Number of coronavirus deaths in Sweden is highest per capita in the world

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/281047

 

Following Sweden's decision not to institute a lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus, the country's death rate is now one of the highest in the world.

Over the past week, Sweden has seen 5.59 deaths per million people, significantly higher than the global average of 0.49 deaths per million people.

Earlier this week, Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell admitted that his country is in a "terrible situation."

In a sad week for America, Trump has fled from his duty

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/30/opinions/trump-twitter-minneapolis-george-floyd-gergen/index.html

But other than a brief tweet in the midst of another storm, Trump remained silent on the most sensitive issue of his presidency: the pandemic that is killing so many older Americans and people of color living near the edge. Understandably, with the rash of other news, the press is moving on. But we should pause for one more moment to recognize how sad and sharp a departure his silence is from past traditions of the presidency.

Trump Lashes Out as His Election Prospects Darken

https://time.com/5843451/trump-lashes-out-as-his-election-prospects-darken/

Some prominent Republicans say the President has crossed the line with the attacks he’s lobbed in recent days. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic, he’s the Commander-in-Chief of this nation, and it’s causing great pain to the family of the young woman who died, so I would urge him to stop it,” Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the chair of the House Republican Conference, said May 27, referencing Trump’s repeated implication that Scarborough had been involved in the death of staff member Lori Klausutis in 2001. (Police ruled the death an accident; at the time, Scarborough was hundreds of miles away.) Mitt Romney, the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump on abuse of power during his impeachment trial, called Trump’s suggestions about Scarborough’s involvement in Klausutis’s death “vile” and “baseless.” “Enough already,” the senator from Utah tweeted.

 

Judge Napolitano says officer charged in Floyd's death should be charged with second-degree murder

https://www.foxnews.com/media/judge-napolitano-says-officer-charged-in-gorge-floyds-death-should-be-charged-with-second-degree-murder

 

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano reacted Friday to Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin being charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter over the death of George Floyd as riots and protests continue in the city.

"Third-degree murder is the same thing as manslaughter, which is a reckless indifference to human life. Probable cause statement shows that the knee was on the neck for more than four minutes, that the other officers said to him, 'Do you think you should lay off of him?' That one of the officers took his pulse and there was no pulse and Officer Chauvin kept his knee on the neck even after there was no pulse," Napolitano said on "Bill Hemmer Reports." "Now, that behavior to me is an intent to kill, which is second-degree murder. What's the difference? One has 20 five years in jail as a max. The other has 40 years in jail as a max."

Judge Pirro says 'facts are clear,' Minnesota officer 'does not deserve to be free'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/judge-jeanine-pirro-officer-arrest-george-floyd

Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Friday that there are “clear facts” showing that the police officer who killed George Floyd needs to be arrested and charged with murder under Minnesota law.

“What you have is a police officer with a record of [a] series of complaints over the 19 years that he’s been a police officer who ended up snuffing the life out of an African-American over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill that he was using to buy food for his family,” the host of "Justice with Jeanine" told “Fox & Friends.”

 

“I want to know what were those police officers doing as George Floyd was begging, saying he couldn’t breathe, saying ‘please please,’ begging them and then crying for his mama?" Pirro asked. "I mean, break your heart. This man who put his knee on the neck of George Floyd does not deserve to be free in this country.”

Hours after the interview aired, Chauvin was arrested.

Justice for George Floyd? Legal Update on Case Status

Fed up Fox News host DESTROYS Trump over executive order against Twitter

Trump's 1st Amendment Fail

The Trump-Twitter fight ropes in the rest of Silicon Valley

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/30/trump-twitter-fight-silicon-valley-290759

The deepening feud between the president and his go-to social media platform is forcing companies like Facebook and Google to gird for a lobbying battle to defend the legal protections that underpin their lucrative business models, sooner and much more publicly than they had originally expected. Those preparations accelerated this week, even as Facebook made it clear to Trump that it doesn't share Twitter's view of how online platforms should handle political speech.

Supreme Court rejects request from California church to block restrictions on in-person services

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/30/politics/supreme-court-california-church-coronavirus/index.html

 A 5-4 Supreme Court rejected a request from a church in California to block limitations on the number of people who could attend religious services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals on the bench, and wrote separately to explain his vote.

"Although California's guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment," Roberts wrote.

 

Science Can't Tell Us What to Do- neither can politicians

http://www.jewishmediaresources.com/2050/science-cant-tell-us-what-to-do


Issues such as to what degree of infringements on personal privacy are justified in pursuit of public health, or to what extent individuals should be allowed to accept risk upon themselves — e.g., grandparents who want to see their grandchildren — are ultimately value questions. And on those, scientists have nothing more to say than you and I.

 Rosenblum is a Republican apologist ignoring well known Torah values. My view might not be superior to Trump - however the gedolim have seen fit to ignore
Rosenblum's polemics and say life is the main concern

ON the other hand there is no reason to assume the wisdom of Trump and his fellow wrecking crew the supposedly pro life Republicans are willing to ignore medical advice they hold that the loss of some old people or lower class young people is justified for the sake of the economy. Trump calls those he thinks are expendable "warriors"  Naturally he does not include himself or his family in this group

A week of distractions from Trump shows a leader in crisis

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/30/politics/trump-distractions-pandemic-racial-unrest/index.html

Trump's efforts to change the subject at moments of peril have been a hallmark of his entire career in politics and, when successful, a constant source of frustration for his rivals. But rarely have they appeared more blatant or off-key than now, as a battered nation emerges from a pandemic that has left more than 100,000 dead and as racial unrest brews again.

Fact check: On Memorial Day, Trump falsely attacks Democratic congressman who is a Marine Corps veteran

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/fact-check-trump-conor-lamb-pelosi/index.html

Trump claimed that Lamb -- whose first and last name he misspelled as "Connor Lamm" -- is a "puppet" for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump continued: "He said he would NOT vote for her for Speaker, and did."

Facts First: Lamb, elected in a special election in March 2018 and then again in the general election in November 2018, kept his promise not to vote for Pelosi as speaker. Lamb voted for Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts.

 

Monday was not the first time Trump has made an egregious false claim about Lamb. In 2018, Trump falsely claimed Lamb had said he loves Trump's tax cuts -- which Lamb had campaigned against. In 2019, Trump falsely claimed Lamb called Trump "excellent" and said Trump was "doing a good job."

Police: Former student at Ner Israel Rabbinical College tries to run over staff member, others

https://www.wbaltv.com/article/police-former-student-at-ner-israel-rabbinical-college-tries-to-run-over-staff-member-others/32672425

The suspect was identified as Manooel Yerooshalmy, 33, of Baltimore. He is charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of attempted second-degree murder and various other charges.

Seattle Judge Tosses Suit That Tried to Gag Fox News Commentary

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/fox-news-lawsuit-washlite-dismissed-1234617658/

A Seattle judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a little-known advocacy organization that hoped to bar Fox News Channel from transmitting its popular primetime opinion programs to its large cable-news audience.

WASHLITE argued in its initial filing that Fox News was subject to established protections for consumers against false information and put forth the notion that deceptive or unfair acts may be enjoined under statutes in Washington state.

In an eight-page document, however, Superior Court Judge Brian McDonald said WASHLITE had failed to establish a case, noting that its  “assertions do not hold up to scrutiny.”  He added: “WASHLITE’s professed goal in this lawsuit – to ensure that the public receives accurate information about the coronavirus and COVID-19 – is laudable.” But its argument of using a consumer protection act, he said,  “runs afoul of the protections of the First Amendment.”

Fox News During the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Awful Even by Fox News Standards

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/fox-news-is-denying-coronavirus-and-risking-viewers-lives.html

Since the novel coronavirus first came to America, many marquee Fox personalities have been rushing to diminish its seriousness while simultaneously blaming everyone but the Trump administration for the virus’s rapid spread across the United States (which, of course, is not that serious). On Wednesday, as he has done all week, Hannity argued that the novel coronavirus was less of a threat than the seasonal flu. “There have been 1,200 cases of corona versus 34 million cases of the flu,” Hannity said. “As the senior director at Johns Hopkins pointed out this week, the flu is having much more of an impact than coronavirus. These are facts.” On her own program Wednesday night, Laura Ingraham echoed Hannity’s skepticism. “Where the risk is minimal, the business of America must go on,” she said. “FDR told us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Earlier this week, on the Fox Business Network, host Trish Regan informed her viewers that the “chorus of hate being leveled at the president is nearing a crescendo as Democrats blame him—and only him—for a virus that originated halfway around the world. This is yet another attempt to impeach the president.”

On this matter, as on so many other things, Regan, Ingraham, and Hannity are dead wrong. First of all, it beggars belief to say that the Trump administration has done an exemplary job of containing the spread of the coronavirus. “This is an unmitigated disaster that the administration has brought upon the population, and I don’t say this lightly,” Harvard Global Health Institute director Ashish Jha told Bloomberg; on Twitter, Georgetown University global health law professor Lawrence Gostin called Trump’s temporary European travel ban “incoherent.” Second, in point of fact, COVID-19 isn’t just a more mild version of the flu. It’s something different, and it is incredibly dangerous for the elderly and immunocompromised. Fox News is risking its aged viewers’ lives by downplaying the risks of COVID-19. The network’s coverage here is grossly irresponsible.

More False Mail-In Ballot Claims from Trump

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/more-false-mail-in-ballot-claims-from-trump/

 

California will send every registered voter in the state a mail-in ballot for the November general election. But President Donald Trump falsely said, on Twitter and at the White House, that the ballots would go to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there” and “people that aren’t citizens.”

The president went on to make the unsupported claim that mail-in voting would be “substantially fraudulent.” Experts have told us that voter fraud via mail-in ballots is rare, though more common than in-person voting fraud — another topic Trump has repeatedly been wrong about.

Five states already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon. All of them will send registered voters a mail-in ballot in advance of the election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the individual state election materials. In Utah, all but two counties automatically sent ballots to registered voters in the 2018 elections, and this year’s June 30 primary will be conducted primarily by mail, due to the coronavirus pandemic, with no regular polling places available in all but one county.

 Last week, Trump made the false claim on Twitter that Michigan was “illegally” sending “absentee ballots to 7.7 million people” for this year’s primary and general elections. The state said it will send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. Trump later corrected his tweet on that point but still claimed it was against the law. However, Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia also have sent absentee applications.

He further claimed Nevada was sending “illegal vote by mail ballots.” The Republican secretary of state in Nevada announced: “All active registered voters in Nevada will be mailed an absentee ballot for the primary election,” and her office noted that a federal judge had ruled this was a lawful exercise of her authority.

Fact-checking Trump's recent claims that mail-in voting is rife with fraud

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/27/app-politics-section/donald-trump-mail-in-voter-fraud-fact-check/index.html

 

Specifically, and without evidence, Trump has claimed that mail-in voting is particularly susceptible to fraud, casting it as a lawless, unregulated exercise where ballots are stolen from mailboxes, voter signatures are routinely forged and even the ballots themselves are illegally printed.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted a flurry of accusations, including falsely claiming that California was sending ballots to undocumented immigrants and was prepared to let "anyone," regardless of residency, vote by mail.

Jack Dorsey says Trump fact-check does not make Twitter 'arbiter of truth'

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/28/media/jack-dorsey-donald-trump-twitter/index.html

In his tweets Wednesday, Dorsey also said he takes ultimate responsibility for decisions made by Twitter and asked people to "leave our employees out of this." Earlier Wednesday, Trump's two elder sons and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway pointed to tweets made by Twitter employee Yoel Roth in 2016 and 2017 as evidence of Twitter's alleged bias against the president.

There is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me," Dorsey said. "Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make."

Twitter also defended Roth earlier Wednesday, saying that, "no one person at Twitter is responsible for our policies or enforcement actions, and it's unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions."

Dorsey, according to a Twitter spokesperson, did not make the decision to label Trump's tweets. A Twitter spokesperson said the tweets contained "potentially misleading information about voting processes" and had been "labeled to provide additional context."

Questions raised over hydroxychloroquine study which caused WHO to halt trials for Covid-19

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/28/questions-raised-over-hydroxychloroquine-study-which-caused-who-to-halt-trials-for-covid-19

He stressed that even if the paper proved to be problematic, it did not mean hydroxychloroquine was safe or effective in treating Covid-19. No strong studies to date have shown the drug is effective. Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have potentially severe and even deadly side effects if used inappropriately, including heart failure and toxicity. Other studies have found the drug is associated with higher mortality when given to severely unwell Covid-19 patients.

Serious concerns have being raised by bioethicists, clinicians and scientists that scientific rigour and peer review is falling by the wayside in the race to understand how the virus spreads and why it has such a devastating impact on some people.