Four years in, Trump has plenty of unfinished business

 https://www.startribune.com/four-years-in-trump-has-plenty-of-unfinished-business/572853261/

Trump has made only modest progress toward meeting his 2016 pledge to bring home all troops from what he calls America's "endless wars."

When Trump took over the White House, the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan stood at about 8,400, and there were about 6,800 troops in Iraq.

Within a year, the number of troops in Afghanistan climbed to about 15,000. Trump approved commanders' requests for additional troops to reverse setbacks in the training of Afghan forces, fight an increasingly dangerous Islamic State group and put enough pressure on the Taliban to force it to the peace table.

In February, the U.S. and the Taliban signed an agreement that calls for the eventual complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

With an eye toward the election, Trump has accelerated his push to bring troops home, teasing that all U.S. troops could be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Trump's Twitter promises to bring U.S. troops home make headlines. Has he kept them?

 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-twitter-promises-bring-u-s-troops-home-make-ncna1244572

  Consequently, in the closing weeks of his 2020 re-election campaign, it would seem appropriate to consider whether or not he has lived up to this promise, how he has attempted to do so and if this effort has made the nation safer.

 But as Americans vote this fall, Trump’s promise of a dramatic reduction in American troop presence abroad has not been achieved, nor has he dramatically shifted costs to U.S. allies. In fact, the Trump administration has increased U.S. defense spending in the last several years by nearly $140 billion, from $611 billion in 2016 to $750 billion in 2019, Foreign Affairs reported. When Trump settled into the Oval Office in January 2017, the United States had a little under 200,000 troops deployed overseas. Best estimates are that number has been reduced slightly, but this may largely reflect a difference in accounting. Since 2017, the Department of Defense has excluded troops deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria from its official reports, arguing that providing the number of troops in a combat theater violated operational security.

US election 2020: Has Trump kept his promises on the military?

 https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54060026

 The chart shows military spending has steadily increased since President Trump took office in January 2017.However, this spending is still significantly lower than during the first term of the Obama administration, using figures adjusted for inflation

 The reduction of troops was much greater under President Obama, as both large-scale deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan ended during his years in charge.

 

Trump's '60 Minutes' tantrum told us everything

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/26/opinions/trumps-60-minutes-tantrum-told-us-everything-dantonio/index.html

 The blessing in Trump's "60 Minutes" performance is that it did help make the voters' choice clear. Both men are, in a sense, offering more of the same. Trump assures more drama. Biden promises a return to the steady and familiar.

Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein condemns Trump

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/289899

While a majority of Orthodox Jews are expected to vote for Donald Trump in next week’s U.S. presidential election, a major Israeli Orthodox rabbi who also has a large following in the United States strongly condemned the president in an interview this week.

Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein, one of the heads of Yeshivat Har Etzion, questioned Trump’s mental and moral fitness in an interview with the Israeli magazine Makor Rishon.

“This is a mentally disturbed person without any inhibition or judgement who controls the button of the the most powerful nuclear weapons in the world — and here people applaud him for opening an embassy in Jerusalem,” Lichtenstein said.

“They don’t stop for a moment to think about the moral damage that he inflicts on the United States, or even on the world. They don’t ask how it’s possible to abandon the fate of humanity to such an unbalanced man, who doesn’t recognize the concepts of truth and falsehood,” he said.

“All of this will harm us, even if there’s an embassy in Jerusalem,” he added.

Trump and his supporters have made a mockery of U.S. patriotism

 https://www.salon.com/2020/09/20/trump-and-his-supporters-have-made-a-mockery-of-us-patriotism/

Loving your country is not the same as loving Trump

 

Trump continues to falsely claim that spike in coronavirus cases is due to heightened testing

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/26/politics/fact-check-testing-cases-october/index.html

President Donald Trump has claimed over and over in the past week -- at campaign rallies, on Twitter and in an interview with "60 Minutes" -- that the US is only seeing so many coronavirus cases because the country is doing so much testing.

 Facts First: The spike in US coronavirus cases is not being caused by an increase in testing. The number of confirmed new cases is increasing at a faster rate than the number of new tests. And the number of hospitalizations and deaths is also rising, which shows that, contrary to Trump's repeated claims, the increase in the case numbers isn't merely being caused by tests capturing mild cases. Taken together, the numbers tell a consistent story: the situation in the US is genuinely getting worse.

 

 

Judge Sullivan Issues Two GOOD Court Orders, 1 in DeJoy/Mail Sorting Machines Case & 1 in Flynn Case

Trump White House Surrenders To The Coronavirus | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Tiffany Trump says her father 'has always supported' LGBTQ people

 https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/tiffany-trump-says-her-father-has-always-supported-lgbtq-people-n1244078

 "I know what my father believes in. Prior to politics, he supported gays, lesbians, the LGBQIA+ community," she said at the event Saturday in Tampa, Florida, which organizers said drew 150 people. "My father has always supported all of you. ... He's never done it for politics."

 At the Philadelphia event, Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, called him "the most pro-gay president in history." In Tampa, Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence, said, "Mr. President, the gays love you."

Chris Wallace CALLS OUT top Republican over phony Hunter Biden “scandal”

The Third Wave of COVID-19 in the U.S. Is Officially Worse Than the First Two

 https://time.com/5903673/record-daily-coronavirus-cases/

 There have been clear signs for weeks of a third wave of the pandemic in the U.S. as the weather gets colder and the virus has migrated from metropolitan regions to more rural settings. But it was far from certain, at the beginning of October, that the resurgence would surpass that of the summer, even though the figures were climbing far sooner than the timeline of the most promising vaccine trials, one of which was temporarily halted after a volunteer became ill but is set to resume soon.

 We know now that the third wave will be worse than the second, which was far worse than the first, when cases peaked at 9.7 per 100,000 on April 7.

US ultra-Orthodox rabbis lavish Trump with praise 10 days before election

 https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/us-ultra-orthodox-rabbis-lavish-trump-with-praise-10-days-before-election-646863

With the US seeing record levels of COVID-19 cases, the grand rabbis of Satmar, Viznitz and Bobov, and leading non-hassidic rabbis praise Trump for calling for houses of worship to remain open.

 Among the rabbis who signed the letter were the Satmar Rebbe in Kiryas Joel, New York, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum; the Satmar Rebbe in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum; the Vizhnitz Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Hager; the Bobov Rebbe, Rabbi Benzion Halberstam; and Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, a senior member of Agudath Yisrael of America’s Council of Torah Sages.

 It was also signed by the Pupa Rebbe, the Munkacs Rebbe, the New Square Rebbe, the Rachmistrivka Rebbe and several ultra-Orthodox leaders.

 

 

 

New Hampshire newspaper backs Biden, first Democrat for president in 100 years

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-endorsement-conservative-new-hampshire-union-leader-newspaper

 “Joe Biden may not be the president we want, but in 2020 he is the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state,” it said. “Sadly, President Trump has proven himself to be the antithesis of thoughtful and pragmatic; he has failed to earn a second term.”

 

Florida is on the verge of a COVID-19 resurgence

 https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-florida-and-covid-19-20201025-ug4fhqvtcza7ngitukmh7znurm-story.html

Florida’s COVID-19 death rate since the pandemic began is ninth among states, tied with Illinois, at 76 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. That’s higher than Texas (60) and California (43). A rate for New York State including New York City is unavailable.

Over the past three months, Florida’s death rate per 100,000 people has tripled, CDC data show. It was 25.9 on July 25. California then had 20.3 deaths per 100,000 and Texas 15.8 deaths.

Trump falsifies Biden stance on fracking

 https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-ap-fact-check-joe-biden-donald-trump-pennsylvania-fa798602a357d0f4a765739e36f4f82b

President Donald Trump is persisting with the myth that Democratic rival Joe Biden proposes to ban fracking. Biden doesn’t.

TRUMP: “One of the most important issues for Pennsylvania is the survival of your fracking industry. Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged to abolish fracking. He’s a liar. He’s a liar.” — remarks Tuesday night at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

THE FACTS: That’s false. Biden has repeatedly pledged not to abolish fracking.

His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, underscored that point multiple times in the vice presidential debate. None of that has dissuaded the president from repeatedly and wholly distorting Biden’s position.

Fact check: Biden falsely claims he never opposed fracking

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/23/politics/biden-fracking-fact-check/index.html 

 Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed that he "never said I oppose fracking" when pressed by President Donald Trump on the issue during Thursday night's presidential debate.

"You said it on tape," Trump replied.

Facts First: It's false that Biden never said he opposed fracking. In two Democratic primary debates, Biden made confusing remarks over fracking that his campaign had to clarify. In 2019, Biden said "we would make sure it's eliminated" when asked about the future of coal and fracking; in 2020 he said he opposed "new fracking." Biden's written plan, conversely, never included a full ban on fracking or even on new fracking. Rather, it proposes "banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters" -- not ending all new fracking anywhere or ending all existing fracking on public lands and waters.

 

Trump Says Virus Spikes Have Gone Away When They Haven't | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Former CDC Intelligence Officer Debunks Trump's Claims About Coronavirus | NowThis

Fact-Checking Trump's Claim That U.S. Is 'Rounding The Corner' On COVID-19 | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC

How Trump abandoned his pledge to ‘drain the swamp’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-drain-the-swamp/2020/10/24/52c7682c-0a5a-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html 

 Trump’s rapid action after the Sept. 25 fundraiser — one of dozens of high-dollar donor events he has headlined while in office — emblemizes how much he has abandoned his 2016 pledge to “DRAIN THE SWAMP.”

In the closing weeks of that election, Trump led cheering supporters in chants of that slogan, promising that he would completely disrupt the culture of Washington. He warned of the power of lobbyists and political donors who he said effectively bought off elected officials. He told voters he was uniquely prepared to take on the issue, because he knew personally as a contributor how the system worked.

But during his four years in office, Trump has taken few steps to clean up Washington. He has instead presided over a norm-shattering expansion of private interests in government.

 Among the five pledges Trump made to “drain the swamp” and curtail the influence of lobbyists in a major campaign speech in October 2016, a Washington Post review found that he sought to address only two, through an executive order in January 2017 — which contained a major loophole.

 

NPR explained why it’s not covering the Hunter Biden laptop story — now Trump’s son wants to ‘defund’ it

 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/npr-explained-why-its-not-covering-the-hunter-biden-laptop-story-and-now-president-trumps-son-wants-to-defund-it-11603386611

 The tweet linked to further rationale. “The biggest reason you haven’t heard much on NPR about the Post story is that the assertions don’t amount to much,” NPR’s Kelly McBride wrote.

 

What is the Hunter Biden laptop scandal?

 https://www.wilx.com/2020/10/22/what-is-the-hunter-biden-laptop-scandal/

The New York Post published installments of the leaked emails, claiming they proved Joe Biden met with an adviser to Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was a board member. However, the emails alone do not prove that allegation. The emails use vague wording, and it is not clear whether the laptop actually belonged to Hunter Biden.

Currently, no one has been able to confirm the ownership of the laptop, the authenticity of the emails, or whether they had any effect on Joe Biden’s actions. If a verifiable source is found, News 10 will report it.

 

Fareed Zakaria: This is why Trump will lose the 2020 election ...

The hidden factors that could produce a surprise Trump victory

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/trump-victory-democrats-election-430013

By almost every measure that political operatives, academics and handicappers use to forecast elections, the likely outcome is that Joe Biden will win the White House.

Yet two weeks before Election Day, the unfolding reality of 2020 is that it’s harder than ever to be sure. And Democrats are scrambling to account for the hidden variables that could still sink their nominee — or what you might call the known unknowns.

Trump Is Trailing So Far in Polls That Hunter Biden 'Scandal' Has Little Impact: GOP Pollster

 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-trailing-polls-hunter-biden-little-impact-gop-pollster-1541861

 Republican pollster Frank Luntz thinks former Vice President Joe Biden will win the presidential election on November 3 and it's too late for President Donald Trump to turn things around.

Luntz has criticized the Trump campaign for focusing on Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and his alleged financial dealings in Ukraine and China. The veteran Republican consultant thinks most people just don't care.

Rav Moshe Feinstein and need to vote

 

See the uncomfortable question Trump asked Netanyahu