Distracted

White House blocks Fauci testimony as Trump welcomes Senate's return

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/02/white-house-blocks-fauci-congress-trump-senate

The White House has blocked Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying to Congress, saying it would be “counterproductive” for the senior member of the White House coronavirus taskforce to talk about the government’s response to the pandemic in a House committee hearing.

Regarding the decision to block Fauci from appearing in Congress, a White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said: “While the Trump administration continues its whole-of-government response to Covid-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings.

“We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time.”

An unnamed senior administration official told the Washington Post the White House was “not muzzling” Fauci, because he is expected at a Senate hearing about testing the following week.

Immigration, MS-13 and crime: the facts behind Donald Trump’s exaggerations

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/feb/07/donald-trump/immigration-ms-13-and-crime-facts-behind-donald-tr/

 

President Donald Trump linked illegal immigration to the violence of the MS-13 gang, claiming "open borders" have caused the death of many people in the United States.

During his State of the Union speech, Trump highlighted the 2016 killings of teenagers Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens in New York and the related murder charges against MS-13 members.

"These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders," Trump said Jan. 30. "Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes and our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied, alien minors. And wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school."

The U.S. Justice Department did not specify in a 2017 press release on the indictments if the defendants charged for the murders of Cuevas and Mickens came to the United States illegally as unaccompanied minors. We asked the department to clarify, but it referred us to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which did not provide a response by deadline.

Says of MS-13 gang members, "We are getting them out of our country by the thousands."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/may/15/donald-trump/donald-trump-exaggerates-number-ms-13-gang-members/

In a ceremony honoring law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty, President Donald Trump underlined the threat of MS-13 gang members and his administration’s efforts to deport them.

"Recently, MS-13 gang members called for the assassination of New York City police officers so the gang could quote, ‘take back the streets.’ They got it wrong. We are the ones who are taking back the streets. We are getting them out of our country by the thousands," Trump said May 15. "Every week we're setting new records on — we have a ‘catch and release’ program, too. It’s called we catch them and we release them in the country they came back from, we are getting them out. Or we are putting them in prison."

West Bank annexations must come in context of Palestinian state, White House tells Israel

https://www.axios.com/israel-west-bank-annexation-netanyahu-trump-plan-0e84d62c-9362-42fa-91da-3a6b89947750.html

 

The Trump administration has told Israel it won't support annexations in the West Bank unless Israel agrees to negotiate over a Palestinian state and fully endorses President Trump's Middle East peace plan, U.S. and Israeli officials tell me.

Why it matters: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to move ahead with annexations, but the White House is urging him not to do so without accepting its broader package, which calls for a Palestinian state after several criteria are met.

What they're saying: A senior U.S. official tells Axios that any Israeli annexations must come "in the context of an offer to the Palestinians to achieve statehood based upon specific terms, conditions, territorial dimensions and generous economic support."

Democrats Demand To Know What The Hell Jared Kushner Is Doing

Jewish ambivalence to medicine

Berachos (60a)  On23 going in to be cupped one should say: ‘May it be Thy will, O Lord, my God, that this operation may be a cure for me, and mayest Thou heal me, for Thou art a faithful healing God, and Thy healing is sure, since men have no power to heal, but this is a habit with them’.24 Abaye said: A man should not speak thus, since it was taught in the school of R. Ishmael: [It is written], He shall cause him to be thoroughly healed.25 From this we learn that permission has been given to the physician to heal.

 רש"י מסכת ברכות דף ס עמוד א
שאין דרכן של בני אדם וכו' - כלומר: לא היה להם לעסוק ברפואות אלא לבקש רחמים.
תלמוד בבלי מסכת ברכות דף י עמוד ב
תנו רבנן: ששה דברים עשה חזקיהו המלך, על שלשה הודו לו ועל שלשה לא הודו לו. על שלשה הודו לו: גנז ספר רפואות - והודו לו,

Is a helpful wfe earned or simply good luck?

   Yevamos (63a) R. Eleazar further stated: What is the meaning of the Scriptural text, I will make him a help meet for him?6 If he was worthy she is a help to him;7 if he was not worthy she is against him.8 Others say: R. Eleazar pointed out a contradiction: It is written kenegedo9 but we read kenegedo!10 — If he was worthy she is meet for him;10 if he was not worthy she chastises him.9



rashרש"י מסכת עירובין דף נד עמוד א
זכה - אם יש לו מזל טוב תאות לבו נתת לו, שבעוד שהוא מתאוה באה לו תאותו עד שלא ישאלנה.
i

Fact check: New White House press secretary makes false claims in first briefing

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/politics/mcenany-first-briefing-fact-check-may-1/index.html

 At the first official briefing by a White House press secretary in 417 days, Kayleigh McEnany promised journalists, "I will never lie to you."

McEnany proceeded to say a bunch of things that weren't true.

Whether they were deliberate lies or inadvertent false claims, we can't be certain; since it was her first time at the podium after being hired in April, we'll be generous in our choice of words. Regardless of her intentions, though, her comments were laden with inaccuracies.

For Some Reluctant Trump Voters, Coronavirus Was The Last Straw

https://time.com/5829244/trump-voters-coronavirus-2020/

Yet there is also little question that the pandemic has transformed the election. Two months ago, Trump was an incumbent president riding a strong economy and a massive cash advantage; today, he looks like an underdog in November. The RealClearPolitics polling average has former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, leading Trump 48.3% to 42% nationally. Trump’s prospects aren’t any brighter right now when broken down by states that were key to his 2016 victory. According to Real Clear Politics polling averages, Biden leads Trump by 6.7 points in Pennsylvania, 5.5 in Michigan, and 2.7 points in Wisconsin. Biden is also leading Trump narrowly in Florida and Arizona.

Thank you for your service, Jared Kushner

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/30/opinions/jared-kushner-coronavirus-opinion-bergen/index.html

 What is most galling as the nation faces its worse crisis since World War II is how the Trump family keeps demanding recognition for their brilliant work and also our thanks for the catastrophic mess they have helped land us all in.

Case in point is Jared Kushner, who has fallen upwards throughout his life, inheriting a vast real estate empire and then making one of the worst purchases in the history of Manhattan, which was buying the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue for a then-record $1.8 billion in 2007, a lemon which was only finally taken off his hands after his father-in-law became president. 

 

 

And now, Kushner comes to Fox News, the Pravda of the Trump administration, to marvel on Wednesday that the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus is "a great success story," claiming that that "we have all the testing we need to start opening the country" and state his hope that "by July, the country's really rocking again."

This is as more than 60,000 Americans lie dead -- more than the death toll of the Vietnam War -- and more than 1 million have been confirmed to have been infected with the virus, with no end in sight. There is widespread agreement among experts that we don't have the testing capabilities to return to any semblance of normal life, and also that a second wave of infections could hit the country badly later in the year.

Republicans, It’s Too Late to Back Away From Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-trump-republicans.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The National Republican Senatorial Committee recently distributed a memo with guidance on how to split this political baby: When discussing the coronavirus, candidates should fully embrace the president’s efforts to shift the blame fully onto China. But — and here’s the part that caught Team Trump’s eye — “Don’t defend Trump.”

Prepared by a top party strategist, the bulk of the 57-page memo provides tips, talking points, timelines and background data geared toward making this crisis All About China. The “Short Version” summary suggests condemning China not only for causing the pandemic but also for stealing jobs, tossing religious minorities in concentration camps and flooding the United States with fentanyl. Democratic opponents are to be tarred as “soft on China” and unwilling to “stand up to the Chinese Communist Party,” they recommend, while Republicans vow to “bring our manufacturing jobs back home” and to work to punish China with sanctions.

Trump Told America’s Governors They Were On Their Own. So Maryland’s Larry Hogan Is Taking Charge

https://time.com/5829777/governors-reopening-coronavirus/

The cooperation has been crucial. Governors will tell you they’re always the officials whose leadership most directly affects people’s lives. But that’s been truer than ever in the current crisis, as Trump has been more occupied with defending his performance and casting blame than with mounting the kind of coordinated national effort that other countries’ leaders have orchestrated. While the White House has funneled some supplies to the states, Trump has disavowed responsibility for testing and equipment shortfalls and passed the buck to the governors. The result has been a kind of federalist free-for-all, with state leaders pitted against one another in bidding wars for scarce equipment, and against the President, whose very office was created to avoid such anarchy.

New York City police break up another ultra-Orthodox funeral as crowds gather

https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-york-city-police-break-up-another-ultra-orthodox-funeral-as-crowds-gather/

1 arrested; 2 days after mayor’s warning to community, NYPD issues 10 summonses at 2 synagogues in South Williamsburg for chaining doors from the inside, social distancing rules