De Blasio Cop Cartoons

Quarantine requirements may delay return to in-person school

Vacation but not School ?

Shannon Silver had planned to take her family on a trip from her home in Connecticut to visit relatives in Ohio just before the start of the school year for her two children.

But she and her husband reversed course when people traveling from Ohio were added to a list of those who must quarantine for 14 days upon entering Connecticut. That requirement might have meant her 10-year-old son would miss the first day of sixth grade at St. Matthew School in Bristol.

“We weren’t going to do that, especially at the beginning of the school year,” Silver said. “Plus, he really didn’t want to miss the last two weeks of summer by having to quarantine.”

The family instead went to see other relatives in Colorado, which wasn’t on the list.

As states around the country require visitors from areas with high rates of coronavirus infections to quarantine upon arrival, children taking end-of-summer vacations to hot spots are facing the possibility of being forced to skip the start of in-person learning at their schools.

More than a dozen states have such travel advisories, including many in the Northeast along with Alaska, Kentucky and Ohio.

More than 30 states are on the list issued by Connecticut, New York and New Jersey in an attempt to prevent another surge of COVID-19 in the region, which was among the hardest hit early in the pandemic. As schools in the Northeast prepare to open early next month, officials are urging parents to be mindful of that guidance while planning any Labor Day getaways.

In Connecticut, where infection numbers are among the lowest in the country, more than half of schools are planning to open for in-person learning. Gov. Ned Lamont made it clear this month that neither students nor teachers would be exempt from quarantine if they visit a hot spot.

“Don’t go to South Florida; don’t go to Phoenix, Arizona, and skip El Paso, Texas, and I would stay away from Southern California for a while too,” said Lamont, a Democrat. “I would stay close to home. I think there are some amazing places you can visit here and do it a lot safer.”

Bill Smith, a high school teacher at Southern Regional High School in Ocean County, New Jersey, said he canceled a research trip that was planned as part of his graduate degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

“This is the first summer in years that I have not traveled outside of the state,” Smith said. “I have been more than happy to follow any and all guidelines that help protect the health and safety of those around me.”

Pat Toben-Cropper, of Herndon, Virginia, is planning to drive her daughter, Kylie Cropper, back to college this month at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College in Manchester, New Hampshire. She said because of the travel advisories in the Northeast, she was unable to get a hotel reservation north of Pennsylvania.

“It became this logistical nightmare,” she said.

But enforcing the rules can be challenging. In New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said recently he can’t bar people from traveling and hoped they would heed the quarantine advice. New York has been stopping some out-of-state travelers at checkpoints to ensure they are abiding by the quarantine — a move that has come under criticism.

Both New York and New Jersey also are holding out hope for many school districts to offer in-person learning this fall, although Murphy recently authorized the state’s more than 600 school districts to implement virtual options.

New Jersey’s school reopening plan doesn’t directly address students who are in quarantine when the year begins.

Some school districts, like Willingboro, have reminded families to quarantine if they’re returning from states listed on the advisory. Others, like the state’s largest in Newark, don’t directly mention the advisory in their return-to-school plans.

Nancy Deering, the ombudsman for Newark’s public schools, said the plan is “fluid” and guidance could be added at some point. She pointed to the fact that teachers and staff must produce a negative test and undergo a symptom screening to return to school in person.

But schools will simply have to trust that students who have traveled to hot spots are coming clean and following the rules.

Walter Willett, the superintendent of schools in Tolland, Connecticut, said he fears that students might lie, so they can attend in-person classes. His schools are making sure that every class has an online learning option and will try to ensure kids don’t miss a beat if they need to quarantine.

“We have to be vigilant in protecting each other and, please, if you are in one of these situations, know that you will be supported. It’s important for the families to know that we have remote learning, online learning for them and that it’s not a permanent thing,” Willett said.

Many of the travel restrictions in place are moving targets, complicating planning for families. Last week, for instance, a handful of states were removed — including nearby Rhode Island and the Silvers’ destination of Ohio — and a few more added to the tristate area’s list.

Erin McCall, of Avon, Connecticut, said she also was going to postpone a trip to Ohio, before it was removed from the list. She said she now plans to keep her son home this fall anyway because the safety line always seems to be moving.

“Everything is put on hold, vacation, going back to school, because everything is changing so rapidly,” she said. “If I had more confidence in the school system and its ability to sterilize everything and make everything safe, then maybe I’d change my plans. But I don’t.”

Trump sends warning to NYC’s de Blasio after another bloody weekend

President Trump warned New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Sunday night that the federal government would act if his office fails to get a grip on the ongoing increase of violent crime in the city.
“Law and Order,” Trump tweeted. “If @NYCMayor can’t do it, we will!”
At least five people died in shootings across the city in at least 30 shootings, Fox 5 NY reported.
Eric Adams, the Brooklyn Borough president and former NYPD captain, told the station that he is not seeing the “level of urgency that should come from the city when you have a high level of violence.”
The Fox 5 NY report said that there were shooting in every borough and 43 shooting victims, 10 times the number over the same weekend in 2019.
He continued, “I would hate to believe that we’ve become immune to violence based on the geographical location and ethnicity of the victims.”
The report indicated that since the beginning of the year, there have been 1,087 victims of shootings in the city, compared to 577 at the same time the previous year. The report said that there have been 263 deaths in the city compared to 196 in 2019.
The shootings prompted the New York Post to run an editorial titled, “We Need Someone to Run for Mayor Who Will Save New York.”
“By the beginning of the de Blasio era, the murder rate had fallen by nearly 90 percent. Today, Gotham is plummeting at warp speed — yet it’s eminently saveable,” the editorial board wrote.
De Blasio's office did not respond to Fox News for comment.
Fox Business reported Sunday that thousands of  New Yorkers are leaving the city due to the challenges from dealing with record apartment vacancies, coronavirus shutdowns and the violence. The Hartford Courant reported that 16,000 New Yorkers switched their residences to Connecticut during the first three months of the pandemic.
This is not the first time that Trump called out a Democrat mayor over an increase in violence and unrest over protests stemming from George Floyd’s death in police custody. He is usually met with resistance from these mayors who insist that federal troops only increase tensions in these cities. Trump, in an election year, is trying to position himself as the country’s law-and-order choice.
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, which announced its endorsement of Trump last week, tweeted out about the recent bloody week in the city that resulted in 12 deaths and 69 victims.
“The reasons aren’t complicated,” the PBA tweeted. “Our city politicians have demonized us at every turn and in the process stripped us of necessary tools to get guns off the streets. When cops are left handling crime with a “light touch,” violent gangs step into the void and reign terror on NYers.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Trump narrows gap with Biden, new poll shows

A new national poll released on the eve of the two major political party conventions indicates Democratic challenger Joe Biden with a smaller lead over President Trump than most other live telephone operator surveys show.

The ticket of Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California – whom the former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee named as his running mate last week - tops the ticket of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence 50%-46% among registered voters in a CNN survey conducted August 12-15. The 4-point advantage for the Democratic ticket is right at the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Biden’s lead over the president in the CNN poll widens to 53%-46% among the nearly three-quarters of those questioned who said they’re extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this fall. But the former vice president’s edge of Trump shrinks to just 1 point – 49%-48% - among those polled who live in 15 general election battleground states.
The CNN poll ???? – which was released Sunday – questioned 987 registered voters nationwide using live telephone operators.

Pelosi calls members back to Capitol Hill to consider USPS legislation, calls post office 'Election Central' amid coronavirus

Idiot Democrat

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested members could be brought back from August recess to address issues regarding the U.S. Postal Service, while urging Democrats to appear at their local post offices amid the battle for mail-in ballots for the 2020 presidential election.
Pelosi, D-Calif., on Sunday said the post office has become “Election Central” thanks to the coronavirus pandemic even as President Trump and Republicans have warned for months that universal mail-in ballots would cause widespread voter fraud in the election.
“Alarmingly, across the nation, we see the devastating effects of the President’s campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi went on to slam Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, calling him a “top Trump mega-donor” who has “proven a complicit crony as he continues to push forward sweeping new operational changes that degrade postal service, delay the mail, and – according to the Postal Service itself – threaten to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections in a timely fashion.”
“These delays also threaten the health and economic security of the American people by delaying delivery of life-saving medicines and payments,” Pelosi said. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the President.”
She added: “That is why I am calling upon the House to return to session later this week to vote on Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Maloney’s ‘Delivering for America Act,’ which prohibits the Postal Service from implementing any changes to operations or level of service it had in place on January 1, 2020.”
Pelosi also said in an effort “to save the Postal Service,” that members should “participate in a Day of Action on Tuesday by appearing at a Post Office in their districts for a press event.”
“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi said. “Americans should not have to choose between their health and their vote.”
A senior Democratic aide told Fox News that Pelosi could have members return to Capitol Hill from August recess on Friday, and to be ready for deliberations on legislation for the USPS on Saturday—the weekend in between the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention.
Pelosi’s comments come after she, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., demanded the postmaster general and chairman of the U.S. Postal Service testify before Congress on Aug. 24. The Democrats said the testimony would be about the recent “sweeping and dangerous operational changes” at the agency that they claimed are “slowing” the mail and “jeopardizing the integrity” of the 2020 election.
Trump and the Republican Party have been warning for months about possible fraud connected to mail-in voting. The RNC and the Trump campaign have filed lawsuits to hit back against efforts by Democrats to overhaul voting laws in response to the pandemic; this, while Democrats say that cases of actual voter fraud are limited and claim that Republicans are trying to suppress voter turnout to improve their chances of winning elections.
Earlier this week, the USPS warned 46 states and the District of Columbia that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail will arrive in time to be counted in the November election.
Democrats have asked for $25 billion, including $3.5 billion in election resources, to fortify the Postal Service in time for the election to be included in the fourth coronavirus stimulus package. Trump has said the Postal Service money won’t be coming through unless Democrats come to the negotiating table on coronavirus relief and give concessions to Republicans.
“Sure, if they give us what we want,” the president said of the post office money during a press conference Friday. “And it's not what I want, it's what the American people want.”
Trump on Thursday said mail-in voting would not be possible without the funding.
"It's their fault," Trump told FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria.” "They want $3.5 billion for something that's fraudulent ... for the mail-in votes, universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion for the post office. They need that money so it can work and they can take these millions and millions of ballots.”
The president said vote-by-mail is contingent on the funding.
"But if they don't get those two items, then they can't have mail-in ballots," he said.
The president went on to slam the voting by mail. He said ballots have been “sent to dogs” and "dead people," citing states like Virginia, where he said more than “500,000 phony ballot applications were sent to voters,” and in New York, where mail-in voting caused a weeks-long delay in announcing results for some races in the state's primary.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign said casting ballots by mail is the “most secure form of voting" amid the novel coronavirus.
But earlier this week, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci said there is “no reason” Americans can’t vote in person for the 2020 presidential election, so long as voters follow proper social distancing guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think if carefully done, according to the guidelines, there’s no reason that I can see why that cannot be the case,” Fauci told ABC News this week. “If you go and wear a mask, if you observe the physical distancing, and don’t have a crowded situation, there’s no reason why [people] shouldn’t be able to do that.”
Fauci added that individuals who are “compromised physically or otherwise” and who are not interested in physically going to the polls on Election Day, can use mail-in voting.
But Fauci doubled-down, saying “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to vote in person or otherwise.”
Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report. 

Old Slow Joe Cartoons

Lara Trump on Kamala Harris pick: It's still 'old slow Joe at the top of that ticket'

President Trump's campaign adviser Lara Trump says the Trump campaign isn't concerned with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden picking Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as they are focused on reminding the American public what Trump has accomplished during his first term

Despite the attention Kamala Harris is receiving as his recently picked running mate, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden still tops his party's ticket, Trump 2020 Campaign senior adviser Lara Trump noted Saturday.

"I would remind everybody that it is still Joe Biden's, old slow Joe at the top of that ticket, Jeanine, and that is what ultimately matters," Trump said during an appearance on Fox News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine."
"That is the person I'll remind the mainstream media -- who went into overdrive with a love fest of sorts for Kamala Harris, whenever it was announced that she was the vice presidential running mate of Joe Biden," Trump said. "It's still, Joe, at the top of the ticket. So our strategy has always been to remind people about the incredible job that this president did with his first three-and-a-half years in office."
The president's daughter-in-law, who is married to Eric Trump, took issue with what she called Biden's "pandering" with his selection of a woman as his running mate, slamming him and saying she was insulted.
"And I have found it very interesting that the mainstream media and the people on the left think that the women in this country, Judge Jeanine, are stupid," Trump said. "Apparently, they forgot that the identity politics, they tried to play in 2016 when they suggested that women should vote for someone named Hillary Clinton because she was a woman, didn't work then, it's not going to work."
"I for one, was insulted when months ago Joe Biden came out and he said, guess what? It's going to be a woman who is my running mate. Let's not worry about qualifications. Let's not worry about what they bring to the table," Trump continued. "If these people want to stand up for equality, people in this country will never be fully equal in their eyes until they stop pandering for votes and playing identity politics."

Trump said she was looking forward to the presidential debates, hoping the first debate would be moved up, saying the president would expose Biden.
"People are going to fully see that this man does not have all his faculties about him," Trump said about Biden. "They are going to fully see that the radicalization of Joe Biden and the Democrat Party is complete, that he is a full-blown socialist."

AOC is speechless on Seattle protesters

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday refused to condemn Black Lives Matter protesters who demanded white folks “give up their homes,” instead saying there is a need to “establish just policies and address the core issues of brutality in order for us to come together.”
The Democratic socialist made her remarks Saturday during a stop at the Woodside Houses, a NYCHA housing complex in Queens, where she greeted residents and spoke to locals and reporters.
“Since this is happening in Seattle, I don’t have as close of a view on what’s happening. Of course I represent New York’s 14th Congressional District, so I don’t know the details of the protests that are going on, but I think what’s really important is that we make sure people are safe and it’s important for us to enact legislation and policy that actually addresses the core reasons behind why all of this kind of disruption is happening,” AOC said, adding, “until we do that, this is going to keep occurring, whether we want it to or not.”
She said her message is that it’s “extremely important that we establish just policies and address the core issues of brutality in order for us to come together.”
AOC said she “needed to have more context” regarding the issue of Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan being recalled in order to comment.
The firebrand progressive also fought off talk of a potential run for president.
“Everyone leave me alone,” AOC scolded. “I am focused on making sure that we preserve our democracy so that we can make sure there is a fair and just 2024 election at all, so I never want to hear anything about an election after November right now.”

Trump campaign plans huge digital ad buy ahead of DNC, as Biden airs first ad with Harris

The Trump campaign will launch a four-day advertising blitz across some of the nation's most visited digital platforms during the Democratic National Convention next week.
The DNC, which kicks off Monday, will be a four-day event with dozens of top Democrats giving speeches and voicing their support for the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden.
But as some of the most influential party leaders address the nation, Trump will be aggressively inundating digital platforms with front-page takeovers and banner ads, targeting more than just political programs.
According to a report by The New York Times on Saturday, The Trump campaign will be taking over the YouTube main page banner for a whopping 96 hours. The campaign has also reportedly bought up premium ad space on Hulu -- meaning viewers cannot skip the Trump ads before watching their desired content.
“Unheard of scale & saturation,” Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director tweeted Saturday.  “Never before seen, political or corporate. Millions more will watch TRUMP content than will watch the DNC.”
Other digital platforms such as the Washington Post, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal will all have ad space reserved on their homepages, purchased by the Trump campaign for a reported seven-figure amount, which could even surpass $10 million, depending on ad engagement.
“It’s great that Team Biden let the Trump campaign grab up the best premium real estate on the Internet during Joe’s big week,” Murtaugh told The New York Times. “We’ll show millions of Americans exactly how the radical, leftist takeover of Joe Biden is now complete.”
But a spokesperson for the Biden campaign called the aggressive advertising strategy a “stunt” and a waste of money.
“No smoke and mirrors charade can conceal that Donald Trump’s failed leadership has cost over 167,000 Americans their lives and driven the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden Administration into one of the deepest recessions in our history,” Andrew Bates, director of Rapid Response for Biden’s campaign, told the publication Saturday.
The Biden campaign, which has purchased digital ad space on YouTube during the Republican National Convention alongside the Trump campaign, claims to have spent its advertising funds in a more strategic way.
Digital platforms like Hulu are being utilized to target audiences in specific states by Biden’s campaign, rather than homepage takeovers or banner ads seen nationwide.
But the ad wars are just getting started, and Americans can expect to see greater amounts of ad space consumed by politics as the Nov. 3 election date nears.
The Biden campaign raised $48 million in the 48 hours following Biden’s announcement for his vice presidential pick, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., a figure that was first reported by Reuters and confirmed with the campaign by Fox News this week.
The Biden-Harris ticket also launched its first advertisement highlighting Harris’ commitment to public service. The 30-second clip was also the Biden campaign’s first bilingual ad, which will be running on YouTube and targeting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida, according to a report by ABC News Saturday.
The Trump campaign had been ahead in funds raised monthly until July, and it is too soon to tell who will come out on top in August – though the selection of Harris seems to have energized Democratic donors.
Biden announced that 150,000 first-time donors contributed within 48 hours of the VP announcement.
"It's really palpable, the excitement," Biden said.
Trump’s campaign, along with the RNC and joint fundraising committees, has raised $165 million so far just during the month of August, and closed July with $300 million on hand.
Biden’s campaign has not announced what it has raised so far in August, but finished July with $294 million in cash – just $6 million shy of the reported Trump campaign contributions.
Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Robert Trump, brother of President Trump, dead at 71

Robert Trump, younger brother of President Trump, died Saturday night, the White House confirmed in a statement from the president. He was 71.

"It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight," the president wrote. "He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace."
The president had traveled to New York on Friday to visit his ailing brother. A senior administration official had said the president “has a very good relationship with his brother and his brother is very special to him.”
Robert, who died just 11 days before what would have been his 72nd birthday, had reportedly spent more than a week in the intensive care unit at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City earlier this summer.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - APRIL 1990: Donald Trump with sister Maryanne Trump Barry and brother Robert Trump attend the Trump Taj Mahal opening April 1990 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Getty Images)

Robert Trump is the president’s youngest brother and the youngest of the five Trump siblings: Maryanne Trump Barry, 83, a retired federal judge; Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981 at the age of 43; Donald, 74, who is in the middle; Elizabeth Trump Grau, 78, a retired bank executive, and then Robert.
Like his president brother, Robert Trump joined the family business and was a top executive at the Trump Organization.

Atlantic City, N.J.: Robert Trump, brother of developer Donald Trump, attends a topping-off ceremony for the new transportation facility at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City on March 19, 1987. (Photo by John Paraskevas/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

Robert Trump had pulled back from the public view in recent years and described himself as “gainfully retired” living in Millbrook, N.Y. But Robert had come back into the spotlight recently, as he repeatedly tried to block publication of his niece Mary Trump’s new book, “Too Much and Never Enough.”

He requested a restraining order to stop the book from being published, saying its publication would be a violation of the will she signed of the family patriarch Fred Trump Sr.
“Her attempt to sensationalize and mischaracterize our family relationship after all of these years for her own financial gain is both a travesty and injustice to the memory of my late brother, Fred, and our beloved parents,” he said. “I and the rest of my entire family are so proud of my wonderful brother, the president, and feel that Mary’s actions are truly a disgrace,” Robert Trump told the New York Times in a statement.
Robert Trump didn’t court the limelight the way his brother did, but his high-profile divorce in 2008 from his wife of 25 years, socialite Blaine Trump, broke headlines. Robert Trump was said to be having an affair with his secretary, with whom he later lived, Ann Marie Pallan. Robert and Blaine remained on good terms, with Blaine even attending President Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
The youngest Trump sibling used his fortune to patronize a number of local causes and small businesses, local residents told Town and Country Magazine. He was a trustee of Angels of Light, a holiday giving nonprofit, and had donated a significant amount to a horse rescue operation in the area, among other causes.