Wednesday, September 16, 2020

“The Occupation” – How the EU Discriminates Against Israel

 https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/eu-discrimination-israel/

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Why does the EU single out Israeli “occupation” over other “occupations”? Because anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian positions are one of the few rallying cries that unite Europe.

Trump FALLS ON HIS FACE at town hall with bungled response

Trump Again Says Virus Will Disappear, Discusses 'Herd Mentality' | Morning Joe | MSNBC

New York yeshiva closes after 13 students test positive for coronavirus

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/287384

At least 13 students at a yeshiva in Queens, New York, tested positive for COVID-19 just weeks into the new school year and days before Rosh Hashanah.

Yeshiva Darchei Torah will transition to distance learning temporarily while the Health Department conducts an investigation, according to Politico.

The cases come on the heels of school closures and quarantines of entire classes in several Jewish day schools in the New York area and rising anxiety over an uptick in COVID cases in Orthodox communities. One Orthodox high school in Manhattan shut down for at least two days after four students tested positive.

 

 

 

No new dawn in the Middle East after White House ceremony

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/287415

 As thirteen rockets from Gaza rained down on the southern Israeli coastal cities Ashdod and Ashqelon leaders from two Arab Gulf States, Israel and the government of the United States sat down on the White House lawn in Washington to sign peace agreements.

The peace agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are truly historical although there have never been any hostilities between the countries.

On the contrary, secret ties between the two Gulf States and Israel have existed for decades as Hebrew University Professor Eli Podeh pointed out in two articles for the Hebrew language press last week.

 

 

Dershowitz attempts to clarify controversial argument about presidential powers

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/alan-dershowitz-presidential-powers-109474

 Responding to a question about how presidents conduct foreign policy, Dershowitz asserted Wednesday that “every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest.” Therefore, he continued, “if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected — in the public interest — that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

But tweeting Thursday, Dershowitz insisted that he “did not say or imply that a candidate could do anything to reassure his reelection, only that seeking help in an election is not necessarily corrupt.” Concluding his string of posts, he wrote: “Critics have an obligation to respond to what I said, not to create straw men to attack.”

 “I hear he’s correcting it on TV today. That seems to be Mr. Dershowitz’s pattern,” Schumer said at a news conference in the Capitol. “He gives a statement on the floor and then spends the next day correcting it. What a load of nonsense.”

Alan Dershowitz Files $300 Million Lawsuit Against CNN Over Coverage of Trump’s Impeachment

 https://www.thewrap.com/alan-dershowitz-cnn-defamation-lawsuit/#

 “Following the airing of that clip over and over again, the hosts, together with their panel guests, including CNN employees and paid commentators, exploded into a one-sided and false narrative that Professor Dershowitz believes and argued that as long as the President believes his reelection is in the public interest, that he could do anything at all – including illegal acts – and be immune from impeachment,” the lawsuit said. “The very notion of that was preposterous and foolish on its face, and that was the point: to falsely paint Professor Dershowitz as a constitutional scholar and intellectual who had lost his mind.”

Alan Dershowitz Sues CNN for $300 Million Over Impeachment Coverage

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/alan-dershowitz-sues-cnn-for-dollar300-million-over-impeachment-coverage

 Alan Dershowitz filed a libel suit against CNN on Tuesday seeking $300 million for what the lawsuit described as the news outlet’s portrayal of the lawyer as an “intellectual who had lost his mind,” according to The Wrap. Dershowitz alleges that CNN selectively left out some of his comments on President Trump's impeachment and subsequently created a false narrative. Dershowitz spoke on the Senate floor as a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team at his impeachment trial about what’s considered an illegal “quid pro quo.” He provided three different motives that political figures may have for re-election but alleges in the lawsuit that CNN triggered a “sea of lies” in the media by re-airing only one of his quotes multiple times. The lawsuit claims Dershowitz was framed as someone who thought “that the President of the United States could commit illegal acts as long as he thought it would help his reelection and that his reelection was in the public interest.”

 

 

Presenting the ludicrous 'Dershowitz Doctrine'

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/29/opinions/begala-impeachment-trial-dershowitz-doctrine/index.html

In his defense of President Donald Trump, attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz added a third variant to Nixon and Louis XIV: If a President thinks his re-election is in the public interest, anything he does in pursuit of his re-election is legal.

 

Alan Dershowitz files $300 million defamation suit against CNN

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/alan-dershowitz-300-million-defamation-suit-cnn-impeachment

 Famed attorney and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz filed a defamation suit against CNN on Tuesday seeking $300 million for what he called a "willful, deliberate, malicious effort to destroy my credibility."

Dershowitz told Fox News that CNN selectively edited a clip of his remarks from the Senate floor during President Trump's impeachment trial where he broke down the illegalities surrounding a "quid pro quo" as a member of the president's defense team.

 

 

Trump attacks Cuomo over nursing homes, COVID-19

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/514936-trump-attacks-cuomo-over-nursing-homes-covid-19

“Governors [sic] Andrew Cuomo of New York has the worst record on death and China Virus,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning. “11,000 people alone died in Nursing Homes because of his incompetence!”

New York’s official nursing home death toll is over 6,600, though The Associated Press reported last month that the number could be undercounted because New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property to determine the death toll. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that New York could have a nursing home death toll of over 11,000, according to the AP, which is apparently the source of the figure in the president’s tweet.

 

 

Trump and Cuomo spar over N.Y. nursing home deaths, crime spike, and investigations as feud spirals

 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-coronavirus-trump-cuomo-nursing-home-20200903-ihu4dymw5neqzcghpejzqdix64-story.html

 It’s war!

President Trump and Gov. Cuomo traded nasty accusations Thursday over coronavirus, crime and probes into the president’s alleged misdeeds as their ugly war of words spiraled into a second day.

“11,000 people alone died in Nursing Homes because of his incompetence!” Trump tweeted about Cuomo.

Is Cuomo directive to blame for nursing home COVID deaths as HHS official claims?

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/24/michael-caputo/hhs-official-blames-cuomo-nursing-home-covid-death/

York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was among the first in a weeklong parade of speakers to issue scathing critiques of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.

Cuomo’s criticisms drew a quick reply in a tweet from Michael R. Caputo, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?" he wrote.

 Bottom line: State and federal rules didn’t force nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, but many of them believed they had no other choice.

 In a July analysis of COVID-19 nursing home deaths, the state concluded that the deadly virus was introduced by nursing home staff members rather than sick patients.

 Although nursing homes felt pressure to accept COVID-positive patients, they were not actually forced to do so. State regulations require nursing homes to accept patients only if they can care for them, and they could have refused them on those grounds.

In addition, it’s unclear the extent to which the governor’s policy was responsible for nursing home COVID-19 deaths. Infection control is a longstanding problem in nursing homes that predates the pandemic and a report showed peak numbers of nursing home deaths came prior to the peak influx of patients as a result of Cuomo’s advisory. While the introduction of COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes no doubt had an effect on infection spread, Caputo’s statement suggests it was solely responsible. That’s not what the evidence shows.

We rate this Mostly False.

 

Trump Struggles With Tough Questions From Voters At Town Hall | The 11th Hour | MSNBC