Former National Security Officials: The “Unmasking” List Could Be Bad News for Mike Flynn

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/donald-trump-mike-flynn-unmasking

The “unmasking” controversy is in a sense the official kickoff of the Trump campaign, a sequel to “Obama was born in Kenya” and Hillary’s emails. It was unveiled when Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence who’s long been a highly politicized Trump loyalist, declassified a list of Obama administration officials who requested to “unmask” an American citizen anonymously identified in intelligence reports, who turned out to be Michael Flynn. Against the backdrop of Flynn’s changing legal fortunes, Trumpworld has latched onto the document to rewrite the Russia saga and seemingly absolve the former national security adviser of wrongdoing, which he pleaded guilty to, propping him up as a martyr, targeted in a witch hunt by Trump’s political enemies. It’s a made-for-media story that former national security officials say, is essentially a fiction. “I think it is a desperate and manipulative attempt to turn into a scandal what was appropriate action taken by senior officials,” a former national security official told me.

The declassified list, which Republican senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley released earlier this week, reads as a who’s who of the Obama administration, featuring James Clapper, James Comey, Samantha Power, and even former vice president and Trump’s presumptive challenger in the 2020 election, Joe Biden. But despite the seemingly nefarious undertone of the process known within the intelligence community as “unmasking,” former officials familiar vehemently assert that it is commonplace. “You can’t do your job without it,” Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA during the Obama administration and host of the Intelligence Matters podcast, said, noting that he made such requests to the National Security Agency several times a month during his tenure to better understand the underlying intelligence in reports.

 

Watchdog's dismissal puts Pompeo on the hot seat

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/16/watchdog-dismissal-mike-pompeo-261871

State’s inspector general, Steve Linick, had been investigating allegations involving Pompeo, New York’s Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said following news of Linick’s ouster. A congressional aide added that Pompeo and his wife are accused of improperly directing a political appointee to run personal errands for them.

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) offered a mixed assessment of Linick in a statement on Saturday, noting that he had filled the job after the Obama administration left it vacant for several years. "Although he failed to fully evaluate the State Department’s role in advancing the debunked Russian collusion investigation, those shortcomings do not waive the president’s responsibility to provide details to Congress when removing an IG," Grassley said. "As I’ve said before, Congress requires written reasons justifying an IG’s removal. A general lack of confidence simply is not sufficient detail to satisfy Congress."

Trump: Coronavirus testing may be ‘overrated’ and reason for high U.S. case count

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/14/trump-coronavirus-testing-high-case-numbers-259524

“And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world,” he added. “But why? Because we do more testing. When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

 

Trump said the news media had refused to report his “common sense” explanation for the country’s high case numbers. He repeated the misleading claim that the U.S. has tested more people than other countries, sidestepping the reality that testing as a share of the population is lower than in other countries.

The Biden campaign issued a statement Thursday evening criticizing the president‘s comments and his response to the crisis.

“With his statement today, President Trump has once again demonstrated that he is more concerned with his poll numbers and his reelection than he is with safeguarding American lives and delivering real economic recovery — both of which every expert tells us can only happen with adequate testing capacity to track and stop this disease,“ the statement said.

Trump: Without Coronavirus Testing ‘We Would Have Very Few Cases,’ Here Is The Reaction

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/05/15/trump-without-doing-covid-19-coronavirus-testing-we-would-have-very-few-cases-here-is-the-reaction/#38544a1b518c

In a speech on Thursday at Owens and Minor, a medical supply distributor located in Allentown, PA, President Donald Trump wondered whether testing for Covid-19 coronavirus is “overrated.” He then proceeded to say, “And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing.”

Next, he clarified: “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

There someone goes again, bringing up science. The argument is that the virus will keep on infecting, keep on spreading, and keep on killing people, even if you ignore it. It’s not as if the virus is clenching it’s spikes and hoping, “please test that person, please test that person,” so that it can then infect someone. It’s not as if COVID-19 is a debatable condition or something that can’t make you sick or kill you. It’s real and it’s the opposite of spectacular.

Trump Says That Virus Testing May Be 'Overrated' | Morning Joe | MSNBC

McConnell’s Rush to Protect Businesses Endangers Everyone Else

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/opinion/coronavirus-liability-business-safety.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

As Congress gears up for the next installment of its stimulus package, Mr. McConnell has drawn a line: No more money for anyone until businesses get immunity from liability during the pandemic. The demands being debated include making it harder to claim that a business is at fault for a worker’s or customer’s infection, protecting businesses that are making personal protective equipment like masks for the first time, and protecting employers against privacy lawsuits if they disclose a worker’s infection.

The problem is that immunity doesn’t just shield the worst actors; it also punishes the best, by giving a competitive advantage to the businesses that decide to cut corners at the expense of worker and customer health and safety.

Consider what happened in Utah, which passed a bill immunizing businesses from pandemic-related litigation in most cases and issued only advisory guidelines. The next day, the Utah Press Herald reported that two businesses had told their employees to disregard the guidelines, and even ordered those who had tested positive for the coronavirus to report to work. At one of the businesses, nearly half of all employees tested positive.

Why Hospitals in NYC Have Abandoned Hydroxychloroquine

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/05/07/hospitals-in-nyc-abandon-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-touted-by-trump-

Hospitals began using the drug early on in hopes it could calm the overactive immune response to COVID-19. But now that little proven benefit has been found, many doctors here in New York have moved on.

Just days ago, Mount Sinai changed course.

"As of last week, we stopped using hydroxychloroquine as a routine medication in our hospital based upon the cumulative experience in our hands and in others, and recommendations by the FDA that it should not be used outside of clinical trials,” said Dr. Charles Powell, chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System and CEO of the Mount Sinai-National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute.

It wasn’t just Trump: Governor Andrew Cuomo also expressed optimism about hydroxychloroquine’s potential. But studies, including one that looked at 600 patients in the New York City area, were inconclusive.

 

Drug Combo with Hydroxychloroquine Promising: NYU Study

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/05/12/nyu-study-looks-at-hydroxychloroquine-zinc-azithromycin-combo-on-decreasing-covid-19-deaths

 Researchers at NYU's Grossman School of Medicine found patients given the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine along with zinc sulphate and the antibiotic azithromycin were 44 percent less likely to die from the coronavirus.

"Certainly we have very limited options as far as what we have seen work for this infection so anything that may work is very exciting," said Dr. Joseph Rahimian, Infectious Disease Specialist at NYU Langone Health.

Dr. Rahimian says patients in the more critical stages of infection did not fare as well.

And he cautioned that more research is needed - in particular a randomized controlled trial - to prove how and how well the drug combination works.

Meanwhile, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Monday found that treating patients only with hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both did not reduce hospital deaths. 

The study by the State Health Department and the SUNY Albany School of Public Health involved 1,500 patients.

Supreme Court Heading Towards Big Ruling Against Trump on Tax Returns, Says High Court Veteran

Trump’s Absurd Claim ‘If We Didn’t Do Any Testing, We Would Have Very Few Cases’ | Deadline | MSNBC

Which One of These Is Obamagate? | The Daily Social Distancing Show

President Trump recently coined the term "Obamagate," but which one of Obama's many controversial scandals was he referring to? #DailyShow #Obamagate #TrevorNoah

Trump Can't Quit Us

Cornered by the coronavirus, Trump returns to a familiar strategy: Attack Obama

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/16/politics/trump-coronavirus-strategy-attack-obama/index.html

 With the death count from the coronavirus rising and its economic fallout deepening, President Donald Trump is trying to fire up his base and divert the national conversation by promoting a baseless conspiracy that casts his predecessor, Barack Obama, as the architect of a plot to subvert his presidency.

The ginned up scandal, or "Obamagate" as Trump has branded it, turns on alleged requests made by members of the Obama administration to "unmask" an individual, who turned out to be Michael Flynn, mentioned in classified intelligence reports. A common and legal process, it has been employed more often under Trump than during Obama's time in office.

This week the Trump administration and Republican senators made the decision to declassify and release the names of Obama officials who made requests that might have resulted in Flynn's "unmasking." The officials would not have known the name of the individual until after their ask was answered. Flynn would go on to become Trump's national security adviser before being fired -- by the President -- for lying to White House officials about his Russia contacts.

Doctors are contradiction to bitachon?

אמת ליעקב ויקרא פרק כו פסוק יא

(יא) ונתתי משכני בתוככם.

עיין רמב"ן כאן שהאריך בענין מדת הבטחון, ודעתו היא שעל פי האמת אסור לו לאדם לשאול ברופאים אלא ישליך על ד' יהבו, וסיים כי ברצות ה' דרכי איש אין לו עסק ברופאים, ועיי"ש שביאר באריכות. והנה החובת הלבבות [עיין שער הבטחון פרק ד'] סובר שעל האדם להשתדל עד כמה שיכול להרפא בדרך הטבע, ועיי"ש. והנה נדמה בעינינו כי לדעת חובת הלבבות צריך הוא האדם לסייע כביכול להקב"ה - שעל ידי הסיבה הזאת יוכל לפרנסו, וכן מבינים רוב בני העולם ודומים הם כי הרמב"ן הוא המחמיר בנדון זה. אבל המעיין בחובת הלבבות יראה כי הוא הנהו המחמיר בזה, אלא שהוא סובר כי כל ענין ההתעסקות הוא מפני יישוב העולם1 והרי זו מצוה ככל מצות שבתורה, ולפיכך כותב הוא שהאדם לא ישנה את מלאכתו ואף שרואה הוא שאינו מצליח במלאכתו זאת. אבל לדעת הרמב"ן אדרבה - אם האדם אינו בתכלית השלימות נמסר הוא למערכות הטבע ואז צריך הוא לעבוד באמת כדי להתפרנס על ידי זה, כי כן כתב לענין רפואה שאחרי שבא אל הרופא הרי הרופא צריך להזדקק לו כי הוא נמסר להנהגה הטבעית, וכדמצינו בשלהי ברכות [דף ס' ע"א] דהמתפלל אחר מ' יום שיהא זכר ה"ז תפלת שוא, ואעפ"כ האמהות התפללו2 מפני שלפי הנהגתם הנס היה אצלם לטבע ונשתנה דינם, ודו"ק3.

והנה לפי דברי רמב"ן אלו יש לפרש מה דמצינו בגמרא במסכת יומא [דף פ"ה ע"ב] שנחלקו כמה תנאים מנא לן שפקוח נפש דוחה את השבת, וכל א' הביא מקור אחר לזה, וכגון מעבודה וממילה וכדומה, ועיי"ש. ולעיל בפרשת כי תשא [ל"א פט"ז] ביארתי מדוע בכלל צריך פסוק מיוחד לזה - הא קי"ל וחי בהם ולא שימות בהם, ועיין מש"כ שם להלכה. אבל בדרך הדרוש י"ל לדעת הרמב"ן דעל פי האמת לא היה האדם צריך להתעסק ברפואות כלל, ולפיכך היה עולה על הדעת שמצות שבת תחייבנו להעמיד את הענין על אמיתו ולא נדחה את השבת, וע"ז באו התנאים האלו ולימדו שאין זה דחיית איסור בלבד אלא מצוה ממש וכמו מילה ועבודה שדוחין את השבת, ודו"ק.