MAY 26 AND 27,
2020
PROGRESSIVE
OPINION AND NEWS
TRUTH, OR FAUX
NEWS?
ANDREW
CUOMO Published 1 hour ago [MAY 27,
2020]
Cuomo granted
immunity to nursing home executives, after big-money campaign donation: report
By Adam Shaw |
Fox News
Video -- Tammy
Bruce: Cuomo's nursing home order 'obscene,' and getting worse. Tammy Bruce
discusses the criticism Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing over his nursing home guidance
during the coronavirus crisis
New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, who signed legislation granting hospital and nursing home
executives immunity from lawsuits related to the novel coronavirus last
month, previously received a big-money boost from a powerful health care
industry group, according to a new report.
The Guardian
reports that the New York State Democratic Committee, then backing Cuomo’s
primary run in 2018, received more than $1 million from the Greater New York
Hospital Association (GNYHA) -- a lobbying group for hospital systems, some of
which own nursing homes.
CUOMO ATTEMPTS
TO DEFLECT BLAME OF DEADLY NURSING HOME CORONAVIRUS DEBACLE ON TO TRUMP
The donation
made the group one of the state party’s largest contributors in that cycle.
Three of the hospital association’s top officials separately gave more than
$150,000 to Cuomo’s campaign between 2015 and 2018, the outlet reported.
That donation
is now drawing scrutiny after Cuomo signed legislation last month that protects
executives from lawsuits -- just as he is under continued criticism for his
March 25 order (since deleted) requiring nursing homes to take in COVID-19
patients.
On May 10, and
amid increasing criticism, Cuomo issued a new directive stating that hospitals
cannot send patients back to nursing homes in the state unless they tested
negative for the virus.
VIDEO -- Trump,
Cuomo to meet in wake of New York's deadly nursing home situationVideo
The budget
provision says that officials “shall have immunity from any liability, civil or
criminal, for any harm or damages alleged to have been sustained as a result of
an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing healthcare
services” to deal with the outbreak.
The Guardian
reports that critics are now trying to repeal that provision amid concerns that
it removed a deterrent against nursing homes and hospital corporations cutting
corners in the treatment of coronavirus patients. But the measures were drafted
and aggressively advocated for by the group, the outlet says.
Cuomo’s office
responded to the report in a statement to The Guardian, saying that the measure
was to protect health care workers during a national crisis. In Washington,
Republicans similarly have sought to include broad liability protection for
businesses in any future round of relief legislation.
“This pandemic
remains an unprecedented public health crisis and we had to realign New York’s
entire healthcare system, using every type of facility to prepare for the
surge, and recruiting more than 96,000 volunteers – 25,000 from out of state,
to help fight this virus,” said Cuomo’s senior adviser Rich Azzopardi. “These
volunteers are good samaritans and what was passed by 111 members of the
legislature was an expansion of the existing Good Samaritan Law to apply to the
emergency that coronavirus created. If we had not done this, these volunteers
wouldn’t have been accepted and we never would have had enough frontline
healthcare workers.”
“This law was
intended to increase capacity and provide quality care, and any suggestion
otherwise is simply outrageous,” he said.
CUOMO FEELS
HEAT AS NEW YORK'S NURSING HOME COVID-19 DEATH DATA REMAINS INCOMPLETE
The Guardian
article, which was co-published on the socialist website The Jacobin, marks
pressure not only from conservative critics but also those on Cuomo’s left --
even after he had initially received glowing praise for his performance in
press conferences by media outlets.
A scathing
Associated Press report out Friday was highly critical of the way in which
Cuomo had handled the state’s nursing home coronavirus crisis. It found more
than 4,300 coronavirus-infected elderly patients were sent to vulnerable
nursing homes.
Cuomo and his
administration have tried to deflect that criticism, saying it was following
guidelines issued by the Trump administration.
The guidance
says "nursing homes should admit any individuals that they would normally
admit to their facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of
COVID-19 was/is present."
CLICK HERE FOR
THE FOX NEWS APP
"Not
could. Should," Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor and Cuomo's top
aide, said at a Saturday press conference. "That is President Trump's CMS
and CDC...There are over a dozen states that did the exact same thing."
Nursing care
facilities, home to some of the most vulnerable citizens, have been coronavirus
hotspots around the country. New York leads the nation with the most reported
coronavirus nursing home deaths at more than 5,000 -- though the state changed
how it counts deaths so the number of nursing home patient deaths could be even
higher.
Fox News’
Marisa Schultz, Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a
reporter covering U.S. and European politics for Fox News.. He can be reached
here.
FOR THE
UMPTEENTH TIME SINCE THE 2016 ELECTION, I DISAGREE WITH MARK ZUCKERBERG. THEY
NEED TO DO IT IN ORDER TO POLICE THE BAD ACTORS. I PLACE IN THAT CATEGORY THE
SEX ADS OF ALL KINDS, ESPECIALLY THOSE DEALING WITH CHILD ABUSE, RT, ALEX JONES
ET AL., AND OTHERS WHO DO HARM WITH THEIR WORDS ON A DAILY BASIS. THE NET NEEDS
TO BE A GOOD THING, AND NOT A JUNGLE. SEE ALSO TODAY’S INDEPENDENT POST, “TWEET
STORM IN TRUMP TOWN” ON THIS SUBJECT. IT EXPLAINS TWITTER’S ACTION. PERSONALLY,
I AGREE WITH THOSE WHO SAY THAT IT SHOULD HAVE REMOVED ALL OF HIS TWEETS
AGAINST JOE SCARBOROUGH. THAT WON’T HAPPEN, OF COURSE. WHAT TWITTER HAS DONE IS
A GESTURE MORE THAN AN ACTION. SEE THE ARTICLE BELOW ON TRUMP’S THREAT TO TAKE
THE SOCIAL MEDIA OUT BEHIND THE WOODSHED. I’M SURE THAT WILL BE WATCHED CLOSELY
IN THE NEWS.
Mark Zuckerberg
Says Social Media Giants Shouldn't Be In Position To Fact-Check Users
HuffPost
Carla Herreria
Russo
HuffPost • May
27, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH – Mark
Zuckerberg Says Social Media Giants Shouldn't Be In Position To Fact-Check
Users
Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg said his company’s policies differ from those of Twitter when
it comes to fact-checking users.
For the first
time, Twitter tagged two of President Donald Trump’s tweets on Tuesday with a
fact-checking note indicating that his statements were misleading. Angered over
the notes, Trump later accused Twitter of attempting to influence the upcoming
2020 presidential election.
During an
interview with Fox News’ Dana Perino, Zuckerberg said he disagreed with
Twitter’s policy and said he didn’t believe his own company, Facebook, should
be “the arbiter of truth.”
“We have a
different policy than Twitter on this,” Zuckerberg told Perino when asked about
Twitter’s decision to fact-check Trump.
“I just believe
strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that
people say online,” he said. “I think in general, private companies probably
shouldn’t be — especially these platform companies — shouldn’t be in the
position of doing that.”
A preview of
Zuckerberg’s interview was published Wednesday and is scheduled to air in full
on Thursday.
....Twitter is
completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to
happen!
— Donald J.
Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
.@Twitter is
now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement
on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is
incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington
Post....
— Donald J.
Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
Trump’s tweets
warned, without evidence, of “substantially fraudulent” voting in states that
plan to use mail-in ballots this November.
Twitter added
this note to Trump’s tweets:
“Trump falsely
claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election.’ However,
fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter
fraud.”
A Twitter
spokesperson told HuffPost that Twitter flagged Trump’s tweets because they
contained “potentially misleading information about voting processes and have
been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”
The
fact-checking is part of the company’s new policy of labeling false or
misleading information about COVID-19. The company also explained that it
may expand the fact-checking to topics beyond the pandemic.
In response to
Twitter’s action, Trump threatened on Wednesday to use the power of the federal
government to regulate social media companies. The office of the president
cannot regulate tech companies without congressional approval or help with the
Federal Communications Commission.
“We will
strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to
happen,” Trump said, accusing social media companies of intentionally
suppressing conservative opinions.
“Big action to
follow,” he added.
Zuckerberg
appeared wary of Trump’s warning and said he didn’t believe further censorship
was the appropriate action.
“I have to
understand what they actually would intend to do,” Zuckerberg told Fox
News. “But in general, I think a government choosing to censor a platform
because they’re worried about censorship doesn’t exactly strike me as the right
reflex there.”
BOTH BIDEN AND
SANDERS WILL BE CRITICIZED FOR MOVING TOWARD EACH OTHER, EVEN AS THEY MUST IN
ORDER TO UNITE THE DEMOCRATS INTO ANYTHING LIKE A FIGHTING FORCE AGAINST THE DARK
POWER THAT DOMINATES THE COUNTRY NOW. THIS IS ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE ARTICLES OF DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE, AS THE WRITER TRIES TO SOUND FAIR AND BALANCED. I THINK HE'S CONSERVATIVE. CAN
BIDEN BE TRUSTED TO HONOR PROGRESSIVE GOALS? HE SEEMS TO HAVE A DESIRE TO COURT
PROGRESSIVE PEOPLE, SO IF THAT IS TRUE HE WILL PROBABLY TRY TO DO SOME OF THE THINGS
WE WANT HIM TO DO. I HAVE A FEELING HE ISN’T AS FULL OF POLITICAL PRINCIPLES AS
BERNIE SANDERS IS, AND MAYBE HIS RACIAL MISSTEPS WILL BE MINOR AND INFREQUENT.
Biden aims to
move left without abandoning centrist roots
Will Weissert And
Bill Barrow
Associated
Press
Published: May
25, 2020, 12:15 am
Updated: May
25, 2020, 5:43 am
PHOTOGRAPH -- FILE
- In this Feb. 25, 2020, file photo from left, Democratic presidential
candidates, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former
Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., participate in a
Democratic presidential primary debate in Charleston, S.C. Calls for pragmatic
centrism helped Joe Biden clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. But
they left many of the partys strongest liberals worried that little progress
would be made toward their sweeping goals. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
WASHINGTON –
Joe Biden worked out deals with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. He
defended Vice President Mike Pence as a “decent guy” and eulogized Arizona
Republican Sen. John McCain's “fairness, honesty, dignity, respect.”
When he
launched his presidential campaign, such overtures to Republicans were central
to Biden's promise to “unify the country” and “restore the soul of the nation”
after defeating President Donald Trump.
Now that he's
the presumptive Democratic nominee, Biden is sharpening his tone, still
pitching consensus but touting a “bold agenda” aimed at mollifying progressives
who remain skeptical he'll deliver enough on health care, student loan debts
and the climate crisis.
The idea is to
avoid repeating the party’s 2016 defeat, when Hillary Clinton struggled to
unite her moderate supporters and backers of Bernie Sanders. The dynamics are
different in 2020, with Democrats united in their antipathy toward Trump. But
Biden's juggling of the left wing along with mainstream Democrats and
independents and Republicans disgruntled with Trump could end up as an
unsuccessful attempt to be all things to all people.
“It certainly
seems like the approach that they’re taking right now is trying to have it both
ways,” said Evan Weber, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a climate
action youth organization that is among the political groups working with the
Biden campaign on policy proposals.
For younger
voters, Weber added, “Going too far in the direction of trying to appeal to a
moderate narrative or a bipartisan era that most people in our generation have
never experienced ... is not going to inspire a lot of confidence.”
Republican
pollster Whit Ayres countered that Biden’s “sweet spot” is the center-left.
“You’ve got to
run on who you are,” Ayres said. “If he becomes a politician of the left, it’s
going to hurt his ability to consolidate the 54% of Americans who voted for
someone other than Donald Trump in 2016.”
Biden deflects
the risks. Asked whether his recent moves mean he’ll govern as a “progressive,”
Biden retorted on CNBC: “I’m going to be Joe Biden. Look at my record.”
Recent
interviews and campaign events reveal the nuances Biden hopes can attract
support in both directions. “I think health care is a right, not a privilege,”
he said on CNBC, espousing an article of faith for the left. But, he added, “I
do not support Medicare for All ” single-payer insurance.
Biden embraces
some key principles of the Green New Deal sweeping climate plan as paths to
“tens of millions of new jobs” but casts as impossible some progressives’ goal
of zeroing out carbon pollution over a decade. He's reaffirmed that he wants
Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts repealed for the wealthiest individuals and
corporations. But he prefers a 28% corporate tax rate – still lower than what
it was before the cuts – and he’s not embraced a “wealth tax" on the
fortunes of the richest Americans. He opposes the Keystone XL pipeline while
stopping short of backing an outright ban on fracking.
The coronavirus
pandemic has influenced Biden's thinking, as well.
Once a senator
who championed a balanced budget amendment, he’s aligned with congressional
Democrats pushing trillions of dollars in aid for states, local governments,
business and individuals. And, adopting the tenor of erstwhile rivals like
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Biden has intensified his calls to rebuild the
economy to reflect progressive values, including stamping out income
inequalities baked into the pre-pandemic system.
Biden aides say
he’s uniquely positioned for a wide “Biden coalition” because voters prioritize
experience and temperament, along with policy. The campaign defines his
coalition as young, African Americans and Latinos, as well as suburban,
college-educated whites, women and those disaffected by Trump.
“We do not have
to make a choice between one group or another group in terms of how we are
going to win this,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a
recent strategy call.
Campaign
co-chairman Cedric Richmond said Biden can stitch together otherwise
irreconcilable parts of the electorate for one reason: Trump.
“We have a
president now with no discernible political philosophy other than what benefits
him,” said Richmond, a Louisiana congressman. “Even people who are not as
progressive (as Biden) and people who are more progressive at least like the
consistency of knowing what a person believes in.”
Anti-Trump
conservatives offer similar sentiments.
“We are living
right now ... with the damage that can be done when a president is elected and
thinks that he only has to answer to his base,” said Jennifer Horn of the
Lincoln Project, which has produced online ads to help thwart Trump’s
reelection.
Even if Biden
prevails in November, governing might prove tougher.
Republicans who
dislike Trump – the kind who cut deals with Sen. Biden or Vice President Biden
– aren’t likely to back President Biden's proposed “public option” health
insurance expansion when they’ve never embraced the Affordable Care Act.
The same goes
for tax hikes and mega-spending energy packages the fossil fuel industry
opposes. And within Biden’s personal base, labor unions whose jobs are anchored
in existing energy markets haven’t embraced the sweeping alternatives.
During the
primary, Biden told skeptics in his own party he’d work with Republicans
“without compromising our values,” but work to “beat them” in the 2022
midterms if that failed.
Meanwhile, Weber,
the Sunrise activist, argued that despite Biden's embrace of some
progressive priorities, “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks."
Tim Miller, a former
spokesman for Republican Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and a steadfast member
of the GOP’s “Never Trump” faction, said more 2016 voters in decisive
battleground states shunned both Trump and Clinton for center-right
alternatives in Libertarian Gary Johnson or Independent Evan McMullen than
[for] Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Winning back just that cohort back [sic]
could be enough to secure Biden to the presidency alone this cycle, he
said.
“I do think
that there’s a concern that if he oversteps, overemphasizes a pivot to the
left that could turn off certain voters who are gettable for him,”
Miller said. “That’s going to be a continued tightrope through November.”
Barrow reported
from Atlanta.
Copyright 2020
The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
THERE MAY
INDEED BE A NEED TO REGULATE THE VERY POWERFUL SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS, AND THE
SEARCH ENGINES AS WELL, JUST BECAUSE THE INTERNET IS LIKE A MANGROVE SWAMP IN THE
DEEP SOUTH RIGHT NOW. I WANT TO SEE ALL KIDDIE PORN SITES REMOVED, AND THE ALEX
JONESES, BECAUSE THEY AREN’T LEGITIMATE POLITICS AT ALL. THEY ARE MUD MONSTERS
SWIMMING AROUND AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POND, WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO WADE INTO THE
WATER. I DON’T THINK MODIFICATION OF INTERNET SERVICES SHOULD BE DONE BY FIAT,
THOUGH, NOR BY ANY ONE PERSON ESPECIALLY AN ANGRY PRESIDENT AIMED AT ADMINISTERING
RETRIBUTION.
Trump threatens
to 'regulate' social media platforms. His options may be limited
By Brian Fung,
CNN Business
Updated 4:19 PM
ET, Wed May 27, 2020
VIDEO -- Twitter
fact-checks Trump's tweets for the first time, CNN
(CNN
Business)President Donald Trump threatened to "regulate" or even
"close" down social media platforms in a series of tweets over the
last day after Twitter added a fact-check label to some of his posts. But
Trump's options for cracking down on Twitter and other platforms over how they
moderate their platforms are somewhat limited, legal experts say.
The options at
Trump's disposal could range from pushing for new legislation to pressuring US
regulators to sue the companies, none of which are guaranteed to accomplish
what the president is threatening to do.
The most
"obvious" course of action would be for Trump to seek changes to the
Communications Decency Act, which shields tech platforms from legal liability
for a wide range of online content, according to Andrew Schwartzman, senior
counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society.
There has been
an ongoing push, led by the Justice Department and Republicans in Congress, to
do just that. But changing the law would require building broad consensus in a
deadlocked Congress. The Trump administration could not go it alone. And a new
law that specifies how tech companies must police their platforms could raise
questions about the law's constitutionality.
"This is
just another example of Trump thinking that the Constitution makes him a king,
but it doesn't," said David Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor
and former senior Federal Trade Commission official.
Trump could
pressure agencies such as the FTC and the Federal Communications Commission to
take action against social media companies. But the agencies have previously
resisted efforts by the White House to transform them into arbiters of
political speech, with officials privately voicing opposition to a draft
executive order that experts at the time said tested the limits of agency
jurisdiction. The FCC regulates phone and broadband infrastructure, said
Schwartzman, and lacks much jurisdiction over Twitter (TWTR) and Facebook (FB)
in the first place.
"I do
think although [FCC Chairman Ajit] Pai has a good relationship with the
president, and they have partnered on some things, I think he is still
maintaining his independence," added one telecom industry official,
speaking from his experience interacting regularly with the agency.
RELATED ARTICLE
-- Twitter labeled Trump tweets with a fact check for the first time
Schwartzman
said one way Trump could seek to "harass" social media companies
would be to pressure the FCC to deny those companies licenses for unrelated
experiments involving satellite internet or wireless spectrum. (Google and
Facebook have both tinkered with beaming high-speed internet to consumers from
drones, balloons or even from space.) But those types of actions would not
substantially affect the companies' core businesses.
Meanwhile, the
FTC is already scrutinizing the tech industry over antitrust concerns. Last
year, Facebook disclosed that it is under active antitrust investigation by
agency officials. But antitrust cases hinge on highly technical economic
analyses, are subject to judicial review and take years to play out.
Trump could try
to appoint allies to the FTC who might be willing to launch still more probes,
experts said, but the laws governing independent bodies such as the FTC make
them harder to politicize than a cabinet agency such as the Justice Department.
The FTC is composed of five commissioners who serve staggered terms, and their
decisions are also subject to judicial review.
Unlike the FTC,
the Justice Department is led by one person, Attorney General William Barr,
making it the most likely tool for going after the social media platforms,
several experts said. The Justice Department is currently conducting a
wide-ranging review of the tech industry, as well as a specific antitrust
investigation of Google. The agency is widely expected to wrap up its tech
review this summer.
Barr has
alluded to complaints of anti-conservative bias on several occasions. In
December, he told an audience of state attorneys general that the
Communications Decency Act "has enabled platforms to absolve themselves
completely of responsibility for policing their platforms, while blocking or
removing third-party speech -- including political speech -- selectively, and
with impunity."
Last week, the
Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has considered establishing a White
House commission to study allegations of conservative bias. But that only
underscores the limits of Trump's direct influence on the matter.
Despite the
limitations, growing tensions with the White House could still be perceived as
a threat to the companies. Twitter and Facebook saw their shares dip on
Wednesday on a day when the overall market was up.
ELECTION
MEDDLING IS A NEW ONE, COMING FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP. SEVERAL COMMENTATORS HAVE POINTED
OUT THE HE LIKES TO ACCUSE OTHERS OF CHARGES FORMERLY AIMED AT HIM. “AND YOU’RE
ANOTHER!!”
Twitter labeled
Trump tweets with a fact check for the first time
By Brian Fung,
CNN Business
Updated 4:39 AM
ET, Wed May 27, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH -- NOW
PLAYING, Twitter fact-checks Trump's tweets for the first time, CNN
Washington (CNN
Business)For the first time, Twitter called tweets from Donald Trump "potentially
misleading" — a decision that prompted the president to accuse the
social media platform of election meddling.
On Tuesday,
Twitter highlighted two of Trump's tweets that falsely claimed mail-in ballots
would lead to widespread voter fraud, appending a message the company has
introduced to combat misinformation and disputed or unverified claims.
"Get the
facts about mail-in ballots," read the message beneath each tweet. It
linked to a curated fact-check page the platform had created filled with
further links and summaries of news articles debunking the assertion.
Twitter said
the move was aimed at providing "context" around Trump's remarks. But
Twitter's unprecedented decision is likely to raise further questions about its
willingness to consistently apply the label to other Trump tweets that have
been deemed misleading by third parties, particularly as the president has
lobbed baseless allegations against former Rep. Joe Scarborough regarding the
death of a congressional staffer years ago.
RELATED ARTICLE
-- He asked Twitter to remove Trump's false tweets about his dead wife. Twitter
refused
Trump's
allegations draw on a discredited conspiracy theory claiming, without
evidence, that Scarborough played a role in the 2001 death of then-staffer Lori
Klausutis. The reckless claims are undermined by the official autopsy, which
found Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition. That history was
painfully recounted in a letter written last week by Klausutis's husband,
Timothy, to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. In the letter, which became public on
Tuesday, Timothy Klausutis pleaded with Dorsey to remove Trump's tweets.
"I'm
asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United
States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead
wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain,"
Klausutis wrote.
When asked by
CNN's Dana Bash on Tuesday about whether social media companies should take
action against Trump for pushing conspiracy theories that a critic
committed murder, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said:
"I'm of the view that social media companies have to reexamine whether or
not — for example, if you put something out saying that — that same outlandish
thing that the president thinks ... they should say it's not true."
Shortly after
the labels were applied, Trump took to Twitter to claim the company "is
interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election" and "stifling FREE
SPEECH." He added that he "will not allow it to happen!"
Twitter
declined to comment on Trump's claims.
Twitter said Tuesday
that Trump's tweets about mail-in voting did not violate the company's rules
because they don't explicitly discourage people from voting. But, the company
said, the label offers context surrounding Trump's claims.
"These
Tweets (here and here) contain potentially misleading information about voting
processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around
mail-in ballots," Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough told CNN
Business in an email. "This decision is in line with the approach we
shared earlier this month."
Rosborough
confirmed that this marks the first instances in which Twitter has labeled any
Trump tweet as potentially misleading.
Twitter's
actions quickly led to criticism from some of its users, however, who said the
measures did not go far enough. Some faulted Twitter for not
explicitly saying in the label that Trump's tweets contained false information;
other users said the company should have used a larger font size.
The instant
feedback highlights how Twitter, which has long grappled with
how to address Trump's tweets, may now find itself under even greater pressure
than before to act in a consistent and transparent manner.
The White House
did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter did not
immediately respond to questions about who assembled the fact-checking page
or whether it was algorithmically generated.
He asked
Twitter to remove Trump's false tweets about his dead wife. Twitter refused
CNN Digital
Expansion 2018, BRIAN STELTERDonie O'Sullivan
By Brian
Stelter and Donie O'Sullivan, CNN Business
Updated 8:11 PM
ET, Tue May 26, 2020
VIDEO -- NOW
PLAYING, Trump pushes conspiracy theory about MSNBC host, CNN Business, 03:47
minutes duration
New York (CNN
Business) -- Six times this month, in a vile attempt to punish a political
rival, President Trump has tweeted about a decades-old conspiracy theory about
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.
Twitter (TWTR)
has come under increasing pressure to remove the tweets, but the company is not
bending, despite being called out by some of the people personally hurt by the
posts.
Facebook, where
many of Trump's tweets about the repugnant theory were cross-posted, also said
Tuesday it would not take any action.
Trump's smears
about Scarborough center on the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, who worked in his
Florida office when he served in Congress. Scarborough's opponents and a bevy
of internet trolls have tried to blame him for her death, even though he was in
Washington at the time.
RELATED ARTICLE
-- Trump's Memorial Day weekend amid pandemic spent golfing, tweeting
conspiracies and insults
Trump brought
up the baseless theory once in 2017, causing a surge of newfound attention
about Klausutis' death — and unwelcome phone calls to her family members.
Trump ratcheted
it up on May 4 and said "Concast," his derogatory name for MSNBC's
owner Comcast, "should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against
Psycho Joe Scarborough." Since then, his tweets have become even more
pointed, essentially accusing Scarborough of murder.
Family members
and friends of Klausutis have watched, some of them in disgust, but have
refrained from commenting publicly for fear that they'd just further the
conspiracy theory.
Klausutis'
widower, T.J. Klausutis, took action in private last week, writing to Twitter
CEO Jack Dorsey and asking him to remove Trump's tweets.
"Nearly 19
years ago, my wife, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, fell and hit her
head on her desk at work. She was found dead the next morning. Her name is Lori
Kaye Klausutis and she was 28 years old when she died," he wrote in a
letter to Dorsey dated May 21. "Her passing is the single most painful
thing that I have ever had to deal with in my 52 years and continues to haunt
her parents and sister."
T.J. said he
has tried to honor his late wife by protecting her memory "as I would have
protected her in life."
He said that's
why he was writing to Dorsey.
"The
President's tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered — without evidence (and
contrary to the official autopsy) — is a violation of Twitter's community rules
and terms of service," he wrote. "An ordinary user like me would be
banished from the platform for such a tweet but I am only asking that these
tweets be removed."
Scarborough's
co-host and wife Mika Brzezinski has also applied pressure, including on their
program "Morning Joe."
"You can
keep tweeting about Joe, but you're just hurting other people," Brzezinski
said to Trump on the air last week.
She publicly
asked for a meeting with Dorsey and said, on Twitter, that "it's just
crazy that Trump, the chief law enforcement officer of the US is using the
power of the presidency to harass someone who is a critic." She said it's
"nuts that this is accepted. Nuts."
On Sunday, when
CNN Business asked Twitter if Trump's "cold case" tweets violated its
rules and if any action would be taken, the company declined to comment.
On Tuesday
morning, New York Times columnist Kara Swisher published the Klausutis letter
and Brzezinski read it on the air.
Three hours
later, Twitter told CNN Business that it would not be removing the tweets.
"We are
deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are
drawing, are causing the family," a Twitter spokesperson said. "We've
been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more
effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those
changes in place shortly."
RELATED ARTICLE
-- Twitter remains silent about Trump's appalling attack against Joe
Scarborough
The company did
not provide any details on what "product features and policies" it
has been working to expand. Klausutis declined to comment.
Last year,
Twitter said it was instituting a policy that would make some exceptions for
world leaders like Trump. The company said it planned to place a disclaimer on
future tweets from world leaders who break its rules but which Twitter decides
are in the "public interest." Twitter made good on that promise on
Tuesday by labeling a pair of Trump's tweets as misleading because he falsely
claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud. But the disputed
tweets about Scarborough and Lori Klausutis have yet to be given this label.
In response to
CNN's request for comment, Facebook said, "We do not remove political
speech solely because people may find it offensive, as this content
understandably is to the family of Lori Klausutis and others. Speech from
candidates and heads of state is among the most scrutinized content on our
platform, which helps ensure people are held accountable for their words."
This is not the
first time conservatives have sought to enflame a conspiracy theory about the
death of a political staffer in order to hurt a Democratic rival.
Fox News host
Sean Hannity and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich helped peddle unfounded
claims about Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer who was
murdered in 2016.
Rich's brother
later called on the likes of Hannity to "take responsibility for the
unimaginable pain" they had caused in spreading baseless information about
how Seth Rich died.
Observers have
pointed out numerous similarities between the Rich and Klausutis cases.
On Tuesday
morning, the President posted twice more about Scarborough, seemingly in
response to news coverage of his behavior. He pointed out that the conspiracy
theory was not a "Donald Trump original thought, this has been going on
for years, long before I joined the chorus."
"This is
much like what Trump did with birtherism," New York Times television
critic James Poniewozik commented. "People may now believe he invented it,
but there too he took a conspiracy theory already fermenting in the swamp and
popularized it" when other politicians wouldn't. "Original thoughts
have never been his thing -- shamelessness is."
At an afternoon
press briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was questioned
about the Scarborough controversy, and she tried to turn it back around on the
MSNBC host.
"If we
want to start talking about false accusations, we have quite a few we can go
through," she said, and brought up comments by Scarborough and Brzezinski
that she called false and "irresponsible." She urged reporters to ask
Scarborough about a comment he made 17 years ago.
When asked if
Trump had seen the letter from Klausutis, McEnany said, "I don't know if
he's seen the letter, but I do know that our hearts are with Lori's family at
this time."
Trump said
later in the afternoon that he has seen the widower's letter, but signaled that
he has no plans to stop tweeting about the subject.
"It's a
very suspicious thing, and I hope that somebody gets to the bottom of it,"
he claimed, even though the case has been closed for nearly two decades.
Read the letter
here:
THAT “HANGING
CHAD” OF AN INSTRUCTION ABOVE IS BLANK BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING THERE FOR ME TO
PUT IN. IT’S A CLERICAL ERROR PROBABLY. THIS FOLLOWING STORY FROM AXIOS GIVES A
CLOUD SITE WHICH WON’T OPEN FOR ME. I’M HAVING TROUBLE WITH ALL MY MOST USED
NEWS SITES TONIGHT. THE INTERNET GODS CLAIM THAT I HAVE NO INTERNET ON THOSE
SITES, WHILE I CLEARLY CAN GET CERTAIN THINGS, SO IT ISN’T THE INTERNET IN
GENERAL. COULD IT BE GOOGLE? I DO HOPE NOT, BECAUSE THEY GENERALLY DO A REALLY
GOOD JOB OF SEARCHING ALL KINDS OF SUBJECTS, AND I DEPEND ON THEM. I’LL TRY
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE.
THE NYT HAS THE
LETTER, ACCORDING TO ONE HEADLINE, BUT I HAVEN’T PAID THE NYT THE RANSOME THEY
DEMAND, SO I CAN’T GET IT. MAYBE YOU CAN. TRY THIS AS WELL FROM THE AXIOS
ARTICLE BELOW, WHICH SUMMARIZES THE CONTENT: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6927911-Twitter-letter.html .
Husband of
deceased Scarborough staffer asks Twitter to delete baseless Trump claims
Jacob Knutson
Updated May 26,
2020 - Politics & Policy
PHOTOGRAPH –
PRESIDENT TRUMP, Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
The husband of
Lori Klausutis, an aide to Joe Scarborough when he was a member of Congress who
died in 2001, asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to take down President Trump's
tweets baselessly accusing the MSNBC host of murdering her, according to
a letter obtained by the New York Times' Kara Swisher.
The state of
play: Timothy Klausutis asked Dorsey to delete the tweets because Trump
"has taken something that does not belong him — the memory of my dead wife
and perverted it for perceived political gain."
"Please
delete those tweets," Klausutis wrote. "My wife deserves
better."
Lori Klausutis
died suddenly after hitting her head on a desk after losing consciousness from
an abnormal heart rhythm. There were no signs of foul play, and her death was
ruled an accident.
Trump continued
to baselessly accuse Scarborough on Twitter Tuesday morning, stating that the
conspiracy theory "was not a Donald Trump original thought."
The backdrop:
Trump accused Scarborough without evidence of murdering Lori Klausutis in multiple
tweets last week. He previously did the same in 2017.
The president
called on his followers to "keep digging" and to "use forensic
geniuses" to find out more about the death, which occurred at
Scarborough’s congressional office in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
Scarborough was
in Washington at the time of her death.
The MSNBC host
and his wife, Mika Brzezinski, have both pushed back on Trump's claims on air
in recent days. Brzezinski called the president a "cruel, sick, disgusting
person" for his tweets.
What they're
saying: "The President's tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered
without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy) — is a violation of
Twitter's community rules and terms of service," Timothy Klausutis wrote.
"An
ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet but
I am only asking that these tweets be removed."
"I am now
angry as well as frustrated and grieved. I understand that Twitter's policies
about content are designed to maintain the appearance that your hands are clean
you provide the platform and the rest is up to users. However, in certain past
cases, Twitter has removed content and accounts that are inconsistent with your
terms of service."
Between the
lines: Twitter has long struggled with how to confront misinformation
originating from world leaders' accounts and has decided to leave their
accounts untouched because "blocking a world leader from Twitter or
removing their controversial tweets, would hide important information people
should be able to see and debate."
Sources told
Swisher that after initial hesitance in dealing with Trump’s tweets about Lori
Klausutis, the company has accelerated work on how to label certain tweets as
false and provide links to high-quality information and reporting that refute
the misinformation.
Twitter
demurred on removing Trump's tweets in a statement on Tuesday, saying that it
was "deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they
are drawing, are causing the family."
"We’ve
been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more
effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those
changes in place shortly," the company added.
THIS SOUNDS LIKE
A PLAUSIBLE IDEA TO ME, SOMETHING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MIGHT DO. WHETHER OR
NOT IT WILL STOP THEM FROM BEHAVING AS THEY ALWAYS HAVE IS ANOTHER QUESTION,
THOUGH. IF THE PEOPLE OF TAIWAN (AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT) ARE IMPORTANT TO
US, WE SHOULD SPEAK UP FOR THEM. JUST AS LANGUAGES CAN DIE OUT DUE TO THE
DWINDLING NUMBER OF SPEAKERS, SO CAN IDEAS. WE NEED TO TRY TO AVOID THAT, EVEN
IF IT SEEMS FUTILE. MAYBE WE JUST AREN’T SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGH ON SOME OF
THOSE ISSUES. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT AMERICA ITSELF IS AN IDEA.
Top campaign
advisor says Biden would sanction China over Hong Kong
By Michael
Martina
Reuters • May
27, 2020
DETROIT
(Reuters) - Joe Biden would sanction China if president for its plan to impose
new national security rules on Hong Kong, his campaign said on Wednesday, and
accused President Donald Trump of having "enabled" Beijing's curbs on
freedoms in the former British colony.
The United
States had to "take a stand against China's crackdown in Hong Kong,"
said Tony Blinken, a senior foreign policy advisor for Biden, the likely
Democratic nominee to take on Trump in November's election.
He said the
former vice president would rally American allies to pressure China, leverage
he said Trump had "forfeited," and criticized the Republican
president for praising leader Xi Jinping in the face of pro-democracy protests
that shook the territory last year.
A Biden
administration would "fully enforce" the Hong Kong Human Rights and
Democracy Act, "including sanctions on officials, financial institutions,
companies and individuals," Blinken said in a statement.
The act,
approved by Trump last year, requires the State Department to certify at least
annually that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify the favorable U.S.
trading terms that have helped it remain a world financial center.
U.S. Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo told Congress on Wednesday the proposed new legislation
undermines Hong Kong's autonomy so fundamentally that he could not support
recertification.
It now falls to
President Donald Trump to decide to end some, all or none of the U.S. economic
privileges the territory enjoys. He said on Tuesday Washington was working on a
strong response that would be announced before the end of the week.
Beijing's
security proposal, unveiled last week, sparked the first large street
demonstrations in Hong Kong for months.
Pro-democracy
demonstrators in Hong Kong have for years opposed the idea of national security
laws, arguing they could erode the city's high degree of autonomy guaranteed
under the "one country, two systems" formula in place for two
decades.
"China
shouldn't get the economic benefit of Hong Kong's free economy without the rule
of law that underpins it," Blinken said.
(Reporting by
Michael Martina; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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