Saturday, September 12, 2020

Woodward's Tapes, Trump's Covid Admissions & a Homicide Prosecutor's Take on Criminal Liability

FBI Calls Rumors of Extremists Starting Oregon Wildfires ‘Untrue’

 https://time.com/5888371/oregon-wildfires-antifa-proud-boys-rumors-false/

The FBI and other law enforcement officials issued statements on Friday to dispute rumors that wildfires in Oregon had been intentionally started by extremists.

“FBI Portland and local law enforcement agencies have been receiving reports that extremists are responsible for setting wildfires in Oregon. With our state and local partners, the FBI has investigated several such reports and found them to be untrue,” the FBI Portland Division said in a statement.

“Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away [from] local fire and police agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control,” the statement continued. “Please help our entire community by only sharing validated information from official sources.”

Nora Dannehy, Connecticut prosecutor who was top aide to John Durham’s Trump-Russia investigation, resigns amid concern about pressure from Attorney General William Barr

 https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-john-durham-dannehy-resignation-20200911-20200911-xcsapnq7g5e63kvtw5aqi7cv34-story.html

 Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, a top aide to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham in his Russia investigation, has quietly resigned — at least partly out of concern that the investigative team is being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before its work is done, colleagues said.

 

 

Trump administration admits defunding FDNY’s 9/11 healthcare program

 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-trump-admin-apologizes-fdny-911-program-20200911-d63ohrqqljbpre434qpygp7rti-story.html

The Trump administration admitted Friday to stripping millions of dollars from an FDNY fund that foots healthcare bills for 9/11 survivors and promised to try to put an end to the heartless practice.

The administration’s about-face came after the Daily News exclusively reported Thursday that the Treasury Department has over the past four years siphoned nearly $4 million from the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, which helps cover medical services for firefighters, EMTs and paramedics still suffering from 9/11-related illnesses.

A Treasury Department official said in an email after repeated requests from The News that it was “an unfortunate situation” that the funds were being redirected from the FDNY program.

 

States Bow to Pressure to Reverse Course on HCQ

 https://yated.com/states-bow-to-pressure-to-reverse-course-on-hcq/

 As Covid-19 continues to burn its way across previously unscathed regions in the country, public pressure in ten states has forced governors and pharmaceutical boards to lift or ease restrictions on HCQ to fight the disease.

 

 

Prosecutor In Durham’s Investigation Resigns Over Concern Of Political Pressure | Deadline | MSNBC

Barr Games With Flynn Case Ripped As 'Corrupt Political Errand' | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Kapporus and adultery

https://agudah.org/agudath-israel-reissues-kaporos-kol-korei-2/

 R. Shmuel Kamenetzky clearly signs his name on a קול קורא stating that ladies and gentlemen should be separated during כפרות, which is a חומרא בעלמא. How much more so must Ms. Epstein move away from Mr. Fleischer, which is not a חומרא בעלמא, but a דין of יהרג ואל יעבור, as explained here:

 

 

 

Friday, September 11, 2020

Reporter to Trump: Why did you lie to the American people?

Trump rally attendees open up to Lawrence Jones about their support: 'He tells it like it is'

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-rally-attendees-lawrence-jones-michigan-biden

 Attendees of President Trump's Thursday rally in Michigan told "Hannity" election correspondent Lawrence Jones that they support the Republican because he "tells it like it is."

"Why are you supporting the president?" Jones asked one woman wearing a "MAGA" hat.

"Because he tells it like it is," she answered. Two other women told Jones that "he's real." One man indicated that Trump "tells the truth."

How Fox News covered the Woodward recordings of Trump

Tucker Carlson accuses Lindsey Graham of convincing Trump to talk to Woodward

 https://thehill.com/homenews/media/515817-tucker-carlson-accuses-lindsey-graham-of-convincing-trump-to-talk-to-woodward

 Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday accused Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of convincing President Trump to sit for interviews with Bob Woodward for the journalist's forthcoming book "Rage" that reveals remarks by the president downplaying the coronavirus threat publicly while acknowledging its severity in private.

Why Trump talked, though he feared an ‘atrocious’ book from Woodward

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-trump-talked-though-he-feared-an-atrocious-book-from-woodward

 For all his attacks on fake news, Trump on some level craves the approval of the establishment media. He recently spent 40 minutes talking to a New York Times reporter, despite years of attacks on his hometown paper as biased and “failing.” And who is more of an establishment Beltway figure than Woodward?

But as officials in the Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama administrations learned, charming Woodward is a strategy that only goes so far. It’s hard for officials to say no to him when you realize you’ll be in the book anyway and many of your colleagues, and rivals, are probably cooperating.

But Trump’s calculation wasn’t all wrong. Although his coronavirus comments sparked a media explosion, the book is filled with lengthy presidential quotes, making the case on issues from the pandemic to race relations to foreign policy.

Trump twists history of Churchill and FDR to cover up pandemic denialism

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/donald-trump-churchill-fdr-pandemic/index.html

 President Donald Trump is now not just downplaying the coronavirus -- he's resorting to absurd historical allusions about great World War II leaders to try to disguise his culpability in 190,000 American deaths.

Trump ridiculously invoked the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a Thursday night rally, claiming that like them, he had tried hard to calm public panic in a dark hour. It was a historically illiterate gambit, since unlike Trump in the pandemic, both statesmen leveled with their people about grave national crises.