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The post Joe Biden says he is considering four Black women to be his running mate appeared first on Virus Reports.
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]]>The post Trump says he’s considering pardon for Roger Stone days before prison sentence set to begin appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>President Trump on Friday said he was “looking at” a pardon for longtime GOP operative Roger Stone who is slated to report to prison for more than three years on Monday, saying he was treated “unfairly.”
The president, departing the White House, was asked whether he would pardon Stone.
EXCLUSIVE: ROGER STONE ‘PRAYING’ FOR CLEMENCY FROM TRUMP AHEAD OF PRISON SENTENCE
“I’ll be looking at it,” Trump said. “I think Roger Stone was very unfairly treated, as for many people.”
He added: “And in the meantime, [former FBI director James] Comey and all these guys are walking around, including Biden and Obama, because we caught them spying on my campaign. Who would have believed that?”
The president has signaled he could be open to granting Stone clemency — saying in a tweet last month that Stone was “a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night!”
Stone is set to report to prison on July 14. He was sentenced in February to more than three years in prison after being convicted in November 2019 on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress on charges that stemmed from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Stone, however, has appealed his conviction and continues to deny any wrongdoing.
During an exclusive interview with Fox News this week, Stone said he was “praying” for Trump to intervene.
When asked whether he’d prefer a pardon, or a commutation of his sentence, Stone said “either one obviously would have an effect, in my opinion, of saving my life.”
A presidential pardon completely absolves an individual of the crime he or she is found to have committed. A commutation lessens the punishment or eliminates jail time, but leaves the conviction standing.
“I have deep concerns about going to a prison where there absolutely is COVID virus, and, therefore, either one would have an effect of saving my life,” Stone said.
He added: “If I should be fortunate enough to get a commutation, I would continue to fight for vindication.
“I think I’ll be the last person to know,” Stone told Fox News. “He hates leaks, and he hates to be told what to do. I have instructed my lawyers not to contact the lawyers at the White House.”
Stone added: “The president, who I’ve known for 40 years, has an incredible sense of fairness. He is aware that the people trying to destroy Michael Flynn, now trying to destroy me, are the people trying to destroy him.”
Stone told Fox News he has not yet received any formal communication from the White House on a potential presidential pardon or commutation of his sentence, which is set to begin Monday and last for 40 months.
“I certainly think it could happen,” Stone said. “I’m not going to second-guess the president.”
Stone was not charged with any underlying crime of coordinating with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, though Mueller’s team investigated Stone over tweets claiming to have information about WikiLeaks document dumps prior to their release.
Meanwhile, sources told Fox News that U.S. Attorney from Connecticut John Durham, who is investigating potential misconduct in the origins of the Russia probe, could wait to release his findings or initiate prosecutions until after the election, as he faces pressure to complete his wide-ranging investigation by the end of summer.
Two sources familiar with Durham’s investigation told Fox News this week that he is working expeditiously to try to finish the probe by the end of summer, but that several lines of investigation are not yet complete.
DURHAM, UNDER PRESSURE TO WRAP UP INVESTIGATION, COULD ‘PUNT’ UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION: SOURCE
“He believes it’s critical to do them,” one source said. “He is feeling more pressure to get this done and wrapped up.”
The source also told Fox News that Durham “does not want this to be viewed political,” and the closer it gets to November, Durham could “punt it to after the election.”
A spokesman for Durham declined to comment on the status of the investigation.
Regardless, Attorney General Bill Barr has said that he does not expect Durham’s findings will lead to a “criminal investigation” of either former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden — despite Trump’s claims—while noting that their concern of “potential criminality” in the conduct of that probe is “focused on others.
Barr, earlier this year, said that “not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime.”
“As for President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement based on what I know, I don’t expect Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man,” Barr said. “Our concern of potential criminality is focused on others.”
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]]>The post US considering pool testing for COVID-19: All you need to know about this new approach appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>As the US continues to see a rise in the numbers of COVID-19 cases, the country’s health officials are considering a new testing strategy to determine just how many people have been exposed to the virus. Called pool testing, the proposed strategy involves combining samples from multiple people and testing as a group.
Speaking to media persons, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, admitted that the country’s current approach of only testing symptomatic COVID-19 patients and tracing their contacts isn’t working. This is because asymptomatic people are spreading the virus unknowingly.
To improve the COVID-19 surveillance, Dr. Fauci said officials are talking about implementing pool testing. Experts believe that pooling would boost the country’s testing capacity from half a million tests a day now to potentially 5 million tests per day. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, pool testing was only used in blood banking. How it will be used for SARS-CoV-2 testing? Will it help contain outbreaks of COVID-19? Keep reading to know all about the proposed testing strategy.
How pool testing works
Pool testing also uses the same polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology like the current diagnostic tests, but it is the method by which people are tested which makes this approach unique.
In this method, samples from multiple people are combined and tested at one time. If the result is negative, it means the entire group is negative for the coronavirus. However, if a pool gets a positive result, it will be moved to the second phase of testing that involves breaking down the pool into smaller samples to identify the infected person or people.
The number of samples used for pool testing may depend on the type of machine being used for the test. While some say that up to 10 samples could be pooled in, others recommend up to 50. A preprint study from Israel suggests that the virus can be detected in a pool with as many as 64 samples.
Advantages of pool testing
Some experts opined that implementation of pool testing can increase the number of people tested tenfold. It is also more cost-effective and can reduce the burden on laboratories. Pool testing will help identify asymptomatic COVID-19 patients and weed out those who are not infected. This method is less time-consuming and so it will speed up the testing process.
Drawbacks of pool testing
The main drawback of this method is that it’s not a foolproof approach. If the number of infected people is too high in the initial sample, it may be difficult to identify them in the group.
Again if the pool is too large, the samples can be less viable. There are chances that some positive cases might show up as negative after diluting with large numbers. Moreover, pool testing may not be suitable everywhere as there are variations in the prevalence of the disease.
According to some experts, pool testing is best in places with low rates of COVID-19, where there are high chances that the large majority of tests would be negative. Another disadvantage of pool testing is that when the test result turns out positive, all the samples must be retested individually. This long gap in confirming the test could cause anxiety among people who are waiting for their individual results.
Published : July 1, 2020 3:41 pm | Updated:July 2, 2020 6:36 am
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]]>The post Trump considering a move to invoke Insurrection Act appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington.
Patrick Semansky | AP
President Donald Trump is considering invoking a 213-year-old federal law that would allow him to deploy active-duty U.S. troops to respond to protests in cities across the country, according to four people familiar with the internal White House discussions.
Trump has warmed to the idea of using the Insurrection Act, adopted in 1807, to deploy troops as his frustrations mount over the protests that have followed the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in police custody last week in Minneapolis.
Some of the president’s aides have been encouraging him for days to invoke the act, as he weighs options for exercising executive powers to address the crisis. The act was last invoked during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article but at a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility that the president could invoke the act.
“The Insurrection Act, it’s one of the tools available, whether the president decides to pursue that, that’s his prerogative,” McEnany said.
Governors can ask that the federal government send active duty troops to help in cases of civil unrest like the widespread protests plaguing U.S. cities over the last several days. But, so far, no governor has requested active duty troops to assist and instead have relied on local law enforcement and National Guard soldiers and airmen on state active duty.
Governors often prefer the National Guard forces in these cases because they can legally perform law enforcement duties in the U.S., whereas troops on active duty cannot or they violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a 1878 law that prohibits the government from using military forces to act as a police force within U.S. borders.
But the president could invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops without a request from a governor. Those troops would be allowed to conduct law enforcement missions. To invoke the act, Trump would first have to issue a proclamation to “immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time,” according to the law.
In the past the Justice Department has drafted such proclamations. And according to the Congressional Research Service, the act has been invoked many times throughout U.S. history although rarely since the 1960s civil rights era. When it was invoked in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, the move was requested by then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, not invoked solely by the president.
The Defense Department declined to comment on the possibility that the president could invoke the act.
One of Trump’s allies outside the White House, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act “if necessary” so U.S. troops can “support our local law enforcement and ensure that this violence ends tonight.”
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]]>The post Considering history, COVID-19 is hardly a plague appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Great plagues have changed the course of history.
Best known is the Black Death (1347-51), introduced to Europe from Asia through trade routes, carried by rats and transmitted by fleas.
This bubonic plague killed up to one-third to one-half of the population of Europe, almost literally burying the old social order that was medieval feudalism, wiping the slate clean for the rise of mercantilism, the Age of Exploration and the Renaissance.
Lesser known is the Antonine Plague (165-180 A.D.), introduced to the Roman Empire through trade with Asia, probably the measles or smallpox.
The Antonine Plague, according to contemporary accounts, caused 2,000 deaths daily in Rome, an estimated 5 million deaths throughout the Empire, and devastated the Roman legions, hampering defense of the eastern and northern frontiers.
According to Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, for whom the plague is named, writing from his camp on the Rhine: “With their ranks thinned by the epidemic, Roman armies were now unable to push the tribes back.” (Macromannic Wars)
The Plague of Justinian (541-542 A.D.), introduced to the Mediterranean and Europe from Asia, is one of the deadliest plagues in history, possibly the bubonic plague and rehearsal for the later Black Death. An estimated 25 million to 100 million died, perhaps as much as half the population of Europe.
Byzantine historian Procopius, who eyewitnessed the Plague of Justinian, reports that in the capital, Constantinople, 10,000 died daily. He bitterly criticized Emperor Justinian for making matters worse with oppressive taxation, indifferent to the plague’s economic devastation:
“When pestilence swept through the whole known world and notably the Roman Empire, wiping out most of the farming community and of necessity leaving a trail of devastation in its wake, Justinian showed no mercy towards the ruined freeholders. Even then, he did not refrain from demanding the annual tax, not only the amount at which he assessed every individual, but also the amount for which his deceased neighbors were liable.” (Procopius, Anekdota 558 A.D.)
The Plague of Justinian is one of the most consequential in history — preventing resurrection of a reunited Roman Empire:
“The plague’s long-term effects on European and Christian history were enormous … The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at a critical point, when Justinian’s armies had nearly retaken all of Italy and the western Mediterranean … the evolving conquest would have reunited the core of the Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Roman Empire.” (Cyril Mango, “Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome,” 1980)
The plague buried the last chance for continuity of classical civilization in Western Europe, bringing on the Dark Ages.
Perhaps the deadliest, most consequential, and most tragic plague in history has no name.
In the three centuries (1500-1800) after Columbus discovered America, European diseases, including smallpox and measles, to which Native American populations had no immunity, spread like wildfire through the New World, from Tierra del Fuego in the South to the Arctic Circle, killing 90 percent or more, emptying the continents of their original peoples.
Happily, the coronavirus is proving far less deadly than the great plagues of history, with a mortality rate continually being revised downward, now much less than 1 percent. Coronavirus hardly deserves to be described as a plague at all.
Nonetheless, the unprecedented reaction, many would say overreaction, of U.S. and allied governments — to contain the coronavirus by mass social isolation and suspending all but the most essential economic activity — may well have catastrophic consequences for Western Civilization.
In three months, the U.S. economy has gone from being the most prosperous in history into a deepening New Great Depression from which there may be no quick recovery. More than 39 million Americans are unemployed, some 15 percent of the workforce, eclipsing the worst of the 1930s Great Depression.
$6 trillion in new debt has been added, virtually overnight, by U.S. government spending on so-called “coronavirus recovery” to mitigate the disastrous effects of government-imposed unemployment and small-business closures.
White House hopes for quick recovery sound like socialist fantasies about the miraculous power of government economic planning, not free market realism.
Government can strangle the “golden goose” but not force its corpse to lay eggs, as the Emperor Justinian discovered.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper no longer talks about defense increases, but instead hopes for “flat” future defense budgets. But a New Great Depression means deep defense cuts, sharp decline of U.S. military power and a more dangerous world.
The Pentagon needs to re-focus priorities on defense investments that buy the most security at the least cost.
For example, space-based missile defense can shield America from growing nuclear and hypersonic missile threats in just five years for $20 billion. EMP and cyber-protection of electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures can be achieved without spending defense dollars.
The coronavirus New Great Depression may be our Plague of Justinian.
It happens just when President Trump was rebuilding economic and military strength possibly capable of sustaining the post-1945 world order led by the United States — call it “Pax Americana.”
Now, saving Pax Americana may be as unrealistic as Justinian’s hopes to resurrect the Roman Empire. As Justinian learned, when there is no money to pay the legions, the barbarians win.
• Peter Vincent Pry, director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, served as chief of staff on the Congressional EMP Commission, and on the staffs of the House Armed Service Committee and the CIA. He is author most recently of “The Power And The Light” (Amazon.com).
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]]>The post Trump ‘considering’ travel ban after Brazil suffers deadliest coronavirus day on record appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>President Donald Trump said he is considering imposing a travel ban on Brazil, following the South American country’s deadliest day on record as a result of the coronavirus.
“We are considering it. We hope that we are not going to have a problem,” Trump told reporters at the White House late Tuesday.
“I don’t want people coming over here and infecting our people. I don’t want people over there sick either. We are helping Brazil with ventilators … Brazil is having some trouble, no question about it,” Trump added.
His comments came shortly after Brazil’s daily death toll from the coronavirus jumped to a record of 1,179 on Tuesday.
Prior to that, the highest number of recorded fatalities in South America’s largest country had been 881 deaths on May 12, Reuters reported.
To date, more than 271,000 people have contracted Covid-19 in Brazil, with 17,983 deaths nationwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
It has recorded the third-highest number of confirmed coronavirus infections globally, behind the U.S. and Russia, respectively.
An aerial view of a nearly empty Saara region, a large shopping area in the center of the city during a lockdown aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic on March 24, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Buda Mendes | Getty Images
To be sure, the U.S. has reported by far the highest number of Covid-19 infections and deaths. It has recorded 1.5 million cases of the virus, with almost 92,000 fatalities.
Trump said he viewed the large number of cases in the U.S. as a “badge of honor.”
“It is a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of the professionals have done,” he added.
The president has previously claimed testing for the coronavirus is “somewhat overrated,” despite health experts saying it is a crucial element of the pandemic response.
What’s going on in Brazil?
The prospect of the U.S. imposing a travel ban from Brazil comes as President Jair Bolsonaro faces intensifying criticism for his own handling of the coronavirus epidemic.
The right-wing leader, an ideological ally of Trump, has repeatedly played down the threat of the outbreak, dismissing it as a “little flu” and condemning state governors for imposing lockdowns that are causing job losses.
Last week, Brazil’s health minister Nelson Teich handed in his resignation after less than a month in the job. The decision came after Teich resisted Bolsonaro’s calls for the wider use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus.
Jair Bolsonaro President of Brazil takes off his protective mask to speak to journalists during a press conference about outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID – 19) at the Planalto Palace on March 20, 2020 in Brasilia, Brazil.
Andressa Anholete | Getty Images
The drug, which has not been proven to effectively treat or prevent Covid-19, is the same one Trump has said he is taking in an effort to ward off the virus.
Public health officials have warned it is unsafe to do so and regulators say it can cause heart problems.
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]]>The post DOJ considering whether to pursue hate crime charges in killing of Ahmaud Arbery appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering whether to pursue federal hate crime charges in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the black man investigators say was shot by a white father and son as he ran through a Georgia neighborhood.
“The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia have been supporting and will continue to fully support and participate in the state investigation,” a statement from DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Monday.
Kupec continued: “We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crimes charges are appropriate. In addition, we are considering the request of the Attorney General of Georgia and have asked that he forward to federal authorities any information that he has about the handling of the investigation. We will continue to assess all information, and we will take any appropriate action that is warranted by the facts and the law.”
The DOJ statement comes a day after Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr asked the DOJ to conduct an investigation into how the case was handled by Georgia law enforcement. The case has seen two prosecutors replaced after potential conflicts of interest arose and it took more than two months after the fatal shooting for law enforcement to arrest the father and son.
In this Tuesday, May 5, 2020, photo, a crowd marches through a neighborhood in Brunswick, Ga. They were demanding answers in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. An outcry over the Feb. 23 shooting of Arbery has intensified after cellphone video that lawyers for Arbery’s family say shows him being shot to death by two white men. (Bobby Haven/The Brunswick News via AP)
AHMAUD ARBERY CASE: GEORGIA AG REQUESTS DOJ INVESTIGATION INTO DEADLY SHOOTING
“We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Carr said in a statement. “The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.”
A video that appeared to show the shooting last week elevated the case to a national issue, with sports stars, politicians and others weighing in on the killing and the fact that the two suspects, Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis, had not yet been arrested. The pair were eventually arrested on Thursday night by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They were charged with murder and aggravated assault.
A police report on the incident, obtained by the New York Times, indicates that Gregory McMichael told officers there had been a string of break-ins in the neighborhood, which had been caught on surveillance cameras, and that McMichael claimed Arbery was a suspect. McMichael also claimed, according to the police report, that he saw this individual “hauling ass” on the street.
McMichael and his son then, according to the report, armed themselves and tracked down Arbery on the road before saying “stop, stop, we want to talk to you.” Gregory claimed to police that Arbery attempted to attack Travis after Travis exited the truck with a shotgun, a confrontation that led to two shots being fired.
The video, however, does not appear to support that Arbery attacked Travis McMichael, although the beginning of the physical confrontation between the two men is obscured by the truck the father and son were driving.
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Another video emerged on Sunday purporting to show Arbery at a construction site shortly before his death.
Lawyers for Arbery’s family said the video bolstered their position that Arbery did nothing wrong. Under Georgia law, someone who isn’t a sworn police officer can arrest and detain another person only if a felony is committed in the presence of the arresting citizen.
“Ahmaud’s actions at this empty home under construction were in no way a felony under Georgia law,” the lawyers wrote in a social media post. “This video confirms that Mr. Arbery’s murder was not justified and the actions of the men who pursued him and ambushed him were unjustified.”
Fox News’ Frank Miles and Michael Ruiz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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