Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Fact check: Trump makes four false claims in one sentence

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/14/politics/fact-check-trump-mccabe-clinton-mcauliffe/index.html

 In what may be a new record for President Donald Trump, he made four false claims in one sentence of a tweet on Saturday.

The sentence was about Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 election opponent, and Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director and acting director of the FBI.

 Trump has regularly blasted McCabe in tweets and public remarks. His Saturday sentence on Twitter: "Was Andy McCabe ever forced to pay back the $700,000 illegally given to him and his wife, for his wife's political campaign, by Crooked Hillary Clinton while Hillary was under FBI investigation, and McCabe was the head of the FBI???" 

 Almost everything he said was inaccurate. Let's break down the sentence point by point.

 Trump was referring to $675,288 that was donated to the unsuccessful 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign of McCabe's wife, Dr. Jill McCabe: $207,788 from the state Democratic Party and $467,500 from Common Good VA, the political action committee (PAC) of then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

There is simply no evidence that any of the donations, which were publicly reported in Jill McCabe's financial filings, broke the law. Trump has a long history of wrongly accusing his opponents of illegal behavior.

 

Monday, September 14, 2020

Fauci: Trump downplaying COVID-19 threat 'not a good thing'; expect no 'normality' until 2021

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/11/fauci-trump-downplaying-covid-19-threat-not-good-thing/5771294002/

Trump told Woodward in a recorded interview Feb. 7 about how much "more deadly" COVID-19 would be than the flu, a startling juxtaposition from the president's public remarks at the time and in the months since about COVID-19, its lethality and its spread. 

For months in public, the president assured the public that the coronavirus was "under control" in the U.S. and would "go away."

"When you downplay something that is really a threat, that is not a good thing," he said.

Trump Endorses Extrajudicial Executions: Killing of Antifa Suspect Was “Retribution”

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-endorses-extrajudicial-executions-retribution-reinoehl.html

President Donald Trump appeared to give a nod to law enforcement officers killing suspected criminals, describing the death of an alleged shooting suspect by U.S. Marshals as “retribution.” Speaking in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Trump spoke of the incident in which a law enforcement officer killed a self-described anti-fascist activist earlier this month in Washington state as they sought to arrest him on suspicion that he fatally shot a right-wing protester in Portland, Oregon. Trump seemed to endorse the killing. “This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. Marshals killed him,” Trump told Pirro. “And I will tell you something—that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.”

 

Death of Antifa gunman who was killed by a fugitive task force after allegedly shooting dead a Trump supporter is ruled a homicide as a witness claims cops opened fire without warning while he was eating a gummy worm and clutching his cellphone

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8719863/Cops-opened-fire-killed-Antifa-gunman-walked-car-eating-gummy-worm-says-witness.html

  • Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was shot multiple times and killed by US Marshals outside an apartment block in Washington state last Thursday
  • The officers swooped on Reinoehl to arrest him after he was charged with the murder of right-wing activist Aaron 'Jay' Danielson, 39
  • Danielson was shot dead during a protest in downtown Portland on August 29
  • Coroners ruled Reinoehl's death a homicide Wednesday
  • An autopsy revealed he died from multiple shots to his head and torso
  • It is still not clear how many times Reinoehl was shot but at least four officers fired multiple rounds at the suspect during the incident
  •  A witness has cast doubt on the task force's version of events 
  • Nate Dinguss told The Washington Post Reinoehl was not obviously armed with a firearm and was eating candy when the officers opened fire without warning
  • Dinguss, 39, said cops did not identify themselves or try to arrest the suspect  
  • He also said cops waited 'multiple minutes' before giving Reinoehl medical care 

    The death of an Antifa gunman who was killed by a fugitive task force after allegedly 'lying in wait' and shooting dead a Trump supporter has been ruled a homicide as a witness claimed cops opened fire without warning while he was eating candy.

Don the Con

הפוסק החסידי: ילד שחלה לא ילך להיבדק

 https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1137737

 והנה הנהגת הרשויות דאם יש ילד אחד בחידר שנתגלה שיש לו את הנגיף, אז מכניסים את כל הכיתה לבידוד 14 יום ומתבטלים מלימוד התורה כל הכתה הרבה זמן... וע"כ מן הראוי שאם ילד אחד חלה שלא יעשו בדיקות, שעי"ז יתחייבו ע"פ הרשויות לבטל תורה, אלא הילד החולה ישאר בביתו עד שיבריא, וייתכן שישאר עוד שלשה ימים אחר שיבריא, ולא יבטל תורה דאחרים, וכן יעשה באברך בכולל שלא יבטל את כל הכולל על ידו" כותב הגרמ"ש.

 

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Famed Republican lawyer pens scathing op-ed about Trump

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Chris Wallace of Fox News DESTROYS Trump Excuse About Not Causing "Panic"

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

 But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.

 Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

Kushner's coronavirus team shied away from a national strategy, believing that the virus was hitting Democratic states hardest and that they could blame governors, report says

 https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-axed-for-political-reasons-report-2020-7

 Some members of Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force believed the pandemic would affect Democratic areas worse and may have adjusted accordingly, Vanity Fair reported.

Kushner says it’s ‘disgusting’ that politicians are trying to politicize the coronavirus pandemic

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kushner-says-its-disgusting-that-politicians-are-trying-to-politicize-the-pandemic

 Kushner told Steve Hilton, the host of the program, that Trump took the virus seriously from the start.

“They said we would have shortages on the frontline workers PPE; they said that we were going to have people dying because they weren’t in ventilators,” Kushner said.“That didn’t happen.”

Kushner also credited Trump for his leadership in the push for a vaccine. He said there are several vaccines that are now in Phase Three trials, which is “faster than anyone thought possible.”

 Kushner said the coronavirus has brought a lot of heartbreak to Americans and has been challenging. But he said Trump is the man for the job and prevented the country from being in a “much worse position."

 

Neal Katyal: ‘Donald Trump's Day Is Coming And The Courts Got His Number’ | The Last Word | MSNBC