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  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 President Donald Trump signed an executive order for a payroll tax holiday at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Saturday. “The very important thing is that people want it, and the people need it, actually,” Trump said, noting that Republicans and Democrats in Congress could not reach a deal. The president said that the payroll tax holiday would apply to Americans earning less than $100,000 a year. “If I am victorious on November 3, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” he said. Trump added that he might even “terminate” the tax or make permanent changes. A group of supporters joined the president at his press conference announcing the news and cheered as the president signed the orders. “Biden probably won’t be doing that. You’ll have to ask him. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing,” he said, as his supporters chuckled. The president also said he would provide a federal unemployment enhancement of $400 per week but that states would pay for 25 percent of the cost. He also signed an extension of the moratorium on evictions and deferred student loan payments. Trump said he had to act on his own after negotiations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ground to a halt. “The Democrats have obstructed people from getting desperately needed help,” Trump said. The president said he would find ways to use existing funds already passed by Congress for coronavirus relief to help Americans fight the virus and the economic struggles from the lockdowns. “We have the money to do a lot of things, money that was unspent, and we would do a lot of things with the money that was unspent,” he said. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar told Breitbart News exclusively he views his trip to Taiwan as a message from the United States to the world that Taiwan is and has been a “very important partner” with the U.S. when it comes to global health security. Azar touched down in Taiwan on Sunday, marking the first trip from this high-ranking of a U.S. official since the United States shifted formal diplomatic recognition in the late 1970s under former Democrat President Jimmy Carter from Taiwan’s government, the Republic of China, to the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the mainland in Beijing. “Taiwan has been a very important partner of the United States, but also of the world community as a model of transparent, collaborative, and cooperative approaches to public health throughout the last several years, but especially during the COVID-19 crisis,” Azar told Breitbart News on Friday afternoon, ahead of his trip. “It’s important that I go to reaffirm the partnership that the United States has with Taiwan in public health, but also to hold up Taiwan as a model to the types of behaviors that are important in the international community.” Wheels down in Taipei. Our @HHSGov delegation disembarked wearing masks and tested negative for COVID-19. Honored to be here to convey our support for #Taiwan and their global health leadership. pic.twitter.com/Kwqh2uefhc — Secretary Alex Azar (@SecAzar) August 9, 2020 Azar’s visit to Taiwan comes amid the highest-ever tensions between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the planet. It also comes as the United States slaps sanctions on Hong Kong’s Carrie Lam for being appeasing Chinese authorities in Beijing who have essentially taken over there—something that China’s leader Xi Jinping has long viewed as a goal for unifying Taiwan back into Chinese control. The history is complicated, but what happened is in the mid-20th century, as the Communists under Mao Zedong’s revolution rose to power in China, the old government—the Kuomintang—fell back to Taiwan where it established first a military dictatorship that would later become a democracy. The Communist Party of China refuses to engage in formal diplomacy with any nation that formally engages in diplomacy with Taiwan. Since Carter changed U.S. formal diplomatic channels from Taiwan to China, the U.S. has established deep informal diplomatic ties between the two nations. Technically, neither country has an “embassy” in the other, instead just using formal government-backed nonprofits—the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) backed by the U.S., and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) backed by Taiwan here—to engage in relationship-building. Since the 1980s, Taiwan has been a democracy, and its current President Tsai Ing-wen has been particularly harsh on the Chinese Communist Party—and particularly close with the Trump administration. But, again, no formal such meeting like this—with a senior current cabinet-level U.S. official visiting Taiwan—has taken place since 1979, making Azar’s visit particularly important. Will visit #Taiwan in the coming days to convey @POTUS’s support for their global health leadership and to underscore our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health. — Secretary Alex Azar (@SecAzar) August 5, 2020 Taiwan and the United States have never been closer than during the Trump administration, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told Breitbart News during an interview at the end of a trip that Breitbart News took to Taiwan last year. Wu said the relationship’s strength was “unprecedented.” “Overall speaking, the warmth and the support coming from the Trump administration these days is unprecedented and we enjoy these kinds of relationships,” Wu said in the interview in the spring of 2019. “As a result, you can rest assured, Taiwan will continue to work with the United States on whatever kinds of issues Taiwan can make a contribution.” That only seems to have gotten stronger as the U.S. and China drift apart, accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. During his Friday interview with Breitbart News before he departed for the trip, Azar drew a vivid contrast between how Taiwan handled the current coronavirus pandemic—and how China handled it on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan’s response to the virus has been praised the world over, and is a clear contrast with the Communist officials who failed on the mainland. “Taiwan took immediate and strong action to close its borders, to restrict travel, to identify and isolate cases,” Azar told Breitbart News. “Of course, they’re an island, so they have advantages there and they have 23 million people. But, they were able to be on this situation right away, even though they are on the backdoor of Wuhan so to speak. With regard to China, China did not reveal to the world community the human-to-human spread of disease, the asymptomatic spread of disease. It took them a month and a half before they allowed the international community, through the World Health Organization, to come to China to learn about this disease, this novel pathogen. They have yet to provide the isolates from the initial case virus samples to the world community. We have consistently, the United States has consistently called on all entities in the international public health realm to be transparent and open with regard to public health. That was one of the most important lessons out of SARS. I think that Taiwan, having suffered during the SARS crisis earlier a couple decades ago, was extremely vigilant as soon as they were any indications of a novel pathogen coming from China.” What is also particularly interesting about Taiwan’s success in battling the coronavirus pandemic is that it did so from outside the infrastructure of the World Health Organization (WHO)—not by choice, but because the WHO kicked Taiwan out at China’s urging. Azar told Breitbart News that he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—at the direction of President Donald Trump—have fought to restore Taiwan’s World Health Assembly observer status, but Chinese influence inside WHO has prevented that. In so doing, WHO leaders have effectively banned scientific public health knowledge from Taiwanese doctors and officials—some of the not just smartest and effective, but also most generous in the world—from being able to help fight not just the coronavirus pandemic, but other diseases such as Ebola outbreaks in Africa. “Four years ago, the World Health Organization stripped Taiwan of its observer status at the World Health Assembly—effectively the governing body of the World Health Organization,” Azar told Breitbart News. “For the last three years, at President Trump’s direction, I have personally fought along with Secretary Pompeo for that observer status to be restored to Taiwan. These are 23 million people who are a model of public health transparency, openness, and innovation. As you say, there are critical learnings that we can have from entity involved in public health who is doing it well. Those learnings should be shared, and they should be welcomed. I faced this soon after I came into office. We were working with the World Health Organization on the first of what are now three Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There was an outbreak in the Equateur Province and the World Health Organization desperately made a plea for $45 million of supplemental funding from donors to fund the response activities there. Taiwan offered a $1 million donation even as China did not offer anything. The World Health Organization refused that donation.” Chinese Communist Party officials are very upset with Azar’s trip to Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin criticized Azar’s trip at a press conference last week, saying that “China firmly opposes any official interactions between the US and Taiwan.” “This position is consistent and clear. China has made stern representations with the US side both in Beijing and in Washington,” Wenbin said. “For the China-US relationship, the Taiwan question is one of the utmost importance with the highest level of sensitivity, and the one-China principle is the political foundation. We urge the US to adhere to the one-China principle and the three joint communiques, stop making official interactions of any kind with Taiwan, handle Taiwan-related issues prudently and properly, and not to send any wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ elements to avoid severe damage to China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. I want to stress that the one-China principle is universally recognized by the international community. Any attempt to ignore, deny or challenge that principle is doomed to fail.” Chinese state media also attacked Azar for the visit, with the Global Times for instance running a headline saying Azar’s trip “intensifies provocation.” The piece from the Chinese-government-controlled Global Times also directly threatened “the danger of a military conflict will increase” if the United States keeps strengthening its ties with Taiwan. Asked to respond to the Chinese Communist Party officials upset with his visit, Azar said he is not challenging the One China policy but is aiming to reaffirm the U.S. partnership with Taiwan on global public health security. “This visit is in line with the United States’ longstanding One China policy,” Azar said. “This visit is about Taiwan, and reaffirming our public health partnership with Taiwan. This visit is about commending Taiwan for its response and for its transparent, collaborative, cooperative approach to public health and this trip is about the important of Taiwan having a role in the international community of public health because it has demonstrated it can be a model of public health.” Azar also said, when asked if President Trump had a message for him to deliver to the people of Taiwan or what he would discuss with President Tsai when he is there, that is not at liberty to discuss his private conversations with either world leader. “I’m not at liberty to discuss my interactions with the president, or the content of the interactions I’ll have with President Tsai,” Azar said. “But my trip is of course leading a delegation of U.S. officials for what I think is a very important public health mission to Taiwan.” But he did say that he believes this trip will show the world that the United States and Taiwan have a “very robust” relationship on public health. “I think this trip demonstrates the very robust U.S.-Taiwan partnership on global health and health security,” Azar said. “It’s one of many aspects of our strategic and bilateral relationship. I have had over the last three years extensive interactions with Minister Chen, the health minister in Taiwan. Taiwan has been a participant in the global health security agenda work—this is an effort to help elevate all participants’ ability to comply with the international health regulations. Much to its credit, Taiwan invited in Johns Hopkins University as its external evaluator in what’s called an external evaluation—this is something the global health security agenda requests of all entities, which is to bring an outside evaluator in for a transparent and open review of your public health infrastructure, data reporting, and international health regulation compliance. It is independent, third-party, objective, and transparent. They did that.” The visit also comes as the United States continues withdrawing from the WHO, which Azar noted is an ongoing process. He did tell Breitbart News however that the United States intends to lead on public health around the world even more so moving forward without the WHO, through different other vehicles like “bilateral and other multi-lateral mechanisms.” “The United States is in the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization as President Trump has publicly stated,” Azar said. “The United States is, however, is and will remain the largest contributor to global health security and global health on earth. We just will choose to do so outside the vehicles of the World Health Organization through bilateral and other multi-lateral mechanisms, with greater accountability and greater results we believe. We believe the United States’ greater contribution will be even higher than now. Look at instances like PEPFAR and instances where the United States has been able to work directly with recipient countries in transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of people impacted by HIV/AIDS for instance. The president and we have been frustrated that in spite of the concerns we have expressed to the World Health Organization throughout regarding their need to hold member states accountable for compliance with international health regulations, to demand transparency, to demand sample sharing, that in its place the World Health Organization has instead criticized mask wearing, has criticized travel restrictions including a direct criticism of the historic action President Trump took to protect the American people by closing down travel with China in the early days of this outbreak even as China continued to conceal the full scope and scale of the outbreak and the nature of the disease. The World Health Organization actually criticized the United States for the strong steps we took.” To conclude the interview, Azar made clear that the Chinese Communist Party’s decision to withhold isolates of the original viral samples—a lack of transparency that the WHO aided and abetted—has hindered the world’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s an obligation when there’s a novel pathogen to share in the international community not just genetic sequencing of the pathogen but the actual viral isolates,” Azar said. “That isolate can be important in crafting vaccines and diagnostics but also in determining the origins of the virus. The World Health Organization has a mission now that is trying to get started in China to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. Perhaps they will eventually yield access to what we call the initial case viral isolates, or the early generation viral isolates, as part of that. But those to date have not been shared in the world community. When there is annual flu, when there is potentially pandemic flu, it is vital that the nations who experience it first collect and disseminate throughout the international health community those initial viral isolates. It’s how we prepare, it’s how we prepare those vaccines, diagnostics, and other counter-measures.” The World Health Organization did not deliver any consequences to China for this, he said. “Well, the WHO does not seem to have posed any consequences, which is part of the problem, it has not even called them to account for this,” Azar said. The broader consequences for the world because of China’s lack of transparency, Azar said, could not be clearer. It hurt the whole world’s ability to fight the virus and allowed it to spread uncontrollably. “When you’re dealing with a novel pathogen, you don’t know the characteristics of the disease or its spread or transmissibility or whatever,” Azar said. “I said this back in January in press conferences. I said there is so much we do not know. We do not know whether this spreads human to human efficiently, we do not know does it spread by droplet or aerosol transmission, does it have asymptomatic carrier and asymptomatic spread of disease? What is the role of face coverings whether it is in aerosolized or droplet form? All of those are the types of questions that are foundational to effective public health response. If one country knows the answers to those questions and does not share that information, that impedes every country’s ability to mount an effective prevention or response program. That’s why the international health regulations that came about during SARS are so important in the world health community because we require this transparency for the protection of all of us.” 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Attorney General William Barr on Sunday sounded off on his portrayal in the media and the media’s framing of the ongoing violent protests in Portland, OR. Barr said on Fox News Channel’s “Life, Liberty & Levin” that he has been “appalled” by the blatant violence seen in Portland but lamented that the “partisan” mainstream media are feeding Americans a “lie” when it comes to what they show on their cable stations. “They are projecting a narrative,” Barr told host Mark Levin. “When the word narrative came into currency, I knew we were in trouble because the word narrative really suggests there is no objective truth. There is no real story of what happened, it’s just everyone has their own narrative, and you get to then the press can justify presenting a story that doesn’t really correspond to the objective truth, but it’s our narrative. We have a narrative. You have a narrative.” “I’ve been appalled … on this violence because it’s happening right out in the streets,” he continued. “Anyone with eyes can see what’s happening. They see the violence. They see these groups of agitators and their black outfits, their helmets and their shields, which, incidentally, have the hammer and sickle on them most of the time, are rushing the police, causing violence, throwing rocks, people showing up with the rocks and frozen bottles. That’s happening. That’s happening in front of people. You don’t see it on any of the national news. You don’t see it on the networks. You don’t see it on the cable stations. And yet you hear about these peaceful demonstrators, so it’s a lie. The American people are being told a lie by the media. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Sunday, CNN played audio of a phone call in which Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) said President Donald Trump’s executive orders addressing the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic were “laughable.” Host Dana Bash said, “The New York governor is slamming the president’s executive actions calling them laughable. In a call, today, updating the state’s battle with the pandemic, the Democratic governor of New York Andrew Cuomo questioned the legality of the president’s moves criticizing the directives to force states to pay for more unemployment and not providing any funding for schools to reopen.” Cuomo said, “The concept of saying to states, you pay 25% of the unemployment insurance is just laughable. The whole issue here was getting states funding, state, and local funding. You can’t now say to states, who have no funding, and you have to pay 25% of the unemployment insurance costs. I mean, it’s just —there’s no funding for schools that are now trying to reopen, and according to the White House, they want them to reopen. So they need legislation. It is the only way to do it. ” Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said the Trump administration’s coronavirus pandemic response was “mind-blowing that because you can’t get the federal government to improve the testing.” Zakaria asked, “How do you explain the fact that the richest country on earth, that spends per capita maybe two to three times as much on health care as all the other rich countries in the world, seems to be kind of at the bottom of the pile of the advanced countries in the world in being able to handle this pandemic, what would be your answer?” Gates replied, “Well, it took a number of mistakes. And I wouldn’t have predicted that we would do so poorly. You know, our Center for Disease Control is the best group of epidemiologists in the world. In fact, everyone relies on them.” He continued, “But a variety of missteps by the U.S. and then the political atmosphere meant that we didn’t get our testing going. You know, it’s nonsense that any sort of travel ban we did was at all beneficial. That, you know, doesn’t pass the common sense test in terms of the waves of people that U.S. citizens that were allowed to keep coming in. And now, you know, we executed our lockdowns less nationwide and with less fidelity than other countries. So, we’re paying a pretty dramatic price, and not just in deaths. We also pay it in terms of the economic toll, which is up in the trillions.” Gates added, “Our testing, of course, to this day, it’s mind-blowing that because you can’t get the federal government to improve the testing because they just want to say how great it is. You know, I’ve said to them, look, have a CDC website that prioritizes who gets website. That’s trivial to do. They won’t pay attention to that. I’ve said, don’t reimburse any tests, so the result goes back after three days. You’re paying billion dollars in to get the worst test results of any country in the world. You’ve created this incentive for the commercial guys to have long lines because you do not want to waste government money. You pay as much for the late result as the timely result. No other country has this testing insanity because they won’t talk about fixing it because they’re —you know, they think they need to just keep acting like they’ve done a competent job.” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) released a declassified document on Sunday that showed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misled the Senate Intelligence Committee on the reliability of the Steele dossier when the FBI briefed the committee in 2018. The FBI used the eight-page document to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2018 as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election and whether there was collusion with the Trump campaign. The FBI briefing document fails to mention that a primary sub-source for Fusion GPS’s dossier, authored by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, had raised significant questions about the dossier’s reliability during an interview with the FBI in 2017. Instead, the FBI briefing, delivered a year later, appear to vouch for the dossier’s credibility. For example, the FBI briefing document said the primary sub-source “did not cite any significant concerns with the way his reporting was characterized in the dossier to the extent he could identify it.” However, documents previously declassified by the Senate Judiciary Committee showed that the primary sub-source had told the FBI during an interview in 2017 that he had “no idea” where some of the language attributed to him in the dossier came from, and that his contacts “never mentioned” some of the information attributed to them. The primary sub-source also told the FBI: He “did not know the origins” of other information that was supposedly from his contacts, and that he “did not recall” other information attributed to him or his contacts in the dossier. Steele, the ex-British spy paid by Fusion GPS, used “incorrect source characterization” for one of his contacts. The corroboration for the dossier was “zero” and cast doubt on the credibility of his sources cited in the dossier, telling the FBI to take them with “a grain of salt.” Steele had presented some information from his contacts as fact when it was really Steele’s own “analytical conclusions” and “analytical judgments.” The primary sub-source told the FBI that his information came from “word of mouth and hearsay,” “conversation that [he] had with friends over beers,” and that some of the information — including the infamous allegations about Trump’s sexual activities — were statements made in “jest.” Yet, the FBI in turn vouched for the dossier’s credibility in its briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018. “At minimum, our discussions with [the primary sub-source] confirm that the dossier was not fabricated by Steele,” the talking point said. The primary sub-source had also acknowledged to the FBI that there were unknown degrees of separation between his contacts and the information cited in the dossier. He told the FBI his contacts did not have direct access to the persons they were quoting, saying that information came “from someone else who may have had access.” However, the FBI also claimed that the primary sub-source maintained “trusted relationships with individuals who are capable of reporting on the material he collected for Steele.” Graham said he will be calling in FBI Director Christopher Wray to tell him how the FBI briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee was arranged and who provided it. He said the briefing document “clearly shows that the FBI was continuing to mislead regarding the reliability of the Steele dossier.” He added: The FBI did to the Senate Intelligence Committee what the Department of Justice and FBI had previously done to the FISA Court: mischaracterize, mislead and lie. The characterizations regarding the dossier were completely out of touch with reality in terms of what the Russian sub-source actually said to the FBI. What does this mean? That Congress as well as the FISA Court was lied to about the reliability of the Russian sub-source. I will be asking FBI Director Wray to provide me all the details possible about how the briefing was arranged and who provided it. Graham credited Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his team for finding the briefing document and uncovering “systemic fraud.” “Inspector General Horowitz and his team deserve great credit for uncovering systematic fraud at Department of Justice surrounding the Carter Page FISA warrant,” he said. “I’m also very appreciative of the Department of Justice’s release of the FBI document used to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee,” he added. Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter or on Facebook. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 Hundreds of protesters supporting the Seattle Police Department gathered at midday Sunday in front of Seattle’s City Hall to show their support for law enforcement on the day before the City Council will vote whether to “defund the police.” Local ABC affiliate KOMO news reported: A pro-police “Back the Blue” rally is being held outside of City Hall. The Seattle Police Officers Guild helped organize the protest. The group is calling on city council to not defund SPD. Hundreds of people are gathered on the steps on City Hall holding signs that say “Protect Our Police” and “True to the Blue”. … On Monday, the council is expected to review a final set of amendments before taking a final vote on what some members say is the first step toward defunding Seattle police. The council has already approved a series of amendments that eliminated the department’s mounted police, SWAT team and Navigation Team. Turnout for the pro-police demonstration was large, with local news reporting a “large” rally: Large rally in support of SPD outside Seattle City Hall pic.twitter.com/2Tddxz0lh4 — Amy Moreno (@AmyMorenoNews) August 9, 2020 Chanting “SPD” at Seattle City Hall. Huge turnout. People keep coming. pic.twitter.com/a55htOl6FA — (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 9, 2020 Hundreds of people outside of City Hall with a message to defend @SeattlePD ahead of tomorrow’s City Council vote aimed to defund parts of the department. This rally is being put on by @SPOG1952. A group protesting this one is on the other side of 4th Ave #KOMONews pic.twitter.com/dbw43FaVLb — Cole Miller (@ColeMillerTV) August 9, 2020 A far smaller group of counter-demonstrators, many wearing the black garb of left-wing Antifa activists, also appeared: The scene is becoming more confrontational pic.twitter.com/D8F2QWkvzZ — Amy Moreno (@AmyMorenoNews) August 9, 2020 After a heated moment, two black women tell a pro-Police black man that he’s not really black. pic.twitter.com/y7VpDYnuLX — (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 9, 2020 Pro-police side chanting “you killed Lorenzo” to Antifa goons. Lorenzo Anderson was murdered at CHOP in Seattle. pic.twitter.com/08KhIXtg51 — (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 9, 2020 A small group of right-wing Proud Boys made an appearance: Proud Boys are marching, and taking the Antifa goons and agitators with them. pic.twitter.com/NPvCrkjpVk — (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 9, 2020 Seattle has been at the epicenter of left-wing efforts to “defund the police,” and was the site of the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” or CHOP, which took over several city blocks for several weeks in June. The occupation began after local political leaders ordered the Seattle Police Department to abandon the East Precinct, over the objections of Chief Carmen Best. It ended only after left-wing activists led a march to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s private residence, after which she ordered it dismantled. Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee had resisted President Donald Trump’s offer of federal law assistance in clearing the CHOP, which Durkan had described as a “Summer of Love” and a “block party.” On Friday, the New York Times belatedly acknowledged that the CHOP had been a nightmare for local residents and small business, with bands of armed Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists commanding the streets. There were several shootings in the CHOP, including the murder of Horace Lorenzo Anderson Jr. Police were reportedly obstructed by CHOP activists as they attempted to evacuate the wounded man. In the aftermath of the removal of CHOP in early July, residents have faced continued violent protest from left-wing activists. Some riots have included the use of explosives. Nevertheless, the Democrat-dominated City Council — with eight Democrats and one Socialist — approved a proposal last month to cut funding to the Seattle Police Department by 50%, and to “imagine life beyond policing.” The council has acknowledged that the budget cannot be cut by 50% in 2020, but it proposing to cut 100 police officers from the force this year. The final 2020 budget will be up for approval Monday. Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. Photo: file 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 A Los Angeles councilman who voted to cut the city’s police budget by $150 million allegedly called police to his home several times since April. Fox 11 reporter Bill Melugin tweeted a link Friday to a public information records request that reportedly showed Councilman Mike Bonin “called LAPD to his home 8 times since 4/4/20, including to provide extra patrols and protection from peaceful protesters at his house”: A public records request reveals that LA city councilman Mike Bonin, who voted to defund LAPD by $150 million, has called LAPD to his home 8 times since 4/4/20, including to provide extra patrols and protection from peaceful protesters at his house. https://t.co/Z6yhJ8XKM4 — Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 8, 2020 In a subsequent tweet, Melugin said it was not him who filed the request, but someone else: ***I do not deserve any credit for this*** someone else filed this records request and once it is fulfilled, LAPD posts it publicly and it becomes publicly available info. The request does not say who filed it, but props to whoever did it! — Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 8, 2020 Bonin, whose website described him as a “Progressive Problem-Solver,” later denied the accusations and said he had never asked officers to patrol his home: No, Bill, this is as false as the tampon story you broke. I have NEVER asked LAPD for patrols at my house. https://t.co/32ZZbSVTQL — Mike Bonin (@mikebonin) August 8, 2020 Following Bonin’s denial, Melugin tweeted that “Multiple LAPD sources say they would not generate their own calls for a simple patrol”: Councilman Bonin denies calling ever LAPD to his home in this thread. https://t.co/BwJKH35ZOd Multiple LAPD sources say they would not generate their own calls for a simple patrol. High level LAPD source texted me the following in response to Bonin’s claims. https://t.co/Q8I9mwezyl pic.twitter.com/HxozplLoc0 — Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 8, 2020 In a Twitter thread, Bonin claimed when protesters showed up to his house, “I specifically asked LAPD NOT to send anyone.” Seven of the eight calls you cite were apparently generated by LAPD themselves, sending patrols without my request and often without my knowledge. — Mike Bonin (@mikebonin) August 8, 2020 The only time LAPD has come at my request was to pick up as evidence the syringes that one of the right-wing protesters left on our doorsteps. — Mike Bonin (@mikebonin) August 8, 2020 “This is a cute tactic to try to silence or intimidate a public official who is standing up to the police union. It ain’t working,” Bonin concluded. The Los Angeles City Council voted in June to study ways to cut the LAPD’s budget by $100 million to $150 million, according to ABC 7. The report continued: The council voted 11-3 with Councilmen Paul Koretz, Joe Buscaino and John Lee dissenting. Although community activists presented their idea for more dramatic reductions in law enforcement spending, the city’s Budget and Finance Committee sent the proposal to the full council. … The People’s Budget LA proposal was developed by a coalition of organizations led by Black Lives Matter’s Los Angeles chapter, and it seeks to have the LAPD’s proposed budget cut by 90%, with the funds allocated to social services, such as mental health and housing. LAPD’s proposed operating budget for the next fiscal year is about $1.86 billion. “I think we owe it to Los Angeles to come up with a better and a smarter way of doing public safety and emergency response, and I think this motion is the first step in doing that,” Bonin said at the time. “It’s not about random slashing and cuts. It’s about re-prioritizing and … to invest in neighborhood safety, and there’s ways to do that,” he concluded. 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 According to a Prodoscore survey, 67% of workers say competition with colleagues helps them work smarter, but a majority of them find annual reviews tedious and unhelpful. Even though 77% of US workers believe their managers know how hard they work, 53% of those employees long for more acknowledgement, because they don't feel recognized. A new survey, conducted last month by the BTB Prodoscore, also revealed that 67% of workers say competition with colleagues encourages them to work better. Those who do the same or very similar jobs, or whose jobs are classified similarly, are quite interested in how they compare or "measure up" to their colleagues. A majority, 67%, admitted that "competition with peers motivates them to do better." SEE: Return to work: What the new normal will look like post-pandemic (free PDF) (TechRepublic) That yearly review There's a reason annual reviews are dreaded: The majority of respondents said they do not find reviews helpful, although 33% claimed to be "excited" to participate in the process. Whether they're scared they're not doing as well as they thought, or worry that a not-great review will affect their salary (or expected pay raise), 30% said annual reviews made them anxious, and 26% felt that, while in the review, they're under pressure to ensure their efforts were recognized, certainly a challenge for those less inclined to toot their own proverbial "horn." Less than 50% of respondents found traditional annual performance reviews helpful in assisting in promoting job success, which means a majority found those annual performance reviews unhelpful. The entire annual review process also feels like additional work for 22% of respondents who said that pondering over self-evaluation while reviewing and submitting documentation is simply frustrating. Review alternative A large number of those polled, 75%, said they would be interested in a tool that would highlight behaviors that lead to success, so they could adopt and replicate those behaviors to help them achieve their goals. But 67% were more enthusiastic about coaching sessions, citing them as more useful than the traditional annual review, with 54% interested in replacing traditional annual performance reviews with "active coaching and regular engagement." "Tools that create transparency between employees and leadership, and present opportunities for coaching are critical to professional growth, whether employees work in an office or from home," said Nadine M. Sarraf, CMO of Prodoscore, in a press release. "It's clear from the survey and the conversations we have with customers that the concept of measuring performance based only on the end result is not fair. Productivity matters." Productivity: the office vs. WFH In addition to collegial competition as incentive to do a better job at work, 36% of respondents said that despite the additional stressors working from home can bring, they're more productive doing so than in the office; 44% didn't find any difference between WFH and the office, and only 20% said they're less productive at home. An overwhelming majority of 91% are appreciative of being given flexibility to manage their own schedules. Methodology Prodoscore said it wanted the study to show actual numbers to the trends that seemed to be evolving over several years as more employees were taking or asking for the option to work from home (WFH). Then WFH became the new normal, a trend that was "amplified" due to COVID-19. Before the pandemic, 61% of the respondents were working from home, but when the study was conducted last month, 77% were WFH, at least part of the time. The 1,000 respondents who participated in the survey were people who worked in many different industries, but included a mix of micro, SMB, and enterprise businesses. The majority were white-collar workers (79%), grey-collar workers made up 11% of those polled, with the remaining 10% described as gold-collar workers. "With the right tools in place, businesses can commit to making a long-term investment in a happier, more motivated and more productive workforce," Sarraf said. Executive Briefing Newsletter Discover the secrets to IT leadership success with these tips on project management, budgets, and dealing with day-to-day challenges. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays Sign up today Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-10 

 AnyDesk is a viable option if you need to access and use a remote PC. Image: Olezzo, Getty Images/iStockPhoto To access another PC remotely, you can turn to a number of different apps and services, including LogMeIn, TeamViewer, GotoMyPC, and Microsoft's own Remote Desktop Connection. Another program worth considering is AnyDesk. Free for personal use and available for a monthly subscription price for business use, AnyDesk lets you quickly connect to any remote device running the program. You can require a response from the remote PC or set a password for unattended access. You can connect from a mobile device to a PC. You can also work with a whiteboard, transfer files, and print remotely. SEE: Life after lockdown: Your office job will never be the same--here's what to expect (cover story PDF) (TechRepublic) AnyDesk is available for a variety of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS/iPadOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Raspberry PI, and Chrome OS. You can try the free version first to evaluate the program, though this edition is designed only for personal use. Offering a greater array of features, the paid editions include a Lite plan for $10.99 per month, a Professional plan for $20.99 per month, and a Power plan for $52.49 per month. Download AnyDesk from its website on both your remote and guest computers or devices. By default, AnyDesk runs in portable mode, which means no installation is required; just double-click the downloaded AnyDesk.exe file to launch the program. If you wish to remotely access a PC within your organization, you'll likely first need to establish a secure connection through a VPN or Remote Access Gateway. Make sure AnyDesk is running on both the remote and guest devices. On the remote device, look for the address listed in the pane for This Desk. On the guest PC, enter that address in the pane for Remote Desk and click Connect (Figure A). Figure A On the remote PC, a window appears asking you to accept the remote session request. Click the Accept button (Figure B). Figure B The guest PC is now connected to the remote machine. Certain options are turned on by default, including allowing the guest PC to take control, allowing use of the clipboard, allowing use of the OS's file manager, allowing audio, allowing the desktop to be locked, allowing a video recording of the session, and allowing drawing on the screen. Any of these options can be disabled or re-enabled but only on the remote side (Figure C). Figure C Otherwise, you can now fully access all of the apps, services, and files on the remote PC. The top toolbar offers icons for all the major AnyDesk features (Figure D). Figure D Click the Files icon to transfer files from the guest PC to the remote computer, or vice versa. Click the Chat icon to chat with someone at the remote PC. Click the Actions icon to perform certain actions, such as sending a Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence, taking a screenshot, or restarting the remote computer. Click the Keyboard settings icon to change the keyboard layout. Click the Display settings icon to change the screen mode and quality. Click the Permissions icon to enable or disable certain permissions. Click the Whiteboard icon to draw lines, circles, and other objects on the screen. Click the Start session recording button to record the remote session. Close the top tab for the remote computer to disconnect. If no one will be at the remote PC to accept the connection, you can set a password for unattended access. At the remote computer, click the pane for Set password for unattended access. At the Security section under Settings, check the box to Enable unattended access. Create and then confirm the password and click Apply (Figure E). Then try to connect from the guest PC. Enter the password to gain access. Figure E Back at the remote PC, review the other options in Settings. Check the ones for User Interface, Display, Audio, Connection, File Transfer, Recording, Printer, and Wake-On-LAN. But pay special attention to the options under Security and Privacy to make sure the remote connections are as secure as possible without obstructing your ability to fully work on the remote machine (Figure F) Figure F Finally, you can install the full version of AnyDesk either on the remote or guest machine. The main reason would be to check all the features available in the paid versions. At the main AnyDesk window, click the link to Install AnyDesk on this computer. At the next screen, click the button to Accept & Install. At the Welcome screen, click the button to Test professional features now. You can now sign up for a 14-day trial license through which you can explore all the advanced paid features. Best of the Week Newsletter Our editors highlight the TechRepublic articles, downloads, and galleries that you cannot miss to stay current on the latest IT news, innovations, and tips. Fridays Sign up today Also see