Monday August 17, 2020
DNC starts tonight, runs 4 days.
https://blacktranslivesmatter.carrd.co/
What You Can Do About Trump’s Attack on the U.S. Postal Service
Friday August 21, 2020
USPS Office Gainesville Midtown
bobby d dobkowski marion county commissioner results
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2020/08/18/live-2020-marion-county-primary-election-results/3394754001/
Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Fallon Relish in Steve Bannon’s Arrest: ‘It’s Been a Brutal Six Months, So I’m Going to Mainline Some Schadenfreude’
‘Biggest Snowflake of Them All’: CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon Brutally Mock Trump After Sharing Laundry List of Companies He Canceled
New USC Panel Poll, Which Showed Trump Leading Throughout 2016, Debuts With Biden Holding 11-Point Lead
Tracking poll. Details on non-voters.
It’s back to school for Marion County students
and an hour later
Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US
“The underlying point here is that most countries on the security council basically agree with the US that Iran is not a nice country and it having nuclear weapons and more arms is not a good thing,” the diplomat said. “But the Americans misplayed their hand so often, so aggressively, that they isolated themselves from people not on policy, but on just being unpleasant.”
‘Are you really going to impeach me?’: How the Ukraine bombshell unfolded over 48 hours and laid bare Trump’s fixation with Biden
This article is adapted from “Trump on Trial” by Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, which will be published Aug. 25 by Scribner. A revealing and intimate study of political power, it lays out the backstory and aftermath of President Trump’s impeachment, including how his alarm-raising request to a foreign country centered on one person — his political rival Joe Biden.
Montana Supreme Court, federal court rule against GOP-backed effort to qualify Green Party candidates
The state court upheld a decision District Judge James Reynolds made earlier this month that granted the requests of about 560 people to remove their names from the Green Party petitions after they learned the Montana Republican Party funded the effort, according to the Independent Record.
The state Supreme Court ruled 5-2 in favor of stripping the candidates from the ballot, saying it would release its reasoning soon.
Steve Bannon's indictment and arrest should worry Trump and his associates
Bannon can control how history remembers him with the choices he makes now.
As the CEO of Trump's 2016 campaign and later a White House strategist, Bannon is well positioned to have information about a number of possible criminal targets. One of them is Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of the defense contractor Blackwater, who is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Prince appears to have given conflicting statements to the House Intelligence Committee and special counsel Robert Mueller about a meeting he had in the Seychelles islands in January 2017 with a Russian financier tied to President Vladimir Putin. Conflicting narratives suggest that at least one account is false. Intentionally lying about material matters in either proceeding is a crime.
Teachers could stay in classroom if exposed to COVID-19
The Vow review – unsettling Nxivm cult series burrows under your skin
NXIVM docuseries: What to know before HBO's 'The Vow,' centered on the alleged cult, premieres
Netflix is 'deeply sorry' for 'inappropriate artwork' used for film about kids' dance group
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August 20, 2020
Michelle Cook wins Republican primary race for Clay County sheriff
Cook, a native of Green Cove Springs, is the former chief at the Atlantic Beach Police Department.
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/politics/elections/clay-county-residents-cast-votes-for-new-sheriff-during-tuesdays-primary/77-7e98ed88-1c76-41ec-9452-badc83e349e3
CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — Michelle Cook, former Atlantic Beach police chief, defeated a field of Republican candidates Tuesday in her bid to become Clay County sheriff. That field included incumbent and suspended Sheriff Darryl Daniels.
Cook has 28-year career in law enforcement with both the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Atlantic Beach police. She is a native of Green Cove Springs.
Daniels was suspended last week following a lengthy sex scandal investigation that suggested Daniels used resources within the sheriff's office to aid in, and later hide, an affair he was having with an employee.
The dystopian tech that companies are selling to help schools reopen sooner
This fall, AI could be watching students social distance and checking their masks.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/14/21365300/artificial-intelligence-ai-school-reopening-technology-covid-19
Former teacher of the year for Alachua County retires
https://www.wcjb.com/2020/08/18/former-teacher-of-the-year-for-alachua-county-retires/
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - An Alachua county teacher made national headlines by making a principled stand in the classroom, but now kindergarten teacher Susan Bowles is hanging up her grade book. Bowles announced Monday that she is retiring after working with children for more than 40 years.
At Lawton Chiles Elementary in 2014, Bowles risked her job by refusing to administer a standardized test because of the difficulties they pose to younger students. This led to a general outcry against such tests and the one she opposed was eventually dropped.
Bowles was named teacher of the year in Alachua county in 2015.
Trump administration bars FDA from regulating some laboratory tests, including for coronavirus
Some public health experts worry defective tests could end up on the market, but others cheer the change, saying it is long overdue
The Trump administration this week blocked the Food and Drug Administration from regulating a broad swath of laboratory tests, including for the coronavirus, in a move strongly opposed by the agency.
We are profoundly concerned about our nation's security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump. The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.
A STATEMENT BY FORMER REPUBLICAN NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block critics on Twitter
In its Thursday petition to the Supreme Court, attorneys for the Justice Department (DOJ) urged the justices to overturn a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit against Trump.
The DOJ argued that the appeals court had erred by finding Trump’s Twitter account to be a public forum, and failed to adequately recognize that much of Trump’s social media posts constitute private rather than governmental speech.
"Zombie" magazines: prestigious publications raised from the dead by hucksters, extremists and morons
At The New Republic, Alex Shephard traces the rise of "zombie" magazines: respected but failed outlets raised from the dead to crank out bizarre, low-quality or extremist content that wears the old masthead's prestigious corpse. Zombie king is "Newsweek", in the news this week after publishing a racist legal falsehood to suggest Kamala Harris is ineligible for high office.
In recent years there has been a rise in "pink slime journalism": outlets that pose as local news outlets but rely on algorithms. These outlets manipulate readers' trust in local news as a means of delivering right-wing talking points. Something similar is happening at Newsweek. The response to the Eastman op-ed suggests that many still see the magazine as the middlebrow, general-interest publication it was in the not-that-distant past—evidence that pink slime has entered the sphere of national publications as well.
TRUMP COMES UP EMPTY WHEN PRESSED FOR EVIDENCE OF ELECTION FRAUD IN COURT
The Trump campaign’s 524-page response to a discovery demand turned up precisely zero instances of mail-in vote fraud.
The campaign is suing Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and each of the state’s county election boards to prevent election administrators from providing secure drop boxes for mail-in ballot returns. These drop boxes allow voters to return their mail-in ballots by hand, without sending them through the postal system and risking delays. The Trump campaign alleges that the practice “provides fraudsters an easy opportunity to engage in ballot harvesting, manipulate or destroy ballots, manufacture duplicitous votes, and sow chaos.”
I’m a Mail Carrier, and Trump Is Definitely Trying to Affect the Election
My hands are tied, but I’m doing my part to try to stop him
https://twitter.com/sheologian/status/1296658984271740930 I learned about Kierkegaard in the eighth grade, in public school. This is a really weird way to announce you’re not very smart.
Steve Bannon, along with Castle Rock man and 2 others indicted over border wall
By Mike Brest and Jerry Dunleavy, Washington Examiner, Marianne Goodland, Colorado Politics and APe
According to Federal Election Commission records, Amanda Shea made two $2,800 contributions in 2019, to the Trump Victory Fund and the Trump, listing We Build the Wall as her employer.
Shea's wife, Amanda, is the organization's treasurer and a former writer for the conservative news site FreedomDaily. She told 9News in 2018 that they helped set up the GoFundMe page with Kolfage.
Behind the viral #GoFundTheWall fundraiser, a rising conservative star and a shadowy email harvesting operation
Brian Kolfage, a triple-amputee Air Force veteran, has operated fake news websites and fundraisers to build a lucrative email list.
Jan. 11, 2019
According to former employees and public records including website archives, Nevada business registrations and property records, Kolfage has repeatedly created GoFundMe campaigns and published inflammatory fake news articles, pushing them both from websites that he sought to hide behind shell companies and false identities, in part to harvest email addresses. Those addresses were then used to push people back to Kolfage’s websites, to sell a brand of coffee he owns, or to be stockpiled for future use by conservative campaigns.
While building a wall between the United States and Mexico has been a campaign and administration pledge by the president, and one in which he claimed repeatedly that Mexico would pay for it, last month, Trump claimed the effort by We Build the Wall was intended to make him look bad. According to the Texas Tribune, the contractor hired by We Build The Wall to build a 3-mile segment that has shown signs of crumbling also won a $1.7 billion contract in May from the Trump administration.
As reported by NBC News' Hallie Jackson, President Trump's press secretary issued a statement Thursday morning, claiming that the president had not been involved with Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the administration (Bannon was the campaign's CEO and after the election served as the president's chief strategist until August, 2017) and that the president did not know the people involved with the project.
New ideas for fighting COVID-19 misinformation
Earlier this week, I wrote about how platforms proved they can stop a piece of health-related misinformation in its tracks. Given sufficient attention to the problem, and a helpful announcement of a premiere date from the hucksters, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all succeeded in preventing a sequel to the hit hoax “Plandemic” from going viral.
But given the circumstances, the hilariously titled Indoctornation was arguably low-hanging fruit for trust and safety teams. What about the larger ecosystem around health-related misinformation? This week, a pair of reports offered us some things to think about on that front.
Seven USPS mail sorting machines dismantled in Portland
The machines were dismantled around the same time several blue mailboxes were removed from city streets.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Seven mail sorting machines have been dismantled at the United States Postal Service's Portland processing and distribution facility, according to multiple USPS employees.
The machines were disconnected following a meeting with management and postal service employees on Friday, Aug. 14.
Six of those machines help sort letters, and another is a "flat" sorter, meaning it sorts items like magazines and booklets.
The sorting machines were dismantled around the same time four blue mailboxes were removed from Portland streets, and 27 others were removed in Eugene. A spokesperson for the postal service said they were only removing mailboxes that are next to several other mailboxes.
USPS Headquarters Tells Managers Not to Reconnect Mail Sorting Machines, Emails Show
"We are not to reconnect any machines that have previously been disconnected."
US Senate report says Russian investor in Braidy Industries' mill is a proxy for the Kremlin
Morgan Watkins
Louisville Courier Journal
A Russian company that has invested in Braidy Industries' planned aluminum rolling mill in Eastern Kentucky was identified as a proxy of the Kremlin in a new report the Senate Intelligence Committee released this week.
The Russian firm, United Co. Rusal, agreed last year to invest $200 million in the mill, which is expected to create hundreds of long-term jobs in a struggling region of the state if Braidy is able to raise enough financing to build the facility, which will cost well over $1.5 billion.
The Republican-led Senate committee released a report Tuesday that detailed extensive connections between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign advisers and people with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime.
And it points to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — a part-owner of Rusal, which is a major aluminum company that operates internationally — as a key figure.
Iowa governor’s push to reopen schools descends into chaos
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An aggressive push by Iowa’s pro-Trump governor to reopen schools amid a worsening coronavirus outbreak has descended into chaos, with some districts and teachers rebelling and experts calling the scientific benchmarks used by the state arbitrary and unsafe.
“We’re about to see a tragedy occur in the state. And there’s not a lot we can do about it. That’s frightening,” said Sara Anne Willette of Ames, a parent and former math tutor who runs a website tracking state infection data.
“They decided they wanted to open schools and then set the threshold, rather than deciding what’s safe and meeting that target. They did it backwards,” said Eli Perencevich, an infectious-disease expert at the University of Iowa.
Scoop: Jon Meacham to speak on Democratic convention's last night
The assignment from the Democratic Party was spare yet daunting: Define "The Soul of America," the title of Meacham's 2018 bestseller. Oh, and please keep it under five minutes.
Meacham speaks from his library, surrounded by photos and posters from past presidential campaigns — including a portrait of Lewis, Meacham's latest subject ("His Truth Is Marching On," out Tuesday).
"By habit, I see the world historically and theologically," said Meacham, a devout Episcopalian and author of 10 books. "History and theology tell us we're at our best when we look outward rather than inward."
"This president poses such a clear and present danger to the things we should value most that I think it's incumbent on all of us who believe that to say something."
Ex-Postal Service board member testifies Mnuchin tried to politicize agency
“By statute, the Treasury was made responsible for providing the Postal Service with a line of credit,” Williams said. “The Treasury was using that responsibility to make demands that I believed would turn the Postal Service into a political tool, ending its long history as an apolitical public infrastructure.”
Lockdowns Don't Work. Period.
: "DAD -- YOU ARE BEING SENT A GIFT FROM PUTIN!"
(emphasis in the original). https://t.co/DGvyUEkYOV
Emin Agalarov sent Don Jr. an email telling him about a "gift for your dad from Mr. Putin," a Fedoskino-style lacquer box.
This is the photograph of the gift and what appears to be Don Jr's handwritten note: "YOU ARE BEING SENT A GIFT FROM PUTIN!"
This is from around the time of the Miss Universe pageant in 2013.
Donald Trump Jr. appeared in promotion for gun company run by prominent member of polygamous group
Amid a series of campaign appearances in Utah on July 24, Donald Trump Jr. took time to shoot Desert Tech rifles and appeared in promotional images for the company, which is owned by a prominent member of a polygamous sect. The government is currently trying to seize the company's headquarters, which prosecutors say was previously bought with funds originating from other members of the sect who entered guilty pleas in a $1.1 billion fraud scheme.
Young has an influential position in The Order, which formed in 1935 after splintering from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is also known interchangeably as the Kingston Group and the Davis County Cooperative Society.
The Order has been deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that monitors extremist activity, because of its teachings that disparage Black people and the LGBTQ community. There are as many as 7,500 members, and children are typically raised and educated within the religious sect. Followers often take part in an internal banking system that can land them in debt beginning in childhood.
Harris sets off Democratic donor stampede
Harris flashed her fundraising muscle with jaw-dropping totals: The Biden campaign raised $25.5 million the day following her addition to the ticket. That number ballooned to $48 million in two days. The top four fundraising days for Biden’s campaign have now all come within a week of Harris’ selection.
For comparison, the campaign’s previous single best fundraising day came in at $10 million on June 30, at the close of the second quarter fundraising period. These totals also benefit from higher rates for individual giving, after Biden’s campaign merged forces with the Democratic National Committee to jointly fundraise earlier this year.
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August 19, 2020
https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1295867245390786561 Why can't we even get anyone to talk about removing the wireless modems from the central tabulators in the swing states of WI, MI, & FL?! They connect to the internet, and ES&S falsely claimed they were certified. #RemoveTheModems
A Warning for the United States From the Author of ‘The Great Influenza’
If we don’t get the virus under control, the devastation will get worse.
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke for less than two minutes during the roll call on the second night of the Democratic National Convention, during which she seconded the nomination of Bernie Sanders for president. After some people expressed confusion, Ocasio-Cortez and multiple journalists and media outlets clarified that the nomination is a formality for any candidate who passes a threshold of delegates at the convention.
Recently released footage appears to show that Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri was shoved twice before pushing back against sheriff's deputy Alan Strickland when he tried to reach the court after the team won the NBA Championship in 2019. Strickland sued Ujiri in March, but a new countersuit filed by Ujiri says that Strickland falsified their encounter.
New video clearly shows the deputy shoving first
New video: Sheriff’s deputy the 'undeniably initial aggressor' in Toronto Raptors shoving match
http://www.bridgestoneamericas.com/blacklIvesmatter
The political activist and social media provocateur won the Republican primary in Florida's 21st Congressional District on Tuesday. Loomer will face incumbent Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in November's general election.
Why it matters: Loomer pulled ahead in a crowded field of Republican candidates to win the nomination in the left-leaning southeast Florida district. She was banned from Facebook last year and later from Twitter after criticizing Minnesota Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar and making anti-Muslim comments. She is not expected to win come November against Democratic incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel, who won in 2016 with more than 60% of the vote.
Loomer received 43% in a six-candidate Republican field, garnering 14,500 votes. Combined, the Republican candidates totaled 34,000 votes. Frankel, running against a political newcomer, received 75,000 votes, or 86% in the Democratic primary, which had 87,000 votes cast.
At Loomer’s victory party Tuesday night, according to the Palm Beach Post, she was feted by political provocateur Roger Stone, whose prison sentence for lying to Congress was recently commuted by Trump; right-wing writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, who got fired by the website Breitbart in 2017 after he praised same-sex pedophilia; and Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, a male-only group that describes itself as “Western Chauvinist” but has been deemed a white nationalist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Engel Statement on State Department Temper Tantrum
Former DHS official: Trump will 'align with dictators around the world' if he wins
"There are people serving very close to the President that have told me verbatim we should expect, quote, 'shock and awe' if the President wins a second term. You will see a flurry of executive orders. You will see the President pull out of foreign alliances. You will see the President align with dictators around the world," said Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead."
Trump questions the legitimacy of any election in which he loses
A toxic cocktail: Trump may not accept election results he doesn't like, and he's concluded that any election in which he loses is, by definition, corrupt.
Goodyear responds to zero-tolerance policy slide labeled by employee as discriminatory
“Goodyear is committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace where all of our associates can do their best in a spirit of teamwork. As part of this commitment, we do allow our associates to express their support on racial injustice and other equity issues but ask that they refrain from workplace expressions, verbal or otherwise, in support of political campaigning for any candidate or political party as well as other similar forms of advocacy that fall outside the scope of equity issues.”
Warrant issued for arrest of Alabama Rep. Will Dismukes
Dismukes is accused of stealing money from his former employer, Weiss Commercial Flooring Inc., over the course of two years. The amount is well in excess of $2,500, Bailey said.
Less than a month ago, Dismukes made national headlines for attending a party to commemorate Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, hosted by an individual with close ties to the League of the South. Despite calls to resign from both Republicans and Democrats, Dismukes refused to step down from his political office, only walking away from a pastor position he held in Autauga County.
The Case for Masks, School Closings, & Social Isolation Just Collapsed!
Contact Settings and Risk for Transmission in 3410 Close Contacts of Patients With COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China
Cops Who Charged Civil Rights Leaders With Felonies Try To Sideline Progressive Prosecutor
The Portsmouth Police Department in Virginia doesn’t want its local prosecutor handling criminal cases connected to the destruction of Confederate monuments.
The Portsmouth Police Department announced Monday that it put felony warrants out against Virginia Senate Pro Tempore Louise Lucas (D), a local school board member, leaders of the local NAACP and public defenders. The felony charges and warrants, announced at a press conference by Portsmouth Police Chief Angela Greene, quickly drew scrutiny from Democrats and civil rights leaders in Virginia, who saw both the broad charges and the timing of Greene’s announcement as suspicious.
Morales ― who as a 36-year-old Black woman has broken barriers amid a population of elected prosecutors that skews older, white and male ― has gained a reputation has a progressive prosecutor. In 2016, she successfully prosecuted a Portsmouth officer for killing an unarmed 18-year-old Black teenager. She often speaks to the harm caused by mass incarceration, she’s worked to dismiss marijuana possession cases in Portsmouth, and she recently helped form a new organization of Virginia prosecutors to help push for criminal justice reform.
Now it appears she’s facing backlash from within the city police department. Other progressive prosecutors, including Kim Gardner in St. Louis, have come under attack both externally and from within the ranks of law enforcement in their cities. In Portsmouth, the divisions don’t break down precisely along racial lines. Chief Greene, who is Black, replaced the first Black female police chief in Virginia, who said she faced systemic racism on the job from a “small contingency” of Portsmouth officers whose racism was “so inflammatory” that she declined to detail it because she feared disclosing it would threaten public safety.
Mail-voting critic Trump returned mail ballot to Palm Beach County elections office — then continues assault on the practice
President Donald Trump, the nation’s most outspoken foe of mail voting, has returned his mail ballot for Tuesday’s Florida primary to the Palm Beach County elections office.
The ballots for Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were returned Monday.
Also Monday, Trump continued his assault on the way mail voting operates. In a tweet, he criticized the use of drop boxes for mail ballots. That practice was expanded in Florida under changes signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Just two weeks ago, Trump praised Florida’s system of early voting, and DeSantis’ leadership.
On Monday, he tweeted that his complaint about drop-off locations. “Some states use ‘drop boxes’ for the collection of Universal Mail-In Ballots. So who is going to ‘collect’ the Ballots, and what might be done to them prior to tabulation? A Rigged Election? So bad for our Country. Only Absentee Ballots acceptable!”
Florida now allows use of drop boxes at early voting locations leading up to elections. The ballots are collected by employees of the county supervisors of elections.
https://twitter.com/CheyenneSulli14/status/1296085381570584576 . It was #Florida primary yesterday .. I brought my mail in #ballot to my poll.. I turned it into the clerk there at the pool.. she canceled the ballot put an x on it . I showed my ID .. went to another desk . The lady gave me a new ballot .. I put in machine myself #Vote2020
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/protect-usps-pass-the-delivering-for-america-act?source=direct_link&
Hurricane-killing conditions over the Atlantic have been keeping storms at bay. That’s about to end
August 12
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August 18, 2020
Washington Post: Senate Intel leaders told DOJ they believed Bannon, Donald Trump Jr. and Kushner may have misled panel
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/16/politics/trump-family-members-russia-testimony/index.html
"I have no reason to believe there is any investigation of Bannon by any law enforcement authority. If the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a referral to DOJ, they never informed us. And DOJ has not contacted us about any referral by anyone," Bannon's attorney William Burck told CNN.
Is QAnon taking over America? Not so fast
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/18/qanon-america-conspiracy-theory
f you spent the last week reading the headlines out of the United States, you might get the impression that the QAnon conspiracy theory – that baby-eating Satanic sex traffickers control the government – has become a majority belief. The New York Times even went so far as calling it “mainstream”, comparing it to the once influential Tea Party, which blossomed from a minor grassroots movement into a brand with numerous elected proponents. Although there is surely disagreement about the mainstream status of QAnon across journalists and pundits, coverage of the movement seems to be unified in the assessment that the movement is growing.
Trump campaign sells 2020 masks months after CDC recommended them
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/512428-trump-campaign-sells-2020-masks-months-after-cdc-recommended-them
Trump retweets Russian propaganda about Biden that US intel agencies say is intended to influence 2020 election
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/17/politics/trump-retweets-known-russian-disinformation-biden-derkach/
President Donald Trump on Sunday night retweeted Russian propaganda about former Vice President Joe Biden that the US intelligence community recently announced was part of Moscow's ongoing effort to "denigrate" the Democrat ahead of November's election.
Late Sunday, Trump amplified a tweet that contained audiotapes of a 2016 conversation between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- material that was released earlier this year by Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker named by the US intelligence community in its August 7 statement about Russia's disinformation campaign against Biden. US authorities labeled Derkach's efforts as disinformation because they are intentionally designed to spread false or misleading information about Biden.
By retweeting material that the US government has already labeled as propaganda -- and doing so with the 2020 Democratic National Convention kicking off on Monday -- Trump demonstrated once again that he is willing to capitalize on foreign election meddling for his own political gain.
There is no proof of wrongdoing on the tapes of Biden and Poroshenko. But Trump and his allies, as well as Kremlin-controlled media outlets, have used the tapes to foment conspiracies about Biden's dealings with Ukraine.
Hydroxychloroquine policy changed, and changed again, in Minnesota
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/17/mn_governor_quietly_reverses_course_on_hydroxychloroquine__143978.html
Article quotes Yale epidemiologist who believes HCQ is the key to the cure.
What Happens When Ex-Navy SEALS Go Full QAnon?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-happens-when-ex-navy-seals-go-full-qanon?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Cellphone Data Shows How Las Vegas Is “Gambling With Lives” Across the Country
Las Vegas casinos, open for months now, are a likely hotbed for the spread of COVID-19. For many reasons, contact tracing has proved next to impossible as tourists return to homes across the U.S.
https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-data-shows-how-las-vegas-is-gambling-with-lives-across-the-country
‘We know where you live, beware’: The 911 call of a household put on blast by Tucker Carlson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/17/we-know-where-you-live-beware-911-call-household-put-blast-by-tucker-carlson/
Jill Biden’s ex-husband accuses her of affair with Joe in 1970s
https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/jill-bidens-ex-husband-accuses-her-of-having-affair-with-joe-biden/
As QAnon Spreads, Social Media Companies Finally Step Up
QAnon is engulfing the GOP and proliferating on social media. While they've failed in the past, social media companies are now taking this threat more seriously.
https://rantt.com/twitter-facebook-qanon-disinformation
On Friday, Twitter announced the launch of a new campaign, in partnership with the United Nations’ UNESCO, the European Commission, and the World Jewish Congress, to combat conspiracy theories and disinformation.
Unable to copy the title for this
https://www.fastcompany.com/90540663/if-businesses-want-to-promote-justice-they-can-help-end-the-prison-industrial-complex
Ayanna Pressley Calls for ‘Unrest In the Streets’
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/ayanna-pressley-calls-for-unrest-in-the-streets/
Pressley, a member of the far-left group of freshman House Democrats known as "the Squad," supports Black Lives Matter and defunding the police—a step toward what she calls "true reparations." Before the House passed the Democrat-led police reform bill, she and Rep. Justin Amash (I., Mich.) coauthored a bill to end qualified immunity, which protects police from civil lawsuits unless they violated clearly established constitutional rights.
Georgia voters to be made ‘inactive’ after absentee mail undeliverable
https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-voters-to-be-made-inactive-after-absentee-mail-undeliverable/D7K5RATLZVGDHBZXZJE6EUSC6Y/
Twitter’s purge of the anti-woke satirists
Titania McGrath and other accounts which make fun of wokeness have been censored.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/18/twitters-purge-of-the-anti-woke-satirists/
Titania was not the only victim. The Babylon Bee, a US satire site, was also temporarily locked out, though it has since been restored. Other satirical accounts – Jarvis Dupont, Guy Verhoftwat, Tolerance Police, Liberal Larry and Sir Lefty Farr-Right QC – all remain suspended. Sir Lefty revealed on Parler that the only reason given for his suspension was ‘platform manipulation and dissemination of spam’.
The N.R.A. and Wayne LaPierre’s Next Foe: One of Their Own
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/nra-lawsuit-book-wayne-lapierre.html
Josh Powell, one of the group’s highest-ranking former executives, is poised to release “Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed and Paranoia Within the Most Powerful Political Group in America.” Mr. Powell, former chief of staff to Wayne LaPierre, the group’s longtime chief executive, says the N.R.A. is “rife with fraud and corruption” and writes that its finances “are in shambles,” and that “it has operated in the red for the past three years, despite annual revenues of roughly $350 million.”
nside 6 Female Reporters’ Wild 18-Hour Days, from Trump’s First Tweet to Radical Self-Care
The 24-hour news cycle never stops — and neither do these women.
https://www.instyle.com/politics-social-issues/choose-2020/tv-reporters-behind-the-scenes-election
August 17 entries below
Southeast Asia Detects Mutated Virus Strain Sweeping the World
https://www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/malaysia-detects-virus-strain-that-s-10-times-more-infectiousThe strain, earlier seen in other parts of the world and called D614G, was found in a Malaysian cluster of 45 cases that started from someone who returned from India and breached his 14-day home quarantine. The Philippines detected the strain among random Covid-19 samples in the largest city of its capital region. The mutation “is said to have a higher possibility of transmission or infectiousnes
Confirmed cases in the Philippines have surged 76% from the end of July to a total of 164,474 as of Monday. It overtook Indonesia more than a week ago to become the country with the largest outbreak in Southeast Asia.
here’s no evidence from the epidemiology that the mutation is considerably more infectious than other strains, said Benjamin Cowling, head of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Hong Kong. “It’s more commonly identified now than it was in the past, which suggests that it might have some kind of competitive advantage over other strains of Covid-19,” he said.
Belarus President Sends SOS to Putin, Tells Protesters: You’ll Have to Kill Me to Get New Elections
RED RAG
Lukashenko is refusing demands for a re-run of dubious presidential elections, but has indicated he is willing to consider changing the constitution to share more power.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alexander-lukashenko-tells-protesters-theyll-have-to-kill-him-to-get-new-elections
The Heir to the Moosehead Breweries Fortune Had His Skull Bashed In. His Son Was the Prime Suspect.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-suspect-investigates-the-mysterious-brutal-murder-of-millionaire-moosehead-breweries-heir-richard-oland
Sons accuse fashion boss Nygard of paying 'known sex worker' to rape them as teens
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/peter-nygard-sons-lawsuit-new-york-rape-prostitute-fashion-1.5688920
Two of Peter Nygard's sons launched a new lawsuit filed Sunday, saying their fashion executive father set them up to be raped by his girlfriend — a "known sex worker" — when they were teens.
Nygard, 79, is a Winnipeg-based clothing manufacturer. His companies, in the past, were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Dozens of women have recently come forward alleging he raped them.
No plans to change course in B.C. as COVID-19 rebounds to peak levels. Here's why
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/analysis-covid-rebound-peak-pandemic-levels-1.5687726
Contact tracing, Protecting the elderly, Low hospitalization rates
"If you have banquet halls where a private party takes place, you will be seeing environmental health officers and people in public health," he warned Thursday.
"If people continue to disregard the rules the rest of British Columbians are following, then we will of course take action," John Horgan said. "We're going to be looking hard at enforcement ... starting with warnings, then getting into more severe penalties."
Nicolle Wallace won’t just be a never-Trumper as her role expands at MSNBC
She was communications director for former President George W. Bush and an advisor to 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
“The only thing better than one hour with Nicolle Wallace is two — it just makes you smarter,” “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said in an email to The Times.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/mask-test-duke-covid/2020/08/10/4f2bb888-db18-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html
Plaschke: I had COVID-19, and these are the things nobody tells you
Here’s one way Trump could try to steal the election, voting experts say
There’s a plausible way that independent voting experts worry President Trump could try to steal the election: by blocking the counting of mail-in ballots.
Florida State wide receiver apologizes for questioning team’s approach to coronavirus safety
Days after saying he had been “lied to multiple times” about his health and the health of teammates during the first week of training camp amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, Florida State wide receiver Warren Thompson apologized and said he is ready to move on with the season.
Terry’s guardian, Cindy Rewis, tweeted her concerns about player safety. “We need answers and we want the truth! ... As parents and family members we deserve to know our kids are safe!” she wrote. “Weekly testing has not taken place and many players have tested + and yet told to remain silent! Silent NO MORE!”
As US Death Toll Hit 1,000 Per Day, New Study Says COVID-19 Has Become Third Leading Cause of Death for Black People
COVID-19 has taken an unrelenting toll on this country in the five months since the pandemic began. As deaths hit 1,000 per day over the last month, new data suggests that COVID-19 has become the third leading cause of death for Black people.
Anonymous’ urges a vote for Biden
The unknown administration official who wrote a book trashing Trump says a second term will mean "a nation undone" in a new book preface.
The self-described “senior Trump administration official,” who anonymously trashed the president’s leadership in a 2018 op-ed and a 2019 best-selling book, is calling for voters to throw the president out of office this November in a new preface for the paperback “2020 election edition” of the book, “A Warning.”
Rising Republican star faces accusations from women
Madison Cawthorn, a 25-year-old Republican nominee,
Cawthorn, who turned 25 on Aug. 1, has no previous political experience and describes himself as a Christian. He also uses a wheelchair: A car accident when he was 18 left him paralyzed from the waist down. Despite the accident, he’s an athlete: His Instagram shows him lifting weights and working out. His campaign message is powerful: Having overcome personal tragedy, he can now challenge inside-the-Beltway politicians.
Is Cawthorn the great representative of family values his campaign indicates? Several women, citing his behavior toward them, say no. The women say Cawthorn exhibited sexually or verbally aggressive behavior toward them when they were teenagers.
Two women say he forcibly kissed them. One woman told me he grabbed her thigh and moved his hand an inch or two beneath her dress. WORLD has corroborated each woman’s account with at least one other individual.
The first incident, which occurred in 2014, became public on Thursday. Katrina Krulikas posted on Instagram a statement describing a date she had with Cawthorn when she was 17 and he was 19. During the date, she said, Cawthorn—who is now engaged—tried forcibly to kiss her, although she had rejected his earlier attempt to do so.
MASSACHUSETTS STATE PARTY LEADER TOLD COLLEGE DEMOCRATS TO DESTROY COMMUNICATION RECORDS
Veronica Martinez had coordinated with the students prior to the release of allegations of sexual impropriety against Alex Morse.
Alex Morse Would Like You To Know He Has Sex
“It’s a fantasy that elected officials don’t have sex lives," Alex Morse told BuzzFeed News after a week of scandal. "It’s a dangerous narrative and it’s a conversation that needs to happen."
Why Republicans are failing to govern
Today, unemployment stands at 10.2 percent — higher than during the peak of the previous financial crisis, and that’s almost certainly an underestimate of the true employment calamity. The death toll from Covid-19 has likely passed 200,000. Vast swaths of the US remain at varying levels of lockdown. But McConnell — and, to be fair, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — is acting as if the most important thing to achieve is for President Trump to be a one-term president.
BLM mob beats white man unconscious after making him crash truck: video
Sixty Seconds to Self-Sabotage The DNC’s choice of who to feature speaks volumes about the party’s inability to see its own future.
At Homeland Security, I saw firsthand how dangerous Trump is for America
Biden’s Fantasy of Female Submission
The Democrats have completely botched this VP pick.
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