This article was originally published on ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
For months after Washington state imposed one of the earliest and strictest COVID-19 lockdowns in March, Jim Gilliard didn’t stray far from his modular home near Waitts Lake, 45 miles north of Spokane. Continue reading “States With Few COVID-19 Restrictions Are Spreading the Virus Beyond Their Borders”
Rudy Giuliani has discussed a potential carte blanche of a pardon with his client, President Trump, the New York Times reports.
Continue reading “NYT: Giuliani Discussed ‘Pre-emptive Pardon’ With Trump”
A lawyer for President Donald Trump said Monday evening that a former DHS official who’s debunked myths about election fraud should be “drawn and quartered” and “shot.”
And on Tuesday morning, the former official — the recent director of DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs — said he was exploring his legal options in response to the comment.
Doctors and health experts celebrated Dr. Scott Atlas’ resignation as the President’s COVID-19 adviser on Monday, suggesting that Atlas’ controversial takes on the pandemic response had contributed to a mounting coronavirus-related death toll in the United States that has now reached roughly 268,000.
President Donald Trump had tapped Atlas as an adviser on the pandemic in August after he emerged repeatedly on Fox News as a kind of celebrity scientist. A radiologist, who now serves as a senior fellow at a libertarian-leaning think tank at Stanford University, Atlas suggested in his resignation letter on Monday that he had “always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence.”
Yet many experts have pointed out that the Hoover Institute fellow, whose own academic home distanced itself from his bogus claims, has no formal background in infectious disease — typically a requirement for a scientist serving in a capacity to provide advising on pandemic response.
Atlas’ resignation, which he posted to Twitter on Monday night, was promptly met by ridicule from colleagues in the scientific community who celebrated his departure:
No single physician did more to harm Americans in such a brief period of time as @ScottWAtlas has.
His disgrace will be for all time.
— Jeremy Faust MD MS (ER physician) (@jeremyfaust) December 1, 2020
The legacy of @ScottWAtlas 130 days advising @realDonaldTrump
>130,000 Americans died of #COVID19
>9.4 million new confirmed cases pic.twitter.com/8eaqZDmvxa— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 1, 2020
Scott Atlas resignation from @WhiteHouse comes not a moment too soon
His time was marred by barrage of misinformation, from promoting anti-mask quackery to falsehoods about testing
He repeatedly tweeted disingenuous "data" & promoted widespread infections as a strategy
Thread https://t.co/RRTWuJRzSv
— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) December 1, 2020
One of the greatest acts of medical malpractice in history by a single person.
— Peter Puthenveetil, MD (@pjputh) December 1, 2020
1/5: I’ve severely criticized Dr Atlas since his appointment, but make no mistake he was only one of several mouthpieces for a far reaching and deliberate antiscience disinformation initiative led by the White House https://t.co/BaTnTvworb
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) December 1, 2020
See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.
https://t.co/oVKYyDNDcV— Megan Ranney MD MPH ? (@meganranney) December 1, 2020
The harm you have done cheerleading for decreased mask compliance and relentless, economically driven reopening has killed thousands of Americans. I do not know if you can ever atone, but I think you had better start.
— Josh sighed in relief Gentges (@jgentgesdo) December 1, 2020
Dr. Scott Atlas shows that anyone can finish medical school and residency as long as they kiss enough ass, never question anything, and blindly follow orders from those in power. Our medical education system in America rewards obedience over moral principles and patient care.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) December 1, 2020
President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $150 million in a shameless push to line its post-election pockets the Washington Post reported late Monday.
The fundraising effort, which comes at a time that most losing campaigns begin to wind down their fundraising calls, has been buoyed by false claims about election fraud. Those efforts have shattered records set during the campaign people with knowledge of the contributions told the Post.
The piling political donations, coming primarily from small-dollar donors, is among the top reasons Trump is enticed to carry on about election fraud, taking time in court to promote long debunked conspiracies about a stolen election.
In spite of fronting that the money will be used for a legal war on election fraud, a majority of the cash raised since the election is likely to go into an account for the President to use on political activities after he leaves office, the Post said.
“Trump is making hay while the sun is shining. He’s taking advantage of all the free media coverage to pay off his campaign debt and fill his coffers for whatever comes next,” Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor told the Post.
Recent reports have also suggested that Trump is considering a 2024 presidential run and has considered ways to disrupt the incoming Biden presidency, including an event during President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration week in January.
The deluge of donations, comes as the Trump campaign has waged a fundraising blitz, sending about 500 donation pleas since the election according to the Post’s count, and often making wild claims about voter fraud which has resonated with Trump loyalists.
The far-reaching propaganda push to sow doubt about election integrity, have even dampened efforts to energize voters in Georgia amid upcoming Senate runoff elections in the state that will determine which party holds Senate majority.
After the election, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee began sharing its funds with Save America, a new leadership PAC that Trump set up in early November.
The leadership PAC’s loose regulations could allow for funds to personally benefit Trump after he departs the White House, the Post said, noting that an overwhelming majority of low-dollar donations under the current agreement would go toward financing Trump’s PAC, instead of efforts to support the party or to support its lawsuits on baseless voter fraud.
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
As President Trump’s stay in the White House winds down, the series of misguided terrorist designation decisions his foreign policy team have made, especially those related to Iran, look to continue unabated. According to November 16, 2020 Foreign Policy Magazine reporting, the Department of State will soon add the Houthis to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, was founded in the 1990s and has vied for influence in Yemen against Saudi Arabia and its proxies. The movement gained power in 2014-2015 and has taken on a dominant role in Yemen, especially in northern and western portions of the country.
Don’t deprive yourself of this wonderful moment when Arizona Gov. Ducey (R) is signing the election certification papers for his state and gets a call from the President on his cell phone which he promptly mutes.
Fox News host Sean Hannity, one of President Donald Trump’s top conservative media allies, made a startling admission on Monday night as he was ranting about “the media mob” being “nothing more than a glorified overpaid wing of the Democratic Party.”
Continue reading “Hannity: ‘I Don’t Vet The Information On This Program That I Give Out’”
Dr. Scott Atlas, an adviser to the President on the coronavirus, resigned from his post at the White House on Monday.
The news comes as medical facilities cross the nation are hit by record high hospitalizations for COVID-19 — reaching more than 96,000 on Monday according to the Washington Post’s data tracker.
As a special government employee who began formally advising President Donald Trump on the COVID-19 pandemic in August, Atlas had been expected to serve a limited term that was coming to a close this week. Fox News was the first to report Atlas’ resignation.
“I worked hard with a singular focus — to save lives and help Americans through this pandemic,” Atlas wrote in a letter that he posted Monday night on Twitter, adding: “I always relied on the latest science and evidence, without any political consideration or influence.”
Honored to have served @realDonaldTrump and the American people during these difficult times. pic.twitter.com/xT1hRoYBMh
— Scott W. Atlas (@ScottWAtlas) December 1, 2020
But the COVID-19 adviser, who caught President Trump’s attention over the summer during his Fox News appearances, repeatedly touted President Trump’s politically polarizing and scientifically unsound pandemic response.
Atlas has frequently offered advice that advanced a hands-off approach and that was drastically different from guidance provided by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and respected scientists. Atlas, for example, encouraged an approach that broadly resembled “herd immunity” which would allow for free spread of coronavirus throughout the population without providing much of a plan to protect vulnerable populations at higher risk of dying from the virus.
In October, he suggested that a matter of wide scientific consensus — mask-wearing — is not necessarily effective and has pushed a widely controversial claim also made by Trump that children cannot spread the coronavirus while arguing to open schools.
Yet in his resignation letter on Monday he declared that his “advice was always focused on minimizing all the harms from both the pandemic and the structural policies themselves, especially to the working class and the poor.”
“I sincerely wish the new team all the best as they guide the nation through these trying, polarized times,” Atlas wrote.
The resignation comes weeks after Stanford University and the Hoover Institute where Atlas is a senior fellow, issued a statement that sought to distance the institution and its libertarian-leaning think tank from the radiologist after he criticized measures put in place to combat the spread of coronavirus in Michigan last month. At that time, Atlas urged Michigan residents to “rise up” against the restrictions appearing to echo similar remarks from President Trump in April whose attacks on the Democratic governor have been cited by critics for promoting an alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer that was thwarted by federal law enforcement.
A group of Stanford faculty issued a statement obtained by CNN following Atlas’ resignation lauding it as “long overdue” and suggesting that his departure “underscores the triumph of science and truth over falsehoods and misinformation.”
“His actions have undermined and threatened public health even as countless lives have been lost to Covid-19,” they said.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) found himself on the defensive on Monday night in the face of President Donald Trump’s attacks against him for certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state.
