Donald Trump’s Debt to China

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-debt-to-china

With criticisms of Trump’s handling of the pandemic growing and new opinion polls showing him trailing Biden in several key battleground states, we are sure to see more of these diversions. But adopting a China campaign strategy would also present a number of problems for Trump, beginning with the fact that Hunter Biden’s investment partnership isn’t the only American business that received funding from Chinese entities. In 2012, the Bank of China, a commercial bank owned by the Chinese state, provided more than two hundred million dollars in loans to a New York office building that Trump co-owns, Politico reported on Friday. The loans will come due in 2022, “in the middle of what could be Trump’s second term,” the timely article noted.

Trumplomacy: What's behind new US strategy on China?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52506073

 

Mr Trump's allies in the America First Action (AFA) political committee have been rolling out advertisements lashing "Beijing Biden" for "leading the charge" of a Washington elite too willing to accommodate a predatory China.

Mr Biden has hit back with an advert that accuses the president of trying to deflect blame for his own slow response to the pandemic, and of being too trusting of China's initial information about the virus.

The common element in these starkly different positions is that both campaigns believe it's good politics to argue their man will be strongest in taking on Beijing.

"If you look at the most recent Pew poll and Gallup poll, Americans' distrust of China, whether you're Republican or Democrat, is at an all-time high," roughly two-thirds of the country, says the AFA's Kelly Sadler. "This is a universal issue that Republicans and Democrats can both agree on."

There's certainly been a dramatic uptick in negative views of China since Mr Trump took office and dialled up the trade war.

Donald Trump’s erratic China policy undermines western unity

https://www.ft.com/content/b9a063aa-9057-11ea-9207-ace009a12028

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. https://www.ft.com/content/b9a063aa-9057-11ea-9207-ace009a12028

The broader difficulty is that America’s allies fear that the Trump administration’s goal is not to compel China to follow international rules — an aim they would support — but to destroy the rules. The allies know that the White House has pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and is deliberately hobbling both the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization. They remember that the president has threatened to impose tariffs on Germany and Japan — and has expressed scepticism about Nato and hostility towards the EU. They also know that Mr Trump is up for re-election in November, and suspect his motives in going after China now.

The sad truth is that America’s allies in Europe and Asia are also angered by Beijing’s behaviour. They simply do not trust the Trump administration’s leadership in countering it.

Trump's Glaring Absence On World Stage As He Blames CDC Director For The Crisis | Deadline | MSNBC

Flynn tries to shut down Judge Sullivan; Trump fires (another) IG

The Fake Aguna is a Creation of Corrupt Rabbis(V6)

Roe v Wade: Woman behind US abortion ruling was paid to recant

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52733886

 The woman behind the 1973 ruling legalising abortion in the US is seen admitting in a new documentary that her stunning change of heart on the issue in later life was "all an act".

Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe in the US Supreme Court's decision on Roe v Wade, shocked the country in 1995 when she came out against abortion.

But in new footage, McCorvey alleges she was paid to switch sides.

 n her "deathbed confession", as she calls it, a visibly ailing McCorvey says she only became an anti-abortion activist because she was paid by evangelical groups.

"I was the big fish," she said. "I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they'd put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say.

"That's what I'd say. It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress. Of course, I'm not acting now."

Teenage boy charged in Canada's first 'incel' terror case

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52733060

The 17-year-old boy is accused of fatally stabbing a woman in February.

Incel, short for "involuntarily celibate," is an online subculture focused on members' perceived inability to find romantic or sexual partners.

A 2018 attack in Toronto that killed 10 was also allegedly inspired by the ideology, but the accused in that case was not charged with terrorism.

"Terrorism comes in many forms and it's important to note that it is not restricted to any particular group, religion or ideology," said the RCMP.

 

Judge allows fraud suit against Trump, family and company to proceed

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/fraud-suit-trump-family-company/index.html

A federal judge on Monday allowed a federal lawsuit accusing President Donald Trump, his three eldest children and his company of collaborating with a fraudulent marketing scheme to prey on investors to proceed.

The lawsuit, originally filed in October 2018 and amended a few months later, alleges that in exchange for "secret" payments, Trump and three of his adult children used his former reality TV show "The Celebrity Apprentice" and other promotional events as vehicles to boost ACN Opportunity, a telecommunications marketing company linked to a nonprofit that used Trump's brand to appeal to teens.

The lawsuit also accuses the Trumps of having profited off the poor and vulnerable, as people looking "to enrich themselves by systematically defrauding economically marginalized people looking to invest in their educations, start their own small business, and pursue the American dream."

 

Nancy Pelosi accused of fat-shaming 'obese' Trump

https://www.bbc.com/news/52733199

"Especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group, morbidly obese, they say," the US House of Representatives speaker said.

 

Why the campaign is frozen: Trump, Biden and industrial-strength Teflon

https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-the-campaign-is-frozen-trump-biden-and-industrial-strength-teflon

 

If I had told you three months ago that a terrifying virus would invade America, infecting a million and a half people, killing 90,000 and throwing 35 million folks out of work, what would you have thought about President Trump’s reelection chances?

My first thought would have been that he’d be on the ropes, that any president would find it nearly impossible to win a second term in the face of such a devastating calamity.

My second thought would have been that Trump might be soaring in popularity if he was seen as leading the country in crisis--just as war can boost a commander-in-chief’s fortunes as people rally behind the leader.

And yet neither of those things has happened.

My view is that politics in this country have become almost completely tribal. Most people are so locked into their viewpoints, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, that they rationalize and excuse behavior that they would find intolerable in a figure on the other side.

“Americans feel more strongly about Trump, either for or against, than about any other candidate since polling began,” Continetti writes. “His supporters give his approval ratings a floor, and his detractors give his ratings a ceiling. There is not a lot of room in between.

So are both candidates so thoroughly coated in Teflon that they can’t be seriously scratched?

I liked this Continetti line: “Watching the numbers hardly budge over these past months, I have sometimes wondered what could move them. War? Spiritual revival? Space aliens?”

Barring an interplanetary invasion, the candidates are competing for a strikingly small number of persuadable voters. The election is likely to be a referendum on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and the reopening; his team wants it to be a verdict on Biden’s fitness for office.

And the press, which was wrong about Trump four years ago and wrong about Biden three months ago, is left covering a virtual race that just doesn’t seem to budge.

Making China Great Again

Jerusalem's haredi schools return to nearly normal functioning

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280547

Following the dramatic improvement in coronavirus infection rates in Jerusalem, the city's mayor, Moshe Lion, ordered the city's haredi schools to reopen nearly fully.

On Tuesday, Rabbi Yisrael Kellerman and Rabbi Avraham Bezalel, who are in charge of the city's haredi education resources and haredi education portfolio, respectively, presented the plan for reopening the schools.

The plan was made in coordination with rabbis, and in accordance with Health Ministry guidelines, and was approved by Lion.

Trump sows division and confusion as anxious country edges toward opening

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/20/politics/trump-coronavirus-response/index.html

 If America navigates its risky pursuit of a comeback without unleashing a vicious resurgence of coronavirus, it will be in spite of President Donald Trump, not because of him

 

But they will not be shepherded by a President offering advice on how to safely open, empowering his public health officials, or publicly shouldering the fear and concern of his compatriots.

 

 Trump, disdaining a mask and flouting the scientific advice of doctors, portrays himself as a warrior President standing up for Americans who believe liberal elites have leveraged the crisis to stifle freedoms and defeat their hero.

 

Trump's behavior in recent days flies in the face of every template of convening presidential leadership amid a crisis that will join the list of the greatest challenges in US history.

 

He and his son-in-law Jared Kushner and chief of staff Mark Meadows swept barefaced into the US Capitol for lunch with GOP Senators on Tuesday. The President's resolve will be tested on Wednesday when he heads to a Ford plant in Michigan. Managers have told the White House that masks are mandatory.

Pence's Doctor Disagrees With Trump's on Using Hydroxychloroquine to Prevent Coronavirus

https://www.newsweek.com/pences-doctor-disagrees-trumps-using-hydroxychloroquine-prevent-coronavirus-1505265

Vice President Mike Pence says he is not preemptively taking the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to ward off COVID-19 like President Donald Trump because his doctor does not recommend using the drug.

 

Michael Flynn's Attorney Files Emergency Appeal to Force Judge to Dismiss Charges Despite Guilty Plea

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynns-attorney-files-emergency-appeal-force-judge-dismiss-charges-despite-guilty-plea-1505252

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has asked a U.S. Appeals Court in D.C. to force the U.S. District Court judge overseeing his case to grant the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss his case.

 

President Trump Says America's 1.5 Million Coronavirus Cases Are ‘Badge of Honor’ for Testing

https://time.com/5839262/trump-badge-of-honor-coronavirus/

P resident Donald Trump said it’s “a badge of honor” that the U.S. has more than 1.5 million cases of coronavirus — the highest number of infections globally — saying the total is simply a reflection of a successful testing regime.

“I view it as a badge of honor, really, it’s a badge of honor,” Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. “It’s a great tribute to the testing and all of the work that a lot of professionals have done.”

At least 91,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, since February. The U.S. has now performed more than 11.8 million tests for infection by the virus, according to the Covid Tracking Project, after the government experienced delays in getting tests developed and manufactured. The U.S. continues to face testing shortages and sets priorities for who gets one.

Contrary to Trump’s claim, U.S. testing levels aren’t extraordinary. The U.S. trails countries like the U.K., Italy and Germany in tests conducted per 1,000 people, Bloomberg data show. And the U.S. is finding a case for every 7.8 tests, far behind other countries like New Zealand, Australia and South Korea, who have to test far higher numbers of people to find a case, according to figures compiled by Our World In Data.

 

Cabinet approves further relief measures

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280528

The Cabinet on Tuesday night approved a series of changes to the emergency regulations and lifted some of the restrictions that had been placed on the public as part of the fight against the coronavirus.

The prohibition of staying at a beach has been lifted, and from now on, staying at a beach will be possible in accordance with several guidelines, including maintaining physical distance between bathers.

The prohibition on prayer in a building was lifted as well. Prayer will be possible under restrictions that include up to 50 people in the building, while maintaining a distance of two meters between people, wearing masks and appointing a person who will be tasked with ensuring that the guidelines are followed.

The ban on operating a museum has been lifted as well. Operation of facilities or exhibits for children that can be touched will not be permitted in museums. Museums will adhere to the guidelines on the operation a public space, including allowing the entrance of one person per 15 square meters.

 

Mnuchin asked if workers should give their lives to increase GDP

Mike Pompeo's explanation for the firing of State's inspector general doesn't make sense

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/mike-pompeo-steve-linick-state-department/index.html

 In the wake of the removal of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to quell the controversy in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday. He did the opposite.

"I went to the President and made clear to him that Inspector General Linick wasn't performing a function in a way that we had tried to get him to, that was additive for the State Department, very consistent with what the statute says he's supposed to be doing," Pompeo told the Post by way of "explanation" for his push to have Linick fired by Trump. "The kinds of activities he's supposed to undertake to make us better, to improve us."

 

OK. So, Pompeo -- according to Bulatao's explanation -- asked Trump to fire Linick because of leaks to the media about ongoing IG investigations that they had absolutely no evidence that Linick had been involved in? Uh, what?