By BY CARL HULSE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/36Jxzgg
Friday, January 31, 2020
Once Skeptical, Senate Republicans Are All In on Trump
By BY CARL HULSE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/36Jxzgg
Republicans Block Impeachment Witnesses, Clearing Path for Trump Acquittal
By BY MICHAEL D. SHEAR AND NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38TOpdN
Diplomat at Center of Trump Impeachment Retires From State Department
By BY LARA JAKES from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3b39uUL
Despite Evidence, Republicans Rallied Behind Trump. This Was Their Reasoning.
By BY ZACH MONTAGUE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S6ODaL
A consequential vote is captured in pencil.
By BY ALICIA PARLAPIANO from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S8BYnx
Biden says his focus is on defeating Trump at the ballot box.
By BY KATIE GLUECK from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2tgy6IH
Former Coast Guard Lieutenant Is Sentenced to 13 Years in Prison on Gun and Drug Charges
By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2uaZAQp
Democrats unsuccessfully try to force four amendments.
By BY EMILY COCHRANE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RJiGWO
Trump signed off on the plan for his trial’s close.
By BY NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UlkUxz
New top story from Time: ‘They Have to Defeat Cynicism.’ Jon Favreau on What Democrats Can Learn From Swing Voters
Jon Favreau is on a mission to figure out how the Democratic Party can defeat President Donald Trump. So for the second season of his Crooked Media podcast, The Wilderness, Barack Obama’s former top speechwriter gathered the types of voters Democrats need to win in 2020 and asked them what they wanted. The goal was to learn what they thought of the Trump presidency, and what they wanted from a Democratic candidate.
The top-line result: it’s hard to win over voters when they’re so thoroughly disgusted with politics that they’re tuning you out.
In October, Favreau convened four different focus groups: Obama-Trump voters in Wisconsin who voted for Democrats in 2018; voters in Arizona who voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016; voters in Florida who voted for Obama but stayed home or voted third party in 2016; and Democratic-leaning voters in Pennsylvania who don’t pay much attention to the news.
The first thing Favreau noticed in this coveted cross-section of voters was that many of them are barely paying attention to the presidential election unfolding. Most people in the focus groups had only heard of Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders. A handful had heard of Senator Elizabeth Warren. And the overwhelming sensation was exhaustion.
“People are so turned off by politics and so distrustful of all of our institutions,” says Favreau. “They’re cynical, they’re distrustful, they’re sad.”
Favreau tried to start each focus group with small talk to lighten the mood, but “people brought up Trump immediately,” Favreau says in an interview. “He’s a national psychic wound on our politics. He’s succeeded in making people even more cynical about everything.”
Nearly all the voters were deeply frustrated with the political system. “You have people who say ‘I’m so sick of the parties, I wish they would work together and get something done,’ and then people will say ‘I want the blow up the system, I just want to get something done,'” Favreau says. “Voters are saying, ‘I don’t care which way you do it. Just do something that fixes my life.'”
He noticed a few broad trends. Health care was the top issue for each group. Only a handful of participants said they would consider voting for Trump again, while roughly half said they’d definitely vote for the Democratic nominee.
While Biden and Sanders were the most well-known candidates, neither seemed universally admired. When Biden’s name came up, a few voters suggested he may be too old or out of touch, but mostly Favreau noticed a sort of bland indifference. “I was surprised at how few had an opinion of him,” he says.
Sanders was more divisive. Voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—including several who had voted for Trump—told Favreau that they respected Sanders because “they knew where he stood.” But in Arizona and Florida voters raised concerns about whether Sanders was too far left. “They don’t like Trump, but if we present them with Bernie Sanders, what will they do?” Favreau says.
Favreau asked the voters to name the attributes they’d like to see in their ideal candidate. The responses: honesty, integrity, an even temperament, “someone who’s not going to tweet all the time, someone who’s an outsider, someone who’s not too far to the left.” To Favreau, “it sounded like they were trying to construct Pete Buttigieg.”
Overall, Favreau came away with a sense that Democrats had a bigger opponent than Trump: they had to overcome malaise. “For a Democratic candidate to break through,” he says, “they can’t just beat Trump. They have to defeat the cynicism.”
Roberts says it would be ‘inappropriate’ for him to act as a tie-breaker.
By BY CATIE EDMONDSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UfphtG
Giuliani Sought Help for Client in Meeting With Ukrainian Official
By BY RONEN BERGMAN, ANTON TROIANOVSKI AND KENNETH P. VOGEL from NYT World https://ift.tt/3b0Qu9x
Watch Live: Senators Debate Impeachment Trial Amendments
By Unknown Author from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZYp78
New top story from Time: A U.S. Plane Crashed in Afghanistan. Why So Many Believed a CIA Chief Was On It.
The wreckage of a U.S. military plane that crashed and burned on a snowy mountain peak in Afghanistan on Monday was still fresh when Iranian state TV ran a story claiming a top CIA officer was among the dead. Like all good propaganda, the story was mostly false, but with a scintilla of truth. Two American service members had been killed when the U.S. Air Force jet slammed into the side of the mountain, but U.S. officials insist there was no CIA onboard.
A combination of bad weather and Taliban gunfire kept U.S. and Afghan forces from reaching the site for more than a day. By the time the U.S. military put out a brief statement saying that the downed plane carried two U.S. Air Force pilots, the dubious story had spread around the globe.
After a couple of fringy Iranian and pro-Kremlin news outlets reported that Michael D’Andrea, head of the CIA’s Iran Mission Center, was onboard the E-11A communications jet, the story was picked up in The Daily Mail, a major British tabloid, and a second British newspaper, The Independent, carried the news of D’Andrea’s alleged demise to London, albeit with some skepticism. While the Pentagon confirmed to TIME on Friday that there were only two Air Force officers on the plane, none of the official public statements say they were the only passengers. And the CIA has refused to comment on whether D’Andrea or any other CIA personnel were onboard.
The U.S. military says it could not have gotten the news out sooner. But the Iranian version of events that circulated in the information vacuum had people inside and outside the U.S. wondering who to believe. The Trump Administration’s now-familiar pattern of slow, incomplete and sometimes disingenuous responses to events has ground down public and internal trust of its messaging and created an opportunity for adversaries like Iran and Russia to spread disinformation and sow confusion among allies and U.S. officials. The wrong information can spread about an event whether it happened on a remote Afghan mountainside or a maximum-security American compound. “If false reports are not authoritatively or convincingly disproven, they can take on a life of their own,” James Cunningham, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan told TIME. “Once that happens, it’s very hard to undo that.”
Critics and some U.S. officials say the growing dearth of trust in America’s word is symptomatic of an Administration led by a President who calls journalists “the enemy of the people”, frequently labels factual or unflattering news coverage as “fake news”, and has himself made more than 12,000 false or misleading statements during his tenure, according to a count by The Washington Post. A trust gap has formed between journalists and Administration spokespeople who often see challenging questions as political attacks, and treat offending outlets with disdain.
Overall, there are fewer on-record press briefings in the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and other agencies in this Administration, says a former senior Trump Administration official. He says that’s due in part to the top-down nature of the Administration and in part to subordinates’ efforts to protect the President. There is an internal battle afoot with some senior Administration officials arguing for more public briefings, and while the White House Press Secretary hasn’t briefed from the podium since March 2019, the Pentagon and State Department have resumed holding more frequent press conferences to win back that global public trust. But it’s an uphill battle against the megaphone of the Twitter presidency —and the active disinformation campaigns being waged overseas against the U.S. “No one believes us anymore,” one frustrated senior U.S. official said.
FOR THOSE COUNTRIES that similarly see the free press as an enemy, the Trump Administration’s approach to the media works just fine, and the case of Iran and the downed U.S. jet shows how. The U.S. Bombardier E-11A, which was providing troop communications in a remote part of Ghazni, crashed early Monday in an area that’s under Taliban control. Video of the smoldering aircraft was almost immediately posted to social media by eyewitnesses, and the Taliban was quick to claim responsibility for shooting it and other aircraft down. “Many senior officers were killed,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan emailed TIME on Monday.
Roughly three hours later, U.S. Forces Afghanistan spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett issued a brief statement denying the militants’ claims, but it did not provide many details. “While the cause of crash is under investigation, there are no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire,” Leggett said in the statement. “The Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false.”
Multiple U.S. military and Administration officials told TIME that the delay in getting the details of the crash out was due to the fact that the plane went down in Taliban territory and that bad weather prevented them from flying directly to the site. The officials also said it wasn’t immediately clear whether there were any survivors; if there were, they didn’t want to signal to the Taliban to go looking for their troops. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
In the meantime, the Iran story that a high-level CIA officer was on board took off. It wasn’t until late Wednesday afternoon – more than 48 hours after the crash – that the U.S. was able to release the names of two Air Force personnel who were killed on the jet: Lt. Col. Paul K. Voss, 46, of Yigo, Guam; and Capt. Ryan S. Phaneuf, 30, of Hudson, New Hampshire.
The lag time in releasing information gave time for the Iranian disinformation about D’Andrea to circulate, even reaching senior foreign officials in Washington, D.C., who told TIME they were uncertain which account to believe. As of Friday, the CIA has declined to comment, and no Trump Administration official would deny the CIA rumor on record, citing concerns that publicly commenting on the report only spreads the lie further. “That’s not how your fight disinformation,” one frustrated senior U.S. official tells TIME. “On the record should be our default standard.”
The CIA’s reticence has frustrated some of D’Andrea’s colleagues, two of whom tell TIME it’s “business as usual” for the senior official. If someone as senior as D’Andrea were killed, he’d likely be buried with full honors in Arlington Cemetery, within 24 hours of his demise because he’s an observant Muslim, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
David Lapan, a retired Marine Colonel who served as a senior spokesperson for multiple administrations, including Trump’s, says it’s not unusual for it to take hours before the military can report the facts of an incident, but that the current atmosphere of mistrust in information coming out of the Administration make unavoidable delays ripe for both misinterpretation and exploitation by adversaries.
This particular case could have been handled differently, Lapan says. The three-hour lag between the video of a U.S. aircraft smoldering on social media and a U.S. statement “is too long,” he says. “We should get out and acknowledge what we can. That delay — on top of this distrust that now exists — made the situation worse.”
The crash follows close on the heels of other recent events that have sparked fake news from adversaries and left U.S. officials worried or confused over what version of events to believe.
After the Jan. 8th Iranian ballistic missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq, President Donald Trump first reported on Twitter there were no U.S. injuries, while Iranian sources were reporting dozens of Americans were dead and injured in the attack. The Pentagon has since acknowledged that were more than 60 cases of mild to severe traumatic brain injury among the troops who were buffeted by massive shock waves that broke glass windows 1,000 yards from the missiles’ impact.
It can take hours, days or more for symptoms of traumatic brain injury to manifest, and the Pentagon’s own rules classify an officially reportable injury as loss of life, limb, eye or life-threatening injury, something Administration officials say they are now reviewing. Trump was briefed along those rules and wasn’t trying to mislead the public, the military and Administration officials said.
But when later challenged on his initial account, the President dismissed the injuries as “headaches” adding, “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I’ve seen” — a comment that U.S. military officials privately called demoralizing and insulting. Senior diplomats said that shifting narrative of whether American troops were hurt on U.S. bases that day was yet another notch in their dwindling trust in public statements from Trump and his officials.
Something similar happened just weeks later, when unidentified attackers launched an aerial assault on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The absence of information about the attack from the Embassy was followed by conflicting information from senior Administration officials, a frustrated U.S. official tells TIME.
The aerial bombardment on the U.S. compound was first acknowledged by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, and then mentioned in a State Department statement describing a phone call from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the Iraqi leader, in which Pompeo condemned “continued assaults by Iran’s armed groups against U.S. facilities in Iraq, including yesterday’s rocket attacks against our Embassy, which resulted in one injury.”
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Frank Mackenzie has since told reporters that it was in fact mortars that were used. In this case, identifying the weapon helps identify the attacker: rockets are almost exclusively used by Iranian-trained Iraqi armed groups, but simpler mortars are commonly available throughout Iraq and could have been fired by any number of disgruntled actors.
In the confusion, fake news also took root, with stories being published in local media that the U.S. Embassy was being evacuated, and the people were dead and seriously injured, the official said. “It just makes people question what’s true.” The U.S. Embassy itself still hasn’t put out a public account of the attack and a State Department official, speaking anonymously as a condition of offering comment, told TIME they would not offer further details of the Baghdad embassy attack due to security concerns.
THE PENTAGON SAYS it’s doing everything it can to stop disinformation about U.S. military personnel and interests overseas from spreading. “We live in a time of widespread misinformation from the U.S.’s adversaries, and the Department of Defense is constantly working to counter it,” Alyssa Farah, Department of Defense Press Secretary told TIME. She said the Defense Department regularly engages with the press in on- and off-record briefings as part of that effort.
But the Pentagon is only one agency in what is sometimes a discordant cacophony of messaging, and at others, silence. The recent string of problematic messaging has frustrated veterans of the fight on terrorism who want to react to state-sponsored propaganda with the same speed they learned to counter messaging by al Qaeda in Iraq under the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Now-retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in his memoir My Share of the Task that a key part of defeating militants in both countries is getting your version of events out first — lest, for instance, an adversary paint an overnight U.S. Delta Force raid on militants as a slaughter of innocent civilians, a rumor that would make it harder to win the trust and cooperation of the local population.
Bret Schafer, of the Washington-DC-based Alliance for Securing Democracy which tracks Russian disinformation, said the U.S. regularly fails at getting its own version of events out first. He said he first heard of this week’s plane crash in Afghanistan from anti-American social media accounts. “By leaving gaps in the information space, you are on your back feet,” he said.
Getting in front of the story is also important to how people back home digest news of the events. If adversaries plant stories that end up reinforcing Americans’ skepticism of own government or media, they’ve won, says Schafer. “The Iranians or Russians don’t have to prove their theory,” he said. “There just have to be enough versions of the story out there so we can’t know what’s happening and we can’t trust anything.”
—With reporting by W.J. Hennigan and John Walcott/Washington
Hillary Clinton Slams Bernie Sanders for Not Working to Unite Democrats in 2016
By BY SHANE GOLDMACHER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RM2iF6
Plans for Alabama’s Deadly Prisons ‘Won’t Fix the Horrors’
By BY KATIE BENNER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aZLFgP
Brexit Has Arrived. But Boris Johnson’s Reign Is Just Beginning.
By BY RICHARD SEYMOUR from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2RNUGC1
Senators say they’ve settled on a schedule that would end the trial on Wednesday.
By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2UbLc5b
Battle Lines Quickly Form Over Radical Property Tax Proposal
By BY EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS, MATTHEW HAAG AND JEFFERY C. MAYS from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2tgjTeQ
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Trump’s Middle East Plan: Starting Point or Dead End?
By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2S1Rhyw
Senators Question Trump’s Motives on Ukraine as Vote on Witnesses Looms
By BY NICHOLAS FANDOS, EMILY COCHRANE AND PATRICIA MAZZEI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/318Tc8t
Tax System Favoring Central Park Co-ops and Brooklyn Brownstones Could End
By BY EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS, MATTHEW HAAG AND JEFFERY C. MAYS from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2RJdFO5
Trump heads to Iowa in a bid to rally supporters for caucuses.
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38SIZ2v
Recording Surfaces of Another Trump Meeting With Parnas and Fruman
By BY BEN PROTESS AND KENNETH P. VOGEL from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Udfh47
Full Recording: Parnas and Fruman Meet with Trump
By BY THE NEW YORK TIMES from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38VwvqO
Video Shows Trump Meeting With Parnas and Fruman
By BY MAYA BLACKSTONE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/36Jtvwe
Why Block Impeachment Witnesses? Republicans Have Many Reasons
By BY CARL HULSE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RF4NsS
Trump Lawyer’s Impeachment Argument Stokes Fears of Unfettered Power
By BY CHARLIE SAVAGE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OdsS86
Defense team continues to portray the president as a victim.
By BY SHARON LAFRANIERE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2S2hmNQ
Citing ‘Soul of Our Democracy,’ Pastor of Dr. King’s Church Enters Senate Race
By BY RICHARD FAUSSET from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Odr1QG
New top story from Time: Connecticut Man Accused of Murdering His Wife Dies 2 Days After Apparent Suicide Attempt
(HARTFORD, Conn.) — A man charged with murdering his missing wife amid a contentious divorce case died Thursday, his lawyer said.
Fotis Dulos, 52, had been hospitalized since Tuesday when he was found at his home in Farmington, Connecticut, following an apparent suicide attempt.
“It’s been a truly horrific day for the family filled with difficult decisions, medical tests and meeting the requirements to determine death,” attorney Norm Pattis said.
“To those who contend that Mr. Dulos’ death reflects a consciousness of guilt, we say no,” he added.
Dulos, a luxury home builder originally from Greece, was accused of killing Jennifer Dulos, who has not been seen since she dropped their five children off at school in New Canaan in May. Her body has not been found despite extensive searches. Fotis Dulos had denied any role in her disappearance.
The children, who ranged in age from 8 to 13 when their mother vanished, are in the custody of their maternal grandmother in New York City.
Dulos insisted he was innocent in a note found near him, according to a court motion filed by his lawyers Thursday. Police officers recovered a note in which Dulos “declared his innocence of the infamous and heinous crimes that the state has accused him of and claimed his lawyers have the evidence to prove it,” his lawyers wrote in the filing asking a judge to order the state to preserve the note and other evidence found at the home.
On the day Fotis Dulos was found stricken, he had been facing an emergency bond hearing where he could have been sent back to jail. The company that originally posted the $6 million bond had learned that two properties offered as collateral were subject to foreclosure and a third was overvalued.
Police officers who went to check on Dulos because he was late for the hearing saw through a garage window that he was in medical distress. Emergency responders forced their way into the garage and medics performed CPR for about 30 minutes and he was taken to a hospital by ambulance after a pulse was discovered, Farmington police said Thursday. A lawyer for Dulos and others initially said he had died before saying a pulse had been found.
Dulos was eventually transferred to the Jacobi Medical Center in New York City for treatment.
Fotis Dulos had been arrested Jan. 7 on murder and kidnapping charges, capping a lengthy investigation in which he emerged early as the primary suspect.
Warrants released last summer, when Dulos was charged initially with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution, said that he and a girlfriend were seen on video surveillance driving in Hartford around the time Jennifer Dulos was reported missing. The man was seen tossing garbage bags into more than 30 trash bins in the area that were later determined to have items with Jennifer Dulos’ blood on them.
Items in the garbage bags included clothing belonging to Jennifer Dulos and plastic zip ties that later tested positive for her DNA.
In filings in the two-year divorce proceedings, Jennifer Dulos said she was worried for her safety and that of the couple’s children.
In the arrest warrants, police suggested a possible financial motive, saying Fotis Dulos was $7 million in debt and would have had some access to the children’s trust funds if Jennifer Dulos died. Fotis Dulos denied that allegation.
Police allege Fotis Dulos lay in wait at Jennifer Dulos’ home in New Canaan for her to return after dropping the children off. Authorities say Fotis Dulos attacked the woman in her garage, leaving behind a bloody crime scene, and drove off with her body.
Dulos had pleaded not guilty to the charges. Pattis said the defense team will continue to seek to clear his name.
“We intend to proceed on as if he were alive to vindicate him,” Pattis said.
Fotis Dulos’ former girlfriend, Michelle Troconis, and his friend, attorney Kent Mawhinney, are both charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Police said they helped Fotis Dulos try to cover up the killing, including by creating bogus alibis.
___
Associated Press writers Michael Melia in Hartford and Pat Eaton-Robb in Storrs contributed to this report.
Trump Travels to Iowa to Energize Supporters for Caucuses Next Week
By BY ANNIE KARNI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2GBRnr0
These Brands Said No to Running Super Bowl Commercials
By BY TIFFANY HSU from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2tT2fyh
When Will We See Bolton’s Book?
By BY JAMEEL JAFFER AND RAMYA KRISHNAN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3aWu6hs
Republican senator laments starkly partisan nature of the trial.
By BY PATRICIA MAZZEI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/38TGtZS
New York Is Urged to Consider Surge Pricing for Taxis
By BY BRIAN M. ROSENTHAL from NYT New York https://ift.tt/2GzItup
More American Troops Sustain Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Strike in Iraq
By BY THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF from NYT World https://ift.tt/2t90lce
¿Hará el papa Francisco un milagro con la deuda de Argentina?
By BY MARCELO J. GARCÍA from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/2RIDCgw
Alexander asks about the differences in bipartisanship under Nixon and Trump.
By BY EMILY COCHRANE from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2uKxHPa
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
As Republicans warn of witness-induced delays, Democrats fire back.
By BY CATIE EDMONDSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/36HqjkJ
‘American Dirt’: Who Gets to Write Fiction?
By Unknown Author from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2U6VbIV
‘The Traitor’ Review: Turning the Tables on La Cosa Nostra
By BY A.O. SCOTT from NYT Movies https://ift.tt/2S3Xo5r
White House lawyer says counsel’s office only learned of Bolton account on Sunday.
By BY NICHOLAS FANDOS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3aPQau9
Schiff accuses the intelligence agencies of withholding relevant information.
By BY DAVID E. SANGER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2RWkTgy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
By BY ISAAC ARONOW AND DOUG MENNELLA from NYT Crosswords & Games https://ift.tt/3oaaShl
-
Fossil fuels helped to catapult Norway from a stable but small fishing and timber economy into one of the wealthiest and most progr...
-
By Kevin Draper from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/WPE4ICa
