Category: Labor and Working

Legacy of lies — how Trump weaponized mistruths during his presidency

ABC News

Legacy of lies — how Trump weaponized mistruths during his presidency

Trump has riddled his presidency with false and misleading statements.

 

By Libby Cathey                            January 20, 2021
 

President Donald Trump is not a beacon of truth.

In the best light, Trump was seen as occasionally struggling with the truth. As someone who espoused “truthful hyperbole,” Trump’s supporters viewed him as a showman who sometimes exaggerated, but ultimately fulfilled his most important promises, such as filling the Supreme Court with conservative judges.

But many took a decidedly darker view. His critics and even a number of supporters say something far more sinister and pervasive was at work — Trump weaponizing misinformation, or and even lies, to achieve his goals. The president advanced falsehoods on everything from the mundane to what some called the “big lie” — that the 2020 election was stolen, a repeated assertion that ended in the Capitol Siege.

In the current political landscape he nurtured, truth seekers – whether scientists, academics, journalists or intelligence agency officials — were often attacked, or in some inspector general’s cases, fired, simply because the facts unavoidably collided with the alternate reality created in the White House — one amplified by Trump’s allies in Congress and right-wing media.

 

The Washington Post Fact Checker’s ongoing database of false or misleading claims made by Trump since assuming office stands at more than 30,500.

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and author of “Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul” told ABC News she viewed Trump’s “pattern of lying seems to consist of beginning with a conscious lie intended to deceive others — or to cover up who he really is — but as more people believe him and the adulations of crowds gratify him in irresistible ways, he comes to believe in his own lies.”

“He has adopted almost a practice of preferentially lying over telling the truth,” she added. “His grandiose sense of himself, on the other hand, does not allow for any possibility that he is wrong.”

Here are four memorable falsehoods from Trump’s presidency to show how Trump repeatedly shaded the truth on matters great and small:

TRUMP: The presidential election was ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen.’

TRUTH: Joe Biden legally won the election.

Whether Trump believed it or not, he peddled a conspiracy theory that the election was “stolen” from him and unfairly handed to President-elect Joe Biden. His constant complaint in his final weeks of campaigning was one he had made repeatedly primed his supporters for in the past: the election would be “rigged” against him.

He ramped up “the big lie” after Biden was projected to win the presidency.

Trump and his allies brought at least 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 elections to date, ending with only a single court victory related to voter ID laws — which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later overturned. Former Attorney General Bill Barr also said in December the Justice Department found no evidence of fraud able to overturn the election.

Despite being unable to substantiate his bold claim, Trump made it a topic for debate, and his allies in Congress helped breathe life into the claim. The election lie culminated on Jan. 6, 2021 when thousands of Trump’s supporters marched on the Capitol after his urging at a “Save America Rally” at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, demanding Vice President Mike Pence stop Congress from affirming Biden’s victory.

 

“Make no mistake, this election was stolen from me, from you, and from the country,” Trump told a crowd of thousands of angry supporters.

The subsequent siege on the Capitol left at least five people dead and burned images into history of a desecrated U.S. Capitol. But experts argue the entire event might have been stopped sooner had Trump admitted the truth to his supporters — that there was no legal way the election could be overturned in his favor.

Asked whether Trump will ever be able to admit the loss, and thus the lie, Lee, who is also currently president of the World Mental Health Coalition, said, “Probably not.”

She said people like Trump have an “apparent fragile sense of self” which makes it difficult to receive criticism or disapproval. “This makes him more likely to fall into a psychotic spiral in the situation of a major rejection, such as election defeat, rather than admit loss,” Lee said. “And this is, indeed, what has happened,” Lee said.

 

Robert Erikson, a political science professor at Columbia University, agreed that Trump “makes up the truth that he wants to be true.”

“He can never be wrong, and that’s why losing is such a blow to him. He convinces himself and everyone else that he really won the election in a landslide. He can’t fill in the blanks about how this fraud occurred — because it’s just total lunacy — but that’s what he wants people to believe,” Erikson said.

Erikson added that with Trump’s departure, the public might see Republican senators revert back to the truth, noting Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell is “already done with Trump” in reportedly telling senators to vote their conscience in the upcoming impeachment trial on an article which stems from the election lie.

“If they don’t stand up for the truth, then they’re overestimating the power of this base that still wants them to falsely believe the election was stolen,” Erikson warned.

 

The most recent Gallup poll on Trump’s favorability found that he is leaving office with his lowest approval rating of his four years in office at 34%. Trump is the only president not to reach 50% approval rating during his time in office, since Gallup started polling the number in 1938.

But despite no evidence to support the view, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, one out of every three Americans — and two in every three Republicans — believes that there was widespread voter fraud in the presidential election, indicating damage on the country’s democratic institutions needing repairs far beyond the Capitol’s shattered glass.

TRUMP: The coronavirus pandemic is under control.

TRUTH: The US exceeded the White House’s 2020 death estimate by 100K lives.

One of the most dangerous lies of Trump’s involved the most serious threat to his presidency: his downplaying of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump admitted to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in a phone call on Feb. 7 he knew the virus was “deadly,” airborne, and more serious than “your strenuous flus.” Meanwhile, in public and on Twitter, he compared the virus to the seasonal flu and dismissed climbing case numbers.

 

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump said in a March 19 call with Woodward, according to an audio clip.

Trump, asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl in September, “Why did you lie to the American people and why should we trust what you have to say now?” dismissed the question.

“That’s a terrible question and the phraseology. I didn’t lie. What I said is we have to be calm. We can’t be panicked.” Trump said, before Karl pressed again on the contradiction. “I want to show our country will be fine one way or the other whether we lose one person — we shouldn’t lose any.”

Trump also repeatedly spread misinformation about coronavirus testing, masks, unproven treatments — once claiming that injecting bleach might treat the virus before saying later he was being “sarcastic” — while attacking public health experts along the way who disputed his view that the virus wasn’t just going to “disappear.”

“I think Trump understands the facts about how bad COVID is and probably knows masks work, but he is always appealing to his base,” said Erikson. “What Trump always does — and what ordinary politicians do to not do — is always appealing to his base rather than expanding his base, and the virus didn’t fall in line with them.”

A year into the crisis, more than 400,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

TRUMP: ‘We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches.’

TRUTH: Photos from previous inaugurations tell a different story.

The Trump administration kicked off with the lie mocked around the world when Trump used his first full day in office in 2017 to excoriate a media report that estimated the crowd size of his inauguration at 250,000 attendees as a “lie” and instead, to insist he saw at least one million people.

“We had a massive field of people, you saw that. Packed,” Trump said in a speech at the Central Intelligence Agency. “I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks and they show … an empty field. I said, wait a minute, I made a speech! I looked out, the field was … it looked like a million, a million-and-a-half people.”

Later that day, he dispatched White House press secretary Sean Spicer, in Spicer’s first briefing room appearance, to claim “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.”

 

Spicer did not provide evidence and acknowledged the National Park Service in 1995 stopped tallying crowd size on the National Mall. He instead offered varied explanations for why photos made it appear as if the crowd was smaller than the “massive” one Trump pushed. (This was described by then-senior counselor Kellyanne Conway as providing the media with “alternative facts.”)

PolitiFact, a nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute, estimates Trump’s inauguration saw between 250,000 and 600,000 attendees. Nielsen, which records the U.S. live television viewing figures, said an estimated 31 million people tuned in to watch the 2017 inauguration, about 19% lower than the number who watched Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

But the lie, made apparent by photos and footage, set the tone for a White House which would come to often contradict fact.

 

In Trump’s first interview as president, presented with his priorities in his first days of office, told ABC News he “won’t allow” anyone to “demean me unfairly, because we had a massive crowd of people.”

“I looked over that sea of people, and I said to myself, ‘wow’, and I’ve seen crowds before. Big, big crowds. That was some crowd,” Trump said. “We had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches.”

“They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering — from certain angles — that were taken early and lots of other things,” he added, maintaining his position, despite having no clear-cut evidence.

TRUMP: Alabama ‘will most likely be hit’ from Hurricane Dorian.

TRUTH: Alabama was not in the storm’s line, federal officials said.

In Sept. 2019, as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward Florida and Georgia, Trump tweeted that Alabama was one of the states at great risk from the storm’s wrath, saying it “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”

After Alabamians, and beyond, on Twitter went into a frenzy, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham soon tweeted that Alabama was not in the line of the storm.

But Trump, unwilling to admit the error, attempted to prove that his incorrect Alabama tweet was actually correct. After drawing widespread criticism for his inaccurate warning, Trump held up a map in an Oval Office briefing on Dorian that appeared to have a line drawn on it in black making it seem as if he had been right all along.

The event would later be known on social media as “Sharpiegate.”

The map Trump displayed had one addition not on the one disseminated by the National Hurricane Center: what appeared to be a drawn-on semicircle appended to the “cone of uncertainty” showing the hurricane’s potential projected impact — extending the cone into Alabama.

 

Hours after the Wednesday Dorian briefing, Trump denied knowing how or why the map had been altered when asked if he could explain how the change was made, saying. “No, I just know, yeah. I know that Alabama was in the original forecast.” White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley tweeted Wednesday night that the line was, in fact, from a black Sharpie, and he criticized the media for focusing on it.

Almost a week later, the National Weather Service’s parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also weighed in, disputing the earlier tweet and siding with Trump in an unsigned statement.

But many experts, including a former director of the National Hurricane Center, took the side of Birmingham forecasters on social media and called the parent statement was “so disappointing,” — illustrating how Trump’s falsehoods eroded the credibility of the institutions around him, too.

“Either NOAA Leadership truly agrees with what they posted or they were ordered to do it,” Bill Read wrote on Facebook. “If it is the former, the statement shows a lack of understanding of how to use probabilistic forecasts in conjunction with other forecast information. Embarrassing. If it is the latter, the statement shows a lack of courage on their part by not supporting the people in the field who are actually doing the work. Heartbreaking.”

As with most of Trump’s false or misleading statements, enabled by the power of the presidency and his allies, “Sharpiegate,” too, appeared to blow over.

ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Jordyn Phelps and Meg Cunningham contributed to this report.

What does Biden’s diverse Cabinet mean for a divided country

CNN

Analysis: What does Biden’s diverse Cabinet mean for a divided country

By Nicquel Terry Ellis and Priya Krishnakumar,      January 18, 2021

(CNN)When President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20, he will inherit a nation that is divided.

 

Americans are demanding leaders atone for the forces of White supremacy that motivated a mob to storm the US Capitol on January 6 in its refusal to accept President Donald Trump’s loss. And people of color, despite their rising political power, have been among the communities hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and other disparities.
Biden has achieved a historic feat that observers hope will help begin the process of repairing a broken country. The President-elect has the most racially diverse presidential Cabinet in the history of the US. A CNN analysis found that 50% of nominees for Cabinet positions and Cabinet-level positions are people of color. That figure includes Vice President-elect Kamala Harris who will be the first Black and South Asian person and first woman to hold the position. Former President Barack Obama set the previous record for diversity with a Cabinet that was 42% people of color.
Civil rights leaders have praised Biden for keeping his promise of creating a Cabinet that better reflects the country’s changing demographics. However, this is only the first step and they are cautiously optimistic.
Biden’s administration will be expected to enact policies that lead to substantive change for communities of color. The Cabinet will be judged on whether it can end the Covid-19 pandemic and ensure vaccine access to underserved communities, support voting rights legislation, revive the economy, push police reform that addresses the fact that Black people are killed by police at higher rates, and reverse Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Civil rights activists will also be looking for Biden to consider people of color for deputy roles in the Cabinet as well as judges and US attorneys.
“We believe that Biden’s Cabinet appointments are just the starting point for a slate of demands that Black people and other people of color have,” said Arisha Hatch, vice president of Color of Change. “For us, diversity is just table stakes. It’s like the baseline thing that needs to happen.”
Diversity on a ‘new level’
Biden will be turning the tide of a majority White and male Trump administration that was only 16% people of color.
Trump garnered criticism for the lack of diversity in his Cabinet and his failure to address issues of concern to communities of color.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, he used offensive rhetoric to target Muslims, Mexicans, Syrian refugees, Africans, congresswomen of color, and Black athletes protesting racial inequality.
During an impeachment hearing for Trump on Wednesday, Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Democrat from Missouri, called Trump a White supremacist.
“If we fail to remove a White supremacist President who incited a White supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s first district that suffer the most,” Bush said during her speech. “The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out White supremacy starting with impeaching the White supremacist in chief.”
A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that 56% of Americans believed that Trump made race relations worse in the US.
The country experienced a reckoning on racism last summer when mass protests erupted after the controversial police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans. Covid-19 exacerbated already existing health disparities as people of color have died from the virus at higher rates than White people.
Inequality has now become a central focus for this country and many social justice advocates are looking for Biden to right the wrongs of the Trump administration.
In December, lawmakers and civil rights groups pressured Biden to appoint Black, Latino and Asian nominees to his Cabinet, citing the nation’s heightened alert on race and justice.
Douglas Brinkley, a CNN presidential historian, said Biden’s diverse Cabinet is taking the White House to a “new level” that past presidents haven’t been able to accomplish.
Former President Bill Clinton, Brinkley said, attempted to create a diverse Cabinet when he chose four Black and two Hispanic department heads.
Still, Clinton came under fire for passing the 1994 Crime Bill, which strengthened law enforcement across the country, provided federal money for new cops and prisons, and ordered mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders. Critics say the bill led to mass incarceration of Black people. Biden, who authored the bill, has defended aspects of it while also calling it a “mistake” and blaming its negative impacts on state governments.
Brinkley said Biden and his Cabinet have an opportunity to disprove critics who say Democrats rely on voters of color but don’t meet their expectations.
“This is coming at a time when the Republican party seems to be doubling down on being the party of White Americans only,” Brinkley said. “There’s a feeling here of a last gasp of particularly White male privilege going on here and Biden is trying to shatter that impression of America by making sure his Cabinet is very diverse and that should be applauded.”
Falling short with Asian Americans

 

While Black and Latino leaders say they are pleased with the Cabinet picks, Biden did not meet the expectations of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus that asked for top-tier representation in the Cabinet.
Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the nation and make up 6% of the US population.
Biden nominated two Asian people to Cabinet level positions. Neera Tanden will be the Office of Management and Budget Director and Katherine Tai was named US Trade Representative. Both will be the first Asian American women in their roles.
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair and California Rep. Judy Chu called it “incredibly disheartening” that an Asian American Pacific Islander was not selected for a Cabinet secretary job for the first time since 2000.
“Despite the diversity amongst these Cabinets selections, we are deeply disappointed by the decision to exclude AAPIs from the 15 Cabinet Secretary positions who oversee executive departments in our government,” Chu said. “The glaring omission of an AAPI Cabinet Secretary in the self-declared ‘most diverse Cabinet in history’ is not lost on us and sends a demoralizing message to our nation’s fastest growing racial group and voting bloc that AAPIs do not need to be counted the same way as other key constituency groups.”
According to CNN exit polls, Asian Americans backed Biden at 61%.
Biden has promised to meet the concerns of AAPI’s including appointing them as judges and federal officials, protecting the Affordable Care Act to mitigate their barriers to healthcare access, fighting the rise in hate crimes against their community, and rescinding Trump’s Muslim ban.
A ‘milestone,’ but it’s only a first step

 

In December, Biden met with several Black civil rights leaders who pushed Biden to tap Black people for high level Cabinet roles and not just second-tier positions.
Many wanted Biden to pick a Black attorney general who would crack down on police violence in the Black community and voting rights. Biden ultimately selected Merrick Garland for the role.
Black Americans make up 12% of the US population and have faced oppression dating back to slavery and the Jim Crow era. Black people are also three times more likely than White people to be killed by police, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Biden ultimately picked five Black people for his Cabinet including incoming Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who will be the first Black person to lead the Pentagon, and Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was named HUD secretary. Other Black nominees include incoming EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who will be the first Black man to head the department; Cecilia Rouse, incoming chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and the first Black person to hold the post; and Linda Thomas-Greenfield will be U.N. Ambassador.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, was among the civil rights leaders who met with Biden and said the President-elect has achieved a “milestone” with this diverse Cabinet.
Morial said he believes their push for diversity was crucial to ensure Biden kept his word.
Now Biden will be charged with prioritizing equitable Covid-19 vaccine access, economic equality and increased funding for Black-owned businesses, voting rights and other issues affecting the Black community, Morial said.
“He has successfully gotten to first base,” Morial said. “I think for people who are fair minded and open minded, the truth is that the way people feel will very much be predicated on how they (Biden’s Cabinet) perform.”
Biden makes gains with Latinos
Latino leaders have also praised Biden for his Cabinet picks. Latinos hold the largest minority population in the country at 18%.
selected four Latino people for his Cabinet and three are Cabinet secretaries. The nominees include Xavier Becerra, for Secretary of Health and Human Services; Miguel Cardona for Secretary of Education, Alejandro Mayorkas for Secretary of Homeland Security; and Isabel Guzman who will be the Small Business Administrator. Becerra and Mayorkas will be the first Latinos to lead their departments.
Last week, the heads of UnidosUs, Hispanic Federation and other national groups met with Biden, Harris and their Hispanic Cabinet nominees to discuss the challenges facing the Latino community. Among the issues discussed were the devastating toll Covid-19 has had on Latino Americans, health care access, immigration, and jobs, the leaders said in a statement.
“The President-elect knows our people are hurting,” said Janet Murguía, UnidosUS President and CEO. “He wants to address the health and economic impact on the Latino community and understands the need to address systemic inequality by putting equity at the center of his economic and health care response. This feels like a new day, a huge change.”
Eric Rodriguez, senior vice president of UnidosUS, said he expects Biden to undo the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies that he called “cruel and heartless and gutless.”
Rodriguez said having a diverse Cabinet will help Biden gain the trust of people of color.
“Having that cultural experience and background is just so important to being able to communicate and get information from those communities,” Rodriguez said.
Native Americans celebrate historic appointment
Biden was also lauded by Native Americans when he nominated Deb Haaland for secretary of the Interior, which will make her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency.
Crystal Echo Hawk, executive director of IllumiNative, said she now wants to see Biden’s Cabinet boost funding for Covid-19 relief in Native American communities and ensure vaccine access. Echo Hawk said Native Americans have been sickened or dying from Covid-19 at high rates because of the “deliberate and long-term under-funding” of their health care systems.
Native Americans are also asking Biden to undo the repeated attempts by the Trump administration to undermine tribal sovereignty over their lands and sacred sites, suspend Trump’s decision to lease drilling rights on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and rebuild the relationship between tribal leaders and the federal government, Echo Hawk said.
“We are encouraged to see these strides toward political representation that looks like the United States and the constituents the Cabinet serves,” Echo Hawk said. “However, this must be accompanied by policies that transform the systems of power that have shutout Native, Black, Latinx, and other communities of color for generations.”

Billionaires backed Republicans who sought to reverse US election results

The Guardian

Billionaires backed Republicans who sought to reverse US election results

Guardian analysis shows Club for Growth has spent $20m supporting 42 rightwing lawmakers who voted to invalidate Biden victory.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington              January 15, 2021

The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, above, the duo who led the effort to overturn the election result.

The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, above, the duo who led the effort to overturn the election result. Photograph: Erin Scott/EPA

An anti-tax group funded primarily by billionaires has emerged as one of the biggest backers of the Republican lawmakers who sought to overturn the US election results, according to an analysis by the Guardian.

The Club for Growth has supported the campaigns of 42 of the rightwing Republicans senators and members of the House of Representatives who voted last week to challenge US election results, doling out an estimated $ 20m to directly and indirectly support their campaigns in 2018 and 2020, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

About 30 of the Republican hardliners received more than $100,000 in indirect and direct support from the group.

The Club for Growth’s biggest beneficiaries include Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, the two Republican senators who led the effort to invalidate Joe Biden’s electoral victory, and the newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert, a QAnon conspiracy theorist. Boebert was criticized last week for tweeting about the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s location during the attack on the Capitol, even after lawmakers were told not to do so by police.

Public records show the Club for Growth’s largest funders are the billionaire Richard Uihlein, the Republican co-founder of the Uline shipping supply company in Wisconsin, and Jeffrey Yass, the co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, an options trading group based in Philadelphia that also owns a sports betting company in Dublin.

While Uihlein and Yass have kept a lower profile than other billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg and the late Sheldon Adelson, their backing of the Club for Growth has helped to transform the organization from one traditionally known as an anti-regulatory and anti-tax pro-business pressure group to one that backs some of the most radical and anti-democratic Republican lawmakers in Congress.

“Here’s the thing about the hyper wealthy. They believe that their hyper-wealth grants them the ability to not be accountable. And that is not the case. If you’ve made billions of dollars, good on you. But that doesn’t make you any less accountable for funding anti-democratic or authoritarian candidates and movements,” said Reed Galen, a former Republican strategist who co-founded the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump campaigners.

Galen said he believed groups such as the Club for Growth now served to cater to Republican donors’ own personal agenda, and not what used to be considered “conservative principles”.

The Lincoln Project has said it would devote resources to putting pressure not just on Hawley, which the group accused of committing sedition, but also on his donors.

The Club for Growth has so far escaped scrutiny for its role supporting the anti-democratic Republicans because it does not primarily make direct contributions to candidates. Instead, it uses its funds to make “outside” spending decisions, like attacking a candidate’s opponents.

The newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, is a beneficiary of the Club for Growth.
The newly elected far-right gun-rights activist Lauren Boebert, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, is a beneficiary of the Club for Growth. Photograph: Us House Of Representatives Handout/EPA

 

In 2018, Club for Growth spent nearly $3m attacking the Democratic senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri, a race that was ultimately won by Hawley, the 41-year-old Yale law graduate with presidential ambitions who has amplified Donald Trump’s baseless lies about election fraud.

That year, it also spent $1.2m to attack the Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who challenged – and then narrowly lost – against Cruz.

Other legislators supported by Club for Growth include Matt Rosendale, who this week called for the resignation of fellow Republican Liz Cheney after she said she would support impeachment of the president, and Lance Gooden, who accused Pelosi of being just as responsible for last week’s riot as Trump.

Dozens of the Republicans supported by Club for Growth voted to challenge the election results even after insurrectionist stormed the Capitol, which led to five deaths, including the murder of a police officer.

Neither the Club for Growth nor McIntosh responded to requests for comment.

Public records show that Richard Uihlein, whose family founded Schlitz beer, donated $27m to the Club for Growth in 2020, and $6.7m in 2018. Uihlein and his wife, Liz, have been called “the most powerful conservative couple you’ve never heard of” by the New York Times. Richard Uihlein, the New York Times said, was known for underwriting “firebrand anti-establishment” candidates like Roy Moore, who Uihlein supported in a Senate race even after it was alleged he had sexually abused underage girls. Moore denied the allegations.

A spokesman for the Uihleins declined to comment.

Yass of Susquehanna International, who is listed on public documents as having donated $20.7m to the Club for Growth in 2020 and $3.8m in 2018, also declined to comment. Yass is one of six founders of Susquehanna, called a “crucial engine of the $5tn global exchange-traded fund market” in a 2018 Bloomberg News profile. The company was grounded on the basis of the six founders mutual love of poker and the notion that training for “probability-based” decisions could be useful in trading markets. Susquehanna’s Dublin-based company, Nellie Analytics, wagers on sports.

In a 2020 conference on the business of sports betting, Yass said sports betting was a $250bn industry globally, but that with “help” from legislators, it could become a trillion-dollar industry.

A 2009 profile of Yass in Philadelphia magazine described how secrecy pervades Susquehanna, and that people who know the company say “stealth” is a word often used to describe its modus operandi. The article suggested Yass was largely silent about his company because he does not like to share what he does and how, and that those who know him believe he is “very nervous” about his own security.

Yass, who is described in some media accounts as a libertarian, also donated to the Protect America Pac, an organization affiliated with Republican senator Rand Paul. The Pac’s website falsely claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election.

Since you’re here …

… we have a favor to ask. Millions are flocking to the Guardian for open, independent, quality news every day. Readers in all 50 states and in 180 countries around the world now support us financially.

As the inauguration approaches, America has the opportunity for a fresh start. Despite unprecedented threats to democracy and bitter divisions, there are also reasons for hope. In the coming months, the US will rejoin the Paris climate accord. And the new leadership has pledged to put science first in its fight against the pandemic. Also, America’s first female, first Black and first Asian vice-president will be sworn into office, taking the nation a step further toward building a more inclusive government.

The incoming administration has an opportunity to steer the nation toward a path of greater equality and justice. But every government needs to be invigilated. And this will be no different. The Guardian will do that. And we will continue to report on the corrosive forces that will continue to threaten US democracy, long after Donald Trump has left office – from a misinformation crisis to a surge in white nationalism to a crackdown on voting rights.

We believe everyone deserves access to information that’s grounded in science and truth, and analysis rooted in authority and integrity. That’s why we made a different choice: to keep our reporting open for all readers, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. In these perilous times, an independent, global news organization like the Guardian is essential. We have no shareholders or billionaire owner, meaning our journalism is free from commercial and political influence.

If there were ever a time to join us, it is now. Your funding powers our journalism. Make a gift now from as little as $1. Thank you.

Johnson & Johnson Is Working on a COVID-19 Vaccine That Requires a Single Dose

Johnson & Johnson Is Working on a COVID-19 Vaccine That Requires a Single Dose

Korin Miller                              January 18, 2021
Photo credit: Stefan Cristian Cioata - Getty Images
Photo credit: Stefan Cristian Cioata – Getty Images – From Prevention

 

While Pfizer and Moderna both have COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the U.S., other vaccine candidates are still in the works, including a single-dose option from Johnson & Johnson, which has about 45,000 people enrolled in ongoing phase 3 clinical trials. According to early data just released by the company, this vaccine also shows major promise.

Interim phase 1/2a data were published on Jan. 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine, and the results show the company’s vaccine candidate created an immune response in patients for at least 71 days—the full length of time measured in the study so far.

The vaccine was also “generally well-tolerated” in study participants, Johnson & Johnson said in a press release. While the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are similar, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine also has plenty of differences. Here’s what we know so far, plus what lies ahead.

How does the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine work?

Johnson & Johnson has an andenovector vaccine, which uses double-stranded DNA to promote an immune response in the body. This technology works differently than the mRNA vaccines available from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which both use single-stranded RNA.

In the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, researchers added a piece of genetic material from the novel coronavirus’ spike protein (the piece that latches onto human cells) into another virus, Adenovirus 26, which was modified so it has the ability to enter cells but not reproduce inside of them. Adenoviruses are common viruses that usually cause cold-like symptoms, but because the one used in the vaccine was altered and cannot replicate, it can’t make you sick. (Other COVID-19 vaccines, including Oxford and AstraZeneca’s candidate, uses similar adenovirus technology.)

When you get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the modified adenovirus carrying a piece of the spike protein latches onto the surface of your cells. It’s pulled inside, where the modified virus travels to the cell nucleus, home to its DNA. The adenovirus then puts its DNA into the nucleus, the spike protein gene is read by the cell, and it’s then copied into messenger RNA (mRNA).

After that, the mRNA leaves the nucleus and serves as a set of instructions for other cells, so they begin making spike proteins. Those are then recognized by your immune system, and your body reacts by producing antibodies to the perceived threat (even though no threat exists).

Your immune system cells then remember how to fight the distinct piece of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, so if you come into contact with it in the future, your body will have the capability to fight it more efficiently.

This technology is unique but Johnson & Johnson has a lot of experience with it, as it’s already been used for its Ebola vaccine. “They’ve given hundreds of thousands of doses of this similar vaccine,” which has had no major safety issues, says William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

While it’s still being tested, Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine may only require one shot rather than two. Its trials so far have found that giving both one or two doses of the vaccine spurred an effective immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 in study participants, but nothing is set in stone until phase 3 clinical trials are complete and the company has enough data to support its single dose.

How effective is the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine?

It’s not entirely clear at this point. Published data from the early stage trials found that more than 90% of people who were vaccinated developed neutralizing antibodies (which are expected to stop SARS-CoV-2 from infecting your cells) 29 days after they received the first dose of the vaccine. Two months after the first dose, all participants had developed neutralizing antibodies, which stayed put for at least 71 days.

What are the side effects of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine?

According to the data so far, it may cause “mild-to-moderate side effects typically associated with vaccinations,” similar to those expected from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. This includes cold-like symptoms, like a headache, body aches, pain at the injection site, and a fever—a normal sign that the body’s immune response is being primed.

How is the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine stored?

One of the biggest perks of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is its durability. Because it doesn’t harbor delicate mRNA like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (which need to stay frozen), it’s much less fragile and can stay stable in a normal refrigerator (36–46°F) for up to three months.

“That’s a big advantage,” says Thomas Russo, M.D., professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo in New York. Safely storing the other available vaccines, particularly the Pfizer vaccine (which needs to be kept at a frigid -94°F), presents challenges for the average doctor’s office or pharmacy, as most locations don’t have specialty freezers that reach those temperatures.

When will it be granted an emergency use authorization by the FDA?

“It’s too soon to say because we don’t have phase 3 clinical data yet,” says infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

However, he’s hopeful, because “the phase 2 clinical trial results look strong.” Dr. Russo agrees that “as of right now, there are no major concerns with the safety signals.”

Johnson & Johnson’s phase 3 clinical trial is expected to wrap up by mid-February. If everything checks out, the company can apply for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Russo says. Once the FDA grants its approval, it’s possible that the vaccine could be authorized sometime in March.

In August, the company signed a $1 billion contract with the federal government, pledging to produce 12 million doses of its vaccine by February and 100 million doses by the end of June. However, The New York Times reports production may be about two months behind schedule.

Will you get to choose which COVID-19 vaccine you get?

At this point, that doesn’t seem likely. “In this initial phase of vaccinations, there’s probably not going to be much of a choice for people,” Dr. Adalja says. Rather, the health department or agency administering the vaccine will make the decision, mostly based on which vaccine is readily available in a specific area.

But a lot of this really comes down to what the data will say. “Exactly how effective is this vaccine?” Dr. Schaffner says. “If there’s a noteworthy difference, that might change things.”

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die

Sarah Knapton                           January 17, 2021
Paramedics transport a patient from the ambulance to the emergency department at the the Royal London Hospital - Barcroft Media 
Paramedics transport a patient from the ambulance to the emergency department at the the Royal London Hospital – Barcroft Media

 

Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown.

Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.

Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died.

The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics.

Researchers have called for urgent monitoring of people who have been discharged from hospital.

Study author Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care diabetes and vascular medicine at Leicester University, said: “This is the largest study of people discharged from hospital after being admitted with Covid.

“People seem to be going home, getting long-term effects, coming back in and dying. We see nearly 30 per cent have been readmitted, and that’s a lot of people. The numbers are so large.

“The message here is we really need to prepare for long Covid. It’s a mammoth task to follow up with these patients and the NHS is really pushed at the moment, but some sort of monitoring needs to be arranged.”

The study found that Covid survivors were nearly three and a half times more likely to be readmitted to hospital, and die, in the 140 days timeframe than other hospital outpatients.

Prof Khunti said the team had been surprised to find that many people were going back in with a new diagnosis, and many had developed heart, kidney and liver problems, as well as diabetes.

He said it was important to make sure people were placed on protective therapies, such as statins and aspirin.

“We don’t know if it’s because Covid destroyed the beta cells which make insulin and you get Type 1 diabetes, or whether it causes insulin resistance, and you develop Type 2, but we are seeing these surprising new diagnoses of diabetes,” he added.

“We’ve seen studies where survivors have had MRS scans and they’ve cardiac problems and liver problems.

“These people urgently require follow up and the need to be on things like aspirin and statins.”

The new study was published on a pre-print server and is yet to be peer reviewed. However experts described the paper as “important”.

Commenting on the study on Twitter, Christina Pagel, director of the clinical operational research unit at University College London said: “This is such important work. Covid is about so much more than death. A significant burden of long-term illness after hospitalization for Covid.”

Last year, researchers at North Bristol NHS Trust found that three quarters of virus patients treated at Bristol’s Southmead Hospital were still experiencing problems three months later.

Symptoms included breathlessness, excessive fatigue and muscle aches, leaving people struggling to wash, dress and return to work.

Some patients say they have been left needing a wheelchair since contracting the virus, while others claim they can no longer walk up the stairs without experiencing chest pain.

In December, the ONS estimated that one in 10 people who catch coronavirus go on to suffer long Covid with symptoms lasting three months or more.

Overall, roughly 186,000 people in private households in England in the week beginning November 22 were living with Covid-19 symptoms that had persisted for between five and 12 weeks, the most up-to-date ONS data shows.

Editorial: Our disastrous president

Editorial: Our disastrous president

The Times Editorial Board               
President Donald Trump stops to talk to reporters and members of the media as he walks to Marine One to depart from the South Lawn at the White House on Friday, March 22, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford ** Usable by LA, BS, CT, DP, FL, HC, MC, OS, SD, CGT and CCT **
President Trump stops to talk to reporters as he walks to Marine One to depart from the South Lawn at the White House on March 22, 2019. (Jabin Botsford / Washington Post)

 

Having failed in his effort to thwart the voters’ will and hold on to power, Donald J. Trump will leave the White House under the cloud of a second impeachment and facing the humiliation of a trial in the Senate for inciting an insurrection. But the Trump administration didn’t just end badly; it was a disaster from the start.

The question of whether Trump has been the worst president in American history can be debated, but he clearly was one of the worst. He deserves that infamous description not primarily because of poor policy decisions — though there were plenty of those — but because of his defects of character and temperament.

Yes, there have been presidents with personal failings who nevertheless exercised strong leadership and respected democratic institutions. But from the time Trump took office he displayed a constellation of flaws — narcissism, mendacity, an exaggerated view of his own ability and a chilling lack of empathy — that infected his presidency and divided the nation.

Trump began his administration with a lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration, and the fabrications kept coming. His presidency ends with Trump clinging to the fiction that the election that ousted him was “rigged” — the same fantasy that impelled his crazed followers to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a siege that led to five deaths.

In 2017 this newspaper published a series of editorials under the title “Our Dishonest President,” in which we drew a connection between Trump’s contempt for the truth and other alarming features of his presidency, including his attacks on the news media (“fake news”) and his undermining of vital institutions, such as the federal judiciary and the electoral process.

In the last editorial in that series, we said that Trump was “reckless and unmanageable, a danger to the Constitution, a threat to our democratic institutions.” That was an accurate indictment of Trump in 2017, and it sadly proved prophetic about the way he has behaved since.

Take the outrageous abuse of power that led to Trump’s first impeachment: his attempt to pressure the president of Ukraine, a nation desperately dependent on U.S. security aid, to interfere in the U.S. election by investigating Joe Biden. That episode exposed Trump’s inability to distinguish his own interests from those of the nation, a blind spot that also has figured in his refusal to admit that he lost the 2020 election and in his contempt for Congress, the intelligence community and career diplomats.

Another character defect — lack of empathy — was evident in Trump’s casual bigotry toward immigrants and people of color. That attitude was reflected in a series of disastrous policies. They range from a ban on travel to the United States primarily directed at predominantly Muslim countries to the separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border to the attempt to exclude immigrants lacking documentation from the census count used to apportion seats in Congress.

Trump portrayed himself as a champion of Black Americans, bizarrely boasting that he had done more for them than any president with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Some of his policies — such as his support for modest criminal justice initiatives, tax incentives for investment in economically distressed areas and funding for historically black colleges and universities — may have benefited some Black Americans. But they are utterly overshadowed by other words and acts, including his claim that Black Lives Matter was a symbol of hate and his racially freighted claim that a Biden victory would harm “suburban housewives” by destroying their neighborhoods with fair-housing policies.

You could argue that Trump is merely continuing the politics of racial dog-whistling that have animated some Republican candidates since at least Richard M. Nixon. It was that, but it also reflected how cruel and insensitive Trump’s words and deeds could be.

The most damaging outcome of Trump’s narcissism was his sabotaging of efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump can legitimately take credit for his administration’s commitment to developing vaccines at “warp speed.” But he undermined the larger effort to contain the virus by minimizing its dangers, questioning the value of testing, promoting questionable treatments and mocking the wearing of masks. Long before he exhorted his followers to “fight like hell” at the U.S. Capitol, he urged opponents of COVID-19 safety measures to “liberate” their states and, in a foreshadowing of his friendly comments about the mob at the U.S. Capitol, expressed sympathy for armed demonstrators who occupied the Michigan Statehouse.

Even those who believe that Trump promised a positive new direction for the Republican Party — opposition to “endless wars” and free trade and support for government investment at home, budget deficits be damned — must recognize that he undermined his own agenda with his erratic behavior, inattention to detail and ego-driven insistence on settling personal scores.

The president’s defenders can argue that none of these failings prevented the Trump administration from achieving successes in domestic and foreign policy. Indeed, there were accomplishments.

Although Trump was wrong to boast that he presided over “the greatest economy in the history of America,” unemployment did decline significantly during his administration before soaring in the COVID-19 pandemic. With the cooperation of the Republican-controlled Senate, he placed three conservative justices on the Supreme Court and appointed more than 200 judges to lower federal courts.

Abroad, the administration successfully encouraged Israel and several Arab nations to normalize relations and rightly engaged the Taliban in negotiations designed to bring U.S. forces home from Afghanistan. But the president’s overconfidence in his own abilities led him to think that flattering Kim Jong Un was the way to make progress on controlling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. And his repudiation of the Iran nuclear agreement, seemingly motivated more by a desire to overturn an Obama administration achievement than by a desire to prevent Iran more effectively from developing nuclear weapons, was a strategic failure that alienated U.S. allies.

Trump’s legacy will be defined primarily not by his occasional achievements — or even by his policy errors — but by the way this deeply flawed man debased his office, stoked divisions and brought a democracy to the brink of self-destruction, all for the greater glory of Donald J. Trump.

In the end, you have to trust the government when it comes to the vaccine, don’t you?

Chicago SunTimes

In the end, you have to trust the government when it comes to the vaccine, don’t you?

I intend to get vaccinated because it’s the right thing to do. As an old codger, I owe it to the younger generation to set a good example.

Phil Kadner                       
“I’m ready to roll up my sleeve and say ‘I still believe’ in this country,” writes Phil Kadner. “Just tell me where and when to show up.”  Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times.

 

Do you trust the government with your life? That’s what this comes down to.

I am trying very hard to answer “Yes” to that question, although everything in my life’s experience says, “Are you crazy?”

I am speaking about the COVID-19 vaccine.

I have decided I will get the vaccinations — two shots — when they become available to me. I think. Ask me again tomorrow and I may not be so sure.

But right now, I intend to get vaccinated because it is the right thing to do. As an old codger, I owe it to the younger generation to set a good example and I have always wanted to be the fellow in the disaster movie who says, “Leave me behind. You get to safety youngsters. I’ll hold them off.”

Okay. That might not be the right quote here. But I think you understand my intent.

Just tell me where to show up for the big moment.

That’s the thing that’s bugging me. No one seems to know how this is going to work. Once the medical people get their shots and the people in nursing homes get theirs, and the first responders, and the teachers, what’s the plan exactly?

As an old guy with some medical conditions that put me at high risk, I should be pretty high up on the list to get vaccinated. But is someone going to call me on the phone and say, “Get your sleeve rolled up, stand away from the door, we’re coming in,” or what?

Will I get an email saying, “Congratulations, you have won a free COVID-19 shot, all you have to do is agree to the five pages of terms and conditions and your vaccine will arrive in the mail?”

Just tell me what’s next.

Are we all going to get in our cars and form a line at the vehicle emissions testing site? I’m willing to do that, but there must be many toilet facilities nearby because old codgers need to make frequent pit stops, if you know what I mean? In fact, watching those miles-long car lines for vaccinations in Florida, I could think of little else.

I keep hearing that COVID vaccine shipments are getting lost and vials are being taken out of the freezer and forgotten, which I find worrisome. I don’t want to get a dose of the vaccine that has lost its potency.

Speaking of potency, I heard on the TV news that someone is thinking of diluting the doses, splitting them in half, so more people can be vaccinated. Did anyone actually test this stuff or are people at the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control just playing games with us?

I can’t help thinking that rich people, public figures, celebrities and other folks of influence are going to end up getting the vaccine before the rest of us.

Hearing that NFL and NBA players are getting tested repeatedly for COVID-19 before games while millions of other Americans are told testing is unavailable may have something to do with that.

I mean, there’s always somebody happy to use the road shoulder to cut around the rest of the traffic in a construction zone. Special rules for special people.

We have to trust the government here. But the incompetence, the finger-pointing between state and national governments, the lack of accountability, are troubling.

It’s not easy, even for someone who has been an advocate of national health care for many years, to say this will all work out in the end. I mean, the end has arrived for hundreds of thousands of people. Many of them trusted the government. Many of them died because they did not.

I’m ready to roll up my sleeve and say “I still believe” in this country. Just tell me where and when to show up. As for you youngsters out there who are afraid, just stand behind me. It’s going to be all right.

See. I got my disaster movie moment after all.

Contact Phil Kadner at philkadner@gmail.com

Biden to yank Keystone XL permit on first day of presidency

Biden to yank Keystone XL permit on first day of presidency

Lauren Gardner and Ben Lefebvre                     January 17, 2021
The Keystone XL Pipeline: Everything You Need To Know | NRDC

President-elect Joe Biden will rescind the cross-border permit for TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, three sources confirm to POLITICO.

The move is billed as one of Biden’s Day One climate change actions, according to a presentation circulating among Washington trade groups and lobbyists, a portion of which was seen by POLITICO. The decision was not included in incoming chief of staff Ron Klain’s Saturday memo outlining Biden’s planned executive actions during the first days of his presidency.

Two lobbyists confirmed that Biden plans to yank the project’s permit on Inauguration Day, a development first reported by CBC News. It’s the latest development in a decade-long fight over the controversial pipeline and solidifies a campaign promise the Canadian government had hoped was negotiable.

“The only question has always been whether labor can stave off the death sentence,” said one oil and gas lobbyist who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “And they never had a chance.”

A Biden transition spokesperson declined to comment.

Canada’s ambassador to Washington Kirsten Hillman would not confirm reports. “The Government of Canada continues to support the Keystone XL project,” she said in a statement to POLITICO on Sunday evening. “Keystone XL fits within Canada’s climate plan. It will also contribute to U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness.”

Rescinding Keystone XL would negate one of President Donald Trump’s own first actions in office and kill a project that had become a political totem in the fight between climate activists and the oil industry. Despite many analysts saying the boom in U.S. shale oil made new sources of Canadian crude less important, TC Energy has fought years of legal challenges against it obtaining the needed state permits that would all it to build the pipeline.

The reaction: TC Energy announced Sunday that Keystone XL would achieve net-zero emissions across operations once it begins running in 2023. A spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Biden’s executive order plans.

Environmentalists applauded the decision. “President-elect Biden is showing courage and empathy to the farmers, ranchers and tribal nations who have dealt with an ongoing threat that disrupted their lives for over a decade,” said Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, a grassroots group focused on scuttling the project.

Canada-U.S. relations: TC Energy first proposed the $8 billion pipeline in 2008, saying the 1,200-mile project was crucial to deliver crude from Western Canada to refineries in the Midwest. The Obama administration in 2015 denied a cross-border permit for the pipeline, however, saying the oil it would deliver would exacerbate climate change.

Keystone XL was one of the few issues on which Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed. The Liberal government had planned to continue to advocate for the pipeline.

During a congratulatory call with Biden on November 9th, Trudeau told the incoming president he looked forward to joining forces to fight climate change while co-operating on energy projects like the Keystone XL.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney bet Biden would not cancel a project already under construction when he announced in March that his government had taken a $1.1 billion stake in Keystone XL. Preliminary construction started last fall in Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota.

The provincial government openly mulled a legal intervention last year into a court case that had put pipeline construction on hold and reportedly hired American lobbyists to make its case in Washington.

Stef Feldman, a policy director for Biden’s campaign, told POLITICO in May that the Democrat would “proudly stand in the Roosevelt Room again as President and stop it for good.”

What’s next: In a statement Sunday night, Kenney vowed to work with TC Energy “to use all legal avenues available to protect” Alberta’s interest in the pipeline.

New Yorker reporter’s footage provides ‘clearest view yet’ of Capitol rioters inside Senate chamber

New Yorker reporter’s footage provides ‘clearest view yet’ of Capitol rioters inside Senate chamber

Tim O’Donnell                       January 17, 2021

Luke Mogelson, a veteran war correspondent and contributing writer for The New Yorker, captured what appears to be the “clearest” footage yet of the deadly riot at the United States Capitol earlier this month.

Mogelson attended (in a journalistic capacity) President Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, which preceded the pro-Trump mob’s march to and breach of the capitol. He followed the rioters into the building and filmed a group that entered the empty Senate chamber. They began taking photos of documents in the room as part of a self-declared “information operation.” One man said he was attempting to find something that he could “use against these scumbags,” while another said he thought Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) “would want us to do this.”

In a later scene, Mogelson witnessed Jake Angeli, otherwise known as Q Shaman, sitting in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair, as a lone Capitol Police officer tried unsuccessfully to get him to move. He also gathered footage from outside the Capitol, including a large crowd aggressively forcing its way into the building, as well as a man telling people around him to “start making a list, put all those names down” and “start hunting them down one by one.”

The New Yorker notes that although the footage was “not originally intended for publication, it documents a historic event and serves as a visceral complement to Mogelson’s probing, illuminating” written feature. Read the full report here and watch the complete footage here.

Woman arrested in Capitol attack: ‘I listen to my president’

Woman arrested in Capitol attack: ‘I listen to my president’

DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas-area real estate agent who is facing charges for allegedly being part of the pro-President Donald Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week said she’s a “normal person” who listened to her president.

Jenna Ryan, 50, is accused of “knowingly” entering or remaining in the restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in a Washington federal court.

Matt DeSarno, special agent in charge of the FBI Dallas office, confirmed that Ryan had turned herself in and that her Carrollton apartment was searched Friday. No personal telephone for Ryan was available, and court records didn’t list a lawyer for her as of Friday.

Ryan shared photos and videos on social media, including a video in which she says, “We’re gonna go down and storm the Capitol,” in front of a bathroom mirror, according to the FBI criminal complaint.

The agent who signed the complaint also noted that Ryan live-streamed a 21-minute Facebook video of her and a group walking toward the Capitol.

“We are going to (expletive) go in here,” Ryan said in the video as she approached the top of the stairs on the west side of the Capitol building. “Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go.”

She then turned the camera to expose her face, the complaint noted, and said, “Y’all know who to hire for your Realtor, Jenna Ryan for your Realtor.” Nearly halfway through, Ryan appears to have made it to the front door, chanting, “USA, USA” and “Here we are, in the name of Jesus.”

In an interview with KTVT-TV in Fort Worth, Ryan said she hoped that Trump would pardon her.

“I just want people to know I’m a normal person, that I listen to my president who told me to go to the Capitol, that I was displaying my patriotism while I was there and I was just protesting and I wasn’t trying to do anything violent and I didn’t realize there was actually violence,” Ryan said.

Ryan is the third person in FBI’s Dallas region of northern, northeastern and near western Texas to be named in criminal complaints, DeSarno said.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Jr. of Grand Prairie, another Dallas suburb, was released to home confinement Thursday after a prosecutor alleged the former fighter pilot had zip-tie handcuffs on the Senate floor because he planned to take hostages.

Troy Anthony Smocks, 58, of Dallas, was arrested Friday after a criminal complaint was filed in Washington accusing him of “knowingly and willfully transmitting threats in interstate commerce.”

Court documents allege that Smocks used social media to post threats on Jan. 6-7 regarding the riots. The threats included that he and others would return to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday with weapons and form a mass so large that no army could match them. He threatened they would “hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are,” specifically threatening Republicans not allied with them, Democrats and “and Tech Execs,” according to a court affidavit.

Smocks could not be reached for comment, and no attorney for him is listed in court records.

Also Friday, the first Houston-area resident to be accused of participating in the riot was arrested. In a criminal complaint filed in Washington, the FBI accuses Joshua Lollar, 39, of Spring, of being the spearhead of a group trying unsuccessfully to break through a line of Washington Metropolitan police officers into the Capitol.

Lollar was charged with violent entry, unauthorized presence in a restricted area and impeding law enforcement during a civil disorder. He remains in federal custody pending a Tuesday detention hearing. No attorney for him is listed in court records.