Author: Data and Research Manager

Conservative columnist unpacks why Trump’s ‘people in the dark shadows’ comment was so troubling

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“Dark Shadows” isn’t only the name of a 1960s/early 1970s soap opera about vampires, witches and werewolves — it is also a phrase that President Donald Trump is using to rally his far-right base. During a Monday night appearance on Laura Ingraham’s “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, Trump claimed that “people in the dark shadows” and “people that you haven’t heard of” are working to get Vice President Joe Biden elected in November.

And conservative Never Trump journalist Bill Kristol, in an article for The Bulwark, points to those comments as examples of Trump’s love of conspiracy theories.

“Perhaps one shouldn’t…. be too alarmed by a politician claiming his opponent is being manipulated by men operating in the dark shadows,” Kristol writes. “Politicians exaggerate and even make up things. It’s life in a democracy. But this wasn’t just any politician. It was the president. And this isn’t just any president. It’s one who’s not been afraid to encourage, or at least excuse, violence by his supporters.” Continue reading.

Facebook takes down Russian operation that recruited U.S. journalists, amid rising concerns about election misinformation

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The social media giant acted against a small network of pages and accounts that directed users to a fake left-leaning news site called Peace Data

Facebook removed a network of fake accounts and pages created by Russian operatives who had recruited U.S. journalists to write articles critical of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris, in an apparent bid to undermine their support among liberal voters.

Facebook said it caught the network of 13 fake accounts and two pages early, before it had a chance to build a large audience — an action that the company said was evidence of its growing effectiveness at targeting foreign disinformation operations ahead of the 2020 election. The takedown emerged as a result of a tip from the FBI and was one of a dozen operations tied to the Russian Internet Research Agency or individuals affiliated with it that Facebook has disrupted since the last presidential election, when IRA-backed pages amassed millions of views on the platform. The pages had about 14,000 followers.

“They’ve gotten better at hiding who they are, but their impact has gotten smaller and smaller,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said of the foreign operations. Continue reading.

Trump payroll tax deferral finds few takers among businessesDonald T

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September kicks off the payroll tax deferral period initiated by President Trump last month, but few businesses are expected to participate in a plan that would likely lead to less take-home pay for workers early next year.

Under guidance issued by the IRS last week, employers can stop withholding Social Security payroll taxes from paychecks from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31 for employees who make less than $4,000 on a biweekly basis. The money would then be collected by having businesses increase the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks in the first four months of 2021.

“This is like other tax deferrals that we gave which were very helpful to people,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a hearing Tuesday held by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. “This is money in people’s pocket that they need now that is very important and very meaningful.” Continue reading.

Support for Trump appears to be slipping in the military. And no wonder.

The weekend warriors in their Army surplus battle rattle, their paintball weapons and gun show specials are getting lots of love from this clown show’s commander in chief.

“GREAT PATRIOTS!” President Trump tweeted, along with a video of the vigilantes flouting the law and causing disorder while cruising the streets of an American city.

Meanwhile, the real defenders of freedom — the men and women of the U.S. military — aren’t getting love from Trump. And they’re sure not giving it. Continue reading.

Federal court blocks release of Trump taxes while case appealed

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A federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday temporarily halted a lower court ruling that would have sped up the disclosure of President Trump‘s tax returns to prosecutors in Manhattan.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals allows Trump to continue shielding eight years of corporate and personal tax returns while he appeals the lower court decision.

The 2nd Circuit on Tuesday also scheduled a Sept. 25 hearing over Trump’s claim that the New York grand jury subpoena seeking his tax returns is overbroad and was issued in bad faith. A federal trial judge dismissed those assertions in a lengthy opinion last month. Continue reading.

Trump is misrepresenting coronavirus data again, and it’s extremely dangerous

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report released last week has quickly become yet another cause for public controversy and confusion. Why? Because the coronavirus data — which showed that 94% of people who die of COVID-19 also have preexisting conditions — has been widely misinterpreted by many (including, of course, our President).

For those who egregiously assert that COVID-19 deaths are overreported, this served as evidence that most of the people who died after being infected with coronavirus were actually already sick beforehand and that COVID-19 itself has only actually killed only around 9,000 people in the US. Here’s everything you need to know to remain on the logical side of this conversation.

The report released by the CDC was a breakdown of COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. from February to August, based on death certificates. First of all, this data is considered “provisional,” because these counts may not match counts from other sources, such as data from county health departments, the CDC stated in the report. That doesn’t mean the information is irrelevant, it just means that it’s subject to change. The CDC considers death certificates to be reliable sources of information because they include demographic details that state reporting agencies don’t, which makes them useful in figuring out what other factors (e.g.: like age, race, and underlying health conditions) may have contributed to a person’s death. Continue reading.

‘White House cover-up’: New report shows Trump and Pence withheld truth about COVID-19 as they spread lies

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As President Donald Trump and administration officials have been publicly downplaying the Covid-19 crisis and even predicting its imminent disappearance over the past several months, the White House task force formed to coordinate the federal pandemic response has simultaneously been issuing dire assessments of the nation’s fight against the pandemic behind the scenes.

Those assessments were kept secret from the public until Monday, when the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released a trove of task force reports dated between June 23 and August 9 that highlight the extent to which Trump’s public proclamations about the Covid-19 crisis have diverged from the findings of experts operating in the White House.

“The task force reports released today show the White House has known since June that coronavirus cases were surging across the country and many states were becoming dangerous ‘red zones’ where the virus was spreading fast,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the subcommittee. Continue reading.

Trump administration rolls back Obama-era rule aimed at limiting toxic wastewater from coal plants

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Power plant discharge ranks as the largest source of toxic water pollution in the United States

The Trump administration on Monday weakened a 2015 regulation that would have forced coal plants to treat wastewater with more modern, effective methods in order to curb toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury from contaminating lakes, rivers and streams near their facilities.

In a statement, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said that the final rule’s “flexible, phased-in” approach would make it easier for the coal industry to comply while also protecting the environment. Three years ago the Trump administration delayed the Obama-era rule — which the EPA had estimated would keep 1.4 billion pounds of pollutants out of U.S. waterways each year — before replacing it with a scaled-back version.

“Newer, more affordable pollution control technologies and flexibility on the regulation’s phase-in will reduce pollution and save jobs at the same time,” Wheeler said. Continue reading.

Why we still don’t know if Trump is a Russian asset

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As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff is attempting to meet the Supreme Court’s guidelines for gaining access to Donald Trump’s financial records. In a memorandum to committee members on counterintelligence risks posed by the president’s financial ties, he included this footnote:

Based on the Committee’s review, it does not appear that Special Counsel Mueller issued any grand jury subpoenas to obtain the President’s financial records. The Committee also has reason to believe, based on its oversight work, that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has not investigated counterintelligence risks arising from President Trump’s foreign financial ties.

That points to a question Schiff has been asking since the Mueller probe was completed in March, 2019.  Here’s how he explained it to the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump a few weeks after Mueller wrapped up his work : Continue reading.

Twitter deletes claim minimizing coronavirus death toll, which Trump retweeted

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After President Trump retweeted a claim that discounted the coronavirus death toll in the United States over the weekend, Twitter took down the post that spread false information.

The tweet was originally posted by “Mel Q,” a follower of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, which posits that the president is battling a cabal of Satan-worshiping child sex traffickers. It was copied from a Facebook post and claimed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had “quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6%” of reported deaths — or about 9,000 — “actually died from Covid.”

The rest were people who “had 2-3 other serious illnesses,” said the tweet, which has since been replaced with a message saying it “is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules.” A Twitter spokesperson said the tweet violated the company’s coronavirus misinformation policy. Continue reading.