demmiblue
demmiblue's JournalCNN: A former QAnon believer shares how the conspiracy theories drew him in.
https://twitter.com/CNNnewsroom/status/1317120279924084737Trump is about to hold an (indoor) event in Florida on "protecting America's seniors."
People over 65 make up a greater share of Florida's population than all but a few other states. The state also has the nation's third-highest total Covid case total so far.
https://twitter.com/josh_wingrove/status/1317162029694713868
I photographed Obama and Reagan. Here's why Trump's White House is a national disgrace.
I’ve only ever exchanged four words directly with Donald Trump.
Our first and only meeting happened two days after the 2016 election, when President Barack Obama met with the president-elect at the White House. The majority of the country was still in disbelief that Trump had been elected, despite being outvoted by close to three million votes. Americans were angry. Obama felt the need to ease tensions in the country, thus his gesture of inviting Trump to the White House so soon after the election.
The previous day at the White House — the day after the election — the shock was palpable throughout the building. Obama often used the phrase “zig zag” to describe the ups and downs of our country’s existence. In my head, I heard the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song, “one step up and two steps back,” as I walked into the West Wing that morning.
Being one of the older members of the staff, I had watched the country go through many challenging times. The assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, the civil rights riots in the 1960s, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968, the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974 and the 9/11 attacks, to name a few. As difficult as those times were, our country did eventually recover from all of them.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i-photographed-obama-reagan-here-s-why-trump-s-white-ncna1243575
MSNBC will be showing the documentary "The Way I See It" tonight at 10:00.
Michigan bans open carry of guns inside and near polling places
Source: The Detroit News
Lansing — Michigan is prohibiting the open carry of guns within 100 feet of polling places amid fears of voter intimidation during the pivotal Nov. 3 election.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sent guidance to local election officials on Friday — 19 days before Election Day — to clarify that the open carry of firearms on Election Day in polling places, clerk’s offices and absent voter counting boards is banned, according to three Michigan clerk's offices that received the guidance.
"The presence of firearms at the polling place, clerk’s office(s), or absent voter counting board may cause disruption, fear, or intimidation for voters, election workers and others present," the new guidance says.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson
"Absent clear standards, there is potential for confusion and uneven application of legal requirements for Michigan’s 1,600 election officials, 30,000 election inspectors, 8 million registered voters and thousands of challengers and poll watchers on Election Day," it adds.
Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/16/michigan-bans-open-carry-guns-polling-places/3676462001/
Sorting through some of my mom's things and came across this letter @JoeBiden wrote to her 18 years
https://twitter.com/catherinecooke/status/1316811064525418496
Pfizer Says It Won't Seek Vaccine Authorization Before Mid-November
Source: NYT
The chief executive of Pfizer said on Friday that the company would not apply for emergency authorization of its coronavirus vaccine before the third week of November, ruling out President Trump’s assertion that a vaccine would be ready before Election Day on Nov. 3.
In a statement posted to the company website, the chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, said that although Pfizer could have preliminary numbers by the end of October about whether the vaccine works, it would still need to collect safety and manufacturing data that will stretch the timeline to at least the third week of November.
Close watchers of the vaccine race had already known that Pfizer wouldn’t be able to meet the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration by the end of this month. But Friday’s announcement represents a shift in tone for the company and its leader, who has repeatedly emphasized the month of October in interviews and public appearances.
In doing so, the company had aligned its messaging with that of the president, who has made no secret of his desire for an approved vaccine before the election. He has even singled out the company by name and said he had talked to Dr. Bourla, whom he called a “great guy.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/health/covid-vaccine-pfizer.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Chinese Billionaire's Network Hyped Hunter Biden Dirt Weeks Before Rudy
Source: The Daily Beast
Weeks before the New York Post began publishing what it claimed were the contents of Hunter Biden’s hard drive, a Sept. 25 segment on a YouTube channel run by a Chinese dissident streamer, who is linked to billionaire and Steve Bannon-backer Guo Wengui, broadcast a bizarre conspiracy theory. According to the streamer, Chinese politburo officials had “sent three hard disks of evidence” to the Justice Department and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi containing damaging information about Joe Biden as well as the origins of the coronavirus in a bid to undermine the rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Three days later, a Twitter account linked to Guo and Bannon’s Himalaya movement subsequently amplified an edited clip of the segment alongside the pledge of a “Bombshell… 3 hard disk drives of videos and dossiers of Hunter Biden’s connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been sent to Nancy Pelosi and DOJ. Big money and sex scandal!”
Many of the claims made in the September video are absurd on their face. And the video leaves it unclear whether Guo and his media empire had foreknowledge of the Post’s impending story or whether their endless conspiracy theorizing simply handed them a lucky coincidence that only looks prescient in hindsight. But this wasn’t the first time that Guo’s media empire reinforced narratives that aligned with Team Trump’s. Guo’s outlets repeatedly pushed various debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus as either a Chinese lab accident or an intentional bioweapon.
Nor are these social media posts Guo’s only link to the president’s close associates. While Guo’s ties to Bannon have long been known—Bannon was arrested for fraudin August on a 152-foot-long yacht reportedly owned by Guo—the billionaire appears to have also joined forces with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in the former New York mayor’s relentless anti-Biden dirt-digging crusade. The Twitter accounts of Guo’s outlets GNews and the Guo-associated Voice of Guo Media retweeted unsubstantiated corruption claims about the former vice president and his son this week, including the Post report published Wednesday which centered on a hard drive that Bannon told the Post about in late September and which Giuliani later provided to the paper.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-billionaires-network-hyped-hunter-biden-dirt-weeks-before-rudy
White House was warned Giuliani was target of Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation
The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.
The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said.
The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine,” this person said. Officials wanted “to protect the president from coming out and saying something stupid,” particularly since he was facing impeachment over his own efforts to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html
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