Thursday, August 27, 2020
Pence reinvents Trump's presidency on a disorienting night of crises
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/27/politics/mike-pence-republican-convention-analysis/index.html
Even by the standards of 2020, it was a disorienting night. Adding to the awfulness of another police shooting of a Black man and the shooting of two protesters (by an apparent Trump supporter) and the pandemic about to claim its 180,000th American victim, a monstrous hurricane tore towards the Gulf Coast.
At the Republican National Convention, You Might Think COVID-19 Was Over
https://time.com/5883905/republican-convention-coronavirus-trump-pence/
When Vice President Mike Pence took the stage Wednesday night, his speech was a striking example of the Trump Administration’s attempts to reframe the history of the pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide and nearly ground the American economy to a halt. “Thanks to the courage and compassion of the American people, we are slowing the spread, we are protecting the vulnerable, and we are saving lives, and we are opening up American again,” Pence said, speaking at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD. “Because of the strong foundation that President Trump poured in our first three years, we’ve already gained back 9.3 million jobs in the last three months alone.”
Pence was named chair of the White House coronavirus task force in late February. Experts point to the failure to set up a speedy and functional testing and tracing system, the inconsistent guidance coming from the White House on mask-wearing and other crucial mitigation measures, and the early push to reopen states as costly missteps in the Trump Administration’s response to the virus. In August, more than six months after COVID-19 began sweeping through the U.S., the country continues to lead the world in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and number of deaths. Americans have experienced unemployment rates unseen since the Great Depression. The U.S. will almost certainly surpass 200,000 deaths from the virus before the election. Until a vaccine is approved, testing delays are hampering reopening throughout the country.
The alternative history spun out during the convention portrays COVID-19 as an unpredictable lightning strike sent from China against a U.S. left unprepared by the previous administration. But Trump had already been in office for three years when the pandemic washed ashore—mostly through Europe—and Trump’s White House had stripped away an office for pandemic response and ignored plans developed after the 2014 Ebola outbreak. More damaging, Trump repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the virus as it spread in American cities through the spring, and when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Americans cover their faces in April, Trump said he himself would not.
Israeli diplomat confirms Turkey giving citizenship to Hamas members
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-diplomat-confirms-turkey-giving-citizenship-to-hamas-members/
An Israeli diplomat on Wednesday confirmed reports that Turkey is granting citizenship to a dozen members of the Hamas terrorist group.
“Some are in the process, some already got (the documents), but we are talking about around a dozen,” Roey Gilad, chargé d’affaires at Israel’s embassy in Turkey, told the Reuters news agency.
Gilad asserted that the Hamas members receiving Turkish passports were financing and organizing terror operations.
2012. (AP Photo, file)
An Israeli diplomat on Wednesday confirmed reports that Turkey is granting citizenship to a dozen members of the Hamas terrorist group.
“Some are in the process, some already got (the documents), but we are talking about around a dozen,” Roey Gilad, chargé d’affaires at Israel’s embassy in Turkey, told the Reuters news agency.
Gilad said Israel has evidence of the phenomenon.
“We have already one document that we will present to the government in copy,” he said. “Judging by the last experience we had by presenting a well-based portfolio to the government… and getting no reply, I must say I don’t have high hopes that something will be done this time.”
Gilad asserted that the Hamas members receiving Turkish passports were financing and organizing terror operations.
Turkish President Recep Erdogan met on Saturday with a Hamas delegation that included politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh and the terror group’s No. 2, Saleh al-Arouri — a top military commander who has a $5 million US bounty on his head.
The meeting was harshly condemned by the US State Department, but the Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism, accusing Washington of “serving Israel’s interests.”
US official: ‘Incredibly positive conversations’ held over selling F-35s to UAE
US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday that “incredible positive conversations” were already underway over providing the United Arab Emirates with elite F-35 fighter jets and other military hardware after the Gulf state’s deal to normalize relations with Israel.
Log Cabin Republicans chair: LGBT Americans belong in Donald Trump's Republican Party
It hasn’t always been this way. For years, the GOP
generally stood against the inclusion of gay and lesbian conservatives.
As one of the Republican National Committee's first openly gay members,
and a longtime leader of Log Cabin Republicans, I've worked tirelessly
alongside many friends and colleagues to pull the party into the future.
Today, thanks in large part to the leadership of President
Donald Trump, the party has delivered meaningful policy victories for
gays and lesbians.
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
'No one gets punished': RNC utilizes White House for speeches and surprises despite ethics concerns
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/26/politics/donald-trump-rnc-speech-ethics/index.html
President Donald Trump is slated to accept the 2020 Republican presidential nomination on Thursday with a speech from the White House lawn -- an act ruled permissible by a federal agency. Yet even with the legal sign-off, the Republican convention's use of the White House this week is as norm-busting as anything in the Trump presidency and has gone far beyond his predecessors' actions.
CDC was pressured 'from the top down' to change coronavirus testing guidance, official says
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/26/politics/cdc-coronavirus-testing-guidance/index.html
A sudden change in federal guidelines on coronavirus testing came this week as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration, a federal health official close to the process tells CNN.
Trump’s RNC showcases conspiracists, backer of husbands controlling wives’ votes
An advocate of “household voting” in which husbands get the final say. A woman who has argued that school sex ed programs are “grooming” children to be sexualized by predators like Jeffrey Epstein. A candidate who has peddled in racist tropes and bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories. US President Donald Trump has long surrounded himself with controversial characters who hold out-of-the-mainstream views. But the decision by the party to elevate some of those figures by featuring them in prime-time spots at the Republican National Convention or inviting them to witness this week’s events is drawing new scrutiny.
Monday’s opening night, for instance, featured Rebecca Friedrichs, an elementary school teacher who railed in her remarks against teachers unions. In a July opinion piece in the Washington Times, Friedrichs argued that public schools groom kids for sexual predators like Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime companion, who stands accused of facilitating the abuse of girls by the now-deceased sex offender, by teaching them basic sex education.
And then there are the invited guests. On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional nominee from Georgia who supports the QAnon conspiracy theory, revealed that she had been invited to the White House to attend Trump’s marquee acceptance speech.
Greene has a long history of bolstering the baseless pro-Trump theory, which centers on an alleged anonymous, high-ranking government official known as “Q” who shares information about an anti-Trump “deep state” often tied to satanism and child sex trafficking. She has also made a series of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments.
CNN reported Tuesday that, before she ran for office, Greene promoted the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy and speculated that the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was an “inside job.”
Trump has praised her as a “future Republican Star.”