I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

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Comments

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    Image may contain: text that says 'Isn't interfering with the US Mail a felony? (Asking for 380 million friends.)'

  • trishyla
    trishyla Member Posts: 698
    edited August 2020

    Yes, it is a federal offense. But that would assume we have a working Justice department. Which we don't.

    There are also rules and procedures for disposing of government property. None of them include dumping them in the trash. For the most part they have to be sent to government warehouses and sold as surplus, or scrap. I believe there are criminal penalties for destroying government property. I will encourage my representatives to pursue this as well.

  • trishyla
    trishyla Member Posts: 698
    edited August 2020

    Just to add one more thought. Those are our tax dollars they are throwing in the dumpster. We deserve an accounting of every penny that jackass is costing us.

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    image

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    image

  • wren44
    wren44 Member Posts: 7,932
    edited August 2020

    I am taking my ballot to the drop box the day after I get it.

  • spookiesmom
    spookiesmom Member Posts: 8,178
    edited August 2020

    good idea😎😎😎

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    I think I would turn the ballot in as soon as one can. Now we have to hope and pray all the ballots make it. Trump was talking on tv I think ( saw one of those bars ?? with synopsis of what is being said ) and seemed to have said something about a lot of ballots disappearing. Oh -- it's a chyron. The man is beyond help now I think. Just blurting out how he wants to do you in so your vote won't count.

    I use to feel some concern for a few Republicans who seemed to be better than those closest to Trump, but I have become so annoyed the last few weeks that I've reached the point that I think none of them should survive well at all. There are those few (like the Lincoln Project ) who outwardly do stand up to Trump and I'm okay for the most part with them -- but the rest can GTH.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    Trump Promises To Lose America's Mail-In Ballots In November

    At a press conference at his golf club, Trump promised America that their ballots will be lost if they vote by mail in November.
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  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    I will either do early voting (which we can do in North Dakota with no questions asked) or bring my mail-in ballot to the Court House and drop it off in person. I won't trust the mail at present.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    Robert Trump actually sounds as though he could easily see some of the dysfunctions that were a part of most of the other siblings and really didn't want to be what he saw and often felt.

    It also sounds like the orange Trump took a bit of time out of golf to go visit at the hospital for an hr. because he didn't want the total dressing down that would have come had he not.

    I would not usually say something like this, but it almost sounds like Robert was too nice for this family for the most part. He will not be around to see how things turn out later. It does sound like he wanted Donald to succeed, but I'm not sure he was able to see ENOUGH of who his brother REALLY was , and especially now. RIP.


    BREAKING

    Robert S. Trump, the President's Younger Brother, Dies at 72

    A loyal spokesman for the family, he shunned the spotlight and had "zero sense of entitlement."

    Robert Trump, left, with the future president at a society event in 1999.Robert Trump, left, with the future president a1999.Credit...Diane Bondaress/Associated PressAnnie Karni

    By Annie Karni

    • Aug. 15, 2020, 10:31 p.m. ET

    Robert S. Trump, the younger brother of President Trump, died on Saturday night at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. He was 72.

    The White House did not provide a cause of death. "He was not just my brother, he was my best friend," the president said in a statement late Saturday night. "He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again."

    Robert Trump, who took blood thinners, had suffered recent brain bleeds that began after a recent fall, according to a close friend of the family.

    Robert Trump, two years younger than the president, had been in poor health since last month. Over the past few weeks, he had not been able to speak on the phone, according to the family friend.

    Donald Trump made a trip to Manhattan on Friday to see him at the hospital, a visit that lasted just under an hour.

    On Saturday, when Robert Trump was not expected to live much longer, the president called into the hospital from his Bedminster, N.J., golf club. A short time later, the president held a wide-ranging news conference, where he refused to say whether Kamala Harris was eligible to run for national office, giving credence to a false assertion that Ms. Harris, born in California, was not eligible because her parents were immigrants.

    He did not mention his brother's health, but privately was down and struggling to understand the impending loss, according to friends who spoke to him.

    "I have a wonderful brother," the president had said on Friday during a news conference at the White House before departing to visit him. "We've had a great relationship for a long time, from Day 1, a long time ago." In fact, the two were estranged for years, before Mr. Trump's run for the White House.

    Robert Trump had no children, but he helped raise Christopher Hollister Trump-Retchin, the son of his first wife, Blaine Trump, even giving him his last name. Besides the president, he is survived by his second wife, Ann Marie Pallan, and his sisters, Maryanne Trump Barry and Elizabeth Trump Grau. His brother Fred Trump Jr. died in 1981.

    As the youngest of five children growing up in the strict Queens household of Fred C. Trump, Robert Trump was shielded from some of the pressure exerted by his disciplinarian father over his older brothers. He was never groomed to take over the family real estate company, and was considered by those who knew him to be the inverse of the brash, self-promotional brother who eventually did. After graduating from Boston University, he first went to work on Wall Street, instead of immediately joining the family business. But he eventually went to work for his brother as a senior executive at the Trump Organization.

    "You could consider him the quietest of Trumps," said Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer. "He was glad to stay out of the spotlight."

    ImageThe Trump siblings, from left, Robert, Elizabeth, Fred Jr., Donald and Maryanne.The Trump siblings, from left, Robert, Elizabeth, Fred Jr., Donald and Maryanne.Credit...via Donald Trump campaign

    Jack O'Donnell, a former Trump Organization executive who worked closely with the Trump family, recalled the younger Mr. Trump as someone with a natural ease and good humor that his older brother lacked.

    "He was dignified, he was quiet, he listened, he was good to work with," Mr. O'Donnell said. "He had zero sense of entitlement. Robert was very comfortable being Donald Trump's brother and not being like him."

    That was not always an easy gig, and simply being a close family member did nothing to shield him from his brother's stormy rages when he needed someone to blame. Family friends said that as Donald Trump's star grew, Robert Trump struggled with working for his brother, and actively cultivated an image as someone who was the polar opposite of the better-known Trump.

    But Donald Trump still faulted Robert Trump, for instance, for the problems with slot machines that plagued the opening of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., in 1990, and cost him tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. Donald Trump had put his brother in charge of the property after a fatal helicopter accident in 1989 killed three Trump Organization executives who had been overseeing it.

    But gaming regulators did not allow the casino to open because of a complete lack of financial control of the slot machines. On opening night, only a small section of the casino floor was open, and it was months before the slot machines were fully activated.

    In one meeting, Mr. O'Donnell recalled Donald Trump losing his temper and screaming at his brother, telling him that he pinned all of the blame on him. "Robert calmly got up, walked out of the room, and that's the last time I ever saw him," Mr. O'Donnell said.

    After the blowup, Robert Trump stopped reporting directly to his brother and removed himself from the core of the business, working out of the Brooklyn office and dealing with real estate projects in boroughs outside Manhattan that were in the family's portfolio. But people who knew him said he was devastated by the fight with Donald Trump, and the rift between them took years to heal. During the years Robert Trump worked in Brooklyn, he would take his father, Fred Trump Sr., who at the time was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, out for lunch every day at Gargiulo's, an Italian restaurant, a friend recalled.

    ImageRobert Trump embraced his brother after the president-elect delivered his victory speech on election night in 2016.Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    He reconciled with his brother when Donald Trump decided to run for president, according to a person close to the family. Robert Trump has in recent years been a loyal family spokesman and consigliere since his older brother entered politics. "I support Donald one thousand percent," he told The New York Post in 2016. "If he were to need me in any way, I'd be there. Anything I could do to help."

    He followed through with that promise. In recent months, he led the family in its unsuccessful bid to block the publication of a memoir by their niece Mary L. Trump — the daughter of their deceased older brother, Fred Trump Jr. — that described decades of family dysfunction and brutality that she claimed turned Donald Trump into a reckless leader. It was the president's younger brother who requested the restraining order in a filing in Queens County Surrogate's Court.

    Before that, Robert Trump spearheaded the family response in 1999 when Mary Trump and her brother, Fred Trump III, sued for their father's share of the family estate.

    Robert Trump, who for 25 years was married to Blaine Trump, was more accepted in society circles and on the charity circuit than Donald Trump ever was, Mr. D'Antonio said.

    But after a public and painful divorce in 2009, involving tabloid coverage documenting his decision to leave his marriage for an employee at the Trump Organization, Ann Marie Pallan, Robert Trump sought a quiet, retired life in Long Island.

    ImageRobert and Donald Trump with their wives at the time, Blaine and Ivana, in the 1990s.Credit...Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images

    He and Ms. Pallan only married earlier this year. On her Facebook page, Ms. Pallan has recently advertised Trump boat parades — part of the campaign's effort to demonstrate enthusiasm for the president's re-election — in the New York City area.

    The relationship between the brothers — the older one dominating, the younger having to live with it and submit — was illustrated by Donald Trump in his book, "The Art of the Deal." In it, he recalled stealing his younger brother's blocks and gluing them together so that he couldn't reclaim them. "That was the end of Robert's blocks," he wrote proudly.

    The president's decision to visit Robert Trump in the hospital at the end of his life was different from how he handled news in 1981 that his older brother, Fred Trump Jr., was in poor health. According to Mary Trump's account, Donald Trump went to the movies the night Fred Trump Jr. died. Fred Trump, Sr., the patriarch, also did not visit him.

    But Ms. Blair said that in light of the crack that Mary Trump's memoir has put in the Trump family lore, the president would have had no choice.

    "It's very much part of the Trump family legend that they are a tight-knit, loyal group," she said. "That is the family modus operandi. Mary Trump has recently suggested otherwise, but I think as part of the response to that, Donald Trump would have no choice but to go."

    Maggie Haberman contributed reporting from New York.

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    image

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    Perfect as well as perfectly true.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    This guy has always gotten right down to it - no pussy-footing for him.


    Image may contain: 1 person, text that says 'Jeff Tiedrich @itsJeffTiedrich look, I may not agree with what our president is doing to the postal service, but he is our leader and I will defend to the death his right to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, stripped of his wealth, tried for his crimes and thrown straight the fuck into prison'

    Got it toned down just a bit with this one:


    Image may contain: 1 person, text that says 'Jeff Tiedrich @itsJeffTiedrich thank god we elected the guy who is rigging his own re- election by sabotaging the post office, and not the lady who was careless with three emails, because that would have been so bad for our democracy'

  • divinemrsm
    divinemrsm Member Posts: 6,614
    edited August 2020

    It's starting and I think it will get much worse as election draws near. About 50 cars and trucks supporting Trump with flags and banners created their own parade and drove through several nearby small towns where I live. What in God's name for? There is no mention of where these cars came from, whether they are local people or this is coming from somewhere else. I cannot believe there are so many average joes who spend their time doing this crap. How does this psychopath have so much support? What a bizarre country we live in. I truly believe there is a large swath of people who live for chaos, love it and do their best to create it. I mean, it's the middle of August. What a bunch of d— lickers. I have never seen this kind of idolatry for a president.


  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    Idolatry is the perfect word for it because it makes no sense if you are a thinking person......which clearly they are not......

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    No person can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teachers who walk in the shadow of the temple, among their followers, give not of their wisdom but rather of their faith and their lovingness. If they are indeed wise they do not bid you enter the house of their wisdom, but rather lead you to the threshold of your own mind. -Khalil Gibran

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    I too wonder about those who can visibly still be rooting for Trump. Are they for him or is some of it just for the Reps. party. That I think looks to actually be more or less over at this point and like Trump is to me a useless endeavor. I see a number of people around me, those who would normally be fairly vocal ( especially at this point in the challenge ) are not saying much. I think it is mainly out of expedience to not get hit on for their views but they are still Reps. ( for what its worth ) through and through.

    Sad to me that ANY of them ever allowed MAGA to ever fall from their lips. I also am reading that many of the Reps. having to deal with Trump at this point are quite upset and at each other. So, not only a chaotic WH display from Trump but nearly as much going on with the top of the Reps. party ( McConnell/McCarthy etc. ) are disarray and floundering around. I do hope all are called back from their recess early to deal with this mess.

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    COVID-19 Has 'Taken A Political Tone Like Nothing I've Ever Seen,' Warns Anthony Fauci
    [HuffPost] Mary Papenfuss

    The politicization of COVID-19 is the most extreme of any health problem that Dr. Anthony Fauci has experienced in his career, the infectious disease expert revealed in his latest review of the coronavirus pandemic.
    The battle against the disease has "taken on a political tone like nothing I've ever seen," Fauci said in an interview Thursday arranged by National Geographic magazine.
    And it's not helping, he noted. "We certainly are not where I hoped we would be," Fauci said.
    In a separate interview with The Washington Post Thursday, when asked about Tucker Carlson's attacks on him on Fox News, Fauci responded that Carlson "triggers some of the crazies in society to start threatening me ... which actually happens."
    The animosity and pushback he experienced while battling HIV and AIDS were "never anything" as "serious" as it is now, when he and his family have been threatened with death as he works to protect public health, Fauci explained in the National Geographic interview.
    The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared to still be stunned by the vicious reaction — and at a loss to explain it. Fauci attributed it to an extreme, disturbing divisiveness in the nation.
    "It seems inconceivable," he told interviewer Deborah Roberts of ABC News. "Take a deep breath and think about it: When you're trying to promote public health principles to save people's lives ... that there's such divisiveness in the country that [it's] interpreted to be so far from your own way of thinking that you actually want to threaten the person."
    He added: "It's tough for me to figure that out except to say, 'Boy, I hope we get past this divisiveness in our country. ... [There's] just no way that our society can really function well and go along that way. We've got to get past that."
    Fauci said it would be helpful if people would think about health and safety measures not as "blocking" a return to more normal times but as "gateways" to getting there — one thoughtful, careful step at a time.
    He also seemed to take subtle shots at Donald Trump, who has refused to recommend or mandate national guidelines, such as wearing a mask, to help stem the spread of COVID-19 — and the president's dismissive responses to the death toll.
    "You can't run away from the numbers of people who've died, the number of people [who] are getting hospitalized, the surges we're seeing," Fauci said. Improving the future "is going to depend on us," he added.
    Fauci characterized the U.S. approach to dealing with COVID-19 as scattershot — and disappointing. "Bottom line is, I'm not pleased with how things are going," he told Roberts.
    "We did not have a universal [strategy] in the sense of everybody pulling in the same direction, of the kinds of things that can contain and slow down an outbreak ... distancing, masks, avoiding crowds, outdoors better than indoors, washing hands, doing things like closing bars, where appropriate, because that seems to be a hot spot of transmission," he explained. Areas began relaunching economic activity too soon when case numbers were still very high — and even surging, he noted.
    Leaders need to use their heads about reopening schools, Fauci cautioned. In-person instruction may be possible in "green zone" communities where infection rates are very low. But in "red zones," where cases are surging, "local leaders and parents should carefully consider whether they want to put kids back in school under those circumstances."
    Fauci also expressed skepticism about a purported COVID-19 vaccine from Russia. "Having a vaccine" and "proving that a vaccine is safe and effective are two different things," he said.
    Once a successful vaccine is proved to be safe for use in the U.S., Fauci said, he would "gladly accept" one that is 50% to 75% effective. But people couldn't then throw "caution to the wind." Such a vaccination would be a "very important additional tool" to public health measures.

  • spookiesmom
    spookiesmom Member Posts: 8,178
    edited August 2020

    image

    How’s this for stupid

  • ananda8
    ananda8 Member Posts: 1,418
    edited August 2020

    All of you who are surprised by the coordination of Trump supporters don't realize there is a whole source of "news" on social media and YouTube that you never see. There are videos, blogs, message centers, all to influence and coordinate people. After all the Women's March was coordinated on Facebook and no one noticed until 500,000 women showed up in DC and another 1.5 million marched around the world.

    When Biden wins, expect real trouble and it won't be the "good trouble".

  • divinemrsm
    divinemrsm Member Posts: 6,614
    edited August 2020

    I’m not sure why the Trumpers would be out in August. I would understand if it was October. But why waste your summertime trying to create a frenzy over a president? A popular lake about 50 minutes from us also had a Trump boat rally this weekend. Its overload.

    I don’t post comments these days on social media to public stories because the backlash from Trumpers is quick and severe. But I can see the same rhetoric rising to the surface the way it did before last election. Many many people in my area still head over heels for Donald. They’re getting off on the over the top stunts, addicted to them it seems. Can’t wait for the next one to show the world they mean business.

    Yes, ananda, it will be ugly, either way. And what a sad tragedy. And as sadly, many, many will enjoy the upheaval. Armageadon, maybe.


  • spookiesmom
    spookiesmom Member Posts: 8,178
    edited August 2020

    image

    Why isn’t this surprising

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    image

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,698
    edited August 2020

    image

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    1 big thing: Trump eyes new unproven virus "cure"

    Illustration of a medicine bottle tipped on its side with oleander flowers spilling out.

    Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

    To the alarm of some government health officials, President Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to approve an extract from the oleander plant as a dietary supplement to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.

    • The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July.
    • It's embraced by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product.
    • Lindell told Axios that in the meeting, Trump "basically said: …'The FDA should be approving it.'"
    • The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

    Why it matters: A senior administration official familiar with the internal conversations told Axios, "The involvement of the Secretary of HUD and MyPillow.com in pushing a dubious product at the highest levels should give Americans no comfort at night about their health and safety during a raging pandemic."

    The big picture: It's part of a pattern in which entrepreneurs, often without rigorous vetting, push unproven products to Trump — knowing their sales pitches might catch his eye. Trump will then urge FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn to "look at" or speed up approval.

    • In March, Trump personally lobbied Hahn to authorize hydroxychloroquine's emergency use to treat COVID-19.
    • The FDA obliged. But in June, after a large trial, the agency revoked that authorization and warned of the "risk of heart rhythm problems" in COVID-19 patients treated with the drug.

    Behind the scenes: Senior administration officials familiar with the internal conversations around oleandrin have raised concerns about the way this botanical extract — pushed by Andrew Whitney of Phoenix Biotechnology — is being promoted at the highest levels of the Trump administration.

    • There is no public data showing oleandrin has ever been tested in animals or humans for its efficacy against COVID-19, but the extract has shown some evidence of inhibiting the virus in a non-peer reviewed laboratory study.
    • In an interview on Saturday, Whitney told Axios that oleandrin has been tested on humans for its efficacy against COVID-19 but said the study has not been published yet. He also said the lab study is in the process of being peer reviewed.

    HUD Secretary Carson has enthusiastically promoted oleandrin to Trump administration officials and to the president himself.

    • MyPillow CEO Lindell, who is a major advertiser on Fox News and a personal friend of Carson and Trump, helped Whitney get an Oval Office meeting with the president in July to discuss oleandrin as a potential COVID-19 cure. (The Washington Post first reported this meeting.)
    • Lindell said that he, Carson, at least one lawyer and, briefly, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, joined Trump and Whitney for the meeting. Notably absent was Hahn, the head of the agency that studies and approves medical treatments.
    • Asked why the HUD secretary was promoting an unproven botanical extract to cure COVID-19, a Carson spokesperson emailed the following statement to Axios: "Secretary Carson is a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, he has been directly involved with the Administration's response to this disease from the very beginning."
    • "The Task Force is looking at a plethora of therapeutics to fight COVID-19," the statement also said. "To suggest that Secretary Carson, who is a world-renowned expert in the medical field, shouldn't be involved is not only absurd but unhelpful in our collective fight to eradicate the pandemic."
    • A senior official familiar with Carson's involvement noted that while Carson is a world-renowned expert in pediatric neurosurgery, he is not a world-renowned expert on antiviral drugs or infectious diseases.

    What's next: Whitney said he is pursuing multiple paths to getting oleandrin to market.

    • The first path is as a COVID-19 drug, which would involve a rigorous process that includes clinical trials.
    • But to hedge his bets, Whitney said he is also pushing the FDA to allow oleandrin to be sold off the shelf as a dietary supplement — a move that could be made immediately, Whitney has told administration officials.

    Whitney has claimed to administration officials that oleandrin cures COVID-19 in two days, according to a source familiar with his private comments.

    • But if the FDA allows oleandrin to be sold as a dietary supplement, the company would not be allowed to make medical claims about its ability to treat or cure COVID-19.
    • Asked about this claim about oleandrin being a "cure" for COVID-19, Whitney said he stands by it "100%."

    What they're saying: "Now, there are all sorts of lawyers who would tell me I can't say things like that, because you know you need to have years of studies, and you need to have this, that, and the other, and so forth," Whitney said. "But as an American with a right of free expression, I'm telling you, I've seen it with my own eyes."

    • Whitney said that by "cure" he means the symptoms go away quickly "in the vast majority of cases."

    A source briefed on the situation said Whitney has so far provided no evidence to give the administration confidence about his claims.

    • Whitney disputed that. "Actually, we have provided that," he said. Asked what human clinical evidence he has provided to the FDA to support his claim that oleandrin cures COVID-19, Whitney did not provide any additional evidence, saying, "At this stage it's probably best left at that. The data is compelling."
    • "We have something that we believe will address the problem and we want to make it available," he added. "We believe we should be given the opportunity to demonstrate that in a hospital clinical trial setting and we believe that must happen now and not a month from now."

    What we're hearing: Hahn appears to be resisting Whitney's efforts — at least so far — despite Trump expressing his enthusiasm for the FDA to approve oleandrin. In a sign that has reassured some administration officials worried about the oleandrin campaign, Whitney has privately complained that the FDA has been dragging its feet.

    Go deeper: Read the full story in the Axios stream.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    2. Inside the oleandrin campaign

    The science: Oleandrin is an extract from the oleander plant. Researchers have suggested that it could be useful to treat cancer because of the way it affects cells, and that it could enhance the effects of other cancer therapies.

    • Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, is an international authority on antiviral drugs and has a laboratory working on COVID-19.
    • Asked about oleandrin's potential efficacy as a COVID-19 treatment, Lewin told Axios, "Oleandrin looks to have antiviral activity at high doses in a test tube model. You'd certainly want to see more work done on this before even contemplating a human trial."

    A July 2020 study from the University of Texas at Galveston shows, in a laboratory setting, that oleandrin can inhibit the coronavirus in monkey kidney cells. This study has not been peer reviewed and one of the authors of the study, Robert Newman, is chairman of Phoenix Biotechnology's scientific advisory board — the company developing the oleandrin product.

    • Phoenix Biotechnology's website listed Newman as the president of the company and a member of its board of directors until quite recently (Google's cache shows he held both roles as of August 12th).
    • When Axios checked the website on Friday night, Newman was still listed as president. But on Saturday evening, after Axios had emailed questions to Whitney, Newman was no longer listed as president of the company; the website listed him only as a scientific adviser.
    • Asked why the company made this change on Saturday, Whitney texted, "He recently stepped down as president to focus purely on science. This is a small company that has relatively few personnel and is going through acceleration and reorganization."
    • Asked when had Newman stepped down as president given that he was listed as president the night before Axios' email, Whitney replied, "Conversations about reorganization have been ongoing this week."

    Citing the University of Texas study and HUD Secretary Ben Carson's belief in oleandrin, Whitney said regulators ought to take his product seriously. "This isn't whipped up in a bucket in someone's back garden," he said. "There's support for this."

    Between the lines: Whitney enlisted Lindell in his effort to speed up approval of the botanical product.

    • In an interview with Axios on Saturday, Lindell spoke passionately in support of oleandrin and said he was such a believer in the botanical that he now has a financial stake in Phoenix Biotechnology and wants to ensure every American has access to this COVID-19 "cure."
    • Lindell said he first became aware of oleandrin when Whitney called him on Easter Sunday and said it could cure COVID-19.
    • Lindell said he then took the information to Carson, who got on board.

    Lindell said he has been taking the unapproved botanical and has shared it with his family and friends. He said he believes it has kept him from getting COVID-19 and has cured other people. (No published clinical studies show the botanical cures or prevents COVID-19. Nor has the FDA said the product is safe or fit for this purpose.)

    • Told about the alarm inside the administration regarding his promotion of oleandrin, Lindell said, "This is the most amazing miracle thing I've ever seen in my life, so I went all in.... If you want to know what I think, I think it's being suppressed because somebody doesn't want this out there because it works."
    • "Why wouldn't the guy that's on the task force [Carson] bring the cure to the president if it's getting stopped at other places?" Lindell added.

    The bottom line: Scientists around the world are in a race for cures, treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Government regulators are investigating hundreds of products. When a biotech executive like Whitney can take his case directly to the president, it casts doubt over the scientific rigor of the drug development process.

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  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    4. Sheldon Adelson makes nice with Trump

    Sheldon Adelson

    Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam at a Trump rally in February. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

    Despite a tense recent phone call with President Trumpfirst reported by the New York Times — the most important mega-donor in the Republican Party, Sheldon Adelson, has signaled he is poised to spend big to support the president.

    Behind the scenes: Last Monday morning a group of top Republican Party donors gathered at the Four Seasons resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for a Trump campaign fundraiser.

    The donors gathered in a hotel ballroom, set up like a Silicon Valley retreat, with a yogurt parfait station, according to sources in the room.

    • A select few of the party's biggest donors sent aides in their place — and this was the case with casino billionaire Adelson and his wife, Miriam.
    • Adelson's top adviser Andy Abboud entered the room late, toward the end of the meeting. He raised his hand for a question, and they gave him the mic, according to two sources who were there.
    • "I just want to say that I just spoke to the Adelsons," Abboud announced to the room. "They are 110% behind the president. And that's going to become apparent shortly."

    Why it matters: The Adelsons have the biggest checkbooks in Republican politics. They spend tens of millions of dollars each cycle, and the recent New York Times story — which reported that in a recent phone call Trump "upbraided [Adelson] for not donating more to support his reelection" — made some Republican officials nervous that Trump had alienated the party's most important donor.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

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    Axios

    Pelosi calls House back to act on Postal Service "sabotage"

    Why it matters: Democratic lawmakers say they have been inundated with complaints about policy changes that are disrupting the USPS ahead of an election that will see a record number of mail-in ballots.

    Read on Axios


  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited August 2020

    I was surprised by this. I would have thought SOME or maybe a COUPLE of the Trump people would know how to do campaign things, but they seem as clueless as ever. Tip-off -- this happened in several places.


    Trump Held A Training Session For Pennsylvania Campaign Volunteers And Nobody Showed Up

    The Trump campaign held a training session for campaign volunteers in Pennsylvania that only had two people sign up, and they both canceled.
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