Today's News (2020/2/27) - Trump says DCD statements on COVID-19 are a plot against him
I have one (1) person left on Facebook with a lot of Trumpists in his followers.
They're mostly all pretty convinced that COVID-19 is not a big deal and that it's specifically overblown to target the Great Leader.
-----
Missouri lawmaker wants to make it easy for parents to sue their local school if kids are ‘subjected to’ anything LGBTQ
February 26, 2020
By David Badash
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/missouri-lawmaker-wants-to-make-it-easy-for-parents-to-sue-their-local-school-if-kids-are-subjected-to-anything-lgbtq/
A Missouri state lawmaker is pushing a bill that would make it easy for parents to sue schools if their children are “subjected to” anything LGBTQ.
Rep. Chuck Basye wants parents to have total control over what their children see in school, even if it’s not part of the curriculum. The bill is in response to a poster a GSA - gay-straight alliance club - put up without getting approval from all the students’ parents.
-----
Trump just pushed one of his worst conspiracy theories yet
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/27/trump-just-pushed-one-his-worst-conspiracy-theories-yet/
By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Feb. 27, 2020 at 7:40 a.m. PST
President Trump is now fully embracing the conspiracy theory that his assorted enemies are deliberately hyping the coronavirus threat, all to damage him politically. At his Wednesday news conference, Trump agreed with Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that Trump’s foes are “weaponizing” the outbreak against him.
There is something deeply dangerous about this idea that might escape initial scrutiny. So let’s be clear: This cannot be described with the usual head-in-the-sand media euphemisms. This isn’t just spin. It isn’t just crazy Trump being crazy Trump. It isn’t just Trump flooding the zone with chaos.
Instead, it poses a direct threat to the notion of accountability in government. This is thrown into sharp relief by coronavirus, at a time when it’s particularly urgent that the government operate neutrally, with the branches interacting in good faith.
At Trump’s presser, a reporter cited Limbaugh and noted that he and other Trump supporters have spread the idea that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be “exaggerating the threat of coronavirus” to “weaponize” it and “hurt you politically.”
“I think they are,” Trump replied. “And I’d like it to stop.” He then cited the Democratic opposition in Congress, in particular Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
-----
World Health Org Official: Trump’s press conference on coronavirus ‘incoherent’
February 26, 2020
https://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/world-health-org-official-trump-s-press-conference-on-coronavirus-incoherent-79503429705
On President Trump's press conference regarding the coronavirus, World Health Organization Special Adviser to the Director Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel says "I found most of what he said incoherent."
-----
Mehdi Hasan
twitter.com/mehdirhasan
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1232814795977580545
So, the guy who allowed an HIV outbreak in Indiana while he was governor is now in charge of dealing with containing the coronavirus outbreak?
[LINKS TO: https://huffpost.com/entry/mike-pence-indiana-hiv_n_57f53b9be4b002a7312022ef ]
ARE YOU REASSURED???
-----
Bellevue College apologizes after administrator alters mural depicting Japanese American internment
Feb. 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/bellevue-college-apologizes-after-administrator-alters-mural-depicting-japanese-american-internment/
By Paige Cornwell
Seattle Times staff reporter
Bellevue College has apologized after one of its vice presidents altered a mural of two Japanese American children in a World War II incarceration camp by whiting out a reference to anti-Japanese agitation by Eastside businessmen in the accompanying artist description.
The art installation “Never Again Is Now,” created by Seattle artist Erin Shigaki, includes an 11-foot-tall mural of two children photographed at a California incarceration camp. The project was brought to Bellevue College last week as the school recognized the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
Last Thursday, professors who helped bring the project to the school were alerted that it had been defaced, according to Professor Leslie Lum. Someone, Lum said, had removed one sentence in a paragraph about Japanese immigrants and their connection to Bellevue: “After decades of anti-Japanese agitation, led by Eastside businessman Miller Freeman and others, the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans included the 60 families (300 individuals) who farmed Bellevue.”
-----
Trump Insists on Paying for Coronavirus Prep by Cutting Heating Aid for the Poor
By Eric Levitz
Feb. 26, 2020
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/trump-administration-coronavirus-budget-response.html
Since taking office, the Trump administration has slashed taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, while increasing the Defense Department’s annual budget by $130 billion (a sum more than large enough to cover the costs of tuition-free public college and paid family leave). All together, the policies implemented during Donald Trump’s tenure are poised to push the federal deficit past $1 trillion this year.
That last bit isn’t necessarily concerning. Many mainstream economists consider our nation’s existing debt load more than sustainable. From a progressive perspective, the problem with Trump’s deficit spending isn’t its scale but its content.
From a self-styled fiscal conservative’s point of view, however, that $1 trillion figure is a real eyesore. And for at least some of the self-professed conservatives who work in the Trump White House, it is a source of psychological discomfort bordering on guilt.
Or at least, that’s my best guess as to why the Trump administration has, (1) spent the past several weeks refusing to endorse new spending on coronavirus preparation, despite the pleas of lawmakers in both parties for action, and (2) is still holding up funding for the imminent public health crisis by insisting on offsetting a small fraction of the emergency appropriation with a $37 million cut to home heating aid for the poor.
-----
One of the Largest Disinformation Campaigns Ever Conducted
February 20, 2020
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/one-of-the-largest-disinformation-campaigns-ever-conducted/
When McKay Coppins, a journalist for The Atlantic, created a Facebook page so he could follow pro-Trump social media accounts and communicate with online Trump supporters, he uncovered something remarkable: a campaign-coordinated effort to undermine journalists and the mainstream press on a mass scale. Coppins told Hari Sreenivasan about his findings.
-----
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election
Story by McKay Coppins
MARCH 2020 ISSUE
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/
One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.
The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.
The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video-served up by the Trump campaign-that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?
As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.
-----
U.S. workers without protective gear assisted coronavirus evacuees, HHS whistleblower says
By Lena H. Sun and Yasmeen Abutaleb
Feb. 27, 2020 at 1:18 p.m. PST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/us-workers-without-protective-gear-assisted-coronavirus-evacuees-hhs-whistleblower-says/
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.
The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS.
The whistleblower is seeking federal protection, alleging she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns about the safety of these workers to HHS officials, including those within the office of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. She was told Feb. 19 that if she does not accept the new position in 15 days, which is March 5, she would be terminated.
-----
The New York Times
twitter.com/nytimes
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1233099503785455623
Government health officials and scientists will have to clear statements about the coronavirus outbreak with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, in an effort to tighten the White House’s control of messaging about the virus
-----
Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials
Government health officials and scientists will have to coordinate statements with the vice president’s office, one of three people designated as the administration’s primary coronavirus official.
February 27, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
WASHINGTON -- The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by government health officials and scientists, directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearance with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, according to several officials familiar with the new approach.
President Trump announced Wednesday evening that Mr. Pence would coordinate the government's response to the public health threat even as he played down the immediate danger from the virus that is spreading rapidly across the globe. Mr. Pence was scheduled to lead a meeting of the government's coronavirus task force on Thursday.
Officials insist the goal is not to control the content of what subject-matter experts and other officials are saying, but to make sure their efforts are being coordinated, after days of confusion with various administration officials showing up on television. And they say they are not focused on specific news releases rather with a streamlined effort around television appearances.
-----
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm including this because in addition to Birx, he appointed Steve Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow. They're more worried about market reactions than medicine.]
White House Names AIDS Expert Debbie Birx To Help Lead Coronavirus Response
February 27, 2020
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/809973841/white-house-names-aids-expert-debbie-birx-to-help-lead-coronavirus-response
The White House sought to show it was shoring up its efforts to corral the spread of coronavirus on Thursday, naming an internationally recognized HIV/AIDS expert as its new coronavirus response coordinator.
Debbie Birx is a State Department ambassador-at-large who works on global health diplomacy issues. Vice President Pence said Birx would be detailed to his office.
...
Birx will also join Trump's coronavirus task force, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, which is charged with responding to the virus. On Thursday, Pence also bolstered its ranks by adding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow - signaling concerns about the growing economic threat posed by the virus. Surgeon General Jerome Adams will also join the task force, Pence said.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.
They're mostly all pretty convinced that COVID-19 is not a big deal and that it's specifically overblown to target the Great Leader.
-----
Missouri lawmaker wants to make it easy for parents to sue their local school if kids are ‘subjected to’ anything LGBTQ
February 26, 2020
By David Badash
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/missouri-lawmaker-wants-to-make-it-easy-for-parents-to-sue-their-local-school-if-kids-are-subjected-to-anything-lgbtq/
A Missouri state lawmaker is pushing a bill that would make it easy for parents to sue schools if their children are “subjected to” anything LGBTQ.
Rep. Chuck Basye wants parents to have total control over what their children see in school, even if it’s not part of the curriculum. The bill is in response to a poster a GSA - gay-straight alliance club - put up without getting approval from all the students’ parents.
-----
Trump just pushed one of his worst conspiracy theories yet
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/27/trump-just-pushed-one-his-worst-conspiracy-theories-yet/
By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Feb. 27, 2020 at 7:40 a.m. PST
President Trump is now fully embracing the conspiracy theory that his assorted enemies are deliberately hyping the coronavirus threat, all to damage him politically. At his Wednesday news conference, Trump agreed with Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that Trump’s foes are “weaponizing” the outbreak against him.
There is something deeply dangerous about this idea that might escape initial scrutiny. So let’s be clear: This cannot be described with the usual head-in-the-sand media euphemisms. This isn’t just spin. It isn’t just crazy Trump being crazy Trump. It isn’t just Trump flooding the zone with chaos.
Instead, it poses a direct threat to the notion of accountability in government. This is thrown into sharp relief by coronavirus, at a time when it’s particularly urgent that the government operate neutrally, with the branches interacting in good faith.
At Trump’s presser, a reporter cited Limbaugh and noted that he and other Trump supporters have spread the idea that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be “exaggerating the threat of coronavirus” to “weaponize” it and “hurt you politically.”
“I think they are,” Trump replied. “And I’d like it to stop.” He then cited the Democratic opposition in Congress, in particular Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
-----
World Health Org Official: Trump’s press conference on coronavirus ‘incoherent’
February 26, 2020
https://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/world-health-org-official-trump-s-press-conference-on-coronavirus-incoherent-79503429705
On President Trump's press conference regarding the coronavirus, World Health Organization Special Adviser to the Director Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel says "I found most of what he said incoherent."
-----
Mehdi Hasan
twitter.com/mehdirhasan
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1232814795977580545
So, the guy who allowed an HIV outbreak in Indiana while he was governor is now in charge of dealing with containing the coronavirus outbreak?
[LINKS TO: https://huffpost.com/entry/mike-pence-indiana-hiv_n_57f53b9be4b002a7312022ef ]
ARE YOU REASSURED???
-----
Bellevue College apologizes after administrator alters mural depicting Japanese American internment
Feb. 26, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/bellevue-college-apologizes-after-administrator-alters-mural-depicting-japanese-american-internment/
By Paige Cornwell
Seattle Times staff reporter
Bellevue College has apologized after one of its vice presidents altered a mural of two Japanese American children in a World War II incarceration camp by whiting out a reference to anti-Japanese agitation by Eastside businessmen in the accompanying artist description.
The art installation “Never Again Is Now,” created by Seattle artist Erin Shigaki, includes an 11-foot-tall mural of two children photographed at a California incarceration camp. The project was brought to Bellevue College last week as the school recognized the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
Last Thursday, professors who helped bring the project to the school were alerted that it had been defaced, according to Professor Leslie Lum. Someone, Lum said, had removed one sentence in a paragraph about Japanese immigrants and their connection to Bellevue: “After decades of anti-Japanese agitation, led by Eastside businessman Miller Freeman and others, the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans included the 60 families (300 individuals) who farmed Bellevue.”
-----
Trump Insists on Paying for Coronavirus Prep by Cutting Heating Aid for the Poor
By Eric Levitz
Feb. 26, 2020
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/trump-administration-coronavirus-budget-response.html
Since taking office, the Trump administration has slashed taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, while increasing the Defense Department’s annual budget by $130 billion (a sum more than large enough to cover the costs of tuition-free public college and paid family leave). All together, the policies implemented during Donald Trump’s tenure are poised to push the federal deficit past $1 trillion this year.
That last bit isn’t necessarily concerning. Many mainstream economists consider our nation’s existing debt load more than sustainable. From a progressive perspective, the problem with Trump’s deficit spending isn’t its scale but its content.
From a self-styled fiscal conservative’s point of view, however, that $1 trillion figure is a real eyesore. And for at least some of the self-professed conservatives who work in the Trump White House, it is a source of psychological discomfort bordering on guilt.
Or at least, that’s my best guess as to why the Trump administration has, (1) spent the past several weeks refusing to endorse new spending on coronavirus preparation, despite the pleas of lawmakers in both parties for action, and (2) is still holding up funding for the imminent public health crisis by insisting on offsetting a small fraction of the emergency appropriation with a $37 million cut to home heating aid for the poor.
-----
One of the Largest Disinformation Campaigns Ever Conducted
February 20, 2020
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/one-of-the-largest-disinformation-campaigns-ever-conducted/
When McKay Coppins, a journalist for The Atlantic, created a Facebook page so he could follow pro-Trump social media accounts and communicate with online Trump supporters, he uncovered something remarkable: a campaign-coordinated effort to undermine journalists and the mainstream press on a mass scale. Coppins told Hari Sreenivasan about his findings.
-----
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election
Story by McKay Coppins
MARCH 2020 ISSUE
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/
One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.
The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.
The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video-served up by the Trump campaign-that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?
As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.
-----
U.S. workers without protective gear assisted coronavirus evacuees, HHS whistleblower says
By Lena H. Sun and Yasmeen Abutaleb
Feb. 27, 2020 at 1:18 p.m. PST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/27/us-workers-without-protective-gear-assisted-coronavirus-evacuees-hhs-whistleblower-says/
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services sent more than a dozen workers to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, without proper training for infection control or appropriate protective gear, according to a whistleblower complaint.
The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS.
The whistleblower is seeking federal protection, alleging she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns about the safety of these workers to HHS officials, including those within the office of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. She was told Feb. 19 that if she does not accept the new position in 15 days, which is March 5, she would be terminated.
-----
The New York Times
twitter.com/nytimes
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1233099503785455623
Government health officials and scientists will have to clear statements about the coronavirus outbreak with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, in an effort to tighten the White House’s control of messaging about the virus
-----
Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials
Government health officials and scientists will have to coordinate statements with the vice president’s office, one of three people designated as the administration’s primary coronavirus official.
February 27, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
WASHINGTON -- The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by government health officials and scientists, directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearance with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, according to several officials familiar with the new approach.
President Trump announced Wednesday evening that Mr. Pence would coordinate the government's response to the public health threat even as he played down the immediate danger from the virus that is spreading rapidly across the globe. Mr. Pence was scheduled to lead a meeting of the government's coronavirus task force on Thursday.
Officials insist the goal is not to control the content of what subject-matter experts and other officials are saying, but to make sure their efforts are being coordinated, after days of confusion with various administration officials showing up on television. And they say they are not focused on specific news releases rather with a streamlined effort around television appearances.
-----
[EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm including this because in addition to Birx, he appointed Steve Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow. They're more worried about market reactions than medicine.]
White House Names AIDS Expert Debbie Birx To Help Lead Coronavirus Response
February 27, 2020
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/809973841/white-house-names-aids-expert-debbie-birx-to-help-lead-coronavirus-response
The White House sought to show it was shoring up its efforts to corral the spread of coronavirus on Thursday, naming an internationally recognized HIV/AIDS expert as its new coronavirus response coordinator.
Debbie Birx is a State Department ambassador-at-large who works on global health diplomacy issues. Vice President Pence said Birx would be detailed to his office.
...
Birx will also join Trump's coronavirus task force, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, which is charged with responding to the virus. On Thursday, Pence also bolstered its ranks by adding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow - signaling concerns about the growing economic threat posed by the virus. Surgeon General Jerome Adams will also join the task force, Pence said.
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.