Monthly Archives: May 2020

COVID Postcard From Trump Cost USPS $28 Million

USA Today reports: A postcard mailed to every American household that included coronavirus social distancing guidelines and also prominently featured President Donald Trump’s name cost the U.S. Postal Service $28 million, USA TODAY has learned. The coronavirus card, which began appearing in U.S. mailboxes in March, drew fire from good-government groups that said it applied a political veneer to the …

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Boston Marathon Canceled For First Time In Its History

ESPN reports: Organizers canceled the Boston Marathon on Thursday for the first time in its history, bowing to the social distancing requirements of the coronavirus outbreak and ending a 124-year run that had persisted through two World Wars, a volcanic eruption and even another pandemic. The race, which draws a field of 30,000 and already had been postponed from April …

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Trump Signs Order To Punish Critics Of His Lying

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump escalated his war on social media companies, signing an executive order Thursday challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet. Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for …

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Pelosi Roasts Zuckerberg, Says Twitter Is No Better

The Daily Beast reports: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ripped Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for saying he didn’t believe social media platforms should be the “arbiters of truth” and fact-check political speech. “I think Mark Zuckerberg’s statement was a disgrace,” Pelosi told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Thursday. “And Twitter, they’re not taking off any accusations the president is …

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NYC Bill Would Open Streets And Sidewalks For Dining

The New York Times reports: The New York City Council introduced legislation Thursday afternoon, backed by the restaurant industry, requiring the mayor to find a way to open streets, sidewalks and public plazas to outdoor dining. Corey Johnson [photo], the Council speaker, and Councilman Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn are spearheading the effort. “The restaurant and the food industry has been …

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McConnell: Wear A Mask, “There Should Be No Stigma”

ABC News reports: Wading into a politically charged issue, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday preached the importance of wearing masks in public as the nation’s economy reopens from the “cataclysmic” damage inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic. During a tour of hospitals this week in his home state of Kentucky, the Republican leader has stressed wearing masks in public …

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NY Bill Would Make Some False Reports A Hate Crime

CBS News reports: Proposed state legislation in New York would make falsely reporting certain criminal incidents a hate crime. The bill is gaining support in the wake of a viral video that showed a white woman calling police on a black man who asked her to leash her dog in Central Park. In the video, the woman, Amy Cooper, is …

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Kellyanne Conway Voted By Mail But Dems Will Cheat

The Huffington Post reports: White House aide Kellyanne Conway — who, like her boss, the president, is falsely attacking voting by mail as prone to fraud — cast her own ballot by mail to vote in Bergen County, New Jersey, in the 2018 midterm election. Conway, who with her husband continues to own a home in northern New Jersey, tried …

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Trump Caves And Extends National Guard Deployment

Politico reports: The Trump administration is extending the federal deployment of over 40,000 National Guard troops aiding coronavirus relief efforts, reversing plans for an earlier cutoff following bipartisan backlash and pressure from top defense officials. The federal government will now keep funding National Guard troops in nearly the entire country through mid-August, President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday. The administration was …

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Twitter Fact-Checks Chinese Claim Virus Started In US

Axios reports: Twitter slapped a fact-check label on a pair of months-old tweets from a Chinese government spokesperson that falsely suggested that the coronavirus originated in the U.S. and was brought to Wuhan by the U.S. military, directing users to “get the facts about COVID-19.” The labels were added after criticism that Twitter had fact-checked tweets from President Trump about …

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Graham To Judges: Resign Now So We Can Replace You

The Washington Post reports: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham on Thursday urged federal judges who are in their mid-to-late 60s to step aside so that Republicans, increasingly nervous about holding the Senate majority in the November election as they eye President Trump’s poll numbers, can fill the vacancies now. Graham made the comments in an interview with conservative …

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Trump Hotel Partner Lobbied WH On Trade With Turkey

Courthouse News reports: Three White House cabinet members received pitches last week to dramatically increase trade with Turkey. Capitalizing on the coronavirus pandemic, the letters came from Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, the chairman of Turkey’s oldest state-sponsored trade group who partnered with Ivanka Trump and the president on the Trump Towers Istanbul deal. “Well before Covid-19 and the new set of …

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Haters Have The Costa Rica Marriage “Tyranny” Sadz

Via email from the Family Research Council: The judicial tyranny imposed upon Costa Rica began with a decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in 2018. The court is charged with enforcement of the American Convention on Human Rights, an agreement among some members of the Organization of American States. Nine months later, Costa Rica’s own Supreme Court, …

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Report: Down-Ballot Republicans Increasingly Panicked

CNN reports: “Put it this way, I am very glad my boss isn’t on the ballot this cycle,” said one high-ranking GOP Senate aide. Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in November and that he may drag other Republicans down with him. Seven GOP operatives not directly associated with the President’s reelection campaign told CNN …

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Pence Aide Owns Stock In COVID Response Companies

NPR reports: Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related to the Trump administration’s pandemic response — holdings that could run afoul of conflict of interest laws. Many of the medical, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies – including 3M, Abbott Laboratories, Gilead Sciences, …

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Cuomo To Sign “No Mask, No Entry” Executive Order

NBC News reports: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that he is signing an executive order authorizing businesses to deny entry to people who do not wear a mask or face covering. “That store owner has a right to protect himself,” the governor said at his daily coronavirus briefing. “That store owner has a right to protect the other …

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Trump: “Big Win” In TX Ruling Against Voting By Mail

USA Today reports: Rejecting claims raised by state Democrats, the Texas Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that a lack of immunity to the coronavirus does not entitle voters to a mail-in ballot under state law. Texas election law limits mail-in ballots to specific categories of voters, such as those with a disability that prevents them from safely traveling to a …

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DOJ Opens “Robust” Probe Into MN Killing By Police

Via press release from the Justice Department: The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the FBI’s Minneapolis Field Office are conducting a robust criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd. The Department of Justice has made the investigation a top priority and has …

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Sen. Tim Kaine And Wife Positive For COVID Antibodies

The Hill reports: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on Thursday that he and his wife tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, an indication that they have previously been infected with the disease. “We each tested positive for coronavirus antibodies this month. While those antibodies could make us less likely to be re-infected or infect others, there is still too much uncertainty …

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Tucker Carlson Claims Twitter Is “Censoring” Trump

“It is so infuriating that the Congress has done nothing to protect the public from censorship, that it’s hard to even express it out loud. It’s really shameful, in my view. How can you have a free and fair election when opinions are being aggressively censored to favor one side? “I’m just thinking that maybe someone in the federal bureaucracy, …

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