Senate Republicans were cool to President Donald Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence the first time he was nominated. And the second time appears no different.
GOP senators were treading carefully on Monday over whether they’d vote to confirm Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to lead the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies, with several lawmakers offering tepid praise for the firebrand congressman but refusing to rule out ultimately supporting him.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised Trump for seeking the Senate’s input by nominating a director of national intelligence — something the president has been hesitant to pursue for several high-level executive branch positions. Many posts remain left vacant or are occupied by officials who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate.
But McConnell didn’t weigh in on Ratcliffe’s qualifications to lead the country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus, and other Senate Republicans followed suit by asserting that they didn’t know much about the Trump loyalist who already once withdrew from consideration amid claims he exaggerated his resume.
“President Trump has a strong track record of sending the Senate impressive nominees for national security posts who are well prepared to protect our nation and defend our interests,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “I hope Congressman Ratcliffe will impress senators just as did the other members of the president’s team and earn a bipartisan confirmation vote.”
McConnell said he looked forward to meeting Ratcliffe in person and expressed faith in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ability to hold a “fair confirmation process.”
Many Senate Republicans reiterated Monday that they didn’t know much about Ratcliffe, a three-term conservative lawmaker — offering a similar response to when Trump first announced his intent to nominate him last year.
“I know very little about Congressman Ratcliffe,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said. “I will be looking into his background and record. But until I do, I really can’t comment on how I’ll vote on that.”
“I don’t know him, so I don’t have an opinion on that yet,” added Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).
Other senior Republicans offered a more encouraging response.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of Senate GOP leadership who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said he backed the nomination and predicted Ratcliffe would be confirmed.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the intelligence panel, also said Monday that he is fully supportive of Ratcliffe’s nomination and is optimistic that he can clear the 51-vote threshold in the Senate. He added that given Democratic opposition to Richard Grenell, the current acting intelligence chief, Ratcliffe now has an easier road to confirmation.
“I don’t think anybody changed their opinion of John Ratcliffe. What changed was the pathway to get somebody confirmed,” Burr said. “If Democrats want to vote against him and have Grenell stay on as acting until the end of the year, that’s fine with me.”
Trump installed Grenell, his ambassador to Germany, as acting DNI last month, replacing Joseph Maguire, who also served as acting intelligence chief since August. Democrats criticized the president for bypassing Congress by naming Grenell as an acting chief, particularly because Grenell lacks experience in the intelligence community.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), an Intelligence Committee member, appeared eager to move forward with the nomination, calling Ratcliffe “smart” and “intellectually capable,” while expressing concern about Grenell’s dual roles in Washington and Berlin.
“[Grenell] still holds the post in Germany, which eventually he either has to get back to or we’re going to have to put somebody else,” Rubio said. “You can’t have that post vacant. And you can’t do both jobs.”
Before Ratcliffe was nominated, Grenell was only able to serve through March 11 under federal vacancy laws. Now, Grenell — another fierce Trump ally — can stay on for months longer while Ratcliffe's nomination is pending.
Trump reportedly forced Maguire out after an official working under him briefed the House Intelligence Committee on Russia’s purported efforts to aid Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.
Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney in Texas, served as a chief defender of the president during the House’s impeachment inquiry. As a member of both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, he had a prominent role in the questioning of witnesses who spoke about allegations that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine in order to pressure that country’s government to investigate Joe Biden.
Ratcliffe was also a member of Trump’s outside impeachment team during the Senate’s trial. The group included other close allies of the president, like Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Though Ratcliffe lacks a deep intelligence background, several Senate Republicans said such experience wasn’t necessary.
“I really haven’t looked closely at his — any intelligence cred. But in general, he seems like a guy that should do well at the job,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said in an interview. “That whole idea whether you need people who are steeped in experience versus somebody that’s just generally maybe good across the board — as the CEO of my own company, it wasn’t always a no-brainer to take somebody that had been around a long time.”
“I’m certainly not an intelligence expert. He may not be either, but he’s certainly a very good lawyer, good legislator, knows the bureaucracy and he’s got the trust of the president,” added Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a potential swing vote, has yet to weigh in on Ratcliffe’s latest nomination. Last year, Collins simply said she had not met him.
Trump announced last July that he would nominate Ratcliffe to succeed Maguire but never formally submitted the nomination to the Senate and pulled the pick days later amid reports that Ratcliffe had embellished aspects of his resume. At the time, Trump stood by Ratcliffe and said he was being treated “unfairly” by the news media.
Senate Democrats have indicated that they will oppose Ratcliffe, arguing that he does not have the necessary experience to serve in the role and is being picked because of his support for the president.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) ripped Ratcliffe on Monday as an “alarmingly partisan choice” and urged Senate Republicans to reject his nomination.
“He was a fierce critic of the Mueller investigation, earned praise from deep-state conspiracy theorists,” Schumer said. “It is such a decline in America when this great agency, where people have risked their lives for America, quietly is made into a political football. … With this nomination, President Trump has shown again a lack of respect for the rule of law.”
Michael Bloomberg was called out by reporter Scott Pelley during a ’60 Minutes’ interview for spreading a lie about President Trump’s comments on the coronavirus.
Pelley, a CBS News reporter, asked Bloomberg for his thoughts on the coronavirus emergency. The Democrat candidate for President responded by spreading his own hoax.
“I find it incomprehensible that the president would do something as inane as calling it ‘a hoax,” Bloomberg falsely claimed.
Pelley stepped in to correct Bloomberg, who didn’t even bother to admit he had misspoken.
“He said the Democrats making so much of it is a Democratic hoax, not that the virus was a hoax,” Pelley explained.
To rehash – Bloomberg lied about the President’s comments, then accused Trump of being “inane,” “ignorant,” and “irresponsible.”
Pot, meet kettle.
Michael Bloomberg repeated the false claim that President Trump referred to the coronavirus as a “hoax.”
CBS News’ Scott Pelley pointed out that President Trump actually said the media & Democrat hysteria about the government coronavirus response was a hoax, NOT the virus. pic.twitter.com/HmSWsnaQFw
— Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) March 1, 2020
RELATED: Trump Hammers ‘Incompetent’ Pelosi For Trying to Politicize Coronavirus
Fascinating, isn’t it, that President Trump would call hysteria over the coronavirus generated by Democrats and the media a hoax, and they would proceed to prove his point by flat-out lying about what was said.
Here’s the reality.
Trump told supporters at a campaign rally that the resistance party would do everything in their power to use the coronavirus emergency as a means to take him down – similar to the Russia collusion witch hunt.
“Now, the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” Trump said.
He added, “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. And this is their new hoax.”
If you are pushing the narrative that Trump called coronavirus a “hoax,” you’re lying.
It’s pretty obvious what he’s saying here. pic.twitter.com/RlSoJ8ZSb8
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) February 29, 2020
RELATED: Cher Spreads Fake News Story Alleging That Trump Described Coronavirus As A ‘Hoax’
Having a reporter call you out in the middle of a ’60 Minutes’ interview for being a liar isn’t the first time Bloomberg has been embarrassed on the national stage.
It’s not even the first time a normally Democrat-cooperative media has called him out for lying about the coronavirus itself.
Just last week, the Associated Press fact-checked Bloomberg along with other Democrat colleagues for distorting the truth about the Trump administration’s preparedness in dealing with coronavirus.
“There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing,” Biden said during a debate. “And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.”
Not so, according to the AP.
“Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of ‘reckless cuts’ to the CDC,” the AP reports.
“Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH,” they added. “Instead, financing has increased.”
The post Bloomberg Called Out During Interview For Lying About Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Hoax’ Comments appeared first on The Political Insider.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
● Los Angeles County, CA District Attorney: Tuesday's nonpartisan primary to be the top prosecutor in America's largest county has become a high-profile and expensive contest between incumbent Jackie Lacey and former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, a fellow Democrat. Public defender Rachel Rossi is also running against Lacey from the left, and while she hasn't attracted much outside support, Rossi's presence could prevent anyone from taking the majority of the vote needed to avoid a November runoff.
Campaign ActionLacey's 2012 win made her the first woman and the first African American to hold this post. However, she's antagonized many criminal justice reformers, including Black Lives Matter activists, by opposing measures to reduce California's prison population. Lacey has focused on diverting more mentally ill people from local jails, though her critics say she hasn't done enough.
Gascón, who grew up in L.A. and went on to become an assistant chief of police in the city, has pointed to his subsequent record to the north reducing incarceration. Gascón has argued that unlike the incumbent, he can deliver a "safer, more humane, more effective and far less expensive criminal justice system." Gascón has also argued that Lacey is "incapable of holding police accountable when they do something wrong."
Lacey, though, has insisted that Gascón failed to solve these things in San Francisco before he resigned in October ahead of his campaign launch, and that his policies made property crime rates worse there. "He now moves down to L.A. and says, 'I'm here to fix things, and I'm here to save you, and I'm the true progressive,'" Lacey said, "But a lot of things he's saying he didn't fix in San Francisco."
Lacey's campaign has outraised Gascón $810,000 to $341,000, while Rossi has taken in just $67,000. However, spending by major outside groups has benefited the two main candidates about equally. The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday that about $2.2 million has been raised by pro-Lacey groups, and that almost all of it has come from law enforcement unions. On the other side, about three-quarters of the $2.1 million that has been spent to support Gascón came from two progressive donors in Northern California, Patty Quillin and Elizabeth Simons.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein and most of the local political establishment, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and much of Los Angeles County's congressional delegation, are backing Lacey. In Gascón's corner are Sen. Kamala Harris, who preceded him as San Francisco district attorney, and Rep. Maxine Waters.
● AL-Sen: Former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville did the one thing you can't do in GOP politics in August when he loudly and repeatedly trashed Donald Trump, and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is determined to make him pay for it. Sessions is out with a new TV spot ahead of Tuesday's primary that begins with a clip of Tuberville proclaiming, "I'm pissed off at Donald Trump," though part of the word "pissed" is silenced and the on-screen text displays it as "P*SSED."
The narrator jumps in after this partially censored footage and says that Tuberville "is part of the blame Trump crowd. Veterans' healthcare? Trump's fault." Another clip from that same August speech then rolls where Tuberville angrily says, "You said you was gonna fix it, and it ain't fixed." The commercial goes on to show more of Tuberville saying, "We're paying for illegals to come over here. Everything they get. Cell phones, healthcare, everything they want. That's Donald Trump's fault. That's his fault."
Tuberville did indeed say all of those things over the summer. The candidate, perhaps immediately realizing that he'd gone too far, continued that speech by calling himself "a Donald Trump guy" and insisting that Trump has "had to fight every battle by himself" and that "[n]obody is standing up for him." Unsurprisingly, that part of Tuberville's address did not make it into Sessions' ad.
Both Tuberville and Sessions, as well as Rep. Bradley Bryne, have spent the last few weeks running ads portraying themselves as the one true White House ally in a race full of NeverTrumpers. Byrne's opponents have taken him to task for calling Trump "not fit to be president of the United States" after the Access Hollywood tape was released a month before the 2016 election, while Sessions' detractors have focused on his miserable tenure as Trump's attorney general.
It's all but certain that the contest to face Democratic Sen. Doug Jones will go to a March 31 runoff, so TV viewers will be in for another month of this no matter which two candidates advance.
● GA-Sen-B: Democratic state Rep. "Able" Mable Thomas said Friday that she was "99%" leaning towards entering the November all-party primary, but that she still was deciding ahead of the March 6 filing deadline. Thomas' presence would likely be bad news for Team Blue since she could further split the Democratic vote and make it easier for the two Republicans, appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins, to advance to a January runoff.
Collins, though, is out with a poll from Battleground Connect that shows him advancing to an all-GOP runoff with Loeffler even without Thomas in the race. Collins takes first with 28% as Loeffler leads pastor Raphael Warnock, who has the support of national Democrats, 20-13 for second. Two other Democrats, businessman Matt Lieberman and former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver, are far behind with 5% and 3%, respectively.
However, a recent Loeffler poll found a different state of play. That survey gave her that same 20% of the vote, but it had Collins beating Lieberman only 19-18 for second place.
● GA-Sen-B: The NRSC, which is backing Sen. Kelly Loeffler for this seat, released a digital ad Friday that attacks Rep. Doug Collins, who's challenging her from the right, that explicitly plays to the racial resentments of potential voters.
The ad begins by portraying Collins as insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump and shows clips of him criticizing Trump as a candidate. The spot soon turns ugly, however, when it shows images of Collins being friendly with Democrats, all of whom are black. Collins is shown with 2018 Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as the ad supplies quotes of Collins offering kind words for both. The grand finale of this racist dog whistling showcases Collins committing a cardinal Republican sin by shaking hands with Barack Obama, although there is no accompanying quote praising the former president.
Unmentioned in the NRSC's ad was a 2018 WNBA game featuring Loeffler's team, the Atlanta Dream, where she warmly greeted Abrams and posed together for photos on the court of the Gateway Center Arena, along with the Dream's mascot.
● MA-Sen: YouGov is out with a poll for UMass Amherst showing Sen. Ed Markey leading Rep. Joe Kennedy III 43-40 ahead of their Democratic primary showdown in September. A recent YouGov survey for UMass Lowell found Kennedy ahead 35-34. Both polls, though, focused on Tuesday's presidential primary, which will almost certainly have a considerably larger turnout than Markey and Kennedy's contest will get six months later.
● NC-Sen: Two new polls of Tuesday's Democratic primary give national party favorite former state Sen. Cal Cunningham a large lead over state Sen. Erica Smith. The GOP firm Spry Strategies' poll for the conservative Civitas Institute finds Cunningham up 45-23, which is only a little smaller than the 48-21 edge they found days before. Meredith College, meanwhile, shows Cunningham up 43-14.
● NJ-Sen: Sen. Bob Menendez has endorsed political science professor Brigid Callahan Harrison ahead of the June Democratic primary to take on party-switching Rep. Jeff Van Drew. Menendez's move comes a little more than a week ahead of the March 8 gathering of the Atlantic County Democratic Committee, where party officials in the largest of the 2nd District's eight counties will vote on awarding the important organization line.
Several Democrats are running to face Van Drew, but Cumberland County Freeholder Jack Surrency announced on Wednesday that he'd instead seek re-election.
● OK-Sen: While GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe won't announce his 2020 plans until March 6, the National Journal reports that he's already hired a campaign manager and a general consultant.
● TX-Sen: Latino Decisions' new survey, just like all recent public polls of Tuesday's Democratic primary, shows Air Force veteran MJ Hegar taking one of the two spots in the likely May runoff while the race for second place is up for grabs.
The poll for Univision and the University of Houston has Hegar taking 20% while nonprofit head Cristina Tzintzún Ramírez and state Sen. Royce West are at 10% each. Just behind with 8% each are 2018 lieutenant governor candidate Michael Cooper, who has attracted very little attention in this race, and former Rep. Chris Bell. Just a little bit behind them with 6% apiece is former Houston City Councilor Amanda Edwards and Annie Garcia, who has also raised very little money.
● Race Ratings: Following up on our initial assessments of this year's Senate races, Daily Kos Elections is pleased to announce our first set of gubernatorial race ratings for the 2020 election cycle. In total, voters will choose their governors in 11 states, with Republicans defending seven seats and Democrats four. An additional 20 seats held by Democrats and 19 held by Republicans are not up for election this year.
The governorship most likely to change hands is Montana's, which Democrats have held for an impressive 16 years straight despite the state's red hue. Democrats will also face a competitive contest in North Carolina, a state they flipped in 2016 even as Donald Trump was carrying it. The remaining seats are, at the moment, likely to stay with the party that currently controls them.
Of course, the playing field can always change—and often does. These ratings represent our attempt to forecast the outcomes of this November's elections, using the best information we have available at the moment. As circumstances warrant, we'll issue changes in these ratings from time to time, which we'll announce in the Morning Digest.
Our full chart rating the competitiveness of each contest is below (with Democratic seats in blue and Republican seats in red):
We've also laid out our rationales behind each rating in this introductory post.
● NC-Gov: Meredith College finds Lt. Gov. Dan Forest beating state Rep. Holly Grange 53-10 in Tuesday's GOP primary to face Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Two other recent polls have also found Forest with a lopsided lead against Grange.
● NH-Gov: The University of New Hampshire is out with the first poll we've seen in months testing GOP Gov. Chris Sununu against his two potential Democratic rivals, and it finds the incumbent besting them both by at least 25 points. Sununu beats Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky 54-29, while he outpaces state Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes 56-27. The survey also finds Sununu with a 54-24 approval rating, which isn't too different from the 59-30 score Morning Consult gave him in the fourth quarter of 2019.
● AL-02: 2018 candidate Barry Moore is out with a survey of Tuesday's GOP firm from Master Image that shows him narrowly advancing to a March 31 runoff against frontrunner Jeff Coleman. Coleman, a wealthy businessman who began running ads last year, is far ahead in first place with 42%, while Moore edges former state Attorney General Troy King 19-17 for second. Moore's poll also finds businesswoman Jessica Taylor not far behind with 15%.
● AZ-02: Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick returned to Congress on Wednesday after spending six weeks receiving treatment for alcoholism. Kirkpatrick sounded like she plans to run for re-election, saying of her future in the House, "I guess the voters will decide, right?"
● CA-53: Former State Department official Sara Jacobs seems to be taking action to ensure that, should she advance past Tuesday's top-two primary, she gets to face a Republican in the general election for this safely blue seat rather than a fellow Democrat.
Jacobs recently went up with a TV spot declaring that Republican Chris Stoddard "stands with Donald Trump on immigration and against new gun laws." The narrator goes on to say that Stoddard is "right for Trump, wrong for us," which is the kind of argument that's almost certainly intended to make him seem more appealing to undecided Republican voters. The rest of the commercial praises Jacobs as a progressive.
Jacobs, who has been self-funding most of her campaign, has vastly outspent her fellow Democrats, San Diego City Council president Georgette Gómez and Marine veteran Janessa Goldbeck, and she's getting more outside help. Forward California, a group funded by her grandparents, has spent about $1.3 million for Jacobs during this race.
● IL-07: Attorney Kristine Schanbacher is out with a new TV spot ahead of her March 17 Democratic primary against longtime Rep. Danny Davis. Schanbacher talks about her time fighting for criminal justice reform and progressive values before declaring, "It's frustrating, but Danny K. Davis is one of the most absent members of Congress." Schanbacher then calls for a new voice after 40 years of having Davis in elected office.
● IN-05: Sen. Mike Braun has endorsed businesswoman Beth Henderson in the crowded May GOP primary for this open seat.
● MS-04: GOP Rep. Steven Palazzo faces not one, but two self-funders in the March 10 primary for this safely red Gulf Coast seat. Biloxi City Councilman Robert Deming threw down $96,000 of his own money between Jan. 1 and Feb. 19, which is the time the FEC defines as the pre-primary period, spent $43,000, and had $66,000 on-hand. Businessman Carl Boyanton, whom we haven't previously mentioned, self-funded $140,000, spent $105,000, and had $40,000 left.
There's still little indication that Palazzo is vulnerable, though, and he's not acting particularly concerned. Palazzo only deployed $48,000 during the pre-primary period, and he had $290,000 on-hand. A runoff would take place on March 31 if no one took a majority of the vote in the first round of the primary.
● NC-11: A dozen candidates are on Tuesday's GOP primary ballot in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Mark Meadows, including two self-funders we hadn't previously mentioned. Chuck Archerd, who lost the 2018 primary to Meadows in an 86-14 landslide, loaned himself $350,000 though Feb. 12, while businessman Madison Cawthorn self-funded $281,000.
The field also includes businesswoman Lynda Bennett, who has Meadow's endorsement; state Sen. Jim Davis; Iraq War veteran Dan Driscoll; former Meadows aide Wayne King; and 2012 candidate Vance Patterson. Candidates need to take at least 30% of the vote to avoid a May 12 runoff.
● NJ-05: Closter Mayor John Glidden told the New Jersey Globe that he'll decide over the next few weeks whether to seek the GOP nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer. Glidden said that he'd make up his mind after he assesses his chances of winning the Bergen County GOP's endorsement at the March 23 party convention.
● NY-12: Rep. Carolyn Maloney has picked up an endorsement from SEIU 32BJ, which is one of the big four unions in New York City politics, ahead of the June Democratic primary.
● NY-17: Westchester County Legislator Catherine Borgia announced Tuesday that she was dropping out of the crowded and expensive June Democratic primary for this open seat.
● PA-07: Perennial candidate Matt Connolly announced Thursday that he was dropping out of the April GOP primary to take on Democratic Rep. Susan Wild and endorsing 2018 candidate Dean Browning.
● TX-04: Donald Trump announced on Friday that he was nominating GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe to serve as director of national intelligence … again.
Trump tapped Ratcliffe for this very position back in August, but the congressman withdrew his name after less than a week in the face of bipartisan Senate opposition. Republican senators immediately made it clear that they weren't excited about confirming Ratcliffe, and his situation deteriorated over the following days as he was found to have dramatically inflated his resume as U.S. attorney.
If Ratcliffe does get the gig this time, it would set off a special election in his 75-22 Trump seat in rural northeast Texas. State special election law requires all the candidates to compete in an all-party primary: If no one takes a majority of the vote, there would be a runoff between the top-two vote-getters, regardless of party.
However, Trump’s announcement of Ratcliffe’s nomination immediately drew criticism that it was just a ploy to get around the Vacancies Reform Act and keep current acting director Richard Grenell in office; Grenell has drawn widespread criticism as an unqualified ultra-partisan who will help Trump politicize national intelligence and almost certainly wouldn’t have majority support in the Senate to be permanently confirmed. So long as Ratcliffe’s nomination is stuck in the Senate, Grenell can remain at his post for months longer than an acting director is supposed to, and if that is Trump’s true intention, Ratcliffe won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
● TX-12: Businessman Chris Putnam is closing out his GOP primary challenge to Rep. Kay Granger with a TV ad featuring an animation of the congresswoman behind bars.
Putnam's commercial for Tuesday's contest begins with a narrator declaring, "Kay Granger's Washington pals are spending so much on lies about Chris Putnam. Because Granger is on the Appropriations Committee, handing out billions in contracts and deals." (The ad, unsurprisingly, does not mention that the anti-tax Club for Growth and its allies have also spent millions against Granger.)
"Generous Kay Granger," the spot continues, "even steered $400 million to her son's failed development project." That's a reference to Panther Island, a long-delayed development project that indeed was led by the younger Granger until last year. Putnam's narrator goes on to decry that Granger has been doing all this while "Social Security faces bankruptcy, endangering our seniors on fixed incomes."
The ad concludes with an animation of prison bars slamming in front of the congresswoman as the narrator says, "Why, if Kay Granger weren't in Congress, that would be almost criminal."
● Harris County, TX District Attorney: Democrat Kim Ogg rallied criminal justice reformers in 2016 during her successful campaign against a GOP incumbent in the nation's third-largest county, but she now faces two challengers on her left in Tuesday's party primary. If no one secures a majority of the vote, a runoff would take place in May.
Audia Jones and Carvana Cloud, who both used to work in Ogg's office as prosecutors, have gone after the incumbent for opposing a plan to end cash bail and for continuing to charge people for marijuana possession. Both challengers have said they won't prosecute marijuana cases, but Jones has gone further and vowed not to prosecute for drug possession or sex work. Defense attorney Todd Overstreet is also running for the Democratic nomination, though he's focused his campaign on improving organization at the district attorney's office.
For her part, Ogg has argued that the proposed bail reforms she opposes haven't done enough to protect victims. The incumbent has also insisted that she's implemented other changes that have sent offenders to treatment programs instead of to prison.
The main GOP candidates are former county prosecutor Lori DeAngelo and Mary Huffman, who worked as a prosecutor in neighboring Montgomery County. Perennial candidate Lloyd Oliver is also running, so his presence could prevent one of the other two Republicans from winning outright on Tuesday.
● Where Are They Now?: Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday, a development that came months after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges related to her self-published children's books. Pugh was also hit with an additional three years of probation as well as ordered to pay over $400,000 in restitution and forfeit close to another $700,000.
The news also likely means the end of the "Healthy Holly" book series, a development that is unlikely to sadden any of the few people who actually read them.
Singer and actress Cher blatantly spread fake news about President Donald Trump on Saturday when she perpetrated the false story that he had called the coronavirus a “hoax.”
Cher took to social media yesterday to share an NBC News story that had the misleading headline: “Trump calls coronavirus Democrats’ ‘new hoax.'”
The story itself makes it clear that the headline takes what Trump said out of context, as he really used the word “hoax” at a recent rally to describe the way that Democrats have politicized coronavirus and turned it into a weapon against him.
This did not stop Cher from sharing the story alongside one of her typical nonsensical captions in which she called Trump “nuts,” among other things.
FRIEND SAID”trump’s SICK,I SAID I DON’T CARE
LET HIM BE DRIVEN FROM IN2 THE WILDERNESS ALONE.FACT HE SAYS”DEMS &NEWS STARTED THIS 2 HURT HIM”IS .SHOWS NO MATTER HOW DIRE THE SITUATION IT STILL”ONLY ABOUT HIM”
https://t.co/4SQFYyNF73— Cher (@cher) February 29, 2020
It was at a rally in Charleston on Friday that Trump made the comment that has since been twisted by the mainstream media, who are desperate to make it look as if the president called coronavirus a hoax. When looking at the full statement Trump made, however, it makes a lot more sense.
“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. They’re politicizing it,” Trump said, according to Breitbart News. “We did one of the great jobs, you say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t even count!”
“One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it,” he added. “They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything. They tried it over and over. They’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning. They lost, it’s all turning. Think of it, and this is their new hoax.’”
The next day, Trump confirmed that when he used the word “hoax,” he was talking about Democrats’ attempts to blame coronavirus on him.
“No, hoax referring to the action that they take to try and pin this on somebody,” Trump said at a White House press conference. “That’s just a continuation of the hoax, whether its the impeachment hoax or the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. This is what I’m talking about.”
President Trump confirms he was talking about the Democrats
“The hoax is on them” pic.twitter.com/zEu50PW9hB
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) February 29, 2020
Democrats have been working overtime to try and find some way to blame coronavirus on President Trump, and they’ve stooped to sharing clear fake news just to try and make this story fit their narrative. Only someone as small-minded as Cher would fall for this one, however, as the average American sees right through what the media is doing.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Read more at LifeZette:
Classless member of the media laughs at Indian reporter while he asks Donald Trump a question
Meghan McCain silences audience members after they cheer for Pence failing on coronavirus
Mike Huckabee torches AOC for ‘absurd’ attack on Pence after he’s asked to lead coronavirus response
The post Cher Spreads Fake News Story Alleging That Trump Described Coronavirus As A ‘Hoax’ appeared first on The Political Insider.
On Friday, the first person died in the United States from the effects of an infection by the 2019 novel coronavirus. On Saturday, another case of apparent community spread was identified, this time in Chicago, half a continent away from previous signs that the virus may be circulating in Washington, Oregon, and California. Then came another case in Rhode Island (a traveler to Italy, not community spread).
But the worst news of the day came in a phone call from the CDC on Saturday afternoon. Though it has received little attention in a usually sensationalist media that seems suddenly concerned about saying anything at all that might raise a sensation, what the CDC said during that call indicated that the official number of cases of COVID-19 is likely to double almost overnight — and it’s happening in the worst place imaginable for a disease of this type.
The subject of that CDC press call on Saturday was the Life Care Center, a long term nursing facility near Kirkland, Washington. The cases there have not yet been confirmed by testing, but there are two “presumptive positives”—which, from the call, appear to be quick tests that returned positive values, but are waiting for lab confirmation. One of these positives is a health care worker at Life Care Center. The other is one of the residents there, a woman in her 70s.
But those two aren’t alone. CDC officials and officials from Washington state indicated that another 27 out of the facility’s 108 residents are showing symptoms that may indicate COVID-19. So are 25 members of the staff.
Considering the profile of COVID-19, with deaths and severe illness heavily slanted toward patients over 60 or those with other health issues, this sort of facility would seem to be the very worst case scenario. These are the people at highest risk for a poor outcome … and yes, that’s a euphemism.
And the worst thing out of this worst thing may be that one of the Washington state officials made it clear that, had they been able to test earlier, they might have identified and isolated infections before the situation reached this point. Now there seems little to do but protect those not yet showing any symptoms, wait for test results, and hope that everyone there is just sharing a persistent cold.
So, let’s look at a number that’s actually kind of nice to see.
For the first time, the blue wedge here is actually larger than the orange—that is, the number of cases considered to be “recovered” have exceeded the number of active cases. The reason for this is also right there on the same chart. With a recovery period between 10-17 days, the “fat” part of the graph in terms of the original epicenter in China are now reaching the point where they reach an outcome. In a sense, cases before Valentines Day have now, with few exceptions, either ended in death or recovery. And as far as China goes, the number of cases logged after that date is less than what came before.
However, there’s also a bad sign on this chart. At the very top of the graph, you can see that the overall slope for total cases has stopped flattening out and started to grow more steeply. This is because China is no longer driving the outcome. South Korea alone reported more new cases on Saturday than did all of China. Iran was not far behind. Here’s another look at the top 10 locations outside of China (and cruise ships).
The growth of cases outside of China shows the appearance of those three new epicenters—South Korea, Italy, and Iran, though the order of these new sources is almost certainly not as they appear from the public information. Every indicator is that Iran is not only continuing to vastly under-report the true situation, but was harboring a significant number of infections for days or even weeks before the first case was reported. Iran has reported 54 deaths as of Satuday—more than Italy and South Korea combined.
What may be more interesting on the chart is actually those other countries up near the top: Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In each of these nations, despite proximity and frequent travel to affected regions in China that made them all early locations for cases identified outside of the original epicenter, additional cases have not undergone exponential growth. That’s true in Japan despite dozens of cases of community spread (including a scary number of cab drivers in major cities). After an initial outbreak, Singapore now shows only 32 active cases. Both of these countries show admirable management of the infection that has avoided the mistakes seen elsewhere. Worth studying.
Finally, here’s a warning of a different sort—these daily reports need to change.
The first of these articles on 2019 novel coronavirus appeared on January 23, when the number of cases in China was still in the hundreds, but 17 deaths had made it clear that what was happening near the city of Wuhan demanded attention. Chinese authorities had already instituted travel restrictions within the country, restricting travel in Hubei Province. However, there was something going on at the time—an impeachment—that definitely put the story on the back burner, and back pages, within the U.S. It wasn’t until a week later that the virus, and the disease it caused, got a regular daily post. That first one warned against the rumors and misinformation that was already spreading faster than the infection.
Since then, the series had gone through a lot of topics: Right wing efforts to paint the virus as the another reason for xenophobia, the difference between an epidemic and pandemic, the death of whistle-blowing doctor Li Wenliang, who became an overnight symbol for free speech and government transparency, and the first news that passengers aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess had been confirmed to be carrying the virus.
Even though most of those events were less than a month ago, they’re already receding into the early history of an event that is turning into something that’s exceedingly rare—a genuinely worldwide event. For the last three weeks, these articles have often been a grim exercise in watching the rising tide of numbers. That may be an interesting exercise in some ways, but hitting everyone with charts and graphs is likely of diminishing value as this becomes more about how 2019 novel coronavirus affects your town, family, and life. Look for some changes to the reporting to match that new focus.
Resources on novel coronavirus
World Health Organization 2019 Coronavirus information site. World Health Organization 2019 Coronavirus Dashboard. 2019-nCoV Global Cases from Johns Hopkins. BNO News 2019 Novel Coronavirus tracking site. Worldometer / Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak. CDC Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) information site. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Information on preparing yourself and your family
Some tips on preparing from Daily Kos. NPR’s guide to preparing your home. Ready.gov