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No one would confuse Donald Trump for someone who did a good job protecting Americans from COVID-19, but new documents and testimony to the House select coronavirus subcommittee reveal just how bad of a job he did, and folks: It’s not great.
- The picture that emerges is one of a president who thought he could protect himself politically first by hiding the truth about the virus, then, when that strategy led to uncontrolled spread and an exploding death toll, by lying about the dangers of the disease and making accurate data collection impossible. The starting point was the muzzling of Dr. Nancy Messonnier, then the CDC’s top respiratory disease expert, and her colleagues, after she alerted the public on February 25, 2020 to expect significant disruptions as the virus spread.
- We know from earlier reporting that Trump was fully aware by early February that the virus was deadlier and more transmissible than the common flu. But after silencing CDC officials Trump went further, including multiple attempts by his political allies to alter the agency’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” a digest of up-to-date information on public-health risks meant to help epidemiologists track threats and save lives.
- CDC officials were reportedly able to protect the integrity of the weekly reports, but Trump loyalists, including Scott Atlas and Jared Kushner, had better luck going around the interagency process to set policy without input from scientists with the goal of making the reality of the pandemic seem less severe than it was. Dr. Deborah Birx said Atlas changed testing guidance to exclude asymptomatic people who had been in close contact with infected individuals, to artificially depress the appearance of uncontrolled transmission. “This document resulted in less testing...of those without symptoms that I believed were the primary reason for the early community spread,” she told the panel.
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After Trump lost the election, these Republicans made the seamless pivot from lying to protect Trump to lying to hurt Biden.
- And it’s not just on Fox News and Facebook. Right-wing podcasts have become a huge source of vaccine disinformation, too! And unlike major news outlets, whose broadcasts are closely watched by critics, and social-media companies, which face constant demands to label or remove false information about vaccines, the anti-vaccine propaganda on podcasts is largely unmonitored, and the platforms that help distribute it are under comparably little pressure to limit its spread.
- You can see the consequences of this concerted effort to prolong the pandemic everywhere. The U.S. significantly lags peer countries in administering booster shots, as colder weather begins driving case numbers up nationally again. Right-wing vaccine rejection has also bled into flu vaccine uptake, which for the first time has become polarized by partisan affiliation. Even Brazil, whose president is one of the world’s most notorious COVID-19 deniers, has fully vaccinated a greater percentage of its citizens than the U.S. has.
Whether to help Trump or hurt Biden, the constant has been a willingness to lie and treat mass death as an acceptable cost for partisan, Republican gain. It’s up to Democrats to make sure Americans learn the horrifying truth: that the murderous deception goes all the way to the top.
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The latest episode of Offline with Jon Favreau features an intimate interview with international soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe. Megan shares her personal experience managing the added pressures that elite athletes live with in today’s extremely online world and why online trolls don’t stop her from using social media to push for progressive change. New episodes of Offline drop every Sunday in the Pod Save America feed.
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While Democrats have been mired in negotiations with Republicans and among themselves over President Biden’s economic agenda, Republicans gerrymandered themselves into control of enough districts to swallow Democrats’ tiny four-vote majority. Though Democrats have not unilaterally disarmed in the redistricting wars, they control the process in fewer states, allowing Republicans to net a total of five more red districts in coming elections than currently exist. The process has resulted in “redrawn district maps that are more distorted, more disjointed and more gerrymandered than any since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965," according to the New York Times. The state of the redistricting fight should increase the urgency Democrats feel to finally pass the Build Back Better Act, then turn to democracy-protection legislation that would prohibit all partisan gerrymandering. The alternative will be to fight for control of the House on a playing field so slanted it would require them to win the national popular vote by a wide margin simply to hold on to their existing majority. And unless President Biden’s approval ratings come back above water soon, that’s probably not gonna happen.
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- Steve Bannon surrendered to authorities after prosecutors indicted him for criminal contempt of Congress; he was released pending trial on condition that he clear check in routinely with the court, apprise officials of his domestic travel plans, and seek permission before traveling abroad.
- The U.S. has accused Russia of intentionally destroying one of its own satellites, creating an enormous debris field in space that threatens other countries’ satellites and astronauts.
- The U.S. military killed dozens of women and children in Syria during a fighter-jet bombing at the end of the campaign against ISIS two and a half years ago, then engaged in a shocking coverup.
- Federal prosecutors have charged an 18-year old Texas National Guard member, whose journal is filled with racist and antisemitic screeds, for setting fire to the Beth Israel synagogue in Austin, TX, on Halloween.
- A full Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Build Back Better Act will be available no later than the end of the week.
- The Trump Organization has agreed to sell the lengthy lease for its Washington, DC, hotel—a site of routine corruption during Trump’s presidency—for $375 million.
- Beto O’Rourke has launched his campaign for Texas governor.
- Eight-one year old Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will retire at the end of this term and “pass the torch,” most likely to 75-year old Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT).
- Georgia’s new gerrymandered map gives Republicans control of three-fifths of its House districts, in a state Biden won with just under 50 percent of the vote.
- Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is liable for damages for defaming Sandy Hook families by repeatedly claiming the 2012 school massacre was a hoax.
- Rodrigo Duterte, the autocratic leader of the Philippines, will run for a Senate seat next year to avoid campaigning for the vice-presidency against his daughter. He is term limited out of the country’s presidency.
- COVID-19 reduced the number of international students studying in the U.S. by 15 percent to under one million for the first time in years, a decline driven by a collapse in admission of new exchange students.
- Weak regulation and enforcement allowed the Chinese government to purchase an Italian military-drone manufacturer without the knowledge of Italian or European authorities, through the simple use of shell companies.
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The most popular provisions of the Build Back Better Act, which reduce prescription-drug and medical costs for seniors, won’t take effect until after the midterms. A mix of implementation challenges and the arbitrary spending cap demanded by corporate Democrats, will make it impossible for voters to experience key benefits before they decide which party should control Congress after 2022. Some won’t even take effect until after the next presidential election. As written, BBB won’t begin fining pharmaceutical companies for price gouging, or capping the out-of-pocket cost for insulin, until 2023; its global cap on out-of-pocket prescription costs won’t take effect until 2024; and Medicare’s new powers to bargain down the price of prescription drugs won’t phase in fully until 2028. Those measures all generate savings on existing benefits, but the story isn’t much better for proposed new ones. For instance: The bill won’t expand Medicare to cover hearing aids until 2024.
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If you have investments, odds are high that your money has been winding up in places you would never put it on purpose. Places like Mitch McConnell’s campaign coffers. Here’s the problem: A lot of Americans own S&P 500 index funds—these are funds made up of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies available, and they collectively contain over $1.5 trillion dollars of Americans’ retirement money.
Unfortunately, when you buy an S&P 500 index fund, you’re buying stock in the following companies:
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AT&T, which is already back supporting the election objectors in Congress, as well as the GOP sponsors of Texas’s abortion ban and voter-suppression law. It’s also a top donor to Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.
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ExxonMobil, which has misled the public about the dangers of climate change and spent huge amounts on Facebook ads to get Donald Trump reelected in 2020.
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Halliburton, one of the nation’s biggest defense contractors, which has funneled millions to the GOP.
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Lockheed Martin, which is one the largest weapons manufacturers in the world and one of Lindsey Graham’s top contributors.
The list goes on. But before you stuff all of your savings in your mattress and call it a day, you should know about DEMZ.
DEMZ is the first investment product that allows you to get similar performance and exposure you would expect from the S&P 500, without all the Mitch McConnell. It only includes companies who have made over 75% of their political contributions to Democratic causes and candidates. Since launching in November of 2020, DEMZ has outperformed the S&P 500 by 7 percent.
You can finally put your money where your vote is, even on Wall Street. Look for the DEMZ ticker wherever you invest, or visit DEMZ.fund to learn more.
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