Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

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

That Other Billionaire New York Real-Estate Developer

President Trump’s promise to erect a big, beautiful wall between himself and his business lasted slightly more than 48 hours.

Almost exactly two days after the January 11 press conference at which Trump announced plans purported to disentangle himself from his namesake business, the Huffington Post reported that the president had scheduled a meeting with Steven Roth. Roth, a fellow New York-based billionaire real-estate developer, is in charge of Vornado Realty Trust, an investment firm that co-owns two of Trump’s most valuable properties, one in Manhattan and one in San Francisco, and served as an economic adviser during the campaign. What Trump and Roth discussed at their meeting remains unknown, nor is it clear when exactly the meeting was scheduled. Regardless, that the meeting came directly on the heels of the press conference at which Trump and his lawyer laid out a plan supposedly meant to resolve conflicts of interest, throws the reality of the problems that come from having a businessman as president—and one who seems completely uninterested in taking steps that would actually distance him from his business—into sharp relief.

Shortly thereafter, The Wall Street Journal reported that Roth may soon become involved with the Trump administration beyond just his pre-existing friendship and partnership with the president. Trump, it seems, will soon be naming Roth and Richard LeFrak, yet another New York-based billionaire real-estate developer, to oversee a council of 15 to 20 builders and engineers who will be carrying out the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure proposal, a situation which itself provides ripe opportunities for the pair to direct federal dollars toward projects from which they will financially benefit. This news comes on top of a December report in The Washington Post that Roth’s firm had put in a bid to rebuild the FBI’s headquarters, a deal that could be worth as much as $2 billion. In other words, Trump, mere days after promising to remove himself from his businesses, is instead ushering a longtime partner into his administration.

The move could also end up providing yet another avenue by which Trump could enrich himself in office and by which others could attempt to curry favor. Whether or not he intended to do so, the president’s decision to place Roth at the head of such a large pool of money sends a signal to other companies about the continued intermingling of his business and his presidency: that working with the Trump Organization can be a path to increased influence or even appointment. And though Trump claims that he will no longer be in involved in day-to-day operations, he will be actively profiting off from the company, meaning that he will be personally making money off of the attempts of others to gain influence over American public policy.

Those Indonesian Politicians

Despite President Trump’s assurance that he has stopped pursuing deals since the election, his namesake organization apparently moved forward with a pair of projects in Indonesia. According to The New York Times, the two properties that will bear the Trump name, one overlooking a Hindu temple in Bali and the other abutting a theme park in West Java, presented ethical problems even before the election.

To begin with, through his Indonesian partner on the projects, the billionaire media mogul Hary Tanoesoedibjo (known in Indonesia as Hary Tanoe), Trump has forged relationships with several top Indonesian politicians. One such leader is Setya Novanto, the speaker of the country’s House of Representatives who temporarily lost his post for trying to extort $4 billion from the American mining company Freeport-McMoRan (a company which counts Carl Icahn, who will be serving as a special adviser in Trump’s administration, among its largest shareholders, and which has been frequently criticized by labor advocates and environmentalists). Trump had lunch with Novanto and several other Indonesian politicians during the campaign in September 2015 to discuss the Trump Organization’s planned expansion into Indonesia. At a post-luncheon press conference, Trump pulled Novanto in front of the cameras, calling him “an amazing man” and “one of the most powerful men” and asserting, “we will do great things for the United States.” (It is unclear exactly whom Trump meant when he used the word “we.”) Trump then asked Novanto to confirm that “they like me in Indonesia,” which Novanto did.

Another of the politicians who attended the lunch with Trump is Fadli Zon, the vice chairman of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, whose district includes one of the cities in which one of the Trump-branded properties will be built. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Zon is associated with a political movement seeking to unseat and jail the current governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known by his nickname, Ahok, and has spoken at rallies against Ahok. The anti-Ahok movement is rooted partly in centuries of ethnic tension within the country: Ahok is both Christian, which has made him the target of attacks by hardline clerics claiming to represent Indonesia’s Muslim majority, and a member of the country’s historically oppressed Chinese minority, which was the target of a massacre in 1998. Aside from an interim governor appointed half a century ago, Ahok is the first governor of Jakarta to fall into either category, and is currently on trial for blasphemy for allegedly insulting the Koran, although Ahok’s supporters claim that it is Ahok’s accusers who are guilty of blasphemy for denigrating Ahok’s Christianity.

Both Trump’s question to Novanto and Zon’s presence at the meeting underscore another difficulty the president introduces into the United States’ relations with Indonesia. Indonesia is both the largest predominantly Muslim country in the world and the nation with the largest population of Muslims. Novanto received significant blowback for his statement that, yes, Indonesians do like Trump, because it turns out that, no, many Indonesians don’t like Trump, in large part because of his on-again, off-again proposal to ban Muslims from immigrating to the U.S.; in fact, faced with mounting criticism, Novanto’s party apologized not only for Novanto’s statement but also for his mere attendance at the luncheon. Since Trump’s victory, both Novanto and Zon have stood up for the president, arguing that Trump’s hardline stance toward Muslim immigration was merely campaign rhetoric and not actually reflective of the president’s own beliefs, something Novanto claimed Trump personally assured him was the case. Regardless, it is clear that the Trump Organization’s planned expansion into Indonesia—which, again, is the reason Trump met with Novanto and Zon in the first place—could introduce major complications into the relationship between the president and the political leaders of the world’s largest Muslim country, not to mention a significant trade partner and an important ally in the South China Sea region.

As if that weren’t enough, Tanoe himself has shown increasing interest in becoming involved in Indonesian politics. In 2014, Tanoe publicly supported the retired general Prabowo Subianto in the nation’s presidential election; Subianto lost to the country’s current leader, Joko Widodo. Then, in 2015, he helped found a new political party, the United Indonesia Party, or Partai Perindo, which intends to field candidates for national office in the near future, including Tanoe himself: Shortly after The New York Times reported on the project, Tanoe told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that, “If there is no one I can believe who can fix the problems of the country, I may try to run for president.”

If Tanoe does so, it will create the possibility that Trump will be dealing with a head of state with whom he has shared business interests, which, as the ethics lawyer Richard Painter told The New York Times, “makes it impossible to conduct diplomacy in an evenhanded manner”—especially considering that, after Trump’s election, stock in Tanoe’s company rose significantly. Moreover, Tanoe, like Ahok, is both Christian and ethnically Chinese, which some insiders consider an obstacle to his electoral chances, although Tanoe argues that it is not Ahok’s religion but his lack of firm leadership that has led to the large-scale protests against the governor. Nevertheless, if Tanoe does choose to run for office, it is difficult to see how his race, religion, and business partnership with a president many see as blatantly Islamophobic could do anything other than create further difficulties both within Indonesia and in the country’s relationship with the U.S..

Tanoe remains close to Trump. He attended the inauguration as a guest of the Trump Organization; he and his wife posted several photos commemorating the occasion on their Instagram accounts, including pictures with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump and a video taken out the window of a car driving along the inaugural parade route. Then, in a February 7 interview with the Indonesian news magazine Tempo, Tanoe bragged about his access to the president. In the interview, he claimed to have seen Trump as recently as January 4 in New York, though he demurred when asked what they discussed, saying, “It wouldn’t be ethical, especially now that he is the president.” Tanoe also confirmed that “nothing has changed” regarding the branding deals in Indonesia, which he says will be moving forward with Trump’s sons in charge, a statement that would seem to contradict Trump and his lawyer’s January 11 announcement that the company would be suspending unfinished development projects.

That Emirati Businessman

Though the biggest controversy over the New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, was apparently whether or not Joe Scarborough could accurately be described as having “partied” there, video footage taken by a guest and obtained by CNN the next day brought renewed scrutiny to President Trump’s own presence at the event. During a 10-minute speech given in front of the party’s 800-odd attendees, Trump praised his Emirati business partner Hussain Sajwani and Sajwani’s family, saying, “The most beautiful people from Dubai are here tonight, and they’re seeing it and they love it.” CNN identifies Sajwani as a “billionaire developer in Dubai” who has “paid Trump millions of dollars to license the Trump name for golf courses in Dubai.” Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, defended the remarks by clarifying that the president and Sajwani “had no formal meetings of professional discussions. Their interactions were social.”

Whether or not Hicks’s statement was true, Trump’s commendation of Sajwani is part of a pattern in which the president praises his business partners in ways that suggest he has little interest in extricating himself from his company’s interests. Previously, he has name-dropped business partners in Turkey and Argentina while on official calls with the countries’ leaders; he also met, and took photos, with associates from India shortly after the election. Moreover, as with several of the countries in which Trump-branded buildings are located, the United Arab Emirates has a questionable record on human rights; Human Rights Watch specifically states that the nation “uses its affluence to mask the government’s human-rights problems.”

By singling out Sajwani, Trump also runs headlong into accusations that he and his family are selling access to his administration through their organization and family foundations. According to Politico, tickets to celebrate with the president at Mar-a-Lago, went for upwards of $500; the stated attendance of at least 800 people means that the Trump Organization made at least $400,000 off of ticket sales for the event. (There is no indication that the party was a fundraiser for any outside organization, such as a charity or campaign fund, as is often the case when politicians attend such an event.) Whether or not the president sees it as such, the event offered attendees the opportunity to be in the same room as Trump and bend his ear for a price. This follows consternation regarding an auction for a face-to-face meeting with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and a charity event that offered a reception with the president and a hunting trip with his two sons, both of which have since been cancelled, as well as ongoing speculation that foreign entities will attempt to curry favor with Trump by booking rooms and events at his hotel in Washington, D.C. That Trump singled out Sajwani at the New Year’s Eve party lends credence to these concerns—it’s an instance of someone receiving the president’s attention simply by buying a ticket to one of his events.

Since footage of Trump’s shout-out emerged in early January, Sajwani has continued to feature in coverage of the president’s business entanglements. At the January press conference where Trump and his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, laid out the president’s plan to ostensibly avoid conflicts of interest, Trump said that after the election, Sajwani offered him a $2 billion deal, which Trump turned down. Rather than acknowledge that being offered billions of dollars from a foreign businessman constitutes a conflict of interest, Trump presented his decision not to accept as an example of his magnanimity, saying, “I didn’t have to turn it down, because as you know, I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president. It’s a nice thing to have, but I don’t want to take advantage of something.” Later, Sajwani attended Trump’s inauguration, although it’s unclear if he interacted with the president while there.

Then, on Tuesday, Sajwani posted a picture of himself eating with Donald Trump Jr. in Dubai on Instagram with a caption reading, “It was great having my dear friend and business partner Donald Trump Jr. over for lunch. Discussing new ideas and innovation always make [sic] our meetings even more interesting.”

Donald Jr.’s meeting with Sajwani prompts concerns about the president’s conflicts of interest, for two main reasons. First, the meeting offers a reminder of the insufficiency of the steps Trump has taken to distance himself from his businesses. Though Trump and Dillon claimed that their plan resolved questions about conflicts of interest, ethics experts disagree: Because Trump still knows what his assets are and the identities of those with whom he does business, they say, Trump still knows more than enough to favor his company. Moreover, in an actual blind trust, Trump would have turned his assets over to a trustee with whom he would have no contact. Instead, he turned it over to a long-time executive within the Trump Organization and his sons, who he has long counted as among his closest advisers and with whom he has remained in contact during his presidency so far. Donald Jr.’s meeting with Sajwani is a reminder of these inadequacies, especially because Sajwani posted the picture to Instagram, thus increasing the lunch’s visibility and, along with it, the likelihood that the president will know about the ongoing interactions between his company and Sajwani’s (that is, if Donald Jr. hasn’t already made his father aware of them).

Second, Sajwani’s caption further undermines one of the few parts of the arrangement that actually would have meaningfully reduced the president’s conflicts of interest. In January, Dillon said that the Trump Organization would be canceling all of its pending deals and would stop pursuing foreign deals during Trump’s presidency. Since then, numerous developments have called those intentions into question: Projects appear to be moving forward in both Scotland and the Dominican Republic, with the Trump Organization offering narrow, legalistic explanations as to why the progress didn’t violate the terms of the trust. Though a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization has said that Donald Jr. was not seeking new deals while in Dubai, the previous stories, coupled with Sajwani’s Instagram caption, undermine that account.

That Virginia Vineyard

Among the dozens of properties President Trump owns is Trump Vineyard Estates and Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, the source of his namesake wine. On December 23, the property requested temporary H-2A visas for six foreign workers, according to The Washington Post; on February 17, BuzzFeed reported an additional request that upped the total to 29. The visas, which are administered by the Citizenship and Immigration Services wing of the Department of Homeland Security, allow businesses to temporarily hire foreign, unskilled workers provided that the employer proves that there are not enough domestic candidates to fulfill a one-time or seasonal shortage and that the hiring will not depress wages for U.S.-born employees. Trump, of course, appointed the current Secretary of Homeland Security, which gives Trump authority over the very department responsible for deciding whether to grant the visas that the vineyard has requested. His choice for the position, the retired general John Kelly has a relatively scant track record when it comes to immigration, leaving open the question of how much influence Trump himself will have over the DHS’s policy on the matter.

On top of the fact that Trump will soon be able to influence the outcome of the request, that his organization has continued to request visas after his election underscores a tension in the president’s stance on immigration. From the moment that he announced that he would be running for president, Trump made antagonism toward immigration the central aspect of his campaign, arguing that both legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs that should be filled by native-born Americans and depressing wages for others. Though he did not specifically single out the H-2B visa, the president has on multiple occasions spoken critically about the H-1B program, which enables employers to temporarily hire foreign workers for skilled jobs like those in the tech industry.

But the Trump Organization has long been a beneficiary of immigrant labor. For example, according to a Reuters report from August 2015, nine companies of which Trump is the majority owner have requested at least 1,100 foreign visas since 2000. The majority of these requests were from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, which has requested at least 787 foreign visas since 2006, including 70 applications in 2015. (Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that, since 2010, only 17 of the nearly 300 domestic applicants for positions at the Mar-a-Lago have been hired.) The Trump Organization also famously may have benefited from illegal immigration: There is significant evidence that many of the Polish construction workers at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980 were in the country illegally. In other words, Trump’s track record includes not just taking advantage of the very visa process he claims to abhor but also actually subverting existing law for his own profit. Now, by applying for visas for his vineyard, Trump is signaling that he expects that his business will continue to be able to profit from one of the very immigration programs he continually denounces.

That Las Vegas Labor Dispute

On top of owning various properties and enterprises, Trump and his company employ roughly 34,000 people, according to an analysis by CNN. On December 21, several hundred of those workers resolved a labor dispute against the president—one in which, had it continued for even a few weeks more, Trump would have had the unprecedented power to make appointments to affect its outcome.

Here’s the situation: In October 2015, several hundred employees, primarily housekeeping staff, at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas voted to join the local branch of the Culinary Workers Union. Trump Ruffin Commercial LLC, which owns the hotel and is itself owned by Trump and the casino magnate Phil Ruffin, contested the vote, first by enlisting an anti-union consulting firm (for whose services it paid $500,000) and then by filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Shortly before the election, the NLRB not only rejected Trump and Ruffin’s complaints but also found that, because the pair had refused to negotiate with the nascent union, they had violated federal law and their hotel was operating illegally. Trump and Ruffin have since appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

On December 21, more than a year after the hotel’s workers first voted to join the union, the workers announced that they arrived at their first collectively-bargained contract, achieved, according to an employee quoted in ThinkProgress, despite significant pressure from ownership that attempting to unionize would cost workers their jobs. According to the union, the new agreement “will provide the employees with annual wage increases, a pension, family health care, and job security” comparable to that of other Las Vegas hotels. Moreover, the Culinary Workers Union’s parent organization, UNITE HERE, has reached an agreement to represent workers at Trump’s recently-opened hotel in Washington, D.C..

Although this dispute has been resolved, it is included here because it exemplifies the type of situation in which Trump’s business interests are likely to overlap with his duties as president. Trump will be tasked with appointing members to fill current openings on the NLRB, the very body that ruled against him shortly before the election and will be tasked with resolving any future disputes between the hotel’s owners and its employees. Moreover, as Slate noted, the chief justice of the D.C. Court of Appeals is none other than Merrick Garland, whose nomination to the Supreme Court has spent months languishing in the Republican-controlled Congress and was withdrawn once Trump became president. Finally, if disputes of this nature go beyond the Court of Appeals, the case would go to the Supreme Court, to which Trump will be appointing a justice, which is expected to tip the balance decisively in a more conservative (and likely anti-union) direction. In other words, no matter how far up the chain future disputes of this nature go, Trump’s presidency will give him new power to influence the results.

That Kuwaiti Event

According to an anonymous source and documents obtained by ThinkProgress, representatives from the Trump Organization pressured the ambassador of Kuwait to hold its embassy’s annual celebration of the country’s independence at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event, held annually on February 25, was originally scheduled to take place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown; the location was allegedly changed after members of the Trump Organization contacted the country’s ambassador. ThinkProgress’s source “described the decision as political,” suggesting that the embassy chose to relocate the event in an effort to curry favor with the president. The Kuwaiti ambassador has since disputed the report, telling The Washington Post that he had not been contacted by the Trump Organization and that the move “was solely done with the intention of providing our guests with a new venue.”

If ThinkProgress’s account is correct, Kuwait’s decision represents an escalation of a situation that has been developing since Trump’s election. The Trump International Hotel has been the subject of continual scrutiny for the conflict of interest it poses, in part because its lease explicitly bars elected officials from holding it, but mainly because Trump’s ownership of the hotel will almost definitely result in a violation of the emoluments clause, which prohibits the president from receiving payments from foreign powers—something that will arguably be happening any time a foreign government books a room at the hotel. Already, the hotel has begun advertising itself as a destination for diplomats and dignitaries, and the embassies of Azerbaijan and Bahrain have both scheduled events in the building. However, before the ThinkProgress report, there was no evidence that the Trump Organization had individually reached out to a foreign government in hopes of getting it to relocate an event to the hotel.

Those Certificates of Divestiture

In addition to the many possibilities for President Trump to pursue his financial interests in office, the unique makeup of his cabinet also creates a new set of financial motivations. While Trump’s own fortune automatically makes his administration the wealthiest in history, he has also surrounded himself with an unprecedented collection of billionaires and multi-millionaires whose investments are likely to also come under scrutiny.

Unlike the president himself, those who are up for Trump’s cabinet, such as his proposed Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will be legally obligated to divest from any holdings which may pose a conflict of interest. However, as The Washington Post noted, even selling off their holdings offers an opportunity for Trump’s cabinet members to enhance their fortunes. A federal program known as a “certificate of divestiture” allows executive-branch appointees and employees to avoid capital-gains taxes when selling their assets. The program has existed since 1989, and most recently received attention when President George W. Bush appointed Hank Paulson, then the chief executive of Goldman Sachs as his Treasury Secretary in 2006. Paulson was forced to sell off $700 million in shares of the bank; the certificate of divestiture enabled him to avoid a potential $200 million in capital-gains tax liability. According to The Washington Post, the Office of Government Ethics is currently researching whether the president himself would qualify for the tax break; even if he doesn’t, the unprecedented wealth of Trump’s cabinet promises to push this provision, and the financial incentives it creates, to the limit.

That Carrier Deal

One of President Trump’s first major economic moves as president was the deal that he and Vice President Mike Pence struck with the air-conditioner manufacturer Carrier, which had planned to move 2,100 jobs from its Indiana plant to Mexico. Finalized on November 29, the compromise kept 730 of the plant’s jobs in Indiana in exchange for $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years. The deal immediately attracted praise and criticism on both sides of the aisle, with much of the scrutiny going toward the tradeoff between jobs and tax breaks and Trump’s idiosyncratic, ad-hoc negotiation techniques.

An additional detail soon emerged regarding the deal: According to his FEC filings (which, despite Trump and his spokesman Jason Miller’s unverified statements that the president sold off his stock in June, remain the most recent public record of the president’s finances), Trump holds stock in Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies. In 2014, his investment in the company was between $100,001 and $250,000, while in 2015, the stock is listed as worth less than $1,001, which could indicate that he sold some or most of the stock; each year, his holdings earned him between $2,500 and $5,000.

The paucity of information in the FEC filings makes it difficult to ascertain why his holdings appear to have decreased; regardless, the investment is not only one of several hundred but also a relatively minor one among Trump’s many holdings, some of which are worth over $5,000,000. As a result, it’s difficult to know how much, if at all, Trump may have considered the stock, particularly considering that he didn’t appear to remember his initial promise to save the Carrier plant. Additionally, Trump does not have stock in the next company he called out on Twitter, Rexnord Corporation (which is also based in Indiana), or its parent company, The Carlyle Group. Still, Trump’s deal with Carrier demonstrates the unprecedented challenge the president’s conflicts of interest create: Unless he either puts his holdings in a truly blind trust or divests completely, a significant number of the decisions he makes will involve some level of financial incentive for himself as well as for the country.

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

[Rick Plant]

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

That Blind Trust Issue

Almost as soon as Donald Trump and a lawyer from the Trump Organization unveiled their plans to distance the president from his businesses on January 11, many ethics experts argued that the proposal didn’t do nearly enough to ward off concerns that Trump’s business involvements would produce conflicts of interest during his presidency.

Under that plan, Trump resigned from the positions he held at the many companies that make up his real-estate empire, ceding control to his two adult sons and a longtime business associate, with his assets placed in a trust run by his two adult sons and Allen Weisselberg, a longtime Trump Organization executive, for the duration of his presidency. In unveiling the plan, the president vowed to refrain from talking about his financial interests with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump and said that all future business decisions would be reviewed by a newly appointed compliance officer to prevent even accidental impropriety. However, critics said, as long as Trump still profits from his businesses, these measures do almost nothing to mitigate worries about conflicts of interest. Besides, with so much of his fortune derived from highly visible real-estate and branding deals, some lawyers note that no trust would fully blind him from knowing where his financial interests lie; they say the only way to fully protect against conflicts of interest would have been for him to have sold off his businesses before taking office.

Events since the election demonstrate that these experts’ doubts are well-founded. Trump and his sons have shown little interest in maintaining the appearance of separation, with Eric and Donald Jr. showing up at numerous political events for their father. Roughly two weeks before the election, Donald Jr. met with a pro-Russian group in Paris to discuss his father’s policy toward Syria and, according to Politico, was involved in his father’s search for a Secretary of the Interior; he was also spotted hunting in Turkey shortly after his father’s phone call with Turkish President Recep Erdogan in which the president praised a Turkish business partner. Eric, meanwhile, appeared in photos with his father and a group of Indian businessmen mere days after the election.  And both were present for the president’s announcement of his nominee for the Supreme Court.

Then, when asked about the blind trust in a March 24 interview with Forbes Eric gave answers that seemed to contradict not only the arrangement to which he supposedly agreed but also his own statements on the topic. “I do not talk about the government with him, and he does not talk about the business with us. That’s kind of a steadfast pact we made, and it’s something that we honor,” he said, before telling the interviewer that he will be providing updates to his father “on the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that” on a quarterly basis. “My father and I are very close. I talk to him a lot. We’re pretty inseparable,” he concluded. If Trump is in constant contact with Eric and receiving updates on his businesses from his sons, it renders the trust they created effectively meaningless—and validates the concerns watchdog groups raised when Trump first unveiled his plan in January.

After Eric Trump made those comments to Forbes, other holes in Trump’s plan have come to light. On April 3, ProPublica discovered a previously unreported change to the trust arrangement that effectively allows the president to personally withdraw money from his businesses at virtually any time he chooses. On February 10, a clause was apparently added to a letter outlining the details of the trust stating that “the Trustees shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his request, as the Trustees deem necessary for his maintenance, support or uninsured medical expenses, or as the Trustees otherwise deem appropriate.” In other words, Trump will be able to draw profits from his businesses at any time during his presidency as long as he and the trustees—again, his two sons and his long-time business partner—agree that it is “appropriate,” and will not have to disclose when he does so. This goes directly against the purpose of a blind trust, which in this case would be to distance Trump from his sources of income in an attempt to get rid of his incentive—or even ability—to consciously act in his own financial interest. So far, the plan unveiled in January appears to be as inadequate as many ethics experts had feared.

Finally, removing himself from day-to-day operations will do little to change the fact that Trump will retain substantive knowledge of the illiquid assets involved in his business, such as the numerous buildings and other products that bear his name, especially if he remains in frequent contact with his children. Even assuming that Trump does separate himself from any consideration of his holdings, his children will still likely be major players in the family’s organization, which will still bear at least the Trump name—arguably one of their most valuable properties, as much of the family’s wealth derives from licensing the name to third-party companies. Given the family’s oft-touted brand-consciousness (Ivanka, for example, briefly appeared to be distancing herself from the campaign, and several properties considered rebranding under the name “Scion” when it appeared Trump would lose), the situation epitomizes the way Trump’s, and his family’s, business interests may very well prove inextricable from his actions as president.

Those Fannie and Freddie Investments

After railing against elites during the campaign, Trump has so far stocked his prospective cabinet with an array of billionaires whose policy positions seem likely to significantly benefit those who are also doing very well. Trump’s putative treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, is no exception: His resume includes stints as a banker at Goldman Sachs, a Hollywood producer, and the operator of a bank that has been described as a “foreclosure machine” and once foreclosed on a homeowner over a 27-cent discrepancy.

One of Mnuchin’s apparent beliefs is that the government should cede control of the mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the government acquired during the 2008 financial crisis. The two financial institutions’ stocks rose by more than 40 percent after Mnuchin stated that he believes the Trump administration “will get it done reasonably fast.”

Doing so would be broadly compatible with Trump’s general antipathy toward regulation of the banking industry. However, The Wall Street Journal identified an additional wrinkle to the story: When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s stocks rose, one major beneficiary was John Paulson, an adviser to the Trump campaign and a business partner of Mnuchin’s. Paulson’s hedge funds include significant investments in both Fannie and Freddie. Trump himself has invested between $3 million and $5 million across three of Paulson’s funds, according to his filings with the Federal Election Commission (which remain the only available window into the president’s financial holdings). In other words, as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s stock prices increase—and they have so far more than doubled since the election on the expectation that the incoming Trump administration will be more lenient toward the financial sector than Obama—Trump’s portfolio benefits.

That Phone Call With Taiwan

When news first emerged that the president spoke on the phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on December 2, the immediate reaction was uproar over his apparently impetuous breach of decades of U.S. protocol toward China and Taiwan. As my colleague David Graham explained, since 1979, the United States has participated in the “artful diplomatic fiction” of officially recognizing the mainland People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate Chinese government while maintaining loose, unofficial recognition of—and significant economic and military ties to—Taiwan. That Trump would speak to the president of Taiwan, especially before doing the same with Xi Jinping, the president of the PRC, flies in the face of a diplomatic tradition that has undergirded almost 40 years of U.S.-China relations.

Amid the days of dissembling that followed the phone call, an additional worrisome detail came out: At the time, the Trump Organization was apparently exploring expansion into Taiwan. Soon afterwards, the Trump Organization denied that it planned to do so; however, even before the controversy arose, the mayor of Taoyuan, Taiwan, the municipality in which the Trump Organization allegedly wants to build, described in a televised interview a meeting with a representative of the Trump Organization in September to discuss prospective real-estate projects, and at least one Trump employee was found to have posted on Facebook that she was in Taiwan at the time on a business trip. Based on the January 11 announcement that the Trump Organization will be suspending its development plans and will not pursue foreign deals in office, it would appear that any movement on development in Taiwan is no longer on the table.

The phone call, and the many statements that have followed, are of particular interest because of the extent to which they dovetail with some of the biggest concerns about Trump’s approach toward governance. In the ensuing 48 hours, Republican officials offered several, sometimes entirely contradictory, explanations of what initially appeared to be an impulsive move by Trump; depending on who was speaking, the phone call was actually initiated by Ing-wen (which, if technically true, ignores that it was Trump’s staff who arranged the conversation), was just “a courtesy,” or manifested a policy shift weeks in the making—although, regardless, it was made without first consulting the White House or State Department. The defense of the move, and the questions it creates regarding conflicts of interest, have largely hinged on the belief that, since voters apparently don’t mind, the reaction was overblown.

On this issue, though, whether or not voters care is immaterial to the central question. The president of the United States breached decades of international protocol created to preserve a precarious balance of power. That decision raised not only the possibility that Trump was blundering into a potential international incident but also that he may have done so in part out of consideration for his business prospects.

That Deutsche Bank Debt

Though he often brags about leveraging corporate-finance law to become “The King of Debt,” Trump’s numerous bankruptcy filings have left most large Wall Street banks reticent to lend to him, according to The Wall Street Journal. Among the few exceptions is Deutsche Bank, which “has led or participated in loans of at least $2.5 billion” to the president since 1996, with at least another $1 billion in loan commitments to Trump-affiliated companies; more than $300 million of those loans have come since 2012.

The president’s indebtedness does not itself pose a conflict of interest, but Deutsche Bank’s ongoing legal troubles very well might. The Justice Department is currently negotiating with Deutsche Bank regarding a preliminary settlement of $14 billion to resolve probes into allegedly misleading predatory lending practices in the leadup to the 2008 financial crisis; while it is believed that Deutsche Bank will push back against the sum, there has been no public news regarding negotiations since the initial figure was reported in September. Trump will soon be naming many of the officials with jurisdiction over this and other deals, prompting several House Democrats to send a letter to federal financial agencies calling for close scrutiny of how Trump may seek to influence the settlement through his appointments—although doing so would be just as in keeping with his general stance toward financial regulation as with active protection of his pocketbook. Other Democrats have called for the proactive appointment of independent prosecutors to avoid any appearance of conflict if the case is not resolved before Trump takes office.

Fears that Trump may unduly consider his indebtedness to Deutsche Bank in deciding his administration’s policy toward the financial sector go beyond general anxiety about deregulation. Deutsche Bank is undergoing a period of struggle that may have it on the verge of failure already. Its stock valuation has dropped by more than half since July 2015; in January, it posted its first full-year loss since 2008; and one of its many tranches of bonds—one specifically designed to be a high-risk, high-reward safety valve in times of trouble—has recently begun to crash. In June, the International Monetary Fund called Deutsche Bank “the most important net contributor to systemic risks” among globally important financial institutions. If the bank were to fail, it could have major consequences for not only Trump’s businesses, which would lose their sole remaining lender, but for the global economy as well.

Arguably, the $14 billion fine the Justice Department is seeking to impose has exacerbated rather than alleviated these struggles. Based the company’s market capitalization—the number of shares multiplied by their price— of roughly $16 billion, the sum would leave Deutsche Bank critically low in liquid assets with which to absorb future troubles, although the institution’s own self-valuation of $68 billion argues otherwise. But given the complexity and potential volatility of the situation, it is important for any decision to be free from outside influence, something Trump’s outstanding debt threatens to jeopardize.

That Property in Georgia (the Country)

Trump’s election has had the effect of speeding up development on a number of his branded properties, even when the president appears not to be pulling any strings himself. As occurred with Trump Tower Buenos Aires, the completion of an embattled Trump-branded building in the former Soviet republic of Georgia is no longer on hold now that Trump has won. The project, which has been in the works in the seaside resort city of Batumi since 2010, was initially scheduled to break ground in 2013, but has been in stasis for several reasons, possibly including the 2013 electoral defeat of President Mikheil Saakashvili, a friend of Trump’s and a supporter of the deal.

According to a report in The Washington Post, the green-lighting of the Trump property in Batumi has not been linked to a specific conversation with Georgian leaders, and a U.S.-based partner on the project has suggested that it has moved forward without any nudging from the government. However, numerous public statements in the days since suggest that Trump’s election was a major factor, including an interview with a real-estate entrepreneur who said, “Cutting the ribbon on a new Trump Tower in Georgia will be a symbol of victory for all of the free world.”

That the property seems to be moving forward solely because Trump was elected suggests his various business interests around the world may play a role not only in his foreign policy but in how other countries seek to deal with the U.S. as well. America’s relationship with Georgia is largely shaped by concerns about Russian influence and potential aggression in the region, most recently manifested in Russia’s 2008 seizure of two regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. With controversy already swirling over Trump’s admiration for Putin and Russia’s alleged role in the U.S. election, some in the foreign-policy community have expressed trepidation that Trump’s potential deferential attitude toward Russia would prove deleterious for the continued independence of former satellite nations like Georgia. So, if Georgia has an ulterior motive behind the approval of Trump’s property in Batumi, it would be to keep Russia at bay and maintain the status quo in the region.

According to Trump and his lawyer, as of January 11, the Trump Organization has suspended ongoing development projects and will no longer pursue deals in foreign countries. As the project in Batumi falls under both categories, the statement suggests that progress on the president’s property in the city is no longer moving forward. Still, it’s alarming that a country like Georgia may be giving Trump’s businesses favorable treatment (whether he asked for it or not) in an attempt to influence his foreign policy.

That Phone Call With Erdogan

One of the worries regarding Trump’s many conflicts of interest is that they may influence policy towards countries whose relationships with the U.S. are currently strained. Such is the case with Turkey, whose president, Recep Erdogan, has been cracking down significantly on civil liberties and democratic institutions within the country after a failed coup last summer. Though Turkey has in the past been a vital U.S. ally as a bulwark against Islamic terror, Erdogan’s authoritarian turn and combative stance toward Europe have led to some reevaluation of that relationship.

Thus, it was troubling news that when Erdogan phoned Trump shortly after the election—it was one of the first calls Trump received after his victory—Trump used the opportunity to plug his business partners in Istanbul. According to the Huffington Post, while on the line with Erdogan, Trump relayed praise for the leader from Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, whose father-in-law, Aydin Dogan, owns the holding company that operates the Trump Towers in Istanbul. Dogan has previously drawn Erdogan’s ire by criticizing the leader; in recent years, however, Dogan’s companies, most notably CNN Turk, have shown support for Erdogan’s regime, including broadcasting his first message after the uprising in July.

Trump’s conversation with Erdogan is also worth noting because of a number of Trump’s previous statements regarding the Turkish president. Though Erdogan briefly called for Trump’s name to be removed from the Istanbul property due to his proposed ban on Muslim immigration, Erdogan dropped the demand when, after the overthrow attempt, Trump praised Erdogan for “turning it around” and essentially dismissed concerns over Erdogan’s crackdown on civil liberties by bringing up domestic problems. Michael Flynn, who was recently named Trump’s national security adviser, wrote an election-day op-ed in The Hill arguing against offering asylum to a Muslim cleric whom Erdogan has accused of orchestrating the uprising, which some have interpreted as a diplomatic overture. Erdogan has also bristled at post-election protests in the U.S. and the description of both himself and Trump as part of a “ring of autocrats.” That the two are now talking about interests further complicates Trump’s strangely effusive comments about Erdogan.

It’s worth noting that Trump himself considers his hotel in Istanbul a potential conflict of interest. In a December 2015 interview with Stephen Bannon, at the time the chairman of Breitbart News, Trump said as much, telling Bannon, “I have a little conflict of interest ‘cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul. It’s a tremendously successful job.” That he chose to discuss the towers with Erdogan, albeit obliquely, through his references to his business partners when he has already acknowledged the impropriety of doing so simply reinforces the perception that he may prove unable to separate his business from his official duties while in office. 

That Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The White House is not the only Trump property in Washington, D.C.; there’s also the Trump International Hotel, which opened last October and is located just a few blocks away in what was formerly known as the Old Post Office Pavilion. Previously, the hotel played a role in the presidential campaign as the site of the event at which Trump halfheartedly recanted his belief that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Now, the hotel is a symbol of how inextricable Trump’s presidential role is from his business interests.

Trump himself acknowledged that his presidency would likely increase traffic to his Washington property. Speaking to The New York Times shortly after the election, the then-president-elect noted that the property is “probably a more valuable asset than it was before” and that his brand is “hotter” since the election. The numbers certainly seem to bear that prediction out: After projecting that the hotel would lose $2.1 million in the first four months of 2017, the Trump Organization revealed in August that the property had instead made $1.9 million in profit. This beating of expectations reflects more than anything else the exorbitant prices the hotel is charging: Guests are on average paying more than $650 per night, an increase of more than $200 over the Trump Organization’s projections for what the market would bear—and $150 more than the average price for other similar luxury hotels in D.C.

The Trump International Hotel’s unexpected profits are also a worrisome indicator regarding the relationship between Trump’s businesses and his presidency, especially considering that, shortly after the election, the hotel hosted a promotional event aimed at enticing foreign diplomats to stay there while in town on official state business. Critics have argued that the hotel thus violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which makes it illegal for a federal official to “accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” lest the payment influence his or her decisions.

Direct influence would likely be difficult to prove: The establishment is, after all, a five-star hotel that would have been likely to attract clientele even if Trump had lost the election, a fact to which Trump and those who surround him may well point in their defense. Still, the hotel’s unanticipated popularity and several events held by both foreign governments and other interest groups reinforce the notion that Trump may be inappropriately commingling his financial interests with his duties as president.

A string of post-election events have kept the Trump International Hotel a focal point in discussions of his conflicts of interest, including among Democrats in the House. On November 29, 2016, Bahrain—a country whose donations to the Clinton Foundation Trump decried during the campaign—announced it would be celebrating at the hotel the anniversary of its king’s ascension to the throne. Other events announced not long after the election included a Hannukah celebration co-hosted by the Embassy of Azerbaijan and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and a reception for the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation featuring Vice President Mike Pence as its keynote speaker.

Nor did the string of bookings by international entities end after Trump’s inauguration: On February 9, Politico reported that a lobbying group with connections to the government of Saudi Arabia had booked a four-day stay at the hotel in Washington, D.C. And on March 13, The Daily Caller reported that the Turkish-American Business Council, whose chairman paid $530,000 to Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to lobby on behalf of the Turkish government, would be co-hosting its annual conference at the hotel after a seven-year run at the Ritz-Carlton.

Moreover, since the election, ethics groups and critics of the president have alleged that, since taking office, Trump has been in continual violation of the lease he holds on the Old Post Office, the government-owned building the Trump International Hotel inhabits. At issue is a clause in the lease stating that “no ... elected official of the Government of the United States shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.” As such, watchdog organizations such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have repeatedly appealed to the Government Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency that administers the lease, to terminate the agreement with the Trump Organization.

On March 23, however, the GSA released a letter finding that Trump “is in full compliance” with the lease. According to Kevin Terry, the contract officer who oversaw the initial negotiations between the government and Trump, the president’s plan to turn over his businesses to his two adult sons and the long-time Trump Organization executive Alen Garten is sufficient to meet the terms of the agreement, as Trump is no longer “an officer, director, manager, employee, or other official in any of the entities” involved in operating the hotel. The letter immediately drew outcry from ethics organizations like CREW, which called the ruling “a disappointment” that failed to address the underlying problems of Trump’s businesses, and the left-leaning advocacy group Public Citizen, which described it as “an affront to the rule of law” based on “tortured and wholly uncompelling analysis” that “would get a first-year law student kicked out of law school.”

The GSA’s decision may also prove a blow to the more general argument that Trump has not done enough to distance himself from his namesake organization. Critics have strenuously objected to the plan Trump and his lawyer Sheri Dillon laid out on January 11 to mitigate conflicts of interest, under which the president has stepped down from, but retains ownership of, his numerous business interests, and placed his assets in a trust to be administered by his adult sons and a longtime Trump Organization executive. Trump’s opponents maintain that, because he still has significant knowledge of his business interests and will still be benefiting from them, and because he has put in place few real barriers to communication between himself and his sons, there is still ample opportunity for outside actors to seek to influence the president’s decisions by patronizing his companies Though the letter from the GSA discusses only the Trump International Hotel and not the legality of the overall arrangement, it is nonetheless a decidedly favorable outcome for Trump in the first legal challenge over his conflicts of interest.

That Argentinian Office Building

According to a report by the prominent Argentine journalist Jorge Lanata, the president’s first phone call with his Argentine counterpart Mauricio Macri included a discussion of the permit issues currently holding up construction of a new Trump-branded office building in Buenos Aires. Both Macri and Trump quickly denied the report; according to a statement from the Embassy of Argentina, “The subject both leaders talked about was the institutional relationship, and they briefly mentioned the personal relationship they have had for years.”

As summarized in a tweetstorm here, Trump’s relationship with Argentina’s government and business elites—and the story so far on his property there—is already long and convoluted. The phone call with Macri was apparently set up through Felipe Yaryura, one of Trump’s longtime associates whose company, YY Development Group, is in charge of Trump Tower Buenos Aires. The day after the phone call, the PanAm Post reported that YY Development Group had been approved to break ground in June 2017; evidence has since emerged that the permitting process is not, in fact, finished, although Trump’s business associates are moving ahead as though it is.

Based on the information at the president’s January 11 press conference, it appears that the properties in Argentina, as both ongoing development projects and deals in a foreign country, is no longer moving forward. Nevertheless, the questionable circumstances under which it did so in the immediate aftermath of the election demonstrates just how many avenues there are for Trump’s conflicts of interest to interfere with governance around the world. 

Those Companies in Saudi Arabia

Even as Trump was running for president, his company was continuing to operate and open new properties. While the most memorable openings may have been that of his hotel in Washington, D.C., and his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, the Trump Organization was continuing to work on projects in other countries, including, according to a report the Washington Post, registering eight new companies in Saudi Arabia during the 16-month campaign.

The organization’s endeavors in Saudi Arabia are notable not only because they may further complicate the shaky relationship between the U.S. and an oil-rich gulf state notorious for human-rights abuses but also because of how they relate to Trump’s campaign rhetoric. One of his criticisms of Hillary Clinton was that her charitable foundation had accepted donations from governments with questionable records on human rights, most notably Qatar and Saudi Arabia, always with the implication (or direct accusation) that they were doing so to curry favor with Clinton when she was secretary of state. That Trump was continuing to level this criticism while his namesake organization was actively pursuing new projects in Saudi Arabia not only bodes ill for his ability to separate his personal and presidential interests but also further calls into question the honesty and transparency of his campaign.

That British Wind Farm

As he indicated when he stopped there during the campaign, President Trump takes enormous pride in his recently opened golf course in Turnberry, Scotland. The day after the British public voted for Brexit—over intense Scottish opposition—Trump spoke at the property’s opening, proudly touting how the decision’s deflationary effect on the pound would benefit his business.

However, Trump also has a second golf course in Aberdeen, where it appears Trump has attempted to intercede in the interest of his own pocketbook.* According to The New York Times, Trump had a post-election meeting with Nigel Farage in which he “encouraged Mr. Farage and his entourage to oppose the kind of offshore wind farms that Mr. Trump believes will mar the pristine view from one of his two Scottish golf courses.” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the president, denied that the two had discussed the subject, only for Trump to later confirm that the topic had, in fact, come up in their conversation.

Those Indian Business Partners

It didn’t take long after the election for President Trump to be seen in public with international business partners. According to a November 19 article in The New York Times, Trump took a break from his transition schedule to meet with three Indian real-estate executives who are currently building a Trump-branded apartment complex in Mumbai. According to both Trump and the Indian businessmen, the meeting was essentially congratulatory in nature; a picture posted by one of the executives on Twitter shows the four men smiling broadly and giving a thumbs-up to the camera. However, that the meeting happened in the first place suggests that Trump does not currently have any qualms about forestalling official state business for personal business.

On top of that, the meeting raises questions in the blind-trust realm as well. The president himself was not the only member of his family there; two Facebook photos show that Ivanka and Eric Trump both attended the meeting as well. Their presence serves as a reminder that their father seems so far uninterested in maintaining even the nominal separation between himself and his assets that he repeatedly said he would create during the campaign.

That Envoy From the Philippines

One leader with whom Trump already has an advantage over President Obama is Rodrigo Duterte, the similarly brash president of the Philippines. Duterte, who has threatened to “break up with America,” told Obama to “go to hell,” and called the president a “son of a whore,” expressed admiration for Trump, noting that, among other similarities, they both enjoy swearing.

Duterte’s affinity for Trump apparently goes beyond vulgar word choice. Late in October, Duterte appointed a longtime business associate of Trump’s as a special envoy to the United States, an announcement that became public shortly after the election. This appointment in particular raises questions because it is just as open to exploitation by Duterte as it is to Trump, as the Filipino president could intend to use his new envoy’s relationship with Trump to strengthen the Philippines’ hand. Whichever side the appointment does eventually benefit, however, the situation is nevertheless fraught with conflicts between the three men’s personal and political interests.

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

[Rick Plant]

More anti mask and anti vaxx right wing morons are getting sick because of their own stupidity.

Republican anti-masker has COVID for a second time: Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) announced Sunday that he has COVID-19 for a second time
https://www.rawstory.com/republican-clay-higgins-again/

GOP lawmaker who refused to wear mask reportedly 'really, really sick' with COVID-19
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-2653950694/

[Rick Plant]

This mother lost her 28 year old son to COVID-19 because they thought it was a "hoax". The only reason they felt it was a "hoax" is because Criminal Donald and the right wing media told them that it was and they believed them. Criminal Donald, his lying administration officials, and the right wing media hacks all need to be personally sued for millions and brought up on criminal charges because their lies are directly responsible for over 600,000+ deaths in America. Because of their lies people weren't taking the virus seriously and now they are dead. COVID continues to ravage the United States and people won't get vaccinated because of their anti vaccine disinformation.         

Vaccine-hesitant Alabama mom shares son’s haunting last words to push life-saving shots: "This is not a hoax, this is real," were the last words he uttered, according to his mother



A grieving mother in Alabama has become an advocate for COVID-19 vaccinations in America's least-vaccinated state after her first-born son told her on his deathbed that the virus is not a hoax.

Christy Carpenter says her son, 28-year-old Curt Carpenter, was otherwise healthy and initially thought COVID was a hoax, the Washington Post reports. She and other family members were hesitant to get vaccinated because they believed the vaccine was created too quickly. Christy Carpenter is now suffering from long-term symptoms of COVID herself. Curt Carpenter died on May 2 after two months on a ventilator. '"This is not a hoax, this is real," were the last words he uttered, according to his mother.

"It took watching my son die and me suffering the effects of COVID for us to realize we need the vaccine," Christy Carpenter said. "We did not get vaccinated when we had the opportunity and regret that so much now. If Curt were here today, he would make it his mission to encourage everyone to get vaccinated. Cayla, his sister, and I are carrying out that mission in his memory."

Alabama is currently America's least vaccinated state, with only 33.9 percent of eligible adults fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated people account for more than 95 percent of current COVID hospitalizations in Alabama.

"If we can help keep people healthier and possibly save lives by encouraging others to take the vaccine, then Curt's death was not in vain," Christy Carpenter said. "Life is a precious gift from God."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/26/covid-vaccine-regrets/

[Rick Plant]

Trump stooge Governors Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem are now purposely hiding their daily COVID and death totals because they don't want the public to know how disastrous their states are with daily COVID infections. They allowed and caused their own supporters to get sick and die.

States scale back virus reporting just as cases surge

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Several states scaled back their reporting of COVID-19 statistics this month just as cases across the country started to skyrocket, depriving the public of real-time information on outbreaks, cases, hospitalizations and deaths in their communities.

The shift to weekly instead of daily reporting in Florida, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota marked a notable shift during a pandemic in which coronavirus dashboards have become a staple for Americans closely tracking case counts and trends to navigate a crisis that has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S.

In Nebraska, the state actually stopped reporting on the virus altogether for two weeks after Gov. Pete Ricketts declared an end to the official virus emergency, forcing news reporters to file public records requests or turn to national websites that track state data to learn about COVID statistics. The state backtracked two weeks later and came up with a weekly site that provides some basic numbers.

Other governments have gone the other direction and released more information, with Washington, D.C., this week adding a dashboard on breakthrough cases to show the number of residents who contracted the virus after getting vaccines. Many states have recently gone to reporting virus numbers only on weekdays.

When Florida changed the frequency of its virus reporting earlier this month, officials said it made sense given the decreasing number of cases and the increasing number of people being vaccinated.

Cases started soaring soon after, and Florida earlier this week made up up one-fifth of the country’s new coronavirus infections. As a result, Florida’s weekly releases — typically done on Friday afternoons — have consequences for the country’s understanding of the current summer surge, with no statewide COVID stats coming out of the virus hotspot for six days a week.

In Florida’s last two weekly reports, the number of new cases shot up from 23,000 to 45,000 and then 73,000 on Friday, an average of more than 10,000 day. Hospitals are starting to run out of space in parts of the state.

With cases rising, Democrats and other critics have urged state officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis to resume daily outbreak updates.

“There was absolutely no reason to eliminate the daily updates beyond an effort to pretend like there are no updates,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from the Orlando area.

The trend of reducing data reporting has alarmed infectious disease specialists who believe that more information is better during a pandemic. People have come to rely on state virus dashboards to help make decisions about whether to attend large gatherings or wear masks in public, and understanding the level of risk in the community affects how people respond to virus restrictions and calls to get vaccinated.

“We know that showing the data to others actually is important because the actions that businesses take, the actions that schools take, the actions that civic leaders take, the actions that community leaders take, the actions that each of us individually take are all influenced by our perception of what the risk is out there,” said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, who leads the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

But reporting the numbers on a weekly basis still allows people to see the overall trends while smoothing out some of he day-to-day variations that come from the way cases are reported and not the actual number of new cases. And experts have long advised that it makes sense to pay more attention to the seven-day rolling average of new cases because the numbers can vary widely from one day to the next.

And Florida health officials say that they have not curtailed the sharing of data with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Maintaining daily updates on the virus does require significant resources for states. For instance, Kansas went to reporting virus numbers three times a week in May because the state health department said providing daily statistics consumed too much time for its already overwhelmed staff.

In Nebraska, officials decided that continuing to update the virus dashboard daily wasn’t the best use of state resources now partly because there had been a steady decline in the number of views of the website indicating less interest in the numbers, spokeswoman Olga Dack said. The state could return to providing daily updates if the governor’s office decided that was needed, she said.

“Now that Nebraska is back to normal, some of the staff that has been dedicated to the dashboard has been able to focus on some of the other important issues,” Dack said.

State health departments have a long history of providing the public regular updates on other diseases like flu and West Nile, but those viruses have none of the political baggage associated with COVID-19.

In Florida, a former health department employee was fired last year after publicly suggesting that managers wanted her to manipulate information on coronavirus statistics to paint a rosier picture. The employee, Rebekah Jones, did not allege any tampering with data, but her comments sowed doubts about the reliability of the metrics.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. David Brett-Major said that for many people, national websites such as the one run by the CDC can be a good source of data on the latest state trends and weekly updates could be OK. The World Health Organization often uses weekly updates, but he said they do that for practical data management reasons, not political ones.

He said the message Nebraska sent when it ended its dashboard that the state emergency was over and conditions were returning to normal was troubling.

“The main problem is that it reflects a disinterest in pandemic risk management,” said Brett-Major, with the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, said part of the problem is that public health officials generally don’t have sophisticated data systems so it is more labor intensive to produce the daily dashboards. Even though public health agencies have money for operations at a time when pandemic government spending is flush, they haven’t necessarily had the chance to upgrade.

“It would be great if daily reporting could be made widely available, but public health would have to be funded better to do that and right now that is just not the case,” said Hamilton.

And even in states where virus numbers aren’t being reported publicly every day health officials are still looking at the latest data, Hamilton said.

But at a time when the delta variant is, in the words of the CDC director, “spreading with incredible efficiency,” Bibbins-Domingo said it is important that everyone can see the latest trends and understand the risks.

“Even if we know that they are available to decisionmakers on a daily basis, there is considerable value to providing the data to the public,” she said.

https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-f9c58c50f565e707be9bedfa9a82319e

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: Video evidence revealed against Pro Trump US Capitol rioters




A coalition of more than a dozen news organizations have sued to gain access to video evidence against accused U.S. Capitol rioters, and ProPublica has assembled dozens of exhibits that show the violent Jan. 6 assault.

The nonprofit news organization is among 15 media outlets, including the Associated Press, Washington Post, CBS and NBC, that have filed lawsuits seeking access to the exhibits, and ProPublica is posting all of them online as federal judges rule in their favor.

The videos are organized case by case under each defendant's name, and show Donald Trump supporters violently attacking law enforcement as they storm the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral win.

ProPublica is adding new videos to the collection as federal courts and the Department of Justice sends them.

View the entire collection here:
https://projects.propublica.org/jan-6-video-evidence/

[Rick Plant]

MAGA thugs brutally beat Capitol Police.

Police will be first to testify in Capitol riot probe hearing
https://www.rawstory.com/police-to-testify-in-first-us-capitol-riot-probe-hearing/