Category Archives: Donald Trump

There is an alternate universe of Covid-19 misinformation masquerading as science, which with the encouragement of Donald Trump, is proliferating among his supporters.

Among the most ardent proponents of these claims is the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a fringe group of less than 5,000 doctors. The group was recently cited by Trumps campaign manager, Brad Parscale, to explain the presidents stunning announcement that he is taking the drug hydroxychloroquine in an attempt to protect himself against Covid-19 despite a lack of evidence of its effectiveness.

When asked what evidence guided the presidents decision-making, Trump said: Are you ready? Heres my evidence: I get a lot of positive calls about it.

Since hydroxychloroquine was approved on an emergency basis by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), studies have shown mixed results, and the dangers of potentially life-threatening side-effects for patients.

Yet Dr Jane Orient, executive director of AAPS, told the Guardian she believed the drug should be prescribed more often, and in a statement based on a flawed database claimed the drug offered about 90% chance of helping Covid-19 patients.

Ive talk to a lot of doctors who are prescribing it [in the US], they are not reporting any problems, their patients have done very well, she said. She did not say how many doctors she knew were prescribing it, and declined to answer whether she herself was prescribing it.

I dont want to have a target put on my back which could result in somebody wanting to scrutinize my entire practice, Orient said.

At first glance, the AAPS has the imprimatur of science. Its members rank among Americas most trusted professionals, and yet it has a track record unlike any other professional medical association.

They seem frequently to offer advice and opinions about medical practice that are not consistent with evidence-based medicine, said Dr Michael Carome, an expert on drug and medical device safety at Public Citizen, a public advocacy group.

Theyre aligned with the Trump administration, that doesnt believe in science, doesnt believe in fact. Theyre completely compatible with the Trump White House.

This group is lobbying on behalf of what they believe to be right, but invariably experts would disagree on their stance on hydroxychloroquine

The group has questioned whether HIV causes Aids (it does), argued abortion causes breast cancer (it does not), linked vaccines to autism (repeatedly debunked), and even alleged former president Barack Obama used hypnosis techniques to trick voters, especially Jewish people, into supporting him (no).

The name does not determine the quality of the group, said John Ayers, a professor of infectious disease and global public health who studies misinformation at the University of California San Diego. This group is lobbying on behalf of what they believe to be right, but invariably experts would disagree on their stance on hydroxychloroquine and other topics and issues, said Ayers.

As far as the presidents pronouncements, Ayers said: We dont know if hes actually even taking it.

Even as Trump said he was taking the drug, some of Americas most respected institutions have begun to move away from it. Yale New Haven medical center, one of the most respected hospitals in the world, removed the drug from its Covid-19 protocol after three weeks of de-emphasizing it in clinical practice.

Massachusetts general hospital, another world-renowned academic medical center, is giving priority to remdesivir, a drug developed by Gilead, although hydroxychloroquine is provided on a case-by-case basis.

The FDA has issued stringent warnings about the drugs potentially life-threatening side-effects and recommended patients on hydroxychloroquine be participants in a clinical trial, or undergo rigorous monitoring, possibly including baseline [electrocardiogram], electrolytes, renal function and hepatic tests.

The AAPSs statements on hydroxychloroquine are not its only dubious views on the Covid-19 crisis.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended wearing masks in public places to prevent asymptomatic people spreading the disease. In other words, it is mostly a selfless act which protects others.

But Orient argued that masks are not free of side-effects and that they retard oxygen to the brain. She later added: I think one jogger even dropped dead. One man in China reportedly suffered a collapsed lung while wearing a mask, though a doctor in the report said there was no clear evidence the mask caused the injury.

While prolonged use of some masks, such as N95 respirators, might cause lightheadedness and discomfort, loose-fitting cloth or surgical masks most commonly used by the public are highly unlikely to cause such severe side-effects.

Orient also voiced her support for lifting stay-at-home orders. They are destroying the economy, they are destroying peoples lives, there is really no evidence they work, she said. The economic and social impacts of the lockdowns have been devastating.

But, there is widespread evidence that stay-at-home orders work, and could have saved thousands more lives had they been imposed earlier. A recent Italian study found the stay-at-home order there prevented about 200,000 hospitalizations. Data from Columbia University found if lockdowns had been imposed in the US two weeks earlier, on 1 March, as many as 54,000 lives could have been saved.

AAPS was formed in 1943, in opposition to a proposal to provide Americans the sort of universal, government-run healthcare established just a few years later in the UK. The NHS would become one of the countrys proudest achievements.

Orients group is small, especially when compared with the mainstream American Medical Association (AMA) which has 240,000 members. But it is influential.

Trumps first health and human services secretary, Tom Price, was a member of AAPS. In a 2011 video unearthed by the Washington Post, Price called Orient a kindred spirit. He said: Its always wonderful to be in the same room with Jane Orient. Jane has been a hero of mine. Price later resigned after spending $1m in taxpayer funds on private jets.

AAPS has diligently worked against proposals which would constrain doctors. For example, it sued the Texas medical board to force it to stop relying on anonymous complaints of misconduct against doctors (the group lost).

Most recently, like Trump, they encourage the use of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of Covid-19, and they think that any oversight be it a physician group or state medical board or mainstream medicine that makes recommendations against use of that drug or tries to restrict use of that drug is just an affront, Carome said.

They think that any oversight that makes recommendations against use of that drug or tries to restrict use of that drug is just an affront

The view of AAPS, he added, is that doctors should be basically free to do whatever they want to do, regardless of the level of evidence, and thats a dangerous perspective for medical practitioners to have in the 21st century.

Samantha Barstow, a licensed pharmacist and adviser on drug shortages with the company Lumere, said this was a rare and uncomfortable situation for government to be involved so directly in prescribing, but in this case it was necessary.

The use for Covid-19 has not significantly been substantiated, Barstow said. The efficacy data is just not there yet. In the meantime, drug shortages could cause patients with approved uses, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, to suffer without medication.

Only six drugs have ever been approved on an emergency basis, like hydroxychloroquine, and most recently Gileads remdesivir. Some researchers believe past drugs approved this way offer a lesson.

In 2009, during the H1N1 influenza pandemic, a drug called peramivir showed promise. It was studied in three clinical trials, but despite compelling and transparent scientific evidence, it failed. By contrast, hydroxychloroquine was backed only by limited lab tests and case reports.

Nevertheless, Orient argues hydroxychloroquine should be available over the counter. Concerns from scientists have nothing to do with concerns about safety and concerns about science, she argued. Her view that lockdowns are despotic, tyrannical and completely unwarranted, and will probably also cause consternation in many circles.

But on some subjects, all can agree: Our pandemic preparedness on the whole has been lousy.

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The US doctors taking Trumps lead on hydroxychloroquine despite mixed results - The Guardian

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Workers wear protective gear as they start a cremation oven in Ecatepec, Mexico, on Thursday, May 21.

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A health worker wears a face shield while checking a patient's temperature at a hospital in Toluca, Mexico, on May 21. Mexico had reported its highest number of new daily cases.

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People in Srinagar, India, lower the coffin of a woman who died from the coronavirus.

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Levi Tinker, resident historian and general manager of the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, makes an announcement inside the theater's empty auditorium on Monday, May 18. It was the theater's 93rd birthday celebration.

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People practice social distancing in New York's Domino Park on Sunday, May 17.

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Nurses in Nairobi, Kenya, take part in a Zumba fitness class in the parking lot of the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital on May 17.

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Mary Faye Cochran sings "You Are My Sunshine" to her son Stacey Smith from her senior-living facility in Smyrna, Georgia, on May 10. It was Mother's Day in the United States.

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Pope Francis delivers a blessing from the window of his studio overlooking an empty St. Peter's Square on May 10.

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The San Isidro cemetery in Mexico City, which was temporarily closed to the public to limit the spread of Covid-19, is seen in this aerial photo from May 10.

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Mary Washington speaks through a window to her daughter Courtney Crosby and grandchild Sydney Crosby during a Mother's Day celebration at her senior-living facility in Smyrna.

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A Briarcliff High School student participates in a parade of graduating seniors through Briarcliff Manor, New York, on May 9.

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People wear face masks while watching a Victory Day military parade in Minsk, Belarus, on May 9. The parade marked the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

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A man rides past social-distancing markers in front of a shop in Brussels, Belgium, on May 9.

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A man pauses as he places the casket of a relative into a van at a busy New York funeral home on May 9.

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Health-care workers wait for citizens to arrive at the Anna International Airport in Chennai, India, on May 9. People were arriving in Chennai from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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A man wearing a face mask cycles through Chinatown in Yokohama, Japan, on May 8. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that Japan will extend its state of emergency until the end of May.

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American citizens who were stranded in Syria due to the pandemic arrive at the Lebanese border on their way to the Beirut airport, where they would be leaving for the United States.

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During a protest in Washington on May 7, members of National Nurses United stand among empty shoes that they say represent nurses who have died from Covid-19.

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A worker helps disinfect a subway train in New York on May 6. The subway syatem was shut down for a deep-cleaning.

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High school students study in a classroom in Wuhan, China, as they returned to school on May 6.

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A nursery is disinfected in Cannes, France, on May 6. Nurseries in France were to gradually reopen on May 11.

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Refrigerated trucks are seen at a morgue that opened in New York to assist overwhelmed funeral homes.

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Michigan state police prevent protesters from entering the chamber of the Michigan House of Representatives on April 30. The protesters were unhappy with the state's stay-at-home order. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently extended the order through May 15, though restrictions were relaxed so some businesses could reopen.

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This aerial photo shows surfers accessing Sydney's Tamarama Beach on April 29. Several Sydney beaches reopened for exercise only.

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A barber wears protective equipment as he cuts a customer's hair in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 27.

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Health workers at a coronavirus testing center in New Delhi attend to a colleague who fainted due to exhaustion on April 27.

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Pitrik van der Lubbe waves from a boom lift to his 88-year-old father, Henk, at his father's nursing home in Gouda, Netherlands, on April 24. Pitrik had not seen his father in more than four weeks.

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Protesters shout slogans against Lebanese Central Bank governor Riad Salam as they block Hamra Street in Beirut, Lebanon, on April 23. Anti-government protesters have been demonstrating in Beirut as they continue to endure one of its worst-ever economic crises.

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A boy plays hopscotch at his home in A Coruna, Spain, on April 23.

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A dentist wears protective equipment while treating a patient in Den Bosch, Netherlands, on April 22.

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Biology teachers prepare to hold an exam at a secondary school in Berlin on April 22.

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A volunteer in Yangon, Myanmar, spreads calcium oxide on a road to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus on April 22.

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Migrants wave from balconies at a hotel in Kranidi, Greece, on April 21. The shelter, which hosts 470 asylum seekers, was placed in isolation after a pregnant resident tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

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A man disinfects a ceiling lamp at the obanija Mosque in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on April 21.

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A nurse holds a newborn baby, wearing a face shield as a protective measure, at a maternity facility in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 21.

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Health workers at Madrid's La Paz Hospital hold a minute of silence to remember Joaquin Diaz, the hospital's chief of surgery who died because of the coronavirus.

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A woman applauds from the balcony of her Paris home to show support for health care workers on April 20.

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Mayor's office workers wear protective suits as they conduct a census in a Bogota, Colombia, neighborhood on April 19. They were trying to find out how many families needed to be provided with food.

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A woman sticks her tongue out of a torn mask at a Reopen Maryland rally outside the State House in Annapolis, Maryland, on April 18. Residents in multiple states have been protesting stay-at-home orders.

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Newly married Tyler and Caryn Suiters embrace following their marriage ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, on April 18. The Rev. Andrew Merrow and his wife, Cameron, were the only other attendees at the ceremony, which was held at St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

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Abed Khankan cuts a customer's hair outdoors in Malmo, Sweden, on April 17.

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Two women walk to rent a small paddle boat by the Vltava River in Prague, Czech Republic, on April 17.

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Cars sit at a newly opened drive-in cinema in Dortmund, Germany, on April 17. It's in front of a former blast furnace.

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Funeral workers in Manaus, Brazil, prepare the grave of a woman who is suspected to have died from the coronavirus.

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The pandemic could reshape the world order. Trump's chaotic strategy is accelerating US losses - CNN

At a public appearance in Pennsylvania last week, President Donald Trump offered some fresh insight into how he views coronavirus testing. The country is still struggling to test for the virus at scale, which in turn is hampering our ability to return to anything resembling normal life before the pandemic. To the president, however, the testing itself is the problem. When you test, you have a case, Trump said. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didnt do any testing, we would have very few cases.

His claim drew the scorn of epidemiologists and anyone with a passing familiarity with infectious diseases. At the same time, it offered a useful window into how the president understands the world around him. After all, theres a certain logic of sorts to his approach. Testing is the only way to conclusively determine how many coronavirus cases are currently out there. The goal, both for public health and public relations, is to have as few cases as possible. If theres no testing, then there are no cases. And if there are no cases, then there is no crisis.

This is a bewildering approach to a public health disaster, to say the least. But it is an unsurprising one for Trump. In his world, there are Good Numbers and Bad Numbers. As president he wants to take credit for all sorts of Good Numbers: rises in the stock market, declines in unemployment, upticks in approval ratings, and so on. At the same time, he disputes and rejects any Bad Numbers that might come his way. He spent his entire adult life working in the private sector, where companies and fortunes can live or die based on numbers on sheets of paper. Numbers form an intrinsic part of how he measures his own success and the success of others.

Trump is hardly the only figure in American politics to approach numbers with something less than scholarly detachment. Every president wants to tout their accomplishments and minimize their shortcomings, especially when numbers are involved. What sets Trump apart is both the talismanic nature with which he wields these numbers and his perpetual willingness to manipulate them to his own ends. All of those numbers are both the greatest possible source of personal validationand the most dangerous threat to it.

The rest is here:

Donald Trumps Never-Ending War on Numbers - The New Republic

It was the politics of pandemic that took over Real Time with Bill Maher tonight with Michael Moore as the marquee guest.

The only way they are going to pull it off is if hes able to cancel the election or postpone it, the Fahrenheit 9/11 director said of Donald Trumps chances at the ballot box in November against Joe Biden after this COVID-19 spring that has seen almost 100,000 deaths so far from the respiratory ailment. Im certain thats whats going on in his head right now, Moore worried as he has before, pledging that people will need to take to the streets on January 20, 2021 to get this motherfucker out.

The only way Republicans can win is if they cheat, Moore declared to Maher as he stated that most Americans are actually in sync fundamentally with progressive policies.

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Not that the Oscar winner was advocating to Trump rivals that things should to go that far or that they take the ultimate bait and switch as an easy blunted move as you can see in this excerpt below:

None of us should take him for granted, Moore told the HBO host of Trumps reign of error continuing, despite the Art of the Deal co-authors disastrous fumble of the coronavirus crisis. We need to behave as is if he will win a second term, Moore added with a jab at Democrats who whine at such language.

And remember, love him or hate him, Moore has good pedigree on this. As Maher pointed out on Real Time today, the filmmaker was one of the few public figures who took Trump seriously in 2016.

He knows exactly what hes doing, he was in Michigan this week, Flint-born Moore went on to say in the bi-coastal interview that was actually filmed yesterday. Its the third time hes been in Michigan in three weeks, he noted of the corona-campaigning in the vital Wolverine State, he believes he is going to pull this off, Moore noted, even as most polls have ex-VP and the Democrats presumptive nominee Biden leading.

Hillary won by three million votes in the popular vote, as we call it, I think Biden, hell win by five million, said Rumble podcast host Moore in comparison between 2016 and 2020 from his NYC apartment on top of a shuttered movie theater. But, I think that Trump could still win the Electoral College. So, all of us have to be really in fighting mode cause he is.

If you listen to him and you take him at his word, understand that he is a lot of time telling the truth, Moore very seriously stated about the 45th POTUS after Maher gave Trump a backhanded compliment of speaking his inner monologue in his political calculations. Not the greater truth, but his truth hed pass a lie-detector if you wire him up.

He is just trying to scare liberals because liberals get scared easy, he went on to say of heavily armed pro-reopening America mobs that have stormed state legislatures and protested outside lockdown governors and mayors home under nudging from Trump. Dont be scared, we are the majority!

Before the Bowling for Columbine filmmaker joined the latest edition of the stay-at-home Real Time, a suited and booted Maher started the show with his traditionally timely and sometimes heavy-handed monologue from his spacious West L.A. backyard.

Joking about GrubHub delivery workers and spending Memorial Day weekend at home to big laughs from old crowd footage, Maher wasted little time launching into his primary foil Donald Trump.

After dispensing with the former Celebrity Apprentice hosts current intake of hydroxychloroquine to ward off the coronavirus and with a quick scene of John Wilkes Booth preparing to shoot Abraham Lincoln, the Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death actor also mocked the largely stumbling efforts of most states to reopen. No plan, no consistencies, Maher said standing in his outside bar. Its the opposite of Afghanistan, we dont have an entrance strategy

Along with Moore, Real Time had remote and split screen sit downs with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and LA Lakers nutritional consultant Dr. Cate Shanahan as guests tonight. The latter being another one of those insightful conversations on health and realer foods that Maher has come to specialize in over recent years.

Fresh off the much-watched YouTube success of the environmental aimed Planet of the Humans documentary that he executive produced, Real Time wasnt Moores only media hit of the day on the topic of the election. Earlier on Friday, the Fahrenheit 11/9 helmer was on MSNBCs The Beat with Ari Melber proclaiming that Trump has has to be fought tooth and nail on probable efforts by the incumbent to hobble voting one way or another in November.

Link:

Donald Trumps Only Path To Re-Election Is To Cheat, Michael Moore Tells Real Time With Bill Maher - Deadline

For as long as Donald Trump has been president, and even before, a subset of elite conservatives and professional contrarians has sought to downplay the risks he poses to democracy by fixating on his incompetence and narcissism as impediments to to the autocracy he wishes to create.

This tendency hasnt flagged much in the face of daily outrages, many of which cut against the idea that Trump is a failed authoritarian. Yesterday it was the firing of yet another inspector general investigating corruption in his administration. Today its the attempted extortion of states, amid pandemic conditions, to rig the election in his favor. But many of these outrages invite convenient rejoinders: though he attempts, he rarely succeeds; his abuses of power and sundering of norms serve only his personal interests, and thus dont amount to the subversion of democracy.

Great men and bad men alike seek attention as a means of getting power, argues New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, but our president is interested in power only as a means of getting attention. His claim reads like a categorical and easily falsified one, but it actually just invites recategorizing a wide range of lawless conduct as either legitimate invocation of presidential authority or harmless attention-seeking.

For instance: Trump loyalists are happy to acknowledge that the FBIs insider-trading investigation of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is Burrs comeuppance for crossing Trump, and, by implication, that other Senate Republicans who engaged in insider trading are likely to skate because they were sufficiently obeisant. But those who promote the incompetence dodge must overlook this whole episode because acknowledging that Trump engages in selective prosecution would undermine the theory that he doesnt seek unaccountable authority. And since Burr really did do something bad, who cares if he alone goes down for it. Likewise, when Trump publicly shakes down Democratic governors, Trump fans and critics alike see it for what it is. But under the incompetence dodge, it is recast as just yet-more self-aggrandizing bluster.

The incompetence dodge is a viable response to many of Trumps individual sins. But it cant account for the synthesis between those sins and the political party that enables them (and will still be there after he loses or is term-limited out of power) because the authoritarian system they have constructed in tandem is impossible to brush aside as a fleeting Trump vanity project.

Start near the end: Trump and his loyalist attorney general enlisted a U.S. attorney to find a crimeany crime, no matter how nonpressingall so they could time charges to bolster a larger propaganda campaign designed to smear Trumps opposition and help him win re-election.

Senate Republicans will run that larger propaganda campaign on Trumps behalf out of the Judiciary Committee, using subpoena power to enable selective leaks and compel testimony from senior officials of the former administration, not to inform the public about any kind of conspiratorial wrongdoingthere was no such wrongdoingbut to leave as much of the public as possible with the impression that Something Bad Happened. Real people may face prosecution, and commentators like Douthat will aver that all is well because they werent framed or accused of fabricated crimes. But the crimes will be low level ones at best, and pursued for the sole purpose of papering over much larger ones. Our legal and intelligence institutions will have been mobilized to mete out unequal justice purely for the political advancement of one man.

Republicans will participate in this charade gladly, for no reason other than that Trump asked them to. I just think that everybody realizes that our fortunes sort of rise or fall together, said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the second highest ranking Republican in the Senate. One thing we have to do is to make sure that we are united on our agenda and make sure that theres not separation between the White House and Republicans in Congress. If its in Trumps political interest its worth doing, because his success is their success. The edifice would collapse in an instant if Trump nominated a single liberal jurist to an appellate court. And that is the synthesis.

Abuse of government power to wage propaganda war against the oppositionwhich was, lets not forget, the nature of the Ukraine scheme as wellmight yield few long-term dividends for Trump himself if it fails to secure him re-election. He, personally, may have to content himself with a four-year run of Peronist self-glorification and a pardon from Lame Duck President Mike Pence. But the party that abetted it all will continue to benefit.

Trump instructed Senate Republicans to subpoena indiscriminately, to create a miasma of scandal around his enemies, just days after his administration argued to the Supreme Court that congressional subpoenas are invalid if they dont serve true legislative purposes. This is the case he made to the Courts five conservatives to quash House subpoenas to third parties for his financial records: that the legislative purpose the subpoenas supposedly serve is pretextual, that House Democrats really only care to rifle through his past, and so they have no force of law.

The Roberts Five may or may not ultimately embrace this argument. But they are pretending to take it seriously, even as its self-evident none of the people making it believe it sincerelynot unless Trump wanted the Senate to issue these other subpoenas to help him in the election is somehow a legislative purpose.

Here you see the outlines of the bourgeoning authoritarian regime Trump and Republicans have built together: where for loyalists, anything goes, but for everyone else nothing does. Competence is mostly beside the point. Indeed, authoritarians are clownish and incompetent and corrupt in general. They have captured coercive state institutions, they and their allies are free from accountability, and so Caligula-like appetites and lassitude develop naturally. Trump is only anomalous in that he reached the halls of power in this late-stage form ready-made.

He is in fact incompetent, but he looks much more hapless than he might because our system of government required him to stack the courts and fill the bureaucracy with cronies before he could get away with more than just theft and executive overreach. And he is nearly there.

That Trumps main interest isnt Republican policy, but in creating a mafia state for as long as he holds office, doesnt make him any less of an authoritarian, or an agent for imposing a right-wing agenda on an unconsenting public, even if most of the decrees will spill forth after hes left elected office. We can stipulate that Trump would have made more progress, faster, toward a more ideologically rooted set of goals were he a more ordered, less venal autocrat. A true movement conservative who happened not to be a genuine criminal in possession of an opaque network of family businesses might have imposed his will on the public in a way that would be less awkward for Republican elites. But they took what they could get, and laid the building blocks of autocracy together.

Trump has in three short years neutralized nearly all institutional checks on his corruptioninspectors general, congressional oversight, the advice and consent process, and judicial review. The leaders of these institutions have all assented to his lawlessness, chosen to ignore it, or been purged from government. This is not just the petty corruption of an incompetent grifter. Absent a concerted effort by a unified Democratic majority to dilute the power of Trumpists on the courts and cast them out of the executive branch, they will continue to exert illegitimate, partisan power within the political system indefinitely. It will just be the purposeful kind of power that those who invoke the incompetence dodge are pleased to seeright-wing judicial activism, a robust system of checks and balances, but only when Democrats win. Democratic laws and regulations will summarily fall. Republicans will routinely defy congressional subpoenas, with protection from the courts, while subpoenas Republicans issue to Democrats will somehow always be found to have merit. Disputes over elections will increasingly be resolved in the favor of one party over another. And these creeping inequities will irreversibly explode if Trump is re-elected. The topsy turvy world where by-the-book Barack Obama was Caesar, but Donald Trumps claims to absolute authority are never worth worrying about, will be codified.

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The Donald Trump Incompetence Dodge - Crooked

May 21st 2020

SPY PLANES ordinarily have to sneak into a countrys air space and risk getting shot down. Under the Open Skies treaty, they can saunter in with three days noticeand the pilots can enjoy a cup of coffee and a hot meal on the ground. The pact was agreed on in 1992 among 34 countries, each of which may fly unarmed reconnaissance flights over any part of another. More than 1,500 flights have been conducted to date. But on May 21st Mike Pompeo, Americas secretary of state, said that the United States would pull out of the accord, giving the requisite six months notice. John Bolton, Americas national security adviser until last September, hailed the news as another great moment in arms control history. Others view it as a calamity that makes the world more dangerous.

The treaty itself is a remarkable example of what arms-controllers call co-operative monitoring, a means of checking whether rivals are living up to various agreements, from nuclear pacts to rules governing military exercises. Each country is allowed to conduct an agreed number of flights on 72 hours notice, with a days notice of the precise flight path. Russia has often whizzed over the White House and, in 2017, irritated Donald Trump by flying over his golf course in New Jersey, according to the New York Times. No fancy spy gizmos are allowed. Planes may only carry cameras of 30cm-resolution, most of which use black and white wet-film. The resulting photos must be shared with any signatory who wants them. Personnel from the host state, sometimes half a dozen or more, may fly aboard the plane too, ensuring that everything is kosher.

America has made good use of the treaty, carrying out 201 flights since 2002, the vast majority of them over Russia or its ally Belarus. But hawks in the Trump administration complain that Russia has bent the rules. In his statement announcing Americas pull-out, Mr Pompeo levelled two main charges. The first was that Russia was unlawfully denying or restricting Open Skies observation flights whenever it desires. He pointed to Russian restrictions on flights near its border with Georgia, over Kaliningrad, an exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania, and over military exercises last year.

His second complaint was that Russia was using flights to gather tactical military intelligence. Moscow appears to use Open Skies imagery in support of an aggressive new Russian doctrine of targeting critical infrastructure in the United States and Europe with precision-guided conventional munitions, he said. Mr Pompeo allowed that America might reconsider our withdrawal should Russia return to full compliance.

European officials, who had pleaded with the administration to remain in the treaty, are aghast. They acknowledge that Russia has not implemented the accord perfectly, but insist that the issues could have been resolved with time and effort. Earlier this year, for instance, Russia allowed flights over Kaliningrad to resume. Former American officials also push back at the view that the flights boost Russian targeting. The information Russia gleans...is of only incremental value in addition to Russias other means of intelligence gathering, noted Terry Benedict, a retired vice-admiral, in a congressional hearing in 2017.

What is lost is more significant. There are few occasions left where American and Russian airmen can chew the fat over the Rockies or Siberia. Flights are a normalising, collegial, routine which builds trust, says Melissa Hanham of the Open Nuclear Network, an NGO. More importantly, notes James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment, a think-tank, Americas withdrawal is a win for Russia, which has a number of spy satellites, and an FU to allies in Europe, many of which dont.

Of course, allies could ask America for satellite images. But these, unlike Open Skies photos, tend to be highly classified and, for that reason, cannot be shared as freely. General James Mattis, Mr Trumps first defence secretary, once noted that Open Skies imagery was a key visual aid during Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Although some of the gap may be filled by commercial satellite imagery, which did not exist when the treaty was signed 28 years ago, planes can spot things concealed from ordinary satellite sensors. Open Skies aircraft may carry thermal-imaging cameras, for instance, which can detect such things as whether an aircraft is fully fuelled or bone dry.

A pressing question is now whether the treaty can survive Americas departure. On the one hand, Russia will no longer be able to fly over America, while still being subject to overflight from any one of Americas numerous friends in Europe. On the other hand, says Alberto Muti of VERTIC, an NGO that promotes the verification of international agreements, Russia still gets to monitor all of Europe, and will initially have more quota flights to do so (this will need to be reviewed by all parties). Moreover, because many European states lack their own specialised aircraft, and have piggybacked on American missions, NATO as a whole loses capacity to conduct flights. Russia is likely to remain in the treaty for the time being, at least.

The breakdown of Open Skies represents another blow to the architecture of global arms-control, which has had a torrid few years. In 2018 Mr Trump left a multinational nuclear deal with Iran. Last year he abandoned a cold-war missile pact which Russia had probably violated. Next year he may walk away from the last remaining cap on American and Russian arsenals, the New START treaty. As these accords crumble, so too do their intricate provisions for verification, such as inspections, data exchanges and, in the case of Open Skies, overflights. That makes each country ever more blind to what the others are doingand, perhaps, more likely to assume the worst. On May 21st Marshall Billingslea, Americas envoy for arms control, hinted at Mr Trumps willingness to run an arms race: We know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it.

Original post:

Donald Trump abandons the Open Skies treaty - The Economist

President Donald Trump had a lengthy Q&A with reporters at the White House on Tuesday, but he was irritated by one journalist, CBS News Paula Reid, for her query or the way it was asked.

Reid asked: Mr. President, why havent you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back to work? You are overseeing historic economic despair. What is the delay? Where is the plan?

Trump responded, Oh, I think we have announced a plan. We are opening up our country just a rude person, you are. We are opening up our country, and were opening it up very fast. The plan is each state is opening and it is opening up very effectively, and when you see the numbers I think even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard to impress you.

Trump had chided Reid before, when he held nightly coronavirus task force briefings that ended last month. He also abruptly ended a press briefing last week following an incident with CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang, CNNs Kaitlan Collins and PBS Newshours Yamiche Alcindor. He also complained about the attitude of Reid and Jiang in a recent interview with the New York Post.

Earlier this week he lashed out at Norah ODonnell, the anchor of CBS Evening News, over a segment that she did on 60 Minutes with coronavirus whistleblower Rick Bright.

Trump also defended hydroxychloroquine as a treatment or even prevention for coronavirus. He said that the drug has been proven to be unbelievably effective for malaria and lupus. What has been determined is it doesnt harm you, he said. Very powerful drug, I guess, but it doesnt harm you. So I thought as a frontline defense I thought it possibly would be good. I have had no impact from it. I feel the same. I havent changed, I dont think, too much.

The Food and Drug Administration warned in late April that the drug should not be taken to treat coronavirus outside a hospital setting or clinical trial, noting the risks for heart rhythm problems. The FDA has authorized emergency use when clinical trials are unavailable.

Trump on Monday said that he had been taking the drug for the past week and a half to prevent coronavirus. The presidents physician, Sean Conley, issued a note later in the day saying that he and Trump had had numerous discussions over the use of the drug, and we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.

The president also seemed to dismiss a Veterans Administration study on the use of hydroxychlorquine. that found no evidence that the drug reduced risks associated with the virus. It also found increased overall mortality was identified in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine alone.

Trump told reporters that there was a false study done where they gave it to very sick people, extremely sick people, people that were ready to die. It was given by obviously not friends of the administration. He earlier had referred to the study as a Trump enemy statement.

The VA analysis was published before peer review. It examined368 patients with coronavirus in the VA health system. Those in the study were around age 70, according to Physicians Weekly.

Continue reading here:

Just A Rude Person, You Are: Donald Trump Lashes Out At CBS News Paula Reid After She Asks Him, Where Is The Plan? - Deadline

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On Thursday, the Washington Post published a long profile of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her campaign to be Joe Bidens VP. It included a photo by Dana Scruggs.

Yesterday, Donald Trumps official campaign Twitter account tweeted its own version.

It took me a while to figure out what the hell this was even supposed to be, but after talking to some Top Scientists (ie some colleagues) it was explained to me that it is Joe Biden smelling her hair. (Get it? Im very sorry if you get it.)

In the early days of the Trump presidency there was a regular refrain that you would hear from Resistance types. This is not normal. You dont see it very much anymore because after almost 4 years what isnt normal anymore? This. This is fucking insane. It is not normal for the presidents reelection campaign to post things like this.

Where did this image come from? Was it created by the campaign? (I reached out to them but havent heard back.) If I had to bet though I would guess this was something made by Trumps Keyboard Warriors on Reddit or something. Just a few days ago Trump was celebrating these folks!

Setting aside the fact that Donald Trump apparently doesnt think his internet hive supporters have seen Mad Men, it is true that Trump & co. rely onmedia that bubbles up from his supporters online. There was the GIF he retweeted of him hitting Hillary Clinton with a golf ball, the one he tweeted of him attacking CNN at a wrestling event, the Kingsman video of him shooting journalists to death. One of his earliest controversies was when he tweeted an image with Nazis on it instead of American soldiers. These are memes that his team is pulling from the depths of the internet. Team Trump is very proud of them. Indeed,the memes havebecome central to how the right wing exists online.

But that doesnt make it normal. Its not. Its insane!

Yesterday, Vanity Fair published a story by Peter Hamby about Joe Bidens somewhat tenuous relationship with the internet.

I asked Biden about the drubbing hes taking in the meme universe, in which hes often portrayed as doddering and creepy. Biden laughed it off, claiming that the vast majority of the voters out there, including young people, are not getting all their news from the internet.

In the story, Hamby talks to Rob Flaherty, Joe Bidens digital director. He asks about the worry that Biden losing the internet augurs poorly for his chances in November. Flaherty allays these worries: The job of a digital person is to build the program that is a reflection of the person they work for. Thats true, and Flaherty admits that in that sense, Trumps digital campaign succeeds. It is a reflection of the candidate. Trump is scammy as hell. Hes controversial and just sort of brazen. His program looks like that.

Biden and Trump are very different people, but this is a very on the nose example of how different they are. Donald Trump has internet poison. He has been Very Online for a decade now and he thinks in tweets and chases the ADD dopamine hitof Likes and Retweets. If you are not Very Online, figuring out what the hell he is even talking about requires research and effort, asuspension of disbelief. Joe Biden is very much offline. Probably too much! Andhis candidacy is characterized by its unflinching focus on normal people. People who do not live in the high-strung land of pure imagination that is social media.

And so we have two competing theories of the election: Trump is not normal. His campaign shows that. That is how he thinks he won in 2016 and how he thinks he will win in 2020. Bidens campaign argues that the former vice president is very much normal, and that normalcy is what normal people desperately want.

The question for November is: Whose theory is right?

Read the rest here:

Trump Thinks He Can Win the Election With Off-the-Rails Memes - Mother Jones

WASHINGTON The coronavirus crept into the heart of the West Wing this month, with White House staffers testing positive, the vice president and top officials starting to wear masks and the country's top public health officials going into self-quarantine.

But with President Donald Trump eager to put the crisis behind him, a familiar pre-pandemic routine has made an unlikely return: speeches in 2020 battleground states.

Traveling Thursday to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to tour a medical equipment distribution center, Trump took the stage to his familiar campaign rally soundtrack, addressing an audience dotted with red "Make America Great Again" hats.

While a crowd seated in folding chairs 6 feet apart was a far cry from a stadium packed with thousands of supporters, throngs of the president's fans lined the road beyond and gathered outside the facility many standing close together, mask-less holding campaign signs and flags.

Inside the venue, Trump again compared the new crowd spacing unfavorably to that at pre-pandemic rallies. "We like it the old way a little bit better," he said. "And we will be back to that soon, I really believe."

It was the second time in as many weeks that Trump had traveled to a state where he faces a tight race with former Vice President Joe Biden, using the power of the presidency to start hitting the unofficial campaign trail as he enters the next stage of campaigning during the coronavirus. Biden, meanwhile, has been confined to campaigning from a home studio.

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Trump is moving back onto the trail as the coronavirus has hit home. Following positive test results for the president's personal valet and the vice president's spokesperson, the White House this week began requiring all staffers to wear masks when entering and moving about the West Wing. Trump wasn't seen wearing a mask in Pennsylvania, although several administration officials sported them as they traveled on Air Force One with him.

Since his last rally in March, Trump had turned to his daily coronavirus briefings as a substitute, using the televised occasions to attack his adversaries, spar with reporters and shift the focus to issues like immigration. But advisers told the president that the freewheeling hourslong events were doing more harm than help.

After a news conference spiraled last month into the president's musing about whether injecting disinfectant could be a cure, aides were able to persuade Trump to scale back and start traveling across the country, instead, to give the image of a commander-in-chief leading the country through a crisis.

While the trip to Pennsylvania on Thursday and one a week earlier to Arizona weren't official campaign events and involved much smaller crowds, they served a similar purpose for Trump's re-election bid: drumming up local news coverage in key regions. Trump stayed mostly on script in Pennsylvania, touting his response to the coronavirus although he threw in several jabs at Biden.

"Under the previous administration, the stockpile was depleted and never fully refilled," Trump claimed. Of Biden's and the Obama administration's handling of the H1N1 pandemic, he added: "That was not well handled at all. It got very poor marks."

Trump's first trips on the coronavirus campaign trail have been to states his advisers expect to be closely fought until Election Day. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by only 1.2 percentage points, with a recent Fox News poll putting him behind Biden by 8 points.

Trump has privately fumed to advisers about his standing against Biden. During a briefing by advisers last month, Trump berated campaign manager Brad Parscale over internal polling that showed him behind in multiple key states, said people familiar with the briefings. One person described Trump as being in a "horrific" mood as Parscale walked him through the polling.

Trump's campaign has since tried to provide a more optimistic narrative to allies. In a call with surrogates this week, campaign officials said Trump had gone from 9 points down three weeks ago to a tie with Biden at 48 percent in internal polling from 17 states the campaign is targeting, according to an email summary of the call obtained by NBC News.

National polls released publicly haven't found the same result. Biden holds a 4.5-point lead nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. In a CNN poll released this week, Biden held a 5-point national lead among registered voters, down from 11 points in the same survey a month ago. But when the poll looked just at battleground states, Trump led Biden by 7 points.

By comparison, a Monmouth University poll released last week had Biden ahead by 9 points, up from 4 points in Monmouth's April poll.

The official presidential travel may have some of the hallmarks of Trump's usual campaign events, but it isn't expected to be a long-term substitute. While the president's rallies have been on hold since early March, senior officials involved with the re-election effort are evaluating how best to organize potential gatherings and looking at states that are moving toward reopening as potential sites.

The campaign has pledged to hold rallies again before the general election in November, which the president has predicted are "going to be bigger than ever."

In the meantime, he remains focused on the idea that his re-election depends on a quickly rebounding economy and on pressuring reluctant state officials, such as Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, to get the process underway as soon as possible.

"We have to get your governor in Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit," Trump said. "You have areas in Pennsylvania that are barely affected, and they want to keep them closed. You can't do that."

Shannon Pettypiece is the senior White House reporter for NBCNews.com.

See the rest here:

As the coronavirus crisis hits home, Trump hits the trail - NBC News

Donald Trump traveled to a medical equipment distribution facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, to tout a plan to replenish and upgrade the vital federal stockpile.

According to the pool report, the president and his entourage were led around by Owens and Minor employees, who explained their distribution system and the products they handle.

Trump and [White House chief of staff] Mark Meadows did not wear masks. Everyone else did.

Last week in Arizona, which like Pennsylvania will be a battleground state in November, Trump did not wear a mask while he toured a facility which made masks.

Then, to widespread comment, the James Bond theme song Live and Let Die played in the background.

The Pennsylvania event had the trappings of a campaign rally. For his remarks, Trump approached the podium to the sound of God Bless the USA.

He promised to create a stockpile [of medical equipment] that is not only the best-resourced in the world but also evolved to meet all of the new threats that can happen, things that youre not even thinking about right now.

He also announced that on the flight to Pennsylvania, he signed a new Defense Production Act authority to invest in US-based pharmaceutical producers.

All that social distancing, he said, noting that the facilitys employees were spaced 6ft apart. Look at you people. Thats pretty impressive. But we like it the old way a little bit better, dont we? And well be back, well be back to that soon. I really believe it.

The president also assailed the media a disaster and Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Referring to an occasion on which Biden garbled the name of the H1N1 virus, Trump asked the crowd: N1H1, who said that?

Sleepy Joe! he said, answering himself to a ripple of nervous laughter.

Trump argued that the Obama administration mishandled the response to H1N1, though the scale of that 2009 outbreak was nothing compared to the death toll and social disruption from Covid-19 this year.

According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, more than 1.4m cases have been confirmed in the US and nearly 85,000 people have died. The outbreak appears to be receding in New York, by far the worst-hit state, but new hotspots are being reported, some in traditionally Republican states.

Critics charge that the situation in the US has been made worse by Trumps mismanagement.

See original here:

Donald Trump goes maskless to tour medical equipment facility - The Guardian