Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

What do all these states have in common? They all have right wing Trump stooges as Governors who ended mask mandates and helped spread disinformation about COVID-19. Then they wonder why their states are a disaster. 


Nearly all Alabama counties now at ‘very high risk’ for COVID-19 spread

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - In just about a month’s time, Alabama has seen almost 90 percent of its counties climb to the ‘very high risk’ category for spread of COVID-19, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health’s risk indicator map.

June saw a point when there were just six counties in that category, but within two weeks that number more than quadrupled to 26 counties by July 8.

Then, by July 15, it nearly doubled to 47 counties.

As of July 22, the number has jumped to 59 counties.



Only eight counties remain below the very high risk designation, though Lamar and Marengo counties are just one step below the most serious designation at ‘High Risk’, followed by Choctaw at ‘Moderate Risk’, according to ADPH.

Meanwhile, only Bullock, Cleburne, Perry, Pickens and Sumter remain at ‘Low Risk’.

A county’s risk level is reflected in ADPH’s color-coded map, which changes based on whether case counts increase or decrease. Below is a description of each risk level:

If the number of cases stays the same or is increasing, they will be Very High Risk (Red).
If a county has decreasing case counts for one to six days, they will be High Risk (Orange).
If a county is in a downward trajectory of seven to 13 days, they will be Moderate (Yellow).
If a county is in a downward trajectory of 14 or more days (or has a rate of 10 or less over the previous two weeks), they will be considered Low Risk (Green).
The Delta variant also is continuing to spread across the state. ADPH says it is about 50 percent more transmissible.

While vaccines are readily available for those 12 years and older, only about 33 percent of the state’s residents are considered fully vaccinated.

Alabama has had 565,510 total confirmed cases of the virus and 11,468 deaths since March 2020.

Hospitalizations in Alabama are also up. As of Thursday, 646 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to ADPH. One week ago, 371 patients were hospitalized. Two weeks ago, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was 249.

ADPH says 1,902,653 people have received one or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

https://www.wtvm.com/2021/07/22/nearly-all-alabama-counties-now-very-high-risk-covid-19-spread/


Florida leading the nation in the number of new daily COVID-19 cases

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
As of Friday morning, Florida was one of three states accounting for 40% of all new COVID-19 infections.

Despite the rapid rise in numbers, Gov. Ron DeSantis is vowing not to issue any COVID-19 mandates or lockdowns.

A new mobile vaccine clinic will open on Friday at Orlando police headquarters.

DeSantis said that despite the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, lockdowns or statewide mask mandates will not be happening in Florida.

He says he believes he's successfully handling the COVID-19 situation without them.

The state is averaging about 6,500 cases per day.

That number has nearly doubled in just one week and quadrupled in just one month.

The governor says he believes the uptick is seasonal, but many doctors disagree.

They say the difference now is the far more contagious delta variant.

Either way, both doctors and the governor are encouraging people to get vaccines.

The vaccine clinic at the Orlando Police Department opens on Friday from 9 a.m. until 11:30 a.m.

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-leading-the-nation-in-the-number-of-new-daily-covid-19-cases/37110617


Florida, Missouri and Texas now account for 40% of new coronavirus cases in U.S.

WASHINGTON — Just three states are now driving the pandemic in the United States, as the divide between vaccinated and unvaccinated regions of the country becomes ever more stark, as the more transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads.

Forty percent of all new cases this week have been recorded in Florida, Texas and Missouri, White House pandemic response coordinator Jeff Zients revealed at a press briefing Thursday.

Florida alone accounts for 20 percent of all new cases nationally, Zients pointed out, a trend that has stretched into its second week.

Zients added that “virtually all” hospitalizations and deaths — a full 97 percent — are among unvaccinated people. “The threat is now predominantly only to the unvaccinated,” he said. A few vaccinated people do experience so-called breakthrough infections, but they tend to experience only mild COVID-19 illness, or no illness at all.

Encouragingly, Zients said the five states that have experienced the most significant rise in infections — Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Nevada and Missouri — all also saw vaccination rates beat the national average for a second week in a row. But because immunity takes two weeks to develop, and the Delta variant spreads so rapidly, the benefits of the increased uptake of vaccinations may not be evident right away.

Singling out the three states where infections are now spiking could have the effect of putting pressure on elected officials there to do more to encourage vaccinations.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is a Donald Trump loyalist who is widely expected to seek the presidency in 2024. His handling of the pandemic is coming under new scrutiny with the recent rise in cases.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, also a GOP presidential aspirant, has recently said he will not impose new mask mandates. Both he and DeSantis have also signed measures striking down requirements that people produce proof of vaccination.

As the pandemic has surged back in parts of the country, other Republicans have deviated from that approach. The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson — a Republican who, like DeSantis and Abbott, is rumored to have presidential ambitions of his own — has recently pushed for more vaccinations in his state.

Rep. Steve Scalise, a member of Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and a close Trump ally, rolled up his sleeve last Sunday and was vaccinated. Scalise represents a district in Louisiana, another state with a low rate of vaccination that is experiencing a surge in new cases.

There were 46,318 new cases of the coronavirus reported nationwide on Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said at Thursday’s briefing. That is a marked increase from the lows of late May and early June. Hospitalizations and deaths are also rising, after plummeting earlier this summer.

“If you are not vaccinated,” Walensky said, “please take the Delta variant seriously.”

https://news.yahoo.com/florida-missouri-and-texas-now-account-for-40-percent-of-new-us-coronavirus-cases-172032337.html


Since July 1, Missouri’s COVID case average has jumped 161%, hospitalizations have increased 58%

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Hospitalizations and case numbers continue skyrocketing in Missouri.

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the state has recorded 551,609 cumulative cases of SARS-CoV-2—an increase of 2,418 positive cases (PCR testing only)—and 9,534 total deaths as of Thursday, July 22, an increase of 8 over yesterday. That’s a case fatality rate of 1.73%.

Please keep in mind that not all cases and deaths recorded occurred in the last 24 hours.

Approximately 2.48 million people have completed the vaccination process in Missouri; 57.3% of all adults 18 years of age and older have initiated the process. The state has administered 75,885 doses of vaccine in the last 7 days (this metric is subject to a delay, meaning the last three days are not factored in). The highest vaccination rates are among people over 65.

Only five jurisdictions in the state are over 40% fully vaccinated: Boone, St. Louis, St. Charles, and Franklin counties, and the city of Joplin.

The Bureau of Vital Records at DHSS performs a weekly linkage between deaths to the state and death certificates to improve quality and ensure all decedents that died of COVID-19 are reflected in the systems. As a result, the state’s death toll will see a sharp increase from time to time. Again, that does not mean a large number of deaths happened in one day; instead, it is a single-day reported increase.

At the state level, DHSS is not tracking probable or pending COVID deaths. Those numbers are not added to the state’s death count until confirmed in the disease surveillance system either by the county or through analysis of death certificates.

The 10 days with the most reported cases occurred between Nov. 7, 2020, and Jan. 8, 2021.

The 7-day rolling average for cases in Missouri sits at 1,631; yesterday, it was 1,615. Exactly one month ago, the state rolling average was 477.

Approximately 47.7% of all reported cases are for individuals 39 years of age and younger. The state has further broken down the age groups into smaller units. The 18 to 24 age group has 69,389 recorded cases, while 25 to 29-year-olds have 46,924 cases.

People 80 years of age and older account for approximately 47.4% of all recorded deaths in the state.

Missouri has administered 5,950,874 PCR tests for COVID-19 over the entirety of the pandemic and as of July 21, 16.1% of those tests have come back positive. People who have received multiple PCR tests are not counted twice, according to the state health department.

According to the state health department’s COVID-19 Dashboard, “A PCR test looks for the viral RNA in the nose, throat, or other areas in the respiratory tract to determine if there is an active infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. A positive PCR test means that the person has an active COVID-19 infection.”

The Missouri COVID Dashboard no longer includes the deduplicated method of testing when compiling the 7-day moving average of positive tests. The state is now only using the non-deduplicated method, which is the CDC’s preferred method. That number is calculated using the number of tests taken over the period since many people take multiple tests. Under this way of tabulating things, Missouri has a 14.4% positivity rate as of July 19. Health officials exclude the most recent three days to ensure data accuracy when calculating the moving average.

The positivity rate was 4.5% on June 1 and 10.2% on July 1.

of July 19, Missouri is reporting 1,532 COVID hospitalizations and a rolling 7-day average of 1,446. The remaining inpatient hospital bed capacity sits at 20% statewide. The state’s public health care metrics lag behind by three days due to reporting delays, especially on weekends. Keep in mind that the state counts all beds available and not just beds that are staffed by medical personnel.

On July 6, the 7-day rolling average for hospitalizations eclipsed the 1,000-person milestone for the first time in four months, with 1,013 patients. The 7-day average for hospitalizations had previously been over 1,000 from Sept. 16, 2020, to March 5, 2021. It was over 2,000 from Nov. 9, 2020, to Jan. 27, 2021.

The 2021 low point on the hospitalization average across was 655 on May 29.

Across the state, 483 COVID patients are in ICU beds, leaving the state’s remaining intensive care capacity at 19%.

If you have additional questions about the coronavirus, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is available at 877-435-8411.

As of July 22, the CDC identified 34,248,054 cases of COVID-19 and 607,684 deaths across all 50 states.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/since-july-1-missouris-covid-case-average-has-jumped-161-hospitalizations-have-increased-58/


North Texas health officials warn that COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations could return to surge levels

DALLAS - Health officials are warning that if current COVID-19 trends continue in North Texas, hospitalizations and case numbers are likely to climb back up to surge levels by this fall.

The latest data from UT-Southwestern shows a 156% increase in hospitalizations over the last month, and the numbers continue to climb.

Data also shows the number of North Texans who have gotten the vaccine or are willing to get the vaccine have plateaued.

Over the last month, North Texas hospitals have seen dramatic increases in hospitalization, climbing 89% in the last two weeks.

Doctors said specific factors are driving these numbers up, and the biggest factor is the unvaccinated, combined with more people moving about and much fewer wearing masks.

Nationally, the CDC said about 83% of sequenced cases are the more contagious Delta variant.

In Texas and surrounding states, doctors at UT-Southwestern said it’s even worse, at more than 90%.

"Pretty consistently, what we've been seeing is about every two weeks, a doubling of the percentage of that Delta variant," said Dr. James Cutrell, associate professor of infectious diseases and geographic medicine at UT-Southwestern. "And so given how much more contagious it is, that definitely is the trend that we're seeing."

The recent rise in cases and hospitalizations is being described as a pandemic among the unvaccinated, but doctors said everyone needs to remain alert and continue to take precautions.

The latest forecast from UT-Southwestern predicts that by early August, Dallas County will have up to 500 COVID-19 hospitalizations, and up to 700 in Tarrant County.

Local healthcare workers are seeing these numbers climb firsthand.

"It is for real, that that is what I can tell you. About four weeks ago, we were at seven patients in-house, and today, I'm at 40 patients," explained Parkland Hospital Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Chang.

Dr. Chang said almost all of those patients are unvaccinated.

Comparatively, according to data from UT-Southwestern, only 0.5% of Dallas County’s COVID-19 cases are breakthrough cases of fully vaccinated people, with only 8% of those cases needing hospitalization.

"We are not seeing as many of the older individuals, 65 or older. Why? Because they are mostly fully vaccinated. The ones that we're seeing now commonly are 30, 40, and 50-year-olds, because therein lies our biggest group of unvaccinated," Dr. Chang said.

Dr. Chang said he does not believe Parkland itself will see hospitalizations return to December 2020 levels, when the hospital had about 400 COVID-19 patients, but the current trends are worrisome.

"In March, when our numbers were dropped to never-before-seen lows, we had celebrations here at the hospital," he said. "And now to see this happening again in a fully preventable situation. Let me emphasize that, a fully preventable situation, if we were to get our entire community vaccinated."

Doctors also said the more the virus is circulating in the community, the more opportunities the virus has to mutate and form new variants.

But so far, the COVID-19 vaccines have shown to be effective against the existing variants.

It didn’t take FOX 4 crews long to find people who were weren’t vaccinated Wednesday.

just want to wait for it to be a 100% guarantee," Daniel Martin said. "I feel like some people are uncomfortable with being around other people who aren’t wearing a mask, so just to make myself comfortable.

Martin said he is still nervous about getting the shot, but he said he still wears his mask.

For others, their reason for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine is different.

"I have issues right now with my breathing. I have asthma and I have lupus," Jennifer Torez said.

Torez said she has concerns about the safety of the vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people with asthma and other underlying conditions get the vaccine.

"I already have my issues, I don’t need more," she said.

In Houston, Governor Greg Abbott was asked if he will allow mask mandates, at least for schools.

"Everyone has had more than a year to master all the safe strategies. They can choose that’s best for them," he said. "We’re past the time for government mandates. We’re into the time for personal responsibility."

https://www.fox4news.com/news/north-texas-health-officials-warn-that-covid-19-cases-hospitalizations-could-return-to-surge-levels


Missouri launches vaccine incentive program; here's how you can enter to win $10,000
https://www.kmov.com/news/missouri-launches-vaccine-incentive-program-heres-how-you-can-enter-to-win-10-000/article_1d4a4570-ea60-11eb-8609-4f407e74ff0b.html


Number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 in Alabama increasing
Alabama’s COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased nearly 200 percent in three weeks as the delta variant increases
https://www.alreporter.com/2021/07/22/number-of-children-hospitalized-with-covid-19-in-alabama-increasing/

[Jack Nessan]

Good luck with it gentlemen. You obviously have yourselves convinced. Anybody who wants the shot should get the shot and be glad it is available. The virus is always mutating and people are losing their interest in shots, especially getting a shot every six months. There are issues with the vaccine and maybe you don't want to acknowledge it but the rest of are paying attention to it and deciding which risk is greater.

[Rick Plant]

Good luck with it gentlemen. You obviously have yourselves convinced. Anybody who wants the shot should get the shot and be glad it is available. The virus is always mutating and people are losing their interest in shots, especially getting a shot every six months. There are issues with the vaccine and maybe you don't want to acknowledge it but the rest of are paying attention to it and deciding which risk is greater.

People are not "losing interest" in shots. They are being brainwashed by the right wing media and Qanon lunatics into not getting it by believing it's harmful when it's not. Surprisingly enough, these anti vaxxers beg for the vaccine when they are dying in the hospital. The doctors tell them "it's too late" and they die a few days later. All of that could have been avoided if they would have been vaccinated from the beginning.     

If everybody gets vaccinated, there will no longer be the spread of COVID-19 therefore the virus won't be able to mutate into a more deadly variant. But unvaccinated morons are disrupting our way of life and allowing the virus to mutate into  an even more deadly variant. Nobody has to get a shot every 6 months.

Well, you have a choice. Either get vaccinated and have extremely mild side effects for two days or not get vaccinated and end up in a hospital in the ICU and die alone of a horrible death. That's the risk anti vaxxers will take and many are going to die because the Delta variant is 3-4 times more deadly than the original COVID strain.     

You've been listening to right wing disinformation and you are very misinformed.           

[Rick Plant]

Criminal con man grifter Donald Trump is scamming the suckers in his gullible base by taking their money for his own private use. Also, he sold out America to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.   

Trump’s ‘Save America’ PAC raised $75 million this year as he lies about the election – cash pays for his travel: report

Donald Trump, the erroneously embittered one term former U.S. president has raised $75 million this year through his "Save America" leadership PAC by lying about the 2020 election, an election he and his supporters, surrogates, and allies falsely claim was "stolen." The funds, collected the PAC, can be spent in a wide variety of ways, including to pay for the flailing Arizona recount, or similar efforts in other states, but according to The Washington Post Trump's PAC has not spent a dime on those efforts.

"Instead, the Save America leadership PAC — which has few limits on how it can spend its money — has paid for some of the former president's travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of the anonymity to describe the group's inner workings. The PAC has held onto much of its cash," The Post reports.

"Even as he assiduously tracks attempts by his allies to cast doubt on the integrity of last year's election, Trump has been uninterested in personally bankrolling the efforts, relying on an array of other entities and supporters to fund the endeavors, they said."

Commenting on the report, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow mocked the former president on Twitter, saying, "So he's, like, living off the STOP THE STEAL money?"

https://www.rawstory.com/trumps-save-america-pac-raised-75-million-this-year-as-he-lies-about-the-election-cash-pays-for-his-travel-report/


'The definition of grift': Trump blasted for 'living off Stop the Steal money' instead of funding election audits

Donald Trump's PAC has raised $75 million this year as he's peddled false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, the Washington Post reported Thursday. However, despite pledging to fight the election results in solicitations to donors, Trump hasn't spent a dime of that money to support audits in Arizona or other states.

"Instead, the Save America leadership PAC — which has few limits on how it can spend its money — has paid for some of the former president's travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the group's inner workings. The PAC has held onto much of its cash," the Post reported.

MSNBC's Steve Benen wrote that the report again raises the question of whether Trump is "genuinely delusional" and believes he really won the election, or he's "little more than a con man."

"It's an interesting debate, but this new reporting suggests the resolution of the question isn't altogether relevant: regardless of Trump's true beliefs, his apparent priority is making sure his followers keep sending him their money. The scheme is working -- again," Benen wrote.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-stop-the-steal/


New questions raised over Saudi and Emirates' influence over White House after Trump pal arrested: columnist

According to New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, the arrest this past week of billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack -- who was also one of Donald Trump's biggest backers -- should be raising red flags over how much influence he exerted in the White House during the former president's tenure and whether it is deserving of another Congressional investigation.

Under the proactive headline that asked, "A Foreign Agent in Trump's Inner Circle?" Goldberg wrote that documents included in the arrest of Barrack for allegedly violating foreign lobbying laws seem to indicate that he was promising his Middle Eastern contacts that he push their "agendas" with Trump in office.

As Goldberg wrote, "Barrack's arrest is important. Trump's dealings with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia deserve to be investigated as thoroughly as his administration's relationship with Russia. So far that hasn't happened," with the columnist also noting that Rep. Adam Schiff made a point of telling Robert Mueller, "We did not bother to ask whether financial inducements from any Gulf nations were influencing U.S. policy, since it is outside the four corners of your report, and so we must find out."

According to Goldberg, there is no better time than the present after the Barrack indictment.

Making her case, she wrote, "The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian election interference discusses an August 2016 Trump Tower meeting whose attendees included Donald Trump Jr., George Nader, then an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the Emirates' de facto ruler, and Joel Zamel, owner of an Israeli private intelligence company, Psy-Group," before adding, "If the allegations in the Barrack indictment are true, it means that while an adviser to the Emirates was offering the Trump campaign election help, an Emirati agent was also shaping Trump's foreign policy, even inserting the country's preferred language into one of the candidate's speeches. Prosecutors say that Barrack told a high-level figure they call 'Emirati Official 2' that he had staffed the Trump campaign."

Adding Barrack, "... is said to have traveled to the Emirates to strategize with its leadership about what they wanted from the administration during its first 100 days, first six months, first year and first term," Goldberg highlighted, from the report, "...prosecutors say another alleged Emirati agent named Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi — also indicted on Tuesday — texted Barrack: 'Our ppl wants u to help. They were hoping you can officially run the agendas.' According to the indictment, Barrack replied, 'I will!' Later, Barrack reportedly called Alshahhi 'the secret weapon to get Abu Dhabi's plan initiated' by Trump."

Throughout his presidency, Trump could scarcely have been a more accommodating ally to the Emirates and to Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was a protégé of Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Trump's first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia," the columnist wrote. "Of Trump's 10 presidential vetoes, five dealt with issues of concern to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia."

"There is no reason to attribute all of Trump's solicitude to Barrack. Trump likes and admires gaudy dictators and has his own financial interests in the Emirates. Barrack introduced Jared Kushner to some of his Gulf associates, but Kushner had his own reasons for pursuing alliances with them, particularly his push to get more Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel," she added before concluding. "Still, if a member of Trump's inner circle turns out to have been an Emirati agent, that's a big deal. It's a reminder of all we still don't know about what went into the foreign policy of the most corrupt presidency in American history."

You can read the whole piece here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/opinion/trump-tom-barrack-corruption.html?


Trump-backed prospective Senate candidate Hershcel Walker repeatedly threatened to murder his ex-wife: divorce papers

Donald Trump has been pushing for supporter Hershcel Walker to run for Senate in Georgia -- but a
new investigation by the Associated Press shows he has major red flags about his past that include allegations of threatening repeatedly to murder his ex-wife.

The AP has combed through Walker's divorce papers and has found his ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, in the past leveled several allegations of violent and abusive behavior against him.

"Grossman has said she was long a victim of Walker's impulses," writes the AP. "She told ABC News that at one point during their marriage, her husband pointed a pistol at her head and said, 'I'm going to blow your f'ing brains out.' She filed for divorce in 2001, citing 'physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.'"

Walker allegedly continued his threatening behavior even after separating from Grossman, and Grossman's family members said Walker contacted them and told them that he would murder her and a man whom she had started dating after leaving Walker.

"In an affidavit, [Grossman sister Maria Tsettos] claimed Walker once called looking for his ex-wife while she was out with her boyfriend," reports the AP. "Tsettos took the call and said Walker became "very threatening" when told of Grossman's whereabouts. In Tsettos' recollection, Walker 'stated unequivocally that he was going to shoot my sister Cindy and her boyfriend in the head.'"

https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-sports-nfl-college-football-coronavirus-pandemic-5e2875eec11e93f9a3bf1fc859137ff8

[Rick Plant]

34-year-old who joked on Twitter about not being vaccinated dies from COVID-19: report

According to a report from KCAL Los Angeles, a 34-year-old man who joked six weeks ago that he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 died from the novel coronavirus this week after documenting on his social media accounts his declining health while asking for prayers.

The report states that Stephen Harmon, a graduate of Hillson College, made his last social media post on Wednesday just before he was intubated.

He wrote, "i'm choosing to go under intubation, i've fought this thing as hard as i can but unfortunately it's reached a point of critical choice & as much as i hate having to do this i'd rather it be willingness than forced emergency procedure. don't know when i'll wake up, please pray."

Six weeks ago he mocked the idea of getting vaccinated by tweeting, "If you're having email problems, I feel back for you, son. I got 99 problems, but a vax ain't one."

The report goes on to note that he posted pictures of his health decline on his Instagram account.

You can watch the KCAL report below:

Stephen Harmon, Corona Man Who Tweeted About Refusing To Get Vaccinated, Dies From COVID-19
https://www.rawstory.com/covid/


COVID-19 patients in ICUs at a Florida hospital are 'begging' to be vaccinated, nurse says

Patients in intensive care units (ICUs) with COVID-19 at a Florida hospital are "begging" to be vaccinated, a nurse told CNN.

The unnamed nurse, who works at the Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida, said that patients, the overwhelming majority of whom are unvaccinated, are "at a loss" for what they can do to stay alive.

"Every single day... you're getting ready to intubate the patient in ICU, which means putting them on a ventilator, and they say, 'If I get the vaccine now, can I not go on the ventilator?'" the nurse told CNN's Randi Kaye.

She said that she has to repeatedly point out that the right time to get a COVID-19 vaccine is before they get sick.

"They're desperate because they're gasping for air, they can't breathe, they're scared, they feel like they're going to pass away," the nurse continued. "They're just asking for whatever they can do to possibly keep them from being put on a ventilator because once a patient gets on a ventilator, it's really hard to wean them off."

Three patients told Randi Kaye that they would get vaccinated if they survive their spell in the ICU, CNN reported.

"These are patients who chose not to get the vaccine but now desperately want it," Kaye said.

The number of COVID-19 patients at Baptist Medical Center is rapidly rising, according to CNN. There are 349 patients with coronavirus at the moment, and 74 are in the ICU, the media outlet reported.

Around 44 percent of the patients at the hospital are under the age of 40, and are staying at the hospital much longer because they are sicker, Kaye said.

An overwhelming majority (99.6 percent) have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine, CNN added.

Jacksonville, where the hospital is situated, is one of the coronavirus hot spots in Florida, according to The New York Times.

Florida is confronting a COVID-19 spike. More than 73,000 new cases were reported this week, WFLA reported. The state now accounts for nearly a quarter of all new coronavirus cases reported in the US, Insider's Charles Davis reported. 

Rising hospitalizations in states like Florida might encourage some Americans to get a shot, Insider's Aria Bendix said.

https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-covid-19-patients-begging-vaccinated-nurse-says-2021-7

[Rick Plant]

Trump's 'closest supporters' were 'panicked' at the danger he was putting the country in during his last year: WaPo reporter

Appearing on CNN's "New Day" on Friday morning, Washington Post reporter Carol Leonning said that during her interviews with Donald Trump's inner circle, she was struck by the panic they expressed while believing he was putting the country in "peril."

Speaking with hosts Brianna Keillar and John Avlon, Leonnig -- the co-author of the bombshell book "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year" along with colleague Philip Rucker -- said the one thing she came away from in interviews with the former president was that everything he did, he did for his own benefit.

"Phil and I kept seeing that, basically, his priorities were his political gain, not American democracy, not American safety, not American lives," she recalled. "It became pretty tragic and with huge consequences in 2020 a year when there was a real crisis."

"He did not have the tool kit for that because he was thinking about winning the day, winning the news cycle, short-term, my political fortune, re-election," she continued. "And I think what Phil and I found the most shocking, even though we covered this in realtime, the thing we found the most shocking as we interviewed more and more people is how panicked some of his most ardent supporters were about the peril he was willing to put America in -- again for his gain."

You can watch below:

'This is really serious': Legal expert says Trump ally Barrack is in more trouble than we've been led to believe

Longtime Trump ally Tom Barrack was arrested earlier this week and charged with illegally acting as an agent for the government of the United Arab Emirates.

But Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, told CNN on Friday that Barrack might be in even bigger trouble than the initial charging documents filed against him have led us to believe.

While talking with host Jim Acosta, Aronberg broke down the massive $250 million bond deal that prosecutors struck with Barrack on Friday was an indicator of how serious this case really is.

"Remember, this is not a FARA case -- that's for failure to register as a lobbyist for a foreign entity," he explained. "When you are talking about what Barrack is charged with, it is far more serious. It is a crime of working directly with a foreign government."

He noted that this is the same charge that Russian spy Maria Butina faced in 2018, which would carry a much bigger penalty for Barrack than simply failing to register as a lobbyist.

"This is really serious for Barrack," he emphasized. "And the UAE used him as their own pseudo ambassador because he was so well connected. They asked him to develop a special 100-day policy proposal. That goes beyond just lobbying."

Watch the video below:

[Rick Plant]

Trump’s Interests vs. America’s, Dubai Edition Part IV

That Defense Department Trump Tower Rental

President Donald Trump’s most iconic property is about to get a new tenant: the Department of Defense. According to CNN, the Pentagon, hewing to a longstanding policy of establishing an offshoot headquarters near the president’s private, non-White House residence, is planning to lease space in Trump Tower in New York City to maintain close proximity to Trump should he choose to spend time there instead of Washington, D.C..

The Department of Defense’s decision is yet another example of how Trump’s decision to hold onto his business interests is rewriting norms surrounding the presidency and creating problems in what were once uncontroversial procedures. As mentioned above, the Department of Defense’s decision is not unique to Trump’s presidency: They took up residence in Chicago, for example, during Barack Obama’s two terms for the exact same reason.

The difference, as is true in so many of the stories surrounding Trump and his family’s conflicts of interest—the Red Cross’s decision to hold its annual ball at Mar-a-Lago, for example, or Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay—is that the president himself is now making money off of routine governmental functions. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Defense is spending roughly $130,000 per month to stay at the property, although, according to the Journal, “a Pentagon official wrote in a letter seen by the Journal that the space is owned privately by someone unaffiliated with the Trump Organization and that the department sees no way in which Mr. Trump can benefit from the rent money.”

Nevertheless, the situation points to one of the possible ramifications of the president’s decision to hold onto his real-estate empire while in office. Trump’s protestations to the contrary aside, scientific evidence shows that the mere knowledge that one has profited from a relationship in the past often leads to preferential behavior. As a result, the fact that government agencies—if not the Department of Defense, then the Secret Service and the State Department—may be paying the president himself large sums of money to stay in Trump properties could have significant ramifications for how Trump’s White House operates.

That Red Cross Ball

The web of President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest has grown to encompass the American Red Cross, which held its annual ball on Saturday, February 4, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. By hosting the ball, the Trump Organization accepted money from an organization that, while not a federal agency per se, is subject to federal oversight that at some point in the next four years will likely involve President Trump.

Unlike a number of the events at Trump properties that have been featured in this list of Trump’s conflicts of interest, the Red Cross Ball, which celebrated the organization’s centennial anniversary, appears to have been scheduled before Trump even received the Republican nomination for president; a calendar listing on the website of the Coastal Star, a local newspaper covering events in the Palm Beach area, is recorded as having been placed in April 2016. Additionally, though the event has been held elsewhere in the past, this was not the first time it has taken place at Mar-a-Lago: Not only was last year’s ball held there, but the very first Red Cross Ball was hosted there by the property’s prior owner, the famous socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post.

Given all that, there is no indication that the decision to hold the event at Mar-a-Lago had anything to do with Trump’s election, and the fact that Trump will likely be attending the event is not unusual—President Barack Obama also attended as the honorary chairman of the organization while in office. Nevertheless, the ball perfectly encapsulates why Trump’s continued refusal to relinquish his business interests complicates even situations that would have taken place had he not become president.

Thanks in part to the makeup of the Red Cross’s leadership and its unique relationship with the federal government, the ball creates a particularly complicated situation. According to its website, the Red Cross “is not a federal agency, nor [does it] receive federal funding on a regular basis to carry out our services and programs,” instead relying on donations and fees for services like health-and-safety training courses. However, the organization operates under a federal charter as a “federal instrumentality … to carry out responsibilities delegated to [it] by the federal government.” The best-known of these duties include overseeing blood-donation drives and disaster-relief efforts; according to its website, it is also the Red Cross’s duty “to fulfill the provisions of the Geneva Convention” and “provide family communications and other forms of support to the U.S. military.” Further, the organization has a chairperson appointed by the president; currently, the chairwoman is Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004. The charter also periodically comes before Congress for review and amendments to be signed into effect by the president.

On multiple occasions in recent years, the Red Cross has come under scrutiny for how it handles its multi-billion-dollar budget, most of which comprises donations from the American public. Prompted in part by reporting on the organization’s inadequate response to Hurricane Sandy, misleading statements about how it uses its money, and a September 2015 report by the Governmental Accountability Office, two congresspeople—one Democrat and one Republican—have independently introduced measures to increase the organization’s transparency. Neither has been enacted, but there will likely be another push to improve the relationship between the federal government and the Red Cross during Trump’s presidency, whether via a review of the Red Cross’s charter, the need to appoint a new chairperson, or the introduction of reform-minded legislation. If and when Trump is called upon to weigh in on these decisions, he will be asked to do so having directly profited from the organization while in office, which could limit his ability to act in the best interests of the American people.

That D.C. Labor Dispute

One month before he took office, President Donald Trump managed to sidestep a potential conflict of interest at his hotel in Las Vegas. In the fall of 2015, several hundred employees at the city’s Trump International Hotel had voted to join the local branch of the Culinary Workers Union, only to find their efforts stalled by Trump and the hotel’s co-owner, Phil Ruffin. The case languished for more than a year until, after the National Labor Relations Board found Trump and Ruffin in violation of federal law, the workers successfully negotiated their first collectively-bargained contract. If this hadn’t been resolved, a conflict of interest would have arisen: The case would have gone to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to which Trump will soon be able to appoint members.

Now, the same issue is cropping up at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Already a centerpiece of the controversy over the likely violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, the property may soon be the site of another legal tussle: According to The Washington Post, 40 workers at the hotel have also voted to unionize, the first group to do so at a Trump-owned establishment since his election.

As was true in Las Vegas, the push for unionization in D.C., if it’s met with resistance from the hotel, would create an opportunity for the president to place his own financial interests above those of the hotel’s workers. In Las Vegas, the dispute appears to have been resolved partly because of the NLRB’s intercession; if the Trump Organization similarly contests the case in D.C., the NLRB may once again be asked to weigh in. And now that Trump is president, he will be appointing new board members to fill two vacancies on the agency’s five-seat panel, which could very well tip it from its current left-leaning, labor-friendly composition to a more conservative, pro-owner bent. If, as in Las Vegas, the NLRB finds in favor of the workers, but the Trump Organization chooses to continue its opposition, there is a possibility that the case could come before a federal appeals court, where judges who Trump himself may have appointed will be asked to review the NLRB’s decision. And if the conflict continues even beyond the Court of Appeals, it will fall to the Supreme Court, to which Trump recently nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch, to render a final verdict. (It should be added that each appointee will be faced with the possibility of ruling against the financial interests of the infamously vindictive man to whom they owe their position.)

Appointing labor-unfriendly officials and justices might fairly be said to be in keeping with Trump’s long history of questionable labor practices, but this does not mean that the conflict-of-interest question will dissipate. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to determine how much his pro-business stances are dictated by a sincere belief in their efficacy rather than an understanding that he himself has benefited from them in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future. As such, Trump’s motivations will continue to occupy an ethical and legal gray area until he eliminates the overlap between his roles as a businessman and as president.

Those Expansion Plans

Of the measures that President Donald Trump and his lawyer Sheri Dillon laid out at his January 11 press conference to address conflicts of interest, only two actually ameliorate any of the concerns critics have raised: the cancellation of all of the Trump Organization’s pending deals and the promise not to pursue expansion in other countries (although developments since the announcement suggest that those pledges leave plenty of wiggle room). Conveniently left out of the plan, however, is any prohibition on expanding holdings within the United States—which is apparently something that Trump Hotels plans on doing while Trump is in office.

On January 25, Bloomberg reported that Eric Danziger, the CEO of Trump Hotels, said after a panel discussion in Los Angeles that the company is considering tripling the number of Trump-branded properties within the U.S. According to Danziger, “There are 26 major metropolitan areas in the U.S., and we’re in five. I don’t see any reason that we couldn’t be in all of them eventually.” Danziger listed Dallas, Seattle, Denver, and San Francisco as among the cities where the Trump Organization is looking to build in the near future.

As the Trump Organization’s holdings expand, so too does the potential that business considerations will have undue effects on the president’s behavior in office, or at least appear to. Each location presents another opportunity for businesspeople or foreign dignitaries to choose to stay in a hotel in an attempt to burnish Trump’s opinion of them, their company, and/or their country. Each location increases the number of municipal governments with whom Trump will be interacting both as president and as the owner of a real-estate empire.

Trump Hotels’ expansion plans could put not only Trump but also the cities where new properties may be built in a difficult situation. San Francisco, for example, is currently experiencing a housing crisis, one possible solution to which would be to increase the pace of new home-construction projects, some of which could be funded by federal grants. On the one hand, it is almost certain that the residents of San Francisco, a city that voted against the president by roughly a 9-to-1 margin in November, would strenuously object to a new Trump-branded property in the city. But there is also an incentive for the city government to work with the Trump Organization in finding a suitable expansion plan. With plenty of evidence to suggest that collaborating with Trump’s businesses could influence the president, there’s added pressure for city officials to pursue a potentially costly project residents may otherwise not want in hopes of reaping the benefits down the road. Meanwhile, the officials in charge of doling out federal largesse such as housing grants may similarly feel pressure based on the knowledge that Trump’s feelings toward particular cities may change based on how receptive the locale was of his business’s expansion plans.

Finally, the Trump Organization’s announcement that it would be pursuing expansion further attests to just how little the president’s plan to mitigate his conflicts of interest actually accomplishes its goal. For the Trump Organization to not just expand but do so on such a large scale violates the professed spirit of the measures laid out on January 11 and defies any argument that the company will cease to act in a way that jeopardizes the president’s ability to do his job.

That Hotel in Vancouver

Less than a week into his administration, President Trump has a new property opening for business: the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Vancouver. According to The Washington Post, construction on the hotel finished shortly before Trump assumed office, with the building’s finishing touch—the president’s name spelled out in giant letters—revealed on January 19 (the day before the inauguration), and the first guests and permanent residents checking in on January 25.

As with many buildings bearing the president’s name, the new hotel in Vancouver is a licensing deal, with the Trump Organization leasing its branding to a third party—in this case, a real-estate company called the Holborn Group, which operates several luxury hotels throughout Canada. The Holborn Group is run by Joo Kim Tiah, the eldest son of one of the wealthiest families in Malaysia; several members of Tiah’s family are expected to fly in from Kuala Lumpur to attend the opening with the president’s two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.

The building is yet another manifestation of the running problem posed by Trump’s extensive foreign real-estate holdings. Unless the president actually rids himself of his financial stake in his company, every Trump property influences his incentives when it comes to making policy, foreign or domestic: Should he act in the manner that best serves the country, or the one that will protect his profits? Every building provides the opportunity for third parties to curry favor with the infamously capricious president: If he knows that he has taken money from somebody, be it a company, a private individual, or agents of a foreign government, that knowledge, and the goodwill it creates, is likely to color Trump’s decision-making. Moreover, every businessperson who has a licensing deal with Trump now has leverage: If Tiah, or any of the other businesspeople around the world with a Trump-branded property, disagrees with a decision the president makes, he can threaten to pull out of the partnership and jeopardize some of Trump’s cash-flow in an attempt to change his mind.

Hardly a day had passed between the new hotel in Vancouver opening for business and the first report of an organization choosing to host an event at the site, possibly for political reasons. On January 26, The Washington Post reported that The American Chamber of Commerce in Canada, a business organization affiliated with the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had scrapped longstanding plans to hold a meeting about trade relations at the home of a diplomatic official and would instead be booking space in the new Trump Hotel for the equivalent of roughly $1,900—a relatively small sum, to be sure, but even small sums have been shown to substantially influence decision making. The change initially prompted at least one planned speaker, the University of British Columbia professor Matilde Bombardini, to back out of the event; however, according to the Vancouver Sun, she has since changed her mind after being told that the change of location was due to a leak at the previous site.

As with so many of the instances chronicled here, the venue change demonstrates how Trump’s conflicts of interest often operate in shades of grey. If the Chamber of Commerce did make its decision solely based on logistics, booking a spot in a Trump-branded building still makes possible the appearance of paying for play. In a marked departure from the Chamber’s copacetic relationship with the Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, the aggressively free-market, pro-trade group clashed with the president on multiple occasions during the 2016 campaign over Trump’s protectionist trade policies, but has already made public overtures since the election to reconcile with the president. If it did, in fact, choose to move the event even in part because of the giant name on the new location’s facade, the decision represents another chapter in the ongoing saga of the business community’s desire to both please and sway a president whose ideology is not that of a typical Republican. Additionally, though nearly all of Trump’s rhetoric about NAFTA centers on Mexico, Canada actually trades more with the U.S. than not just Mexico but any other country in the world. As such, there is plenty incentive for the Canadian branch of the American Chamber of Commerce to do whatever it can to reach out to Trump.

That Reality-Television Show

Though President Donald Trump has been a well-known figure in American public life for decades, perhaps the single biggest contributor to his stardom has been NBC’s The Apprentice. Trump himself is no longer the star of the show—former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken over as host in 2017—but the president remains an executive producer on the series for at least the coming year, including receiving a low five-figure salary for the position, according to Variety. Shortly after the news of that income broke, Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to Trump, clarified that he would be taking on his producing duties in his spare time, comparing the situation to previous presidents playing golf or pursuing other leisure activities.

Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyers under Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, pointed out on NPR’s Fresh Air that Trump’s ongoing involvement with The Apprentice presents yet another conflict of interest. According to AdWeek, 11 companies, including the television-shopping network QVC and Carnival Company (which operates the eponymous cruise line), are providing on-air sponsorships for the newest season of The Apprentice; a twelfth, the Japanese motorcycle company Kawasaki, withdrew from a previously reported deal after customers threatened a boycott because of its sponsorship of the show. All of these companies—plus the numerous companies that run ads during the show’s commercial breaks—are effectively putting money into the pockets of the president, not to mention supporting one of his products.

Trump apparently believes himself immune to such conflicts of interest, both in terms of legal impunity and his ability to ignore them, despite a good deal of research indicating that even minuscule financial incentives (minuscule for a billionaire, that is) can be enough to significantly influence behavior. Additionally, there is little doubt that Trump cares deeply about the ongoing success of The Apprentice: The weekend after the new Schwarzenegger-led season debuted, the then president-elect took to Twitter to voice his thoughts on the new season’s ratings. So when one of the companies that sponsors the show interacts with the executive branch—as when Carnival reached a $40 million settlement with the U.S. government over pollution in the Atlantic Ocean, for example, or when QVC settled a $7.5 million suit regarding deceptive advertising in 2009—the question will necessarily arise how their contributions to Trump’s pocketbook and beloved TV show will affect the outcome.

Even if Trump were able to fully blind himself to the conflicts described above, the president’s role would remain a problem because it provides an unprecedented bargaining chip for both the companies currently sponsoring in the show and those that could seek to use it to attempt to manipulate the president. Consider, for a moment, the potential negotiations between one of Trump’s sponsors and a government agency that finds it in violation of federal regulations. That company, though, has a trump card the likes of which has never been seen in American politics: Should it become apparent that the case is going awry, they can threaten to pull their support of the president’s television show. The move would inevitably make waves on cable news of the kind that Trump has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be susceptible to. Any decision, whether in favor of the company or against it, immediately loses credibility: If the company is found guilty, the decision is easily framed as retaliatory, a vindictive manifestation of the president’s ego and narcissism; if the company is let off the hook, it will appear that the company has manipulated his venality for its own gain. A formerly uninvolved company facing federal investigation could essentially pull the same gambit in reverse: By publicly committing to sponsor The Apprentice, a company could create a situation in which any decision appears to reflect not the facts of the case but the sticky situation created by its involvement with the show. In this sense, then, Trump’s decision to stay on as executive producer, and the conflicts of interest the position creates, jeopardizes not only the president’s ability to
carry out his job but also the fundamental legitimacy of the rule of law for any company that currently is or in the future may become involved with the show.

Additionally, the president’s continued involvement with the show creates a strange and tricky situation for NBC. Trump’s reputation is inextricably intertwined with that of the show, meaning that NBC will to some extent be caught between promoting Trump as a successful businessman and doing its journalistic work. The network will likely also be advertising The Apprentice during its other programs, not only through commercials but also possibly in-studio promotions on other shows, creating conflicting incentives for NBC journalists who will be trying simultaneously to talk about the Trump administration fairly while their own network markets one of his products.

That Pipeline

The Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, was the subject of continual controversy during the presidential campaign, drawing months of protests because of the perceived environmental impact it would create by crossing the Missouri River in close proximity to a Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Shortly before the election, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would be halting progress on the pipeline for further environmental review and to study potential routes that might avoid crossing both the river and Native American territory. On January 24, however, only four days after President Trump took office, he decided to move forward with both DAPL and the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration likewise blocked because of environmental and tribal-sovereignty concerns; the Army Corps of Engineers finalized the easement on the project on February 7. Trump has been vocally supportive of the pipelines for months, claiming that they would create new jobs in construction and the oil industry.

Trump’s FEC filings, which remain the only public record of his finances, suggest that he may have had an additional incentive to greenlight the projects: According to financial-disclosure forms he filed in June 2015 and May 2016, Trump has owned stock in Energy Transfer Partners, the company seeking to build DAPL. The stock was worth between $500,001 and $1,000,000 in 2015 and between $15,001 and $50,000 in 2016.

The president and one of his spokesmen, Jason Miller, have both stated, without offering evidence, that Trump’s stock-related conflicts of interest have been resolved. According to Trump and Miller, the president sold off his stocks in June of last year specifically to head off concerns that they may influence his decision-making in office. However, they have offered no meaningful evidence to back up their claims—evidence which, in this case, would likely be fairly easy to provide. They could, for example, offer more details on when exactly the stocks were sold beyond simply “back in June,” or explain why they did not mention the sale until December, just after the election, if the intention was to proactively address conflict-of-interest questions.

Given Trump’s penchant for dissembling about his personal finances and the lack of evidence that he has sold off his stocks, Trump’s decision to push ahead on DAPL and Keystone XL simply underscores the need for him to take larger, and more public, steps to distance himself from his financial interests. Moving forward with the pipelines is not the first instance of Trump making a significant decision that benefits a company whose stock is listed in his financial disclosures. For example, when Trump announced his intention to intervene at the factory of the air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Star noted that Trump’s filings list stock in Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies.

Those HUD Grants

As has been noted on several previous occasions, one of the overarching questions about America’s first businessman presidency is just how President Trump’s vast empire will interact with federal agencies that answer to him. One of these potentially sticky situations became something of a flashpoint at the hearing for Dr. Ben Carson, Trump’s appointee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed Carson over the fact that, as the head of the department, he would be in charge of numerous programs that the president could manipulate to profit his real estate empire, asking Carson, “Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar that you give out will financially benefit the president-elect or his family?” Though Carson did not respond to the question with regard to Trump specifically, he responded that he “will absolutely not play favorites for anyone” or act with an “intention to do anything to benefit any American, particularly.” (Warren went on to expound on how Trump’s lack of financial transparency makes it borderline impossible to know if a policy will benefit him.)

Warrens’s line of questioning was not entirely hypothetical: Trump does, in fact, own properties the maintenance of which falls under HUD’s purview. Thanks to an inheritance from his father, the president holds an ownership stake in—and has made millions from—Starrett City, a 153-acre, 5,881-unit low-income housing development in Brooklyn. The development, according to ABC News, receives substantial federal funding via HUD’s many programs designed to support low-income renters and homeowners. Trump could easily press for policies that would increase his profits from Starrett, most notably allowing for the sale of the complex, an action HUD blocked in 2007—and, potentially, to other properties from which he may profit in ways that, without more complete financial information, the American public may not even know.

The potential for a profitable relationship with HUD underscores a central problem with Trump’s refusal to fully divest from his holdings before entering office. It’s not just high-ranking officials who will possess the ability to act in a manner that benefits the president’s pocketbook—it’s ordinary civil servants as well. Shortly before his inauguration, The Washington Post noted several additional ways employees in Trump’s executive branch could do so: Trademark disputes, for instance, will be adjudicated by judges appointed by his Commerce secretary, while the EPA could roll back environmental regulations that reduce profits at his golf courses.

Meanwhile, lower-level officials tasked with the day-to-day work of regulating Trump’s properties are likely to face pressure as well—if not explicit from superiors, then from the implicit, inescapable knowledge that enforcement decisions will impact the president personally. Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, for instance, are in charge of on-the-spot, random inspections of aircraft, including Trump’s, and at one point during the campaign grounded one of his planes after its registration expired; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversees construction sites, and has fined the Trump Organization on multiple occasions for workplace-safety violations. Only 10 years ago, politically motivated firings within the Justice Department became one of the many enduring scandals of George W. Bush’s administration; with so many executive-branch employees interacting with the president’s properties in so many different ways, some will inevitably face difficult decisions between proper enforcement at his expense or looking the other way to stay in the boss’s good graces.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/08/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/