Bush ethics lawyer: Trump is an ‘incompetent dictator’ — but a ‘shrewder’ plot might have worked



Published on December 18, 2020
By Chauncey Devega, Salon

Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was (once again) confirmed by the Electoral College on Monday. Congress will meet in early January to certify Biden’s victory, and on Jan. 20 he will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.

Donald Trump has been vanquished — but unfortunately, either does not believe that or refuses to admit it. As some general, somewhere, once observed in a war long forgotten, it is hard to truly defeat an enemy who does not know he has been beaten.

Trump’s coup attempt is on-going. Despite being rejected by state officials and the country’s highest courts, Trump and his agents are continuing their seditious and treasonous attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election — and, in effect, overthrow American democracy. These efforts to stop Biden from becoming president have extended to the use of stochastic terrorism and other provocations, to murmurs about martial law, political violence and a second civil war.

Because Trump yearns to be a neofascist strongman, his campaign to remain in power indefinitely will not stop. Michael D’Antonio, a CNN contributor and author of “The Truth About Trump”, warned Salon about this during a recent phone conversation:

There is no quit in him…. This is the reality that we’re going to face until he becomes disabled or deceased…. The storyline is going to be that there is a pretender in the White House and that Washington is more corrupt than it was when Trump arrived there, and that there needs to be a crusade to restore the leader. This is far from over.

Even after he is forced from office in January, Donald Trump will likely continue to claim that he is America’s “real president” and try to rule in “exile,” ginning up violence and other social upheaval by his political cult leaders and other deplorables. The power of this group of dead-enders to cause mayhem is not to be underestimated: Trump received 74 million votes in this election, 11 million more than in 2016.

The professional centrists and others desperate for a return to “normalcy” in the mainstream news media and the political class continue to downplay the damage already done by Donald Trump’s fascist and authoritarian regime and by the reality of his coup attempt.

Why is that happening? Because the hope-peddlers, stenographers of current events, and other members of the Church of the Savvy are emotionally, financially, cognitively and professionally committed to the fictions of American folk democracy. These include the disproved belief that the American people are fundamentally good, and that fascism is something that only happens “over there.” They are applying an outmoded and obsolete framework that fails to grasp how fascism and authoritarianism have evolved to fit 21st-century society.

Writing at the Atlantic, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explores the problematic terminology of this moment:

Coup may not quite capture what we’re witnessing in the United States right now, but there’s also a danger here: Punditry can tend to focus too much on decorum and terminology, like the overachieving students so many of us once were, conflating the ridiculous with the unserious. The incoherence and incompetence of the attempt do not change its nature, however, nor do those traits allow us to dismiss it or ignore it until it finally fails on account of that incompetence.

Our focus, she continues, should not be “a debate about the proper terminology,” but rather “the frightening substance of what we’re facing”:

If the Republican Party, itself entrenching minority rule on many levels, won’t stand up to Trump’s attempt to steal an election through lying and intimidation with the fury the situation demands; if the Democratic Party’s leadership remains solely focused on preparing for the presidency of Joe Biden rather than talking openly about what’s happening; and if ordinary citizens feel bewildered and disempowered, we may settle the terminological debate in the worst possible way: by accruing enough experience with illegitimate power grabs to evolve a more fine-grained vocabulary.

Act like this is your first coup, if you want to be sure that it’s also your last.

What will the long-term impact of Trump’s coup attempt be on American democracy and the rule of law? Is this attempted coup and abuse of the legal and political system a trial run for more effective and efficient efforts to overturn future elections? Are Trump and his allies guilty of sedition and treason as defined by the Constitution and the law? How should Joe Biden’s administration proceed in terms of investigating or prosecuting Trump and members of his administration?

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Richard Painter, a longtime Republican lawyer who was White House chief ethics counsel under George W. Bush. Painter’s new book, co-authored with Peter Golenbock, is “American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law, and Why Trump is the Worst Offender.”

Painter is a frequent political commentator and analyst on CNN, MSNBC and other news networks. He is also a professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota

This conversation has been edited, as usual, for clarity and length.

Donald Trump has no respect the rule of law and has engaged in a coup attempt against democracy by trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Even if he fails, the precedent is a threat to the United States and a type of victory for fascism in this country. As an expert on constitutional law, how are you making sense of these events?

The jig is up. Trump is not going to try a real coup. But the message, the warning to the United States, is that we better get our act together pretty damn fast. The next person who follows Trump’s example is going to be much smarter. He’s an incompetent dictator. On Twitter, for example, he is always talking about himself well over half the time. Whereas a real dictator is always talking about “the people.” The next person who has Trump’s aspirations to power may be a lot shrewder, more manipulative and therefore more effective.

Trump is also transparent as a self-centered crybaby. As a country we have to figure out: Do we believe in facts? We can have ideological differences. We can have different preferences and different views on public policy. But we should be able to look at facts and then have an opinion based on roughly the same reality. Of course, there will be some differences of opinion. But are we going to have wild deviations from the truth? If we do, I believe that the United States is going to be very vulnerable to a dictatorship or a successful coup.

There’s all this celebration of the courts and the law and the country’s “institutions” because even Republican judges have dismissed Trump and his allies’ scheme to overturn the 2020 election. That is premature and misguided. They made those decisions not out of principle but out of pragmatism, because Biden won by such a large margin. If the election were closer, I have no doubt that Republican judges from the Supreme Court on down would have sided with Trump against Joe Biden.

What Trump and his attorneys have been trying is so ridiculous that I do not think even the most conservative court would have gone for it. What we are seeing is not a Bush v. Gore situation — and I do not agree with what the court did in Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court should have left it alone. But what Trump is trying with the 2020 election is so far out that you would have had to have Supreme Court justices who were subject to removal by the president, or in fear of the president, for it to have worked.

In a close-call election, however? Yes, they probably would have given the election to Trump and the Republicans. But they were not going to give him the 2020 election. If the country keeps going in this direction, we are going to have someone in the future who is much shrewder than Donald Trump, who gets more respect from the military and the like, who could engineer a coup quite easily. That is my ultimate concern.

Trump’s coup attempt is an effort to overthrow the people’s will in the context of a decades-long extremist push by the Republicans to take total control by ending democracy and replacing it with one-party rule. The Republican Party knows that they cannot win if they allow everyone to vote.

We’re either committed to democracy or we are not. We are committed to one person, one vote, or we are not. But what is happening now is that Trump and the Republicans are just trying to further polarize our society.

There are legal scholars, historians and other political observers who are warning that Trump’s coup attempt, however ridiculous it may look to some people, is a test run, a prototype for the future. Republicans and other elements of the right wing see what works now and then perfect it for later. What is your assessment?

What is happening is a test of how much can one get away with in the courts. Moreover, how much can one get away with in the court of public opinion by distorting facts and reality?

Donald Trump and his Republican Party’s coup attempt has been described by some people as sedition or treason. What does the law actually say on these matters?

I don’t think you can prosecute him. If you ask, “What is treason, in the broader sense of the word?” Donald Trump is betraying his country. He has held the highest office in the land for four years. If he were smart, Trump would consider that an honor. I think he wasted those four years. He is a narcissist with an obsession about himself and his own ego.

He tried to undermine and attack the government. I am not a big fan of using sedition statutes and so forth, because that is what Joe McCarthy did. The problem with Trump and the Republicans now is that we are dealing with people who really do believe that there is this “deep state.” They want to completely transform the United States government and country to make it conform to their ideology. This is all very dangerous, because through Trump they have power at the highest levels of the government.

Are Trump and his agents engaging in sedition as defined by the Constitution?

I would not use that kind of criminal statute. But I would certainly use obstruction of justice and the false statements statutes. I think there are crimes which are yet to be prosecuted. If you want to talk about what sedition is, in a broader sense, it is a repudiation of our republican form of government and of the country’s Constitution and history of constitutional rule.

Many House Republicans have participated in Trump’s coup attempt. Should Speaker Nancy Pelosi not allow them to be seated, under the 14th Amendment?

I would not do it. I would just go ahead and let them be seated and shoot their mouths off. The Republicans are trying to use the power that you have as president, and in other high government positions, to suppress dissent by the Democrats and others. This is what the Republican Party wants to stand for? Filing crazy lawsuits, writing crazy letters, and saying things that are completely false? We have had people in the Congress who have said crazy things in the past. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of them now.

Joe Biden wants there to be “healing.” He wants us to put this dark episode behind us. I fundamentally disagree. I am of the thinking that Trump and his administration, as well as their supporters and allies, should be investigated, and if merited, punished for their crimes. What advice would you give Biden on that question?

If Joe Biden wants to pardon Trump, he can pardon Trump. The only discretion the president has is a pardon. Otherwise, the Justice Department should prosecute anyone who committed a crime. I don’t care if it’s Donald Trump or if it’s the guy next door. We’re all equal. The mandate for the attorney general is that we prosecute anyone who committed crimes.

I think if there are accusations made against high-ranking people in the Trump administration, or high-ranking people in the Biden administration, or any members of the president’s family, have an independent counsel investigate it and make the professional decision with professional prosecutors. It should never be a political decision as to whether someone gets prosecuted or not.

Trump and his administration are actively trying to sabotage Biden’s presidency by putting key Trump agents in positions at the highest levels throughout the United States government. What can be done by Biden to remove them?

Many of these people are presidential appointees. Biden can remove an awful lot of people. Trump and his people are trying various games by putting people into career slots. It is called “burrowing,” where you take a political appointee and stick them into career slots. It is hard to get rid of them.

Why are the Republican attorneys general, members of Congress and others going along with Trump’s coup attempt? Especially since it appears doomed to fail in the short term.

It is money. Trump has raised a lot of money for them. It is all about ideology and appealing to the right wing and getting airtime on right-wing talk radio. They are going along to not be targeted by other right-wingers. Now Republicans will do one of two things. They’ll lay low and try to have nothing to do with it — those are the smart ones. There are other Republicans, such as Ted Cruz, who will play along and go for the ride. Cruz is trying to get Trump’s supporters to love him so he can be the leading candidate in 2024.

Should the attorneys general who tried to overturn the election be disbarred?

They may want to run for Senate. Texas Attorney General [Ken] Paxton, he probably wants to run for senator. State attorneys general always have political ambitions. It’s a steppingstone to the next and more powerful job. These attorneys general want attention. They know that they are not going to be disbarred. They probably should be, but the Texas bar is not going to disbar Paxton.

How do you think this coup attempt, and Trump’s authoritarian behavior more generally, has impacted the United States?

It is polarizing our country. We have got much work to do to bring the United States back together. I trust Joe Biden is going to be able to do that. I’m a political independent: Biden was never my favorite candidate in the primaries, but he is a good guy. We as Americans need to realize that we have so much more to benefit from being together in this country. We may disagree on some things, but our political system has worked for over 200 years.

Yes, we had the Civil War. Yes, we have been through great challenges. But we do have a system that works. I was never a big fan of Ronald Reagan, I was a moderate Republican. But the one thing I liked about Reagan was his optimism and how much he believed in America. Reagan never had the cynicism that underlies Trumpism with this idea of the “deep state” and that somehow “the establishment” is evil. With Trumpism, I see too many similarities with the fascist movements in Europe in the 1930s.

IT'S SEDITION PERIOD

'Bordering on sedition’: Dem senator calls for sanctioning GOP lawmakers trying to overturn election


Published on December 18, 2020
By Brad Reed

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) on Friday had some sharp criticism for Republican lawmakers still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

While being interviewed by CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Shaheen said it defied belief that so many GOP senators are still willing to throw Hail Mary passes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s win even after Trump lost the popular vote, the electoral college vote, and 59 different election-related lawsuits.

“Each of us serving as senators took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States,” she said. “One of the most fundamental principles of the Constitution is the peaceful transition of power.”

She then laid out how dangerous it is for Republicans to refuse to accept the reality of Biden’s victory even after all legal options have been exhausted.

“These senators and members of Congress who have refused to acknowledge that we had a free and fair election, in which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by over 7 million votes, are bordering on sedition and treason in thinking that they are going to overturn a duly elected president,” she said. “It is just unfathomable to me how these elected representatives can be refusing to accept the peaceful transition of power. I think they should be sanctioned.”

Watch the video below.

‘I’m stuck’: Stimulus debacle pushes unemployed Americans to the edge

Published on December 18, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Shuttershock/ By LightField Studios

First, they lost their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic, and now many of the more than 20 million people unemployed in the United States may lose something else: the government aid keeping them afloat through the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreak.

Congress could still act to extend the benefits provided under the CARES Act rescue package enacted in March, which will otherwise expire on December 26.

But for many of the jobless, lawmakers’ months of dithering — along with the indifference of the overstretched US unemployment systems — have already taken a toll:

– On hold –

Before the pandemic, Tamora Israel, 37, was a full-time goldsmith, part-time journalist and co-owner of an art gallery in Massachusetts who aspired to finish her degree and get into filmmaking.

Months later, she’s jobless, living in Georgia, sharing a house with her parents and younger brother and trying to figure out how a family of four can survive with only $2,000 a month and one licensed driver — which happens to be herself.

Her days once spent reporting community news or pursuing entrepreneurship are now filled with shuttling her mother to dialysis appointments and picking up groceries.

Then there’s the time spent on the phone with Massachusetts unemployment administrators to convince them to restart payments they stopped when she left the state — which Israel said should not have happened.

“I keep calling back everyday just to be annoying, and remind them I’m a person that needs money,” she said.

Life, she expects, will likely stay this way for a while. Her mother’s illnesses and need for care mean Israel can’t get another job right now.

A felony conviction on her father’s record means under Georgia law he isn’t eligible for food assistance that could ease the family’s financial stress.

“We’re all just spinning plates in the air because we don’t know what happens next. We’re ok for now, but if we get one unexpected bill, we’re screwed,” she said.

– Speaking up –

In a time of uncertainty, Grant McDonald is sure of one thing: he will be out of work for a long, long time.

A video director and designer for live events, McDonald, 31, figures the theaters and concert halls he works in will be among the last to reopen, meaning laid-off workers in his industry will need government aid for months more.

Believing Congress wasn’t hearing enough from unemployed persons like himself, he joined forces earlier this year with a colleague in the entertainment industry to create ExtendPUA.org

The group helps people lobby their representatives to renew the CARES Act’s provisions, including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the program keeping McDonald from having to move out of his apartment in New York and in with his father on the other side of the country.

But despite more than 30 video meetings with lawmakers and even a trip to Washington — a self-financed effort that further dwindled his limited cash — the agreement Congress appears close to reaching will likely exclude some of the assistance McDonald hoped for.

“This is literally the least that they could do, and the latest they could do it,” he said.

– Dream delayed –

If she wanted to make the most of her art history degree, Alisha Negron, 29, figured Washington, the site of the Smithsonian Institution and 1,500 miles from her home in the US territory of Puerto Rico, was the place to be.

But finding employment at one of the iconic galleries in the shadow of the Capitol building wasn’t easy, and so she took other work, most recently serving breakfast and bartending at a hotel in a suburb until the pandemic struck and hospitality workers like herself became the first victims of the mass layoff that followed.

Negron considers herself lucky: her family in Puerto Rico supports her and her shared apartment is affordable.

Yet she can’t help but be astounded by how she’s been treated by the government unemployment system.

She received weekly jobless aid for months, but a mysterious issue with her blood pressure forced her to spend a good portion of it paying the expensive premium on a health insurance plan.

Then, she lost that aid in November, when the government determined the unemployment rate in Virginia, where she lived, was too low for the state to offer the Extended Benefit program that supported her.

A stimulus deal in Congress could restore her benefits under an extended program, but until then, she’s left with credit card debt north of $5,000 and only the approximately $200 in food aid she gets each month to spend.

“I’m stuck right here, now,” she said.

© 2020

Naked handcuffing of innocent Black woman sparks outrage in Chicago

Published on December 18, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (AFP)

The authorities in the US city of Chicago are coming under fire after a video was released of police handcuffing a naked Black woman after raiding her home in a case of mistaken identity.

The police raid took place on February 21, 2019 but the disturbing video was only released recently.

Police body cameras show officers using a battering ram to break down the door of the home of Anjanette Young and putting the 50-year-old social worker in handcuffs while she stands naked in her living room.

“What is going on?” a terrified Young is heard telling police in the video aired by CBS 2 Chicago. “What are you looking for?

“You’ve got the wrong house,” Young repeatedly tells officers.

“Oh my god, this cannot be right,” she says. “How is this legal?”

Young told the television network that she had just returned from work and was undressing in her bedroom when police broke in.

“It happened so fast I didn’t have time to put on clothes,” she said. “I’m just standing there terrified, humiliated.”

Police eventually left after determining they had the wrong address. One officer apologized to Young while others tried to fix her broken door.

According to CBS 2, the suspect the police were searching for lived in the same apartment complex and an informant had provided them with the wrong address.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters she was “appalled” after viewing the video and described the raid as a “colossal failure.”

“That could have easily been me,” said Lightfoot, who is African American.

“We can do better and we will do better as a city,” she said.

City attorneys had sought to block the release of the video and Lightfoot said she had ordered a review of the release policy.

Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, who is filing a suit against the police department, said a young white woman would not have received the same treatment.

“They viewed Miss Young as less than human,” Saulter told CBS 2.

Young’s case has been compared to that of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman who was shot dead in Louisville, Kentucky, in March in a botched raid on her home.

Taylor’s name became a rallying cry during protests against racial injustice this summer following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May.

Government refusal to protect wolverines sparks lawsuit from conservation groups

The wolverine population has dwindled to just 300 in the 

contiguous U.S.

ByJulia Jacobo
15 December 2020


A coalition of conservation groups has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over its decision to not protect the population of wolverines in the contiguous United States.

The wolverine, a mammal that resembles a small bear with a bushy tail, typically lives in the western mountains throughout Alaska and Canada, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but they have also lived in habitats in the contiguous U.S.

MORE: Monarch butterfly fate on threatened species list to be decided by Trump administration

Less than 300 wolverines now remain in the lower 48 states, where they used to roam as far south as New Mexico. Now, small, fragmented populations exist in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming and northeast Oregon, according to a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to withhold protection for the wolverine population under the Endangered Species Act will impede the conservation efforts needed to prevent extinction of the species as a result of climate change, habitat fragmentation and lack of genetic diversity, according to the groups' lawsuit.


Universal Images Group via Getty Images
An aggressive wolverine shows its teeth on the subarctic tundra in Sweden.

The government "has stonewalled" federal protections for the wolverine for decades, said Dave Werntz, the science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest.
MORE: 31 species now extinct, according to ICUN's Red List of threatened species

A petition to include wolverines under the Endangered Species Act, which protects and recovers imperiled species and the ecosystems on which they depend, was filed in 2000. In 2007, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would review the status for the species.

Over the past 20 years since the petition was filed, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been sued five separate times, twice for inaction in decision-making and three times for failing to properly consider science when denying protection under the Environmental Protection Act, said Katie Bilodeau, attorney for Idaho-based conservation group Friends of the Clearwater. In each lawsuit, the court found the agency’s decision unlawful, or the agency chose not to defend its decision, Bilodeau said in a statement.

While the Fish and Wildlife Service did propose to list the wolverine species in the contiguous United States as "threatened" in 2013, the agency withdrew that proposal this October, saying the species does not face an imminent threat due to climate change.

"New research and analysis show that wolverine populations in the American Northwest remain stable," the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement that month.

MORE: Animal conservation groups to sue federal government over dwindling giraffe population

But the conservation groups say climate change is causing the mountain snowpack that wolverines rely on as their primary habitat to melt away.


Benoit Doppagne/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images
Two wolverine cubs look on in their enclosure ahead of the reopening of the zoo 

"The wolverine is a famously tough creature that doesn’t back down from anything, but even the wolverine can’t overcome climate change by itself," Amanda Galvan, an attorney for the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, said in a statement. "To survive, the wolverine needs the protections that only the Endangered Species Act can provide."

In addition, wolverine populations are at risk from trapping and human disturbance, according to the conservation groups that filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed Monday also accuses the agency of ignoring and failing to utilize the "best available scientific information" in its decision, court documents show. The lawsuit seeks an order for the Fish and Wildlife Service to publish "a new final listing determination" within six months.

MORE: How advocates say Trump’s endangered species rules could threaten conservation

The other groups involved in the lawsuit include Defenders of Wildlife, Idaho Conservation League, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Sierra Club and Rocky Mountain Wild.

The USFWS defended its decision in a statement to ABC News.

"We stand by our decision to withdraw the listing proposal," the statement read. "The best available science shows that the factors affecting wolverine populations are not as significant as believed in 2013 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the wolverine found in the contiguous United States as threatened. New research and analysis show that wolverine populations in the American Northwest remain stable, and individuals are moving across the Canadian border in both directions and returning to former territories. The species, therefore, does not meet the definition of threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act."

Paris court convicts former Vatican envoy of sexual assault
A Paris court has convicted a former Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019, and handed him a suspended 8-month prison sentence

By MASHA MACPHERSON Associated Press
16 December 2020



PARIS -- A Paris court on Wednesday convicted a former Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019, and handed him a suspended 8-month prison sentence.

Retired Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 76 — who was not present in court — was “shattered” by the verdict, according to his lawyer, Solange Doumic. She said she was uncertain whether he would lodge an appeal because the procedure “has been extremely painful for him.”

Ventura has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Sexual assault is punishable in France by up to five years’ imprisonment and fines in France.

The path for the prosecution of Ventura was cleared after the Vatican lifted his immunity in July 2019. His trial in absentia was held Nov. 10.

The sentence imposed Wednesday was more lenient than the suspended 10 months the prosecution had sought.

Doumic said her client had “explained himself multiple times," over what the defense has described as “minor" accusations.

But the court decision “shows he wasn’t heard, despite a 7-hour hearing on gestures which are simple, light,” she said after the verdict.

Five men alleged that they had suffered Ventura’s “hands on the buttocks” during his public diplomatic duties in France. The case erupted in February 2019 amid multiple sex scandals affecting the Catholic Church.

Among the accusers was a former seminarian, Mahe Thouvenel, who said he was grabbed repeatedly by the clergyman when they celebrated Mass in December 2018. Another, Mathieu De La Souchere, alleged that Ventura touched his behind repeatedly during a reception at Paris City Hall.

Thouvenel said his seminary kicked him out after he filed a police complaint. Under questioning from Ventura’s lawyer, he put his right hand on the top of his right buttock to show one of the spots where he was allegedly groped.

“It’s violent,” Thouvenel said during the trial. “It sticks in your memory.”

The judge said at the time that, during prior questioning, Ventura had explained his behavior by saying he had a “Latin” temperament and that there was nothing sexual about his gestures.

“These types of verdicts, when it involves a Vatican ambassador, can give other victims the courage to come forward in other cases potentially involving the church," said Antoinette Frety, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "They know now that they will be heard no matter what the rank of the aggressor is within the church. And that’s very important.”

Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Edmond-Claude Frety, said the verdict should encourage potential victims not to give up.

“It means that victims have to be brave, have to leave the silence and to talk," he said. Ventura "will not be in jail tonight, of course, but it’s quite an important conviction because it means that these facts are now considered very severely by the courts.”

The former envoy had produced a doctor’s note saying it was too dangerous for him to travel from Rome to Paris for the November trial amid France’s resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic.

———

Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

Family of Tuskegee Syphilis Study participant say they’ll take COVID-19 vaccine but understand the distrust

The study charted syphilis progression in unknowing Black men.

WITH NO CURE 

ByAyanna Gill,Knez Walker, andAnthony Rivas
17 December 2020


COVID-19 vaccines recall decades of deception and pain for Black Americans
In 1932, 623 Black men were unknowingly recruited for a syphilis study but were kept from a cure

Lillie Tyson Head and her daughter, Carmen Head Thornton, have reason to be skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine. After all, it was Head’s father, Freddie Lee Tyson, who was unknowingly recruited into the now-infamous Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.

A sharecropper in Alabama in 1932, Tyson was one of 623 Black men recruited for the U.S. Public Health study at the Tuskegee Institute. The study was meant to record the natural progression of syphilis infection in Black men, but the researchers didn’t tell those who signed on. Tyson, who had congenital syphilis, was only told he’d be receiving free health care.

“They did not tell them they had syphilis, and the only thing they told them was they had bad blood and they were treating the bad blood,” Head told “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts. “But they were not. They were lying to the people about that. They were deceiving them.”


ABC
Lillie Tyson Head pictured with family photos.

The experiment lasted 40 years. During that time, the American government made efforts to ensure the participants in the study never knew the true intentions of the researchers. Even when they discovered penicillin was a reliable treatment for the infection, the participants were actively kept from receiving it.


ABC
Freddie Lee Tyson pictured on his wedding day courtesy of Lillie Tyson-Head.

Thornton says she was only a child when her grandfather answered the call from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to tell him what had really happened. Head said her father was a gentle, kind and wise man, but that call made him upset and disappointed.

“My father was a proud man and he was honest,” Head said. “For someone to call and tell him that he had been part of something for 40 years and had never been told the truth, and he was not aware of that, then that would also bring some shame. And you also have to understand that syphilis wasn’t something that people were proud of having.”

Although Tyson died in 1988, Head and Thornton have been carrying on his legacy in hopes that something like the experiment never happens again. In memory of the men who unknowingly contributed their bodies to the study, they started the Voices for Our Fathers Legacy Foundation, which aims to change the narrative surrounding the experiment and its participants and connect their descendants across the generations.


Courtesy of Carmen Head Thornton
Carmen Head Thornton, the daughter of Lillie Tyson Head, said she remembers her grandfather...

“There is a desire and need for us, through our foundation and through my professional work, to want to move this story of the syphilis study to one that speaks toward being a victim to being a victor, for moving from trauma to triumph,” said Thornton, who works as the director of research, grants, workforce and development at the National Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

MORE: Minority communities’ distrust of COVID-19 vaccine poses challenge

Both women say they understand why there is skepticism among Black Americans to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Although 27% of the public say they probably or definitely would not get vaccinated, 35% of Black adults say the same, despite being disproportionately affected by the virus, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“History has not been kind to African Americans,” Thornton said. “It has not been kind, and because of misperceptions that are connected to what happened in the study … I think it helps to grow mistrust, and that’s one of the things that we deal with.”


National Archives via AP
A black man has blood drawn by a doctor during a syphilis in Tuskegee, Ala. in this 1950's file photo

Among the misconceptions surrounding the syphilis experiment, Head said many people believe the participants in the study were injected with the virus. “They were not,” she said, but rather given blood tests frequently.

Thornton said that to rebuild this trust, there needs to be more people of color in the medical field. Her mother said that while there are more people of color in these positions now, and that “things have changed, things have gotten better,” they could still improve more.

“I am committed to spending my life in public health and in working in the way that I do because we need that representation,” Thornton said. “That’s the reason why the syphilis study happened to begin with because there wasn’t that representation. There wasn’t those voices around the table. And so, we really do need to have that representation engaged in science, engaged in research and engaged in respectful health care.”

When asked if they’d take the COVID-19 vaccine themselves, they both said yes.

“Without hesitation,” Head said. “As soon as the vaccine is available for me, I’m taking it.”


ABC
Lillie Tyson Head said her father was an unwitting participant in the now infamous Syphilis study...

Citing other health disparities prevalent within communities of color, Head also implored people to take charge of their health.

“I want people of color to be able to look at situations, especially when it comes to protecting their health, and do their due diligence in finding out the necessary information so that they can make the right decisions and not be afraid,” she said. “We have to step forward and not be afraid to make our lives better.”

Possible break in theft of Canadian gold coin in Germany
Berlin police have raided homes and jewelry shops on suspicion they could be connected to efforts to fence a massive 100-kilogram (220 pound) Canadian gold coin that was stolen from a museum in the German capital

By DAVID RISING Associated Press
16 December 2020


The Associated Press
FILE -- In this Dec. 8, 2010 photo a 100-kilogram (221-pound) Canadian gold coin is displayed 

BERLIN -- Berlin police raided homes and jewelry shops Wednesday on suspicion they could be connected to efforts to fence a massive 100-kilogram (220-pound) Canadian gold coin — piece by piece — that was stolen from a museum in the German capital.

The coin, with an estimated value of 3.75 million euros ($4.45 million) was stolen from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017 and has not yet been recovered.

The morning raids were focused on eight suspects, aged between 14 and 51, of various nationalities, police said.

They are alleged to have been part of a ring that obtained stolen gold to melt it down and forge collector coins, then sell them as genuine through jewelry stores operated by them or their relatives. Some of the counterfeits are already circulating, police said.

The searches led to the discovery of counterfeit coins, forgery tools and a “five-digit” sum of cash, police said.

“The evaluation of the evidence is ongoing,” police said. “Among other things, a possible connection to the theft of the gold coin from the Bode Museum is being be examined.”

Berlin prosecutors said there were no arrests but that the investigation was continuing.

The searches came just two days after the arrest of a key suspect in the spectacular theft of 18th-century jewels from a Dresden museum last year, who is from a crime family linked to the Canadian gold coin theft.

Mohamed Remmo, 21, was arrested by Berlin authorities in a car in the Neukoelln district of the city on Monday evening. His twin brother, Abdul Majed Remmo, remains on the lam.

Police and prosecutors would not comment on whether there was a connection between the arrest and the searches, but members of the same family were convicted earlier this year for the Canadian gold coin theft.

Cousins Ahmed Remmo and Wissam Remmo, along with a friend who worked as a security guard at the museum, were all convicted of that Canadian gold coin heist and sentenced to several years in prison.

Damage from border wall: blown-up mountains, toppled cactus

Government contractors are igniting dynamite blasts in the remote and rugged southeast corner of Arizona, forever reshaping the landscape as they pulverize mountaintops

By ANITA SNOW Associated Press
17 December 2020

The Associated Press
Crews construct a section of border wall in San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, Tuesday

GUADALUPE CANYON, Ariz. -- Work crews ignite dynamite blasts in the remote and rugged southeast corner of Arizona, forever reshaping the landscape as they pulverize mountaintops in a rush to build more of President Donald Trump’s border wall before his term ends next month.

Each blast in Guadalupe Canyon releases puffs of dust as workers level land to make way for 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel columns near the New Mexico line. Heavy machines crawl over roads gouged into rocky slopes while one tap-tap-taps open holes for posts on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property.

Trump has expedited border wall construction in his last year, mostly in wildlife refuges and Indigenous territory the government owns in Arizona and New Mexico, avoiding the legal fights over private land in busier crossing areas of Texas. The work has caused environmental damage, preventing animals from moving freely and scarring unique mountain and desert landscapes that conservationists fear could be irreversible. The administration says it's protecting national security, citing it to waive environmental laws in its drive to fulfill a signature immigration policy.

Environmentalists hope President-elect Joe Biden will stop the work, but that could be difficult and expensive to do quickly and may still leave pillars towering over sensitive borderlands.

The worst damage is along Arizona’s border, from century-old saguaro cactuses toppled in the western desert to shrinking ponds of endangered fish in eastern canyons. Recent construction has sealed off what was the Southwest’s last major undammed river. It's more difficult for desert tortoises, the occasional ocelot and the world’s tiniest owls to cross the boundary.

“Interconnected landscapes that stretch across two countries are being converted into industrial wastelands,” said Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson.

In the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge near Guadalupe Canyon, biologist Myles Traphagen said field cameras have captured 90% less movement by animals like mountain lions, bobcats and pig-like javelinas over the past three months.

“This wall is the largest impediment to wildlife movement we’ve ever seen in this part of the world,” said Traphagen of the nonprofit Wildlands Network. “It’s altering the evolutionary history of North America.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1982 established the nearly 4-square-mile (10-square-kilometer) refuge to protect water resources and endangered native fish. Diverse hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and bats also live there.

Since contractors for U.S. Customs and Border Protection began building a new stretch of wall there in October, environmentalists estimate that millions of gallons of groundwater have been pumped to mix cement and spray down dusty dirt roads.

Solar power now pumps water into a shrinking pond underneath rustling cottonwood trees. Bullfrogs croak and Yaqui topminnows wiggle through the pool once fed solely by natural artesian wells pulling ancient water from an aquifer.

A 3-mile (5-kilometer) barrier has sealed off a migratory corridor for wildlife between Mexico’s Sierra Madre and the Rocky Mountains to the north, threatening species like the endangered Chiricahua leopard frog and blue-gray aplomado falcon.

The Trump administration says it's completed 430 miles (692 kilometers) of the $15 billion wall and promises to reach 450 miles (725 kilometers) by year’s end.

Biden transition officials say he stands by his campaign promise — “not another foot” of wall. It's unclear how Biden would stop construction, but it could leave projects half-finished, force the government to pay to break contracts and anger those who consider the wall essential to border security.

“Building a wall will do little to deter criminals and cartels seeking to exploit our borders,” Biden's transition team has said. It says Biden will focus on “smart border enforcement efforts, like investments in improving screening infrastructure at our ports of entry, that will actually keep America safer.”

Environmentalists hope for an ally in Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection.

Until construction is stopped, "every day, it will be another another mile of borderlands being trashed,” Serraglio said.

Environmental law attorney Dinah Bear said Biden’s administration could terminate building contracts, which would allow companies to seek settlements. What that would cost isn't clear because the contracts aren't public, but Bear said it would pale in comparison to the price of finishing and maintaining the wall. Military funds reappropriated under a national emergency declared by Trump are now funding the work.

Bear, who worked at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality under Republican and Democratic administrations, said she wants to see Congress set aside money to repair damage by removing the wall in critical areas, buying more habitat and replanting slopes.

Ecologists say damage could be reversed in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where thousands of tree-like saguaros were bulldozed, with some reportedly replanted elsewhere.

They say keeping floodgates open could help ease damage done by damming the San Pedro River, which runs north from just below the Mexican border through the central corridor of the Sierra Madre's “Sky Islands."

These high mountains have ecosystems dramatically different from the desert below, with 300 bird species, including the yellow-billed cuckoo, nesting along what was the Southwest’s last major free-flowing river. The white-nosed, racoon-like coati and the yellow-striped Sonoran tiger salamander also live there.

In the nearby Coronado National Monument, scientists are using cameras to document wildlife as crews prepare to start building. Switchbacks have been slashed into mountainsides, but 30-foot (9-meter) posts aren't yet up along where a Spanish expedition marched through around 1540.

The government plans to install the towering pillars 4 inches (10 centimeters) apart where there are now vehicle barriers a couple of feet high with openings large enough to allow large cats and other animals to cross to mate and hunt.

Biologist Emily Burns of the nonprofit Sky Island Alliance said construction will hurt elf owls, the world’s littlest at less than 5 inches (13 centimeters) tall. The birds are too small to fly over the fence and likely wouldn't know to squeeze through.

“This kind of large-scale disruption can push a species to the brink, even if they aren't threatened,” said Louise Misztal, alliance executive director.

———

Follow Anita Snow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/asnowreports

Minnesota juvenile lifer walks free after 18 years in prison
A Black man who was sentenced to life behind bars

 as a teenager has walked out of a Minnesota prison

By ROBIN McDOWELL and MARGIE MASON Associated Press
16 December 2020,


MINNEAPOLIS -- A Black man who was sent to prison for life as a teenager took his first steps of freedom to the sound of ringing bells and cheering family members and supporters, hours after a pardons board commuted his sentence in a high-profile murder case.

Myon Burrell’s prosecution and harsh punishment raised questions about the integrity of the criminal justice system that put him away nearly two decades ago for the death of a young girl killed by a stray bullet. Earlier this year, The Associated Press and APM Reports uncovered new evidence and serious flaws in the police investigation, ultimately leading to the creation of an independent national legal panel to review the case.

Last week, the panel published its findings, saying there was a “failure to investigate that illustrates tunnel vision” and that evidence that could have helped exonerate Burrell was either ignored or minimized.

The panel said it saw no purpose served by keeping Burrell locked up, pointing to his age at the time of the crime and his good behavior behind bars.

Burrell’s request for a pardon was denied and he will have to spend the next two years under supervised release. But it was the first time in at least 22 years that Minnesota commuted a sentence in a murder case, according the the Department of Corrections.

The release was swift. Just hours after receiving the news, he walked out the front door of Stillwater prison into below-freezing temperatures. Dozens of bundled supporters, some holding signs and balloons, surrounded Burrell while cheering “Myon’s free! Myon’s free!”

After jumping into a waiting car, he was soon home. Friends and relatives filtered into the living room, greeting him with gifts and hugs.

“It’s just a blessing,” he said, while standing outside on the street searching the sky for the moon and stars, which he said he’s been longing to see.

Burrell has always maintained his innocence in the 2002 killing of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards, struck in the heart while doing homework at the dining room table with her little sister. He told Minnesota’s Board of Pardons members Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison that his “heart goes out” to her family. The third board member, Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea, recused herself, citing prior involvement with the case.

Edwards’ death enraged the African American community in a city just emerging from some of the nation’s highest homicide rates, briefly earning it the nickname “Murderapolis.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who then headed the county attorney’s office, has used Burrell’s conviction over the years as an example of her tough-on-crime policies, most recently during a Democratic presidential primary debate last year.

The AP investigation that followed sparked national outrage and gave Burrell’s family and community organizers the ammunition they needed to get Klobuchar’s attention. She called for the creation of the independent panel of legal experts. Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, and Laura Nirider, of Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, oversaw that effort.

Klobuchar released a statement Tuesday saying the pardon board made the right decision. She also urged a conviction-review unit to continue investigating the facts.

The yearlong investigation by The AP showed there was no hard evidence — no gun, DNA or fingerprints — tying Burrell to the shooting. Among other things, police did not collect a corner store’s surveillance video, which Burrell said could have cleared him. And video footage showed the lead homicide detective offering a man in police custody $500 for Burrell’s name, even if it was just hearsay.

Officers relied heavily on a single eyewitness, who offered conflicting accounts, along with jailhouse informants, who benefited generously for testifying. Some have recanted. One had his 16-year prison sentence cut to three. Another said he had agreed to work with police on 14 other cases.

Burrell’s co-defendants said the teenager was not at the scene that day.

One of them, Isaiah Tyson, has been saying for years that he was the shooter, not Burrell.

“I will always carry the burden of what happened to an innocent child,” Tyson said Tuesday during a call from prison, where he’s serving a 45-year sentence for Tyesha’s killing. “But by him being let go, it’s a huge relief for me, because I’ve been holding that this whole time. ... He was locked up for something he had no idea about”

Burrell, who was 16 at the time of the slaying, appeared at his hearing via videoconference from inside the state’s Stillwater prison. He became emotional as the board voted, and put his hand on his head and said, “Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it.”

Burrell told the board about his time in prison, saying he did not know what was going on when he was sentenced, and that he converted to Islam and became a religious leader while behind bars.

“I tried to make the best of my situation,” he said. “I started going in and extracting medicine out of the poison. The trials and tribulations I was going through, I tried to get something out of it.”

His request was accompanied by testimony from community leaders and letters from young men in prison, who attested to his strong character and moral leadership.

Jimmie Edwards III, Tyesha’s brother, told the AP that he and his family were upset by the decision. He said the justice system failed his family, and media coverage and support for Burrell’s release overshadowed his sister’s death.

“She never got to go to her prom. She never got to go to college. She never got to go to junior high school or high school,” he said. “Her life was taken away at 11. Who’s the victim?”

Gov. Walz recommended the commuted sentence, saying science has found and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that teenage minds work differently than those of adults, and that a life sentence for a teenager is too extreme.

“While this board is not a fact finder, it does have the power to determine when justice is served through the power of clemency and mercy,” he said. “We cannot turn a blind eye to the developments in science and law as we look at this case.”

Walz addressed the Edwards family during the hearing, saying: “We’re not here to relitigate the crime committed against your family that took your daughter away. There is nothing I can do to ease your pain, and it will not be made better. But we must act today to recognize the law in this area has changed. Justice is not served by incarcerating a child for his entire lifetime for a horrible mistake committed many years ago.”

New questions about Burrell’s case surfaced just before Minneapolis was thrust into the national spotlight after a police officer held his knee against George Floyd’s neck outside a convenience store as Floyd gasped for breath. It was the same Cup Foods store that Burrell said could have provided his alibi if surveillance tapes had been pulled.

Floyd’s death sparked racial injustice protests and put renewed focus on some law enforcement practices from the 1990s and early 2000s, when harsher policing and tougher sentencing led to the highest lock-up rates in the nation’s history. Those incarcerations hit minority communities the hardest.

Those same communities were victims of much of the gun, drug and gang violence.

Edwards III, Tyesha’s brother, said news of Burrell’s release is especially hard after the death of his mother last year.

“When she lost our sister, it took her away. She was never able to recover,” he said of his mother. “I’m glad my mom is not here to witness this, because it would just break her heart.”

———

Associated Press writers Amy Forliti and Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this report.

Federal government in 2020 executed more prisoners than all 50 states: Death penalty research group

The incoming TRUMP APPOINTED acting attorney general has signaled support for the death penalty.

By Luke Barr
16 December 2020, 



The federal government in 2020 executed more people than all 50 states combined, a new year-end report from the Death Penalty Institute found.

The DPIC is a non-partisan, death penalty information center that tracks death row inmates and executions.

In July, the Trump Justice Department resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus, after now-outgoing Attorney General William Barr backed the issue.

“The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system,” Barr said in a press release in July, after a brief holdup in the courts.


Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
William Barr listens during a meeting with Republican State Attorneys General in the Cabinet Ro...

Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen has supported the ramp up in executions writing an op-ed in the New York Times in July arguing that executions are “legally justified.”

“The death penalty is a difficult issue for many Americans on moral, religious and policy grounds. But as a legal issue, it is straightforward,” Rosen wrote. “The United States Constitution expressly contemplates “capital” crimes, and Congress has authorized the death penalty for serious federal offenses since President George Washington signed the Crimes Act of 1790.”


Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
Jeffrey Rosen, deputy attorney general, speaks during a news conference

Last week, the execution of Brandon Bernard drew widespread criticism from lawmakers to celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West.

The DPIC found that 60% of all executions that were carried out this year were by the federal government, and Texas which has traditionally been a place where executions are carried out regularly only saw three in 2020.


Overall, the DPIC concluded that executions have been trending downward at a state level, with only five states carrying out execution but not federally – and there are still more to come before Joe Biden’s inauguration.
MORE: Advocates push for police reform after summer of unrest




Michael Conroy/AP, FILE
A vehicle patrols that perimeter of the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind., July 17, 2020.

The DPIC also found that 73% of all executions were halted in some way.

“Of the 62 dates scheduled this year, only 17 were carried out. One execution – that of Jimmy Meders in Georgia – was halted by commutation. Nineteen executions were stayed. Sixteen executions were halted by reprieve, 14 of which were Ohio executions delayed because of problems with the state’s execution protocol,” the report said.

The other two reprieves came in cases in which Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee delayed executions as a result of pandemic-related concerns. Nine execution warrants were withdrawn, removed, or rescheduled.”

The DPIC also found that five innocent men were exonerated and taken off death row, two were executed who were likely innocent and “several others” were granted retrials.

“At the end of the year, more states and counties had moved to end or reduce death-penalty usage, fewer new death sentences were imposed than in any prior year since capital punishment resumed in the U.S. in 1970s, and states carried out fewer executions than at any time in the past 37 years,” said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s executive director and the lead author of “The Death Penalty in 2020: Year End Report.”

“What was happening in the rest of the country showed that the administration’s policies were not just out of step with the historical practices of previous presidents, they were also completely out of step with today’s state practices.”

The report highlights that every person executed this year committed the crime under the age of 21 and Colorado became the 22nd state to outlaw the death penalty.

‘Baffling’: Trump admin reportedly slashing vaccine allocations to states — while millions of doses sit on shelves

REDIRECTED TO MAR A LAGO FOR THE 1%

Published on December 18, 2020 By Common Dreams

Donald Trump and Mike Pence (Shutterstock)

Officials from more than a dozen states say the Trump administration has informed them that next week’s Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine allotments to their jurisdictions are being substantially reduced, prompting confusion and outrage. The development comes even as Pfizer insists that it has millions of doses ready to ship if given instructions by the federal government.

Coronavirus inoculation in the U.S. began Monday as the country’s pandemic death toll surpassed 300,000. Hundreds of thousands of people—mostly frontline healthcare workers and nursing home residents whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) agreed to prioritize—have already received their first dose of the vaccine.

But Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) tweeted Thursday that the CDC “has informed us that [Washington’s] vaccine allocation will be cut by 40% next week—and that all states are seeing similar cuts.”

“This is disruptive and frustrating,” Inslee added. “We need accurate, predictable numbers to plan and ensure on-the-ground success. No explanation was given.”

The Associated Press reported Friday that “California, where an explosion in cases is straining intensive care units to the breaking point, will receive 160,000 fewer vaccine doses than state officials had anticipated next week—a roughly 40% reduction.”

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said his state was also told it would receive a smaller shipment than expected, The Hill reported Thursday. In addition, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) on Wednesday said he “anticipates about half as many doses as was originally promised.”

Other affected states, AP reported, include Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

Adding to the chorus of governors expressing concern was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who said Wednesday that “new shipments were ‘on hold,’ and that if they arrive, he is anticipating fewer doses than he was previously told,” The Hill reported. But unlike his colleagues in other states, DeSantis blamed unspecified “production issues.”

Pfizer on Thursday denied that underproduction is the cause of diminished vaccine distributions, instead assigning fault to the lack of direction provided by the Trump administration.

In a statement, the company said that it “successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. government to the locations specified by them.”

“We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses,” Pfizer added.

Gov. Whitmer levels Trump over vaccine delays: 

‘The bottleneck appears to be the White House’

Published on December 18, 2020
By Sky Palma 

Gretchen Whitmer 

During a press conference in Lansing this Friday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer mentioned the recent death of Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon from complications due to the coronavirus, saying that he managed to contract the virus despite being very careful and following all the protocols while her voice cracked with emotion.

Whitmer went on to say that while heartbroken over Napoleon’s death, she’s also angry

“I’m angry because people like Benny are losing this battle every single day,” she said. “And I still cannot get a straight answer out of the Trump administration about why Michigan and many other states is receiving a fraction of the vaccines we were slated to receive.”


Whitmer said there are millions of Pfizer vaccines that are waiting to be shipped, “but the feds are slow-walking the process of getting the addresses to Pfizer for some reason I cannot get an answer to.”

According to a report from Crain’s Business, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that federal officials said that next week’s shipment of the Pfizer vaccine will drop from 84,000 doses to 60,000.

“This is decided at the federal level and subject to change,” spokesperson Lynn Sutfin said in an email to Crain’s.

Watch her full remarks in the video below:

Brazil’s Bolsonaro warns virus vaccine can turn people into ‘crocodiles’

Published on December 18, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has launched an attack on coronavirus vaccines, even suggesting that the one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech could turn people into crocodiles or bearded ladies.

The far-right leader has been skeptical of the coronavirus since it first emerged late last year, branding it “a little flu.” This week he insisted he would not be vaccinated, even while launching the country’s mass inoculation program.

“In the Pfizer contract it’s very clear: ‘we’re not responsible for any side effects.’ If you turn into a crocodile, it’s your problem,” Bolsonaro said on Thursday.

That vaccine has been undergoing tests in Brazil for weeks and is already being used in the United States and Britain.

“If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they will not have anything to do with it,” he said, referring to the drug manufacturers.

When launching the immunization campaign on Wednesday, Bolsonaro also said it would be free but not compulsory.

But the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the vaccine was obligatory, although could not be “forced” on people.

That means authorities can fine people for not being vaccinated and ban them from certain public spaces, but not force them to take it.

Brazil has recorded more than 7.1 million cases and almost 185,000 deaths from Covid-19 amongst its 212 million population.

Bolsonaro said that once a vaccine has been certified by Brazil’s regulatory agency Anvisa, “it will be available for everyone that wants it. But me, I won’t get vaccinated.”

“Some people say I’m giving a bad example. But to the imbeciles, to the idiots that say this, I tell them I’ve already caught the virus, I have the antibodies, so why get vaccinated?”

There have been a small number of cases of apparent reinfection although there is no certainty over whether a person can be reinfected or how long immunity lasts.

Bolsonaro caught the virus in July but recovered within three weeks.

Brazil is in the middle of a second wave of coronavirus infections.

After peaking in June to August cases had been dropping but that changed in November.

On Thursday, Brazil surpassed 1,000 daily deaths from covid-19 for the first time since September.

The country’s immunization program has been widely criticized for being late and chaotic, not least given Bolsonaro’s opposition.

© 2020 AFP

THE 1% GET VACCINATED FIRST
Watch MSNBC cover ‘Rupert Murdoch’s empire of misinformation’ at Fox News and the NY Post

....billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch was vaccinated on Friday — one day after Tucker Carlson questioned the vaccines on-air.

Published on December 18, 2020
By Bob Brigham

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch (Shutterstock)

The billionaire owner of Fox News and the New York Post tabloid was blasted on MSNBC as “one of the most destructive people on the planet.”

“For the past nine months or so, Rupert Murdock-owned media entities have by and large waged a war against public health and the scientific consensus on containing the coronavirus,” MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes reported.

“On Fox News and elsewhere, they’ve been playing down the virus and peddling just outright lies and pushing junk science and elevating cranks,” he noted. “All of which has tangibly, materially contributed to behavior that has made the pandemic worse.”

“And what makes it all the more infuriating — as we have noted — while Fox hosts have been dismissing the experts and suggesting lockdowns don’t work and ridiculing people that avoid the office and follow public health guidelines, many Fox News employees have been working remotely at the same time,” he continued.

Hayes noted that billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch was vaccinated on Friday — one day after Tucker Carlson questioned the vaccines on-air.

And then he went after the New York Post.

Watch:

Bombshell report: Jared Kushner set up shell company that diverted campaign cash to Trump family members

Published on December 18, 2020
By Travis Gettys

Jared Kushner (Shutterstock) 

Jared Kushner helped set up a shell company that secretly paid President Donald Trump’s family members and spent nearly half of his 2020 campaign’s funds.

The president’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser directed his sister-in-law Lara Trump, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman to sit on the shell company’s board, a source familiar with the operation told Business Insider.

The company, which was incorporated as American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC, spent $617 million of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest, according to campaign finance records.

Trump’s top advisers and campaign staff told Insider they were unaware of how the shell company operated, and campaign officials even conducted an internal audit of its operations under former campaign manager Brad Parscale but never reported those findings, and the next campaign manager Bill Stepien had little involvement with AMMC.

“Nothing was done without Jared’s approval,” said a former advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign. “What Stepien doesn’t know is because Jared doesn’t want him to know.”

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed a civil complaint in July with the Federal Election Commission accusing the campaign of disguising” about $170 million in spending “by laundering the funds” through AMMC.

“[It’s a] scheme to evade telling voters even the basics on where its money is really going [and a] shield to disguise the ultimate recipients of its spending,” said Brendan Fischer, the center’s director of federal reform.

The Department of Justice may open a criminal investigation if the government suspects the payments were a “knowing and willful” violation of election law.

Several sources from the Justice Department and FEC told Insider that investigators may already be looking into the campaign’s activity.

“Lara Trump and John Pence resigned from the AMMC board in October 2019 to focus solely on their campaign activities, however, there was never any ethical or legal reason why they could not serve on the board in the first place,” said Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s communications director. “John and Lara were not compensated by AMMC for their service as board members.”