Trump Jr. hits Howard Stern for going 'establishment,' 'acting like Hillary'

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/497802-trump-jr-hits-howard-stern-for-going-establishment-acting-like

During his SiriusXM show on Wednesday, Stern said the president should step down amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying, “I do think it would be extremely patriotic of Donald to say, ‘I’m in over my head, and I don’t want to be president anymore.'”
He also claimed on his show that the president despised his supporters and would be “disgusted by them.”

“The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most,” Stern, who would often feature Trump on his show prior to his run for office, said. “The people who are voting for Trump, for the most part ... he wouldn’t even let them in a f---ing hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.”

 

“There couldn’t be anything further from the truth," Trump Jr. added in reference to Stern's comments in the interview. "If you speak with Donald Trump, you talk to him and you sit down with him and talk about sports or whatever it is, you’ll see what I’ve always called him, which is he’s sort of the blue-collar billionaire."

Trump Says a Sitting President Can't Be Investigated. Will the Supreme Court Tell Him He's Wrong? | Opinion

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-sitting-president-cant-investigated-will-supreme-court-tell-him-hes-wrong-1504211

 

The rules of federal governance are being dramatically reconceived under the presidency of Donald Trump. The president's traditional relationship with federal agencies, with Congress and with state governments are all being called into question. At no time, however, in the past three and a half years has the radical nature of the "Constitution according to Trump" been more apparent than on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases addressing whether the Constitution permits either Congress or a state district attorney to subpoena the president's tax returns from his accountants, Mazars.

What would it mean for the Supreme Court to side with Trump in the case of congressional subpoenas? Congress would effectively lose the ability to investigate the president. They could try to investigate him, but since they could not subpoena him or any of his financial records, even from third parties, such an investigation would be futile. This is the same theory, by the way, that White House lawyers used in the D.C. Circuit to argue that former White House Counsel Don McGahn could not be forced to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in response to its subpoena issued during the impeachment proceedings. Consider how differently those proceedings might have gone had the president not obstructed his testimony.

Shushvin - what is it?

Berachos (61a) And he brought her to the man.21 R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar said: This teaches that [God] acted as shushvin(best man) to Adam. Here the Torah teaches a maxim of behaviour, that a man of eminence should associate himself with a lesser man in acting as best man, and he should not take it amiss.

It is also translated as bridesmaid. but the gemora also describes it as bridal loans

---

[1] רמב"ם הלכות זכיה ומתנה פרק ז הלכה א

מנהג פשוט ברוב המדינות שבזמן שישא אדם אשה משלחין לו ריעיו ומיודעיו מעות כדי שיתחזק בהן על ההוצאה שמוציא באשתו ובאים אותן הריעים והמיודעים ששלחו לו ואוכלין ושותין עם החתן בשבעת ימי המשתה או במקצתן, הכל כמנהג המדינה, ואלו המעות שמשלחין נקראין שושבינות, ואותם ששלחו המעות ואוכלין ושותין עם החתן נקראים שושבינין.

[2] רמב"ם הלכות זכיה ומתנה פרק ז הלכה ב

השושבינות אינה מתנה גמורה, הדברים ידועים שלא שלח זה עשרה דינרין בשביל שיאכל וישתה בזה ולא שלח אלא מפני שבדעתו היה שאם ישא הוא אשה יחזור וישלח לו כמו ששלח לו, לפיכך אם נשא זה אשה ולא החזיר לו השושבינות הרי זה תובעו בדין ומוציא ממנו.

[3] רמב"ם הלכות זכיה ומתנה פרק ז הלכה ג

ואין יכול לתבעו עד שישא כדרך שנשא הוא, כיצד ראובן שנשא בתולה ושלח לו שמעון שושבינות ואח"כ נשא שמעון אלמנה, אינו יכול לתבוע להחזיר לו השושבינות שהרי אומר לו איני מחזיר לך אלא בבתולה כמו שנתת לי, וכן אם שלח לו בנשואי אלמנה אינו יכול לתובעו להחזיר לו בנשואי בתולה.

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