Pelosi’s Select Committee don’t take no mess like James Brown states in “Papa Don’t Take No Mess,” American people are tired of the mess that Trump left US in. Of all the losers in federal elections, he is the only that attempted to overthrow the government. This mess must be cleared up for the sake of history and a historical record, so that Trump’s portrait can be turned to the wall in the White House as the first traitor to have served in the Office of the President.
Month: July 2021
NAME THEM AS TERRORIST NOT RIOTERS
Malcolm Nance visits with Stephanie Miller every Wednesday. Malcolm is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
Watch highlights of Tuesday’s All In with Chris Hayes.
Congresswoman Elaine Luria (D-VA), a member of the January 6th select committee, reacts to Republican attacks on the officers who testified and says is seems like Republicans have something to hide when it comes to investigating 1/6.
WHO PAID FOR JANUARY 6 TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE CAPITAL
Funding
Organizations that participated in the event include: Black Conservatives Fund, Eighty Percent Coalition, Moms For America, Peaceably Gather, Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, Rule of Law Defense Fund, Stop The Steal, Turning Point Action, Tea Party Patriots, Women For America First, and Wildprotest.com.[110][111] Rule of Law Defense Fund, which is a 501(c)(4) arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, also paid for robocalls to invite people to “march to the Capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal”.[112] Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones‘s media company paid $500,000 to book the Ellipse for the event,[113][114] of which $300,000 was donated by Publix heiress and prominent Trump donor Julie Jenkins Fancelli.[114] Jones claimed that the Trump White House asked him to lead the march to the Capitol.[113]
Charlie Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump had sent more than eighty buses to the Capitol.[115] Roger Stone recorded a video for Stop The Steal Security Project to raise funds “for the staging, the transportation and most importantly the security” of the event.[116] Other people attempted to raise funds in December via GoFundMe to help pay for transportation to the rally, with limited success.[1] An investigation by BuzzFeed News identified more than a dozen fundraisers to pay for travel to the planned rally. GoFundMe subsequently deactivated several of the campaigns after the riot, but some campaigns had already raised part or all of their fundraising goals prior to deactivation.[117]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack#Trump’s_conduct_during_the_riot
4 Takeaways From The Emotional 1st Select Committee Hearing On The Capitol Attack
July 28, 2021
The stunning attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters roughly six months ago threatened lawmakers and came close to upending the process to certify the 2020 presidential election.
Most members of Congress decried the onslaught in the hours after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but since then the date has become a deeply polarizing moment on Capitol Hill.
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After Senate Republicans blocked a bill to create an independent commission to investigate the attack, the House established a select committee to lead the probe.
The panel’s first hearing on Tuesday was emotional as four law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol that day gave firsthand accounts of being overrun, assaulted, and harangued by rioters as “traitors.” All described lingering physical and emotional trauma. Some rioters hurled racial epithets at African American officers.
The four officers’ gripping testimony, accompanied by horrific images from police body cameras played by the Democratic-led committee, did not reveal much new information. But it launched the investigation with a compelling reminder of what was at stake as the seat of the federal government came under violent attack.
Several times during the hearing both the witnesses and some of the lawmakers on the dais teared up and struggled to gain composure as they relived that day.
Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, described the scene on the complex’s West Front, where officers were outnumbered by thousands of people wielding bats, flagpoles and other items used to pummel the police. He said he thought to himself, “This is how I am going to die.”
Another officer, Michael Fanone of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, called the hand-to-hand combat between police and rioters “nothing short of brutal.” Fanone said he was Tased repeatedly and dragged into the crowd as members of the mob took his gun and threatened to shoot him with it.
He was visibly angry at lawmakers who have since downplayed the violence that day. Fanone told the panel, “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them.”
“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!” he shouted, pounding the table.
Here are four takeaways from the hearing:
1. Officers point the finger at Trump for inciting supporters
U.S. Capitol Police Pfc. Harry Dunn said what happened on Jan. 6 was political and that those participating had a mission: “They literally were there to ‘stop the steal,’ ” he said, using a phrase former President Donald Trump and his supporters invoked to falsely claim that the 2020 election results were illegitimate.
Dunn said he wants the committee to look at why rioters were there that day.
“If a hit man is hired and he kills somebody, the hit man goes to jail,” he told the panel. “But not only does the hit man go to jail, but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on Jan. 6, and [someone] sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that.”
Dunn, a Black officer who has been with the department for more than 14 years, said he was called the N-word after acknowledging to rioters that he voted for Joe Biden for president.
Officer Daniel Hodges of the D.C. Metropolitan Police repeatedly used the word “terrorists” to describe those involved in the siege, and he defended the term by coming prepared with the U.S. Code definition of domestic terrorism.
Hodges said rioters pledged support to Trump as they assaulted officers. He said they appealed to him to join their effort to take the building, and he said they tried to “convert us to their cult.”
2. Murphy reveals rioters were 40 paces from two lawmakers
Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, one of the seven Democrats on the nine-person committee, revealed for the first time Tuesday how close the throng of rioters came to her and New York Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice.
She described how the two lawmakers were holed up in a room in the basement of the Capitol, a location they thought would be the most secure in an emergency. But she said that the two were just “40 paces” from where Officer Hodges and others clashed with rioters attempting to breach the West Front entrance.
She told Hodges she could hear the screams of those being attacked just yards away. She said that without his bravery, and that of others there that day, “I shudder to think had you not held that line” what could have happened to her and others.
In the second Trump impeachment trial, earlier this year, the House impeachment managers showed video of then-Vice President Mike Pence and senators being evacuated from the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, minutes before many pro-Trump protesters walked into the chamber.
3. McCarthy’s move to boycott the panel leaves Trump without a defense
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made the call to pull all five members he named to the select committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vetoed two of them — Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.
Pelosi’s move was unprecedented because no leader had blocked another party from installing their members for a select committee, but she argued that the statements and actions from Jordan and Banks made it untenable for her to accept them. The resolution creating the panel gave the speaker the power to block GOP picks.
Instead, Pelosi tapped two Republicans, Wyoming’s Liz Cheney and Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger, who both voted to impeach Trump and have been strong critics of the former president.
And they both used their platform during Tuesday’s hearing to argue that defending the rule of law was more important than loyalty to a political leader.
Cheney, for instance, asked Sgt. Gonell about Trump calling the group at the Capitol a “loving crowd.” He retorted that it was “pathetic” and that he was “still recovering from those ‘hugs and kisses’ that day.”
McCarthy scheduled a press conference ahead of the hearing as a chance for GOP leaders and those he wanted on the committee to do a prebuttal. He said the panel was a “sham” and he and others at the event attempted to blame Pelosi for security failures at the Capitol on Jan. 6. None provided any evidence, and the speaker does not directly oversee the U.S. Capitol Police.
The GOP leader’s decision not to participate in the select committee meant that the 3 1/2 hour hearing that was carried live by many news outlets did not include any GOP lawmaker defending the former president or raising the security issues Republicans say should be central to its probe.
No senior official from the Trump administration has testified in any of the hearings conducted by House or Senate panels to date, and without any allies on the select committee, the former president has no one defending him.
4. The committee could subpoena the former president and other Republicans
Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., didn’t rule out subpoenas for Trump and other senior White House officials, telling reporters after the hearing, “We will follow the facts.” He indicated that the committee could schedule a hearing next month, even though the House is scheduled to take its regular August recess.
Cheney made it clear that getting testimony from those around Trump that day is essential. “We must know what happened every minute of that day in the White House,” she said. She has stated recently that Jordan is potentially a “material witness.” And McCarthy’s telephone conversation with the president that day, a topic that came up during the impeachment trial, could be something the committee wants to hear more about directly from the California Republican.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the panel, told NPR on Tuesday that “we’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure we get the answers, and no one is off the table,” including the former president or members of Congress.
Officer Hodges implored the committee at the end of the hearing, “I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this, if anyone in power coordinated, or aided and abetted” what happened that day.
The Justice Department, now under the Biden administration, decided Tuesday that former government officials could not invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying about conversations with Trump or his advisers about the insurrection.
Related:
A double dose of Malcolm Nance, Russia and cyber terrorism expert, discussing his thoughts of the Democratic National Convention so far. Read Malcolm’s book, “The Plot to Hack America” http://amzn.to/2tlnHqo
POLITICS
House Select Committee Hears Compelling Testimony On The Capitol Attack
July 28, 20217:17 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 4:554-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Sarah McCammon asks Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California about what committee members learned during the first hearing of the House select committee. The GOP says the hearing is partisan. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021600405/house-select-committee-hears-compelling-testimony-on-the-capitol-attack
Tara Setmayer and Rick Wilson are hosting an all-new episode of The Breakdown on LPTV. Lincoln Project Co-Founder Steve Schmidt joins us to discuss the January 6th Commission and COVID disinformation.
SCAPEGOATING CHINA HELPS BIDEN IGNORE DOMESTIC ENEMY: TRUMPISM
China is not the dangerous enemy because it is locked on the outside. Where as Trumpters like Kevin McCarthy are on the lose preaching against the President of All the People, not just the White Nationalist. McCarthy is an enemy in the Gait and he cannot be locked out, like Trump cannot be locked out. Therefore he is more dangerous than China could ever be.
SCAPEGOATING CHINA HELPS BIDEN IGNORE DOMESTIC ENEMY: TRUMPISM
Beijing has threatened to retaliate the US decision to shut its consulate in Houston, further straining their diplomatic relationship. FRANCE 24’s international affairs editor Douglas Herbert says China makes an easy scapegoat for the US president, whose poll numbers are flagging.
WORLD
China’s New U.S. Ambassador Pioneered The Foreign Ministry’s Brash Tone
Updated July 28, 20214:04 PM ET Heard on Morning Edition
JOHN RUWITCH LISTEN· 3:373-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Qin Gang fields questions during a news conference around the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program in Beijing in 2005. He served as spokesperson for the Chinese delegation.China Photos/Getty Images
BEIJING — As a spokesperson, he delivered excoriating one-liners and helped pioneer a brash, more sharply confident communication style from the Chinese foreign ministry’s pulpit. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/991934046/china-new-us-ambassador-qin-gang
On Monday, the administration accused China of being behind a massive hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software and indicted four Chinese nationals on charges they tried to steal U.S. trade secrets, technology and disease research. China rejected the hacking accusation and demanded that Washington drop the charges against its citizens.
Last week, the U.S. issued separate stark warnings against transactions with entities that operate in China’s western Xinjiang region, where China is accused of repressing Uyghur Muslims and other minorities. The administration also advised American firms of the deteriorating investment and commercial environment in Hong Kong, where China has been cracking down on democratic freedoms it had pledged to respect in the former British colony.
Those issues, all carried over from the Trump administration, came on top of persistent tensions over China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in the city of Wuhan, and concerns about predatory Chinese investment in the developing world and its attempts to gain supremacy in the global high-tech telecommunications sector.
ASIA
Wendy Sherman, No. 2 At The State Department, Visits China Amid Rising Tensions
July 29, 20215:09 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 7:027-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman about her discussions with Chinese officials. She is the highest-ranking Biden administration official to visit China so far. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1022094360/wendy-sherman-no-2-at-the-state-department-visits-china-amid-rising-tensions
High-level talks between China and the United States in Tianjin. Was any progress made in relations between the two countries? For more, tonight’s panel includes Craig Allen, U.S. Ambassador to Brunei; Qinduo Xu, a senior fellow at the Pangoal Institution and host of CGTN’s Dialogue Weekend; Yan Liang, professor of economics at Willamette University and Zoon Ahmed Khan, visiting fellow at Tsinghua University.
BUSINESS
The Economy Is Stronger. These 4 Things Will Determine What Happens Next
Updated July 29, 20219:28 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
DAVID GURA LISTEN· 3:233-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Travelers head to a security checkpoint at Denver International Airport on July 2. The economy likely surged in the April-June quarter as vaccine rollouts sparked a surge in pent-up activity. A slowdown is now seen as inevitable, although the pace of growth should remain strong. David Zalubowski/AP
The U.S. economy grew at a strong pace in the spring as the country emerged from the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic. The question now is what happens next, especially as the delta variant continues to spread. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/29/1021671595/the-economy-is-surging-these-4-things-will-determine-what-happens-next
THE ENEMY WITHIN THE AMERICAN GATE
GOP leaders held a press conference on Thursday where they blasted the Democrats for creating a ‘crisis’ in America.
Arkansas Legislators Weigh Overturning Ban On Mask Mandates After New CDC Guidance05:50
July 29, 2021
Some coronavirus hotspot states acted immediately on the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that areas with high spread return to indoor masking, even for fully-vaccinated people.
But Arkansas — another hotspot — banned any return to mask mandates entirely back in April.
Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with Arkansas state Sen. Clarke Tucker, a Democrat who represents part of Little Rock, about calls to overturn the ban.
This segment aired on July 29, 2021.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/07/29/mask-mandate-arkansas
From voter ID laws to limiting mail-in ballots, Republican lawmakers in 33 states are considering 165 different laws that would make it harder to vote. NBC News’ Jane Time explains the Republican’s effort to restrict access to the ballot box.
The Republican-led House in Georgia has passed a sweeping bill to make it harder to vote, in a move aimed to prevent Democrats from winning future elections. The bill limits access to absentee ballots, limits weekend early voting hours and curbs ballot drop boxes, among other provisions. Across the U.S., Republican lawmakers have introduced more than 250 bills in 43 states aimed at restricting voting access. Ari Berman, author and reporter for Mother Jones, says Republicans are “breaking democracy” with their push to restrict voting. “The Republican Party has no interest in appealing to a majority of Americans. Instead, they are doubling down on anti-democratic tactics so they can get a minority of votes but wield a majority of power,” says Berman.
POLITICS
Right To Vote: How Republican Lawmakers Used Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ To Restrict Voting
July 12, 20214:20 PM ET Heard on All Things Considered
CHRISTOPHER INTAGLIATA Twitter
ANNA SIRIANNI LISTEN· 11:0611-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Former President Trump’s false claims about voter fraud sparked a movement to restrict voting access. NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice about the new laws. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1015371195/the-right-to-vote-the-big-lie-and-what-it-did-to-voting-access
As the House votes to impeach President Trump, the FBI warns there could be a repeat of the violent insurrection he encouraged on January 6, with Trump loyalists planning to hold armed protests nationwide ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. We speak with Timothy Snyder, a historian of fascism, who says the riot at the U.S. Capitol was “completely and utterly predictable” given President Trump’s record of stoking extremism and undermining democratic institutions. “The American republic is hanging by a thread because the president of the United States has sought to use violence to stay in power and essentially to overthrow our constitutional system,” says Snyder.
TECHNOLOGY
Leaks Reveal Spyware Meant To Track Criminals Targeted Activists Instead
July 29, 20212:01 PM ET Heard on Fresh Air
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Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg explains how military-grade spyware licensed to governments and police departments has infiltrated the iPhones of journalists, activists and others.‘The Washington Post’ Pegasus Project
WORLD
Malware From An Infamous Hacker-For-Hire Group Was Found On Nearly 900 Phones
The story of the man who gerrymandered America.
Del Walters talks to BNC’s Marc Lamont Hill, Aisha Mills and Charles Blow on GOP’s new push to make it harder for people to grow. Hill says that Republicans don’t operate in good faith of the public interest. “What they want to do is to make sure that people who are less likely to vote for them don’t vote as often. Republicans don’t win by their policies, they don’t win by genius, they win by the margin of Black and Brown people who are denied access to the polls,” Hill says.
CHINA AND THE END OF WHITE SUPREMACY
French futurist Jean Gimpel described the Chinese Future in The End of the Future (1995) that is based on a scientific conference held at Stanford University in 1978. His final essay in the book: “The End Of White Supremacy” gives a view of China’s future which she is determined to fulfill.
Gimpel predicts: We should take heed of the fact that de-industrialization will mainly happen in the West and in the former Soviet Union, and that this dramatic trend will mark the end of 500 years of European domination of the world. In a very pertinent book Pierre Lellouche wrote in 1992 that, when the USA and the Soviet Union were confronting each other, mankind was witnessing the encounter of two ideologies, the democratic and the Marxist, created by our white reigning civilization. When capitalism and democracy collapses in the West, as I predict it will following the bankruptcy of our financial system after the disintegration of Marxism in the Soviet Union, we will very possibly be witnessing the twilight of the white race—provisionally we hope.
As is now generally recognized, the center of world trad has moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In 1982, the volume of trade across the Pacific overtook that across the Atlantic. The developing countries in the Far East grew in 1993 by 7.4 percent compared with the World’s 0.6 percent. Nevertheless, when Wall Street crashes, triggered off perhaps by a sharp fall of shares in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore, the Pacific Basin will suffer an economic deceleration. But in the long run the Far East will recover progressively, achieving world economic supremacy while the former countries of our once glorious civilization will become, in their turn, developing countries.
China will progressively dominate the Pacific Basin and beyond and, for the second time in her long history, she will have entered an era of growth in which her psychological drive and here technological evolution will rise in parallel curves. China is at the beginning of a cycle that could last a millennium, while Western Civilization stands at the end of a cycle that is already 1,000 year old.
CHINA’S POSITIVE VIEW OF ITS FUTURE VS THE WEST’S NIHLISTIC VIEW OF ITS FUTURE
China sees a future for itself that Neo-liberalism and Trumpism has driven from the West, especially the United States. When dealing with China, the United States makes some wrong assumptions. Historian J. Rufus Fears in The Wisdom of History (2007) we understand China’s intransigence at the meeting in Alaska, and H.R. McMaster’s mistaken belief that China can be pressured into being like US in the world.
Chinese government officials will meet later this month at this year’s Central Economic Work Conference to discuss the country’s economic performance.
Talks are expected to center around China’s recovery from the pandemic and economic goals in the latest Five-Year Plan. Forecasters are predicting a growth rate of about 8 percent next year — driven by consumption, manufacturing investment and exports. But questions remain about the impact of the global pandemic and the approach U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will take towards Beijing amid ongoing tensions between the two countries.
Fears writes (with my 21st century updates) commenting on US diplomatic policy: Until Trump, current foreign policy is/was a continuation of the belief at least since World War I, that America must make the world safe for democracy. However, the simple empirical lesson of history is that freedom is not a universal value. Throughout history, nations, like many individuals, have chosen the perceived security of autocratic rule over the awesome responsibilities of self-government. This has been the historic choice of the ancient and modern Middle East, China, Russia, and Latin America. Having chosen autocracy over freedom, these areas of the world received little attention in A History of Freedom. They now play a major role as we ask why world history is primarily a story of tyranny, oppression, and war.
CHINA’S HISTORY OF UNFREEDOM
Dr. Fears posits that civilization arose in China independently from the birth of civilization in the Middle East. But like the Middle East, China, throughout its history, has chosen despotism over freedom. Classical Chinese civilization was defined by Confucius.
Order, not freedom, was his ideal, and he believed that order must flow down from above. The ruler is a benevolent despot, whose character and virtue make him worthy of obedience. This ideal still pervades China. Thus in 1912, China could have a revolution aimed at establishing democracy, but the result would be Mao Tse-tung and despotism more total than anything imaginable to an emperor of the Han or Ming Dynasty.
REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO TRY TO DESTROY AMERICAN DEMOCRACY FOR A WIN IN 2022 AND MEANWHILE, WRECK THE ECONOMY TO INSURE THIS GOAL
Kevin McCarthy is determined to secure a Republican victory in 2022. In this victory he will be Speaker of the House, and the path will be cleared for Trump in 2024. One way he is doing this is through diversion by ignoring the January 6 Committee and focusing on the economy. This diversion includes the us of anti-vaxers to convince Americans that COVID vaccines are too risky. This profligated via Fox News.
REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO TRY TO DESTROY AMERICAN DEMOCRACY FOR A WIN IN 2022 AND MEANWHILE, WRECK THE ECONOMY TO INSURE THIS GOAL
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy: “Pelosi has created a sham process. Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all 5 Republicans we will not participate…House Democrats must answer this question: Why are you allowing a lame duck Speaker to destroy this institution? This is the people’s House, not Pelosi’s House.”
Full video here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?513602-…
Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn recalled what he experienced on January 6 and described the racist abuse he says he faced from the rioters during the first hearing of the select committee.
ECONOMY
Delta Variant Sparks Concerns About What’s Next For U.S. Economic Recovery
July 27, 20215:07 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 6:236-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Noel King talks to Heather Boushey, senior economic adviser to President Biden, about how the pandemic is impeding America’s economic recovery, and how vaccinations will help. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1021051620/delta-variant-sparks-concerns-about-whats-next-for-u-s-economic-recovery
The House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot held its first hearing Tuesday, with emotional testimony from four law enforcement officers who defended the building during the January 6 attack.
Warning: The hearing could include video and images that may be violent or offensive.
As a special congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection prepares to hold its first hearings later this month, we speak with author Michael Wolff, whose new book, “Landslide,” provides fresh details about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election, how he spurred his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol and why he still holds the reins in the party.
“There’s no question Donald Trump runs the Republican Party,” Wolff says. “We have two realities here: the reality of Donald Trump in charge, and the other reality which is that everybody knows that there’s something wrong with Donald Trump.”
LAW
Trump Lawyers Who Spread False Election Claims Are Now Defending Themselves In Court
July 16, 20215:01 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
CARRIE JOHNSON Twitter LISTEN· 4:134-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Rudy Giuliani points to a map as he speaks to the press about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election on Nov. 19, 2020. He and other Trump lawyers are now under scrutiny for their roles in promoting false claims of election fraud. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Six months after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, attorneys who promoted former President Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud are being forced to defend their actions in court. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016350616/trump-lawyers-who-spread-false-election-claims-are-now-defending-themselves-in-c
Malcolm Nance visits with Stephanie Miller every Wednesday. Malcolm is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
CHANGING THE SUBJECT: IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID NOT THE INVASION OF THE CAPITAL THAT IS AT STAKE
House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy holds his first press briefing since pulling five GOP members from the January 6th Committee after Speaker Pelosi refused to allow Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks to join.
POLITICS
Biden Administration Wants To Make Child Tax Credit Payments Permanent
July 16, 20215:02 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 11:2211-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells NPR’s Noel King that Congress should make permanent the expanded child tax credit payments that began arriving this week. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/16/1016747542/biden-administration-wants-to-make-child-tax-credit-payments-permanent
BUSINESS
Families Splurge On Clothes And Electronics In Likely Record Back-To-School Spree
July 27, 20215:07 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
ALINA SELYUKH Twitter LISTEN· 3:373-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Some families already got a head start on shopping for the school year when Amazon, Walmart, Target and others held huge summer sales. Now, parents are getting a new financial boost from the government: an increased child tax credit of up to $3,000 for school-age children. Michele Abercrombie/NPR
Susan Curp was on a quick run to the store when her 13-year-old daughter spotted something she couldn’t pass up: back-to-school sales. Notebooks covered with llamas and palm trees. Pens, pencils and even a case for the scented sanitizer — sparkly, of course. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1020692280/families-splurge-on-clothes-and-electronics-in-likely-record-back-to-school-spre
Zerlina. airs 6 p.m. ET weeknights on Peacock: Incisive and timely coverage of politics and current events, through in-depth conversations that unpack the latest developments in this era’s breakneck news cycle and draw back the curtain on their real-world consequences.
HEALTH
As The Delta Variant Rages, Calls Grow For Vaccine Mandates
July 27, 20217:19 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition
NICOLE NIXON LISTEN· 6:106-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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An increasing number of cities, states, counties and hospitals are making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory. But not all health care workers are on board. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1021051556/as-the-delta-variant-rages-calls-grow-for-vaccine-mandates
HEALTH
Many Say Mandating Vaccines For Health Care Workers Is Critical To Pandemic’s End
July 27, 20217:20 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 5:065-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Sarah McCammon talks to Dr. Ada Stewart, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, about why her group is backing vaccine mandates for health care workers. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/27/1021051563/many-say-mandating-vaccines-for-health-care-workers-is-critical-to-pandemics-end
CNN’s John Berman and Brianna Keilar show some of the anti-vaccine propaganda viewers of right-wing media are being exposed to.
Despite Outbreaks Among Unvaccinated, Fox News Hosts Smear Shots
Months after Rupert Murdoch got a Covid-19 vaccine dose, one of his network’s stars, Tucker Carlson, called a Biden vaccination proposal “the greatest scandal in my lifetime.”
By Tiffany Hsu Published July 11, 2021 Updated July 21, 2021
Listen to This Article
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Back in December, before the queen of England and the president-elect of the United States had their turns, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Afterward, he urged everyone else to get it, too.
Since then, a different message has been a repeated refrain on the prime-time shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham on Mr. Murdoch’s Fox News Channel — a message at odds with the recommendations of health experts, even as the virus’s Delta variant and other mutations fuel outbreaks in areas where vaccination rates are below the national average.
Mr. Carlson, Ms. Ingraham and guests on their programs have said on the air that the vaccines could be dangerous; that people are justified in refusing them; and that public authorities have overstepped in their attempts to deliver them.
THE REPUBLICAN INSANE PLOT TO KILL AMERICANS
The Republican elite have hatched an insane plot to kill their fellow Americans. Malcolm Nance has written a new book about this. And I on my own see this in their determination to prevent the vaccination of the unvaccinated. This is resulting in 30,000 death per day, most of whom are young and white. Whether this his hyperbole or not, Americans are dying at an inordinate level because Trump sees them as fodder for his reelection in 2024. GOP Congresspersons are afraid of losing power and will not stop the holocaust that Trump is fostering. If these so-called public servants can’t defend their fellow Americans and save their lives, who can.
THE REPUBLICAN INSANE PLOT TO KILL AMERICANS
Dr. Fauci is baffled by the stupidity of the right-wing. Leave a comment with your thoughts below!
Former President Donald Trump warned of communism and socialism during a Turning Point Action on Saturdy night in Phoenix, Arizona.
Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude, New York Times Washington correspondent Annie Karni and The Grio politics editor Christina Greer are “baffled” that people still blindly follow the former president and that “spineless Republicans” continually refuse to stand up to Trump.
Politics Chat: Vaccination Rates Grow In Some Conservative States
July 25, 20217:42 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
MARA LIASSON Twitter LISTEN· 4:264-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Despite political polarization, a growing number of people in some conservative states are getting vaccinated. Partisans still disagree about the January 6 attack on Congress. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1020342771/politics-chat-vaccination-rates-grow-in-some-conservative-states
Today was not the first time Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Dr. Anthony Fauci clashed in a Senate hearing.
The 1918 flu was one of the worst pandemics in history, infecting one-third of the world’s population. How cities responded to that crisis provides lessons on handling COVID-19 today.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Did COVID-19 Leak From A Lab? A Reporter Investigates — And Finds Roadblocks
June 17, 20211:54 PM ET Heard on Fresh Air
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President Biden has asked the intelligence community to investigate whether or not the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. Vanity Fair reporter Katherine Eban shares her findings. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007539626/did-covid-19-leak-from-a-lab-a-reporter-investigates-and-finds-roadblocks
Michael Worobey, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona.
The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 was the most intense outbreak of disease in human history. It killed upwards of 50 million people (most in a six-week period) casting a long shadow of fear and mystery: nearly a century later, scientists have been unable to explain why, unlike all other influenza outbreaks, it killed young adults in huge numbers. I will describe how analyses of large numbers of influenza virus genomes are revealing the pathway traveled by the genes of this virus before it exploded in 1918. What emerges is a surprising tale with many players and plot lines, in which echoes of prior pandemics, imprinted in the immune responses of those alive in 1918, set the stage for the catastrophe. I will also discuss how resolving the mysteries of 1918 could help to prevent future pandemics and to control seasonal influenza, which quietly kills millions more every decade.
The Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, joins MSNBC’s Ari Melber in this special interview to discuss his recent testimony slamming GOP Sen. Rand Paul for his “slanderous” comments and spreading coronavirus misinformation. This is the second part of a longer, wide-ranging interview that aired on The Beat.
POLITICS
Understanding Breakthrough COVID Infections
July 25, 20217:42 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
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NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Dr. Cassandra Pierre of the Boston University School of Medicine about COVID infections in vaccinated people. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1020342764/understanding-breakthrough-covid-infections
The Biden administration and experts are sounding the alarm about how media misinformation is contributing to the recent rise in cases of the coronavirus. Experts argue politicizing the vaccine and discouraging its use undermines this key safety method at the very same time the nation could have put the virus on its back for good. MSNBC’s Ari Melber breaks down Fox News’ mixed messaging on the virus and the cost of this kind of false rhetoric. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC.
Experts Fear Partisan Disputes Over Vaccination In Tennessee Will Drive Skeptics Away
July 25, 20217:42 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
BLAKE FARMER
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Republican legislators in Tennessee pushed to limit marketing COVID-19 vaccines to youth, and to restrict access. Some doctors worry it will have a chilling effect on vaccinations. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1020342836/experts-fear-partisan-disputes-over-vaccination-in-tennessee-will-drive-skeptics
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp discusses the Biden administration’s messaging on vaccinations, the state’s voting laws and surging crime.
Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth. They know next to nothing as a rule about their own history, or the histories of other nations, or the histories of the various social movements that have risen and fallen in the past, and they certainly know little or nothing of the complexities and contradictions comprised within words like “socialism” and “capitalism.” Chiefly, what they have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions. This is at once the most comic and most tragic aspect of the excitable alarm that talk of social democracy or democratic socialism can elicit on these shores. An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete. They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone to irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth, while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local, and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover). One might think that a people who once rebelled against the mightiest empire on earth on the principle of no taxation without representation would not meekly accept taxation without adequate government services. But we accept what we have become used to, I suppose. Even so, one has to ask, what state apparatus in the “free” world could be more powerful and tyrannical than the one that taxes its citizens while providing no substantial civic benefits in return, solely in order to enrich a piratically overinflated military-industrial complex and to ease the tax burdens of the immensely wealthy?
By David Bentley Hart. https://bit.ly/372O2hS
NBC News correspondent Antonia Hylton, epidemiologist Dr. Anne Rimoin, and Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump react to growing fears about the rapidly spreading delta variant and how some in Republican leadership are starting to urge their supporters to get vaccinated.
MURDER SHE WROTE TO COVER THE CONSPIRACIES
Malcom Nance declares that treason is too strong a word and concept to be tossed around too lightly. But I see Donald Trump and all his associates in office as treasonous bastards that were/are will to sell the United States to the highest bidder. When the Trump associates saw that Epstein was cornered, they had him disposed of. And this is coming to light now that Thomas Barrack has be charged. A conspiracy when it unravels is very interesting in that who is caught in its web.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, JR. stated: Justice always arcs to the earth. But in Trump’s case it may only complete its arc when he assumes Office in 2024 with the Help of his base that only concentrates on hate and racism.
MURDER SHE WROTE TO COVER THE CONSPIRACIES
Malcolm Nance visits with Stephanie Miller every Wednesday. Malcolm is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency, and torture. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
Over the past two years, President Donald Trump and his team have offered changing accounts regarding key matters in the Russia investigation. Their denials have been debunked, Trump has contradicted his senior aides and sometimes his team has completely flipped its position.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election along with potential collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. So far, six Trump associates have been charged, but nobody has been implicated in collusion. Trump adamantly denies collusion.
Public contradictions, walkbacks and flip-flops have become a hallmark of how Trump’s team has responded to the Russia probe, which was launched in 2016 and is now in its third year.
THE ROUGUES GALLERY OF CONSPIRATORS
Tom Barrack was arrested and charged with attempting to influence the foreign policy positions of then-candidate Donald Trump to reflect positions of the United Arab Emirates. NBC’s Pete Williams has details.
Tom Barrack, who once ran former President Trump’s inaugural committee, is out of jail on $250 million bond after he was accused of illegally lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
NBC News Investigations correspondent Tom Winter and former US Attorney Joyce Vance break down the “very serious” crimes Tom Barrack is charged with and explain why they believe the former President’s inner orbit is filled with criminals.
Ryan Grim breaks down Thomas Barrack’s complicated relationship with the Trump family.
HE KNEW THE POLITICIANS AND WHERE BODIES WERE BURIED– SO HE HAD TO BE REMOVED
FRESH AIR
Reopening The Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
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July 20, 20215:05 PM ET LISTEN· 47:1747-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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Long after Jeffrey Epstein got a lenient sentence for sexual abuse of minors, ‘Miami Herald’ reporter Julie K. Brown identified 80 women who said they survived his abuse. “There is nothing that was more powerful than the words of the women talking about this themselves,” she says. Her book is ‘Perversion of Justice.’ https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1018392234/reopening-the-jeffrey-epstein-investigation
Investigative journalist Julie K. Brown says there are a lot of things that don’t make sense about Jeffrey Epstein’s death, including the strength he would need to commit suicide in the way authorities described and the chance that two guards would be asleep or distracted at the time of his death. “When people ask me, I say I really seriously doubt that he did commit suicide, at least without assistance…It’s just too crazy. I mean, there’s just too many things that don’t make sense.”
The depths of the Jeffrey Epstein story may never have been known without the work of Florida investigative reporter Julie K. Brown. A reporter for the Miami Herald, Brown and her explosive reporting for the Herald helped bring Epstein to justice (before his death) while exposing the powerful people and broken system that protected him.
For many years, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s penchant for teenage girls was an open secret in the high society of Palm Beach, Florida and Manhattan. Charged in 2008 with soliciting prostitution from minors, Epstein was treated with what critics called unheard-of leniency at the time. The media virtually ignored the failures of the criminal justice system, and Epstein’s friends and business partners brushed the allegations aside. But when in 2017 the U.S. attorney who approved Epstein’s plea deal, Alexander Acosta, was chosen by President Trump as labor secretary, Brown was compelled to ask questions that other journalists weren’t.
Despite her editor’s skepticism that she could add a new dimension to a known story, Brown determined that her goal would be to track down the victims themselves. Poring over thousands of redacted court documents, traveling across the country and chasing down information in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, Brown tracked down dozens of Epstein’s victims, now young women struggling to reclaim their lives after the trauma and shame they had endured.
Brown’s resulting three-part series in the Miami Herald was one of the most explosive news stories of the decade, revealing how Epstein ran a global sex trafficking pyramid scheme with impunity for years, targeting vulnerable teens, often from fractured homes, and then turning them into recruiters. The outrage led to Epstein’s arrest, the disappearance and eventual arrest of his closest accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the resignation of Acosta. The financier’s mysterious suicide in a New York City jail cell prompted wild speculation about the secrets he took to the grave—and whether his death was intentional or the result of foul play.
Brown’s new book, Perversion of Justice, builds on her original award-winning series, showing the power of truth, the value of local journalism and the tenacity of one woman in the face of the deep-seated corruption of powerful men. Julie Brown joins us virtually to discuss her role in the Epstein story and what it means for the media and the country.
NOTES Brown photo by Eileen Soler.
SPEAKERS Julie K. Brown Investigative Reporter, Miami Herald; Author, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story; (Participating Virtually) Robert Rosenthal Board Member, Center for Investigative Reporting—Moderator
POLITICS
Missouri’s Daily COVID Cases Have More Than Doubled In The Last 2 Weeks
July 22, 20215:07 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition LISTEN· 4:594-Minute Listen Add to PLAYLIST
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NPR’s Noel King talks to Republican Rep. Billy Long of Missouri about what is driving vaccines hesitancy among his constituents as the delta variant continues to spread.
NOEL KING, HOST:
Bill Kidd, a Missouri state representative, wrote on Facebook earlier this month that he’d gotten COVID-19. And then he wrote, no, we didn’t get the vaccine; we’re Republicans – and a smiley face emoji. He later deleted the post. But the COVID vaccine has become a partisan issue. About 40% of people in Missouri who are eligible are vaccinated. And in Missouri, daily cases have more than doubled in the last two weeks.
KING: I want to add a clarification to something that Congressman Long said in that interview. He said Vice President Kamala Harris, quote, “refused to take the vaccine when she was campaigning.” The fact is no COVID vaccine was available to the public in this country until after the presidential campaign ended. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019130233/missouris-daily-covid-cases-have-more-than-doubled-in-the-last-2-weeks
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