Category: 2020 Election

Vaccine CEOs issue safety pledge amid Trump’s quest for pre-election approval

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Nine chief executives issued an extraordinary joint statement Tuesday seeking to bolster faith in coronavirus vaccine.

The chief executives of nine drug companies pledged Tuesday not to seek regulatory approval before the safety and efficacy of their experimental coronavirus vaccines have been established in Phase 3 clinical trials, an extraordinary effort to bolster public faith in a vaccine amid President Trump’s rush to introduce one before Election Day.

“We believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which covid-19 vaccines are evaluated and may ultimately be approved,” the executives wrote in their joint statement. The Wall Street Journal first reported Friday that a statement from the companies would be forthcoming.

The statement included a vow that the companies would “only submit for approval or emergency use authorization after demonstrating safety and efficacy through a Phase 3 clinical study that is designed and conducted to meet requirements of expert regulatory authorities such as FDA.” Continue reading.

At Wacky Press Conference Trump Bullies Reporter Wearing Mask

President Donald Trump late Monday morning announced he would hold a press conference, but after a late start and minutes in it became clear it was yet another campaign-style stream-of-consciousness rally devoid of facts and filled with lies.

Both MSNBC and CNN were not airing the “press conference” minutes after it began.

After Trump’s 20 minutes or so of angry grumbling, and disgruntled attacks on Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponents, Trump ended his remarks before taking reporters questions by saying, “Happy Labor Day, everybody.” Continue reading.

Minnesota joins national push to recruit young poll workers

Many voting site veterans older, vulnerable to virus. 

Joshua Medley is a recent college graduate who is volunteering to be an election judge this year. He volunteered for the primaries and found the experience to be rewarding after he noticed some people seemed encouraged to see a youthful (face).

Facing a national shortage of older poll workers, Joshua Medley, a student at Normandale Community College, will join other young Minnesotans helping out at the polls on Nov. 3, meeting voters with a greeting and a mask.

“We need the polling places to be stocked, and to have people who can welcome in voters who may be new, may not be comfortable, or may come from a background or a culture that doesn’t encourage them to vote as frequently,” he said. Continue reading.

Four more years of Trump’s contempt for competence would be devastating

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President Trump thinks he knows better than anyone, but not because he actually knows very much. His 2016 campaign was run from the gut, under the explicit rationale that “experts are terrible” and that whatever someone with a degree and years of experience could do in any area of government, he could do better relying on instinct. His White House has conducted itself according to this philosophy, to devastating effect.

From debt to taxes to renewable energy to trade to jobs to infrastructure to defense, the president has declared himself the best informed in all the land. What need, then, for a science adviser — a post Mr. Trump left vacant for 19 months? Why worry if more than a third of senior positions in the Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security have no confirmed appointee? Why not drive out most of the workforce of the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, as the administration did, intentionally, by abruptly moving the agency to the Kansas City region?

The best sort of expert, in Mr. Trump’s view, is the kind with no independent judgment at all. “My function, really, as an economist is to try to provide the underlying analytics that confirm his intuition,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has said. He continued: “And his intuition is always right in these matters.” When a public servant can’t provide those comfortingly confirming analytics, he risks excoriation by tweet and in person, at best, and removal from his post at worst. The West Wing and the Cabinet are in a constant flux of professionals hired, discarded, hired and discarded again: four chiefs of staff, four national security advisers, five Homeland Security secretaries. Continue reading.

Right-wing protesters gather outside Portland, adding to tensions

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SALEM, Ore. — More than 1,000 supporters of President Trump, including some aligned with white nationalist extremist groups, gathered in northwest Oregon on Monday night in a show of force against left-wing protesters, creating even more tension in a region that has been rocked by weeks of protests.

On Monday evening, despite National Weather Service warnings of an extreme wind storm, hundreds of cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles and at least one RV hoisted Trump flags and blasted “God Bless The U.S.A.” from truck bed speakers for a “cruise rally” through the suburbs of Portland. Some members of the group then drove about 50 miles to Salem, where they gathered in front of the state capitol.

Armed with rifles, pistols, knives and clubs, the far-right demonstrators at one point charged into a smaller group of liberal counterprotesters, knocking at least one activist to the ground. Continue reading.

Trump Emerges as Inspiration for Germany’s Far Right

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Among German conspiracy theorists, ultranationalists and neo-Nazis, the American president is surfacing as a rallying cry, or even as a potential “liberator.”

BERLIN — Just before hundreds of far-right activists recently tried to storm the German Parliament, one of their leaders revved up the crowd by conjuring President Trump.

“Trump is in Berlin!” the woman shouted from a small stage, as if to dedicate the imminent charge to him.

She was so convincing that several groups of far-right activists later showed up at the American Embassy and demanded an audience with Mr. Trump. “We know he’s in there!” they insisted. Continue reading.

House Oversight Committee will investigate Louis DeJoy following claims he pressured employees to make campaign donations

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House Democrats are opening an investigation of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and called for his immediate suspension following accusations that he reimbursed employees for campaign contributions they made to his preferred GOP politicians, an arrangement that would be unlawful.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement late Monday that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which she chairs, would begin an inquiry, saying that DeJoy may have lied to the panel under oath.

Maloney also urged the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service to immediately suspend DeJoy, whom “they never should have hired in the first place,” she said. Continue reading.

Trump’s press conference goes immediately off the rails — and he tries to bully a reporter into removing his mask

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President Donald Trump late Monday morning announced he would hold a press conference, but after a late start and minutes in it became clear it was yet another campaign-style stream-of-consciousness rally devoid of facts and filled with lies.

Both MSNBC and CNN were not airing the “press conference” minutes after it began.

After Trump’s 20 minutes or so of angry grumbling, and disgruntled attacks on Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponents, Trump ended his remarks before taking reporters questions by saying, “Happy Labor Day, everybody.” Continue reading.

‘This is only the beginning’: Atlantic editor warns Trump there’s more to come over his soldier insults

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Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg warned that more could be coming in the story about President Donald Trump’s attacks on American soldiers. Trump was exposed for calling those who died in battle “losers” and “suckers.

“I would fully expect more reporting to come out about this and more confirmation and new pieces of information in the coming days and weeks,” Goldberg told CNN Sunday. “We have a responsibility and we’re going to do it regardless of what he says.”

Trump’s campaign has attacked The Atlantic story, saying that it cites anonymous sources and as a result, it can’t possibly be real. The problem, however, is that Fox News, the Associated Press, the New York Times and CNN have all confirmed the sources are real. Continue reading.

Why Biden could still lose the suburbs to Trump

Among local party officials, there’s an undercurrent of uneasiness about how quickly the president shifted the focus of the campaign away from his coronavirus response and toward public safety.

A raft of recent polls suggest Donald Trump’s law-and-order rhetoric, amplified by the Republican National Convention and turmoil in Kenosha, Wis., is doing little to cut into Joe Biden’s lead.

But in swing state suburbs, local party officials are meeting the Labor Day start of the fall campaign with an undercurrent of uneasiness about how quickly Trump shifted the focus of the campaign to public safety — and away from the more damaging discussion of his erratic response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic Party officials and strategists in the suburbs reflect confidence in Biden’s ability to compete with Trump on issues surrounding this summer’s civil unrest, but also widespread concerns about the political volatility — and potential allure — of the president’s law-and-order message. Continue reading.