An interesting example of how the media can frame an issue. Below is the headline from the New York Times the day after the FBI announced it thought it had found a trove of missing Hillary Clinton emails. It turned out they were wrong, but the announcement swayed the election away from the Democratic presidential candidate. And then next, today’s banner on the Grey Lady the day after we learned an actual PRESIDENT lied to the American people about the severity of a pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Notice how small that is? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm
Donald Trump during a White House press briefing (public domain) After announcing two Nevada campaign rallies planned for this weekend, the Trump campaign has canceled the events due to current limitations on public gatherings imposed by Gov. Steve Sisolak since the spring in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. One event was scheduled for Saturday at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and the other on Sunday at McCarran International Airport. Since late May, Nevada has limited the size of public gatherings to 50 people. Sisolak’s office on Wednesday issued a statement saying it was not involved in the cancellations. “The Governor’s Office had no involvement or communication with the event organizers or potential hosts regarding the proposed campaign events advertised by the Trump campaign. “Current statewide emergency directives include mandatory face coverings, limitations on public and private gatherings to no more than 50 people, and other measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The Nevada-specific White House recommendations have consistently included recommendations to limit the size of gatherings for weeks now.” Even though the governor’s restrictions have been in place for months, the Trump campaign announced Nevada visits on Tuesday. The campaign publicly whined that this is all an attempt to censor the Donald. “Democrats are trying to keep President Trump from speaking to voters because they know the enthusiasm behind his re-election campaign cannot be matched by Joe Biden — a historically weak candidate controlled by the radical left who could hold a campaign event in a broom closet,” read a statement issued by Tim Murtaugh, communications director of the president’s re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority said the rally would have violated the lease agreements that private tenants signed with the authority. “This has nothing to do with politics. The letter (to tenants) we sent is about directives and safety and not political campaigns,” Daren Griffin, president/CEO of the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority, said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We would hold our tenants to the same standard whether it was a Democratic or Republican rally or any other type of gathering. We are complying with the Governor’s directive and Washoe County’s recommendation during a pandemic.” “The fact that Donald Trump was even considering holding these unsafe events in the midst of a global pandemic is just the latest example of his poor judgment and complete disregard for Nevadans’ public health and safety,” said Madison Mundy, spokeswoman for the Nevada State Democratic Party. Poll crunching website FiveThirtyEight reports Biden currently leading Trump by an average of 6.5 percentage points in Nevada. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
(cover image via Amazon) Bob Woodward, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose reporting on the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon, has released excerpts from his upcoming book, Rage, which includes on-the-record interviews (there’s tape!) with Donald Trump from early December 2019 to July 2020. Woodward interviewed Trump 18 times on a wide range of topics. The interviews were recorded by Woodward with Trump’s permission, and CNN has obtained copies of some of the audiotapes. From CNN:
“This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.
In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.
Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”
The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
(screen captures via CNN) Instead, Trump’s decisions allowed many Americans to doubt the severity of the virus and nearly 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Even earlier, on January 28 the discussion turned to the coronavirus outbreak in China during a national security briefing with Trump. “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.” The new book also includes some tough opinions from many of Trump’s former top national security officials on his presidency. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis is quoted as calling Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” to be commander in chief. Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said he “continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.” Woodward writes that Coats felt, “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.” You can hear some of Trump’s chat with Woodward in the tweet below, and much more on CNN here.
This is President Trump on tape, on February 7, saying that the coronavirus is "more deadly than your – you know, your, even your strenuous flus." But he minimized the threat in public. On February 26, he told the public "I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away." pic.twitter.com/TOHTpqYtvZ
In audio clips from Woodward's interview, playing on @CNN now, Trump says he thinks China's Xi has the virus under control and says clearly that the Coronavirus is more deadly than the flu. Trump lied to the public repeatedly after this.
On February 7th He knew it is “deadly stuff” and “it goes trough the air” yet he kept holding big rallies for ANOTER MONTH (here he’s on March 2nd). He doesn’t give a damn (even) about his supporters lives. #TrumpKnewpic.twitter.com/deHovrCUtm
Think about this – Trump knew this was an extremely contagious, deadly airborne virus since at least February and yet he went on TV for months mocking masks and refusing to encourage or mandate people wearing them.
Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse) “I’ve never seen a man that liked a mask more.” Watch Donald Trump recently mocked Joe Biden and reporters for wearing face masks in public, even though the CDC’s current COVID-19 public health guidelines say wearing masks can save lives. Watch below from NowThis News.
(image: Element5 Digital/Pexels) Georgia’s Secretary of State says 1,000 Georgians voted twice in the June 9 primary, although the double-voting didn’t change the outcome of any races. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Tuesday that 1,000 Georgians voted twice in the state’s June 9 primary, a felony that he said will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
These voters returned absentee ballots and then also showed up to vote on election day June 9, Raffensperger said. County election officials are able to stop double-voting most of the time, but they weren’t able to catch everyone.
“A double voter knows exactly what they’re doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law,” Raffensperger said during a press conference at the state Capitol. “Those that make the choice to game the system are breaking the law. And as secretary of state, I will not tolerate it.”
Of those, 1,000 voters had returned their absentee ballots to county election offices, and poll workers also allowed them to vote in-person.
In the report, Raffensperger doesn’t note the party affiliation of the double-voters.
(graphic via CBS News) A new poll from CBS News/YouGov shows former Vice President Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the battleground state of Wisconsin by 6 points. According to the survey, 50 percent of likely Wisconsin voters say they plan to vote for Biden while 44 percent indicated Trump will get their vote. With the ongoing protests across the country, Biden is apparently seen as a more calming figure while Trump is viewed as ‘encouraging’ the angry situations.
Though neither candidate gets rave reviews for what they’ve said about the demonstrations, Biden is seen by more as trying to calm the situation, while the president is perceived by slightly more as encouraging fighting, rather than calming things down. And the larger notion that violence could come to “the suburbs” finds little concern among those who actually reside in the suburbs.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls in Wisconsin puts Biden ahead by 4.4 percent. Head over to CBS News for a more in-depth look at the recent polling results.
Donald Trump (photo: public domain/Flickr) In an effort to dispute the stories about disparaging remarks allegedly made by Donald Trump about fallen military service members, radio personality Mark Simone shared a years-old photo of Donald Trump touching the face of a “severely wounded veteran.” The image has been shared often on social media, usually with a message referring to the man as a wounded veteran and sometimes inferring that he lost his arms in battle. But according to the fact-checking site Snopes the man, Henry “Bubba” Stevenson Jr., is not a “wounded veteran:”
Radio personality Mark Simone also shared this image in May 2017 with the caption: “Here’s a powerful picture that no news outlet will publish. It took place at a Trump rally when the President met a severely wounded veteran. This soldier lost both of his arms. The feeling of a handshake is lost to him. President Trump realized this, and touched his face so he could feel the human connection.”
This is a genuine photograph of Trump briefly touching the cheek of a supporter with two prosthetic arms. However, the accompanying backstory about the supporter being a veteran is inaccurate.
While Trump did touch Stevenson’s face, Stevenson is not a wounded veteran.
According to Online Chester, Stevenson was born without arms. His right limb stops just above his elbow and on his left side he has “only a nub below his shoulder.” A GoFundMe set up in 2014 to raise money for two bionic arms also stated that he “was born without arms.” This post is not an attack on Mr. Stevenson, But Simone tweeting the photo and claim again, years after being called out by Snopes, is intellectually disingenuous in an attempt to help Trump in the middle of a political firestorm.
This gentleman is not a wounded veteran. He was born without arms, as Snopes has explained https://t.co/JQm1wQjRLC. The Trump campaign also wrongly depicted him as a veteran in a 2016 ad…using this photo to replace an image that showed Russian veterans instead of Americans. pic.twitter.com/iYf8pmwZrL
Joe Biden in Kenosha, Wisconsin (image via Joe Biden/Instagram) Former Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden met with the family of Jacob Blake during a trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin. The city has been rocked by unrest following the shooting of Blake, a Black man, was shot in the back seven times by a police officer. From CBS News:
The Bidens met privately with members of the Blake family in a Milwaukee airport terminal. They spoke with Blake’s parents, three siblings and members of Blake’s legal team. Blake, a 29-year-old father of six, is now paralyzed from his injuries.
Ben Crump, Blake’s attorney, said in a statement that Blake himself joined the conversation by phone.
“The family was grateful for the meeting and was very impressed that the Bidens were so engaged and willing to really listen,” Crump said. He said that Blake’s mother led the group in prayer, and his father talked about the need for systemic police reform.
“It was very obvious that Vice President Biden cared, as he extended to Jacob Jr. a sense of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer,” Crump said.
Donald Trump didn’t meet with Jacob Blake’s family in Wisconsin because they asked to have a lawyer involved which Trump called “inappropriate.” Biden clearly didn’t have a problem with having a lawyer “involved.” Biden later met with community leaders to talk on addressing issues of racial justice. He also denounced recent rioting and looting which has taken place while speaking with a business owner whose store was damaged during the unrest. “Protesting is protesting, it’s a right, as my friend John Lewis would say. But that does not include looting, burning or anything else,” Biden said. If you watch anything today, please watch the first video posted below. Just watch and listen.
Joe Biden went to Kenosha today and did what a president should. He listened and centered the people in the community. He did not incite, he brought calm. Basically, Joe Biden went to Kenosha today and did what Donald Trump has never – brought people together.
Reminder that Trump said a reason he didn’t meet with Blake’s family during his Kenosha trip this week was because the family wanted an attorney to be present. Here, the family attorney issues effusive praise of Biden after meeting today. https://t.co/UJr7ngFFz8
In a CBS This Morning interview, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks with Gayle King about new measures the social media company is taking before the November election. Among other measures, Facebook promises to flag – or in some cases, remove – misinformation about voting related to the coronavirus. Zuckerberg also announced Facebook will not accept new political ads in the final week before the presidential election and will squash attempts by candidates who claim false victories by sending users to accurate voter returns on the results.
Former Vice President Joe Biden (image via Instagram) Via Reuters:
Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.
The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members said.
Called ‘Republicans and Independents for Biden’, the group is headed by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics and who spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention in support of Biden.
While the group’s members come from all over the country, it’s notable that a fifth are from Michigan, where Trump barely eked out a win of less than a percentage point in 2016.
An interesting example of how the media can frame an issue. Below is the headline from the New York Times the day after the FBI announced it thought it had found a trove of missing Hillary Clinton emails. It turned out they were wrong, but the announcement swayed the election away from the Democratic presidential candidate. 
And then next, today’s banner on the Grey Lady the day after we learned an actual PRESIDENT lied to the American people about the severity of a pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans. Notice how small that is? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm 
Instead, Trump’s decisions allowed many Americans to doubt the severity of the virus and 
