For a third consecutive term, the Antigua and Barbuda Labor Party, headed by Gaston Browne, has been re-elected into office in what was a very competitive general election.
Although the ABLP claimed election victory and a number of its stalwarts held on to their seats, the party suffered several losses too.
Antigua & Barbuda prime minister, Gaston Browne. (GP) – FP
The ABLP claimed nine seats in total, a downward shift down from its former 15.
The Barbuda People’s Movement retained the one seat that it had held for two terms and the independent candidate for St Peter, Asot Michael, won his seat.
Meanwhile, Asot Michael, who was ousted from the ABLP party amid a bitter fallout with leaders, claimed 2,137 votes against ABLP candidate Rawdon Turner who received 899.
The UPP’s Tevaughn Harriette got 541 and the DNA’s Chaneil Imhoff claimed 29.
Incoming Prime Minister Gaston Browne told reporters that he sees the results as a blessing that could create the opportunity for renewal.
“We do not see this as a bad thing per se, we see it as an opportunity at the same time. However, I want to thank my colleagues who have served my country well and we will not leave them out in the cold…”
Browne also acknowledged that his ministers had become a bit complacent.
“Truth be told, after two terms, some ministers become lethargic, they don’t have the will to fight. One of our issues is the fact that some of our colleagues didn’t have the energy to mobilize…in any case, it will be an example for new leadership to ensure that no matter what…if you have been given two terms you have to put in the same energy…”, Browne added.
The new Cabinet is expected to be sworn in on Friday.
An editor at the Post, Cameron Barr, said in a statement that
the newspaper is “deeply troubled by this use of government power to
seek access to the communications of journalists,” but there was nothing
close to widespread outrage at the news that an authoritarian president
and regime and his flunkies apparently spied on journalists who were
investigating crimes against democracy. This obvious abuse of power is
largely being treated as a non-event of little public importance. That
is precisely how authoritarianism is normalized — when the public no
longer cares about the crimes committed by those who hold power.
The collective non-reaction to the Trump regime’s targeting
of journalists is just another example of the way uncomfortable and
dangerous truths about the Age of Trump are disappearing into the memory
well. Congress needs to convene a truth commission and other public
investigations before all such truths have vanished. There
are many questions about the Trump presidency that must be asked and
answered for the United States to move forward in a safe and responsible
way.
Were the coup attempt and the Capitol attack
directly planned by Donald Trump and his inner circle? What role did
Republican members of Congress play in the assault? What was actually
discussed in the Oval Office meeting where the coup attempt was
allegedly discussed with Trump by disgraced former Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn and various others? Why were the military and law enforcement
essentially ordered to stand down by the Trump administration?
What figures in the Trump administration may have coordinated such
orders and plans? How is the Trump-inspired right-wing extremist
movement being funded and coordinated?Advertisement:
Why did the Trump regime refuse to treat white supremacists and
other right-wing hate groups and paramilitaries as serious threats to
the country’s safety and security? How many such individuals and
organizations have infiltrated the country’s military, police, law
enforcement and national security apparatus more generally?
A new report
from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation shows that at least 900,000 people have died from the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. That number is roughly 50
percent higher than the official death toll of almost 600,000.
There are many other questions to be asked as well about
financial crimes, corruption, election-rigging, voter suppression and
attacks on civil rights, as well as the federal government’s response to
last summer’s Black Lives Matter people’s uprising.
To this point, Republicans in Congress are blocking any attempt
to hold a proper investigation of Trump’s coup attempt and the Capitol
attack, very likely because they are implicated as co-conspirators. Advertisement:
Too many Democrats — including President Biden — are eager to
move on, perceiving a public accounting for the crimes of Jan. 6 (and
the Trump regime more generally) as a distraction from their broadly
successful policy agenda.
The American people have short attention spans, are traumatized
by the Age of Trump and the pandemic, and have been taught as a
culture that ignoring bad things will make them go away. Confronting
the truth about the Trump regime and American neofascism, how it came to
be and the ongoing threat it poses requires a maturity, patience and
dedication that too many Americans do not possess.
A truth commission could at least potentially provide a proper
accounting for the Age of Trump, and help create a shared narrative for
the American people. Such a commission would also quite likely
uncover crimes committed by the Trump regime that to this point have
remained hidden.
But there is no full and genuine public accounting for the
crimes of the Trump regime, it is all but certain that Donald Trump will
not be America’s last neofascist president but instead its first. To
hold no serious investigation is also to grant permission for more
right-wing terrorism and political violence. The Republican Party has
already decided that free and fair elections are a priori illegitimate,
and their outcomes are illegal if the Democrats win. Advertisement:
Today’s Republicans are obsessively working to create a type of
one-party state and apartheid autocracy. If the Age of Trump is allowed
to drain away down the memory well, they will probably succeed.
America’s multiracial democracy will then exist only as a fading memory,
until that too is forgotten.
What can we do to move beyond 60% dependency on the UK for our recurrent budget?
BRADES, Montserrat, January 17, 2020 – In his Monday, January 13th opening remarks for the annual DfID Financial Aid Mission (FAM), Montserrat’s new premier, Hon Mr Easton Taylor-Farrell, announced a policy goal that by 2035 (i.e. in fifteen years), Montserrat should be able to pay its own way. That is, he hopes that by that time our economy will have grown sufficiently strong through tourism, trade and investment that we will no longer need the current 60% UK subsidy to carry our recurrent budget; without, over-burdening our economy through over-taxation. What would that take?
For one, Government and our economy are largely continuous (never mind what politicians tend to say around election time). So, let’s look at a January 2017 article in this series: “[I]f we are to soundly rebuild Montserrat’s economy we need to soundly understand what happened to us. This makes the December 15, 2017, Mott-MacDonald Draft Economic Growth Strategy document[1] doubly important. Here, let us look at an adjusted version of one of their tables, with some additional calculations:
[ . . . ]
[Due to the volcano crisis and UK aid under the UN Charter, Article 73, the public sector has more than doubled as a percent of our economy, moving from 19.3% in 1994 to 45.8% in 2016 . . .
As a result, our GDP is not a “natural” one driven by a buoyant private sector, it reflects this annual support to our economy. Such is not sustainable
In simple terms, if we are to return the . . . public sector to being 20% of our economy in 20 years, our economy would have to more than double, from EC$153 million to EC$ 350 million . . . this requires an average growth rate of 4.2%.
So, it is reasonable for Mott-MacDonald to target a 3 – 5% annual GDP growth rate. ECCB would prefer to see 5 – 7%.
However, if Montserrat is to move ahead, we must put in place key infrastructure, build our productive capacity,[4] provide incentives and reassurance that will rebuild investor confidence, and support a wave of enterprises that take advantage of our major opportunities: tourism, geothermal energy, the rising global digital services economy, and the like.[5]”
Of course, to do that in fifteen years instead, we would have to grow even faster, 5.7% on average.
What about tourism (and the digital sector)?
That is a bit complicated. As, while we can see that we are surrounded by several islands with 600,000 and more tourists per year, so there is obvious room for growth, in the longer term, the main-spring of global economic growth is shifting to Asia.
As this series noted on July 5th 2018, “China and India . . . combined will contribute over forty percent of global economic growth this year, 3.3%. By contrast, the UK contributes only 1.4% and the US only 12.3% to current global growth. By 2023, the UK may contribute 1.3% and the US, 8.5%.”
Where, “Chinese and Indian tourists will find it far more convenient to go to neighbouring destinations, instead of regularly flying to the Caribbean. So while slow-growth Europe and North America will still be prosperous and will be sources for tourism, the North Atlantic Basin is gradually turning into a low-growth, already-been-there, saw-that, got-the-tee-shirt, mostly cruise-ship visitor driven tourism market. So, it would be a mistake to put all of our economic eggs in the tourism basket. Yes, tourism is indeed Montserrat’s fastest “quick win” driver for growth, but we have to be realistic about setting up our strategic moves beyond tourism.”
That points to the digital sector, and to the significance of the sub-sea, terabit per second class fibre optic cable project, for which the contract was signed by former premier Romeo on October 24th – which is why we just saw a visit by RV Ridley Thomas, which surveyed the proposed route for the cable. We can catch a glimpse into the significance of this by eavesdropping on what St Helena is saying about their own fibre optic cable. As TMR recently reported: “According to the Government of St Helena, ‘[c]onnecting to Equiano meets SHG’s timing and budgetary requirements for the European Development Fund and supports the Digital ICT Strategy for St Helena.’
According to their Financial Secretary, Mr Dax Richards: ‘[s]ignificant additional economic development on St Helena is conditional on improved connectivity and accessibility, and therefore the delivery of the Fibre Project is crucial to economic growth . . . The delivery of the Fibre Project is a key action in the Sustainable Economic Development Plan – in order to develop the satellite ground stations, financial services, work from home, academia research and conferences, film location and tourism sectors.’” All of this calls for long-term, consensus based national strategic planning. Such should build on the Mott-McDonald Economic Growth Strategy (EGS) that was recently shepherded through by consultant economist Mr Raja Kadri, on the 2008 – 2020 Sustainable Development Plan, the current 10-year Physical Development Plan, the past two energy policies and other similar initiatives.
Perhaps, it would also be helpful to again look at the SWOT chart for the EGS, as a reminder that a balanced growth framework has been put on the table for over a year now, through a process of national consultation:
Perhaps, then, a very good place to begin building on the foundation that is already in place would be with the successor Sustainable Development Plan, which is technically due this year. (It may be wise to extend the current SDP for a year or so, to give us time to build its successor.)
Should we pass
a Charter of Good Governance Resolution in our Assembly?
BRADES, Montserrat, January 25, 2021 – In recent days, UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic
Raab has called for a Commission of Inquiry in the BVI. It is to be led by British judge Gary Hickinbottom and is to
report its findings in six months’ time. According to Reuters, the Minister
wrote to the UK Parliament that[1]:
Rt. Hon. Dominic Raab MP
“The UK is extremely concerned about the state of good governance in the British Virgin Islands” . . . Raab listed several concerns [raised by local, BVI institutions and the community], including misappropriation of funds set aside to cope with the pandemic, political interference in public appointments, intimidation of people in public service and misuse of taxpayers’ money . . . [also] citing a November 2020 discovery of a 2.35-tonne haul of cocaine worth more than [US] $250 million. [“UK ‘very concerned’ overrunning of British Virgin Islands – Raab,” Jan. 18, 2021.]
Sobering, and we hope that all works out well for the Virgin
Islanders.
However, as they say, when your neighbour’s house is afire, wet your
roof. Especially, if there is concern that our own government has failed to
make an adequate case for pandemic relief and stimulus, with concerns swirling
that even the tiny amount of aid received has not been well handled.
For a half-year now, neither struggling people nor businesses worried about keeping their heads above water have received any Covid-19 relief; the token relief packages in the March to June 2020 period, of course, have long since dried up. And all too many were locked out because of how the aid distribution criteria were set. The Government Minister responsible for Education, Health and Social Services, Hon. Charles Kirnon, who got support, has been dismissive in the Assembly when issues of poverty and hardships have been raised.
There has been no stimulus package, and to date, there has been no adequate explanation regarding how a projected $22 millions hole in revenues was revised to $3 million, given those concerns. Attempted questions on this in parliament have been road-blocked. When a popular morning call-in show became a platform where community members voiced concerns, it was threatened with a shut-down.
All of these are good governance concerns.
BVI Premier Andrew Fahie
Let us recall, the pledge on p. 13 of the 2012 FCO White Paper on OT’s[2]: “The UK Government’s fundamental responsibility and objective is to ensure the security and good governance of the Territories and their peoples. This responsibility flows from international law including the Charter of the United Nations. It also flows from our shared history and political commitment to the wellbeing of all British nationals. This requires us, among other things, to promote the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the people of the Territories, to ensure their just treatment and their protection against abuses, and to develop self-government and free political institutions in the Territories. The reasonable assistance needs of the Territories are a first call on the UK’s international development budget.”
The key bit of International Law is Article 73 of the UN Charter[3] – which actually says that the UK is to “ensure” political, economic, social and educational advancement and is to “promote” constructive measures of development. All of these lend focus to the long-delayed December 17 – 20, UN Decolonisation Committee visit to Montserrat December 17 – 20 2019,[4] which was postponed so that it would not have a direct impact on our November 18th 2019 General Election. According to the UN, the field mission’s objective was:
“ . . . gathering
first-hand information on the situation in
Montserrat, focusing on
the Territory’s political,
economic, social and environmental development
and the challenges
to sustainable development, particularly the impacts of the
volcanic eruptions since 1995.” [p. 4.]
Premier, Easton Farrell, Montserrat
This
is of course exactly what the FCO White Paper acknowledges as having force of
International Law. It is worth pausing a moment to note the view of a
“constitutionalist”:
“It had taken the administering Power 25 years to realize that Montserrat needed basic infrastructures such as a hospital, schools, a port and housing. Programmes to assist returnees, especially young people, were lacking. Incentives had been provided to go to the United Kingdom but not to return. The reality was that the Department for International Development was the only entity supporting the island.” [p. 14.]
These views are not strictly true, but they reflect widespread frustration and want of a viable, credible agreed programme of action to expedite projects with clear accountability over proper management and similarly clear management of disbursed funds. Roots of the frustration can be seen in the report’s remarks on the new CIPREG programme for infrastructure projects:
“The Montserrat Capital Investment Programme for Resilient Economic Growth [= CIPREG] was a five-year plan for the period from 2019 to 2024. Funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development, it included projects to improve critical infrastructure by building a new hospital (a priority for the previous and current Administrations), installing a subsea fibre-optic cable, and improving the only airport. The total cost of the Programme was estimated at £30 million, and funding for the period after 2024 had not been determined.” [p. 8.]
Why
did it take twenty-four years to mobilise an obviously needed infrastructure
rebuilding programme of projects? Why is
it so small? (Where, it has come out that there is an error of scale and scope
in the Port Project, which needs to be addressed.) Why is there not a follow on
programme already in the works?
Especially
as, we can also see that:
“The economy, which had shrunk to just over half its former size [c. 1994] by 2016, is dominated by the Government of Montserrat, which accounts for 46 percent of output and employs about 40 percent of the workforce. The public sector in Montserrat remains dependent on budgetary aid from the United Kingdom, which provides over 60 percent of the Territory’s current income [= recurrent budget]; the proportion is higher if capital is included. The Territory also benefits from an allocation of approximately €18.4 million for the period 2014–2020 under the eleventh European Development Fund.” [p. 5.]
There is an obvious point to the longstanding complaint that we have been in the Economic ICU for twenty-five years now, and have been on slow drip basic life support. That is not good enough.
The ghost in the middle of the room has been a concern on good governance and related want of a properly agreed comprehensive development partnership MoU, with a properly set up, credible, agreed long term programme and project management framework with a strong capacity-building component. The current Programme Management Office and the earlier initiative stopped under questionable means in July 2017, which are just a first step. The Project Implementation Unit was not broad enough or sufficiently established to carry forward the needed program. The MDC, after seven years, was under clouds regarding concerns on financial and general management and regarding how it had failed to deliver on its intended targets of major partnerships with investors. Want of key infrastructure likely played a part in that failure.
We have the CIPREG and the current, cut-down PMO. They are a start, we need to broaden the scope of both. That points to a comprehensive agreed Development Partnership MoU that grows out of a broad-based participative stakeholder consultation process. If we can get the UN Facilitator for Development requested by the former premier, that would help. But we need more, we need a strong Charter of Good Governance, preferably passed by our Assembly as a Resolution, with the Development Programme as an agreed component. This should set our policy framework to address the sound governance challenge; including, not only our long term development programme and the usual issues on financial management but also how various governance concerns up to and including constitutional matters are to be handled. On fair comment, the 2010 Constitution Order is grossly defective.
Before we even get there, we desperately need pandemic relief, business rescue support and a serious stimulus package. Especially as, now it is clear that there is no end in sight.
Let us continue to see how we can work together to find a good way forward.
Voters love to hear about Christianity Thinking that is the end of the story. And when dem camouflage behind the pulpit Voters tun choopit, And shout out this is it And forget it; Then joyfully relax and quit. Only to get a big pool of… got-yah – it is vomit.
If ayuh me a tek de warning There would be now no bawling Butt e no too late fuh get d history So, ask Breedy, ‘Mess Mess’, and Murphy. And please no forget de Hero. He could tell you all you want to know From d start of the show. And the ladies of the Nursery Dead or alive they too have a story. And Sharlotte, Mamzel, Katy, Lucy and Mr. Daley God bless dem soul whey ever dem be Dey could complete the heartless history. And no fuget d deceased Sherolyn Daley! Her Harris’s soul is pained in childbirth misery. If you want to know bout Mr. Harry Paddy Ask the Groves family Scattered in every nook and cranny. Dem go tell you who dem be Not much of a somebady…. So, forget Iceman’s generosity He must say sorry as he now begin to see…
Dem tink dem smart and got d art No know that God a go tek awe part.
Living at we expense a dish out nonsense
But still want to pocket every penny With no empathy or sympathy to neither Tom, Dick or Harry.
But sickness and death a arll awe cooler As we must confess to we Maker.
Just before the divine BULL BUD start to swing In a Harry Paddy-Harry Paddy thin pretensive skin.
And blows haffoo roll without cloths To be finally and comprehensively exposed..
By Hope Yen, Associated Press – PA Media – 14 February 2021
House prosecutors who led Donald Trump’s impeachment maintained they proved their case on Sunday while railing against Senate Republicans for “trying to have it both ways” in acquitting the former president.
A day after Mr. Trump won his second Senate impeachment trial in 13 months, bipartisan support appeared to be growing for an independent September 11-style commission to ensure such a horrific assault could never happen again.
The end of the quick trial hardly put to rest the debate about Mr. Trump’s culpability for the January 6 insurrection as the political, legal, and emotional fallout unfolded.
More investigations into the riot were already planned, with Senate hearings scheduled later this month in the Senate Rules Committee. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also has asked a retired Army General Russel Honore to lead an immediate review of the Capitol’s security process.
Legislators from both parties signaled on Sunday that even more inquiries were likely.
“There should be a complete investigation about what happened,” said Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump. “What was known, who knew it and when they knew, all that, because that builds the basis so this never happens again.”
Mr. Cassidy said he was “attempting to hold President Trump accountable,” and added that as Americans hear all the facts, “more folks will move to where I was”. He was censured by his state’s party after the vote, which was 57-43 to convict but 10 votes short of the two-thirds required.
A close Trump ally, GOP senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said he looked forward to campaigning with Mr. Trump in the 2022 election, when Republicans hope to regain the congressional majority.
But Mr. Graham acknowledged Mr. Trump had some culpability for the siege at the Capitol that killed five people, including a police officer, and disrupted politicians’ certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s White House victory.
“His behaviour after the election was over the top,” Mr. Graham said. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again.”
The Senate acquitted Mr. Trump of a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after House prosecutors laid out a case that he was an “inciter in chief” who unleashed a mob by stoking a months-long campaign of spreading debunked conspiracy theories and false violent rhetoric that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers countered that the then president’s words were not intended to incite the violence and that impeachment was nothing but a “witch hunt” designed to prevent him from serving in office again.
The conviction tally was the most bipartisan in American history but left Mr. Trump to declare victory and signal a political revival while a bitterly divided GOP bickered over its direction and his place in the party.
The Republicans who joined Mr. Cassidy in voting to convict were Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
“It’s frustrating, but the founders knew what they were doing and so we live with the system that we have,” Stacey Plaskett, a House prosecutor who represents the Virgin Islands, said of the verdict, describing it as “heartbreaking”.
She added: “But, listen, we didn’t need more witnesses. We needed more senators with spines.”
On Sunday, several House impeachment managers sharply criticised minority leader Mitch McConnell, who told Republican senators soon before the vote that he would acquit Mr. Trump.
In a blistering speech after the vote, Mr. McConnell said the president was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day” but that the Senate’s hands were tied to do anything about it because he was out of office. But the Senate, in an earlier vote, had deemed the trial constitutional.
“It was powerful to hear the 57 guilties and then it was puzzling to hear and see Mitch McConnell stand and say not guilty and then minutes later stand again and say he was guilty of everything,” said Democratic representative Madeleine Dean.
“History will remember that statement of speaking out of two sides of his mouth.”
Ms Dean backed the idea of an impartial investigative commission “not guided by politics but filled with people who would stand up to the courage of their conviction”.
An independent 9/11 style commission, which probably would require legislation to create, would elevate the investigation a step higher, offering a definitive government-backed accounting of events.
McConnell and Republicans who defied Trump face GOP backlash
Alex Woodward – The Independent – 14 February 2021
McConnell Condemned Trump’s “disgraceful dereliction of duty”
The Republican Party remains sharply divided in the wake of Donald Trump’s impeachment for his role inciting a deadly riot on 6 January inside the same halls of Congress where senators convened for his second trial this week. Senator Mitch McConnell, moments after voting to acquit the former president on Saturday, condemned his “disgraceful dereliction of duty” and said he is “practically and morally responsible” for his supporters’ assault on the Capitol. On Sunday, Trump ally Lindsey Graham said the Senate’s GOP leader “got a load off his chest, obviously, but unfortunately he put a load on the back of Republicans” by giving ammunition to negative adverts ahead of critical midterm elections, as Republicans mount an aggressive campaign to gain a majority in the House of Representatives.
“That speech you will see in 2022 campaigns,” Senator Graham told Fox News.
He added that Senator McConnell’s speech “is an outlier regarding how Republicans feel” about Mr Trump’s impeachment.
On Saturday night, Donald Trump Jr fired back at Senate minority leader McConnell.
“If only McConnell was so righteous as the Democrats trampled Trump and the Republicans while pushing Russia collusion bull**** for 3 years or while Dems incited 10 months of violence, arson, and rioting. Yea then he just sat back and did jack ****,” the president’s eldest son tweeted.
Mr Trump Jr followed with a call to “impeach the RINOs” – referring to “Republicans in name only” – and oust them from the GOP.
Seven Republican senators who joined Democrats to vote to convict have faced blowback from their party leaders in their home states, signaling fissures within the GOP over the former president’s role in the party. Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and North Carolina’s Richard Burr were censured by their state Republican parties for their votes.
“I have no illusions that this is a popular decision,” Mr Cassidy wrote in a column published on Sunday.
“I made this decision because Americans should not be fed lies about ‘massive election fraud.’ Police should not be left to the mercy of a mob. Mobs should not be inflamed to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.” Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry said the senator’s vote is “extremely disappointing” and claimed that Mr Cassidy has “fallen into the trap laid by Democrats to have Republicans attack Republicans”.
Senators Burr and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are both retiring in 2022, eliminating the likelihood of long-term political blowback.
But the chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party called the trial “an unconstitutional theft of time and energy that did absolutely nothing to unify or help the American people.”
“I share the disappointment of many of our grass-roots leaders and volunteers over Senator Toomey’s vote today,” Lawrence Tabas said. While Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski still have strong support in their states, the former president’s volatile base of support has routinely rejected their place in the party.
In a lengthy statement on Sunday, Senator Murkowski of Alaska outlined the case against Mr Trump as presented by House impeachment managers, adding that if the evidence “is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is”.
The US Senate voted 57-43 to convict Mr Trump, falling short of a two-thirds majority to secure a conviction but representing a bipartisan effort to hold accountable a former president who will continue to loom large over a party moulded in his image.
It remains unclear how he will wield that influence without his social media bully pulpit.
Mr Graham told Fox News on Sunday that the former president is “ready to move on and rebuild the Republican Party” ahead of 2022 elections. In a statement following his acquittal, the former president said his Make America Great Again movement “has only just begun”.
House impeachment managers’ closing arguments on Saturday warned that the insurrectionists are “still listening” and that the assault on the Capitol could be the “beginning” of a violent political legacy initiated by the former president.
“I fear, like many of you do, that the violence we saw on that terrible day may be just the beginning,” said Congressman Joe Neguse.
“The extremist groups grow more emboldened every day. Senators, this cannot be the beginning. It can’t be the new normal. It has to be the end, and that decision is in your hands.”
Federal law enforcement has warned that far-right militia groups and others supporting the “shared false narrative of a ‘stolen’ election” and opposition to Joe Biden’s presidency and a Democratically-controlled federal government “may lead some individuals to the belief that there is no political solution to address their grievance and violence action is necessary”.
The Department of Homeland Security has also issued a terrorism advisory bulletin due to a “heightened threat environment” through the end of April, following the Capitol violence.
https://youtu.be/VJt_-eU0SNE Senator Collins in a most powerful informed truthful presentation on why former president Trump should be condemned for abusing his office on and before January 6, 2021.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, delivers remarks Feb. 13 following Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial. The 57-43 vote was the most bipartisan in history, with seven Republicans, including Collins, voting to convict but 10 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed.
“Context was everything. Tossing a lit match into a pile of dry leaves is very different than tossing it into a pool of water,” Collins said, explaining her vote to convict. She said Trump’s selfish interests are to blame for the Capitol attack. “This impeachment trial is not about any single word uttered by President Trump on January 6, 2021. It is instead about President Trump’s failure to obey the oath he swore on January 20, 2017,” she said.
She condemned his repeated false claims about a stolen election, the call to Georgia election officials asking to “just find 11,780 votes,” and his Twitter invitation to his supporters to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6. She said she voted to convict to uphold the oath she took to defend the Constitution.
Former US President Donald Trump has been found not guilty in his impeachment trial
Former US President Donald Trump has been found not guilty in his 2nd impeachment trial.
Although the final vote came in as 57 “guilty” and 43 “not guilty”, the Democrats did not reach the two-thirds majority they needed to secure a conviction.
Seven members of Mr. Trump’s own party (Senators Sasse, Romney, Burr, Collins, Murkowski, Toomey, and Cassidy) joined Democrats on the charge of incitement.
In a statement after the trial, Mr. Trump said it was “a sad commentary on our times” that the Democrats had been given a “free pass to transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree”.
He added: “I always have, and always will be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate.
“No president has ever gone through anything like it, and it continues because our opponents cannot forget the almost 75 million people, the highest number ever for a sitting president, who voted for us just a few short months ago.”
Mr. Trump had been charged with “incitement of insurrection” over last month’s violence when the US Capitol was stormed by his supporters, just as Congress was attempting to ratify the 2020 election result.
Just before the 6 January riots, thousands of his supporters gathered at a “Save America” rally on the National Mall, minutes away from the Capitol. It had been organised to challenge the election result and Joe Biden’s win.
Mr. Trump’s supporters listened to him speak for 70 minutes, during which at one point the former reality star exhorted them to “fight like hell – or you’re not going to have a country anymore”.
The attack began moments after he took the applause.
At the impeachment hearing, Mr. Trump’s defence team had launched a blistering attack on the Democrats, describing proceedings as an “unjust, unconstitutional witch-hunt”.
Michael van der Veen, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, said: “This whole spectacle has been nothing but the unhinged pursuit of a long-standing political vendetta against Mr. Trump by the opposition party.”
He told the hearing Mr. Trump was not to blame and that he had told his supporters to protest peacefully.
It was argued that his speech at the rally was “ordinary political rhetoric” and was constitutionally protected free speech.
t is the first time in history that a US president has been impeached twice. The first attempt to convict Mr. Trump in January 2020, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, saw him acquitted by a majority of 52 votes to 48 for one charge and 53 to 47 for the second.
Only one Republican voted against him on one of the charges. In his defiant statement after the conclusion of Saturday’s vote, Mr. Trump hinted he may return to the political spotlight.
He said: “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.
“In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people.
The former President’s tweets and reports of his calls to Republican congressmen during the riot became a key part of the case against him. Photograph by Brendan Smialowski / Getty
On Friday afternoon, when senators got their chance to ask questions in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, one of the first came from Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. Like all of the senators’ questions, this one had been written on a yellow notecard, passed from the gallery to Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who was presiding and then read aloud by a clerk. “Exactly when did President Trump learn of the breach of the Capitol, and what specific actions did he take to bring the rioting to an end? And when did he take them?” Murkowski and Collins wanted to know. “Please be as detailed as possible.” The two senators are among the handful of Republicans who are seen as possible votes to convict the former President for inciting an insurrection, and, for that reason alone, their question, which was directed at Trump’s lawyers, was worth taking seriously. But it also got at a central inquiry in the trial: How many people were Trump willing to see get hurt in his effort to hold on to the Presidency?
Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s lawyers, didn’t really answer. “The House managers have given us absolutely no evidence one way or the other on to that question,” van der Veen, whose professional specialty is personal injury cases, said. This was an odd complaint, given that the question concerned his client’s knowledge and actions. Flipping through some papers, van der Veen offered that there had been “a tweet at 2:38 P.M.” on January 6th—which would have been almost half an hour after a mob seeking to disrupt the Electoral College vote tally had breached the Capitol—and so “it was certainly some time before then” that Trump had learned of the riot. (In the tweet, Trump advised the mob to be peaceful, but failed to tell them to leave the Capitol—perhaps because that was where he wanted them to be.) Van der Veen added, “That’s the problem with this entire proceeding. The House managers did zero investigation! The American people deserve a lot better than coming in here with no evidence. Hearsay on top of hearsay on top of reports that are of hearsay.” Van der Veen muttered something about due process and then, without any further attempt to answer the question, he sat down.
In one respect, his reply is an example of the dismissive, blame-shifting, reality-defying manner in which Trump’s defense has been conducted. Trump’s lawyers may have also recognized that the question of his response on January 6th has become a particularly hazardous area for him—and, indeed, for a few hours on Saturday morning, it seemed to have changed the timeline for the trial, opening the door for witnesses. The question is powerful for more than one reason. First, his reaction spoke of his intent: if he had truly been misunderstood by his supporters, who certainly seemed to believe that they were fulfilling his wishes, he might have quickly expressed shock and condemnation, told them in no uncertain terms to leave the Capitol, and rushed to send reinforcements. He, of course, did none of these things. Despite van der Veen’s claims, and even though much about how, exactly, Trump spent his time is not known, the House managers did document the former President’s inaction. It wasn’t until after 4 P.M. that he told the rioters to go home, but, in the same message, he said, “We love you,” and took the time to complain, again, about the election. As Stacey Plaskett, a House manager and a delegate representing the Virgin Islands, noted, when she got a chance to respond to the Murkowski-Collins query, the reason that the question of what Trump did to help “keeps coming up is because the answer is ‘nothing.’ ”
As Plaskett took her seat, Collins and Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, sent a question to the chair about the second aspect of Trump’s response: his attitude regarding the danger to Vice-President Mike Pence. In the days leading up to the January 6th assault, Trump had pounded home the message that he expected Pence, who was set to preside over the joint session of Congress that day, to sabotage and disrupt the electoral-vote certification. Under the Constitution, Pence did not have the power to do that, as he and many others explained to Trump. No matter: Trump drew his supporters into his effort to pressure Pence to act lawlessly. At the rally before the assault, Trump built up the expectation that Pence might still come through. “All Vice-President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become President, and you are the happiest people,” he said, and added, “Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us.” When people in the mob realized that Pence had not done so, they shouted that he was a traitor and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” They began searching for him inside the Capitol; at about 2:13 P.M., Secret Service agents took him out of the Senate chamber, to a room where he took shelter with his family, before being moved again.
As Pence hid, the mob heard from Trump. The 2:38 P.M. tweet was not his first since the breach of the Capitol. At 2:24 P.M., Trump posted this: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution . . . the USA demands the truth!” Romney and Collins asked whether, when Trump sent that “disparaging tweet,” he was “aware that the Vice-President had been removed from the Senate by the Secret Service for his safety.” Joaquin Castro, one of the House managers, replied that the assault itself was being reported live. People, he said, “couldn’t consume any media or probably take any phone calls or anything else without hearing about this, and also hearing about the Vice-President.” Castro also noted that Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, had confirmed that he had been on a phone call with Trump, which ended when he told him, “Mr. President, they just took the Vice-President out. I’ve got to go.”
It would be good to know more about that call to Tuberville—on Saturday, Mike Lee, whose phone Tuberville had used, said his call log indicated that the call had begun at 2:26 P.M., right after the tweet—but the focus soon shifted to another one, between Trump and Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader. On Friday evening, after the trial had adjourned for the day, CNN reported new details of the “expletive-laced” call between Trump and McCarthy, citing several Republicans who had heard the Minority Leader’s account of it. Trump did not seem interested in ending the violence. According to some who spoke with McCarthy, Trump told him, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” suggesting that McCarthy could learn from their devotion. (Three weeks later, McCarthy made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, to reconcile with Trump.) Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, of Washington—one of only ten House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump—had spoken publicly in January about McCarthy’s account of the call. On Friday, she put out a statement in which she told any “patriots” who had heard Trump’s side of his conversations that day that “if you have something to add here, now would be the time.” In other words, witnesses are welcome. When the trial convened on Saturday morning, Jamie Raskin, the lead House manager, said that he wanted to subpoena Herrera Beutler, offering to depose her via Zoom. Van der Veen responded with an angry tirade, in which he said that any witnesses—he mentioned Vice-President Kamala Harris—would have to come to his Philadelphia office. (That is a fantasy.) The Senate voted 55–45 to allow witnesses—and then, after closed-door negotiations, the lawyers and House managers agreed to enter Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record instead.
Herrera Beutler had also suggested that Mike Pence might have something to say. For example, he might add something to van der Veen’s reply to Romney and Collins’s question. “The answer is no,” van der Veen said. “At no point was the President informed the Vice-President was in any danger.” This is an absurd answer. Even putting aside the particularities of Pence’s situation—that it was the Secret Service, for example, that led him out of the chamber—Trump certainly knew that his Vice-President was in a dangerous setting. If, before sending the tweet, he had bothered to find out whether Pence was safe, he would certainly have been given an even more troubling report. Pence was not safe: the managers’ presentation made clear that the mob had come even closer to him and his family than had previously been understood. At that moment, Trump not only abandoned Pence—he targeted him. To put it another way, the incitement did not end when the first window was broken.
Van der Veen, however, argued that the Pence question wasn’t even “really relevant to the charges for the impeachment in this case.” The House managers had focussed on how Trump’s actions ahead of January 6th had laid the groundwork for the violence; these included his threats to election officials and his summoning of his supporters for a “wild” rally to coincide with the vote certification. Trump’s lawyers seemed to believe that he had to answer only for his precise words at the rally, for which they offered improbable explanations. (Because Trump, early in his speech, had observed that the crowd planned to “peacefully and patriotically” protest, the lawyers brushed aside his subsequent repeated calls for them to act quite differently.) In their telling, it was as if Trump were just someone who had happened to wander onto the stage, with no context, history, or—perhaps most of all—power. But when the President of the United States tells people that they must go to the building he’s pointing at, the Capitol, and fight, or else “you’re not going to have a country anymore”—and when he says that “when you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules”—he is doing something distinct. Trump’s lawyers, throughout their defense, ignored all the ways that Trump used and abused the office of the Presidency to make January 6th unfold as it did. As Raskin had noted, the impeachment process, with its reference to “high crimes and misdemeanors,” has a political character that makes it distinct from the ordinary criminal justice process.
In the course of the defense presentation—which lasted a little more than three hours, less than a quarter of the time that Trump’s lawyers were allotted—they played so many clips of Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, delivering fiery speeches, that one might have thought that she was on trial. There were also videos of other Democratic politicians, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Karen Bass, Al Green, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Hillary Clinton—and even ones featuring Madonna, Chris Cuomo, and Johnny Depp. One video, played multiple times, consisted of clips of Democratic senators and House managers using the word “fight” in different contexts. (Judging from the placard set up next to him in one clip, Representative Joe Neguse, one of the impeachment managers, was captured saying, during his first term in Congress, that he’d fight for the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, which, among other things, helps preserve areas for mountain biking and protects the habitat of the greater sage grouse.) Speaking of the people shown in the videos, Plaskett noted, “It is not lost on me that so many of them were people of color. And women—Black women.” As Trump surely knows, that message won’t be lost on his supporters, either.
The underlying message in Trump’s defense, however, was that it was outrageous that his actions were being questioned at all. Bruce Castor, another of his lawyers, told the senators that, by any measure, Trump was “the most pro-police, anti-mob-rule President this country has ever seen.” The senators had already heard from the managers how, for months before the assault, Trump had reveled in acts of political violence, such as when COVID-lockdown protesters attacked state buildings in Lansing, Michigan, or when vehicles driven by his supporters dangerously surrounded a bus of Biden campaign workers on a Texas highway. The senators had also seen evidence of the injuries that his supporters had inflicted on officers with the Capitol Police and Metropolitan D.C. Police. But Castor showed them one of the videos. There was Trump, standing in front of an American flag, saying, “I am your President of law and order.” The scenes changed—to people holding Black Lives Matter signs, to street violence, to Maxine Waters, again—but always returned to Trump with the words “LAW AND ORDER” superimposed on the screen. “We know that the President would never have wanted such a riot to occur, because his long-standing hatred for violent protesters and his love for law and order is on display, worn on his sleeve every single day that he served in the White House,” Castor said. He sounded like he was offering a declaration of faith—against all the evidence of reality—not a legal argument. On Saturday morning, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, reportedly told colleagues that he planned to vote to acquit. The Trumpist credo, it seems, is one that the Republican Party intends to live by.
has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2014. She has been at the magazine since 1995, and, as a senior editor for many years, focusing on national security, international reporting, and features.
Brian Stelter here at 10:40pm ET Thursday with the latest on BBC News, Dean Baquet, Medium, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Disney, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Issa Rae, and much more…
Those empty seats in the Senate chamber on Thursday?
They are emblematic of the public’s reaction to the second Trump impeachment
trial.
If you’ve been glued to every minute of the trial, or even just half-watching the proceedings, then you’re part of a special club. You’re learning the full story of the crimes that were committed at the Capitol on January 6. But you are much more plugged-in than the average American adult.
The Nielsen TV ratings for
the first two days of trial coverage show that only a sliver of the public is watching at any given time. The ratings for CNN and MSNBC are way up —
and the ratings for Fox News are much weaker. Some people are
also watching coverage via the broadcast networks, but not in huge numbers.
The bottom line: News junkies are gripped by emotional presentations, but a vast swath of the nation is not. More casual news consumers are catching the coverage in bits and pieces, by watching clips of the Democratic presentation on news websites or YouTube, or by scanning summaries by partisan outlets. This is far, far from one of those “drop what you’re doing and watch” moments in America.
What the numbers tell us
On
Tuesday afternoon an average of 11 million viewers watched the opening
arguments across MSNBC,
CNN, Fox, ABC and CBS. (NBC, PBS and other outlets also aired
live coverage but I don’t have exact data for those channels.) On Wednesday
afternoon the same five channels averaged 12.4 million viewers. This is an average, which means
people came and went the whole time, and the cumulative audience was much
higher. But given that nearly 210 million adults live in the US, you might
conclude that many folks think they know how this story ends, so they’re not
bothering to watch…
>>
However: Trump’s second
trial IS drawing a larger average audience than the first trial,
the NYT’s John Koblinpoints out…
>>
On Wednesday CNN was #1 overall in the 25-54 demo while
MSNBC prevailed among total viewers…
>> Online, the streaming audience was smaller, but still significant. CNN Digital’s traffic on Tuesday and Wednesday surpassed the equivalent days for the 2019 House Impeachment Hearings and the 2020 Senate Impeachment Trial…
Fox viewers don’t want to see
Democratic arguments
Fox News
ended Wednesday morning with 1.4 million viewers. Then the trial began, and so did Fox’s
ratings slide. Fox bottomed out at 1 million in the 3pm hour,
though the audience levels noticeably ticked up during a break in the trial at
1:39pm, when Fox’s Trump-friendly analysis of the trial brought some viewers
back. The audience came back in a big
way at 5 p.m. when Fox cut away from the Senate chamber and
aired “The Five” — 2.7 million viewers were there for it. Some tuned
out during “Special Report” at 6, and many more tuned out when Fox resumed trial coverage from
6:30 til 7 — Fox plummeted to 1.2 million viewers. The
audience rushed back, of course, for “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” which
topped 3 million. But MSNBC and CNN’s average viewership was up above 3 million
all afternoon long! The takeaway is clear: Fox’s base rejected the prosecution of Trump. They only
wanted to hear the pro-Trump spin…
>>
Thought bubble: I
know it never would have happened, but what if the Senate had decided to
conduct this trial in the evening, when a prime-time audience might have
watched live?
Pulling
further apart?
Will that
be the primary result of this trial? New tears in the proverbial American
fabric? Even more fights between red and blue?
The
insurrection shouldn’t be seen as a partisan issue, but it has been, period,
full stop. Folks have retreated to their corners. Charges of hypocrisy have
flown in all directions. The
crimes that will never be forgotten by Trump critics have already been excused,
and buried down the memory hole, by Trump loyalists. The terms
“Trump critics” and “Trump loyalists” shouldn’t even be a
part of this conversation, but… they are.
What happened at the Capitol on January 6? Trump’s war on truth has affected how people answer that question. And it’s pulling people even further apart…
Not worth debating?
Brian Lowry writes: “Twitter spats seldom merit attention, but I think there’s a significant point buried in producer David Simon’s gleefully vulgar exchange with Hugh Hewitt, in which Hewitt offered Simon a chance to come debate on his syndicated radio show. It’s a favorite tactic of Hewitt’s, but buried within Simon’s response was this: Having gone all-in on defending the former president, you no longer have the credibility to be worth debating. This might not be a path to bridging the political divide, but it does send a message that someone like Hewitt – once seen as a fair broker of conservative ideals – has sacrificed that standing in the eyes of many on the left…”
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
— “I’m not sure what,
exactly, to call what we have been watching this week: part trial, part
documentary film, part constitutional-law seminar, part Facebook video shared
by your politics-obsessed cousin,” Susan
Glasser writes… (TNY)
—
“Anderson Cooper
called out the three Republican senators who met with Donald Trump’s defense
attorneys on Thursday, despite being jurors of the trial, noting that ‘the fix
is likely in…'” (Mediaite)
—
Instead of leading his hour with the trial news, Tucker launched into a
conspiratorial complaint about Jeff
Bezos, Max Boot, Nick Kristof, and yours truly… (Twitter)
—
Speaking of stories you won’t hear in MAGA media:
“The Capitol assault resulted in one of the worst days of injuries for law
enforcement” in the US since 9/11… (NYT)
—
WaPo’s most-read story right now: “Mounting
evidence suggests Trump knew of danger to Pence when he
attacked him as lacking ‘courage’ amid Capitol siege…” (WaPo)
— Jonathan Reiner: “The former president’s legal team could literally say nothing tomorrow, offer no defense, and GOP senators would still vote to acquit…” (Twitter) — The WSJ editorial board’s harsh assessment of Trump: “He might be acquitted, but he won’t live down his disgraceful conduct…” (WSJ)
Trump wants to see more lawyers on TV defending him
Jim Acosta reports: “Trump wants to see more lawyers defending him on television, a source familiar with his thinking said. One of his attorneys, David Schoen, left the Senate in the middle of the impeachment trial to do a live interview on Fox News. Even out of office, Trump has the people working for him performing for the ‘audience of one.’”
FRIDAY PLANNER
The trial will resume at noon ET…
The WH press briefing will take place at 12:30 pm…
Friday is the deadline for public input on the Facebook Oversight Board “as it nears a decision” about Trump’s account…Natalie Morales will make her official debut as a “Dateline NBC” correspondent…
Kamala Harris and The 19th*
“In her first national, extended interview since becoming vice president, Kamala Harris sat down with Errin Haines, editor-at-large at The 19th* to discuss her focus on an equitable response to the COVID-19 crisis,” the website said in a press release. Here’s the interview…
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
— The deception of the Trump era
is still being documented and exposed. The NYT’s Thursday afternoon scoop:
“Trump Was Sicker Than Acknowledged With
Covid-19…” (NYT)
—
The day’s most hopeful headline: President
Biden “declares there will be enough vaccines for 300
million Americans by end of July” (CNN)
—
“On Wednesday, the 7-day average of new doses administered exceeded
President Biden’s target for 1.5 million doses per day the first time,”
per CNN Health…
— NBCUniversal is rolling out a new tool “dedicated to helping you plan when and where you can get vaccinated…” (NBC) — Journalists all across NYC are mourning the sudden death of Katherine Creag, a beloved reporter for News 4 who was “the first face many New Yorkers woke up to every day.” May her memory be a blessing. (WNBC)
Baquet
walks back controversial comment
Oliver
Darcy writes: “Dean
Baquet on Thursday walked back a controversial comment he and Joe Kahn made last week
in which they said the paper does not ‘tolerate’ the use of racist language
‘regardless of intent.’ At the State of the Times meeting, Baquet said that in
their ‘zeal to make a powerful statement about our workplace culture, we ham-handedly said something you
rightfully saw as an oversimplification of one of the most
difficult issues of our lives.” Baquet called it a ‘deadline mistake’ and
expressed regret for it. More in my story here…”
>> Darcy adds: “The
comment Baquet and Kahn had made about intent had drawn criticism from external
critics, but also from staffers
inside NYT who had expressed confusion to me and said that intent and context
always matter. These staffers pointed to NYT’s own use of such
language in reporting. Baquet nodded to that fact, telling employees racial
slurs ‘will no doubt appear in our pages again….'”
Stephens says Sulzberger ‘spiked’ column, but…
Darcy writes: “Bret Stephens on Thursday accused AG Sulzberger of having ‘spiked’ a piece he had written about the McNeil departure. In an email to a small group of colleagues, which was first reported by Dylan Byers and which I later obtained, Stephens said he had filed the column Monday, but that it was never published. Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsburyexplained to me over the phone that the paper regularly chooses not to run columns for various reasons. ‘The bar is especially high for columns that could reflect badly on colleagues,’ Kingsbury said. ‘And we decided that this column didn’t reach that bar.’ Kingsbury also pointed out to me that she has previously published and supported Stephens when he has written critically about NYT, including the 1619 Project and his reaction to retracting the Tom Cotton op-ed, but in this case felt his piece wasn’t quite there…”
A call for coverage
An Phung emails: “A number of celebrities and activists of Asian descent have taken to social media to condemn the spate of anti-Asian violence around the country, a trend that took root at the start of the pandemic and was reinforced by Trump’s hateful language. A thread that runs through the commentary: The glaring lack of attention from the national media. Amanda Nguyen said it. Daniel Dae Kim touched on it. Gemma Chan pleaded for media attention.
Phung adds: “A few high-profile incidents caught on camera that rippled through social media in recent weeks showed perpetrators targeting elderly people. This detail gets to the heart of why celebrities are wielding their powerful platforms: “Our elderlies won’t speak up to report these crimes so we have to do it,” said comedian David So, citing language and cultural barriers. On Thursday, the Asian American Journalists Association weighed in, calling on the national media to ‘prioritize coverage of this ongoing violence against AAPIs, and to empower their journalists to report on these incidents immediately, accurately and comprehensively.’ Indeed, coverage of the latest wave of violence was scant at the start of this week — but the media has since picked up the pace. Some credit goes to Nguyen for her powerful plea for media attention in a video that caught the eye of celebrities, journalists and lawmakers. Catch up with CNN, The Cut, or NPR for the latest on this troubling trend.”
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
— “In an apparent tit for
tat move, BBC World News
has been banned from airing in China,” one week after China Global
Television Network was blocked in the UK… (CNN)
—
State Department spox Ned
Price condemned the BBC blockade and said “it’s troubling
that as the PRC restricts outlets and platforms from operating freely in China,
Beijing’s leaders use free and open media environments overseas to promote
misinfo…” (Reuters)
—
“Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has won a privacy claim in her case against a
tabloid newspaper,” the
Mail on Sunday, “that published a handwritten letter to
her estranged father, Thomas Markle…” (CNN)
— David Folkenflik is out
with a new story about the Trump-era VOA and about the lives that were
upended… (NPR)
— Via Brian Fung: Twitter has permanently banned an account belonging to Project Veritas (and temporarily locked James O’Keefe’s account) for repeated violations of the company’s anti-doxxing policies… (CNN)
— New and compelling from Donie O’Sullivan and company: “Two women tell us how their parents began following QAnon and how it is tearing their families apart.” The extended 11-minute story is up on YouTube… (CNN)
A Valentine edition of the RS podcast
My better half, NY1 host Jamie Stelter, took over the “Reliable Sources” podcast for a Valentine-themed episode. She gathered questions via social media and asked me about everything from work habits (I’m a huge procrastinator) to “love language” to local news. A special guest makes an appearance at the end of the conversation. Hint: We taped this during afternoon nap time, or at least, we thought we did. Listen in via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite pod app…
Microsoft calls for laws forcing
Big Tech to share revenue with news outlets
CNN’s Brian
Fung writes: “Microsoft
is calling for new laws, including in the US, designed to force tech platforms
to share more advertising revenue with news publishers. It is a direct assault on Facebook and
Google, who have protested such a proposal currently under consideration in
Australia and, increasingly, in Europe. And it reflects
Microsoft’s eagerness to challenge the reigning kings of digital advertising in
markets where doing so could provide a convenient boost to Microsoft’s own
bottom line.”
>>
Microsoft prez Brad Smith
spoke with the NYT’s Cecilia
Kangabout his push…
>>
Bloomberg’s Dina Bass
has much more here…
