Trump elevates Scott Atlas, a doctor with a rosier coronavirus outlook

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/17/trump-scott-atlas-coronavirus-doctor-396741

 Dr. Scott Atlas warns against coronavirus overreaction and hysteria, pushes for the reopening of schools and sports leagues and downplays the need for broader testing to root out the virus.

Unlike bigger-name, more circumspect public health officials, who’ve watched their luster dim at the White House, Atlas has become a star adviser in President Donald Trump’s inner circle at a crucial moment during the pandemic.

 Atlas, upbeat and relentlessly on message that Americans should resume life as much as they can, is the live embodiment of the president’s Covid-is-not-that-big-of-a-deal approach. Where school superintendents and football conference officials see a risk of the virus’s spread this fall, he cautions against too-strict measures. During Fox News appearances, he has downplayed the need for students to wear face coverings or practice social distancing if schools do reopen.

“It is proven children have no significant risk,” he said during a July 15 TV appearance. It’s a line that Trump has parroted but that hasn’t been borne out in districts where in-person learning has resumed: Schools in Georgia, North Carolina and Indiana have had to shut down shortly after starting the year because of positive cases.

 Atlas first came to the attention of the Trump administration the way it finds so many top officials: through his appearances on Fox News. His comments on the coronavirus lockdown and the need to reopen the economy and schools caught the attention of the president and several top aides, including Jared Kushner, according to a second senior administration official.

Broken promises in a time of 'plague'

 https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/512004-broken-promises-in-a-time-of-plague

 “Promises and pie-crust,” Jonathan Swift once wrote, “are made to be broken.”

For Donald Trump, Swift’s ironic aphorism is a philosophy to live by. A candidate who fashioned an electoral majority out of a pledge to build a wall across the 2,000 mile southern border of the United States and make Mexico pay for it, President Trump meets or exceeds the stereotypes of the promise-making and breaking professional politicians he denigrates.

To be sure, Trump has kept some of his promises. The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord, renegotiated NAFTA, and withdrawn from the Iran Nuclear Agreement. The Trump administration has reduced government regulations, capital gains and income taxes. The president has appointed conservative judges.

 

 

Spare me the hoopla

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285348

 No doubt making new friends is a good thing, and so it is good that Israel and the United Arab Emirates…UAE…have shaken hands toward an official peace deal.

The two were not at war, but that’s beside the point, for the moment… but at present, kudos to the Trump Administration for helping to pull this off.

So why am I not thrilled? (Neither is this or this writer, and for excellent reasons.}

Israel to delay West Bank annexation plans for now in deal to discuss normalizing ties with UAE

 https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-13/uae-israel-normalize-diplomatic-ties-annexation-called-off

 The United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to work toward establishing full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt, for now, Israel’s controversial plans to annex occupied West Bank land sought by Palestinians for their future state.

If the UAE establishes formal ties with Israel, it would be only the third Arab country — after Jordan and Egypt — to recognize Israel, and the first Gulf nation to do so.

 Thursday’s declaration, the officials involved said, was a prelude to delegations from Israel and the UAE meeting in the coming weeks to forge bilateral agreements in an array of sectors, including tourism, security, telecommunications, technology, energy and healthcare.

Direct flights would be established as well as reciprocal embassies — although it was likely the UAE would go to Tel Aviv and not the disputed holy city of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians and controversially recognized as Israeli by Trump, the only world leader to do so.

 

Israel, UAE to launch diplomatic ties in return for halt to annexation

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/SkKHL0GzP

 Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the day-to-day ruler of the UAE, confirmed Thursday that the Gulf state had reached an agreement that would end Israel's annexation plans.

While the deal halts Israeli annexation plans, the Palestinians have repeatedly urged Arab governments not to normalize relations with Israel until a peace agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state is reached.

 

 

Minister Katz: Sovereignty was frozen before UAE agreement

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285336

In an interview with Kan Bet Sunday morning, Minister Katz explained that the application of sovereignty was frozen even before the agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and that "presenting the agreement as related to it is more convenient for all the Arab nations."

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash was interviewed over the weekend by La Figaro newspaper and said the agreement was intended first and foremost to remove from the agenda for good Israeli sovereignty moves in Judea and Samaria.

 

 

Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize Moment | The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 1074

Shaked: We believe Trump, there will be no sovereignty

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/285332

"When Netanyahu decided to form a coalition with Blue and White and throw out Yamina, I told everyone who asked me that there would probably be no sovereignty," Shaked said in an interview with Kan Bet Sunday morning.

 I believe the president of the United States and his son-in-law who said sovereignty was off the table," she added.

"The prime minister has chosen to give up sovereignty in exchange for normalizing relations with the Emirates. It should be put on the table - with the pros and the cons.

In Shaked's opinion, Netanyahu should have gone ahead with applying sovereignty even if it meant a deal with the UAE would not have been reached at this time. "Applying sovereignty, certainly with the support of American government - could have been a one-time opportunity."

Trump’s Win Is a Loss for the Middle East

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/trump-mideast-israel-uae-deal-395567

The Trump administration announced a deal this week between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which was immediately hailed as “an historic day for peace in the Middle East” by Mike Pompeo’s State Department. A flurry of similar analyses framed the deal as “a big win for Trump,” and a “geopolitical earthquake.”

But that was exactly the point of this deal: a lot of publicity for the deal-makers, but not much substance to the deal. In fact, this “breakthrough” is mostly a PR boost for the three leaders involved: President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, the costs will be borne by the one party not involved in the arrangement, the Palestinians.

 

 

Israel-UAE agreement a meek version of the historic Mideast deal Trump pledged

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/14/middleeast/israel-uae-agreement-trump-intl/index.html

 This is not THE Middle East peace deal that has beguiled a generation of American presidents, the one President Donald Trump commissioned his son-in-law and special advisor Jared Kushner to conclude.

At its most optimistic read, the agreement announced Thursday by Trump between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations between their two states is a poor man's facsimile for the, as yet, unachieved grand bargain between Israelis and Palestinians to quell their decades of conflict.

Yes, it is historic, but it is only an illusion of the peace President Trump vowed he'd deliver.

Back in January this year Trump announced the contours of what he called his Vision for Peace -- officially known as Peace for Prosperity. Palestinians boycotted it denouncing it as money for land, in their view giving up territory in return for promises of improved business prospects, while Israel threatened to take the land regardless.

 

 

Kushner asked to apologize for Trump spreading birther lie. See his response

Rabbi YY Jacobson: A Tribute to a Giant - Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz ob"m

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell MSNBC | August 14, 2020 | Hana Reaction

Unprecedented