As the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows is responsible for coordinating the vast executive branch, including its coronavirus response. But in closed-door meetings, he has revealed his skepticism of the two physicians guiding the anti-pandemic effort, Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, routinely questioning their expertise, according to senior administration officials and other people briefed on the internal discussions.

Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides — and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it.

During coronavirus meetings, Meadows has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus that wearing masks helps contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, officials said. He has regularly raised with Fauci and others a range of issues on which he thinks Fauci has been wrong, and he personally monitors the infectious-disease expert’s media appearances. When he catches Fauci sounding out of sync with Trump, the chief of staff admonishes the doctor to “stay on message,” officials said — and he has impressed upon Fauci, Birx and other public health professionals that they should not opine on restrictions or make policy in the media.

In an interview Saturday, Meadows said he has been appropriately skeptical of information presented to him but disputed that he is anti-science.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-struggled-summer-coronavirus/2020/08/08/e12ceace-d80a-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html

Either @TimKaine and I had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again.

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1292110214028767233

Steffen Baldwin, an animal rights advocate and former Union County Animal Shelter director, is facing dozens of charges connected to animal abuse. Police and court records show that he would rehabilitate and re-home dangerous animals via his nonprofit group, only to euthanize them and pocket the money for personal use.

Steffen Baldwin presented himself as a caring lover of pets, especially dogs that were about to be cast off because they were incorrigible or unruly.

And he was known in Union County for his leadership: executive director of the Humane Society; a Humane agent who investigated cases of pet and livestock abuse; and founder of a nonprofit agency, collecting donations to match unwanted dogs with new owners.

But secretly, Baldwin was grooming pet owners with a promise to rehabilitate their dogs, or find them new homes, for a fee. But, in fact, he pocketed the proceeds for personal use and euthanized the animals without permission, according to court and police records.

Baldwin, 39, was arrested this week in California, after U.S. Marshals posed as potential customers. He had fled there from Ohio three years ago after being investigated for taking a pit bull and $1,000 from a Mahoning County couple and then euthanizing the dog without telling the owners.

Baldwin waived his extradition and was returned to Marysville this week, where he faces additional accusers in a 42-county felony indictment which includes charges of cruelty to companion animals, grand theft, bribery, telecommunications fraud, tampering with evidence and impersonating a peace officer. The charges related to the deaths of at least 18 dogs.

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200808/local-animal-advocate-facing-42-count-abuse-indictment