Citizen Cartwright

GOP in new political distancing from Trump?

As you know, I like to run Associated Press articles because I find them to be the most balanced and unbiased. That’s because AP’s job is to write articles that will run in newspapers across the political spectrum and across the country that pay to use AP's content.

 

And, as you also know, one of the goals of this blog is to keep you updated on political trends.

 

So let’s take a look at an AP article titled "Distancing from Trump? Some Republicans step up critiques," which begins:

 

"For more than three years, President Donald Trump instilled such fear in the Republican Party’s leaders that most kept criticism of his turbulent leadership or inconsistent politics to themselves,” says AP. "That’s beginning to change.”

 

"Four months before voters decide the Republican president’s reelection, some in Trump’s party are daring to say the quiet part out loud as Trump struggles to navigate competing national crises and a scattershot campaign message,” AP says.

 

“He is losing,” former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump friend, said on Sunday of Trump’s reelection prospects. “And if he doesn’t change course, both in terms of the substance of what he’s discussing and the way that he approaches the American people, then he will lose.”

 

Beyond politics, Trump’s allies — and even some in his own administration — are distancing themselves from his policies, says AP.

 

While Trump avoids wearing a mask in public, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, “We must have no stigma — none — about wearing masks when we leave our homes.” 

 

The top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy, Calif., said on Monday that Americans should follow the recommendations of health officials to wear masks and socially distance themselves to help slow the spread of infection, Reuters reports.

 

Vice President Pence was pictured last weekend wearing a mask and urged other Americans to do the same. And Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in the House, tweeted a picture of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, wearing a mask with the hashtag #realmenwearmasks.

 

Trump also has been criticized by some Republicans for inconsistent leadership during the national protests against police brutality, AP notes.

 

One factor driving recent concerns has been Trump’s inability to articulate an agenda or clear message for his second term, says AP. After a first term defined almost exclusively by his desire to undo former President Obama’s accomplishments, Trump has failed to offer a single future policy priority of his own during multiple recent interviews, AP says.

 

Trump still has a tight grip on the party, says AP. 

 

"And the intensifying concerns are remarkably similar to those that emerged in 2016, when Trump overcame glaring personal and political liabilities to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton,” AP says. "The splits signal that Republicans are aware of the president’s weak political standing and may feel increasingly free to break from him as voting nears."

 

Meanwhile, Trump aides at all levels have begun to accept the possibility that their time in the White House may be short-lived, says AP.

Where six months ago, they plotted their promotion path within government, some are beginning to draw up plans to return to the private sector, says AP.

 

As you may recall, I often check the newspapers in two small Trump Country communities I’m familiar with — in Pennsylvania and Oregon — to see which AP articles they’re running. Neither of them seems to be running this one.

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Experts: It’s time to let the public know what to expect from coronavirus vaccine

Animal studies of a potential coronavirus vaccine have been so encouraging that researchers plan to speed up testing of the vaccine in humans, reports HealthDay.

 

Yet, for all the government promises of stockpiling doses in hopes of starting vaccinations by year’s end, there’s a catch, says The Associated Press. Even if a shot pans out — and it’s one that your country stockpiled — only some high-risk people, such as healthcare workers, will go to the front of a very long line.

“Will you and I get vaccinated this year? No way,” says Duke University health economist David Ridley.

 

Researchers around the world are working on more than 140 coronavirus vaccines, according to The New York Times' vaccine tracker. Currently, 18 potential vaccines are being tested for safety and correct dosing in Phase 1 or 2 clinical trials; and three vaccines are in Phase 3 trials, where they're undergoing large-scale testing.

 

The United States is set to open the largest trials. A government-created shot will be tested in 30,000 people starting in July. About a month later, another 30,000 people are expected to test a British one.

 

If the best coronavirus vaccine is only 50 percent effective, “that’s still to me a great vaccine,” says Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Animal research suggests coronavirus vaccines could prevent serious disease but may not completely block infection. One study in monkeys showed vaccinated animals avoided pneumonia but had some virus in their noses and throats. Whether that was enough to spread to the unvaccinated isn’t known.

 

The initial vaccines may be replaced with better ones later, as historically happens in medicine, says Ridley.

 

Even if the trials go according to plan, it's difficult to say when the vaccine could become available for general use. It will be this time next year "at the soonest,” says Dr. Eng Eong Ooi, deputy director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

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Rollback of Volcker Rule 'one of the biggest victories' for Trump administration’s deregulation effort

The Federal Reserve and four other regulatory agencies announced on Thursday that they've finalized a rule to ease restrictions on bank investments in hedge funds and private equity funds.

The announcement of the easing of regulations known as the “Volcker Rule” gave an immediate boost to bank stocks because the change could free up billions of dollars in capital in the banking industry.

The Volcker Rule was part of the overhaul of banking regulation approved in the Dodd-Frank Act passed by Congress in 2010 in an effort to end excesses that had led to the 2008 financial crisis — the country’s worst banking crisis since the 1930s.

 

The rule rollback, which was opposed by Democratic appointees at both the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is one of the biggest victories for the Trump administration’s deregulation drive, says The Associated Press.

 

The Volcker rule, named for its main proponent, the late Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, generally prohibited banks from engaging in proprietary trading and from acquiring ownership interests in hedge funds and private equity funds.

The looser restrictions approved Thursday will allow banks to more easily make investments in various areas of venture capital.

The rule changes also will enable banks to avoid having to set aside cash when making derivatives trades between different affiliates of the same firm. That change is expected to free up billions of dollars that banks now will have available for other investments.

Swaps are a type of derivatives trade in which two parties agree to exchange payments based on market movements such as changes in interest rates. A lack of transparency in the swap market was a key contributor to the 2008 financial crisis.

Before he died in December at 92, Volcker criticized the rule change, saying it “amplifies risk in the financial system, increases moral hazard and erodes protections against conflicts of interest that were so glaringly on display during the last crisis.”

 

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., a key proponent of the Volcker Rule in 2010, said its supporters wanted to create a firewall between ordinary banking activities like taking deposits and making loans and high-risk hedge fund style activities.

“It was only a decade ago when millions of Americans paid the price for Wall Street gambling, in lost jobs, homes and life savings,” said Merkley in a statement. “Re-opening the Wall Street casino is the wrong path forward, one that puts all Americans’ financial stability at risk.”

 

In addition to the Fed and the FDIC, the changes were endorsed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

 

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in statement earlier in the regulatory process that the changes would “facilitate capital formation, improve competition and market efficiency along a number of dimensions, and do so without increasing risks to investors.”

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A doctor’s advice on using a public bathroom during a pandemic

The coronavirus surge among young people

Coronavirus cases are climbing rapidly among young adults in a number of states where bars, stores and restaurants have reopened — "a disturbing generational shift that not only puts them in greater peril than many realize but poses an even bigger danger to older people who cross their paths," says The Associated Press.

 

For months, older adults were more likely to be diagnosed with the virus. And eight out of 10 deaths in the United States have been among people 65 and older.

 

But data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that almost as soon as states began reopening, the picture flipped, with people 18 to 49 years old quickly becoming the age bracket most likely to be diagnosed with new cases.

 

And while every age group saw an increase in cases during the first week in June, the numbers shot up fastest among 18- to 49-year-olds. For the week ending June 7, there were 43 new cases per 100,000 people in that age bracket, compared to 28 cases per 100,000 people over 65.

 

With the shift toward younger people, some hospitals are seeing a smaller percentage of their coronavirus patients needing intensive care treatment such as breathing machines.

“They are sick enough to be hospitalized, but they’re not quite as sick,” says Dr. Rob Phillips, chief physician executive of Houston Methodist Hospital. He says he still finds the trend disturbing because young people “definitely interact with their parents and grandparents,” who could be next.

 

And younger people, too, face the possibility of severe infection and death, notes AP. Two 17-year-olds in Florida died of the virus in the past week.

 

Older people I know frequently complain about people not wearing masks or social distancing on the street. I’ve been looking for good information on ways to encourage those people to reconsider. Please let me know if you come across a strategy that works.

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Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ about coronavirus vaccine by end of 2020

That was the most positive news a House committee heard Tuesday as members of the White House coronavirus task force appeared before Congress for the first time in more than a month. 

 

Oversight efforts by Congress have been stymied by the White House policy that senior officials aren't allowed to testify without permission from chief of staff Mark Meadows, says The Hill.

 

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the coronavirus picture is a “mixed bag," with some states like New York “doing very well” in controlling the virus’ spread. But the surge in other states is “very troublesome to me,” he said.

 

The surges worsened Tuesday in several states, with Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas setting single-day records for new coronavirus cases, and some governors saying they’ll consider reinstating restrictions or delaying plans to ease up in order to help slow the spread of the virus, reports The Associated Press.

 

Despite talk of a so-called second wave of the pandemic, Fauci said the nation was still in the middle of the first wave.

 

Another worrisome trend is an increase in infections among young adults. Fauci said while the coronavirus tends to be less severe in younger people, some of them do get very sick and even die. And young people may be more likely to show no symptoms yet still spread the virus.

 

Fauci said: “Plan A, don’t go in a crowd. Plan B, if you do, make sure you wear a mask.” 

 

Fauci said he'd never seen a virus that produced such a wide range of symptoms and severity of disease, ranging from people who have no symptoms at all, to those requiring ventilators, to others who spend weeks in the hospital and ultimately die. Even though most people recover from the coronavirus, Fauci said healthy people who are infected but show no symptoms or have mild symptoms still contribute to the outbreak by potentially infecting the most vulnerable people.

 

Testifying before the House Energy & Commerce Committee with Fauci were FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, and Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Brett Giroir.

 

Fauci and the other health officials said they haven't been asked to slow down virus testing, in contrast to President Trump’s claim last weekend that he'd ordered fewer tests be performed because they were uncovering too many infections. Trump said earlier Tuesday he wasn’t kidding when he made that remark.

 

Less testing in fact means that more infections go undetected, says AP. The United States was slow in ramping up and currently is testing about 500,000 people a day. Many experts say that to control the spread of the virus, it should be testing 900,000 or more.

Giroir said the next step is testing patient samples in large batches to stretch limited supplies, which would expand U.S. screening between fivefold and tenfold.

Instead of testing each person individually, healthcare workers would pool samples from 50, 100 or more people from the same office or school, for example. A negative result would clear everybody, while a positive would require each person to be individually retested.

The United States lacks sufficient contact tracers to track down and isolate people who've come in contact with infected people — a critical step in controlling the virus’ spread, the officials agreed. Redfield said the country has 28,000 contract tracers, a fraction of the 100,000 he'd previously said were needed.

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