Mediaboss Marketing

A watchdog group called for an investigation after the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a large no-bid contract to build a small stretch of border wallto a company owned by a major Republican donor.

The Army Corps of Engineersrevealed Tuesday that it had awarded a $569 million contract to BFBC, an affiliate of Barnard Construction, to build 17.17 miles of the border wallin California. The contract pays more than $33 million permile, even more than the $20 million per milethat the administration has spent on wall construction thus far.

The company, which has extensive ties to Republican lawmakers, has already received more than $1 billion to build 37 miles of the border wall, according to The Daily Beast. It originally received $141 million to build parts of the wall in Arizona, but the contract quickly grew to $443 million without any real explanation. An Army spokesperson told the outlet that the company got the new no-bid contract because it was already "mobilized and working."

Barnard Construction, the parent company BFBC, is owned by Timothy Barnard. Barnard and his wife Mary donated $5,600 to President Donald Trump's re-electionlast year after backing several of his Republican opponents in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data. Barnard has also donated to Sens. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., John Cornyn, R-Tex., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

The company's leadership has donated more than $50,000 to the Montana Republican State Central Committee, according to the Daily Beast, and contributed tens of thousands to support Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.

Advertisement:

Scott Amey, the general counsel at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told the outlet that the contract needs to be investigated.

"$1 billion for 37 miles of wall is a travesty and it must be investigated and audited immediately," he said. "That's nearly $27 million per mile, which is well above other wall costs. These efforts might make good on a campaign promise, but who is minding the store and ensuring that military readiness and bases are not negatively impacted?"

Laura Peterson, a former staffer on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, also questioned why the government was focused on border wall construction as it faces steep costs in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

"Pushing more money out the door for border-wall construction while COVID-19 puts the country into economic arrest reflects dubious priorities," she told The Daily Beast.

A group of House Democrats urged the Trump administration to halt border wall construction in order to focus on the health crisis days before the contract was awarded.

"In a time when our communities face the prospect of rationing ventilators and other life-saving care, all of our government's resources should be spent on building hospitals and medical equipment, and ensuring that the public is safe and healthcare workers have all of the resources they need to face this unprecedented crisis," four Democrats wrotein a letterto the Pentagon, Justice Departmentand Department of Homeland Security.

"There's no decency factor when it comes to this wall," Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the lead signatory of the letter, told The Daily Beast. "These are cronies of Trump. The financial base, they're getting taken care of. Irrespective of the pandemic, the opposition to the wall, the environment, health, indigenous [concerns], all the court cases, this vanity wall proceeds at a rapid pace."

The Daily Beast's Noah Shachtman noted that the Army "somehow" found $569 million despite warning just a month earlier that it needed billions in extra fundingto respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

Journalist John Aravosis pointed out that the money could have instead bought "a couple billion N95 masks"desperately needed by health workers.

Former Obama State Department official Dan Baerargued that the story perfectly encapsulated the foundations of the Trump presidency: "massive corruption," "racist nationalism" and "negligent incompetence."

See the original post:
It must be investigated: Trump donors get $569 million contract to build 17 miles of border wall - Salon

Weve put up with a lot as a nation over the years. But whatever your political party, the latest antics from President Trump, during a global pandemic which has killed more than 25,000 Americans, seal the deal: We need out of this mess for good.

Our threshold for the absolutely absurd and the inarguably indefensible has been fairly high, considering just how far Trump has pushed the boundaries of decency and incompetence.

Since the day he was elected, there has been a near constant-barrage of collateral damage all the stuff that came with him when a mere 27% of the eligible voting population ushered him into office.

There has been the unconventional and brash governing style, a revolving door of staffers and Cabinet members, a steep learning curve in the rules of governance, an inability to admit to failures, a hostility toward the press, etc.

And some of the fallout has been truly galling, from his administrations anti-immigrant policies that put kids in cages at the border to his clandestine attempts to interfere in our elections.

The baggage has not just been for his detractors, but for his supporters, too, who put up with his juvenile tweets, his unhinged attacks on perceived enemies (including even a teenage climate activist with Aspergers syndrome) and a politics of distraction that kept many of their favored policies from being accomplished.

From Republicans point of view, obsession with bringing down Trump also unleashed an unending flood of investigations by Democrats and a failed attempt to remove him from office.

As consumed as we were by the dizzying rollercoaster that has been Trumps presidency, all of that looks like kids stuff compared to the carnival ride from hell we are all on now.

This wasnt inevitable. On a practical level, we could be in better shape today had another administration been better equipped to deal with this pandemic. As two epidemiologists write in the New York Times this week, we could have saved thousands of lives had coronavirus been taken more seriously, earlier.

[A]n estimated 90% of the cumulative deaths in the United States from COVID-19, at least from the first wave of the epidemic, might have been prevented by putting social distancing policies into effect two weeks earlier, on March 2, when there were only 11 deaths in the entire country.

This administration was woefully and unforgivably unprepared for this pandemic, and this president has spent weeks dodging accountability for clear failures, which I outlined in an earlier column time and resources that could have been better used to catch us up and control the outbreak.

Instead, Trump has used this horrific health crisis to stoke more division, to attack governors and the media, to boost his reelection campaign and to needlessly confuse the American public. Even if you can accept that his administration was unprepared at the beginning, there is no excuse for his behavior since then.

There is no excuse for turning a press briefing into a campaign rally, where Trump used an opportunity to inform the American people to instead play a bizarre video of mashup clips attacking his critics.

There is no excuse for Trumps shadow war on experts at a time when we need them most. He has contradicted his own doctors and scientists publicly and privately, and sewn a public distrust in any authority but him. Hes allowed his followers to stoke nonsensical conspiracy theories about Dr. Anthony Fauci, an esteemed public health official, even retweeting a #FireFauci tweet.

And there is no excuse for Trumps brazen and unconstitutional power grab. Trump has tried to bully the states either into doing what he wants or praising his response. And his latest exercise in despotism When somebodys president of the United States, the authority is total was a disaster. Republicans and Democrats alike clapped back. Even some of his staunchest conservative defenders hammered the assertion and eventually he was forced to retreat.

This is utter lunacy. Why are we putting up with it?

Weve grown complacent about Trumps obvious incompetence and unmanageable mania, numbed by the inundation of idiocy over the past three years. But now its costing American lives, and we are all still in the crosshairs of his ineptitude.

Fortunately, theres a mechanism to stop the insanity and excise the cancerous rot from atop our leadership in November. But Im not sure that we can afford to wait that long.

secuppdailynews@yahoo.com

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.

Read this article:
Donald Trump is the virus: His coronavirus response confirms how toxic he is for our nation - Chicago Sun-Times

Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi a sick puppy on Monday, after the House speaker said the presidents mishandling of the coronavirus crisis would contribute to deaths in the US that might have been avoided.

Shes a sick puppy thats a terrible thing to say, Trump said in a rambling hour-long call-in interview to the cable show Fox & Friends. My poll numbers are the highest theyve ever been because of her.

While the president was attacking his adversaries, the top infectious-disease expert in the US warned that smaller cities were about to witness a rapid acceleration in coronavirus cases.

New Orleans and Detroit are showing signs that theyre going to take off and other, smaller cities are percolating, Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News.

According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, by Monday nearly 143,000 Covid-19 cases had been confirmed in the US, with more than 2,500 deaths. New York is by far the state worst hit, with nearly 60,000 cases and about 1,000 deaths.

As the emergency has accelerated, Trump has stepped up his war of words with Democrats and the media, in what critics see as an attempt to distract from the administrations failings in confronting the virus.

Widespread testing remains unavailable in most of the US, healthcare workers and local leaders raise a daily alarm about dire shortages of medical equipment, and state leaders have imposed a patchwork of restrictions or declined to impose restrictions in what emergency response experts have described as a vacuum of federal leadership.

In news conferences, Trump has swung between false assurance that business as normal would resume by Easter and crediting himself with avoiding what early models showed could be a worst-case scenario of millions of deaths.

In his interview on Monday, Trump told the Fox News hosts he had saved the country from deaths like you have never seen before.

Pelosi told CNN on Sunday that the presidents denial at the beginning was deadly and said his delay in getting equipment to where its needed is deadly As the president fiddles, people are dying.

Trump also repeated a baseless claim he made on Sunday, accusing states including New York, which has had to erect emergency medical facilities in Central Park and move in refrigerator trucks to temporarily store bodies, of squandering medical equipment.

Trumps charges drew fire from New Yorks mayor.

I find that insulting to our healthcare workers, Bill de Blasio told CNN. I find it insensitive.

What the president should be doing is praising our healthcare workers, not suggesting somehow theyre doing something wrong with the supplies that have been sent. Thats just insensitive and its unhelpful.

The long-running feud between Trump and New York state leaders simmered as dramatic pictures emerged of the US navy hospital ship USNS Comfort arriving in New York harbor. The ship, which can accommodate about 1,000 patients, will not treat coronavirus victims but will take other patients to relieve hospitals on land.

Welcome to New York, USNS Comfort, Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted. We knew from the outset that expanded hospital capacity was critical. We asked and the federal government answered.

Other states continued to ramp up their responses. The governor of Maryland issued a stay-at-home order effective from Monday evening, becoming the 23rd state to do so. Michigan extended unemployment programs to workers who do not qualify for state benefits, including independent contractors, the self-employed and seasonal workers.

Vermont issued an order requiring any person coming from outside the state for anything other than an essential purpose to home-quarantine for 14 days. Arizona announced that schools would remain closed through the end of the spring term. And the Republican governor of Florida, who has resisted issuing a statewide stay-at-home order, urged residents in four southern counties to stay home through mid-May.

Fauci said at the weekend the US could see more than a million cases and suffer 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. I dont want to see it, Id like to avoid it, but I wouldnt be surprised if we saw 100,000 deaths, he said on Monday.

As recently as late February, Trump claimed publicly that the virus would simply disappear. But on Fox & Friends he credited his administration with avoiding a death toll in the millions.

Thats a lot, he said.

Political leaders from both parties have indicated that Washington could follow its $2tn coronavirus relief package with more stimulus bills, but Trump on Monday criticized Democrats demands for protections of the 2020 election in November.

As part of the initial relief package, Democrats sought a provision, later discarded, that would allow all voters to cast ballots by mail.

The things they had in there were crazy, Trump told Fox & Friends. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it youd never have a Republican elected in this country again.

See more here:
Trump lashes out at critics as Fauci warns New Orleans and Detroit will 'take off' - The Guardian

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.

The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if youd ever agreed to it, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again, Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.

Democrats often accuse Republicans of deliberately making it hard to vote in order to keep minorities, immigrants, young people and other groups from the polls. And Republicans often say they oppose voting reforms because of concerns of voter fraud which is extremely rare or concerns over having the federal government run elections. But Trumps remarks reveal how at least some Republicans have long understood voting barriers to be a necessary part of their political self-preservation.

I dont want everybody to vote, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, said in 1980. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

Trumps Monday comments showed he saw voter suppression as part of his re-election strategy, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a statement Monday. Ensuring that Americans can vote during the Covid-19 crisis is fundamental to maintaining our democracy. It is shocking that Trump is essentially admitting that when the American people vote, Republican lose, said Xochitl Hinojosa, a DNC spokeswoman. Trump knows that suppressing the vote is the only way he and Republicans win in November.

Shortly after he was elected, Trump falsely claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes. There is no credible evidence to support the claim. In December, a Trump campaign aide was recorded saying: Traditionally its always been Republicans suppressing votes in places. The aide later told the Associated Press he was saying that Republicans have traditionally been accused of voter suppression.

The $400m that Congress allocated so far is just a small fraction of what the Brennan Center for Justice estimated election officials need to run elections in November if coronavirus still lingers. Officials need that money to pay for postage, personnel and equipment to process an influx of mail-in ballots.

The urgency of getting election officials those resources should not be lost in the political fighting, said Myrna Perez, director of the Brennan Centers voting rights and elections program.

What cannot be lost in all the back and forth among politicians is that election administrators at the state and local level need substantial resources now to ensure that the elections in November go off smoothly and safely, she said.

See the article here:
Trump says Republicans would never be elected again if it was easier to vote - The Guardian

In a new episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the host, like many others, is hosting from home. He said that they shot on Saturday and told viewers not to feel awkward about the absence of laughing that many are used to with the regular telecast.

I started my comedy career doing standup in England, said Oliver. I am more than used to making jokes to silence.

After getting excited for being celebrated by the Tik Tok hamster he praised in the previous episode, he dove into the only thing making headlines as of late: coronavirus. In particular, he used this opportunity to continue his dragging of Donald Trump and how he has handled the crisis which has clearly gotten worse.

As more confirmed coronavirus cases begin to surface, Oliver said, The president has only recently realized the gravity of the situation. He points out that only a month ago Trump said We have it very much under control and more recently he said Ive felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. He then addressed how Trump said he wanted to open the country and economy by Easter.

Related StorySAG-AFTRA Chief David White On Union's Coronavirus Crisis Response And The Hardships Ahead - A Sobering Deadline Q&A

If you are going to pick a holiday to break a quarantine you can do a lot worse than one honoring the time Jesus was supposed to stay inside but didnt, Oliver joked about Trumps irresponsible attitude with relaxing measures way too soon.

Unlike Trump, governors are taking this crisis seriously while Floridas Ron DeSantis has not issued a statewide stay at home order. More than that, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took things even further by agreeing with Trump about how economic damage of a lockdown is too great to bear.

If you really want to die so the U.S. economy could boom, we already have a system in place for that its called Black Friday, Oliver said in response to Patrick.

As Spain and Iran has made mass graves you can see from space and ice skating rinks serving as makeshift morgues, Oliver points out how absurd it is that conservative pundits are co-signing the idea of people sacrificing themselves for the economy specifically Glenn Beck who recently spoke passionately about the topic.

The coronavirus is not The Hunger Games, said Oliver. You cant volunteer yourself as tribute.

He continued, What Glenn Beck is doing is much darker. [He is] actively volunteering others including all people of all ages to die. Even if these guys are okay with letting the coronavirus kill as many people as it feels like so the economy is protected there are I cant believe I have to say this significant drawbacks to thousands of people dying.

Its critically important for America to be getting a clear, consistent message about the severity of the threat were currently facing, Oliver explains. That is the only way we will be able to manage this virus, contain casualties and get back to something resembling normalcy.

Oliver went on to address the extreme shortage of basic equipment like ventilators and masks that hospitals are facing. And of course, Trump isnt addressing the problem. He is minimizing them. He could have helped solve this by enacting the Defense Production Act to compel companies to produce supplies sooner but he didnt. It is only recently made GM make ventilators.

Trump has failed to give this crisis the seriousness it requires, Oliver said.

As he played clips of a medical professional getting emotional about not having the equipment they need to fight this virus he reiterates that the agony of the virus has been profound.

It didnt need to be this hard, he added. That is why it is so profoundly disheartening that we are being led through this crisis by a man who may be less equipped to deal with this historical moment than anyone in recorded history.

Oliver admits that he was rooting for Trump to do better as handling a crisis well is not inherently political. He said how he doesnt necessarily agree with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine or New York Governor Andrew Cuomo but they are doing their jobs well.

I wish I could honestly say that we are going to be fine but I dont know that, Oliver said. Most of us will be but not all of us. The number that wont is up in the air right now.

A crisis of this magnitude ends up revealing a lot about who you are as a nation and not all that is being revealed is good, he said, adding that coronavirus has exposed vulnerabilities in our medical and political systems as well as the national psyche.

At the same time, this virus has exposed reserves of real strength in this country, he reiterates with hope. Weve seen extraordinary heroism, kindness and ingenuity in the essential lines of work. He goes on to praise grocery store workers, delivery people and medical professionals who he adds should get a parade whenever we are allowed to have parades again.

What we choose to do outside of our hospitals has a direct and significant impact on what happens inside of them, he said while urging social distancing to the maximum extent so that we can make it easier for healthcare workers to do their job.It is the only way to counteract an appalling federal response, he bluntly states.

See the article here:
Last Week Tonight: John Oliver Unpacks How Donald Trump Has Failed To Give Coronavirus Crisis The Seriousness It Requires - Deadline