Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, asked on Tuesday why so few members of the New York City Police Department were wearing face masks, despite their use in public mandated by law.
As cases in New York City continue to rise, Bill de Blasio, the mayor, on Tuesday said he would start imposing fines on anyone who does not wear a mask in public.
On Monday the COVID-19 infection rate rose above three per cent for the first time since June.
Cuomo asked why NYPD officers felt the law did not apply to them.
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, on Tuesday asked why NYPD didn’t wear face masks
Officers are frequently seen without masks, as during this September 18 arrest
Few members of the NYPD, pictured September 18, wear face masks, as Cuomo pointed out
Many – but not all – members of the NYPD chose not to wear face masks
‘The current law was everybody has to wear a mask,’ he said, addressing a press conference.
‘Why didn’t you enforce the current mask law? Why didn’t you enforce it?
‘By the way, why don’t the NYPD wear masks? What signal does that send?
‘Wearing a mask is the law, but the police officer who’s supposed to enforce the law doesn’t wear a mask.’
It is a state law that while in public spaces, everyone over the age of two must wear a face covering or risk fines.
De Blasio said police will first offer people a free mask if they are not already wearing one. If they refuse, they will be fined, he said, without saying how much they would be fined.
Cuomo previously told the MTA to issue fines of $50 to anyone on public transit who was not wearing a mask. It’s unclear if that is as high as they will go.
NYC’s COVID infection rate is above 3pc, but these officers on September 13 didn’t wear masks
New York City’s daily COVID-19 infection rate has risen thanks to eight neighborhoods where cases are skyrocketing.
The infection rate in New York City on Monday was 3.25 per cent.
The seven-day rolling average, which is what officials will monitor when weighing new restrictions, is 1.38 per cent.
De Blasio’s threshold for keeping the city open is a five per cent infection rate.
The surge is being driven by new cases in nine neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens; Gravesend/Homecrest, Midwood, Kew Gardens, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, Gerritsen Beach/Sheepshead Bay and Flatlands.
The highest infection rate based on a 14-day average that was released by the mayor on Monday was in Borough Park, where the infection rate was 6.72 percent.
But more recent data given by the governor’s office paints a starker picture. The infection rate in some neighborhoods was as high as 17 per cent on Sunday based on tests that were done that day.
It either means there was an anomalous spike in Sunday’s numbers, or that the infection rate is rising gradually.
This is the city wide daily infection rate for New York City. It is creeping back up thanks to a handful of neighborhoods where there are larger spikes
New York City is bracing for another round of crippling shutdowns as eight neighborhoods experience ‘alarming’ surges in coronavirus infection rates. The map above shows the Sunday infection rate for each problem neighborhood
There are no specifics per neighborhood in Manhattan but, according to the most recent city data, the infection rate for the borough is 1.9 percent. Cuomo gave it as 1.3 percent on Tuesday morning.
The rise in cases is not reflected in the number of deaths and hospitalizations around the city, nor does it mean that another lockdown is likely.
One of the key metrics to reopening was the number of new hospitalizations. To stay open, New York City’s needs to stay below 167 people a day.
According to recent figures, there are fewer than one a day based on a 14-day average.
De Blasio has refused to rule out shutting down businesses in the neighborhoods where cases are spiking, though.
Cuomo also said he planned to meet with religious leaders from the Orthodox Jewish community to appeal to them to spread the message.
The hotspots are all home to large Orthodox Jewish communities. Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year, was on September 18 and Yom Kippur was on September 27 and 28.
De Blasio said there had been compliance among Jewish communities in abiding by social distancing rules so far.
‘We obviously have a serious problem, it is primarily in nine zip codes but it’s affecting the daily number. For the first time in months you’re going to see a daily number over 3 percent.
‘To have an outbreak specifically [in] nine zip codes out of 146. The geography is very specific. This is not like what we’ve seen previously,’ de Blasio said at his press conference on Tuesday.
Cuomo ordered de Blasio to take fast action to address the growing spike.
‘COVID is real. This is not the time for indecision,’ he said.
In recent days Cuomo and his aides have highlighted the importance of containing clusters to ensure that they don’t spread to neighboring zip codes.
In addition to the neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, Cuomo said that surges in the mid-Hudson region were pushing up the state’s positivity rate.
Source Article from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8787697/Why-dont-NYPD-wear-masks-signal-does-send-Cuomo-questions-cops-dont-cover-faces.html
The Trump administration and Democratic leaders have failed to forge a consensus on what to include in a fifth coronavirus relief package as the outbreak ravages American lives and livelihoods. Before Mnuchin and Pelosi renewed talks in recent days, doubts had grown about Congress’ ability to pass new aid before the Nov. 3 election.
Both the Treasury secretary and House speaker sounded more optimistic about progress Wednesday than they have in recent weeks. In an MSNBC interview, Pelosi also said she is “hopeful” about the potential for an agreement.
“We’ll just see what they come back with today and how our negotiations go next,” she said.
Mnuchin said the sides have found consensus on several major issues. Those include small business loans, funding for schools, direct payments to individuals, airline aid and employee retention tax credits.
He said the White House will still push for liability protections for businesses and schools — a provision Democrats have previously opposed. While Mnuchin added that the Trump administration supports some new relief for state and local governments, it is unclear if their offer will appease Democrats, who have proposed more than $400 billion in aid over a year.
Of course, any agreement the White House and Democrats reach will also have to get through the Republican-held Senate. As GOP lawmakers grow weary of spending trillions to bolster the federal response to the pandemic, the Senate tried to pass a roughly $500 billion relief plan earlier this month.
Democrats blocked it and called it inadequate.
Mnuchin said he and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows spoke to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday to update them on the talks.
“Let’s see if we can get a compromise agreement with the speaker, something that works, and then we’ll continue to work with both sides on all the exact language and the policies,” Mnuchin said.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/30/coronavirus-stimulus-mnuchin-is-hopeful-about-aid-deal-with-pelosi.html
Trump attacks Biden over son Hunter’s foreign business dealings; senior political correspondent Mike Emanuel reports.
President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden faced off for the first time Tuesday in a highly anticipated debate at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Follow below for the latest updates. Mobile users click here:
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/live-updates-2020-presidential-race-trump-biden-spar-in-1st-debate
Malcum Salyers, an electrician and volunteer firefighter in Jonesville, Ohio, works on average 55 to 60 hours a week. In just over two weeks he pays more tax than the president of the United States.
This week the New York Times reported that Donald Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, and paid no income tax in 10 of the past 15 years. The investigation comes after Trump refused to disclose his tax returns for years, breaking a several-decades-long precedent of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns.
“I paid millions in taxes,” Trump said on Tuesday night during his debate with Joe Biden. He declined to give a specific figure before adding: “I don’t want to pay taxes.”
“It’s disheartening to see what I pay in taxes in comparison to what Trump paid,” said Salyers, who on average pays about $350 a week in federal income taxes, about $18,000 a year, and only receives an annual tax rebate of about $1,000, while currently paying to put his daughter through college. “The tax rates are 100% unbalanced.”
As Trump has paid virtually no federal income taxes in the past 15 years, US workers who pay much more in taxes, are struggling to make ends meet and dealing with the pandemic in essential jobs.
David Yolmeh has worked as a meat cutter in a grocery store deli outside Orlando, Florida, for 10 years. Over the past three years, he has paid between $2,200 and $4,700 in annual federal income tax.
“It’s crazy thinking about how long I’ve been wearing a mask to work every day now,” said Yolmeh. “We are on a strict cleaning schedule to keep all touched surfaces sanitized for customer and employee safety. We have the markers. We have the barriers for our cashiers. What we didn’t get was any sort of hazard pay or temporary pay increases. Sales increased dramatically in the first month of lockdown and we received none of those profits back.”
In Port Huron, Michigan, Henry Dunham, 41, has worked as a chef for 20 years and paid about $17,000 in federal income taxes over the past 20 years. He was laid off from his job at a hotel restaurant when the pandemic hit and is still waiting to receive unemployment benefits.
“I can’t receive unemployment because reaching the office here in Michigan is impossible. I have months of unpaid claims now, and all the information I can get on the website are non-monetary issues, even though they show over $10,000 in due payments,” said Dunham, who had never had to file for unemployment before the pandemic. “I’m frustrated Trump pays less in taxes than I do. I’m close to the poverty line. But I pay taxes out of my paychecks with no possible way to defraud the IRS. Yet here is a supposed billionaire, who has paid less than I, in the past 20 years cumulatively.”
One New York-based landscaper said the news didn’t surprise him. The Guatemalan worker, who did not want to be identified, said he pays about $8,000 a year in state and federal taxes, taken out at source.
“He doesn’t pay taxes? That’s good for him. But it is not fair. It’s not good. But that’s how it is. The big shark eats the little shark. If we don’t pay taxes, they want to kick us out.”
Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/30/donald-trump-taxes-workers-contrast
Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, leaves federal court with lawyer Sidney Powell in September 2019.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
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Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, leaves federal court with lawyer Sidney Powell in September 2019.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Updated at 4:47 p.m. ET
An attorney for former national security adviser Michael Flynn said she briefed President Trump and a lawyer working for him on the status of Flynn’s criminal case in the past two weeks, according to statements in court on Tuesday.
The lawyer, Sidney Powell, initially told the judge she was wary of disclosing the contact because of so-called executive privilege, even though she does not work for Trump or the White House.
The disclosure emerged at an unusual hearing in which the judge presiding over Flynn’s case probed the Justice Department’s motives for abandoning charges against the former national security adviser, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
A former federal judge working as a friend of the court said the Justice Department’s decision smacked of political favoritism to help a friend of the president’s.
“Not for nothing, but this crime was committed in the West Wing,” said John Gleeson, the former judge.
Gleeson said that this White House, more than any other since Richard Nixon, had trampled on the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI, which had yielded to pressure from the president to drop the case against Flynn.
Trump has tweeted or retweeted more than 100 times about what he views as the unfairness of the Flynn case, but Gleeson and the government lawyers disagreed about whether the presiding judge, Emmet Sullivan, should weigh those comments in deciding how to proceed.
Flynn’s lawyers allege bias
Powell, the lawyer for Flynn, argued the case had been infected by bias from FBI investigators and a failure to turn over evidence that would have helped his defense. She also trained her ire at Sullivan — before acknowledging that despite her criticism, she had not yet acted on it by filing a formal motion seeking to remove the judge from the case.
“It is a hideous abuse of power that continues to this very minute,” Powell said of the case against Flynn.
Powell ultimately backed down from her assertion about executive privilege after the judge repeatedly pressed her about meetings and conversations she had with Trump, Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.
Legal experts pointed out that the privilege would not apply to communications between the president and a private citizen not acting as his legal counsel.
Questions about evidence tampering
Also in court on Tuesday, Sullivan said he was “floored” by a letter submitted by an attorney for former FBI agent Peter Strzok contending that someone had doctored his notes in the case from early January 2017 — potentially to cast aspersions on former Vice President Joe Biden.
The judge said someone from the government would have to make a certification to him in the coming days about the integrity of the evidence.
Trump, Flynn’s camp and supporters have sought to use Strzok’s notes to tie Biden to what they call the biased treatment Flynn received from authorities — although former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates sought to deflate that narrative at a Senate hearing last month.
Sullivan also asked whether it would be “appropriate” for him to dismiss the current lying-to-the-FBI case against Flynn — but leave it for a future Justice Department and a future attorney general to consider prosecuting him on other false statements and Foreign Agent Registration Act charges for his work on behalf of government interests in Turkey.
Flynn did not face prosecution over other alleged wrongdoing in which he may have been involved as part of the plea agreement in which he agreed to provide evidence in the Russia investigation — which prosecutors said he did eagerly until his relationship with the government turned sour.
Government frustration
For its part, the Justice Department said Tuesday it had not found a single appeals court case in history in which the government had sought to drop a case against a defendant and a federal judge had then denied the motion. The executive branch has the “exclusive authority” to prosecute a case, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim Mooppan said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Kohl, who said he was the senior-most career lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, told the judge the Flynn case now would be impossible to prosecute because of doubts that had been cast about witnesses, including Strzok, whose text messages raised questions about bias against Trump.
“The U.S. attorney’s office’s decision to dismiss this case was the right call for the right reasons,” Kohl said.
At one point, the judge asked why no members of the team led by former special counsel Robert Mueller had signed onto the idea of walking away from the Flynn case. Separately, Mueller issued a rare public statement Tuesday after his former team member, Andrew Weissmann, published a book criticizing the investigators for pulling their punches under intense pressure from the Trump White House.
“It is not surprising that members of the special counsel’s office did not always agree, but it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information,” Mueller wrote.
He added that the office mission was to follow the facts and act with integrity.
“That is what we did, knowing that our work would be scrutinized from all sides,” he said. “When important decisions had to be made, I made them. I did so as I have always done, without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences. I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/918314575/flynn-attorney-says-she-briefed-trump-on-case-amid-doj-intervention
President Trump ran roughshod over debate moderator Chris Wallace and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden — and crossed many lines in the process.
Patrick Semansky/AP
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President Trump ran roughshod over debate moderator Chris Wallace and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden — and crossed many lines in the process.
Patrick Semansky/AP
This was maybe the worst presidential debate in American history.
If this was supposed to be a boxing match, it instead turned into Trump jumping on the ropes, refusing to come down, the referee trying to coax him off and Biden standing in the middle of the ring with his gloves on and a confused look on his face.
Trump doesn’t play by anyone’s rules, even those he’s agreed to beforehand. He’s prided himself on that. But even by his standards, what Trump did Tuesday night crossed many lines.
He’s president. More than 200,000 Americans are dead from the coronavirus pandemic. And instead of a serious debate about the direction of the country, Trump sent it off the rails.
Most charitably, both former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped Trump prep for the debate, said he was “too hot.”
“I think the president overplayed his hand tonight,” Santorum said on CNN.
Here are six takeaways from the first Trump-Biden debate.
1. Even for Trump, he went too far
For part of the debate, Trump looked like he was controlling the stage. He interrupted constantly and tried to distract, deflect and interject. That’s fairly typical Trump behavior, but a few things in particular were egregious.
When Biden, for example, was talking about his late son Beau’s military service, Trump went in on Biden’s other son, Hunter, and brought up his past cocaine use. It backfired.
Biden, looking directly to the camera, turned something he rarely talks about into a positive, sympathetic moment.
“My son, like a lot of people you know at home, he had a drug problem,” Biden said. “He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.”
Later, when Trump was asked to denounce white supremacists and militia groups — and specifically the far-right extremist group Proud Boys — he instead said this: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” And then he denounced left-wing groups. (Proud Boys is now using Trump’s words as part of a new logo.)
What’s more, Trump would not urge his followers to remain peaceful as votes are counted, including if there are delays in reporting the results.
“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that’s what has to happen,” Trump said, adding, “If it’s a fair election, I am 100% on board. If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.”
2. Trump likely did nothing to expand beyond his base
Trump’s base will probably love his performance. But coming into the debate, Trump was behind in the polls. That’s no secret.
He needed to try to win back suburban and independent voters, both of whom he won in 2016 and who have largely abandoned him this cycle.
So who was this performance for exactly?
Trump repeated his “law and order” appeal to white, suburban voters and tried to force Biden to repeat the words. But Biden didn’t take the bait and pivoted, calling for “law and order with justice where people are treated fairly.”
And Biden said this about Trump and the nature of his appeal.
“He wouldn’t know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn,” Biden said. “I was raised in the suburbs. This is not 1950. All these dog whistles and racism don’t work anymore. Suburbs are by and large integrated.”
3. Biden missed opportunities
This was not Biden’s cleanest debate. He was not crisp, was often flummoxed — as was moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News — by Trump’s antics.
“Will you shut up, man?” said Biden while trying to make a point. He also called Trump a “clown” more than once.
Biden missed some opportunities. For example, when Trump was talking about the role of masks in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, Biden could have interjected more forcefully to talk about Trump’s largely maskless rallies. When Trump claimed his rallies caused no harm, Biden could have pointed out the spike in coronavirus cases after Trump’s Tulsa, Okla., rally.
The former vice president had some stumbles and some moments that weren’t great for him, like not answering if he would add justices to the Supreme Court — “pack the court” — if Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s nominee to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is confirmed.
That was likely overshadowed by Trump’s demeanor, but for the next debate — if there is one — Biden’s team will need to try to sharpen him up.
4. Trump tried to tie Biden to the far left, but it didn’t work
Trump tried his darndest to paint Biden as a socialist, or at least beholden to the “radical left.” But on issue after issue — “Medicare for All,” defunding the police, the Green New Deal — Biden disavowed policies the Trump campaign has tried to lasso to him.
Biden just restated his positions, and they all line up with the middle of the electorate, far more than Trump’s policy positions do.
That might have harmed Biden with the progressive left, particularly when it comes to the Green New Deal, if Trump hadn’t gone quite so Trump.
5. Trump’s response on his handling of COVID-19 was more of the same
More than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and coronavirus cases are spiking again in some parts of the country.
And yet Trump’s tactic when defending himself on his management of the pandemic was to insult Biden’s smarts.
“He panicked or just looked at the stock market, one of the two, because guess what?” Biden said. “A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot quicker.”
Trump’s response?
“Did you use the word ‘smart?’ ” Trump asked rhetorically, adding, “You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. Don’t ever use the word ‘smart’ with me.”
Trump said he disagreed with his own experts on a vaccine timeline, insisting it would soon be widely available. But making rosy assertions to the public is exactly what got him in trouble after Bob Woodward’s latest book, Rage, revealed that Trump privately knew the virus was worse than he let on publicly.
He tried to claim Biden would have made the pandemic worse. “Two million would be dead now,” he said.
But Trump is president, and, on average, a majority of Americans say they disapprove of the job he’s doing handling the coronavirus.
6. Good luck to the next moderator
Before the debate, Wallace said his goal was to be “invisible.”
By the end, he might have wished he was. The role was no easy task, and the next presidential debate, Oct. 15, is set to be moderated by the far more mild-mannered Steve Scully of C-SPAN.
After the first presidential debate of the 2004 election, Internet conspiracies abounded about a mysterious bulge in the back of President George W. Bush’s jacket. Some believed, unfoundedly, that there was a communications system rigged up by White House advisers to coach him.
Bush dismissed that, cracking wise.
“I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would … kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer, and I would jerk back into place,” Bush said afterward.
Maybe something to look into.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/09/30/918500976/trump-derails-first-presidential-debate-with-biden-and-5-other-takeaways
It pays not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Or to put a Wine Country spin on the truism, all your barbera in one building.
While the property losses sustained in the Glass Fire by the Napa Valley’s castle on a hill, the Castello di Amorosa winery, were significant, the Tuscan-style castle itself that noted vintner Dario Sattui had built over 15 years emerged unscathed — and the $5 million worth of lost wine was only a fraction of the inventory.
Georg Salzner, president of Castello di Amorosa, said he believes the flames of the Glass Fire came up a canyon on the side of the Calistoga winery early Monday morning and set ablaze the roof tiles of the farmhouse, an accessory building that sits behind the main castle building and wine tasting rooms.
The farmhouse, which was severely damaged in the fire, held offices for management, a fermentation room and a fulfillment center where about one-tenth of the winery’s wine bottles were stored.
Ironically, Salzner said, in the Medieval ages, kingdoms stored goods that were flammable in a farmhouse that was separated from the main castle. Hoping to recreate Castello as authentically as possible, Sattui did the same here — just without the expectation that “one day it would really pay off,” Salzner said.
“There was no damage to the castle per se,” said Castello marketing VP Jim Sullivan.
Click here if you are unable to view the photos on a mobile device.
They estimate that about 120,000 bottles of wine were lost in the fire — or about $5 million in wine, including some collector items, special releases and some of the first vintages made by the winery nearly two decades ago.
Luckily, Sullivan said, “We have a lot of wine stored offsite. And in the castle.”
Castello di Amorosa started receiving visitors in 2007. But Sattui’s dream was years in the making.
“I did it partly to honor my ancestors,” Sattui, a fourth-generation winemaker, told Mercury News reporter Michael Martinez soon after the opening. “And partly, I don’t know. I just really have a passion for this.”
Sattui’s great-grandfather, Vittorio, started V. Sattui in 1885 but was shut down by Prohibition laws in the 1920s. Dario, 10 years out of San Jose State University, rebuilt it in 1975 in St. Helena. The Castello di Amorosa architectural plan and line of wines were conceived later.
Originally designed to cover 8,500 square feet, the castle grew as Sattui’s love of architecture and all things Italian overwhelmed his intent, Martinez wrote.
The resulting edifice measures 121,000 square feet, with 107 rooms on eight levels, four of them underground. Some 8,000 tons of stones — including basalt and sandstone — were chiseled by hand and set individually. Leaded glass was imported from Italy. Gargoyles were hand-carved. A maze of narrow hallways below ground measures 900 feet and leads to several chambers filled with wine barrels and artifacts.
On Tuesday morning, employees were back at the castle on the hill — less than 24 hours after the farmhouse was burned — crushing grapes.
“It’s unfortunate,” Salzner said. “But we cannot just stop, so we will be crushing grapes and we will immediately be starting on renovations.”
Source Article from https://www.mercurynews.com/glass-fire-napas-castello-di-amorosa-winery-loses-5-million-worth-of-wine-but-30-million-castle-unscathed
Live updates: Get the latest on the first presidential debate.
Democrats Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala D. Harris hold a steady lead over President Trump and Vice President Pence, with an edge of 53 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, according to the latest Post-ABC News poll. Biden also leads Trump in the key battleground of Pennsylvania.
How to vote: Find out the rules in your state. Some states have already started sending out mail ballots; see how to make sure yours counts. Absentee and mail ballots are two terms for the same thing, mostly used interchangeably. Barring a landslide, we may not have a result in the presidential election on Nov. 3. Are you running into voting problems? Let us know.
Electoral college map: Who actually votes, and who do they vote for? Explore how shifts in turnout and voting patterns for key demographic groups could affect the presidential race.
Policy: Where Biden and Trump stand on key issues defining the election.
Battlegrounds: Want to understand the swing states? Read about Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Arizona, and sign up for The Trailer and get more states, plus more news and insight from the trail, in your inbox three days a week.
Coming up: Trump and Biden are scheduled to debate three times this fall; here’s what to know about the 2020 presidential debates. Are you planning on watching the debate? The Washington Post wants to hear from you.
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Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-mail-ballots/2020/09/29/131a06fc-0263-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden goes head to head with President Trump at the first presidential debate.
President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden kicked off their first fiery presidential debate Tuesday night, sparring over everything from the Supreme Court nomination, coronavirus and Biden’s sons, with moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News admonishing Trump several times for interrupting.
The first of three showdowns between Trump, 74, and Biden, 77, devolved into attacks on Hunter Biden, smarts and schoolyard name-calling. As Trump went on offense, Biden tried to shut him down by calling the president a “clown” and a “liar.”
Wallace scolded Trump repeatedly for not following the debate rules by interrupting and the veteran newsman often played the role of a wrestling referee rather than a moderator.
“Gentlemen, I hate to raise my voice, but why shouldn’t I be different than the two of you?” Wallace said.
DEBATE GETS PERSONAL AS BIDEN CALLS TRUMP A ‘CLOWN,’ TRUMP TELLS BIDEN HE’S NOT ‘SMART’
Trump came out swinging, but Biden held his own and didn’t fall into previous debate pitfalls where he cut his time short or stumbled to get out responses. The two men often talked over each other in a brawl that got unwieldy at times.
The president touted his record in the White House on boosting the economy and how he handled the pandemic, proclaiming: “There has never been an administration or president who has done more than I’ve done in a period of three and a half years, and that’s despite the impeachment hoax.”
But Biden said under Trump the country has become weaker, sicker, poorer and more violent.
“You’re the worst president America has ever had,” Biden said at one point.
Biden sought to define himself as the steady leader of the Democratic Party and distanced himself from Bernie Sanders’ health care plan and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
“You just lost the left,” Trump told Biden.
TRUMP TARGETS HUNTER BIDEN’S FOREIGN BUSINESS DEALINGS DURING HEATED DEBATE CLASH
Trump accused Biden of failing to admonish violent rioters and stand up for law enforcement in Democratic-led cities that have been unraveling with racial unrest.
“The people of this country want and demand law and order and you’re afraid to even say it,” Trump said.
Wallace asked Biden why he doesn’t call the mayor of Portland, Ore., to bring in the National Guard to stop the violence.
“I don’t hold public office now,” Biden said, adding that “the violence should be prosecuted.”
Wallace turned to Trump and asked him: “Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?”
Trump said he’d be willing to do it, but then said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left.”
“Antifa is an idea, not an organization,” Biden responded, referencing FBI Director Christopher Wray’s claim that Antifa was more of a movement or ideology.
Proud Boys, the conservative group, celebrated Trump’s comments and started pitching merchandise with Trump’s “stand by” words.
The debate in Cleveland kicked off with Trump standing by his Supreme Court pick of Judge Amy Coney Barrett and his push to get her confirmed by the Senate before the Nov. 3 election.
“We won the election. Elections have consequences,” Trump said, justifying why he appointed a nominee in an election year.
BIDEN, TRUMP SPAR OVER COVID DEATH COUNTS: ‘YOU WOULD HAVE LOST FAR MORE’
Biden, who declined to say whether he supports packing the court or ending the Senate filibuster, said the American people should decide who succeeds the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18.
“We should wait and see what the outcome of this election is because that’s the only way the American people get to express their view,” Biden said.
The debate quickly devolved into Trump tussling Wallace and then with Biden over health care and the Obama-era Affordable Care Act.
Trump accused Biden of trying to get rid of private health insurance. “Not true,” Biden retorted.
“Your party wants to go socialist,” Trump said.
“I am the Democratic Party right now,” Biden said. He also hit back at Trump for his handling of the coronavirus and for wanting to repeal ObamaCare’s protections for preexisting conditions.
Trump accused Biden of embracing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ socialist “manifesto” and when Biden stood his ground, Trump said: “You just lost the left.”
Trump lobbed attacks on Biden, including on his smarts and crowd sizes. Biden tried to shut him down by calling him a liar, “clown” and asking, “Will you shut up, man?”
“Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing?” Biden said at another point.
BIDEN PUSHES BACK AGAINST TIES TO BERNIE SANDERS DURING FIRST DEBATE: ‘I AM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’
Trump hit Biden for his 47-year record in Washington and accused Biden of wanting to keep the country shut down like a prison during the pandemic.
“There’s nothing smart about you, Joe,” Trump said.
Trump went after Biden for his son Hunter’s dealings at Burmisa in Ukraine, which served as the origin for Trump’s impeachment.
Biden defended Hunter as doing nothing wrong and said he’s proud of his son for overcoming drug addiction.
Biden went on to talk passionately about his late son, Beau, and his service to the country before his death from cancer in 2015.
Biden mentioned the disparaging comments Trump reportedly made about veterans, as reported by The Atlantic.
“My son was in Iraq. He spent a year there. … He was not a loser. He was a patriot. And the people left behind there were heroes,” Biden said.
BIDEN ACCUSES TRUMP OF CORONAVIRUS LIES AS PRESIDENT PUSHES SPEEDY VACCINE TIMELINE
Trump took the conversation back to Biden’s other son: “Oh, really? Are you talking about Hunter?”
“I’m talking about my son Beau Biden,” Biden said.
“I don’t know Beau. I know Hunter,” Trump said.
It was the first presidential debate of the unprecedented 2020 election cycle, marred by a global pandemic and expanded early and mail-in voting opportunities to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
Voting is already underway in many states, including the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. Nationwide nearly 1.3 million people have already cast their ballots either by mail or through early in-person voting, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
The Trump campaign, which has tried to keep a robust travel schedule despite the pandemic, had pushed unsuccessfully for a much earlier fourth debate to account for the new voting schedules.
Trump and his allies have for months depicted Biden as hiding from the media in his basement and have relished in an opportunity to face off with Biden, who would be unaided by a teleprompter.
The Biden campaign has benefited from a record-shattering $364.5 million in fundraising in August and a consistent lead in the public polls nationally and in many swing states. Biden has sought to keep the focus on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has cost more than 200,000 lives in the United States.
The next Biden-Trump debate is slated for Oct. 15 and the final one is Oct. 22. Vice President Mike Pence and Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., will face off next in the vice presidential debate on Oct. 7.
Fox Business’ Hillary Vaughn and Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/first-presidential-debate-biden-trump-clash
A worker prepares to check stacks of ballots in July at a Board of Elections facility in New York City. The city’s election board says it will send about 100,000 new absentee ballots to voters after mailing out error-filled ones.
John Minchillo/AP
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John Minchillo/AP
A worker prepares to check stacks of ballots in July at a Board of Elections facility in New York City. The city’s election board says it will send about 100,000 new absentee ballots to voters after mailing out error-filled ones.
John Minchillo/AP
A version of this story was first published by Gothamist, a news site operated by NPR member station WNYC.
On Tuesday, the New York City Board of Elections announced a plan to print and mail new absentee ballots to nearly 100,000 voters who received erroneous envelopes in their absentee ballot packages. The decision comes after an unknown number of Brooklyn voters received absentee ballots with the wrong name and address printed on the return envelope.
“It is essential that confidence be established in this process and that we make certain that all of the voters who potentially have a problem have a full and fair opportunity to remedy that problem,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of the New York City Board of Elections.
“It is also essential to point out that this is a vendor error,” he added, noting that the Rochester, N.Y.-based company, Phoenix Graphics, has agreed to pay for the cost of the additional printing of the ballots, while the election board will ensure those new ballots are processed appropriately.
The error comes as voting by mail is set to expand significantly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and as President Trump has frequently made false claims that the practice will lead to widespread electoral fraud.
Phoenix was awarded a $4.6 million contract to produce and distribute the absentee ballots for the Board of Elections in May, The CITY reported, noting that “the contract was a negotiated acquisition, which means that there was no competitive bidding.”
Ryan told Gothamist/WNYC that he was alerted to this issue by a voter in Brooklyn on Saturday and that his team immediately contacted the vendor. Based on the election board’s investigation, Ryan said they believed the error was limited to voters in Brooklyn in a single print run. That printing took place on Sept. 17 and included 99,477 voters.
The board says about 140,000 absentee ballots have gone out in Brooklyn so far, out of the nearly half a million that have gone out citywide.
“We want to, out of an abundance of caution, give a reprinted ballot to all of the voters potentially affected in that first print run,” Ryan said Tuesday.
For voters receiving a replacement ballot, Ryan said the board would include a notice in the new absentee ballot package alerting the voters as to why they are receiving it. He also said the board would be reaching out to affected voters via email and phone if that information is available through the person’s voter file. He said the board planned to alert voters through social media, too.
Despite its efforts to correct the problem Tuesday, the board came under fire from elected leaders and voters who said they were fed up with the agency’s inability to carry out the key elements of its central mission reliably.
“I don’t know how many times we’re going to see the same thing happen at the Board of Elections and be surprised,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at his daily briefing Tuesday. “There’s some good people there, and I know there’s some people that are trying hard, but it just is not a modern agency and it must be changed. It just structurally doesn’t work.”
During de Blasio’s tenure, he has urged the board to make a series of reforms that would overhaul its management structure. But since the board is empowered through New York state election law, with 10 commissioners appointed by the Democratic and Republican county party leaders in each of the five boroughs, the board has resisted any calls for reform.
Voters took news of the board’s plan with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Michael Johnson, 27, applied for his absentee ballot as soon as the portal was live in August since he said he never received his absentee ballot for the June primary. Johnson said he is immunocompromised and is currently staying in Washington state with family. He received a mislabeled absentee ballot on Monday.
When he learned about the board’s plan to fix this problem, he said, “It sounds great on paper, but it also sounded great when we were going to receive our ballots without any issues.”
Johnson said he was considering taking a flight back to New York City just to make sure he could vote.
“I’m not missing this vote,” he said.
Joan Arkin, 65, who cast her first vote for Mayor Abe Beame in 1973, said if it weren’t for a hyperlocal neighborhood message board, she would have never known to look at the problem with her ballot. When she learned about the board’s proposed solution, she was still concerned because she worried this mistake had already eroded people’s confidence in absentee ballot voting.
“Somebody should have been double-checking this,” Arkin said. “Triple-checking.”
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/918382378/nyc-to-send-new-ballots-to-nearly-100-000-voters-after-printing-error
President Trump made over $11 million endorsing two multi-level marketing companies in the 2000s for which he and his children would later be sued for fraud, according to the New York Times, which revealed for the first time how much money the future president received for hawking the MLMs, and that those two endorsements were his most lucrative side deals during his height of fame from The Apprentice.
Donald Trump attends a 2006 California casting call for ‘The Apprentice.’
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
After dropping the bombshell of Trump’s tax returns on Sunday—revealing Trump paid $750 in taxes during his first two years in the White House—the Times followed up Monday, revealing The Apprentice gave Trump a $427 million lifeline after his Atlantic City casinos failed.
The Times also exhaustively detailed Trump’s countless side deals flogging everything from laundry detergent to Domino’s pizza, but the MLM endorsements by far netted Trump the most cash.
Trump’s most lucrative deal—$8.8 million over a decade—was for promoting ACN, an MLM whose members sold telecom equipment and services, on DVDs of its products and through testimonials, with some alleging in a 2018 class action lawsuit that Trump misled them by claiming ACN was a “great opportunity” and lower in risk.
Trump nabbed another $2.6 million licensing his name to the Trump Network, another MLM that sold vitamins, before the company sold its remaining assets in 2011 with the owners declaring bankruptcy.
The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit said they suffered financial losses during their involvement with both MLMs, and the judge allowed the suit to proceed in May after the Trumps moved for the case to be suspended, but they will appeal the decision.
Trump promoted an ACN video phone in a 2011 episode of Celebrity Apprentice. According to the Times, the video phone’s technology was nearly obsolete when the episode aired.
“[Trump’s] tax returns reveal just how much [ACN] was paying him for the happy talk: $8.8 million over 10 years, including $1 million in 2009—the nadir of the Great Recession, when desperate people were drawn to promises of a fast payday,” the Times reported. “In fact, Mr. Trump actively capitalized on the economic anxiety.”
It’s notoriously difficult to succeed as a distributor in an MLM. Generating income is dependent on selling the MLMs products but also on recruiting new sellers into the organization. MLMs are often referred to as “pyramid schemes,” although the Federal Trade Commission has no hard definition for what constitutes a pyramid scheme.. A 2018 AARP study found that nearly 75% of MLM distributors either lost money or broke even. According to the Times, French regulators found that 1% of ACN participants actually made money, while the rest earned about $35 per month, or broke even. The class action lawsuit also names Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Trump pocketed $300,000 to speak at a 2004 real estate seminar in Dayton, Ohio, for a company that was later accused of running a Ponzi scheme, the Times reported.
How Reality-TV Fame Handed Trump A $427 Million Lifeline (New York Times)
Judge allows fraud suit against Trump, family and company to proceed (CNN)
Source Article from https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/09/29/trumps-biggest-side-hustle-outside-of-apprentice-multi-level-marketing-schemes/
Mr. Kohl pointed as well to findings by an inspector general investigation to say that the two agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn at the White House in January 2017 — Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, who would be key witnesses in any trial — were tainted. Mr. Strzok had sent text messages to a colleague indicating that he did not like Mr. Trump; Mr. Pientka helped supervise error-riddled applications to wiretap a different former Trump campaign adviser who was under investigation as part of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation, Carter Page.
“The I.G. knocked out all of our witnesses in this case,” Mr. Kohl said.
Mr. Gleeson, however, scoffed. He pointed out that the Justice Department did not need to prove Mr. Flynn’s statements because he had already pleaded guilty. He also said that the department would argue in any other case that bias by agents or violations of internal rules were irrelevant, and maintained that it would be easy to prove Mr. Flynn lied.
On Twitter, Mr. Strzok accused Mr. Kohl of “materially misrepresenting” his actions.
Separately, in a letter docketed on Monday night, a lawyer for Mr. Strzok told Judge Sullivan that someone had altered handwritten notes by his client in one of the recent batches of internal materials turned over to Ms. Powell — adding two dates to them that he did not write, including one that suggested a White House meeting happened earlier than it did.
Judge Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to provide a sworn declaration certifying whether the materials submitted to him “were true and accurate,” saying he was “floored” by the “unsettling” claim that they had been modified.
Ms. Powell sparred with Judge Sullivan, initially resisting his demand that she tell him whether she had spoken with Mr. Trump about the case on the grounds that it was subject to executive privilege.
After he pointed out that she did not work for the government, and so the privilege did not apply to her, she said she had recently briefed Mr. Trump about developments in the case and asked him not to pardon her client. Pressed further, she cited The New York Times as reporting that she had spoken to Mr. Trump at least five times.
As she has many times before, Ms. Powell also portrayed the case against her client as a corrupt and politically motivated conspiracy and demanded that Judge Sullivan recuse himself. He told her to file a written motion for recusal if she wanted.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/michael-flynn-emmet-sullivan-hearing.html
For those wondering how far Mr. Trump might go down this road, it’s worth taking a look at when he debated Mrs. Clinton. Pressed on allegations of his own sexual misconduct — this was right after the “Access Hollywood” recording was released capturing him making vulgar remarks about groping women — he simply turned the spotlight to Mrs. Clinton’s husband.
“There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women,” he said.
With more than 200,000 people in the United States dead from the coronavirus pandemic, the suffering that Mr. Biden has endured in his own life — and his ability to empathize with Americans struggling with grief now — is seen by campaign officials as one of the characteristics that most help the former vice president in this unusual year. (For those who don’t know, his first wife and infant daughter died in a car crash nearly 50 years ago. His two sons survived but one of them, Beau, died of cancer in 2015.)
How Mr. Biden demonstrates that empathy — which was such a buzzword during the Democratic convention that Republicans tried to testify to a hidden softer side of Mr. Trump the next week — will be one of the ways he tries to connect with not just the Democratic base but also critical swing voters.
Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and focus-group guru, said Mr. Biden’s empathy could prove critically important, and called him “a guy who empathizes with everyone.”
“The only analogy I can think of is, Joe Biden would hold a funeral for a squirrel he hit on the highway,” Mr. Luntz said.
He knows firsthand. Mr. Luntz said he ran into Mr. Biden in Iowa in January, not long after the pollster had suffered a stroke, which Mr. Biden had been briefed on. “He gave me a hug and he didn’t let go,” Mr. Luntz said, “and it was really nice.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/presidential-debate.html
Judge Amy Coney Barrett speaks after President Donald Trump announced her as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House on Sept. 26.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Judge Amy Coney Barrett speaks after President Donald Trump announced her as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House on Sept. 26.
Alex Brandon/AP
If Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed as the new Supreme Court justice, she will be one of six Catholics on the bench. She would be joined by an Episcopalian who was raised as a Catholic. and two Jewish justices.
Never before has the Court been so dominated by one religious denomination, a fact that could conceivably be raised during Barrett’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled to begin on Oct. 12.
“It’s legitimate for senators to be concerned about whether the court is reflecting the diversity of faith in the United States,” says Marci Hamilton, an expert on religion and law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Whether such a concern will be discussed, however, is another matter entirely.
Not all Catholic justices think alike. Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas, both Catholic, are ideological opposites. A strict adherence to Catholic teaching may lead a justice in contrasting directions, from opposing abortion and same sex marriage, to advocating for immigrants and expanded health care, or to opposing the death penalty.
“Catholics tend to pick and choose which parts of Catholic teaching have an impact on their political views,” says Thomas Reese, S.J., a Jesuit priest and senior analyst for the Religion News Service.
The Catholicism of Sotomayor or Thomas, or that of Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, or Brent Kavanaugh, barely came up in their confirmation hearings.
If Amy Coney Barrett’s religious beliefs were to be raised during her confirmation hearings, it would presumably be because her Catholic faith appears to be of unusual intensity and character.
In 2006, Barrett told graduates of the Notre Dame Law School, which she had attended and where she was teaching, that they should see their upcoming legal careers “as but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”
Barrett later spoke several times at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a conservative training program for Christian lawyers run by an organization that opposes same sex marriage and LGBTQ rights. According to a report in the Washington Post, the training program was established to promote a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law.”
Barrett’s religious beliefs did receive considerable attention in 2017 when she was nominated to be a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court, the position she currently holds.
“The dogma lives loudly within you,” Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Barrett at her confirmation hearing. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, then the Judiciary Committee chairman, asked Barrett when it might be proper for a judge to put their religious views above an application of the law.
“Never,” Barrett replied. “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else on the law.”
In comments on Saturday following President Trump’s announcement of her nomination to serve on the Supreme Court, Barrett said she subscribed to the legal views of Justice Scalia, for whom she clerked. “A judge must apply the law as written,” she said.
In fact, several of the more controversial positions Barrett has taken as a law professor and federal judge – on gun rights, immigration, and health care – can hardly be attributed to her Catholicism.
Thomas Reese, the Jesuit commentator, says he is not concerned whether candidates for the Supreme Court are Catholic or not.
“We know what their legal reasoning is, what positions they have taken, or what their writings are,” Reese says. “Religion becomes a totally irrelevant issue in terms of judging whether they will be the kind of jurist we want.”
Moreover, other justices have highlighted their faith without provoking controversy. Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said she hoped her service on the Court would honor the Jewish admonition to demand justice, and she kept a verse from the Book of Deuteronomy on the wall of her chamber.
Marci Hamilton, currently a senior fellow in the Program for Research on Religion at the University of Pennsylvania, says candidates to serve on the Court should nevertheless be prepared to answer questions about how their religious beliefs would influence their judicial decisions.
“It is of course appropriate for all justices to consult their beliefs and their morals as they are working on cases,” Hamilton says, “but they are required to be driven by the law. If it is impossible for them to follow what the law requires and instead provide their own religious template on the law, that’s inappropriate.”
The possible impact of Barrett’s Catholicism on her jurisprudence has continued to be a subject of speculation in part because of her reported membership in a conservative Catholic “covenant” community known as People of Praise. The organization, which also includes some non-Catholics, holds to highly traditional social views and has been subject to critical reviews in progressive circles.
Members of the group are “a different kind of Catholic,” says Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villianova University who has studied similar Catholic movements. “[Their] Catholic culture is very particular and [their] loyalty to the law goes together with a lifelong commitment to leaders and other members of the group.”
Barrett has not discussed her connection to People of Praise, although her supporters insist it is irrelevant to her responsibility as a judge.
One key question is what view Barrett would take in cases involving the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says the U.S. Congress can pass no law “respecting an establishment of religion.” The clause has been the foundation of arguments that church and state must be separate, but such views have been repeatedly challenged under the Trump Administration and by recent Supreme Court decisions.
“In American public discourse, perhaps no concept is more misunderstood than the notion of separation of church and state,” Attorney General William Barr argued this month at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. “Militant secularists have long seized on that slogan as a facile justification for attempting to drive religion from the public square,” Barr said, “and to exclude religious people from bringing a religious perspective to bear on conversations about the common good.”
The People of Praise group to which Barrett belongs promotes a similarly skeptical view of secularism as a philosophy.
“You already have at least five members of the Supreme Court that have no respect for the separation of church and state,” says Marci Hamilton. “I would assume that Judge Barrett will fall into that camp.”
If Barrett’s views on the Establishment Clause gets attention during her upcoming confirmation hearings, however, it is unlikely to be in the context of any discussion of her faith. Democrats were pilloried for raising questions about Barrett’s religious beliefs three years ago. With Catholics seen as a key voter group in the upcoming election, there is little appetite on the Democratic side for making Barrett’s Catholicism an issue once again.
In his statement on Trump’s nomination of Barrett, Joe Biden, himself a Catholic, avoided any mention of Barrett’s faith, criticizing instead her disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also a Catholic, took a similar approach this past Sunday when asked on the CNN program State of the Union whether Democrats should probe Barrett’s faith views.
“I think it’s appropriate for people to ask her about how faithful she would be to the Constitution of the United States, whatever her faith,” Pelosi said. “It doesn’t matter what her faith is, or what religions she believes in. What matters is, ‘Does she believe in the Constitution of the United States?’ “
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917943045/amy-coney-barretts-catholicism-is-controversial-but-may-not-be-confirmation-issu
For those wondering how far Mr. Trump might go down this road, it’s worth taking a look at when he debated Mrs. Clinton. Pressed on allegations of his own sexual misconduct — this was right after the “Access Hollywood” recording was released capturing him making vulgar remarks about groping women — he simply turned the spotlight to Mrs. Clinton’s husband.
“There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women,” he said.
With more than 200,000 people in the United States dead from the coronavirus pandemic, the suffering that Mr. Biden has endured in his own life — and his ability to empathize with Americans struggling with grief now — is seen by campaign officials as one of the characteristics that most help the former vice president in this unusual year. (For those who don’t know, his first wife and infant daughter died in a car crash nearly 50 years ago. His two sons survived but one of them, Beau, died of cancer in 2015.)
How Mr. Biden demonstrates that empathy — which was such a buzzword during the Democratic convention that Republicans tried to testify to a hidden softer side of Mr. Trump the next week — will be one of the ways he tries to connect with not just the Democratic base but also critical swing voters.
Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and focus-group guru, said Mr. Biden’s empathy could prove critically important, and called him “a guy who empathizes with everyone.”
“The only analogy I can think of is, Joe Biden would hold a funeral for a squirrel he hit on the highway,” Mr. Luntz said.
He knows firsthand. Mr. Luntz said he ran into Mr. Biden in Iowa in January, not long after the pollster had suffered a stroke, which Mr. Biden had been briefed on. “He gave me a hug and he didn’t let go,” Mr. Luntz said, “and it was really nice.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/presidential-debate-guide.html
The Glass Fire erupted on September 27 and has moved rapidly across northern Napa Valley, burning structures at some of the region’s most celebrated wineries. The Chronicle’s wine critic Esther Mobley is on the ground and talking to locals this week to track how vineyards and wineries have fared.
Here’s a list of the wineries that have been confirmed to have sustained damage so far. We’ll be updating the list as we learn more. There are also wineries rumored to be destroyed but are OK, including Chardonnay favorite Rombauer Vineyards. See which ones survived here.
• Behrens Family Winery: This boutique winery on Spring Mountain lost two buildings, including its main winery that burned to the ground. Others, like the tasting room, are OK.
• Burgess Cellars: The barrel warehouse and the original winery built in the 1880s have both burned, confirms CEO Carlton McCoy. The tasting room and house remain intact.
• Castello di Amorosa: A farmhouse at this favorite tourist destination was lost. It contained all of the company’s wine inventory, said vice president Jim Sullivan, though the castle itself — an ambitious construction modeled on a medieval castle — survived.
• Chateau Boswell: The main building, built from hand-quarried stone, was destroyed late Sunday night. Only the stone facade remains; a collection of wines dating back to 1979 was destroyed.
• Fairwinds Estate Winery: Buildings appear to have been leveled, but the winery owner did not respond to requests for comment.
• Hourglass Winery: The winery facility and a 162-year-old guest house were demolished, owner Jeff Smith said. An underground cave containing barrels of aging wine likely survived.
• Hunnicutt Wines: A house on the property used for offices and the winery’s crushpad, which includes much of its winemaking equipment, were devastated, though the winery building itself is OK, said owner Justin Stephens.
• Newton Vineyard: This winery, owned by luxury conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has been “significantly impacted” by the Glass Fire, confirmed general manager Jean-Baptiste Rivail.
• Sherwin Family Vineyards: This Spring Mountain winery, which Steve and Linda Sherwin started in 1996, has burned, according to an email from the company.
• Spring Mountain Vineyard: The vineyard manager’s home on the property was destroyed, and the vineyard itself experienced serious damage, confirms vice president of sales and marketing Dermot Whelan. But the main winery and the historic Miravelle Mansion — in part known for its appearance on ‘80s drama “Falcon Crest” — were spared.
• Sterling Vineyards: The main winery appeared safe, but Chronicle photographs show that equipment on the outdoor crushpad was charred, and another building may have sustained some damage.
• Tofanelli Vineyards: A 120-year-old barn and a family home, which was not currently occupied by residents, burned.
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com
Source Article from https://www.sfchronicle.com/wine/article/list-Napa-Valley-wineries-damaged-Glass-fire-15604567.php
Multiple people were shot and killed on Monday after police responded to a “possible hostage situation” at a house in Oregon’s capital of Salem, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The department issued a press release on Monday saying that officers arrived at a house in the early afternoon with a “trained negotiator” from the sheriff’s department.
Police added that after arriving, “shots were fired,” resulting in “multiple fatalities during this incident, including that of the suspect.” The statement said that no deputies were injured in the confrontation.
The sheriff’s office added that Oregon State Police are actively investigating the incident, with the deputies involved being “placed on administrative leave while the shooting is being investigated, as outlined by protocol.”
Oregon State Police Capt. Timothy R. Fox said in an email to The New York Times that more specific details surrounding the incident will be released to the public on Tuesday.
This comes as demonstrations against police brutality have been held about 45 miles north in Portland for more than a hundred straight days. The protesters continue to clash with officers as they call for justice following recent police killings of Black individuals, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
CBS’s Portland affiliate station, KOIN, reported that more than 20 people were arrested Monday night after police declared that protesters were unlawfully gathering outside the police union headquarters.
Oregon Gov. Kate BrownKate BrownThousands expected to turn out in Portland for Proud Boys rally Four states report record number of new COVID-19 cases California fire becomes largest in state history MORE (D) declared a state of emergency on Friday ahead of a far-right rally over the weekend, with police cracking down to prevent violence from erupting at the demonstration and among counterprotesters.
Brown announced Sunday in a series of tweets that state and local police officials would be investigating allegations of officers hitting and pushing journalists at Saturday’s protests after videos supposedly capturing these incidents circulated on social media.
“Free speech and free press are two of my core values. I take the use of physical force by law enforcement officers seriously, whether it involves members of the public or the media,” Brown said in one of the tweets.
Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/518730-multiple-people-shot-in-oregon-after-police-respond-to-possible-hostage