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.

From 'We've shut it down' to 100,000 US dead

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52775216

One of Donald Trump's first acts when he moved into the Oval Office in 2017, was to restore to a central position the bust of Winston Churchill that Barack Obama had moved out in favour of a bronze of Martin Luther King Jr.

 

And in this fight against coronavirus, Donald Trump does see himself as a war leader; the property tycoon who could work a shovel on a Manhattan building site was also going to be shown to be a man of destiny - the untried field-marshal, with a baton in his knapsack ready to command the troops to get the job done. But also keeping the home fires burning, and lifting the morale of a frightened nation. It has all been far more jagged than that. 

Donald Trump is not imbued with the gift of soaring Churchillian rhetoric; there have been no "we shall fight them on the beaches" moments. Nor has he conjured the Rooseveltian calm when delivering one of his fireside chats. There have been days of infamy, but they have been invariably generated by things that the president has said, rather than what has been done to the United States.

And anyway, for a self-styled war leader he must at least face the charge of ignoring the warnings about the enemy he was confronting in the early stages, appearing more Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.

Number of abortions among IDF soldiers rises

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267701

The Torat Halehima religious pro-IDF organization responded: "The IDF Chief of Staff's Adivsory Unit for Gender Issues' concept of mixed gender units is collapsing, and the ones paying the price are the IDF and the female soldiers."

"The difficult situations occurring recently in mixed troops, and the increase in the number of abortions in all IDF units, testify to the negative culture being created in the IDF as a result of the decision to create coed units.

"We will demand a realistic change to this negative decision, which was advanced by radical feminist organizations who do not prioritize the good of the IDF. When the IDF worries about victory instead of equality, 'abortions' will go back to referring to the abortion of enemy operations.'"

 

“A Life of Vertical & Horizontal Responsibility: Shavuot During the Coronavirus Pandemic”

A Presidential Smear

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-presidential-smear-11590535397

Trump imitates the Steele dossier in attacks on Joe Scarborough.

 

Donald Trump sometimes traffics in conspiracy theories—recall his innuendo in 2016 about Ted Cruz’s father and the JFK assassination—but his latest accusation against MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is ugly even for him. Mr. Trump has been tweeting the suggestion that Mr. Scarborough might have had something to do with the death in 2001 of a young woman who worked in his Florida office when Mr. Scarborough was a GOP Congressman.

'Mr. Trump is debasing his office': The famously conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed the president for pushing a Joe Scarborough murder conspiracy theory

https://www.businessinsider.com/wsj-editorial-board-slams-trump-joe-scarborough-tweets-2020-5

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board has come out against President Donald Trump for pushing a conspiracy theory about the MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough.

In response to Scarborough's criticism of Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak in recent weeks, Trump has revived questions about whether the "Morning Joe" cohost was involved in the 2001 death of one of his congressional aides.

The Journal's editorial board publicly condemned Trump for pushing the conspiracy theory in an editorial Tuesday, saying his comments about Scarborough were "nasty stuff" and "ugly even for him."

"Mr. Trump always hits back at critics, and Mr. Scarborough has called the President mentally ill, among other things. But suggesting that the talk-show host is implicated in the woman's death isn't political hardball. It's a smear," the board wrote.

The editorial board added that it didn't expect Trump to stop his tirade against Scarborough but wanted to make it clear that "Mr. Trump is debasing his office" and "hurting the country in doing so."

 

The hidden risk in Donald Trump’s tweets

https://nypost.com/2020/05/26/the-hidden-risk-in-donald-trumps-tweets/

 

We suppose there are some Trump followers who enjoy this. The libs say horrible things about you, go ahead and say terrible things about them! There is a difference, though, between mocking someone’s ratings and hurting an innocent family with the memories of their tragic daughter because of a petty feud.

A much larger portion of Trump’s support, we’d wager, are people who like his policies and brush off his personality — or try to.

The brashness comes in handy when you make a call like finally moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem — being told “you can’t do that” means little to Trump. So he says some outrageous things on Twitter, who cares?

But is that really the president you want to be, sir? The president for whom people disregard half or even most of what you say as irrelevant?

Tuesday was a good day — the economy showed signs of life, lockdowns were ending. You gave the press something else to talk about, and trust us, you did not look like the bigger man. You might be making your enemies angry, but you’re making allies tune out.

There’s something worse than being hated. It’s being ignored.

‘Ugly Even for Him’: Trump’s Media Allies Recoil at His Smear of MSNBC Host

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/business/media/trump-joe-scarborough-conservative-media.html

The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Washington Examiner chastised the president for his unfounded attacks on Joe Scarborough.

The Auschwitz doctor who couldn't 'do no harm'

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200526-dr-gisella-perl-the-auschwitz-doctor-who-saved-lives

She would hide any pregnant women she found and, if necessary, interrupt her pregnancy, or quietly deliver and then kill, the newborn child.

It was the only way the women would have even the slightest chance of survival – and someday, she hoped, would have the chance to have a child in freedom.

 

Trump vs. Twitter: Judge Nap explains if 'silencing' users is legal

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6159695745001#sp=show-clips

Appeals court ruling suggests little legal traction for Trump's anti-Twitter campaign

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/27/trump-twitter-court-ruling-284632

 

The appeals court judges said that despite the companies’ power, they cannot violate the First Amendment because it only regulates governments, not the private sector.

“Freedom Watch’s First Amendment claim fails because it does not adequately allege that the Platforms can violate the First Amendment. In general, the First Amendment ‘prohibits only governmental abridgment of speech,'” the court said.

Kellyanne Conway unleashes Trumpers on Twitter integrity czar

https://www.timesofisrael.com/kellyanne-conway-unleashes-trumpers-on-twitter-integrity-czar/

The night of Trump’s presidential victory in November 2016, Roth, then part of Twitter’s design team working on its privacy protections, tweeted, “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.” On Jan. 22, 2017, the day after the first Women’s March and two days after Trump’s inauguration, Roth tweeted that there were Nazis in the White House.

 

Roth, who is Jewish, has led efforts to address the recent surge of anti-Semitic harassment on Twitter. He said in 2018 that a focus was on bot networks spreading anti-Semitism.

total nonsense! Rabbis’ lives are endangered by an FBI ‘gotcha,’ like Michael Flynn’s

https://www.jns.org/opinion/rabbis-lives-are-endangered-by-an-fbi-gotcha-like-michael-flynns/

Mendel Epstein and Jay Goldstein were encouraged by the FBI’s “sting” to travel to New Jersey to use violence, only if needed, to induce a fictional husband to authorize a Jewish divorce for a female FBI agent who had been trained to simulate an “agunah.”

Rabbis Mendel Epstein and Jay Goldstein (aged 74 and 66) are now at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., under 10-year and eight-year jail terms imposed after the FBI perpetrated against them the same, if not more scandalous, injustice that it recently inflicted on Flynn. The rabbis were fooled by a meticulously orchestrated theatrical performance into believing that they would free a “chained woman” (agunah) with a trip to a New Jersey warehouse in October 2013. Because violence was a possibility (and was conjectured by Rabbi Epstein), Orthodox Jewish men recruited to assist in the performance of a religiously mandated duty were arrested and charged while they waited for the arrival of a fictional husband. According to the FBI’s script, the husband had fled to South America without giving his Orthodox Jewish wife a get, a religious divorce.

The FBI made these "saintlty" men scheme to commit violence on their fellow Jews! a new definition of chutzpa. The old one was a child who kills his parents asking for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan! or Dershowitz' clalim that since politicians are motivated to act for the public good - they can not be held accountable for such crimes
     

Michael J. Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina who specializes in conflicts between Congress and the President, disputed another aspect of Dershowitz’s claim.
“Professor Dershowitz made what I think was a very bizarre argument about if a president believes something’s in his purse — if he believes that what he’s doing is in the nation's best interest — he apparently can do anything he wants, and that strikes me as completely wrong,” Gerhardt said.
I

Biden campaign ad attacks Trump for golfing as deaths nears 100,000

Video: No feeling your pain, no bullhorn, and no tears: How Donald Trump is NOT meeting the deadliest pandemic in a century with a president's balming words 

Fact check: Trump has spent far more time at golf clubs than Obama had at same point

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/25/politics/fact-check-trump-obama-golf/index.html

Obama played 98 rounds of golf through this point in his presidency, according to data provided to CNN by Mark Knoller, a veteran CBS News White House correspondent who is known for tracking presidential activities. By contrast, Knoller said, Trump has spent all or part of 248 days at a golf course.

 

Trump Golf Count: 251

https://trumpgolfcount.com/

Cost to Taxpayer: About $134,000,000

 

Why we are doing this

---

"I'm going to be working for you. I'm not going to have time to go play golf." --Donald J. Trump, August, 2016

Our President made a promise to the American people. Here we track his fulfillment of that promise. You can view our full list of Trump's golf outings here, and see this explanation for more information. Or just watch this video to hear it straight from the President himself.

Trump plays golf for 1st time since the coronavirus pandemic

https://www.foxsports.com/other/story/trump-plays-golf-for-1st-time-since-the-coronavirus-pandemic-052320

Trump levied frequent criticism of Barack Obama’s regular golf outings when he was president.

“Can you believe that with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf. Worse than Carter,” Trump tweeted in October 2014 during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, comparing Obama to former President Jimmy Carter.

 

Trump Fires Back After Biden Ad Attacks Him For Golfing During Pandemic

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/25/trump-fires-back-after-biden-ad-attacks-him-for-golfing-during-pandemic/#6725e7b74b49

Late Sunday night, Trump took to Twitter to defend his golf outings while firing back at Biden and lashing out at former President Barack Obama.

"Sleepy Joe's representatives have just put out an ad saying that I went to play golf (exercise) today. They think I should stay in the White House at all times," Trump tweeted.

The President continued, "What they didn't say is that it's the first time I've played golf in almost 3 months, that Biden was constantly vacationing, relaxing & making shady deals with other countries, & that Barack was always playing golf, doing much of his traveling in a fume spewing 747 to play golf in Hawaii - Once even teeing off immediately after announcing the gruesome death of a great young man by ISIS!"

 

Coronavirus is ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ warns Chinese researcher nicknamed ‘bat woman’

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-is-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-warns-chinas-top-bat-researcher-2020-05-26

The Chinese researcher known as the “bat woman” warns that the deadly coronavirus the world is battling now is “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of what humans could face without a global effort to prevent similar infectious-disease outbreaks.

“If we want to prevent human beings from suffering from the next infectious-disease outbreak, we must go in advance to learn of these unknown viruses carried by wild animals in nature and give early warnings,” Shi Zhengli, a top Chinese scientist specializing in viral transmissions from bats, told CGTN in an interview that aired Monday.

“If we don’t study [the viruses], there will possibly be another outbreak,” warned Shi, dubbed the “bat woman” by the press because of her research involving those flying mammals.

A Light unto the Nations: What do today's rabbis say?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/280967

When I became a baal t’shuva 37 years ago, I benefited greatly by studying the writings of Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsh, especially his Commentary on the Torah and his Commentary on the Book of Psalms. In the year 1836, he wrote in his book, “Nineteen Letters” that the mission of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, in the Exile was to be a light to the nations.

With the Festival of Shavuot approaching, I asked a group of influential Rabbis in Israel if, after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jews in the Diaspora still had the same mission?

 

Hear Trump criticize Obama for playing golf during crisis

Donald Trump delivers Memorial Day address, returns to golf course

White House defends watchdog firings, but does not offer explanation

https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-defends-watchdog-firings-but-does-not-offer-explanation/

 

A White House letter issued in response to concerns from a prominent Republican senator does little to explain the decision-making behind Trump’s recent upheaval of the inspector general community. It is unlikely to quell outrage from Democrats and good-government groups who fear the president is moving to dismantle a post-Watergate network of watchdogs meant to root out corruption, fraud and other problems inside federal agencies.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa — a longtime, self-appointed defender of inspectors general and congressional oversight — requested that the White House explain the basis for the firings in April and May of the inspectors general for the intelligence community and the US State Department. 

The response Tuesday from White House counsel Pat Cipollone does not provide those details, instead making the points that Trump has the authority to remove inspectors general, that he appropriately alerted Congress and that he selected qualified officials as replacements.

A Stark Illustration Of The Choice Voters Will Have In November | Deadline | MSNBC

As U.S. Deaths Reach 100,000, Trump Praises His Handling Of Virus | Morning Joe | MSNBC

The human cost of virus misinformation

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-52731624

A BBC team tracking coronavirus misinformation has found links to assaults, arsons and deaths. And experts say the potential for indirect harm caused by rumours, conspiracy theories and bad health information could be much bigger.