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

https://www.timesofisrael.com/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.

“We know that there are more agreements to formalize between the UAE and Israel, but you have taken the first step and I have no doubt that the other steps will come into place, and that’s one of the reasons why Secretary [Mike] Pompeo is here,” Ortagus told Emirates News Agency, WAM, in an interview in Abu Dhabi, referring to Pompeo’s Wednesday visit to the UAE.

 

Log Cabin Republicans chair: LGBT Americans belong in Donald Trump's Republican Party

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/20/donald-trump-lgbtq-lgbt-gay-rights-republican-equality-column/5605491002/

 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.

'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.

First lady Melania Trump held her speech in a newly renovated Rose Garden. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a pre-recorded his speech from Jerusalem during an official foreign trip, though the administration maintains his remarks were made in a personal capacity. 

 

The President's use of the White House as a convention speaking venue garnered criticism from ethics experts, but the US Office of Special Counsel -- an independent agency tasked with enforcing the law -- said Trump could deliver his Republican National Convention speech from the White House.

The office told members of Congress in a letter that because the President and vice president are exempt from the Hatch Act, they can deliver remarks for the RNC from the White House grounds.

"The President and Vice President are not covered by any of the provisions of the Hatch Act. Accordingly, the Hatch Act does not prohibit President Trump from delivering his RNC acceptance speech on White House grounds," a letter explaining the determination said.

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.

"It's coming from the top down," the official said of the new directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new guidelines raise the bar on who should get tested, advising that some people without symptoms probably don't need it -- even if they've been in close contact with an infected person.

Previously, the CDC said viral testing was appropriate for people with recent or suspected exposure, even if they were asymptomatic.

 

RNC Night 1: Here’s How You Will Die | The Daily Social Distancing Show

This *is* America: See Historian Condemn White Supremacy In Trump Era | MSNBC

Fed up Chris Wallace BLASTS Trump for illegal acts DURING Republican Convention

Trump’s RNC showcases conspiracists, backer of husbands controlling wives’ votes

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-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.”

Michael Steele: Trump's RNC Filled With Conflicting Moments | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

What Pompeo and Kushner are up to

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/25/opinions/pompeo-and-kushner-opinion-miller/index.html

 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left for Israel and the Gulf on Sunday not with the two-state solution on his mind; but with a focus on what you might call the 22-state solution: how best to use Arab state relationships with Israel to support President Donald Trump's reelection campaign.

 Enamored of Arab money, arms sales and enlisting Arab states in their pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian agenda, the Trump administration's real play was never about the Palestinians or two states. It was always about the Arab nations. And authoritarian Arab regimes eager to please an autocrat-friendly president have been only too happy to follow along with Donald Trump. The only question is how many more will do so.

 In essence, as we've seen recently with the likely sale of F-35 advanced fighter aircraft to the UAE, what the Arab states wanted, they more or less got.

Before we turn Kushner and company into Metternich-like diplomatic geniuses, it's important to point out that much of the foundation for closer Arab state-Israeli ties had been laid well before Trump came to Washington.

 As for a Trump administration desperate to showcase competency and any piece of good news, the image of Arab states making peace with Israel couldn't hurt.

If there were any doubt about the politics here, consider Pompeo's plan to address the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem while on a diplomatic mission to promote the national interests of the United States. That tethers him and his office to the domestic political interests of the President's reelection.

Unprecedented to be sure. But for a secretary of state -- the most politicized in modern American history and arguably the worst -- who appears to have presidential ambitions of his own, it may well be just another day at the office.

Fact Check: Second night of RNC riddled with dishonesty as Melania Trump appeals for 'total honesty'

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/25/politics/rnc-night-two-fact-check/index.html 

 First Lady Melania Trump concluded the second night of the Republican National Convention with a speech in which she said, "Total honesty is what we as citizens deserve from our president."

We certainly haven't received total honesty from President Donald Trump. And we certainly didn't get it on Tuesday night. The convention programming was littered with false or misleading claims, including some from the President's son Eric Trump, as well as a number of other claims that were missing important context.

Here's a look at some of the notable claims from Tuesday night and the facts behind them.

Peace in the Middle East

Eric Trump suggested that his father had achieved peace in the Middle East and brought never-ending wars to an end.

"Moving the embassy to Jerusalem; peace in the Middle East. Never-ending wars were finally ended. Promises made and promises for the first time were kept," he said.

Facts First: This is misleading and lacks context. President Trump did move Israel's US Embassy to Jerusalem. As for peace and ending "never-ending wars," it's unclear exactly which conflicts Eric Trump was referencing, but that's at best debatable and in some cases wrong.

In Afghanistan, US troops have been drawn down despite delays in the intra-Afghan peace talks and the Taliban's failure to distance themselves from al Qaeda.

US intelligence assessed there was an effort by a Russian military intelligence unit to pay the Taliban to kill US soldiers -- an effort that was downplayed by Trump. The US still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq, although CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said two weeks ago that number would likely decrease in coming months.

 

Don Jr’s girlfriend HUMILIATES herself with off-the-rails speech at GOP convention