By The Washington Post · Amy B Wang, Felicia Sonmez
WASHINGTON – Of the 57 “guilty” votes that rang out on the Senate floor Saturday, only one – uttered by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. – elicited gasps from around the chamber.
The North Carolina Republican had given no previous indication he was leaning toward voting to convict former president Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection, after a pro-Trump mob overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent siege that left five people dead.
But the days-long trial had convinced Burr of Trump’s culpability, he said in a statement afterward.
“The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict,” Burr said. “I do not make this decision lightly, but I believe it is necessary. By what he did and by what he did not do, President Trump violated his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Ultimately Burr was joined by six of his GOP colleagues, who voted alongside all 50 Democrats to convict Trump. However, it fell short of the number of votes needed – two-thirds of the senators present – for Trump to be convicted. In a 57 to 43 vote, the Senate acquitted Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection, concluding the former president’s second impeachment trial.
Burr, along with Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania were the Republicans who voted with Democrats to convict Trump.
Burr acknowledged that he had believed the trial to be unconstitutional when he started. However, Burr said he had made his decision as an impartial juror, believing the question of constitutionality to be established precedent after the Senate voted to proceed with the trial.
Cassidy had late last month also voted against the constitutionality of the trial but changed his mind Tuesday after considering arguments from the House impeachment managers and from Trump’s defense. The Louisiana senator left the chamber before the vote was done Saturday.
In a lengthy statement, Sasse blasted Trump’s repeated lies about the election having been stolen from him and and also defended the constitutionality of the trial.
“The president abused his power while in office and the House of Representatives impeached him while he was still in office,” Sasse said. “If Congress cannot forcefully respond to an intimidation attack on Article I instigated by the head of Article II, our constitutional balance will be permanently tilted. A weak and timid Congress will increasingly submit to an emboldened and empowered presidency. That’s unacceptable. This institution needs to respect itself enough to tell the executive that some lines cannot be crossed.”
Immediately after the vote concluded, Toomey told reporters it was the “right call” to vote to convict Trump but gave no further comments. In a statement issued later, he acknowledged he had voted for Trump but that Trump’s behavior after the election “betrayed the confidence millions of us placed in him.”
“As a result of President Trump’s actions, for the first time in American history, the transfer of presidential power was not peaceful. A lawless attempt to retain power by a president was one of the founders’ greatest fears motivating the inclusion of the impeachment authorities in the U.S. Constitution,” Toomey said. “His betrayal of the Constitution and his oath of office required conviction.”
But it was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who voted to acquit Trump, who gave a befuddling speech on the Senate floor afterward, arguing the former president is “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol – but that the Senate was upholding the Constitution by acquitting him.
“The Senate’s decision today does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day,” McConnell said. “It simply shows that senators did what the former president failed to do: We put our constitutional duty first.”
Trump, by contrast, appeared to take his acquittal as a vindication of his actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack. In a statement, Trump called his second impeachment by the House “another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country” and hinted at a return to national politics.
McConnell spent much of his remarks condemning Trump’s actions and directly linking them to the Jan. 6 insurrection. The former president’s supporters, he argued, launched their violent attack “because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth, because he was angry he lost an election.”
“There’s no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said at one point. “No question about it.”
He argued, however, that it was beyond the power of the Senate to hold Trump accountable for those actions.
“This body is not invited to act as the nation’s overarching moral tribunal,” McConnell said. “We’re not free to work backward from whether the accused party might personally deserve some kind of punishment.”
Immediately after Trump’s impeachment by the House last month, McConnell blocked the Senate from swiftly beginning a trial while Trump was still in office. At the time, McConnell said Trump had “simply no chance” of a “fair or serious trial” before Joe Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20.
But on Saturday, McConnell sought to deflect blame for that decision.
“Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s own scheduling decisions conceded what President Biden publicly confirmed: A Senate verdict before Inauguration Day was never possible,” he said.
In January, McConnell’s office informed aides to then-Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that he would not agree to immediately reconvene the Senate to begin a trial, despite pressure from Schumer to invoke rarely used emergency powers that allow the two Senate leaders to unilaterally reconvene.
Without mentioning his own role in blocking an earlier trial, McConnell said Saturday that he might have voted differently if Trump were still president.
“If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge,” he said.
Biden’s vaccine push runs into distrust in the Black community
InternationalFeb 14. 2021Michelle Chester administers a coronavirus vaccine to Dr. Yves Duroseau at Long Island Jewish Medical Center on Dec. 14. MUST CREDIT: photo for The Washington Post by Sarah Blesener.
By The Washington Post · Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Frances Stead Sellers
Former Tuskegee, Ala., mayor Johnny Ford rolled up his right sleeve and smiled behind his mask as the first dose of coronavirus vaccine entered his arm – a televised display of faith he hoped would save Black families from suffering.
Ford became mayor soon after the disclosure of the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male in 1972, and he spent years seeking justice for victims of the abominable government-run program. Now he’s trying to persuade Black people that vaccines fast-tracked by that same government are not only safe, but vital.
Ford, whose wife nearly died of the virus this winter, is frustrated that so many African Americans are still resisting the vaccine. “For those folks who want to stand around and debate, let them debate,” Ford said. “I’m sorry for them and regret that they want to do that. But if they don’t want to take it, then please move out of the way of those who do want to take it.”
The vaccine hesitancy that Ford is fighting has emerged as a crucial test for the Biden White House, which has repeatedly said racial equity will be central to his presidency. The administration is planning a sweeping campaign to promote the vaccine to minorities, but activists like Ford say the problem is already critical.
Cameron Webb, Biden’s senior policy adviser for covid-19 equity, acknowledged the administration is “swimming upstream” when it comes to vaccine hesitancy. He said it is working to get information into the hands of influencers and community leaders who can spread the word and dispel rumors.
Biden addressed the issue directly Thursday when he visited the National Institutes of Health, where he was hosted by NIH Director Francis Collins and Anthony S. Fauci, who is spearheading the administration’s covid-19 response.
“I know people want confidence that it’s safe. Well, listen to Dr. Fauci. I did. I got my shots,” Biden said. “It’s safe. And we need more people to get vaccinated to beat this pandemic.”
Resistance to the vaccines is not limited to minorities. A hard-line anti-vaccine movement based on misinformation, for example, uses emotional appeals on social media to win over Americans of various political stripes.
Vaccination disparities can result from lack of access as well as hesitancy, said Robert A. Bednarczyk, a professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University. “We talk food deserts,” Bednarczyk said. “Do we know where physician deserts are? Where nurse deserts are?”
Another factor is “vaccine gentrification,” said White House covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt: Inoculation sites will be set up to provide easy assess to underserved or minority communities, only to have wealthier suburbanites drive in and use them.
But hesitancy among African Americans is a particular source of concern to a government that’s become more sensitive to the inequities imposed on Black communities for centuries. The pandemic has had an outsized effect on people of color – killing Black Americans at nearly three times the rate of White Americans – and the White House wants to use the unprecedented national vaccination drive to help address that disparity.
Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to increase vaccine supplies and marshaled federal resources to balloon the number of vaccination sites. Last Tuesday, the administration announced it would ship vaccines directly to local health centers in underserved communities.
But such scaling-up efforts will not amount to much if people don’t take the vaccines.
Vaccine hesitancy has declined over time, to the relief of many activists, but it is still significant. While the data is uneven on who is getting the vaccine, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 43% of Black adults say they plan to “wait and see until it has been available for a while, to see how it is working for other people” – compared to 31% of the overall population who say that.
Such delays can be dangerous, especially as new virus variants emerge that may be less affected by the current vaccines. Fauci said hesitation by Black Americans means a vulnerable population could “suffer doubly.”
“We can’t fail at this,” Fauci said in an interview. “We’ve got to get a substantial proportion of the African American population to embrace the idea of vaccines.”
He added, “It would be really tragic . . . if a demographic group that has already suffered disproportionately from this terrible pandemic should – for reasons that are understandable but unfortunate – feel that they don’t want to take the one tool that can prevent them from getting infected, from getting sick, and from dying.”
Fauci has spent months trying to debunk vaccine myths with Black audiences. He has videotaped conversations with NBA star Stephen Curry. Since last summer, he has been dialing into Zoom gatherings of Black churches to answer congregants’ questions.
He often finds himself addressing the misconception that political pressure prompted vaccine-makers to skip safety steps. Other unfounded worries tilt toward the conspiratorial: that mRNA vaccines can alter a person’s DNA, make people infertile, or allow the government to track a person’s movements.
The Biden administration says it will soon launch a full-scale persuasion program aimed at minorities. While Fauci will play a role, he and other officials concede that the White head of a public health agency might not be the best person to reach Black and brown audiences.
“Who is giving the vaccine – and where you are getting it – matters,” said Ala Stanford, who founded the Black Doctors Consortium in April to address health disparities through testing and now vaccination.
She praised Vice President Kamala Harris for getting a vaccine on television, but said even such role models have less impact than a neighbor, relative or friend.
“The vice president matters,” Stanford said. “But it matters more that your barber got it.”
The Department of Health and Human Services is running ads about the vaccine and other virus safeguards on 2,300 radio stations, 40 of them minority-owned. HHS is also targeting minority audiences in newspaper ads and providing experts to host Facebook Live town halls sponsored by the Black Coalition Against Covid-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for its part, is funding campaigns by groups like the National Urban League, the National Council of Negro Women and the Conference of National Black Churches. And it’s partnering with retired football stars Warren Moon and Franco Harris, in hopes that “trusted messengers” can increase vaccine confidence.
Outside government, the Ad Council, a nonprofit run by the advertising industry, has prepared videos featuring doctors from diverse backgrounds. In one of them, Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine, says it’s critical to have Black doctors involved in the vaccine push.
“This will go a long way to building the trust we need between the underrepresented minority communities and the health system at large,” she says.
But such efforts are up against decades of mistrust stemming from government abuse of Black bodies in the name of science. For 40 years, government-financed doctors allowed syphilis to run unchecked through Black test subjects in the Tuskegee experiments, knowing for much of that time that penicillin would cure them.
In 1951, doctors biopsied a cancerous tumor in a woman named Henrietta Lacks, cells that became the first immortalized cell line. The cells have been used in many experiments and continue to feature in medical research today – even though Lacks, a Black woman, never consented and was not compensated.
And J. Marion Sims became “the father of modern gynecology” by experimenting on enslaved women without anesthesia. A statue honoring his achievements stood in New York’s Central Park until 2018.
That history is now being compounded by wariness of the record speed at which the coronavirus vaccines were created. Several versions were midwifed by “Operation Warp Speed,” a government program shepherded by former president Donald Trump, who made no secret of wanting a fast cure at almost any cost, at one point tweeting at an official, “Get the dam vaccines out NOW.”
The best antidote, said Webb, the Biden adviser, is communication from trusted figures.
“We’re not trying to sell anybody a vaccine, but I believe that if people have accurate, truthful information about what we know and what we don’t know, they’ll make the decision that’s in their best interest,” Webb said. “There are a lot of myths and disinformation out there that clouds that picture, so part of our work is helping to sift through all that.”
Part of the sifting, Webb stressed, is ensuring that minority and underserved communities actually have a steady supply of vaccines; it’s no use convincing people that a vaccine is necessary, after all, if they can’t get it.
Early vaccination data has been spotty, in part because not all recipients report their race or ethnicity. But the figures that do exist suggest racial disparity has already crept into inoculation efforts.
In New York City, for example, 12 percent of people over 65 who received at least one dose of vaccine were Black, even though Blacks make up 22 percent of the city’s over-65 population.
For Ford, the former Tuskegee mayor, the goal for the next few months is clear: convince as many people as possible to take the vaccine.
The virus tore through his family this winter, pinballing the former mayor and his ailing wife from hospital to hospital as she tried to beat an infection that nearly killed her. Ford spent nights in a cot by her bedside while doctors debated putting her on a ventilator. As he cared for his wife, they missed the funeral of his first cousin, who succumbed to covid.
In his 50 years in office – as mayor, state representative and now city councilman – Ford figures he’s built up a lot of credibility, which he now intends to put on the line to motivate his community.
“The disease does not discriminate,” Ford said. “Whether you are a judge or a mayor or Black or White, it doesn’t care. I can testify to how dangerous this disease is. And that’s why my life’s work now is convincing other Black people that they should be tested and receive the vaccine as soon as possible.”
The vaccine, he said “may not be perfect. But it’s way better than getting covid.”
Australia faces the unthinkable: Life without Google
InternationalFeb 14. 2021The Google logo in an arranged photograph on Jan. 22, 2021. Bloomberg photo by David Gray.
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Angus Whitley, Georgina McKay
Imagine a world without Google, the search engine so pervasive it’s the starting point for more than five billion queries a day. That’s the reality facing Australia, where the tech giant is threatening to unplug its homepage in a standoff with the government.
Google opposes a planned law that would force the company and Facebook to pay Australian publishers for news content. The Internet juggernaut’s ultimatum to local lawmakers — change the legislation, or else — has left a digital vacuum hanging over a nation that essentially knows just one way to navigate the web. Google runs 95% of Internet searches in Australia.
Potential fallout from the spat goes far beyond Australia for Alphabet Inc.-owned Google, whose dominance of global advertising has made it a target for watchdogs worldwide. If the company backs down in Australia, the pay-for-news law risks becoming a template for jurisdictions including Canada and the European Union that are following the quarrel and keen to shorten Google’s lead.
But disabling what is arguably the world’s most famous website would hand all of Australia to rivals, including Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo, which have failed to dislodge Google as the gateway to the web. These search-engine competitors would suddenly have a playground for development and a foothold to advance on the global stage.
Software-engineering student Patrick Smith exemplifies Australia’s Google dependency. The 24-year-old from Canberra said he sometimes racks up 400 Google searches a day to help with his studies, catch up on news and look up recipes. Smith said his browser from the previous day shows 150 searches — in the space of just five hours.
“The prospect of Google search disappearing is frightening at best,” Smith said. “It’s quite reflexive of me to Google something, anything, that I’m even mildly not sure of.”
Searching for ‘best beach Sydney’ shows the variance in performance among Google’s competitors. DuckDuckGo’s first result was an ad for a hotel more than 1,000 kilometers away in Queensland, with Sydney beach reviews listed below a second ad link. Search Encrypt, which touts its data-protection capability, said: ‘It looks like there aren’t any great matches.’ Bing’s initial suggestion was Bondi Beach Post Office. Only Google returned a real beach, Bondi, first up.
The world-first legislation will be considered by Australia’s parliament from the week starting Feb. 15 after a key senate committee recommended Friday that the bill be passed.
“The government expects all parties to continue to work constructively towards reaching commercial agreements,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in a statement welcoming the senate report.
People visit Bondi Beach in Sydney on Oct. 13, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Brent Lewin.
The government says the local media industry — including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Sydney Morning Herald-publisher Nine Entertainment Co. — has been bled of advertising revenue by the tech giants and should be paid fairly for content.
Google argues it drives traffic to their websites, and that being forced to pay to display snippets of news breaks the principle of an open Internet. It also opposes the law’s final-offer arbitration model that determines how much it should pay publishers.
Facebook has said it may stop Australians from sharing news on its platform if the law is enacted, an unprecedented step.
Australia’s entire economic output is less than Alphabet’s $1.4 trillion market value, so it may be surprising the distant and tiny market is suddenly so important. But the Internet titans are so keen to avoid Australia setting a global precedent that Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg broke into their diaries in recent weeks for phone hookups with Prime Minister Scott Morrison or his ministers.
Sniffing an opportunity, Microsoft President Brad Smith and CEO Satya Nadella also reached out.
Grabbing the free hit, Smith told Morrison that Microsoft would invest to “ensure Bing is comparable to our competitors.” This week, Smith wrote in a blog post Thursday that the U.S. should adopt its own version of the Australian law.
DuckDuckGo, a search engine that says it doesn’t track its users, is also trying to cash in.
“There’s a growing global demand for privacy online and Australians don’t have to wait for government action” to stop using Google, DuckDuckGo said by email. Search Encrypt says its results expire after 30 minutes of inactivity.
Non-profit alternatives have also been suggested. The Australian Greens party this month asked the government to consider setting up a publicly owned search engine rather than let Microsoft muscle in. “We should not seek out another foreign giant to fill the gap,” said Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
To be sure, Australia wouldn’t be the first Google-free nation in the world. In China, where the site is blocked, Baidu is the leading search engine.
But Australia would stand out as a westernized democracy without access to the site and Google’s departure could set the nation back years in terms of fast access to information.
With two decades of data in the vault, and processing an estimated 5.5 billion searches a day, Google is regarded as peerless in tailoring results for individuals and their idiosyncracies.
“Bing is not going to be able to compete with Google in terms of quality out of the blocks,” said Daniel Angus, Brisbane-based associate professor in digital communication at Queensland University of Technology. “Australians might have to relearn how to use search.”
Google again performed best under the search, ‘australia leader,’ showing Morrison and his Liberal party at the top of the page — sourced from an official government site. Bing gave similar details, though took it from Wikipedia. DuckDuckGo prominently displayed ads for team leader jobs in Western Australia, with photos of Morrison and his title sporadically appearing when the search is refreshed. Search Encrypt drew a blank once more.
There are signs Google’s hardline stance may be softening. Morrison said his meeting with the company was “constructive” and “should give them a great encouragement to engage with the process.” Google declined to comment on the meeting, though said in a statement it proposes compensating publishers through its News Showcase product, under which the company pays select media outlets to display curated content.
Some older Australians who’ve lived in a pre-Google world have fewer concerns. Gino Porro, the 58-year-old owner of the Li’l Darlin bar and restaurant in Sydney’s Darlinghurst, uses Google and hasn’t heard of any other search engines. But he sees a return of word-of-mouth recommendations instead of online reviews if Google shuts down its homepage. “Customer service is important, not Google,” he said.
But back in Canberra, Googling student Smith is uneasy about the possible shutdown and how well a replacement would perform.
“I honestly feel that my life would become significantly more difficult,” he said.
กระทรวงการท่องเที่ยวกล่าวเมื่อวันเสาร์ว่าโรงเบียร์ที่มีปริมาณการผลิตสูงซึ่งเชื่อว่ามีอายุมากกว่า 5,000 ปีถูกค้นพบโดยทีมนักโบราณคดีในสุสานโบราณทางตอนใต้ของอียิปต์
วิจัยคาด ‘ฟาดไม้เรียว’ ส่งผลเด็กยิ่งก้าวร้าว ชี้สร้างประสบการณ์เลวร้าย
ประชาชนชาวเมียนมาในชุมชนต่างๆ ร่วมกันดูแลชุมชนของตนเองจากการก่อกวนของอันธพาลและตำรวจที่มักเข้ามาก่อกวนและจับกุมผู้คนเวลาค่ำคืน
อาเซียนโดยรวมการส่งออกลดลงแค่ 2.2% ทั้งๆ ที่เผชิญกับการระบาดอย่างหนักไปทั่วโลก
บรรดาคนทรง “นะ” พากันร่วมการชุมนุมประท้วงการรัฐประหารบางคนบอกว่าวิญญาณที่พวกเขาเป็นคนทรงให้ไม่ยอมรับการทำรัฐประหารครั้งนี้
เตือนประชาชนห้ามช่วยแกนนำ รื้อฟื้นกฎแจ้งคนไปมาหาสู่กันตอนค่ำ
Michelle Chester administers a coronavirus vaccine to Dr. Yves Duroseau at Long Island Jewish Medical Center on Dec. 14. MUST CREDIT: photo for The Washington Post by Sarah Blesener.
The Google logo in an arranged photograph on Jan. 22, 2021. Bloomberg photo by David Gray.
