Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Trump dismisses voter questions on how he handled coronavirus
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-abc-town-hall/index.html
President Donald Trump dismissed questions from Pennsylvania voters about his handling of coronavirus, insisting he did act strongly to fight the pandemic and again denied he downplayed the situation despite saying so on tape.
The President was asked why he hasn't supported a national mask mandate and why he doesn't wear one more often.
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
CNN's Jim Sciutto: Vladimir Putin has seduced Trump — now the world sees America as weak
The president of the United States takes the following oath at his or her inauguration: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Donald Trump has repeatedly betrayed this promise, and should long since have been removed from office for doing so.
Many of the United States' most senior retired military personnel, members of the intelligence community and diplomats, as well as other elites in the national defense community, have publicly condemned Donald Trump as an extreme threat to the country's safety, security and democracy.
Fact check: Trump makes at least 27 false claims at New Mexico rally
President Donald Trump spoke for 95 minutes at a campaign rally in New Mexico on Monday night, among the longest speeches he's given as President.
Trump repeats claims he received 'Bay of Pigs Award', which doesn't exist – video
Donald Trump repeats claims he earlier made online, boasting of winning
the 'Bay of Pigs Award' – an honour that doesn't exist. Trump twice
visited a Bay of Pigs museum in Miami in 2016, where he received 'a
hand-painted Brigade 2506 shield', which his campaign insisted was the
award in question. Trump made the claims while courting Latino voters in
Nevada, a state where he trails rival Joe Biden in polls, and one where
the president failed to overcome Hillary Clinton during the 2016
campaign
Nevada city fines Trump rally venue $3,000 in COVID-19 flap
https://apnews.com/dbbc1114fde84bb3f839e3ae57b224c7
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada city where President Donald Trump held an indoor campaign rally said Monday the venue owner is being fined $3,000 for violating coronavirus prevention mandates imposed by the state’s Democratic governor.
Henderson officials told Xtreme Manufacturing owner Donald Ahern that the event that drew thousands of people to a warehouse in suburban Las Vegas violated Gov. Steve Sisolak’s coronavirus emergency directives.
State rules prohibit gatherings larger than 50 people, require “social distancing” of 6 feet (1.8 meters), and mandate masks or face coverings in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Democrats launch probe into Trump officials' Covid-report tampering
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/democrats-investigate-trump-cdc-414272
House Democrats are launching an investigation into how Trump appointees have pressured officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change or delay scientific reports on coronavirus, citing POLITICO reporting that found political interference in the publishing process.
"During the pandemic, experts have relied on these reports to determine how the virus spreads and who is at greatest risk," Rep. Jim Clyburn, chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and his Democratic colleagues write in a letter shared first with POLITICO. "Yet HHS officials apparently viewed these scientific reports as opportunities for political manipulation."
Trump ad asks people to support the troops. But it uses a picture of Russian jets.
A digital ad released by a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign on Sept. 11 calling on people to “support our troops” uses a stock photo of Russian-made fighter jets and Russian models dressed as soldiers.
The ad, which was made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, features silhouettes of three soldiers walking as a fighter jet flies over them. The ad first appeared on Sept. 8 and ran until Sept. 12.
Trump campaign ad used stock photo of Russian fighter jets
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-campaign-ad-stock-photo-russian-fighter-jets-report
A fundraising ad for President Trump’s reelection campaign reportedly used a stock photo featuring Russian fighter jets and weapons, as part of a call to “support our troops."
Made by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, the ad first appeared on Sept. 8 and ran until Sept. 12.
Trump dubs Carl Bernstein a ‘total nut job’ after Watergate legend calls president 'homicidal'
https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-bernstein-homicidal-president
Trump ripped CNN’s Carl Bernstein as a “nut job” on Tuesday after the famed Watergate reporter labeled him a “homicidal president” for holding an indoor rally amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“He was a total nut job and I see him,” Trump continued. “He’ll say anything. No matter what you did. Like today, I’m doing a great deal with Israel... no matter what you do, with some of the fake news, it doesn’t make any difference.”
Trump then spent a moment condemning the mainstream media for not spending enough time reporting that he was nominated for a pair of Nobel Peace Prizes before returning to his thoughts on Bernstein.
“Carl Bernstein is a dummy. He’s a dumb guy and Woodward’s book, last night I read it, it’s like lightweight reading and he doesn’t get it. When my policies turn out to be right, as they have... the [Woodward] book was really boring, I have to tell you,” Trump said.
NIH 'very concerned' about serious side effect in AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine trial
A great deal of uncertainty remains about what happened to the unnamed patient, to the frustration of those avidly following the progress of vaccine testing. AstraZeneca, which is running the global trial of the vaccine it produced with Oxford University, said the trial volunteer recovered from a severe inflammation of the spinal cord and is no longer hospitalized.
Top HHS spokesman runs through conspiracies in video and claims without evidence CDC scientists are working to resist Trump
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/14/politics/michael-caputo-coronavirus-sedition-election/index.html
The top spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services issued an extraordinary broadside on Sunday against career government scientists, accusing them of "sedition" in their response to coronavirus and claiming without evidence that a critical federal health agency has a "resistance unit" against President Donald Trump.
Trump officials interfered with CDC reports on Covid-19
The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation's public health work for decades.
But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.
Deri: 'It is murder to ignore coronavirus regulations'
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/287289
A leading haredi lawmaker said that not following the country’s lockdown rules to slow the spread of the coronavirus is comparable to murder.
Aryeh Deri, the head of the Shas Party who also serves as Israel’s interior minister, made his comments Saturday night and posted a clip of the speech on his Facebook page.
He criticized the members of the haredi community who deny that the coronavirus is a threat. Israel is preparing for a lockdown to contain an outsized second wave of COVID-19 cases.
Revenge of the Never Trumpers: Meet the Republican Dissidents Fighting to Push Donald Trump Out of Office
https://time.com/5870475/never-trumpers-2020-election/
Jack Spielman has been a Republican his whole life. But over the past four years, he has come to two realizations.
Increasingly upset by President Donald Trump’s “appalling” behavior, his cozy relationships with dictators and the ballooning national debt, Spielman says his first epiphany was that he couldn’t cast a ballot for Trump again. But for the retired Army cybersecurity engineer, the final straw was the President’s retaliation against impeachment witness Lieut. Colonel Alexander Vindman, who retired in July after Trump fired him from the National Security Council in February. Spielman decided he had to do more than just vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden; he had to persuade others to do the same. So Spielman filmed a video for a group called Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), explaining his views. “I want to do some part,” Spielman tells TIME, “to try to correct the wrong that I did in voting for this man.”
Rosh Hashanah in the shadow of coronavirus: Outline for prayer services
In open spaces, an unlimited number of people can pray in capsules of 20.
In all other zones: Prayer shall be permitted in groups
of up to 25 people. The permitted number of groups in a closed space
shall be double the number of entrances to the structure, again on
condition that the ratio of one person per four sq.m. of space is
maintained.
Florida Latinos flooded with anti-Semitic conspiracy messaging ahead of election
Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are spreading among Florida’s Latino communities ahead of the presidential election, amplified by social media and messaging apps as well as respected mainstream outlets. According to a report in Politico, much of the anti-Semitism stems from QAnon, the growing, false conspiracy theory that claims Democrats and the “deep state” run a pedophile ring and are working to take down US President Donald Trump. Purveyors of the theory often traffic in classic anti-Semitic tropes, claiming that powerful Jews control the anti-Trump cabal.
‘This is f---ing crazy’: Florida Latinos swamped by wild conspiracy theories
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923
George Soros directs a “deep state” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem.
Wild disinformation like this is inundating Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida ahead of Election Day, clogging their WhatsApp chats, Facebook feeds and even radio airwaves at a saturation level that threatens to shape the outcome in the nation’s biggest and most closely contested swing state.
Trump Defends Indoor Rally, but Aides Express Concern
WASHINGTON — President Trump and his campaign are defending his right to rally indoors, despite the private unease of aides who called it a game of political Russian roulette and growing concern that such gatherings could prolong the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m on a stage, and it’s very far away,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday, after thousands of his supporters gathered on Sunday night inside a manufacturing plant in a Las Vegas suburb, flouting a state directive limiting indoor gatherings to fewer than 50 people.
The president did not address health concerns about the rally attendees, a vast majority of whom did not wear masks or practice any social distancing. When it came to his own safety, he said, “I’m not at all concerned.”
Another presidential assault on science as fires and pandemic rage
A defining trait of Donald Trump's presidency is his incessant destruction of reason, evidence and science in the service of his personal whims, conspiratorial mindset and political requirements.
When another local official told Trump it was time to take "our head out of the sand" by relying on the forest management excuse, the President pounced.
Is Cuomo Directive to Blame for Nursing Home COVID Deaths, as US Official Claims?
Cuomo’s criticisms drew a quick reply in a tweet from Michael Caputo, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?” he wrote.
While experts say this policy was flawed, is it fair to say that the governor’s directive “forced” nursing homes to take patients who were sick with COVID-19? And to what extent did that strategy sow the seeds of disease and death? When we examined the evidence, we found it was less clear-cut than the statement makes it seem. The policy likely had an effect, but epidemiologists identified additional factors that fed the problem. What’s more, the policy did not “force” nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients. Nursing homes interpreted it this way.
Bottom line: State and federal rules didn’t force nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients, but many of them believed they had no other choice.
Fact check: Trump makes four false claims in one sentence
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/14/politics/fact-check-trump-mccabe-clinton-mcauliffe/index.html
In what may be a new record for President Donald Trump, he made four false claims in one sentence of a tweet on Saturday.
Trump has regularly blasted McCabe in tweets and public remarks. His Saturday sentence on Twitter: "Was Andy McCabe ever forced to pay back the $700,000 illegally given to him and his wife, for his wife's political campaign, by Crooked Hillary Clinton while Hillary was under FBI investigation, and McCabe was the head of the FBI???"
Almost everything he said was inaccurate. Let's break down the sentence point by point.
Trump was referring to $675,288 that was donated to the unsuccessful 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign of McCabe's wife, Dr. Jill McCabe: $207,788 from the state Democratic Party and $467,500 from Common Good VA, the political action committee (PAC) of then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Monday, September 14, 2020
Fauci: Trump downplaying COVID-19 threat 'not a good thing'; expect no 'normality' until 2021
Trump told Woodward in a recorded interview Feb. 7 about how much "more deadly" COVID-19 would be than the flu, a startling juxtaposition from the president's public remarks at the time and in the months since about COVID-19, its lethality and its spread.
For months in public, the president assured the
public that the coronavirus was "under control" in the U.S. and would
"go away."
"When you downplay something that is really a threat, that is not a good thing," he said.
Trump Endorses Extrajudicial Executions: Killing of Antifa Suspect Was “Retribution”
President Donald Trump appeared to give a nod to law enforcement officers killing suspected criminals, describing the death of an alleged shooting suspect by U.S. Marshals as “retribution.” Speaking in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Trump spoke of the incident in which a law enforcement officer killed a self-described anti-fascist activist earlier this month in Washington state as they sought to arrest him on suspicion that he fatally shot a right-wing protester in Portland, Oregon. Trump seemed to endorse the killing. “This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. Marshals killed him,” Trump told Pirro. “And I will tell you something—that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.”
Death of Antifa gunman who was killed by a fugitive task force after allegedly shooting dead a Trump supporter is ruled a homicide as a witness claims cops opened fire without warning while he was eating a gummy worm and clutching his cellphone
- Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was shot multiple times and killed by US Marshals outside an apartment block in Washington state last Thursday
- The officers swooped on Reinoehl to arrest him after he was charged with the murder of right-wing activist Aaron 'Jay' Danielson, 39
- Danielson was shot dead during a protest in downtown Portland on August 29
- Coroners ruled Reinoehl's death a homicide Wednesday
- An autopsy revealed he died from multiple shots to his head and torso
- It is still not clear how many times Reinoehl was shot but at least four officers fired multiple rounds at the suspect during the incident
- A witness has cast doubt on the task force's version of events
- Nate Dinguss told The Washington Post Reinoehl was not obviously armed with a firearm and was eating candy when the officers opened fire without warning
- Dinguss, 39, said cops did not identify themselves or try to arrest the suspect
- He also said cops waited 'multiple minutes' before giving Reinoehl medical care
The death of an Antifa gunman who was killed by a fugitive task force after allegedly 'lying in wait' and shooting dead a Trump supporter has been ruled a homicide as a witness claimed cops opened fire without warning while he was eating candy.
הפוסק החסידי: ילד שחלה לא ילך להיבדק
https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1137737
והנה הנהגת הרשויות דאם יש ילד אחד בחידר שנתגלה שיש לו את הנגיף, אז מכניסים את כל הכיתה לבידוד 14 יום ומתבטלים מלימוד התורה כל הכתה הרבה זמן... וע"כ מן הראוי שאם ילד אחד חלה שלא יעשו בדיקות, שעי"ז יתחייבו ע"פ הרשויות לבטל תורה, אלא הילד החולה ישאר בביתו עד שיבריא, וייתכן שישאר עוד שלשה ימים אחר שיבריא, ולא יבטל תורה דאחרים, וכן יעשה באברך בכולל שלא יבטל את כל הכולל על ידו" כותב הגרמ"ש.
How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”
But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.
Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.
Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.
Kushner's coronavirus team shied away from a national strategy, believing that the virus was hitting Democratic states hardest and that they could blame governors, report says
https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-axed-for-political-reasons-report-2020-7
Some members of Jared Kushner's coronavirus task force believed the pandemic would affect Democratic areas worse and may have adjusted accordingly, Vanity Fair reported.
Kushner says it’s ‘disgusting’ that politicians are trying to politicize the coronavirus pandemic
Kushner told Steve Hilton, the host of the program, that Trump took the virus seriously from the start.
“They said we would have shortages on the frontline workers PPE; they said that we were going to have people dying because they weren’t in ventilators,” Kushner said.“That didn’t happen.”
Kushner also credited Trump for his leadership in the push for a vaccine. He said there are several vaccines that are now in Phase Three trials, which is “faster than anyone thought possible.”
Kushner said the coronavirus has brought a lot of heartbreak to Americans and has been challenging. But he said Trump is the man for the job and prevented the country from being in a “much worse position."
Pompeo's wife asked senior State Department staff for help with holiday cards
Reports have emerged that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife asked if senior staff members at the State Department could work during the week of Christmas last year to help complete the family’s personal holiday cards.
According to emails obtained by McClatchy, Susan Pompeo asked an aide to the secretary of state who would be available the week of Christmas to help with the holiday cards.
The emails from Susan Pompeo are the first publically available documents indicating that the secretary of state and his wife have used State Department employees to carry out personal business while on the clock for the federal government.
The revelations in the emails also come amid a congressional inquiry into the State Department's firing of its inspector general earlier this year.