| End the coronavirus lockdowns, skeptical experts tell Congress Posted: 06 May 2020 04:25 PM PDT  Billed as a roundtable of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Wednesday's hearing included some of the nation's most prominent dissenters on mainstream measures like business closures, stay-at-home orders and calls for widespread testing.
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| Coronavirus is coming for the red states too Posted: 06 May 2020 09:43 AM PDT  The New York metro area's seven-day average has been declining for weeks. For the national daily case count to stay the same, other areas must be making up the difference. In other words, the virus isn't receding. It's relocating.
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| ‘It’s Wrong’: Biden Vows to Overturn DeVos’s Due Process Protections for Students Accused of Sexual Assault Posted: 07 May 2020 06:25 AM PDT  Former vice president Joe Biden promised on Wednesday that as president he would reverse new due process protections that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos put in place to protect university students accused of sexual assault, saying they "shame and silence survivors, and take away parents' peace of mind."Biden, who has recently been accused of sexual assault in 1993 by a woman who worked for him, said the new rules give colleges and universities a "green light to ignore sexual violence and strip survivors of their rights."The Title IX rule, issued on Wednesday, is intended to enhance due process for accused individuals on college campuses as well as in elementary and high schools. One part of the reforms ensures the right of the accused to "submit, cross-examine and challenge evidence at a live hearing." The rule protects alleged victims from having to physically face the person they say assaulted them or answer questions written personally by the accused, but it does allow the accused to ask questions through a surrogate as well as question other witnesses."Survivors deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced." Biden's campaign said in a statement."It's wrong," Biden continued. "And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I'll be right where I always have been throughout my career — on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld."Tara Reade claims that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she worked for him as a Senate staffer. She alleges that she was told by a top staffer to bring Biden a duffel bag in a Senate building, and when she met with him he pinned her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers while forcibly kissing her.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has also condemned the Education Department due process rules, said last month that she is "satisfied" with how Biden has responded to the allegation.
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| Russia overtakes Germany, France after record rise in coronavirus cases Posted: 07 May 2020 12:58 AM PDT  Russia's coronavirus cases overtook France and Germany on Thursday to become the fifth highest number in the world after a record daily rise, and Moscow's mayor said the real figure, not captured by official statistics, was much higher. The official tally surged to 177,160, meaning Russia now has more registered cases than Germany or France, as the number of new cases of the novel coronavirus jumped by 11,231 in the past 24 hours.
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| Satellite images reveal North Korea is building a giant facility which could hold nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States Posted: 07 May 2020 05:10 AM PDT  Satellite images suggest North Korea has almost built a facility large enough to store all of its nuclear missiles.
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| In a hurry to reopen state, Arizona governor disbands scientific panel that modeled outbreak Posted: 06 May 2020 11:07 AM PDT  Arizona's Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's administration disbanded a panel of university scientists who had warned that reopening the state now would be dangerous.
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| New York state Dems file appeal to stop presidential primary Posted: 06 May 2020 07:32 PM PDT  Democratic members of the state's Board of Elections filed an appeal Wednesday of a federal judge's reinstatement of the New York presidential primary. The appeal by board Commissioner Andrew Spano and other members comes a day after the June 23 primary was reinstated by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan, who said canceling it would be unconstitutional and deprive withdrawn presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang of proper representation at the Democratic convention.
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| Top Prosecutor Moves to Withdraw from Michael Flynn Case Posted: 07 May 2020 10:53 AM PDT  Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack on Thursday submitted a request to withdraw from the team prosecuting former national security adviser Michael Flynn.Lawyers for Flynn on April 24 claimed that Van Grack had made a "side deal" with Flynn's former defense team not to prosecute Flynn's son in order to pressure Flynn into pleading guilty to lying to FBI investigators.Van Grack's request comes after Flynn, who initially pleaded guilty in 2017, attempted to rescind his plea in January. Notes from FBI agents released by the Justice Department in late April showed one agent questioning whether the purpose of interviews with Flynn was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Tuesday demanded that FBI Director Christopher Wray make top officials connected with the Flynn case available to questioning by lawmakers."The American people continue to learn troubling details about the politicization and misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI during the Obama-Biden Administration," Representatives Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R., La.) wrote in a joint letter. "Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations — not from you. It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era.Flynn was originally prosecuted over conversations with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, with the FBI claiming the adviser potentially violated the Logan Act of 1799, a law that has never been used to convict someone.
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| Don't forget past, Jewish leader warns Germans on eve of WW2 anniversary Posted: 07 May 2020 09:43 AM PDT  Many young Germans have failed to learn the lessons of history, and anti-Semitism is becoming entrenched in the land responsible for the Holocaust, a Jewish leader warned, a day before the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. As Germany's leaders prepare to lay wreaths to mark the "Day of Liberation" on May 8 - the day in 1945 when German generals signed an unconditional surrender - many Jews are worried about the popularity of the far right. "Germany's government knows its enduring responsibility for the Nazi era," Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung paper.
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| 'There's absolutely nothing': locked-down Mexico grapples with national beer shortage Posted: 07 May 2020 02:00 AM PDT  Deemed 'non-essential', brewing was halted more than a month ago, leading to a thriving black marketMexicans sheltering in place during the Covid-19 crisis have endured crowded quarters and rising temperatures. Now they're enduring another challenge: a nationwide beer drought.Beer production in Mexico was halted more than a month ago as health officials declared brewing a "non-essential" activity.Since then, the country's stockpile has dwindled, fueling a robust black market in which speculators are demanding more than twice the pre-pandemic price."We're not producing a single beer," Karla Siquieiros, president of Cerverceros de México, told the newspaper el Universal.But some beer-makers have continued their operations. The country is the largest beer exporter in the world, and Constellation Brands – which produces Modelo, Corona and Pacifico in Mexico for US markets – is still brewing for export.Oxxo, Mexico's ubiquitous corner store chain, warned in late April that its beer supply would last just 10 days, prompting panic buying and long lines outside stores.Mexicans have greeted the domestic beer shortage with more bemusement than anger. Hashtags like LaÚltimaChela (the last beer) trended on Twitter, while users posted pictures of empty fridges.But retailers say the loss of sales is seriously harming their livelihoods in an economy that is already tough."Mexicans like to drink beer," said Cuauhtémoc Rivera, director the National Alliance of Small Merchants, Anpec, which represents thousands of mom-and-pop stores.Most such businesses are run by families, and during hot weather, beer sales make up about 40% of sales, Rivera said."This is a big money-maker for small stores," said Rivera.Anpec had lobbied for brewing to be declared an essential activity, arguing that it would help people cope with coronavirus lockdowns."States of anxiety, desperation and fears that could end in episodes of irascibility and intolerance" were inevitable during quarantine, the organisation argued, adding: "The consumption of beer at home operates as relaxant, which helps with enduring a difficult trial."Many municipalities have banned the sale of alcohol for the duration of Covid-19 quarantines. Some analysts say that such measures can help reduce domestic violence – at a time when domestic abuse under lockdown is on rise around the world.But others said such laws conform to a familiar pattern in which Mexican authorities feel the need to take action – any action – in times of crisis."Lots of authority figures love it," said Xavier Tello, a healthcare consultant. "The authorities can show that they're acting like authorities by imposing dry laws … as if it solved anything."As temperatures climb, some beer drinkers continue to hunt for Mexico's last few beers. But it can be a frustrating pursuit.Last weekend, Johnny, an engineer in the border city of Reynosa, visited eight stores in three neighbourhoods but came away empty-handed."There is absolutely nothing," he said of the stores in Reynosa. "There's liquor, but not everybody wants that. And it's dwindling too."He did find beer for sale on the black market, but the asking price was triple the normal.In the end, Johnny crossed the border to buy a six-pack of Corona in Texas.
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| New evidence suggests the coronavirus was likely spreading in the US and France as early as December Posted: 07 May 2020 08:45 AM PDT  The coronavirus seems to have been spreading through Florida by January. A December patient who coughed up blood in France later tested positive.
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| Tesla worldwide production suspended after China shutdown, reports say Posted: 07 May 2020 08:13 AM PDT  Tesla production has come to a worldwide standstill after the sudden shutdown of its China plant as US workers, meanwhile, prepare to reopen its California factory in the next week, according to reports.Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported that the electric car manufacturer informed workers at its Gigafactory near Shanghai on Wednesday that their five-day Labor Day holiday would be extended.
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| Kushner’s Screwed Up His COVID Jobs—Now He’s Got an Even Bigger One Posted: 06 May 2020 01:24 AM PDT  Already under fire for his role atop a shadow task force aiding the administration's response to the coronavirus, senior White House aide Jared Kushner is now being handed another critical job: helping get a vaccine for the disease developed in record time. President Donald Trump, who has said he believes a COVID-19 vaccine will be available by the end of the year, is turning to his son-in-law to help streamline the effort, branded, "Operation Warp Speed." Kushner is working alongside White House senior adviser Peter Navarro, who pitched the operation via memo to the president's coronavirus task force as early as this February.The hope inside the White House is that Kushner will be able to use his relationships in the private sector to speed up the normally lengthy development process, two sources familiar with Kushner's involvement say. "Jared has been vocal in meetings about wanting to engage the private sector on the development of a vaccine in a similarly successful way that the administration did on ventilators, PPE, and others," a White House official said on Tuesday. On Tuesday, The Washington Post published a story citing an official complaint lodged by a task force volunteer with the House Oversight Committee, alleging that Kushner's operation has been hobbled by employing amateurish private-sector volunteers who were ill-suited for their vital assignments. The complaint alleged that the group responsible for acquiring PPE lacked backgrounds in health-care or supply-chain matters, had negligible success in their efforts, and were pressed to prioritize requests from VIPs in conservative media.Over the last several weeks, members working with Trump's coronavirus task force have pushed back against the idea that a reliable vaccine—even with Kushner's help—would be ready for the American public before well into next year."We just do not see it happening [that soon]," said a senior Trump administration official who works closely with the coronavirus task force.The administration publicly acknowledged Operation Warp Speed last week. But it has offered few details about how exactly it plans to speed the development process beyond reports that it will pool resources, bringing in private companies and the Pentagon, to more quickly test the vaccine on animals and then on humans in clinical trials."President Trump made it clear to the task force weeks ago that business as usual wasn't good enough in the fight against the coronavirus, and vaccines are no exception" Michael Caputo, assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS, told The Daily Beast in a statement Tuesday night. "It's not impossible and yet the scientists are right: it's going to be very difficult... When it happens, it will be an historic victory for all of America, led by a president who just wouldn't take no for an answer when it mattered most. Come to think of it, maybe that's what President Trump's critics really dislike about it."Where Has Jared Kushner Gone in the Fight Against Coronavirus?The lack of operational details, along with Kushner's involvement, suggests that the Trump administration may once again find itself in a place where it is overpromising the public in its fight against the coronavirus. Over the last two months, Kushner and his coronavirus task force team promised to ship 4 million COVID tests by the middle of March and to have testing significantly scaled by that time. That didn't happen. Kushner and his team also promised to scale testing by working with the private sector to increase the number of drive-through tests in the country. But that effort has been slow to develop.* * *It's not clear who exactly Kushner is working with or relying on for Operation Warp Speed. But the enterprise has gotten off to a confusing start. Publicly, the president has spoken about a vaccine being ready this year as a goal increasingly within reach. And on Monday, Navarro told Fox News the White House could speed the vaccine development process if the medical community would merely just operate in "Trump time." But five administration officials who work closely with the task force, including one with the Federal Drug Administration, said that none of their analyses, predictions, or interactions with industry contacts suggest that the vaccine will be ready for the general public before that. Some of those officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said they have directly raised the timeline issue to Trump, only to have him say some variation of "I want it done, or I want it taken care of" anyway, another one of the officials recalled.In the early days of the administration's coronavirus response, officials had told The Daily Beast that Navarro had advocated for the U.S. to more aggressively pursue a vaccine for the coronavirus. Two officials who were in the room with Navarro for those conversations said they perceived his vaccine push as part of his messaging on "Buy America"—an executive order proposal that creates conditions whereby U.S. companies would have to look domestically for purchases of medicines and other medical materials. "We were all surprised that [Navarro] was pushing this idea so early on before we knew what supplies we had and where we needed to look to help fill the gaps," said an administration official. "It was clearly a way to push back against China and a lot of us were uncomfortable doing that in a big way without understanding what we still needed in the stockpiles and elsewhere."Trump Aide Peter Navarro Warned of a Deadly Pandemic Emerging From China—in 2006In reality, Navarro's early interest in a vaccine was shared by others inside the administration. In February, he and Dr. Rick Bright, who until recently served as a program leader within the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), wrote a memo outlining what the administration needed to do to prepare for a massive coronavirus outbreak in the country. Bright, according to a whistleblower complaint he released on Tuesday, had pressed officials in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for weeks to swiftly procure essential personal protective equipment and other medical supplies to prepare for an uptick in coronavirus cases and related deaths. But according to the complaint officials in the administration pushed back on his requests, saying there was no indication that the U.S. was running low on supplies it would need to contain the virus. Bright worked with Navarro to draft several memos requesting the task force direct HHS to not only procure protective equipment but to initiate and fund a program to develop a vaccine. They ambitiously set a goal of having a workable vaccine in seven months. But it took HHS nearly two months to operationalize the effort, Bright alleges in the complaint. The administration formally announced the operation last week.Though Kushner is now involved in the effort, the president and his team are still in the midst of deciding who should be appointed Operation Warp Speed czar. A senior Trump administration official said other officials are expecting to finish interviews for a potential director by the end of the week, and are hoping to make an announcement shortly after the pick is made. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar are also co-leading the effort and their lieutenants are conducting the search process for a director. The current slate of shortlisted candidates include scientists and health officials both inside and outside the government.* * *Outside of Operation Warp Speed, a massive push has been taking place among private industry to streamline the development and testing of a potential COVID vaccine. A handful of companies and research organizations—including Moderna, Oxford University and Pfiezer—have been working on vaccine candidates and begun clinical trials. These companies have said it's possible that their immunizations could be proven effective as early as the fall of 2020. Speaking on CNN, NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci described the prospect of a vaccine available in January 2021 as "feasible." But those timelines are optimistic by historical standards. The mumps vaccine, which had perhaps the shortest development time, took four years. And experts note that most vaccines take years to produce with high failure rates even for seemingly promising candidates."Ninety percent of them will probably fail to make it all the way to licensure either because they're not inducing an adequate immune response or they're sending up some safety flare that gives you pause and concern," said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccinologist and the dean of Baylor College of Medicine's National School of Tropical Medicine, which is working on a COVID-19 vaccine. "Most of them will probably drop out and by the end of the day you might have two or three that might look promising."What Are the Most Promising Coronavirus Treatments, Vaccines, and Tests?Moderna, whose vaccine research is backed by the National Institutes of Health, said it believes it is possible its candidate could be ready by the fall but only for a limited pool of high-risk recipients involved in critical services. In a note to investors, Pfizer said it's possible that a vaccine candidate the company is working on with a German partner could be ready by year-end with "potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2020" and "the potential to rapidly scale up the capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses in 2021."Other pharmaceutical companies think it could take longer. French pharma company Sanofi has teamed up with GlaxoSmithKline to work on a vaccine and expects that their candidate, if successful, wouldn't be ready until the second half of 2021. In discussing the rush for an end-of-year vaccine, Trump spotlighted Johnson & Johnson and its announcement that it would begin building out its production capacity to make a billion vaccine doses even before its candidate goes into clinical trials. But the company has said that, even assuming its vaccine is proven effective, it wouldn't be available until early 2021.Trump's push for a vaccine this calendar year mirrors his other overly-optimistic prognostications during the coronavirus pandemic. The president spent weeks promoting the use of an anti-malaria drug as a potential therapy for COVID only to see scientifics studies emerge raising concerns about medical side-effects and questions about its efficacy. In recent weeks, Trump has advocated the speedy "opening" of the U.S. economy, even as public health experts, including in the administration, warn that the virus is still dangerously spreading into the warmer months. But those concerns seem to have been overwhelmed by others inside and out of the White House who fear that the American economy could be shattered beyond recognition—at least for the remainder of the president's first term in office. "One of the president's greatest fears was running on an economy in recession or that wasn't the amazing, booming economic engine that he had held up as the 'Trump economy,'" said a former senior White House official. "And we're far beyond that now."Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation economist who informally advises Trump and other administration officials, said in an interview on Monday that he and fellow conservative economist Art Laffer had already sent their policy memo on opening states to the White House last week. The memo was based on a recent Laffer Associates study that Moore says was conducted over the course of "a couple weeks," and is now in the hands of senior White House staff."Our model shows that if we start the opening of the country [right about now], by the end of the summer we could start to see a recovery," Moore said. "But if we wait until, say, the middle of June, we might have to write off all of 2020. At that point, so much wealth would have evaporated."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Dallas salon owner jailed for defying virus shutdown order Posted: 06 May 2020 04:38 AM PDT  Texas' Republican governor and top law enforcement officer on Wednesday came to the defense of a Dallas hair salon owner who was jailed for keeping her business open in defiance of the governor's restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Shelley Luther was booked in the Dallas County jail on Tuesday following a video hearing during which she refused to apologize for repeatedly flouting the order, leading the judge to find her in contempt of court and sentence her to a week behind bars. Luther was cited last month for keeping her salon open despite state and local directives that kept nonessential businesses closed, but she continued to defy the order and tore up a cease and desist letter in front of TV cameras.
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| Texas governor amends lockdown and orders salon owner freed from jail Posted: 07 May 2020 05:44 PM PDT  The governor's order names the Dallas hairdresser who was jailed on Tuesday for staying open.
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| Are travelers starting to fly again? Spirit, JetBlue say yes, with an asterisk Posted: 07 May 2020 11:32 AM PDT  JetBlue and Spirit airlines says the first travelers to return as stay-at-home restrictions are eased will be those visiting family and friends again.
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| New Yahoo News/YouGov coronavirus poll: Most Americans deny Trump’s response is a ‘success story’ Posted: 06 May 2020 04:26 PM PDT  Nearly half of Americans believe the United States would be faring better in the current coronavirus pandemic if Barack Obama were president instead of President Trump, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
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| India's services activity collapses as coronavirus paralyses global economy - PMI Posted: 05 May 2020 10:07 PM PDT  India's services activity suffered a shock collapse in April as the coronavirus lockdown crippled global demand, causing a historic spike in layoffs and reinforcing fears of a deep recession in Asia's third-largest economy, a private survey showed. The grim result for the industry, the engine of economic growth and jobs, underlined the pandemic's sweeping impact across India as authorities extended a nationwide lockdown, in effect since March 25, until May 17. The Nikkei/IHS Markit Services Purchasing Managers' Index plunged to an eye-popping 5.4 in April from March's 49.3, an unprecedented contraction since the survey first began over 14 years ago.
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| The U.S. has entered the 'death handoff' stage of the COVID-19 outbreak Posted: 06 May 2020 04:52 AM PDT  The U.S. COVID-19 death toll passed 71,000 Wednesday morning and the number of cases, currently marked at 1.2 million, keeps rising steadily. Trump administration and outside models both forecast significant upticks in death as states lift coronavirus mitigation measures — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) unexpectedly announced Tuesday that hair salons and public pools can open Friday, for example."For every indication of improvement in controlling the virus, new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere, leaving the nation stuck in a steady, unrelenting march of deaths and infections," The New York Times reports. New York City, the worst-hit area in the U.S., has seen a sizable drop in new cases, but new clusters are appearing in the South, Midwest, and other parts of the country. Taken as a whole, America's coronavirus curve has plateaued, but "the plateau is what I call a death handoff situation," University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm told Politico.> Some U.S. cities show signs of progress against the virus, but a view of the country as a whole shows an unrelenting crush of death and infection https://t.co/R1PnGt4Yii pic.twitter.com/8dLDmLjnUv> > — The New York Times (@nytimes) May 5, 2020"Coronavirus in America now looks like this," the Times summarizes:> More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases are identified, meaning that the total in the United States ... is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily. Rural towns that one month ago were unscathed are suddenly hot spots for the virus. It is rampaging through nursing homes, meatpacking plants, and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, Walmarts, or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy will bring. [The New York Times]Trump acknowledged the tradeoff between death and opening businesses in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, but his cost-benefit analysis tilts toward the economy and he is winding down the coronavirus task force without an apparent strategy to mitigate the risks. While Trump says the U.S. has ample tests to monitor the coronavirus and plenty of personal protective equipment to treat it, CDC and FEMA officials privately discuss shortfalls and fret about reopening too fast, Politico reports. Most Americans share their concerns.More stories from theweek.com Did we just witness one of the nuttiest foreign policy blunders in American history? White House press secretary says idea that all Americans need to be tested for COVID-19 is 'nonsensical' American individualism is a suicide pact
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| 77 cell phone towers have been set on fire so far due to a weird coronavirus 5G conspiracy theory Posted: 06 May 2020 07:26 AM PDT  Engineers have also had cars driven at them, and one was stabbed and hospitalised per the CEO of BT.
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| Asian American woman harassed by self-identified Trump supporter thanks bystanders Posted: 06 May 2020 02:08 PM PDT  "Americans said we don't want you here," the harasser said in a video. "That's why we elected President Trump."
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| Rosenstein ‘Scope’ Memo Confirms Baselessness of Trump–Russia Probe Posted: 07 May 2020 01:58 PM PDT  Finally, three years coming, the Justice Department is showing a little more leg on the Rosenstein "scope" memo -- the directive by which then–deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein defined the parameters of the investigation he'd appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to conduct.Of course, the games never end in the Trump–Russia probe, so there's a hitch. The scope memo remains partially, tantalizingly redacted. Disclosure is limited to Rosenstein's purported grounds for investigating four members of the Trump presidential campaign: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn. But six lines of text, which appear to describe a fifth person, and the supposed basis for investigating that person, remain blacked out.Does this redacted section refer to President Trump? We do not know.We do know that the FBI had opened a criminal investigation of Trump, based on the untenable theory that a president's firing of the FBI director could amount to obstruction of justice. The last 200 pages of the special counsel's voluminous report, moreover, demonstrate that the cabal of activist Democrats that Robert Mueller recruited to conduct the investigation tried like hell to make an obstruction case on Trump. But was that aspect of the special counsel's enterprise licensed by Rosenstein's scope memo? For some reason, we're not being told.The scope memo is dated August 2, 2017. It is worth rehearsing why it was necessary.Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017. In doing so, as I explained repeatedly at the time, he failed to comply with federal regulations. The appointment of a special counsel is proper only if there is a factual basis to support a criminal investigation that the Justice Department is too conflicted to conduct. The Russia investigation was not a criminal investigation; it was a counterintelligence investigation. The latter focuses on the activities of foreign powers for information-gathering purposes, not on criminal activity for prosecution purposes.On Trump–Russia, there was no factual basis for a criminal investigation, which is why Rosenstein did not attempt to articulate one in his directive appointing Mueller. Therefore, the question of whether there was a conflict requiring the appointment of a prosecutor from outside DOJ should never have been reached. Even if it had been reached, there was no conflict, which is why the FBI and DOJ had been conducting the Russia investigation for nearly a year before Mueller's appointment. In any event, because the FBI's counterintelligence mission is not prosecutor work, it normally does not need a DOJ prosecutor, much less an outside prosecutor.That the initial appointment directive was wholly inadequate is not surprising. In that Week That Was, Rosenstein was evidently an emotional wreck.On May 9, President Trump fired FBI director James Comey, publicly relying on a memo Rosenstein wrote and foolishly assumed he'd reap bipartisan praise over -- he had, after all, scalded Comey over the mishandling of the Hillary Clinton emails caper. To his shock and dismay, Rosenstein was vilified. Though Democrats had no real use for Comey (they blamed him for Clinton's defeat), by May 2017 they found it expedient to frame Comey's firing as the height of the president's "collusion" with Russia -- impeding the FBI's effort to examine the fever dream of Trump-campaign complicity with the Kremlin. Indeed, the bureau's then–acting director, Andrew McCabe, leapt at the Comey firing as a rationale for opening an obstruction case on Trump.Rosenstein agitated over being made the fall guy. In his hand-wringing over how to restore his reputation as a scrupulous nonpartisan (i.e., a nominally Republican bureaucrat admired by Democrats), he broached the possibilities of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove a mentally unfit president from office and of covertly recording the president in the Oval Office (if Trump ranted, recordings might convince the cabinet that he was unstable). Realizing that these were lunatic notions, Rosenstein finally settled on naming Mueller, a Beltway eminence, to be a special counsel. The appointment was made on May 17, with Rosenstein's assurances to congressional Democrats that Mueller would have virtually boundless authority.But the problem remained: There was no factual basis to believe that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, had engaged in a conspiracy with the Kremlin to interfere with the 2016 campaign by cyberespionage or any other criminal activity.The failure of Rosenstein's order appointing Mueller to specify a proper foundation for a criminal probe was not just a public-perception problem for the Justice Department: It portended legal challenges. If Mueller charged anyone, as it appeared he was poised to do to Manafort (for tax and other crimes unrelated to Trump and Russia), the defense would surely claim that Mueller's appointment was illegitimate.To paper over this deficiency, Rosenstein issued the scope memo. Up until yesterday, we had been permitted to see only the Manafort-related passages (because, as just adumbrated, they became an issue in Mueller's prosecution of Manafort). But as I noted at the time, even that glimpse of the memo provided insight into the travesty that was the Mueller appointment, and the Trump–Russia probe itself.The unredacted Manafort section authorized Mueller to investigate whether Manafort "committed a crime by colluding with Russian-government officials with respect to the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election." Where to begin? First, as we noted more times than I can count, collusion is not a crime. Second, not surprisingly, Rosenstein articulated no factual basis to believe Manafort had "colluded" with Russia. Third, that's obviously because the "basis" for this allegation was the bogus "Steele dossier." Fourth, by the time Mueller was appointed, the FBI and the Justice Department well knew that the dossier was Clinton-campaign-sponsored propaganda. FBI agents had not only failed to corroborate its triple-hearsay claims; they also knew that Steele had major credibility problems, and they had interviewed a key Steele "sub-source" who scoffed at his claims as nonsense.Of course, Rosenstein wouldn't have wanted to bring those inconvenient details up. At the time of the scope memo, he'd only recently authorized the final application for a FISA surveillance warrant against Carter Page -- which relied on the Steele dossier, notwithstanding what the FBI and DOJ already knew about its deep flaws.Speaking of Page, recall that he was never charged with a crime despite the FBI and DOJ's four representations, under oath to the FISA court, that he was a clandestine agent of Russia working in a "conspiracy of cooperation" between the Trump campaign and Putin's regime. Yet the now-unredacted portions of the scope memo show that Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate Page for "colluding" with Russia. Naturally, the memo does not elaborate on the "basis" for this allegation. Like the "basis" for the FISA warrants, it relied heavily on the Steele dossier.The unredacted scope memo similarly reveals George Papadopoulos as a Mueller prosecution target, over the unsupported allegation that he may have committed the nonexistent crime of "colluding with Russian government officials." Mueller was authorized to pursue this claim even though we now know the FBI and DOJ knew it was untrue. Because the FBI had used confidential informants to attempt to entrap Papadopoulos into admitting that he and Trump's campaign were in cahoots with the Kremlin, investigators knew he had vigorously denied it. They also knew that their main tip on Papadopoulos (Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat with longstanding ties to the Clintons) had not actually claimed that Papadopoulos said the campaign was conspiring with the Russians. In fact, Papadopoulos had not even mentioned DNC emails, the publication of which had "suggested" to the diplomat that there might kinda, sorta be some Trump-campaign wrongdoing involved.And then there is General Flynn. Regarding the Trump–Russia probe, the scope memo shows Rosenstein directed Mueller to investigate whether Flynn committed a crime "by engaging in conversations with Russian government officials during the period of the Trump transition." Of course, the Justice Department and the FBI already knew there were no such crimes because they had recordings of these communications, between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.Flynn had not made any commitments to Russia about lifting sanctions, and even if he had done so, it would not have been a crime. The only theory on which these communications were conceivably criminal would have called for application of the Logan Act. As we've noted many times, this late-18th-century provision, which purports to criminalize freelance diplomacy by unauthorized officials, is unconstitutional. That is why the Justice Department has not even tried to invoke it since 1852, and why, in the Logan Act's 221 years on the books, no one has ever been convicted of violating it.Mueller was also authorized to probe whether Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents who questioned him about his Kislyak conversations. By the time of the scope memo, the FBI and DOJ knew that (a) the questioning of Flynn had not been based on any properly predicated investigation; (b) the FBI had willfully violated protocols to conduct an ambush interview, which they would not have been permitted to do had they sought permission from the Justice Department and the White House; (c) the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he had lied; and (d) the bureau improperly edited the report of Flynn's interview. Mueller's staff nevertheless eventually succeeded in pressuring Flynn to plead guilty to a false-statements charge. It has since been reported, however, that (a) they pressured him to plead by threatening to prosecute his son, (b) Mueller's commitment not to prosecute Flynn's son was withheld from the court, in violation of federal law, and (c) prosecutors concealed from Flynn's defense significant exculpatory evidence while misrepresenting how the interview report was generated.It is worth noting that Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate other crimes -- e.g., irregularities regarding payments Manafort received from Ukraine, and whether Papadopoulos and Flynn should have registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents due to work they'd allegedly done for, respectively, Israel and Turkey. Putting aside whether there was a sufficient factual basis for these allegations (over which only Manafort was eventually prosecuted), they had nothing to do with the Trump–Russia probe. That is, there was no conceivable conflict warranting appointment of a special counsel, no reason why the Justice Department could not have investigated these matters in the normal course of business.Mueller, to the contrary, was appointed only because an investigation of President Trump and his campaign could have presented a conflict for the Trump Justice Department. Whether it did depended, of course, on whether there was a real reason to conduct a criminal probe of President Trump, despite the fact that the FBI's former director, James Comey, told Trump multiple times that he was not under investigation.From the looks of things, then–deputy AG Rosenstein not only had nothing when he appointed a special counsel; he further had abundant reason to know he had nothing. "Democrats are saying mean things about me" is not a legally cognizable basis for naming a prosecutor from outside DOJ. Did Rosenstein have more than that? It doesn't look that way . . . but maybe all the good stuff is under those six lines that, for some reason, we're still not allowed to see.
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| Amnesty slams Palestinians' freedom of expression arrests Posted: 06 May 2020 10:08 PM PDT  Amnesty International on Thursday censured Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for detaining critics and opponents for expressing their views. The London-based human rights group said five people were arrested in March and April, including a peace activist for holding a video call with Israelis and a writer who criticized authorities in Gaza for a deadly market fire. Amnesty called the detentions a "pattern of arbitrary arrests" of Palestinians for voicing their opinions.
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| Salon owner who illegally reopened out of jail on Texas Supreme Court’s order Posted: 07 May 2020 02:49 PM PDT  Shelley Luther was sentenced to a week in jail after violating an order to close her salon. The Texas Supreme Court ordered her release.
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| Nat Geo Commemorates 75th Anniversary of WWII VE Day with New Documentaries Posted: 07 May 2020 11:04 AM PDT  "Heroes of the Sky: The Real Mighty Eighth Air Force" and "World War II in Europe: Voices From the Front" premiere May 21st.
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| An entire town in New York is being put on a diet to prevent obesity-related coronavirus complications Posted: 07 May 2020 08:47 AM PDT  A New York town has launched a diet and exercise program to help residents lose weight to prevent reported risks of obesity and coronavirus outcomes.
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| 2nd and 3rd waves of coronavirus deaths are now very likely, according to German researchers Posted: 06 May 2020 05:19 AM PDT  "We know with great certainty that there will be a second wave. The majority of scientists are sure of this," the head of the Robert Koch Institute said.
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| Researcher 'on verge of very significant' coronavirus findings shot to death Posted: 05 May 2020 06:56 PM PDT  The Pennsylvania researcher "was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie" COVID-19, his university said.
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| Trump reportedly got 'lava level mad' over potential exposure to coronavirus Posted: 07 May 2020 02:20 PM PDT  President Trump was reportedly very, very mad about someone else's coronavirus diagnosis.On Thursday, the White House confirmed a member of the military who worked closely with Trump was diagnosed with coronavirus. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had since tested negative for COVID-19, but Trump was still "lava level mad" he came even close to contracting it, NBC News reports.The unidentified man was a member of Trump's valet, and started showing coronavirus symptoms Wednesday morning, CNN first reported. He remained "close to the president throughout the day on a consistent basis," NBC News writes. And when Trump found out Thursday that person had been in his vicinity, he "became 'lava level mad' at his staff and said he doesn't feel they are doing all they can to protect him from the virus," a person close to the White House told NBC News.Trump's concern of personal infection contrasts with his lax attitude toward reopening businesses around the U.S. He explicitly acknowledged Tuesday that reopening the economy would coincide with "more death," but said the risks would be worth it.Trump denied he had been close with the person who tested positive, saying Thursday "I've had very little personal contact with this gentleman." Instead of his usual weekly tests for COVID-19, Trump said he'll now be tested daily, as did Pence.More stories from theweek.com Did we just witness one of the nuttiest foreign policy blunders in American history? Trump cryptically tells reporters 'a lot of things' might happen soon following call with Putin California governor says state's 1st community spread COVID-19 case happened in a nail salon
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| `If this thing boomerangs': Second wave of infections feared Posted: 05 May 2020 10:56 PM PDT  As Europe and the U.S. loosen their lockdowns against the coronavirus, health experts are expressing growing dread over what they say is an all-but-certain second wave of deaths and infections that could force governments to clamp back down. "We're risking a backslide that will be intolerable," said Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity. Elsewhere around the world, German authorities began drawing up plans in case of a resurgence of the virus.
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| Astronomers locate black hole close to Earth Posted: 06 May 2020 09:04 AM PDT  European astronomers have found the closest black hole to Earth yet, so near that the two stars dancing with it can be seen by the naked eye.
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| Former trucker from Iowa arrested, charged with 1990s murders of women in Wyoming, Tennessee Posted: 06 May 2020 08:10 PM PDT |
| Africa disease centre rejects Tanzania's allegation that its coronavirus tests faulty Posted: 07 May 2020 02:51 AM PDT  The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday rejected an assertion by Tanzania's president that coronavirus tests it supplied are faulty. Tanzania's government spokesman said a team was conducting investigations on the laboratory that conducted the tests, and the outcome will be made public once complete. The World Health Organization expressed confidence in the tests.
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| They're not really called 'murder hornets.' And they're probably not as bad as you think Posted: 06 May 2020 04:43 PM PDT  Asian giant hornets in Pacific Northwest are unlikely to attack humans
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| Top US diplomat says 'it's our responsibility' to bring back any Americans from botched, unsanctioned raid in Venezuela Posted: 06 May 2020 01:11 PM PDT  The CEO of the US-based security firm said 2 ex-US soldiers were trying to inspire Venezuelans to "flip and join in the liberation of their country."
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| Indian tigers find lockdown grrreat Posted: 07 May 2020 07:13 AM PDT  With the humans of West Bengal under virus lockdown, tigers in the Sundarbans mangrove forest in the eastern Indian state are coming out to play, with park rangers Thursday reporting a jump in sightings of the big cats. The Sundarbans, straddling West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh, is the world's biggest mangrove forest and home to the majestic and endangered Royal Bengal tiger. "Sighting of tigers has gone up... after the lockdown," said Sudhir Das, director of the Sundarbans tiger reserve, referring to the nationwide restrictions in place since late March.
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| US Space Force debuts first recruitment ad and previously secret spacecraft Posted: 06 May 2020 12:36 PM PDT  "Maybe your purpose on this planet isn't on this planet."That is the tagline accompanying the US Space Force's recruiting ad that appeared on Twitter on Wednesday.
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| Scared to Return to Work Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic? These Federal Laws Could Grant You Some Protections Posted: 06 May 2020 02:01 PM PDT  Federal labor laws also offer protections to American workers who feel unsafe. Here's what to know about those rights
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| Where's my check? Answers to common relief payment questions Posted: 05 May 2020 10:12 PM PDT  Where is my payment? Why am I getting error messages? If a deceased relative got a payment, do I have to pay it back? Some answers on the relief payments.
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