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Trump's silence on vaccinations is helping Russia ramp up COVID anti-vaxx propaganda: report
March 08, 2021
According to a report from Vice News, former President Donald Trump is giving an assist to Russian propagandists who are trying to undermine confidence in two of the COVID-19 vaccines being distributed in the United States.
Last week it was reported that Trump and his wife Melania secretly received the vaccine and kept it quiet from his supporters after almost year of downplaying COVID-19 fears which, in turn, contributed to his re-election loss.
<p>According to the Vice report, Trump's continuing silence on getting vaccinated is playing into Russia's hands.</p><p>The report notes the State Department has, "... been tracking Kremlin-backed websites pushing false narratives around the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, in particular, baselessly claiming they are unsafe and cause serious side effects."</p><p>Vice's David Gilbert wrote, "Russia's efforts to spread anti-vaxxer disinformation in the U.S. are being aided by the actions of former President Donald Trump, who has refused to endorse the vaccine to his tens of millions of supporters who are among those least likely to get the shot," adding, "The current disinformation campaign is no surprise. It echoes <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304567" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a similar Kremlin-orchestrated anti-vaxx disinformation campaign</a> that coincided with Trump's first presidential campaign and his entry to the White House. That campaign, too, was designed to sow distrust and division in American society."</p><p>According to the report, Russian propaganda site New Front has been pushing conspiracy theories like "the Pfizer vaccine caused Bell's palsy in recipients, the false claim that it isn't effective in older people, and that people continue to contract COVID-19 after getting the vaccine shot," despite being widely debunked.</p><p>The report notes that Trump has long cast doubt on vaccines, dating back to before he was president when he claimed, "When I was growing up, autism wasn't really a factor and now all of a sudden, it's an epidemic. Everybody has their theory. My theory and I study it because I have young children, my theory is the shots. We're giving these massive injections at one time, and I really think it does something to the children." </p><p>The report adds, "Trump continued to embrace the anti-vaxxer movement as he entered the White House. He even invited the father of the modern anti-vaxxer movement, <a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2019/02/14/the-deadly-anti-vaxxer-movement-started-in-britain-co-opted-by-trump-boosted-by-putin/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield, to his inauguration ball</a>."</p><p>You can<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad93m/trump-is-helping-russia-spread-lies-about-covid-vaccines" target="_blank"> read more here</a>.</p>
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Trump investigation probes whether he lied about value of New York estate to score tax breaks
March 08, 2021
A large Georgian mansion in New York has become part of the probe into former President Donald Trump and the finances of his family.
According to an Associated Press report, both the criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and the civil investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James will look into whether Trump raised the value of the property to score tax perks.
<p>"Both investigations focus on whether Trump manipulated the property's value to reap greater tax benefits from an environmental conservation arrangement he made at the end of 2015, while running for president," said the AP. </p><p>Trump bought the property, known as Seven Springs, in 1995 for $7.5 million. As he was leaving office in 2021, judges granted subpoenas for finances from Trump that would cover the property. </p><p>While reports of Trump's scandals tend to focus more on payoffs for his affairs or attempts to overthrow an election on a call with Georgia officials, he's also facing some white-collar investigations.</p><p>"In 2006, while pushing a plan to build luxury homes on the property, Trump floated the idea that he and his family were going to move into the mansion, but that never happened," the AP recalled. </p><p>Trump wanted to turn it into a championship golf course for exclusive clients with high membership fees. He abandoned the idea when residents of the community complained that lawn chemicals would go into Byram Lake, which locals use as a water source. </p><p>Trump then tried to turn the property into 46 high-end single-family homes in 2004. "Super-high-end," Trump described at the time. "The likes of which has never been seen on the East Coast."</p><p>That never happened either. </p><p>In 2009, Trump famously bragged that he "made a lot of money" by renting the property to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to use it while he was in New York for a United Nations visit. "Local officials halted work on the tent and Gaddafi never stayed there," the report explained. </p><p>The next plan Trump had was to try and keep the property while cutting the taxes. He gave an easement to a conservation land trust to protect 158 acres of meadows and forest. He scored a $21 million tax cut for it.</p><p>"The amount was based on a professional appraisal that valued the full Seven Springs property at $56.5 million as of Dec. 1, 2015," said the AP. But the local government assessors valued the entire estate at just $20 million. At the same time, Trump said on his personal financial disclosure form that the property was worth between $25 million and $50 million.</p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-westchester-estate-property-value-investigation-d6a128161e52d1cea94d4ffb54d14ef0/gallery/cc51580a9e6f4bb3bae84ac7e81219d2" target="_blank"></a><p>"If the value of the easement was improperly inflated, who obtained the benefit from that improper inflation and in what amounts?" said Michael Colangelo, who serves as a lawyer for the attorney general's office. "It goes without saying that the attorney general needs to see the records that would reflect the value of that deduction, as it flowed up to intermediate entities, and ultimately to Mr. Trump, personally."</p><p>Attorney General James has also subpoenaed zoning and planning records for the property from 2019 and the AP reported that a town clerk said Vance was given "boxes and boxes of documents" in response to his subpoenas.</p><p>Trump called the investigations a "Witch Hunt." </p><p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-westchester-estate-property-value-investigation-d6a128161e52d1cea94d4ffb54d14ef0" target="_blank">Read the full report from the <em>Associated Press. </em></a></p>
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Trump supporter won't take COVID vaccine because 'he didn’t develop it -- scientists did'
March 08, 2021
A supporter of former President Donald Trump says she will not take the novel coronavirus vaccines because the former president was not personally involved in their creation.
In an interview with the Washington Post, an 80-year-old Trump voter from Oklahoma named Margaret says that she will not get the COVID-19 vaccine even though the first vaccines for the virus were announced in the final months of the Trump administration.
<p>"He didn't develop the vaccine," she said in justifying her lack of trust in in the vaccine. "Scientists did it."</p><p>Margaret's comments are part of a larger story in the Post about diehard Trump supporters who are refusing to take any vaccines, which could jeopardize America's chances of achieving herd immunity and ending the pandemic that so far has killed 525,000 Americans.</p><p>"A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last month found that 28 percent of Republicans said they would 'definitely not'<strong> </strong>get vaccinated, and another 18 percent said they would 'wait and see' before getting a shot," the Post notes.</p><p>Even though Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference last month that all Americans should get vaccinated, one former Trump official complains to the Post that Trump waited months before publicly promoting vaccinations.</p><p>"I wish it had been earlier," the official comments. "He's the only one that can get to these people."</p>
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