Tag Archives: Trump administration

Feds Deny Permit For Alaska Gold Mining Project

Politico reports: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska on Wednesday, effectively killing plans to build the massive copper and gold project that opponents had warned could wipe out the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The decision from the Trump administration, which had reversed course several times on the issue, comes just …

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US Settles With Citizens Detained For Speaking Spanish

The New York Daily News reports: A pair of American women detained by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent after they were overheard speaking in Spanish at a Montana convenience store have reached an undisclosed settlement in their lawsuit against agency, the ACLU announced. Ana Suda and Martha “Mimi” Hernandez were out buying groceries in the city of Havre, …

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Overwhelmed Officials Give Up On Contact Tracing

The New York Times reports: Coronavirus outbreaks in the United States were once traced back to their origins, whether at busy restaurants or crowded meatpacking plants. But now that the virus is spreading rapidly in much of the country — more than 2,200 U.S. deaths from Covid-19 were reported on Tuesday alone, making it the deadliest day in more than …

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Mnuchin To Put $455B In COVID Relief Funding Into An Account That Successor Cannot Easily Gain Access To

Bloomberg News reports: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will put $455 billion in unspent Cares Act funding into an account that his presumed successor, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, will need authorization from Congress to use. Mnuchin plans to place the money into the agency’s General Fund, a Treasury Department spokesperson said Tuesday. That fund can only be tapped with …

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Yesterday: 193,000 New Cases, 82,000 Hospitalized

CNN reports: The number of Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 and the number of new US cases reported rose to record levels for a second day in a row on Friday. More than 82,000 people were hospitalized, according to the Covid Tracking Project, topping Thursday’s record. More than 193,000 new cases were reported, according to Johns Hopkins University data — the …

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Ben Carson Now Says He Became “Desperately Ill” After Taking The MyPillow Nutjob’s “Oleander 4X” Treatment

Posted this afternoon to Ben Carson’s Facebook page: Thank you everyone for your support and prayers as Candy and I battled COVID-19. I was extremely sick and initially took Oleander 4X with dramatic improvement. However, I have several co-morbidities and after a brief period when I only experienced minor discomfort, the symptoms accelerated and I became desperately ill. President Trump …

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SCOTUS Cancels Arguments In Case Brought By Trump

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday canceled oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s bid to keep Congress from seeing material withheld from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian political meddling, raising the possibility that the justices may never rule on the issue. The court granted a request from the Democratic-led House of Representatives Judiciary …

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Rudy Giuliani’s WH Staffer Son Is Sick With COVID

The Hill reports: Andrew Giuliani, the son of the president’s personal attorney and a staffer at the White House, tested positive for coronavirus, he tweeted Friday. Giuliani, a special assistant to the president, is the latest White House staffer to test positive for the highly contagious virus in recent weeks. He has worked as a liaison to sports leagues and …

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2000+ US COVID Deaths Yesterday, Highest Since May

CNN reports: More than 2,000 American deaths were recorded by Johns Hopkins University on Thursday — the highest number since early May. And as the virus runs unabated across US communities, experts warn the coming weeks will likely be brutal and the pandemic’s death toll will keep climbing. By December 18, more than 2,300 Americans could be losing their lives …

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House Dems Demand Briefing From GSA Administrator

Politico reports: Four senior House Democrats are demanding that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy brief them Monday on the reason she has yet to ascertain Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election, warning that her answers will determine whether they intend to haul her to Capitol Hill for a public hearing, along with other senior General Services Administration officials. “We have …

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LIVE VIDEO: First COVID Task Force Briefing In Months

CNBC reports: The White House coronavirus task force is slated to address the public on Thursday for the first time in months as the Covid-19 outbreak continues to worsen across the United States. he briefing comes just hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also broke its months-long silence, holding its first news briefing since August. The CDC …

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Meadows Offers To Back Stripping Confederate Base Names In Return For Repeal Of Social Media Shield

The New York Times reports: Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has privately hinted that President Trump would drop his objection to stripping Confederate leaders’ names from military bases, which is threatening to derail the annual military policy bill, if Democrats agreed to repeal an important legal shield for social media companies. Mr. Trump has threatened to veto …

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Dem Rep Demands Prosecutions For Trump And Aides

The New Jersey Advance reports: New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, is demanding the president and his aides be investigated and prosecuted after they leave office. Pascrell, D-9th Dist., said late Tuesday that a failure to do so would embolden “criminality by our national leaders” and continue “America down the path …

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Mike Pompeo Unveils Funding Ban For “Anti-Semitic” Human Rights Groups That Criticize Abuses By Israel

The Hill reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced that the State Department will ban funding any organization it determines participates in the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, labeling such activity as anti-Semitic. The secretary made the announcement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while on travel in Jerusalem and said the State Department would …

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WH Under Fire For Appointee To Holocaust Commission

The New York Times reports: The White House drew criticism from a prominent Jewish group on Wednesday, a day after it appointed a speechwriter it fired for attending a gathering with white nationalists to a commission that helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust. Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018, was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of …

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Yesterday: 172,391 New COVID Cases, 1923 Deaths

The New York Times reports: At least 1,923 new coronavirus deaths and 172,391 new cases were reported in the United States on Nov. 18. Over the past week, there has been an average of 162,816 cases per day, an increase of 77 percent from the average two weeks earlier. As of Thursday morning, more than 11,613,800 people in the United …

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DOJ Told Feds To Back Off Probe Of Former Barr Client

Reuters reports: Before William Barr became President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Justice, he represented Caterpillar Inc, a Fortune 100 company, in a federal criminal investigation by the department. Much was at stake for Caterpillar: Since 2018, the Internal Revenue Service has been demanding $2.3 billion in payments from the company in connection with the tax …

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US Passes 250,000 COVID Deaths, 1707 Just Yesterday

NBC News reports: The United States has recorded a quarter-million Covid-19 deaths, the latest NBC News numbers showed Wednesday, and the death rate has been accelerating in recent weeks as cases have been surging across the country. The 250,000th death was logged Wednesday morning, the data revealed. In the last four weeks there has been a 42 percent increase in …

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Estimate: 3 Million Americans Contagious With COVID

The Washington Post reports: More than 3 million people in the United States have active coronavirus infections and are potentially contagious, according to a new estimate from infectious-disease experts tracking the pandemic. That number is significantly larger than the official case count, which is based solely on those who have tested positive for the virus. The vast — and rapidly …

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HHS Cancels $15M Celebrity COVID Ad Campaign

Politico reports: The Health and Human Services department has scrapped a planned ad campaign featuring celebrities discussing Covid-19, a senior HHS official told a congressional oversight panel in a letter shared with POLITICO. The abandoned $15 million contract with Atlas Research, part of a larger $300 million taxpayer-funded campaign aimed at “defeating despair” over the pandemic, was conceived by a …

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