Pompeo's wife asked senior State Department staff for help with holiday cards

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/report-pompeos-wife-asked-senior-state-department-staff-for-help-with-holiday-cards

 Reports have emerged that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife asked if senior staff members at the State Department could work during the week of Christmas last year to help complete the family’s personal holiday cards.

According to emails obtained by McClatchy, Susan Pompeo asked an aide to the secretary of state who would be available the week of Christmas to help with the holiday cards.

The emails from Susan Pompeo are the first publically available documents indicating that the secretary of state and his wife have used State Department employees to carry out personal business while on the clock for the federal government.

The revelations in the emails also come amid a congressional inquiry into the State Department's firing of its inspector general earlier this year.

 

As Trump played down virus, health experts’ alarm grew

 https://apnews.com/48f77170558376db143da5f0a3f2b3e8

 White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany highlighted comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, to try to make the case that Trump didn’t lie to the public. She cited a Feb. 17 interview in which Fauci focused his concern on the seasonal flu then playing out.

 But a day later, Fauci had spoken of alarming potential implications from the new virus, saying, “Not only do we not have an appreciation of the magnitude, even more disturbing is that we don’t have an appreciation of where the magnitude is going.”

 Larry Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations on public health issues, said there should be no confusing honest mistakes and expressions of uncertainty from public health officials with Trump’s effort to minimize the threat of COVID-19.

“It is irrefutable that he has played down the epidemic and sidelined trusted scientists, and in some cases, muzzled them,” Gostin said.

Sarah Sanders on Trump’s coronavirus response: Why is the media ignoring Fauci’s defense?

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/sarah-sanders-on-trumps-coronavirus-response-why-is-the-media-ignoring-faucis-defense

 The media continues to bash President Trump for his toned-down response to the coronavirus pandemic, even though allegations have been debunked by officials, former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said to Fox News’ “Media Buzz.”

Since journalist Bob Woodward publicly pinned the president for “downplaying” the virus in his book "Rage," Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci has come out and defended Trump, saying he listened to the professionals and followed their advice.

“I wonder why the media’s not leaning on Dr. Fauci’s statement anymore,” Sanders asked.

Peter Navarro abruptly cut from CNN interview after telling Jake Tapper network 'is not honest with the American people’

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/peter-navarro-abruptly-cut-from-cnn-jake-tapper-trump-covid

 "Why wasn’t the president straightforward with the American people?" he asked. "He was straightforward," Navarro replied. "You're cherry-picking...You just don’t want to listen, Jake."

Tapper claimed Trump "knew [COVID] was deadlier than the flu" and "was lying to the American public two weeks later."

Navarro flipped the script and accused CNN of lying to the American people, which led Tapper to end the interview.

Full Panel: Trump Facing 'An Aggressive One-Two Punch' After New Report | Meet The Press | NBC News

Tapper presses Navarro: You're not answering the question

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The Upcoming Durham Report, Election Interference and Other Bill Barr Abuses

Trump ignores science at dangerous indoor rally

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/14/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-indoor-rally-wildfires/index.html

 President Donald Trump offered a glaring new example of his refusal to put medical science before politics with a large indoor rally Sunday night that made a mockery of social distancing, while the pandemic he mismanaged has now claimed more than 194,000 American lives.

The event in Nevada -- his second rally in the state in as many days -- did not only risk the health of those present, thousands of whom were packed together inside a manufacturing facility in defiance of the state's ban on local gatherings of 50 people or more. It also has the potential to turn into a super spreader event that could seed Covid-19 outbreaks in the wider community. Trump hadn't held an indoor rally in nearly three months, since his last one, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after which the city saw a surge in cases and multiple campaign staffers along with Secret Service agents tested positive for the virus.

President Trump Questions Integrity of Upcoming Election at Nevada Campaign Rally

 https://time.com/5888534/trump-rally-nevada/

Kicking off a Western swing, President Donald Trump barreled into Nevada for the weekend, looking to expand his path to victory while unleashing a torrent of unsubstantiated claims that Democrats were trying to steal the election.

Trump defied local authorities by holding a Saturday night rally in tiny Minden after his initial plan to hold one in Reno was stopped out of concern it would have violated coronavirus health guidelines. Unleashing 90-plus minutes of grievances and attacks, Trump claimed the state’s Democratic governor tried to block him and repeated his false claim that mail-in ballots would taint the election result.

“This is the guy we are entrusting with millions of ballots, unsolicited ballots, and we’re supposed to win these states. Who the hell is going to trust him?” Trump said of Gov. Steve Sisolak. “The only way the Democrats can win the election is if they rig it.”

 

 

Donald Trump vs. Science

Pandemic brings Trump's war on science to the boil – but who will win?

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/03/science-donald-trump-coronavirus

 Three years of hostility to evidence-based policy have led to a crisis in which the president’s ill-informed, self-serving ‘hunches’ have deadly consequences

Trump lied about science

 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/11/science.abe7391

 Over the years, this page has commented on the scientific foibles of U.S. presidents. Inadequate action on climate change and environmental degradation during both Republican and Democratic administrations have been criticized frequently. Editorials have bemoaned endorsements by presidents on teaching intelligent design, creationism, and other antiscience in public schools. These matters are still important. But now, a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

This may be the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy.

 It also meant silencing health officials who tried to tell the truth. On 25 February, Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), said, “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.” She was right and Trump knew it. But he shut her down. He also tried to control messaging from Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost leader on infectious diseases. Trump’s supporters insisted that Fauci and Messonnier were not being muzzled, but now we have clear evidence in emails that they were.

 

Donald Trump tries to quash two hugely damaging stories

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/13/opinions/trump-tries-to-quash-two-stories-opinion-galant/index.html

 In Lewis Carroll's 1865 storybook for children of all ages, Alice jumps down a rabbit hole. It spools into a Wonderland where eating a cake can make you grow nine feet tall. A place where rabbits wear waistcoats and kid gloves. Where Dodo birds set the rules for running races. And where the grinning Cheshire Cat sits in a tree and tells Alice that if you don't care where you're going to wind up, it really "doesn't matter which way you go."

 That quip is the reason senior White House adviser Jared Kushner recommended "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to author Bob Woodward as one of the crucial texts for understanding his father-in-law, President Donald Trump. But remember that when Alice says, "I don't want to go among mad people," the Cat replies, "Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here." Or, in the words of the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit" -- "logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead."