CNN's Brooke Baldwin made an interesting point. "Why isn't he offering well wishes to the victims of Epstein's exploitation?"
July 22, 2020
By Alex Woodward
Picture is of his daughter at a young age. I also believe Trump will do anything that brings him controversy he can spin on.
...The Duke of York (click here) has previously been targetted by former US attorney Geoffrey Berman – who was recently and controversially removed from his post by US attorney general William Barr – over allegations that Andrew has refused to cooperate in the case.
Acting US attorney Audrey Strauss has sought his cooperation in Maxwell's case.
"We would like to have the benefit of his statement," he said....
July 22, 2020
By Andrew Naughtie
Former White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci (click here) has accused Donald Trump of covertly imploring the arrested socialite Ghislaine Maxwell not to reveal what she knows about him.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Mr Scaramucci wrote: “She has the goods on him. He is signaling ‘please don’t talk.’”
Mr Trump acknowledged Ms Maxwell during a press briefing on Tuesday, his first since April. Asked by a reporter whether he thought she would turn in other powerful men who were potentially involved with Jeffrey Epstein, the president said he hasn’t been following the case closely....
June 4, 2020
By Lisa Song
Protesters run away from tear gas on Monday in Philadelphia after a march protesting the death of George Floyd.
In the middle of a respiratory pandemic, law enforcement agencies have used tear gas in especially dangerous ways. The chemical agent also seeps into homes, contaminates food, furniture, skin and surfaces, and can cause long-term lung damage.
When Amira Chowdhury (click here) joined a protest in Philadelphia against police violence on Monday, she wore a mask to protect herself and others against the coronavirus. But when officers launched tear gas into the crowd, Chowdhury pulled off her mask as she gasped for air. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I felt like I was choking to death.”
What is it about the police in the country that simply clings to strangling Americans, either by physical strangulation or chemical induction. If there are protesters that succumbed to SARS-CoV-2 after being tear-gassed, there needs to be a lawyer coming forward with lawsuits.
Chowdhury was on a part of the Vine Street Expressway that ran underground. Everyone panicked as gas drifted into the dark, semi-enclosed space, she said. People stomped over her as they scrambled away. Bruised, she scaled a fence to escape. But the tear gas found her later that evening, inside her own house; as police unleashed it on protesters in her predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia, it seeped in.
“I can’t even be in my own house without escaping the violence of the state,” said Chowdhury, a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania. On Wednesday, she said her throat still felt dry, like it was clogged with ash....
Americans need to receive an evaluation of a physician after being gassed. Lungs are important and so are the lining of the throat.
This is not going to end the displacement of families nor will it feed them. State unemployment is ending. Medicaid benefits need to be extended to low-income families. Food Stamps has to be extended to low-income families as well.
July 22, 2020
Republicans (click here) are considering extending the enhanced unemployment insurance through the end of the year at a drastically reduced level of $400 per month, or $100 a week.
The current additional benefit of $600 per week expires at the end of July, but Democrats hope to extend it at least into next year.
Republicans had been discussing extending it at a level of $200 per week....
Of the states not providing the standard 26-week maximum: (click here)
- Massachusetts provides up to 30 weeks of UI except when a federal extended benefits program is in place (as it is now) or in periods of low unemployment (as was the case through February), when the maximum drops to 26 weeks;
- Montana provides up to 28 weeks of UI;
- Michigan normally provides up to 20 weeks of UI, but in the COVID-19 emergency that has risen to 26 weeks;
- South Carolina and Missouri provide up to 20 weeks of UI; and
- Arkansas provides up to 16 weeks of regular benefits.
The charity infrastructure in the USA can carry people in financial trouble for a while, but, there are far too many unemployed to place that burden on charity groups.
The first round was squandered by the Republicans that scoffed at the experts telling everyone to stay home and use a mask. Now, that the Republicans have failed the USA, they want to hurt it besides.
The length of unemployment is growing. (click here)
The cities being invaded by Trump's police dressed as Soldier-wannabes need to warn the homeless things can get rough on the street.
The 2019 methodology (click here) was approved by the PIT
Subcommittee and presented to the collaborative
partners and Chicago Continuum of Care Board of
Directors. As in the past, data was collected from
tallies of individuals in shelters and of individuals
residing on the streets, riding public transportation, at
24-hour establishments, and in parks, cars, and other
locations not meant for sleeping. The PIT count also
includes a survey that collects demographic, social
service and other information from a subset of
homeless individuals.
Building on a successful outreach approach for
veterans in the previous PIT, extra resources were
made available by the Department of Veteran Affairs
to conduct assessments of veterans in shelters and to
engage with veterans identified on the street and
connect them to a housing provider. Similarly,
additional resources were provided to recruit youth
with previous experiences of homelessness to lead
teams during an extended 24-hour window after the
night of the PIT count in order to identify and count
homeless youth....
22 July 2020
By Chris McGreal
...But after pushing back demonstrators, (click here) many of them kitted out in helmets and gas masks, the federal agents retreated into their courthouse citadel to mocking jeers and women who were part of the “Wall of Moms” protest linking arms and chanting: “Our streets.”...
They are absolutely correct. A civil war and 155 years since that civil war ended, the violence against African Americans by the police hasn't stopped no matter how peaceful protesters have carried out their messages.
The scapegoating of the media hasn't worked for three years, so now it is "The Democrats" as the scapegoat for Trump's faux presidency.
Last week it was Dr. Fauci. This week it is democrats, but, the difference is that Trump has entered a far higher sense of danger to the victims of his "strategy" by calling gunmen into the cities.
Putting gunmen in the cities doesn't end the fact the president is a bigot and racist.
The only reason protesters NEED to leave the street for a while is to end the spread of COVID-19. They will be saving the lives of the minorities they support.
July 15, 2020
By Phillip Bump
There’s clearly a self-serving element (click here) to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s opinion piece for USA Today, published late on Tuesday. Not that this is new for him.
Navarro came to the administration by virtue of his fervent anti-China worldview (and thanks to some fortuitous Googling by Jared Kushner), positioning him well to be a skeptic of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus that emerged from that country. A pair of memos Navarro wrote earlier this year argued that the virus posed a significant risk and demanded an urgent response — arguments that were largely borne out but that have been hard to evaluate outside the context of his sinophobia. Was he prescient about the pandemic? Or did his worldview simply position him well and allow him to take victory laps where he saw them?
The aforementioned memos are central to the lap he takes in the USA Today essay. In it, he contrasts his self-professed foresight with the pronouncements offered by the nation’s leading infectious-disease doctor, Anthony S. Fauci, saying that Fauci “has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”...
The people turning out to protest are citizens of this country and live in Portland, Oregon. If a citizen is in danger from policies of the country and/or city, it is their obligation to demand change. After all, their lives rely on it. That is democracy. That is the First Amendment.
Independent journalists are taking on the dangerous shift. Why? They must strongly believe in what they are doing, no different than the patriotic Americans they focus on for their reporting.
July 22, 2020
Portlanders have turned (click here) out to protest systemic racism and police brutality for more than 50 consecutive nights on downtown Portland streets.
While some journalism organizations, including OPB, haven’t been able to send reporters out on a nightly basis, independent freelance journalists are on the ground covering the chaos nearly every night.
Tuck Woodstock and Sergio Olmos are two Portland-based journalists who have been covering protests since late May.
They joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud®” to reflect on nearly two months of ongoing protest coverage.
Covering these protests is inherently dangerous: law enforcement’s use of tear gas, impact munitions, pepper balls and other sanctioned violence against protesters and the press are well-documented....
July 22, 2020
