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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

‘Monumental, Lethal Screwup’: Study Finds Up to 210,000 Americans Died of COVID-19 Because of ‘Anti-Science’ Trump

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A bombshell Columbia University study finds President Donald Trump is responsible for the coronavirus deaths of 130,000 to 210,000 Americans.

“We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn’t want to deal with reality,” Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director at Columbia’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness told The Daily Beast.

The study calls Trump’s response to the pandemic an “abject failure,” citing “the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States.”

“The inability of the U.S. to mitigate the pandemic is especially stark when contrasted with the response of high-income nations, such as South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, and Canada, as well as low- and middle-income countries as varied as Thailand, Pakistan, Honduras, and Malaysia. All of these nations have had greater success in protecting their populations from the impact of the coronavirus,” researchers say in the report published Wednesday.

They note the U.S. per capita death rate is “more than fifty times that of Japan.”

“If the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 U.S. deaths—making more than 132,500 American deaths ‘avoidable.’ If the U.S. response had mirrored that of Germany, the U.S. may have only had 38,457 deaths—leaving 179,260 avoidable deaths,” according to the study.

The researchers say “Politicization, leadership vacuum, and the failure of top officials to model best practices” especially mask-wearing, have contributed to the disproportionately high U.S. death rate.

The report concludes the “two major deficiencies” of “inadequate testing and insufficient contact tracing, have blunted the United States’ capacity to stop the exponential spread of COVID-19.”

“According to Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), thousands of lives could have been saved if the White House had approved the distribution of over six million masks that were prepared for delivery in late February,” the report notes.

Dr. Redlener does not mince words.

“Americans have a bad case of pandemic fatigue. We want to get back to some semblance of normalcy, but we never did what we had to do to achieve that state,” Redlener told The Beast. “We’ve delayed the return of normalcy and fallen into this web of dishonesty and opposing science that was concocted by the president.”

Redlener adds, “this incredibly anti-science administration has caused an enormous tragedy in America.”

“We have the resources, the economy, the scientific expertise to do this the right way. We’re facing a lethal pandemic, and we had very misguided leadership that chose to berate the purveyors of masks and social distancing. The president himself became a superspreader. He has blood on his hands.”

Currently more than 225,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Bodycam Footage Shows Ohio Cop Killing Unarmed Black Man for Sitting In His Own Car

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Andre Hill, police, shooting, bodycam

Twitter users are sharing police bodycam footage taken during the Tuesday police shooting of Andre Hill, an unarmed 47-year-old Black man in Columbus, Ohio who was shot dead just for sitting in a vehicle within his own garage.

The video shows that Officer Adam Coy killed Hill within seconds of encountering him. Hill emerges in an open garage with an illuminated cell phone screen in his left hand, his right hand out of view. After killing Hill, Coy (his gun still aimed) screams at Hill to put his hands up and not to move as Hill lays dying on his garage floor.

Police had been responding to a non-emergency disturbance call within the neighborhood at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Thomas Quinlan, Chief of the Columbus Division of Police in Ohio, has announced his intention to fire Coy and file two departmental charges alleging Coy’s critical misconduct. There is also an ongoing investigation into the actions of other officers present during Hill’s slaying.

“I have seen everything I need to see, to reach the conclusion that Officer Coy must be terminated immediately,” Quinlan said. “Some may call this a rush to judgment. It is not. This violation cost an innocent man his life.”

Quinlan said Coy’s actions “at a minimum, demonstrate incompetence, gross neglect of duty, misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance.”

This is actually the second deadly shooting of a Black man in Columbus, Ohio this month.

The first was Casey Christian Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man who was shot and killed on his doorstep by an Ohio sheriff’s deputy on Friday, December 4. At the time, Goodson was carrying a sandwich and not a gun as legal authorities have previously claimed, Goodson’s family states.

Goodson’s shooting is currently under investigation by U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the FBI in Cincinnati and the Columbus police.

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Body Cam Catches Boston Cop Bragging About Running Over Black Lives Matter Protestors

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In a video that is quickly going viral, a sergeant with the Boston Police Department bragged to a fellow officer on body camera about “fucking hitting” Black Lives Matter protestors with his car.

“Dude, dude, dude, I fucking, I drove down Tremont. There was an unmarked state police cruiser they were all fucking gathered around,” the sergeant begins. “So then I had a fucker keep coming, fucking running. I’m fucking hitting people with the car. Did you hear me? I was like, ‘Get the fuck—’”

At this point in the video, his recording officer briefly taps the sergeant on the head, turn his body camera away and then informs the sergeant that the camera is on. Though the sergeant quickly replies, “I know,” he begin stammering as he tries to say that he did not in fact hit protestors with his car like he just said.

“What I’m saying is, though, … I didn’t hit anybody, like, just driving…. My windows were closed, the shit was coming in,” the sergeant says before quickly falling silent and shaking his head.

The recording officer then says, as if in apologetic explanation, “This thing just fucking went on automatically,” referring to the body cam.

The Daily Dot explains, “The footage was exclusively obtained and published on December18 by the Appeal. The footage is part of the hours of footage featuring Boston police’s response to the [racial justice protests that occurred during and after June 2020].”

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'BLOOD ON HIS HANDS'

Here’s the Republican Senator Blocking Stimulus Checks for Millions of Americans

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Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Minnesota, COVID, coronavirus, stimulus checks

Right now an estimated 12.6 million Americans are out of work and many more are struggling as the worsening COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered numerous businesses and industries. The last time Congress provided $1,200 economic stimulus checks to individual Americans was in March. Nine months have passed since then.

But as President Donald Trump, Democratic Congress members and 11 Republican Senators have all signaled their readiness to provide a new round of $1,200 checks to 382 million Americans, one Republican senator has voted down the measure twice: Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

On Friday, Johnson voted twice to block a measure that would’ve issue the checks to every U.S. resident.

“I’m not heartless,” Johnson said, defending his votes. “I want to help people. I voted to help people. I voted for the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, but I also am concerned about our children’s future.”

Johnson said he’s concerned that the costs of issuing checks would inflate the national debt, nevermind that alleviating economic worries would help heal the increases in drug use, depression and domestic abuse that have increased during the nearly year-long economic downturn.

On December 10, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and Independent Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of Vermont pushed colleagues to vote for a second round of stimulus checks. In separate speeches, both senators said the checks should mirror those issued early in the pandemic which gave $1,200 to adults and $500 for each child. The first checks were passed with bipartisan and presidential approval at a point when the pandemic was less severe than it is now.

As of Thursday, however, Politico reported that the latest $908 billion economic stimulus package being negotiated in Congress only allotted for $600 stimulus checks.

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