Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Courtesy of the Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services
A mural on the wall inside Casa Padre, the largest government-contracted migrant youth shelter, located in Brownsville, Texas.
This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans.
The girls, 8 and 11, were alone in a rented room in a dangerous Mexican city bordering Texas. Their father had been attacked and abandoned on the side of a road and they didn’t know where he was.
For seven months the children had waited with their dad in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, to ask U.S. authorities for asylum. They had fled their home after death threats from local gang members and no help from police. They had also been victims of sexual assault.
But in March, after their father suddenly didn’t return from his construction job, a neighbor took the children to the international bridge. He said they should present themselves to U.S. immigration authorities, who would reunite the girls with their mother in Houston.
“Mami,” the eldest panicked in a brief call immigration agents made to the mother. “Daddy didn’t come home.”
The mother, at work in Houston, said she nearly fainted.
Before the coronavirus pandemic upended everything, the children likely would have spent a few weeks in the care of a U.S. shelter until they were released to their mother to pursue their asylum cases.
For more Claytoonz click here.
Tags: maga , trump , covid19 , leeches , archaic , mask , political , cartoon , Image
Monday, May 18, 2020
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
An Omaha, Nebraska-based private jet company whose principal owner donated generously to Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the 2016 election received $20 million in taxpayer aid from the federal bailout package passed in March.
Jet Linx Aviation, which caters to well-to-do CEOs and executives, was the second private plane company founded or owned by Trump donors to receive federal funds designated for the airline industry under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. CNBC reported on Thursday that Clay Lacy Aviation, a Van Nuys, California-based private jet company whose founder has given nearly $50,000 to the Republican National Committee and Trump, got $27 million in federal funds.
Jet Linx Management Company Vice Chairman John Denny Carreker and his wife, Connie, gave $68,100 to Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Victory Committee between October 2015 and November 2016, Federal Election Commission filings show. Connie Carreker gave an additional $1,000 to the Trump campaign in November 2018, according to the FEC.
An Omaha, Nebraska-based private jet company whose principal owner donated generously to Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the 2016 election received $20 million in taxpayer aid from the federal bailout package passed in March.
Jet Linx Aviation, which caters to well-to-do CEOs and executives, was the second private plane company founded or owned by Trump donors to receive federal funds designated for the airline industry under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. CNBC reported on Thursday that Clay Lacy Aviation, a Van Nuys, California-based private jet company whose founder has given nearly $50,000 to the Republican National Committee and Trump, got $27 million in federal funds.
Jet Linx Management Company Vice Chairman John Denny Carreker and his wife, Connie, gave $68,100 to Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Trump Victory Committee between October 2015 and November 2016, Federal Election Commission filings show. Connie Carreker gave an additional $1,000 to the Trump campaign in November 2018, according to the FEC.
For more Claytoonz click here.
Tags: maga , trump , corruption , political , cartoon , Image
Friday, May 15, 2020
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Last November, Rick Bright, then the director of a federal office that approves funding for medical emergencies, sat in on a meeting between his boss and two men — a pharmaceutical and biotech consultant and an Emory University professor — seeking millions of dollars for an unproven drug.
Bright wrote in a whistleblower complaint filed last week that he was wary as professor George Painter and consultant John Clerici described the drug “as a ‘cure all’ for influenza, Ebola, and nearly every other virus.” The team came back in February with an updated pitch after the coronavirus outbreak, suggesting its antiviral medication could be a treatment for COVID-19.
Painter, a pharmacology professor and CEO of a nonprofit biotech company, had already received $30 million from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense for small-scale clinical trials. But as Bright described in his complaint, Painter sought more money from Bright’s office, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Instead of going through Bright’s formal application process, Painter and Clerici sought funding through a separate, more “opaque” program created by Bright’s boss, Robert Kadlec — a Trump administration appointee and friend of Painter’s. Kadlec’s program was designed to support products, equipment and technology, Bright said, and lacked the expertise to evaluate drug development.
Last November, Rick Bright, then the director of a federal office that approves funding for medical emergencies, sat in on a meeting between his boss and two men — a pharmaceutical and biotech consultant and an Emory University professor — seeking millions of dollars for an unproven drug.
Bright wrote in a whistleblower complaint filed last week that he was wary as professor George Painter and consultant John Clerici described the drug “as a ‘cure all’ for influenza, Ebola, and nearly every other virus.” The team came back in February with an updated pitch after the coronavirus outbreak, suggesting its antiviral medication could be a treatment for COVID-19.
Painter, a pharmacology professor and CEO of a nonprofit biotech company, had already received $30 million from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense for small-scale clinical trials. But as Bright described in his complaint, Painter sought more money from Bright’s office, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). Instead of going through Bright’s formal application process, Painter and Clerici sought funding through a separate, more “opaque” program created by Bright’s boss, Robert Kadlec — a Trump administration appointee and friend of Painter’s. Kadlec’s program was designed to support products, equipment and technology, Bright said, and lacked the expertise to evaluate drug development.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Within a few weeks, the Federal Reserve will start a $600 billion lending program that the Trump administration says will help 40,000 midsized businesses that employ 35 million Americans.
The Main Street Lending Program is the next marquee effort of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed in March. It is set to begin after weeks of criticism of the first, the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. While it’s too early to judge a program that hasn’t begun, the Main Street effort appears to have replicated some of the flaws of the paycheck program, and it has added some new ones.
Experts from across the political spectrum already are concerned that the Main Street program will not come close to meeting the ambitious goals touted by the administration. They worry it will move too slowly, that lenders won’t embrace it and that companies won’t seek out the loans because they’re not sure whether they’ll be able to pay them back.
“My fear is that no one will lend and no one will borrow,” said Glenn Hubbard, an economist at Columbia Business School who served in the George W. Bush administration.
Within a few weeks, the Federal Reserve will start a $600 billion lending program that the Trump administration says will help 40,000 midsized businesses that employ 35 million Americans.
The Main Street Lending Program is the next marquee effort of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed in March. It is set to begin after weeks of criticism of the first, the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses. While it’s too early to judge a program that hasn’t begun, the Main Street effort appears to have replicated some of the flaws of the paycheck program, and it has added some new ones.
Experts from across the political spectrum already are concerned that the Main Street program will not come close to meeting the ambitious goals touted by the administration. They worry it will move too slowly, that lenders won’t embrace it and that companies won’t seek out the loans because they’re not sure whether they’ll be able to pay them back.
“My fear is that no one will lend and no one will borrow,” said Glenn Hubbard, an economist at Columbia Business School who served in the George W. Bush administration.
For more Claytoonz click here.
Tags: maga , covid19 , coronavirus , political , cartoon , Image
Thursday, May 14, 2020
TEMPE – In any other election year, Eva Putzova would be driving across Arizona’s sprawling 1st District to get to in-person campaign events in her challenge to Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Sedona.
But this is not any other election year.
Faced with the stay-home orders and social distancing brought on by the coronavirus, Putzova and her campaign team have put all in-person activities on hold and are operating remotely for the most part.
“While we all are dealing with a lot of stress and worry about our loved ones because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can’t put democracy on pause,” Putzova, a former Flagstaff City Council member, said in an emailed statement.
“Organizing in geographically one of the largest districts in the country means that as a team we have already been operating mostly remotely,” said Putzova, a Democrat.
Candidates across Arizona and the nation have suspended rallies and in-person canvassing, and have their campaign staffers work from home because of the coronavirus. In addition to the challenge reaching voters, COVID-19 brings competition for financial donations and media attention.
“Nobody was planning on this happening when they put together their campaign,” said Chad Campbell, senior vice president for Strategies 360. “If you were planning on doing a lot of time door-to-door, you probably have to shift … money and time to phones and to texting and to digital.”
But this is not any other election year.
Faced with the stay-home orders and social distancing brought on by the coronavirus, Putzova and her campaign team have put all in-person activities on hold and are operating remotely for the most part.
“While we all are dealing with a lot of stress and worry about our loved ones because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can’t put democracy on pause,” Putzova, a former Flagstaff City Council member, said in an emailed statement.
“Organizing in geographically one of the largest districts in the country means that as a team we have already been operating mostly remotely,” said Putzova, a Democrat.
Candidates across Arizona and the nation have suspended rallies and in-person canvassing, and have their campaign staffers work from home because of the coronavirus. In addition to the challenge reaching voters, COVID-19 brings competition for financial donations and media attention.
“Nobody was planning on this happening when they put together their campaign,” said Chad Campbell, senior vice president for Strategies 360. “If you were planning on doing a lot of time door-to-door, you probably have to shift … money and time to phones and to texting and to digital.”
Stay up to date with WNYC and ProPublica’s investigations into the president’s business practices.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday, via teleconference, about the power to investigate the president.
President Donald Trump has objected to subpoenas for his tax returns and other financial records. New York City prosecutors have demanded the documents as part of a criminal investigation into the president’s hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, while the House of Representatives has been seeking to investigate the conflicts of interests of a president who still owns a sprawling business.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that a president shouldn’t be subject to investigation while in office. “We’re asking for temporary presidential immunity,” attorney Jay Sekulow said.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday, via teleconference, about the power to investigate the president.
President Donald Trump has objected to subpoenas for his tax returns and other financial records. New York City prosecutors have demanded the documents as part of a criminal investigation into the president’s hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, while the House of Representatives has been seeking to investigate the conflicts of interests of a president who still owns a sprawling business.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that a president shouldn’t be subject to investigation while in office. “We’re asking for temporary presidential immunity,” attorney Jay Sekulow said.
Courtesy photo
Councilmember Richard Fimbres
Richard Fimbres is the Councilmember for Tucson’s Ward 5. This nation is facing a health crisis, with the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 1,300,000 cases and more than 80,000 dead while Arizona had more than 12,176 cases with 594, who passed away from COVID-19.
Throughout our nation, many primary elections had either been postponed or canceled outright. One state, Wisconsin, still held their primary election, for which 52 citizens of Wisconsin, tested positive for COVID-19, after trying to exercise their right to vote.
We know that this election year will be different and changes are needed for the voting process. We cannot risk our citizens for the old practice of going to the polling places.
Arizona offers voters the option of signing up to receive their ballot in the mail, using the Permanent Early Voting List (PEVL). Voters must fill out the form and send it in.
With this COVID-19 health crisis and pandemic, people have raised questions and concerns about voting at a polling location, social distancing, occupancy at a polling place, and whether the voting equipment and ballots have been sanitized.
The vote by mail process answers these questions and addresses these concerns, a vote-by-mail election process, for which Tucson has, and is safe.
Tags: opinion , councilmember , voting , ballots , mail-in , Image
