The Trump Administration Shut a Vaccine Safety Office Last Year. What’s the Plan Now?

New York Times logo

The office was dedicated to the long-term safety of vaccines. Experts say plans to track coronavirus vaccines are fragmented and “behind the eight ball.”

As the first coronavirus vaccines arrive in the coming year, government researchers will face a monumental challenge: monitoring the health of hundreds of millions of Americans to ensure the vaccines don’t cause harm.

Purely by chance, thousands of vaccinated people will have heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses shortly after the injections. Sorting out whether the vaccines had anything to do with their ailments will be a thorny problem, requiring a vast, coordinated effort by state and federal agencies, hospitals, drug makers and insurers to discern patterns in a flood of data. Findings will need to be clearly communicated to a distrustful public swamped with disinformation.

For now, Operation Warp Speed, created by the Trump administration to spearhead development of coronavirus vaccines and treatments, is focused on getting vaccines through clinical trials in record time and manufacturing them quickly. Continue reading.

Judge orders Postal Service to restore high-speed mail sorting machines

The Hill logo

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the U.S. Postal Service to restore high-speed mail sorting machines at facilities that cannot process First Class election mail efficiently amid the coronavirus pandemic.  

The Thursday order was intended to clarify an injunction issued late last month that prevented the Trump administration from enforcing operational changes implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in June and July that included removing high-speed sorting machines. 

The Postal Service at the time had asked the judge to clarify the order, claiming that the dismantled machines couldn’t be put back together again, according to Bloomberg.  Continue reading.

Trump’s Philanthropy: Big Tax Write-Offs and Claims That Don’t Always Add Up

New York Times logo

Hidden financial records cast doubt on a number of his charitable commitments and show that most of his giving came from land deals that offset his income.

In President Trump’s telling, he is a committed philanthropist with strong ties to many charities. “If you don’t give back, you’re never ever going to be fulfilled in life,” he wrote in “Trump 101: The Way to Success,” published at the height of his “Apprentice” fame.

And according to his tax records, he has given back at least $130 million since 2005, his second year as a reality TV star.

But the long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, show that Mr. Trump did not have to reach into his wallet for most of that giving. The vast bulk of his charitable tax deductions, $119.3 million worth, came from simply agreeing not to develop land — in several cases, after he had shelved development plans. Continue reading.

Detention Facilities For Immigrants Fast-Tracked For Deportation Were Rife With Problems, Inspectors Find

Federal inspectors also found that families were held in Border Patrol custody for longer than a week, well beyond the 72-hour standard for detention.

Two controversial pilot programs that sought to quickly deport Mexican and Central American asylum-seekers at the southern border were rife with issues, including migrant families forced to remain in custody longer than what was appropriate, juvenile girls stuck in the same detention space with unrelated adult men, and toilets in facilities that had limited privacy.

The details come from a draft report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that was obtained by BuzzFeed News. The two pilot programs instituted last fall — the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) and Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) — were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to quickly screen and potentially remove asylum-seekers at the border.

Under HARP, Mexican asylum-seekers detained by Border Patrol agents were given an initial screening called a credible fear interview by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers within 48 hours, and the decision on the screening was expected to go quicker than usual. The other program, PACR, was similarly organized but aimed at Central Americans who traveled through Mexico to arrive at the US border. Continue reading.

Trump’s campaign made stops nationwide. Coronavirus cases surged in his wake in at least five places.

As President Donald Trump jetted across the country holding campaign ralliesduring the past two months, he didn’t just defy state orders and federal health guidelines. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake. 

The president has participated in nearly three dozen rallies since mid-August, all but two at airport hangars. A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Together, those counties saw 1,500 more new cases in the two weeks following Trump’s rallies than the two weeks before – 9,647 cases, up from 8,069.  Continue reading.

U.S. hits all-time high in new coronavirus cases, exceeding 80,000 in a day for the first time

Washington Post logo

NOTE: This article is provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

The United States hit an all-time high in new coronavirus cases on Friday, surpassing the previous mark set during a summer surge across the Sun Belt. Friday’s tally of new U.S. cases — the first above 80,000 — comes as covid-19 hospitalizations are soaring across the country; according to data tracked by The Washington Post, the average number of hospitalizations has jumped in at least 38 states over the past week, a trend that cannot be explained by more widespread testing.

Fourteen states have reported new highs in hospitalized covid-19 patients in the past seven days: Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Iowa, Utah, Montana, West Virginia, Missouri and Kansas. Health experts say the current wave is setting the stage for an even greater surge heading into colder months. View the post an additional COVID-19 news here.

Trump’s smile falls from his face as his attempt to get a foreign leader to attack Biden backfires

AlterNet logo

In a now-infamous phone call, President Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to insert himself into American politics by announcing an investigation of his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. That call and the scheme surrounding it led to Democrats impeach Trump, alleging that he had corruptly leveraged his office and congressionally approved funds to benefit his own political campaign.

Trump appeared to be taking a shot at similar gambit, if on a much smaller and less elaborate scale, on Friday during a televised call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While discussing a new plan for Israel to normalize relations with Sudan on speakerphone in front of reporters, Trump tried to goad Netanyahu into attacking Biden. Continue reading.

VP Mike Pence headed back to Minnesota as Trump campaign revives TV ads

NOTE: Since this article was published on Friday, Mike Pence has had multiple people in his office test positive for COVID-19, which should require quarantining. He’s not doing so citing being a essential worker. However, he’s doing campaign business not working for the people of this country.

Vice president will stop in Hibbing amid “heavy” ad buy. 

Vice President Mike Pence will return to Minnesota on Monday as President Donald Trump’s campaign bolsters its advertising on state airwaves after pulling back in recent weeks.

Pence is scheduled to hold a rally at the regional airport in Hibbing, the Trump campaign announced Friday.

Meanwhile, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a conference call that Trump’s new ad buys would be “heavy” with 11 days until Election Day. Continue reading.

Migrant parents could face fateful choice: Be separated from their children or stay together in jail

Washington Post logo

The federal judge who oversees long-running litigation about the treatment of migrant children in U.S. custody ordered the government Friday to finalize its procedures for providing parents a fateful choice: allow their children to be released to a designated guardian, or remain together in immigration jail.

Such a decision, known informally as “binary choice,” could transform the family migration dynamics that have confounded the Trump administration and the Obama administration before it as successive waves of Central American families crossed the border and overwhelmed U.S. capacity to process their humanitarian claims.

Most important, it would shift the nature of the decision about whether to separate children from their families at the border. Instead of it being up to the government, as it is now, it would be up to the migrant parents. Continue reading.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Weekly Update: October 23, 2020

Governor Walz Signs Local Jobs and Projects Plan Into Law
Bonding Bill

At the Ironworkers Local 512 Training Center in St. Paul on Wednesday, Governor Walz signed into law the $1.9 billion Local Jobs and Projects Plan that will invest in construction and renovation projects across the state and create thousands of jobs for Minnesotans.

“Our Local Jobs and Projects Plan will create thousands of good-paying jobs at a time when Minnesotans are looking for work,” said Governor Walz. “This bipartisan plan invests in the projects that local communities told us matter most to them. Whether that’s roads and bridges, clean water, or affordable housing, this plan will help ensure every community in Minnesota prospers.”

Continue reading “Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Weekly Update: October 23, 2020”