonkey. “It’s just kind of crazy to see how entrenched these beliefs are.”
  • Democrats’ views of the economy have also shifted after elections, but generally less than Republicans’, a pattern that was particularly stark this year.
  • “I think the economic impact is devastating, and it’s going to take people decades to recover,” she said.
  • Ms. Garrow, a Democrat, said she supported many of Mr. Biden’s signature policy proposals, such as raising taxes on the wealthy and making public colleges free to students from middle-class families.
  • Perhaps more surprising, some of Mr. Biden’s proposals earn support from Republican voters. More than four in 10 Republicans support raising taxes on people earning more than $400,000 a year. Three-quarters of Republicans support a proposal to guarantee paid sick leave to workers during the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Liberal economists with links to Mr. Biden say the results show the popularity of his plans and the challenges of reaching out to supporters of Mr. Trump whose economic hopes were low before he won the 2016 election.
  • William Spriggs, the chief economist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. labor federation, said that the polling reflected the “partisan politics” now embedded in economic confidence surveys, and that it offered a message to Mr. Biden on the importance of pushing for policies like paid leave that have attracted Republican opposition in Washington.
  • But he said the country needed to invest more in public health, education and other priorities, and he said it made sense to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy in order to pay for that spending.
hannahcarter11

Aidan Ellison: Oregon man arrested in fatal shooting of Black teenager - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...6474024002

shooting Black Lives Matter oregon

shared by hannahcarter11 on 02 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • An Oregon community group is calling for change to address racism after the fatal shooting of a Black teenager by a white man in an incident that police said began as an argument over loud music. 
  • Aidan Ellison, 19, was found dead with a single gunshot wound to the chest early Nov. 23 after officers responded to reports of a shooting in the parking lot of a hotel, according to police in Ashland, a predominantly white community near the state's California border.
  • Robert Paul Keegan, 47, was arrested on a murder charge, though he said he was in fear for his physical safety
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  • At about 4 a.m. on the day of the shooting, Keegan was awakened by "loud music" in the parking lot of the Stratford Inn, where he was staying. He asked Ellison to turn the music down and Ellison refused
  • Keegan got dressed, grabbed a semiautomatic handgun and went to the hotel’s front desk to complain to a clerk
  • Ellison and Keegan argued, and Keegan said Ellison punched him in the face several times, according to the report. Keegan shot Ellison once, striking him in the chest, the affidavit said.
  • An autopsy revealed no injuries to Ellison’s hands that would be indicative of him punching Keegan
  • A local community organization condemned the shooting as an act of racism. Southern Oregon Black Leaders, Activists, and Community Coalition released a statement expressing outrage and saying “racism continues to endanger Black bodies and Black lives.”
  • The case has also drawn the attention of civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who raised the prospect of hate crime charges against Keegan on Twitter.
  • In a Facebook post, O'Meara said Ellison was killed "because the suspect chose to bring a gun with him and chose to use it, 100% on him, not the poor young man that was murdered."
  • According to the Oregon Department of Justice, “A hate crime happens when somebody intentionally uses offensive physical contact, threatens physical injury or threatens to cause damage to the property of another person because of their actual or perceived race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.” 
  • Keegan is also charged with first-degree manslaughter, reckless endangering and unlawful carrying or concealment of a firearm and is being held without bond.
  • Ashland is a city of about 21,000. Its population is 92.5% white and 1.4% Black, according to the U.S. Census.
  • Julie Akins, the city’s newly elected mayor, called on residents to “take stock of systemic racism which continues to cause the death of our brothers and sisters of color” in a statement posted to Facebook. 
  • “There is no other way of speaking about this but bluntly: white supremacy and racism is embedded in language, culture, and the zeitgeist of the United States and every community therein. Until we face this reality, apologize for it and make amends – these acts of violence will continue to bind us to our historic and continued oppression.”
hannahcarter11

US officials quiet on Iranian assassination amid fears of dangerous escalation - CNNPol... - 0 views

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Iranian assassination fears trump

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  • US officials told CNN they are closely monitoring fallout from the alleged assassination Friday of one of Iran's top nuclear scientists, which Iran blamed on Israel, but they are hesitant about speaking publicly about the issue to avoid further inflaming an already tense situation.
  • Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, viewed as one of the masterminds of Iran's controversial nuclear program, was assassinated by gunfire and explosives while riding in a vehicle east of Tehran.
  • Iran alleged that Israel is behind the assassination and called it an act of terrorism
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  • The attack comes weeks after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the top nuclear watchdog, said that Iran now has 12 times the amount of enriched uranium that is permitted under the 2015 nuclear accord.
  • President-elect Joe Biden has said he will renew efforts to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program when he takes office and any escalation following Fakhrizadeh's death would only complicate an already tough task.
  • Experts tell CNN that the episode underscores shifting dynamics in the Middle East as Trump leaves office and countries fearful of Iranian aggression ally together in solidarity against Iran.
  • "I think it goes without question that Israel did it," said Simon Henderson, Baker fellow at The Washington Institute and a specialist on Iran's nuclear program. "If you are Israel, you want to set the program back months if not years."
  • Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, tweeted that the attack was "an outrageous action aimed at undermining diplomacy between an incoming US administration and Iran. It's time for this ceaseless escalation to stop."
  • In a 2018 speech, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Iranian government of going out of its way to protect, hide and preserve him because he was so critical to their nuclear program.
  • The US military view right now is that unless there is a direct provocation against the United States by Iran, there is no justification for a US strike.
  • The US has currently just more than 50,000 troops in the region, which is not enough to carry out a sustained military campaign against Iran.
  • Pompeo spoke of the danger emanating from Iran and elsewhere during an interview broadcast on Fox News Thursday referencing the aftermath of the January strike by the United States that killed Soleimani.
  • CNN reported earlier this month that President Trump floated the idea of a military strike on Iran during the remaining days of his term but was dissuaded by senior officials. It's not clear if the administration would considering sabotage, cyber action or other clandestine alternatives were Trump to order up some sort of action.
hannahcarter11

White House again flouts public health recommendations during holiday party season - CN... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

public health white house coronavirus trump

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  • There are some safety protocols in place for the events, but most, if not all, of the holiday parties will still flout US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for size restrictions, as well as Washington, DC, restrictions for indoor gatherings, which is currently capped at 10 people.
  • The Trump White House itself has already been the epicenter of at least three Covid-19 outbreaks among staff and allies, and a series of events such as holiday gatherings will likely put in peril several hundred more guests, workers and staff.
  • A copy of the invitation seen by CNN makes no mention of mask-wearing or other coronavirus safety precautions.
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  • In the Red Room, they admired the tree with ornaments saluting essential workers, including doctors, nurses and scientists, many removing their masks as they held beverages.
  • However, publicly accessible social media images posted by partygoers indicate there was little social distancing at Monday's event and many guests were not wearing masks.
  • That party comes in the wake of Brian Monahan, the US Congress attending physician, issuing a memo asking all members and congressional staff to practice social distancing, wear surgical masks and to avoid social gatherings.
  • Guests for those events have been informed that, unlike years' past, there will be no individual photo opportunities with the President and first lady, due to coronavirus guidelines.
  • "Guests will enjoy food individually plated by chefs at plexiglass-protected food stations. All passed beverages will be covered. All service staff will wear masks and gloves to comply with food safety guidelines," she added.But, Grisham said, it will be up to invitees to decide whether to attend.
hannahcarter11

Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin to resume talks Tuesday afternoon - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

pelosi stimulus coronavirus

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  • Two of the top negotiators in Washington -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin -- spoke Tuesday afternoon about funding the government, weeks after talks broke down for a new stimulus package to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout.
  • "Additional COVID relief is long overdue and must be passed in this lame duck session," Pelosi said.
  • Stimulus talks have stopped and started multiple times since July with both sides deadlocked on another package since Congress passed $2 trillion in emergency relief in March. News of the Pelosi-Mnuchin discussion comes amid renewed pressure from rank-and-file members on their leadership to pass some form of stimulus as the country faces a cliff at the end of the year when multiple provisions will expire
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  • Republicans have worried for months that Mnuchin isn't as fiscally conservative as they would hope in the talks. It's part of the reason that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear after the election that he was going to step in to negotiate and why Mnuchin has not played a visible role in weeks in these talks.
  • Still, a growing number of lawmakers from both parties are pushing to find some kind of deal. Tuesday morning, a bipartisan group of senators announced their own $908 billion proposal, which would be between the around $2 trillion package Democrats had pushed for earlier this year and above the $500 billion plan GOP senators discussed over the summer.
  • "It's not going make everybody happy but there's been an enormous amount of work done," Warner said. "It would be stupidity on steroids if Congress left for Christmas without doing an interim package as a bridge."
hannahcarter11

Lawmakers Offer $908 Billion Coronavirus Compromise, But Path Is Unclear : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ion-coronavirus-aid-compromise

compromise senate stimulus

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  • Just hours after a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers revealed a $908 billion legislative framework to try to break a months-long impasse on a new round of pandemic-related relief measures, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters he's talking to administration officials about a separate coronavirus bill that President Trump will sign.
  • "We're battling COVID-19 more fiercely now than we ever have before, and we recognize that it's inexcusable for us to leave town and not have an agreement," he said.
  • House and Senate lawmakers said they have informed their party leaders of their framework, but it has not been endorsed by leadership or the White House, leaving the path forward unclear.
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  • He said it should deal with the items that both sides can agree on now and expected that "the new administration" would be working on another package next year.
  • "Waiting for next year is not an answer," McConnell said. He also a spending bill being negotiated now by the House and Senate would serve as a vehicle for passing more pandemic aid.
  • The must-pass bill is a potential vehicle to attach coronavirus relief before lawmakers adjourn this Congress and head home for the holidays.
  • It seems like to me it's pretty late to decide you'd rather have something than nothing," Blunt said. "The whole idea of not being willing to negotiate until you're down to the last week of negotiating time usually doesn't produce a very good result.
  • "I think $900 billion would do a lot more good right now than $2 trillion will do in March. This is an important time to step up if we can."
  • Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a key ally of Joe Biden's, said he didn't sign on to the proposal to avoid sending a signal that the president-elect is already on board. "I think it's important that I not be misperceived as supporting something on behalf of the incoming administration. I don't speak for them," Coons said.
  • And while he "celebrates" Pelosi's efforts to get a larger relief bill, he said it's time to reconsider with Congress running out of time.
  • And in the absence of anything — with two weeks before the holidays, essentially fewer than two — we have to do something," Phillips said. "So I encouraged her thoughtful consideration. It doesn't serve every need, every purpose. Not everybody will be thrilled. But this was based on not what do we want, it's what we can achieve."
hannahcarter11

Christopher Krebs: Correcting Trump's Fraud Claims The 'Right Thing To Do' : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...d-claims-the-right-thing-to-do

fraud trump politics election

shared by hannahcarter11 on 01 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Christopher Krebs, who led the federal government's efforts to secure the 2020 election, was fired by President Trump last month for saying the election went smoothly and with no signs of cheating or interference.
  • Krebs told NPR he has no regrets.
  • Krebs, a self-described "lifelong Republican," has become something of a symbol for government officials who see their work as nonpartisan even as politicians try to paint them otherwise.
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  • Krebs led an effort to improve communication between state and local election jurisdictions about threat activity and election security best practices.
  • "This was a secure election," Krebs said. "That is a success story. That is something everyone in the administration should be proud of. That's the story I feel we should be telling now."
  • Instead, Krebs' former agency has spent much of the past few weeks batting down baseless claims by the president and his legal team about the security of the vote.
  • CISA launched a website dubbed Rumor Control, aimed at debunking election disinformation spreading on social media.
  • "We certainly saw throughout that a number of people associated with the campaign, were pushing certain narratives that we fundamentally knew to be false," Krebs said, while listing a number of claims about which Trump himself has tweeted. "We knew that it was important to get this information out there."
  • Going forward, Krebs said he is most worried about how misinformation about elections has "seeped into the mainstream" and what that will mean for people's confidence in results.
  • One of the easiest ways government can improve people's opinions of voting, he added, is to invest more resources and money into election administration.
hannahcarter11

Yellen, Tanden, Rouse: Biden Formally Unveils Economic Team : Biden Transition Updates ... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-formally-unveil-economic-team

biden transition politics coronavirus

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  • With the number of confirmed coronavirus cases spiking and the nation's job market struggling to pull itself out of the abyss caused by the pandemic, President-elect Joe Biden has formally announced the advisers he hopes can guide the United States back to solid economic footing.
  • the president-elect referred to the group as "first-rate" and well-equipped to meet the dual challenges the pandemic and the sputtering economy present.
  • He cited the two-track economic recovery amid the pandemic, in which working people continue to struggle while the wealthy get further ahead.
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  • Biden said Congress should come together to pass a "robust" aid package, but also repeated his call for "immediate relief" in the lame-duck period, before he takes office.
  • He also laid out a laundry list of economic goals that must be addressed early on in his administration. These include keeping businesses and schools open safely, delivering economic relief for those who have lost jobs or had hours cut, stabilizing the nation's health care system and addressing racial inequities the virus has laid bare.
  • Yellen would become the first woman to lead the department in its 231 years of existence.
  • She would be just the fourth woman and the first Black woman to lead the CEA since it was established nearly 75 years ago.
  • Biden also named Wally Adeyemo, who, if confirmed, would become the Treasury Department's first Black deputy secretary.
  • Tanden — who is the CEO of the left-leaning public policy organization the Center for American Progress and a veteran of both the Clinton and Obama administrations — would be the first woman of color to lead OMB.
hannahcarter11

Dolly Parton learned she funded the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine when the rest of us did - CNN - 0 views

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vaccine cnn coronavirus Dolly Parton

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  • The diminutive diva's $1 million donation to Covid-19 research was partly used to fund Moderna's promising Covid-19 vaccine -- something she didn't even know until her name appeared among other sponsors in a preliminary report on the vaccine.
  • Parton, who said she'd found out her donation contributed to the vaccine trial on Tuesday morning,
  • Parton first donated to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Covid-19 research efforts in early April, when there were around 200,000 cases of Covid-19 in the US.
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  • The Moderna vaccine is thought to be 94.5% effective against coronavirus, according to early data released by the company.
  • Vaccinations could begin as soon as late December, top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said, though they'll be made available first to high-risk groups like health care workers, the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions.
  • In April, Parton encouraged her fans who could afford it to donate to the Vanderbilt Health Covid-19 research fund. Since then, it's raised more than $100,000 of its $250,000 goal.
hannahcarter11

With Senate Control Hanging in Balance, 'Crazytown' Cash Floods Georgia - The New York ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ytown-cash-floods-georgia.html

senate control georgia runoff Ossoff Warnock

shared by hannahcarter11 on 01 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • The two Georgia runoff elections that will determine control of the Senate, and much of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ability to enact a Democratic agenda, are already drawing enormous sums of cash, with more than $125 million pouring into the state in only two weeks.
  • And Ms. Loeffler, one of the wealthiest members of Congress who spent $23 million of her own money to make the runoff and can inject millions more at a moment’s notice, has already booked $40 million in television time.
  • Super PACs on both sides are racing to lock up a shrinking supply of television airtime as ad rates in the Atlanta market skyrocket, with prices this week already higher than in some of the top presidential battlegrounds in October.
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  • The twin Georgia races have swiftly taken center stage in American politics, with campaign visits by potential 2024 Republican candidates like Senators Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio and Vice President Mike Pence.
  • If both Democrats win the runoffs, they would pull the Senate into a 50-50 tie, which would give Democrats de facto control of the chamber because Kamala Harris, as vice president, would cast the tiebreaking vote.
  • Even the narrowest of Democratic majorities would considerably ease Mr. Biden’s path to confirming his cabinet picks, appointing judges and advancing his policies.
  • Political strategists say they cannot recall any modern time when so much was on the line in a runoff election in a single state.
  • Unrelenting waves of negative ads have already begun
  • “But what’s different is what you can’t see yet and you can feel: that the armies are being built, the resources are being stored up, you can feel the anticipation and excitement.”
  • Republicans are hoping to duplicate their turnout in rural and conservative-leaning areas, despite not having President Trump on the ballot to pull his impassioned supporters to the polls.
  • And Democrats worry that Black voters will not come out in the same numbers as they did this month — turnout in runoffs almost always falls sharply — and that white suburban voters around Atlanta, who rejected Mr. Trump so resoundingly, will not be as eager to deliver a Democratic Senate to Mr. Biden.
  • Some major Democratic donors, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, are downbeat on their party’s chances.
  • Yet those same donors said they were continuing to contribute to the Georgia contests because of the sheer significance of the outcome.
  • “The result of these two races is going to determine the majority in the United States Senate, which is going to determine the success or failure of the Biden policies in the next four years,”
  • But Mr. Trump’s continued refusal to concede has complicated that messaging, since it depends on accepting his loss.
  • Nationally, the Georgia races offer Republicans a chance to bring together both more establishment-aligned contributors, who were cool to the departing president, and pro-Trump financiers.
  • “The entire Republican ecosystem is working together to ensure the tables are turned.”
  • Democrats are hoping the political organization and movement created by Stacey Abrams, who nearly won her race for governor in 2018 by driving up turnout among the party’s base, will recapture that energy and especially help mobilize Black voters.
  • After the losses on Nov. 3, some Democrats said that focusing so publicly on their fund-raising successes had proved to be a distraction, as top fund-raisers like Amy McGrath in Kentucky and Jaime Harrison in South Carolina lost by large margins.
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Opinion | The Problem With Coronavirus School Closures - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ronavirus-school-closures.html

school closures coronavirus trump crisis pandemic

shared by hannahcarter11 on 01 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Some things are true even though President Trump says them.Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right.
  • remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children.
  • Some students don’t have a computer or don’t have Wi-Fi, Taylor said. Kids regularly miss classes because they have to babysit, or run errands, or earn money for their struggling families.
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  • the traditional “summer slide” in which low-income students lose ground during the summer months and told me: “The ‘summer slide’ is now being dwarfed by ‘Covid slide’ projections.”
  • it may be necessary to shut some schools. But that should be the last resort.
  • But after Trump, trying to project normalcy, blustered in July about schools needing to open, Republicans backed him and too many Democrats instinctively lined up on the other side.
  • Cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., have closed schools while allowing restaurants to operate.
  • It’s true that Trump was simply trying to downplay the virus. If he wanted schools open, he should have fought the pandemic more seriously and invested federal money to help make school buildings safer against the virus’s spread.
  • while we all want in-classroom instruction, the practical question is whether to operate schools that don’t have optimal ventilation and other protections.
  • In both Europe and the United States, schools have not been linked to substantial transmission, and teachers and family members have not been shown to be at extra risk (this is more clear of elementary schools than of high schools).
  • “Children learn best when physically present in the classroom,”
  • One child in eight in America lives with a parent with an addiction — a reflection of America’s other pandemic.
  • America’s education system already transmits advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next: Rich kids attend rich schools that propel them forward, and low-income children attend struggling schools that hold them back.
  • Research from Argentina and Belgium on school strikes indicates that missing school inflicts long-term damage on students (boys seem particularly affected, with higher dropout rates and lower incomes as adults)
  • school closures may lead to one million additional high school dropouts.
hannahcarter11

Boris Johnson, Seen as a Trump Ally, Signals Alignment With Biden - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...boris-johnson-joe-biden.html

World Johnson trump biden

shared by hannahcarter11 on 30 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson rolled out ambitious, back-to-back initiatives on military spending and climate change this week, which have little in common except that both are likely to please a very important new person in Mr. Johnson’s life: President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
  • The prime minister, whom President Trump has embraced as a like-minded populist, is eager to show he can work with the incoming president as well as he did with the outgoing one.
  • That is important, analysts said, because Brexit will deprive Britain of what had historically been one of its greatest assets to the United States: serving as an Anglophone bridge to the leaders of continental Europe.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Mr. Johnson has yet to deliver on another challenge that would please Mr. Biden: a trade agreement with the European Union. Mr. Biden has already voiced concern to Mr. Johnson that if the negotiations go awry, it could jeopardize the Good Friday Accord, which ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
  • Mr. Johnson cast his initiatives as gestures of support to allies, even at a time when the pandemic has busted public finances.
  • “Britain must be true to our history, to stand alongside our allies, sharing the burden, and bringing our expertise to bear on the world’s toughest problems,” Mr. Johnson said in introducing the defense spending plan to the House of Commons.
  • the Biden team will look favorably on this announcement because Biden will be as sensitive as Trump was, and Obama was, to the willingness of allies to shoulder more of the burden.”
  • Mr. Biden has pledged to reinvigorate America’s climate policy by swiftly rejoining the Paris climate accord. Analysts said he would also try to heal strains in the NATO alliance, which has been under relentless attack by Mr. Trump, who has accused other members of not paying their fair share of its costs.
  • The defense budget, Mr. Johnson claimed, will be the largest expansion of military spending since the Cold War: an increase of 24.1 billion pounds ($31.9 billion) over the next four years. That is nearly triple the increases his Conservative Party promised in its policy manifesto during the 2019 election.
  • The climate package, which claims to do nothing less than ignite a “green industrial revolution,” sets a goal of making Britain a net zero emitter of carbon dioxide by 2050. It would change the way people heat their homes and invest in alternative energy sources, in addition to banning the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2030.
  • The climate package lacked the levels of investment pledged by Germany and France to reach their emissions-reduction targets. The military budget contained no information on what the money would be spent on; that is to be decided by a review of foreign, defense, security and development policy that will concluded early next year.
  • Mr. Biden’s defeat of Mr. Trump has radically reshaped the landscape for Mr. Johnson, confronting him with an American leader who opposed Brexit and is unlikely to make an Anglo-American trade agreement a priority, as the pro-Brexit Mr. Trump did.
  • Britain’s emphasis on defense, Mr. Fraser said, plays up a competitive advantage over France and Germany. Both spend proportionately less on their militaries and are not as closely integrated in security matters with the United States.
  • Britain confirmed the creation of a National Cyber Force, a joint venture of the Defense Ministry and GCHQ, the electronic surveillance agency.
  • Still, as several experts noted, Mr. Johnson’s bid to be useful to Mr. Biden will mean far less if Britain fails to strike a trade deal with Brussels. A yearlong transition period is set to expire on Jan. 1, and economists warn that not having a new agreement to take its place would do serious harm.
hannahcarter11

Black health matters: Distribute COVID-19 vaccine equitably - 0 views

www.delawareonline.com/...6326342002

health vaccine coronavirus

shared by hannahcarter11 on 30 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Moderna’s RNA vaccine candidate is joining the ranks of Pfizer/BioN Tech’s already-announced RNA vaccine candidate with preliminary Phase 3 clinical trials results showing excellent efficacy. Pfizer’s preliminary results now show 95% efficacy and Moderna’s show 94% efficacy. The FDA's bar of 50% efficacy could potentially be cleared with Olympian results if the final reviews by the FDA judges are in agreement with the preliminary results.
  • Following the FDA rules, COVID-19 vaccine candidates must have been observed in volunteer trial participants for at least 2 months and will be continued to be observed in Phase 4 for at least 2 years after the vaccine is made available.
  • Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) was added to FDA authority by the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013, which authorizes the FDA to facilitate availability of an unapproved product during a state of emergency such as this public health COVID-19 pandemic.
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  • COVID-19 translational research is moving science from the bench preclinical stage of cell and animal research and rapidly through three phases of clinical trials. We can anticipate vaccines being at the patient/population “bedside” in the next few months.
  • Delaware has created a framework for COVID-19 vaccine distribution when it becomes available which can be found on coronavirus.Delaware.gov. Delaware’s distribution will have three phases
  • The state will begin with healthcare workers and those caring for vulnerable populations and other first responders and critical infrastructure workers. The second phase will vaccinate vulnerable persons: people over 65, those with chronic health conditions, homelessness and other vulnerabilities.Lastly, the rest of our Delaware population of more than 970,000 will be vaccinated.
  • And sadly, Black and Brown communities have been disproportionately infected and affected by COVID-19 here in Delaware and throughout the U.S. These communities remain vulnerable.
  • When COVID-19 vaccines become available, Black and Brown communities must be given equitable access to the vaccine.
  • The disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black and Brown communities has pulled back a curtain of silence on the systemic racism in the health and healthcare systems in Delaware and across the United States.
hannahcarter11

Opinion | A Simple Theory of Why Trump Did Well - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-election-stimulus.html

trump election politics theory

shared by hannahcarter11 on 30 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Officials are still counting votes for the 2020 presidential election, but that hasn’t stopped professional commentators from drawing any number of broad conclusions about the state of American politics from the results thus far.
  • First, the idea that left-wing slogans like “defund the police” cratered the Democratic Party in down ballot fights for the House and Senate, and second, that President Trump’s modest gains with Black and Hispanic voters herald the arrival of a working-class, multiracial Republican Party.
  • I want to propose an alternative explanation for the election results, one that accounts for the president’s relative improvement as well as that of the entire Republican Party.It’s the money, stupid.
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  • What we have, instead, are the words of moderate Democratic lawmakers who believe those slogans left them unusually vulnerable to Republican attacks.
  • it had something to do with poor campaign infrastructure and a message that was unresponsive to the electorate.
  • Republicans have built a new working-class, multiracial coalition
  • If preliminary exit polls are any indication — and they have real flaws as measurement tools — Trump did hardly any better with Black voters than George W. Bush in 2004 and quite a bit worse with Hispanic voters.
  • He may not have transformed the Republican coalition, but he held onto much of his 2016 support and even enlarged it, if not in percentage terms then in absolute ones. Democrats who thought he would be swamped by high turnout were wrong; not only did he benefit, but his ability to turn nonvoters into voters is what likely kept him in the game.
  • There is no hard evidence that voters turned against Democratic congressional candidates because of “defund the police” and other radical slogans.
  • At the end of March, President Trump signed the Cares Act, which distributed more than half a trillion dollars in direct aid to more than 150 million Americans, from stimulus checks ($1,200 per adult and $500 per child for households below a certain income threshold) to $600 per week in additional unemployment benefits.
  • Personal income went up and poverty went down, even as the United States reported its steepest ever quarterly drop in economic output.
  • Now, the reason this many Americans received as much assistance as they did is that Democrats fought for it over the opposition of Republicans who believed any help beyond the minimum would degrade the will to work for whatever wage employers were willing to pay.
  • But voters, and especially the low-propensity voters who flooded the electorate in support of Trump, aren’t attuned to the ins and outs of congressional debate.
  • All they knew is that Trump signed the bill (and the checks), giving them the kind of government assistance usually reserved for the nation’s ownership class.
  • But I would not ignore the extent to which the Republican Party’s strong performance can be explained simply by the fact that it was the party in power when the government put a lot of money into the hands of a lot of people who didn’t have it before.
  • Do not listen to the debt worriers and the deficit hawks. Ignore the calls for means-testing and complicated workarounds. Embrace, instead, the simplicity of cash. Take a page from the left and give as much direct help to as many people as possible.
hannahcarter11

Million Maga March: Trump fans rage against dying of the light | US news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...on-maga-march-trump-supporters

trump million maga march election politics protest

shared by hannahcarter11 on 30 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A large number of protesters had travelled cross-country to show their support for Donald Trump, from as far as Los Angeles and Seattle.
  • “I want this nightmare to end,” he told the Guardian. “I haven’t slept much since the election because I’m sad that Donald Trump is not our president. He’s gonna be our president though.”
  • Johnson wasn’t the only one with such strong belief in Trump’s claims, made without evidence, that the election was rigged – and in his refusal to concede to Joe Biden after all major media organisations called the race for the Democrat, by 306-232 in the electoral college.
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  • Beckner added that he had started a petition for a recount and already had 18,000 signatures. He was confident a recount would happen, and that Trump would “absolutely” emerge as the winner.
  • Many supporters were fueled by a combination of mistrust of state ballot counts and the media, and a conviction that Trump had, in fact, won the presidency – it just wasn’t being reported.
  • Roknic, among others, said he believed the coronavirus pandemic was “orchestrated” and had a role in turning the election to the Democrats
  • Asked about the issue of child separation, one of the most controversial of Trump’s policies, and which predominantly affected Latin American migrants at the southern border, Juarez said she didn’t believe they were actually separated.
  • “We just want an audit for the vote, I’m not trying to say there is voter fraud necessarily,” he said. “But the fact that some high officials are denying an audit, is ludicrous.”
  • A Muslim, he said Trump had condemned white supremacists and racism, and that Trump’s Muslim ban wasn’t a ban against Muslims, but happened to be concern countries with large Muslim populations.
  • By late afternoon, Trump supporters thronged outside the supreme court, where they were met by a crowd of counter-protesters. The two groups were separated by a barricade and law enforcement officers, but still briefly collided after rumors spread that members of the Proud Boys extremist group were present.
hannahcarter11

Analysis: Fox News' rivals are using the network's own dishonest tactics against it - CNN - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

fox news news tactics cnn trump biden

shared by hannahcarter11 on 20 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • For more than two decades, Fox News has conditioned its audience to distrust news that collides with its worldview or theirs. Inconvenient facts have been dismissed and blamed on the "liberal media" or the "deep state" or one of the many other boogeymen favored by the right at any particular time. 
  • But now that strategy could be catching up to the conservative cable channel, with rising competition from networks such as Newsmax and OAN, which have positioned themselves as Trumpier than Fox.
  • the acknowledgment of reality is angering Fox's audience, some members of which are refusing to accept the truth of the matter and rebelling when it is force-fed to them. 
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Trump, who is livid at Fox for calling Arizona for Biden on Election Night and for not supporting him as slavishly as he would like, has been encouraging those viewers to change the channel and tune into Newsmax or OAN. 
  • the propagandists on Fox, like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, continue to undercut their own network's reporting by ludicrously suggesting that Trump could be correct to assert that something nefarious did actually take place to rig the election in favor of Biden.
  • Shows on Newsmax that were averaging less than 100,000 viewers are now amassing audiences several times as large. Last week, one show even crossed over one million viewers.
  • Fox has primed viewers to distrust journalists and it has disseminated disinformation and promoted conspiracy theories that support the President. Now, Trump and these fledgling networks are wielding these tactics like a weapon against Fox. In some cases they're also using former Fox personalities against them.
  • If Fox executives are frustrated or perplexed by a the portion of their audience protesting the channel, they need only to look in the mirror to understand who bears the main share of the responsibility. 
hannahcarter11

COVID news: Arizona, South Dakota no masks; Denver schools go virtual - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...3771651001

arizona masks schools covid

shared by hannahcarter11 on 19 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The U.S. death toll from coronavirus has surpassed 250,000, including 1,700 reported Wednesday alone. Hospitalizations across the nation have exploded, with almost 80,000 Americans now receiving inpatient treatment.
  • Still, some governors remain unconvinced that mandatory facial coverings are a necessary tool in curbing the pandemic. 
  • Thirty-six states have some type of statewide mask requirement
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • But he suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not help halt the surge, adding that it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask due to various local restrictions.
  • She said cases were increasing in many states with mandates, adding that communities were free to establish local regulations. 
  • The U.S. has reported more than 11.5 million cases and more than 250,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 56.4 million cases and 1.35 million deaths.
  • As state officials and lawmakers urged the shutdown of a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Iowa, managers at the plant reportedly placed bets on how many would end up getting sick.
  • As COVID-19 cases pile up at a staggering rate, Republicans and Democrats remain in stark disagreement over the threat of the virus and the steps necessary to mitigate its spread.
  • That has surprised political scientists and public health experts who thought that, if the pandemic worsened, the partisan gap would begin to close
  • European officials announced a modest gain in the continent's battle against the virus.
  • Still, an average of 4500 lives are lost to COVID-19 in Europe every day, Kluge said.
  • He described further lockdowns as a last resort and said that if mask use reached 95%, lockdowns would not be needed.
  • Almost 100,000 long-term care U.S. residents have died in the coronavirus pandemic, and advocates for the elderly say tens of thousands more are succumbing to neglect by overwhelmed staffs and slow declines from isolation imposed as protection from COVID.
  • Although the COVID-19 outbreak is looking worse than ever, news from vaccine makers is fueling optimism
  • That means we can begin inoculating health care and other essential workers even before we’re done with the Thanksgiving leftovers,
  • The vaccine being developed Oxford researchers and U.K.-based AstraZeneca appears to trigger a "robust immune response" in healthy adults, including those aged 56 and older, the university said in a release.
  • The U.S. has become the first country to have 250,000 people die from COVID-19, nearly 19% of the global total of 1.35 million fatalities.
  • The death toll the virus has inflicted among Americans is more than twice as large as the number of U.S. service members who died in World War I.
  • Colleges are scrambling to prevent a massive spread, with some urging or requiring students to quarantine or receive a negative coronavirus test before traveling home. Without those precautions, college leaders say, students should consider abstaining from their holiday plans and instead opt for a celebration closer to campus.
  • Boston University's recommendation is that students either stay in Boston for the holiday or go home and not come back. Kenneth Elmore, dean of students, says the school is urging students to think of the greater good. 
  • As Arizona's COVID-19 trends spike, the state is giving hospitals $25 million to bolster staffing, but Gov. Doug Ducey said Wednesday that he won't impose a statewide mask mandate.
  • Ducey suggested that a statewide mask mandate would not effectively curb the spread of the virus, and emphasized that about 90% of the state is under a local mask mandate. He also said it is nearly impossible to participate in the Arizona economy without wearing a mask.
  • More than 90,000 students in the state's largest school district will return to virtual learning starting Nov. 30 through the end of the semester.
  • The district reported about 13 cases per week when it first opened early childhood education centers. Cases have now surpassed 300 per week.
  • There are some reasons for this. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging the nation's pandemic-related rodent problem, points out restaurants have reduced service, which means fewer food scraps are ending up in the dumpsters on which rats and mice often feed.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to "think twice" about traveling and having indoor gatherings for the holidays.
  • "As we get into the colder weather, we should really think twice about these kind of dinner parties where you're not sure of whether the people that are in your bubble (are safe)," he said. "Then you're going to start seeing these unanticipated infections related to innocent home gatherings, particularly as we head into the holiday season."
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