Senate Republicans: No reason for Biden to 'sound the alarm' on Russia

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/21/senate-republicans-no-reason-for-biden-to-sound-the-alarm-on-russia-377030

Senior Senate Republicans are rejecting Joe Biden's amped-up public warnings about Russian interference in this year's presidential election, saying foreign adversaries' efforts to meddle in U.S. democracy are nothing new after the Kremlin's hacking operation four years ago.

Senate Homeland Security Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) suggested that Russia has been interfering in Western elections “for decades.”

“Does it surprise me if China's probably doing the same thing? Not at all,” he told POLITICO.

The GOP comments came a day after Biden offered his starkest warnings to date against any interference by Russia or other foreign governments like China.

“I am putting the Kremlin and other foreign governments on notice,” the former vice president said Monday, three days after disclosing that he had begun to receive briefings from U.S. intelligence officials as the presumptive Democratic nominee. “If elected president, I will treat foreign interference in our election as an adversarial act that significantly affects the relationship between the United States and the interfering nation’s government.”

 

Religious leaders warn against Pompeo's push for religious freedom as priority human right

https://thehill.com/policy/international/508199-religious-leaders-warn-against-pompeos-push-for-a-hierarchy-of-human

More than 30 faith leaders on Monday issued a warning against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new push to put property rights and religious freedom at the forefront of American diplomacy.

In a statement, faith leaders across denominations warned that Pompeo’s push for a hierarchy of rights with religious freedom at the top “will weaken religious freedom itself and undermine respect for and damage the protections of the universal values of human dignity.”

The statement was led by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan progressive policy institute, and signed by leaders from the Catholic, evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist faiths.

 

Defense Secretary Esper has ‘concern’ about federal agents wearing military camo uniforms, spokesman says

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/esper-concern-federal-agents-wearing-military-camo-uniforms\

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has expressed “concern” within the Trump administration about federal agents dressing up in military uniforms while handling protests and riots in places like Portland, Ore., chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Tuesday.

“We want a system where people can tell the difference,” he told reporters.

 

Coronavirus in Israel: 1,977 new cases in a day; death toll hits 430

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/coronavirus-cases-climb-1977-in-the-last-day-635906

 Israel hit another coronavirus peak on Wednesday: Some 1,977 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Tuesday - the highest number in a single day since the start of the crisis.

With just more than 27,000 people screened, the infection rate is over 7%. Another 303 people were diagnosed since midnight.

 

Bill banning gay conversion therapy passes initial vote, enraging ultra-Orthodox

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-banning-gay-conversion-therapy-passes-initial-vote-enraging-ultra-orthodox/

A bill outlawing controversial “gay conversion therapy” passed a preliminary vote in the Knesset on Wednesday, drawing cheers from LGBT rights advocates and angering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox political allies.

The bill advanced after Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party supported the legislation, in a move that generated a fresh coalition crisis. The government’s Labor party also broke with the coalition to back the bill. 

Though discouraged by the Health Ministry, the practice remains legal in Israel, and is still accepted in some conservative and Orthodox circles.

The bill still has to pass three readings and be approved by a Knesset committee before it becomes law and the practice is outlawed.

After the vote results were announced, many in the plenum started applauding, but ultra-Orthodox lawmakers were visibly furious.

They shouted at Gantz, “You will not be prime minister,” an apparent threat to topple the government before the defense minister is set to replace Netanyahu as premier in November 2021.

Trump Told U.S. Ambassador to Get U.K. Government Help Steering British Open to His Resort

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/trump-ambassador-woody-johnson-uk-help-british-open-golf-tournament.html

The umpteenth example of President Donald Trump trying to profit off the presidency comes via the New York Times, which reports that in 2018 Trump pressured his newly appointed ambassador to the U.K., Woody Johnson, to try to get the British government to help steer the British Open golf tournament to his Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland. The British government doesn’t normally have anything to do with the selection of the venue for the high-profile yearly tournament, which, as a major driver of publicity and interest, could have been a financial boon for the Trump-owned course. But that’s how Trump sees government generally and his position within it specifically—something to be leveraged for personal gain. You’d like to think that the American ambassador, as a representative of his country, upon hearing such an improper, unethical request, disregarded the president’s desire for a personal favor. But you’d be wrong.

 

More than a dozen mayors join Portland in asking Trump administration to withdraw federal forces

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/22/us/portland-protests-mayors-withdraw-federal-forces/index.html

 More than a dozen mayors have joined Portland in asking the Trump administration to remove federal forces from or stop plans to send them to major American cities.

In a letter Monday addressed to Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, the mayors called the administration's intention to deploy federal forces against protesters an "abuse of power."

The letter -- signed by the mayors of Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Los Angeles, San Jose, Oakland, Tucson, Sacramento, Phoenix and Kansas City, Missiouri -- calls on the administration to withdraw federal forces from the cities where they are currently deployed and halt plans to send them elsewhere.

 

Fauci: I was not invited to Trump's coronavirus briefing

Trump: Covid-19 crisis will probably get worse before it gets better

Why Bill Barr Faces A Reckoning If Trump Loses | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

Cooper: ‘Everyone Should Be Inspired By Trump. If He Can Be President, You Can Do Anything’ | MSNBC

Sen. Tammy Duckworth warns Trump: Don't even think about it

New Court Filings in Cohen, Flynn Cases: Barr/DOJ Punishes Trump's Enemies & Rewards Trump's Friends

Portland protests: US federal agents 'will not retreat', Chad Wolf says

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53489995

 Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Wolf said federal law enforcement officers in Portland were only targeting and arresting demonstrators who had been identified as being involved in "criminal activity".

U.S. Homeland Security confirms three units sent paramilitary officers to Portland

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-agents/us-homeland-security-confirms-three-units-sent-paramilitary-officers-to-portland-idUSKCN24M2RL

  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection arm confirmed on Tuesday it has deployed officers from three paramilitary-style units to join a federal crackdown on protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon.

Trump blasts Beijing in public, but privately Trump org imports tons of Chinese goods

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/21/politics/trump-org-china-imports/index.html

 President Donald Trump has cast himself as tough on China and promised that his trade negotiations with Beijing would economically benefit everyday Americans, even as Trump-owned properties have continued to contribute to the trade deficit with the country he rails about.

Since September of last year, Trump properties in the US have imported more than eight tons of goods from China, CNN has learned by reviewing US customs data compiled by ImportGenius, which tracks information companies are legally bound to provide to US customs when they import goods to the US. The imports have arrived to decorate his properties while the President has sought to dress down China.

More than six tons of tables were delivered to Trump International Hotel in New York last fall. On the same day, Trump tweeted, "We are doing very well in our negotiations with China."

 

Coronavirus vaccine: When will we have one?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51665497

 When will we have a coronavirus vaccine?

A vaccine would normally take years, if not decades, to develop. Researchers hope to achieve the same amount of work in only a few months.

Most experts think a vaccine is likely to become widely available by mid-2021, about 12-18 months after the new virus, known officially as Sars-CoV-2, first emerged.

That would be a huge scientific feat and there are no guarantees it will work.

Four coronaviruses already circulate in human beings. They cause common cold symptoms and we don't have vaccines for any of them.

 

John Bolton says there's 'disagreement' between Israel and US on sovereignty plan

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/283919

In an interview with Galei Tzahal’s Efi Triger which was released Tuesday morning, Bolton said that Kushner opposes unilateral actions by Israel, including the application of sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria.

“I think there’s obviously a disagreement. Jared is still trying to sustain his peace plan and he’s worried about unilateral action or American recognition of unilateral action. Personally, I would go ahead and do it.”

Bolton added that he will not be backing either Trump or Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, and said that the election season is an “optimal time” for Israel to move forward with its “own national security interest”.

“I’m not advocating the election of Joe Biden. For me, in November, I’m going to write-in the name of a third person. It’s not a happy election for me.”

“I think the next few months are an optimal time for Israel to act in its own national security interests.”

 

Federal agents, local streets: A ‘red flag’ in Oregon

 https://apnews.com/85977b54231de6264f6c8b00c735f52c

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal law enforcement officers’ actions at protests in Oregon’s largest city, done without local authorities’ consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis — one that could escalate as weeks of demonstrations find renewed focus in clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse.

Inside the Hill takes Trump Cognitive Test

Cognitive test elephant calls out President Trump

Trumpfeld

Trump says the US has 'the best mortality rate' in the world. That's not true

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/20/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-mortality-rate-intl/index.html

During a meandering and occasionally hostile interview with Fox News on Sunday, President Donald Trump made a very bold claim: that the United States has the lowest mortality rate from Covid-19 anywhere in the world.

"I heard we have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest, mortality rate anywhere in the world," Trump told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "Do you have the numbers please? I heard we had the best mortality rate," he added to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who was off-camera.

When McEnany returned with a piece of paper, Trump turned on Wallace. "Number one low mortality rate," he said, attacking Wallace for reporting "fake news" in the process. "You said we had the worst mortality rate in the world, and we have the best."

But the President's claim is not true. And it's not even close.

The US in fact has one of the highest death rates from the coronavirus of any country, and is worse than several badly-hit countries like Brazil, Mexico and Russia, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University

According to Wallace, Trump also waved a graph showing a slightly different metric to tout his claim -- the case-fatality rate.

This is simply a country's number of confirmed deaths divided by its number of confirmed cases. It's a more problematic measure because it depends heavily on how much testing a country is or is not doing. A country that has consistently tested its general population will have a very low case-fatality rate, while a country that tests only sick people in hospitals will have a very high one.

Nonetheless, the US still ranks in the top 60 countries worldwide by this measure, according to JHU, around the same as Brazil and Peru and worse than dozens of other nations.

In other words, there is no measure by which Trump's claim that the US has "the best" mortality rate is true.

I took a closer look at the cognitive test Trump claims to have aced

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/21/donald-trump-cognitive-test-closer-look

The test is called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and was created by the neurologist Dr Ziad Nasreddine in 1996. Talking to MarketWatch on Monday, Nasreddine stressed that the test “is supposed to be easy for someone who has no cognitive impairment”, stressing that “this is not an IQ test or the level of how a person is extremely skilled or not. The test is supposed to help physicians detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.”

Trump falsely touts US Covid-19 death rate

Fact check: Trump's dishonest '911' ad fear-mongers about Biden

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/21/politics/fact-check-trump-ad-biden-police-911/index.html

 President Donald Trump's campaign has released another TV ad that dishonestly tries to raise fears about former Vice President Joe Biden's views on policing.

The ad released Monday, the latest in a series of similarly fear-mongering ads from the Trump campaign, suggests that a Biden presidency would result in 911 calls from senior citizens going unanswered.

That is just nonsense.

 Biden has not proposed anything that could result in 911 calls no longer being answered. He has repeatedly and explicitly opposed the idea of "defunding the police," and he has proposed a $300 million increase in federal funding for community policing. Biden has not specifically weighed in on a proposal for a 50% cut to Seattle's police budget, which the ad insinuates he supports.

The ad relies on a single Biden comment to a progressive activist during a video chat earlier this month, in which Biden suggested he was "yes, absolutely" open to redirecting some police funding toward social services, mental health counseling and affordable housing.

We'll lay out the context for that comment below. But even if you interpret Biden's "yes, absolutely" in a way that is charitable to the Trump campaign, nothing Biden has said comes close to justifying the Trump campaign's terrifying vision of a Biden presidency.
 

But, again, there was no call from Biden to slash police budgets to the extent that there would be nobody working at a 911 dispatch center.

Rand Paul: 'No place' for feds 'rounding people up at will' in Portland

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/508158-rand-paul-no-place-for-feds-rounding-people-up-at-will-in-portland

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday spoke out against federal officers “rounding people up at will” in Portland, Ore., saying the handling of unrest there should be left to local law enforcement.
 “We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will,” Paul tweeted Monday.

Pres. Trump ‘Making A Show Of Unauthorized Use Of Force’ | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Will Pres. Trump Accept The Election Results? | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Wallace - Trumps Cognitve test labelled next level lunacy + Trump huge drop in Polls to Biden

Fox's Napolitano rips 'unconstitutional' Trump crackdown on Portland: 'Just plain wrong'

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/508205-foxs-napolitano-rips-unconstitutional-trump-crackdown-on-portland-just-plain

Andrew Napolitano slammed the Trump administration for sending federal law enforcement to Portland in response to violent protests in Oregon's largest city, with the Fox News senior judicial analyst calling the move "unconstitutional" and "just plain wrong."

 

Democrats seek probe into ‘secret police force’ in Oregon

https://www.ft.com/content/c2066705-b769-4dff-80c2-2ccb82711486
 

Senior Democratic lawmakers have called for inquiries into the Trump administration’s use of federal law enforcement officers to quell protests in Oregon, saying the administration did not have “unfettered authority” to crack down on peaceful demonstrations. The request from Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, and Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House oversight committee, came after local officials in Oregon accused the Trump administration of using unlawful and “abhorrent” tactics in Portland, the state’s largest city. “This is a matter of utmost urgency. Citizens are concerned that the administration has deployed a secret police force, not to investigate crimes but to intimidate individuals it views as political adversaries, and that the use of these tactics will proliferate throughout the country,” Mr Nadler and Ms Maloney stated.

"They're kidnapping people": "Trump's secret police" snatch Portland protesters into unmarked vans

salon

Democratic leaders in Oregon called on the Trump administration to withdraw federal forces from Portland after footage emerged of camouflaged federal officers snatching protesters off the streets and detaining them in unmarked minivans.

Officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Custom and Border Protection's Border Patrol Tactical Unit have been deployed to protect federal property in Portland amid ongoing protests since July 14, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. But the officials have also detained protesters who are not near federal property, the outlet reported, and it is unclear if all of the detained individuals were involved in alleged criminal activity.

Trump’s Legal Justification for the Abduction of Portland Protesters Is Absurd

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/trump-legal-justification-portland-secret-police.html

Over the weekend, a group of Portland, Oregon, moms confronted federal officers who had fired tear gas at them and other peaceful protesters on Saturday outside of a federal courthouse. The escalation of the Portland protests came as unidentified federal officers in paramilitary uniforms were caught on tape abducting protesters and as President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he might send “more federal law enforcement” to cities “run by liberal Democrats” to replicate the Portland tactics against protesters, including efforts to “grab them, a lot of people in jail.” On Monday, it was reported that the Department of Homeland Security would be sending 150 federal agents to Chicago this week with an unspecified mandate. The apparent legal justification for the abduction of protesters is weak, and it should be vigorously challenged in the courts before Trump can export these tactics to other cities for use against citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

Trump and Alien and Sedition Acts

Trump Threatens Cities With Feds After Violence Against Portland Protesters | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Oregon Expanding Criminal Probe Of Unmarked Federal Troops | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC