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2021-02-07 14:54:02 "Putting Tubman on legal tender, when slaves in the U.S. were treated as fungible commodities, is a supreme form of disrespect" writes Brittney Cooper ( Professor Crunk ).

"America certainly owes a debt to Black people, but this is not the way to repay it"

time.com

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2021-02-07 12:37:03 People familiar with Trump’s strategy say his defense attorneys David Schoen and Bruce Castor hope to keep the trial “short and sweet” — not wanting to entangle themselves in a lengthy debate over whether their client’s comments at the “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House qualify as inciting speech, or legitimize the prosecution’s arguments by focusing on Jan. 6. Instead, they plan to keep their defense narrowly tailored to the question of constitutionality.

Trump is likely to be acquitted — nearly four dozen Republican senators voted last week to declare Trump’s impeachment unconstitutional, leaving little chance that 17 GOP members will join Democrats to convict the former president.

In light of that, some allies are pressing him to use the trial to reintroduce his claims of ballot fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election.

“He is not going to be convicted, so we must address Nov. 3. And the best place to adjudicate this is the well of the U.S. Senate,” said Bannon. “It has to be dramatic, it has to be big. It has to be the big lie versus the big steal.”

Trump, whose own interest in resurfacing claims of a stolen election led to the abrupt departure of his original defense team last week, is not currently expected to take on a public-facing role in his impeachment trial — meaning that any mention of election fraud will be left to his attorneys to include or omit.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who served on the legal team representing Trump during his first impeachment trial and declined to represent Trump again, said focusing on election fraud would be a “serious mistake.” But he also said the president’s legal team should avoid ticking through what was said in the hours before the riots on Capitol Hill.

“He loses senators if he starts going into a defense of his claims on the election or his defense of his speech,” Dershowitz said. “He’s better off if he allows his lawyers to make constitutional arguments under the first amendment and the limitations of the Senate to try anyone who is no longer in office.”

Dershowitz has argued Trump’s speech, which he called “upsetting,” is protected by the first amendment and pointed to the unanimous 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio in which it was ruled that promoting the use of force is protected unless "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action."

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who met with Senate Republicans last week to outline the unconstitutionality of the trial, said he expects Trump’s defense to show clips of Democratic lawmakers making equally heated claims about the election. A team of former Trump aides who were enlisted by Miller to help prepare for next week have already developed graphics and videos that will be used by the former president’s attorneys at the trial.

“I think this trial may prove a raw reflection of our age of rage. I think both sides are looking at this trial to amplify their mutual criticisms,” Turley said. “There’s going to be a lot of heat and not much light generated from those arguments. I don’t think many minds are going to be changed either way.”

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

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2021-02-07 12:36:55 The former president, whom House Democrats have accused of inciting the rioters at a rally earlier the same day, is already hemorrhaging support within the GOP. Recent public polls have shown a sharp decline in support among Republican voters for a potential Trump comeback bid in 2024. And a widely televised trial that reminds voters and lawmakers of the disturbing moments when MAGA devotees assaulted law enforcement officials and broke into the Capitol building could harm his future political aspirations even more.

“The Democrats have a very emotional and compelling case,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. “They’re going to try to convict him in the eyes of the American people and smear him forever.”

Trump’s legal team appears to have similar trepidations that next week’s proceedings will turn into a high-profile retelling of the riots and his role in them. To prevent that from happening, his lawyers have centered their case on whether it is constitutional to impeach a president after he’s left office. They also plan to argue that he did not engage in insurrection, saying his fiery speech on the ellipse of the White House was protected by the First Amendment, without indulging a lengthy discussion about what happened on Jan. 6.

“We don’t need to focus on Jan. 6 because this is unconstitutional,” said a person familiar with the strategy, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “There’s a lot of legal technical arguments that are going to be discussed.”

The concern among Trump’s allies that the trial will be a relitigation of the events at the Capitol underscores the degree to which next week is being viewed as a public relations matter for the optics-obsessed former president. It was notable on Thursday that in a letter dismissing the House impeachment managers’ calls for Trump to testify at the trial, the ex-president’s lawyers decried the request as a “public relations stunt.”

Still, there is little Trump’s team can do to stop the trial from veering towards a discussion of Jan. 6, since the impeachment managers are likely to focus intensely on the riots — and could, indeed, call witnesses to testify about what happened. In advance of that happening, top Republicans have begun to warn that Democrats are trying to score political points rather than address substantive constitutional matters.

“I think we all know what happened there, and I think that was reckless,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of Trump’s speech and riots that occurred after. “But I think the Democrats are wanting to make a statement rather than to provide a fair process by which this could actually be considered in a constitutional way.” Open / Comment

2021-02-07 12:36:41 Trump’s allies fear the impeachment trial could be a PR nightmare

The ex-president's boosters fear major reputational damage if next week’s hearings focus on the violence of Jan. 6 and not narrow questions about the Constitution.

Allies of former President Donald Trump are imploring his impeachment team to avoid one specific topic when they defend the ex-president at his Senate trial next week: the deadly riot that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol.

Despite Trump’s likely acquittal on charges that he incited an insurrection, some of his most ardent supporters fear the trial could further damage his reputation if his attorneys wade into the events of Jan. 6, when five people were killed — including a Capitol police officer — after pro-Trump demonstrators stormed the halls of Congress. Open / Comment

2021-02-07 12:18:13 Myanmar coup: Tens of thousands protest for second day

Tens of thousands of people have protested for a second day in Myanmar's main city, Yangon, despite an internet shutdown imposed by the military that has failed to stop anti-coup rallies.

"We don't want military dictatorship," the crowds chanted. Many held pictures of detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi and wore red, the colour of her party.

She has not been seen since the army overthrew her government last Monday.

Internet access now appears to have been partially restored.

The blackout was imposed on Saturday after the military blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stop people mobilising. Phone services have also been disrupted.

bbc.com

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2021-02-06 15:31:17 Dissatisfaction with coronavirus response on the rise in US, Germany, poll finds

A large majority of Germans still say their country is doing a good job.

A growing number of Germans and Americans are feeling dissatisfied with their country’s pandemic response, according to a study published Wednesday.

A Pew Research Center survey found that just 41 percent of U.S. respondents said their country had done a good job dealing with the coronavirus crisis, down from 47 percent in June. In Germany, approval remained high but also declined from 88 percent in June to 77 percent in December, when cases in the country surged.

In France and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, opinion remained fairly stable across the same time period. Brits felt slightly more positive about their country’s approach, with approval rising from 46 to 48 percent; in France, approval declined slightly, from 59 to 54 percent.

Politico.eu

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2021-02-06 15:14:43 Should Budapest start overtaking its neighbors in vaccination while the rest of the EU struggles, the Sputnik jab could prove irresistible to countries in the neighborhood that have somewhat warmer relations with Moscow, driving a further wedge in the European Commission’s vaccine strategy.

One former Czech health minister has already argued that it’s wrong to ignore Sputnik, and that the country should consider obtaining some of the vaccine for its own population.

However, this all depends on the amount of vaccine that Russia can manufacture. RDIF didn’t reveal how much production is currently online, but said it’s aiming to produce 1 billion doses by the end of the year — enough for 500 million people. It has production agreements with a number of countries outside of Russia, including India, Korea and Brazil. Manufacturing in China will start in February.

But Simona Guagliardo, health policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, cautioned that it’s important to understand the weight that the EMA’s sign-off has.

“The procedures put in place by the EMA aim to create trust in vaccines,” she explained. “This isn’t a small detail if we think about how Europe is the global epicenter for vaccine hesitancy.”

Global ambitions
Up until now, Sputnik V — along with China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm — has been seen as the only route to vaccination for low- and middle-income countries. Unable to afford vaccine deals with big pharmas on one hand, and under-served by the global COVAX facility on the other, these nations have been turning to Russia and China — potentially at the expense of quality.

The fact that these vaccines were being bought up before their efficacy was proven is merely an indicator of countries’ desperation, said Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser at Doctors Without Borders.

Tuesday’s Lancet report, therefore, may come as some relief to both these countries and clinicians like Elder, who want to see equal access to quality vaccines for all.

Theresa Fallon, director for the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, is clear in her assessment: The Russian vaccine has joined a “prestigious club of three global vaccines which are confirmed to be more than 90 percent effective.”

“Competition is good, even in vaccinations, and the sooner vaccination programs are rolled out, the sooner the world can recover from this pandemic,” Fallon said.

Politico.eu

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2021-02-06 15:14:32 “Therefore, we are closely following the situation regarding the vaccine’s possible authorization through the said procedure, which would provide an equal and high level of safety for all European citizens,” she added.

“We will follow the EMA,” said Dony Potasse, spokesperson for the Dutch drugs agency MEB.

A spokesperson for Russia’s sovereign wealth fund responsible for promoting the shot abroad, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, suggested otherwise, claiming that bilateral talks with unnamed countries in the EU — in both the east and west — are going forward.

To date, Hungary had only received small batches to use in clinical trials. But Reuters reported the first delivery of 40,000 doses was due to arrive Tuesday, citing a public television interview with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

While some have balked at the Hungarians’ solitary approach, others think the EU has wasted time for political reasons — and lost time fighting the virus and preventing more deaths.

One is Bavaria’s premier Markus Söder, who said over the weekend that EU regulators should urgently review the Russian and Chinese vaccines, clearing them for use if they are safe and effective. German Health Minister Jens Spahn made a similar remark, suggesting they should be used all across Europe if they’re safe. Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, discussed manufacturing Sputnik at a German facility on a recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The looming question, then, is timing of EU approval. The RDIF spokesperson said Tuesday that talks with the European Medicines Agency — responsible for signing off on any vaccine used in the EU — are ongoing. The Sputnik team is sending a ream of data to the regulator, with the start of the review expected to be announced later this month.

Who will buy?
Sputnik could prove to be a valuable lifeline for many countries. According to the Sputnik team, the shot is sold at less than $10 a dose, far cheaper than the mRNA vaccines made by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna — but still more than the price of a similar adenovirus vaccine from Oxford/AstraZeneca, which costs between $4 and $5 a dose.

Importantly, because the Sputnik vaccine uses adenoviral vector technology, it’s stable at 2-8 degrees Celsius and therefore easier to deal with than the mRNA vaccines, which need extremely cold storage. This could prove to be a boon for less wealthy countries like Bulgaria, which didn’t want to purchase vaccines that required ultra-cold storage, according to media reports.

Indeed, one RDIF official told journalists Tuesday that the shot was designed with accessibility in mind, as the necessary infrastructure for mRNA vaccines wasn’t guaranteed to be in place in far-flung Siberia. Open / Comment

2021-02-06 15:14:15 The news that the jab is as effective as the West’s best efforts provides reason for cheer in regions like the Middle East and South America, where some countries have approved the vaccine — but it also could dog EU officials trying to hold together a coalition that has become embittered over the bloc’s contested vaccine strategy and sluggish vaccine rollout.

As countries like Hungary and Serbia — and maybe Germany — seek alliances with the Russian developer, EU citizens may want to know why leaders didn’t engage with Moscow from the start for the broader sake of public health.

The study in the Lancet, above all else, establishes the vaccine as a serious contender with an efficacy rate of about 92 percent. The figure was arrived at by comparing the number of people infected with coronavirus in the vaccinated group (14,964 subjects) with a control group given a placebo (4,902 subjects).

Measurement of coronavirus infections started when the second dose was administered, 21 days after the first dose. Researchers recorded 16 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 in the vaccine group versus 62 cases in the placebo group. Importantly, there were no cases of “moderate or severe” coronavirus infections in the vaccinated group.

Global roadshow
The results will embolden countries on the EU’s periphery, like Serbia and Belarus, that bet on the Russian vaccine. And it already has a taker within the EU: Hungary, which approved Sputnik V on January 22. (Budapest used an emergency authorization process allowing EU states to bypass rules that new biologically derived treatments should only be assessed centrally by the European Medicines Agency.)

POLITICO contacted every medicines agency in the EU and the European Economic Area. Among those who responded — Belgium, Slovakia, Croatia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Estonia, Ireland and Spain — none said they had had any contact with the Sputnik team. And none intend to.

“For the time being, there are no plans for directly obtaining Sputnik V vaccine,” said Ivana Šipić Gavrilović, spokesperson for the Croatian medicines agency HALMED.

Because the vaccine is derived from biotechnology processes, she said, a “centralized procedure is compulsory for its marketing authorization in the EU.” Open / Comment

2021-02-06 15:13:59 Moscow gains new leverage with coronavirus vaccine breakthrough

Europe risks being caught short once again in its vaccine strategy.

When news broke last August that Russia was the first country to approve a vaccine against the coronavirus, it was met with raised eyebrows around the globe.

The shot — named Sputnik V — hadn’t gone through the standard testing regime. Experts warned that the rushed process risked undermining public confidence in the shot. Meanwhile, media reported that production snags were delaying its rollout.

Impressive late-stage clinical trial results published in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals Tuesday, however, have provided a sought-after endorsement from the scientific community. Open / Comment