Trump's call to halt vote counts is his most brazen swipe at democracy yet

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/04/politics/election-2020-donald-trump-joe-biden-voting-speech/index.html

President Donald Trump's demand for vote counting to stop in an election that is still undecided may have been his most extreme and dangerous assault on the institutions of democracy yet in a presidency replete with them.

Trump appeared in the East Room of the White House early on Wednesday morning to claim falsely that he had already beaten Democrat Joe Biden, and the election was being stolen from him in a massive act of fraud. He vowed to mount a challenge in the Supreme Court and declared that he had already won states that were still counting votes, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The election has not yet been won, and the President and the former vice president are still locked in a tight battle for the decisive states with millions of votes still being counted.

Trump's remarks essentially amounted to a demand for the legally cast votes of American citizens not to be recorded in a historic act of disenfranchisement. And they brought closer the potential constitutional nightmare that many have feared since Trump started to tarnish an election that he apparently worried he could lose months ago. His rhetorical broadside was also notable because it came at a moment of huge tension in a deeply divided nation -- a time when a president, even one whose political fate is in the process of being written -- could be expected to call for calm.

Trump claims victory with many states still undeclared, hints at possible Supreme Court case

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-claims-victory-states-undecided-supreme-court-white-house

 President Trump declared victory in multiple key battleground states early Wednesday, even though it remained unclear who had the votes to win, as Trump hinted the White House would push the Supreme Court to rule over disputed ballots, warning that a “very sad group of people” was trying to “disenfranchise” voters.

Trump Is Wrong About Military Distribution of a COVID-19 Vaccine

 https://reason.com/2020/10/23/trump-is-wrong-about-military-distribution-of-a-covid-19-vaccine/

"For the overwhelming majority of Americans," Paul Mango of the Department of Health and Human Services told The New York Times, "there will be no federal official who touches any of this vaccine before it's injected into Americans."

In July, McClatchy reported that the military commands responsible for homeland defense and the National Guard have not even been asked to prepare a plan for the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine

 

 

 

Despite Trump’s claims, the Dept. of Defense doesn’t plan to lead vaccine distribution

 https://fortune.com/2020/10/23/trump-biden-last-debate-covid-vaccine-military/

President Donald Trump doubled down on his optimism that a COVID-19 vaccine for the masses is just around the corner during Thursday night’s final presidential debate with former Vice President Joe Biden. That flies in the face of what most experts, including senior Trump administration officials, have said, as debate moderator Kristen Welker noted.

But Trump insisted that he believes in a more accelerated timeline that can be boosted by the U.S. military, which would ostensibly help deploy tens of millions of doses to the general population once a vaccine clears regulatory hurdles.

 

 

 

'Where's the Vaccine?' Doctors Blast Trump's Coronavirus Promises Ahead of Election Day

 https://www.newsweek.com/wheres-vaccine-doctors-blast-trumps-coronavirus-promises-ahead-election-day-1543757

President Donald Trump and White House advisers have said for months that hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses would be "ready to go" by Election Day. But three days out, health experts are saying COVID-19 vaccinations were just another dubious campaign promise.

CNN's final 2020 Electoral College outlook: A remarkably stable race comes to an end

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/02/politics/electoral-college-outlook/index.html

Trump's path to 270 is dependent upon an explosive Election Day turnout to make up for the advantage Biden appears to have in the record breaking early, mail-in and absentee vote. In our final outlook, Trump has 20 states totaling 125 electoral votes solidly in his tally. If you add Texas' 38 electoral votes currently leaning his way, the President is at 163 electoral votes.

We currently have six states and one congressional district in Maine as pure toss-up battlegrounds totaling 96 electoral votes.

It is clear that Trump's path to reelection is far narrower than Biden's, but it remains a viable one. And, while 2020 is a fundamentally different political environment than 2016, he showed the ability to pave such a path just four years ago.

Birx Delivers Stark Warning to White House on Eve of Election Day

 https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/02/world/covid-19-coronavirus-updates?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 Dr. Deborah L. Birx, who has carefully straddled the line between science and politics as she helps lead the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, delivered a stark private warning on Monday, telling White House officials that the pandemic is entering a new and “deadly phase” that demands a more aggressive approach.

The warning — sent in a private memo to White House officials as the nation — amounted to a direct contradiction of President Trump’s repeated false assertions that the pandemic is “rounding the corner.” In it, Dr. Birx suggested Mr. Trump and his advisers were spending too much time focusing on lockdowns, and not enough on controlling the virus.

Video altered to make it look like Biden greeted wrong state - Trump is desparate

 https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-video-altered-58124115393828f85cd496514bba4726

 CLAIM: Video shows Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden mistakenly saying “Hello, Minnesota” at a campaign event in Tampa, Florida.

 AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The sign behind Biden in this video has been edited to add the words “Tampa, Florida” and remove the words “TEXT MN to 30330.” The podium has also been edited to add “FL” instead of “MN.” Original video from this event confirms that Biden was in Minnesota and addressed the correct state in his greeting.

The video had more than a million views on Twitter on Sunday and was spreading quickly the weekend before the U.S. presidential election. However, the words on the sign and the podium in this video have been manipulated. Several sources prove that Biden did not address the wrong state in his greeting and he was indeed in Minnesota.

 

Who is the boss? - a father's story

 I have a story to tell, and it’s an important one – the question once arose, “can we simply push aside the 5th commandment?” This might seem like an odd question, but the question arose during an odd experience under strange circumstances. The Rosh Yeshiva is always known as the more influential leader– even greater than the Yeshiva. With that said, my son was studying Torah at well-known Yeshiva in New York.

At this school, I was under the impression that he’d study Torah and learn how to connect with a mesora that was laid forth by his parents. However, when I learned that Rosh Yeshiva was teaching his own mesora, I found myself disheartened. As an Orthodox Jew, the power of the Rosh Yeshiva is not unknown to me. He’s a considerable influence outside of school as well. In the community, he’s a leader and a policy maker, and he’s often called to act in such capacity. But to make children rebel against their parents? That was unheard of, and it was something that I wasn’t willing to take lightly.

I began to take note of just how closed off this Yeshiva community was from others. There was absolutely no accountability, and as a result, I was treated with contempt. Not to mention, any speak of seeing a gadol together was solemnly rejected. The community believed that survival as a distinct entity necessitates more than just education. In other words, they believed in indoctrination. However, that left parents – like me – scrambling to understand just what our children were being taught and indoctrinated into.

I found myself increasingly perplexed by what was unfolding before me, but I looked to the past to gain clarity. Rabbi Salanter was concerned that without ethical behavior and spiritual warmth, study of the Talmud would become motivated by vanity, and that adherence to the laws would turn into an unfeeling, mechanical process. At that moment, I realized that the Rosh Yeshiva was precisely what Rabbi Salanter envisioned happening one day.

My son has not eaten at my home in over two years, and yet, the Rosh Yeshiva will not permit me and my son to see a mediator. Moreover, the Rosh Yeshiva will not visit a mediator with me either. As a parent, I will fight for my child. I will fight to ensure that my child doesn’t fall victim to such strict indoctrination, and I will not sit idly by while the Rosh Yeshiva calls me “bizarre,” “strange,” and, “someone with poor judgement.” Every parent has a right to inquire about the welfare of their child – even when they’re older. And every parent deserves a satisfactory answer. That’s what I’m here to do.

Hunter Biden saga dominates online debate

 https://www.axios.com/debate-biden-trump-hunter-newswhip-3b54c777-c007-4228-8fc5-9ab9e5f821c4.html

The mainstream media turned away. But online, President Trump's charges about Hunter Biden were by far the dominant storyline about the final presidential debate, according to exclusive NewsWhip data provided to Axios.

• Coverage of business dealings by Joe Biden's son — and pre-debate allegations by one of his former business associates, Tony Bobulinski — garnered more than twice as much online activity (likes, comments, shares) as the runner-up.

• The second-place topic — also pushed by Republicans — was the former vice president's comments on oil and fracking.

Why it matters: The Hunter Biden story — one of Trump's final Hail Marys against Biden — is still blazing away in the conservative media ecosystem, even though it seems to have fizzled on a broader stage.

 The backstory: Trump and his team had high hopes for an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, and Trump had mentioned publicly that it was coming. But when it posted just after the debate, the findings undercut the Republican case by saying available records showed no impropriety by Joe Biden.

MAGA scrambles to repair the Hunter Biden narrative

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/28/trump-conspiracy-theoryhunter-biden-433131

 Weeks ago, when Rudy Giuluani first threw the contents of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop online, he promised a trove of even more damning information 10 days before the election.

Yet with less than a week to go, Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, is still moving down the conservative media food chain, looking for takers. 

 The Wall Street Journal and Fox News have both reported finding no evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden benefited from the Hunter Biden business dealings that have drawn scrutiny. More explicitly pro-Trump media outlets — OAN, Breitbart, Newsmax — have mostly shied away from publishing fresher, more salacious allegations. And conservative talking heads — pundits, politicians and loud MAGA Twitter personalities alike — have been more focused on the meta narrative around the laptop, arguing that mainstream media, social media companies and the deep state are conspiring to prevent President Donald Trump’s reelection by suppressing the story.

The story of Hunter Biden and the diminishing returns to disinformation

 https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/10/31/the-story-of-hunter-biden-and-the-diminishing-returns-to-disinformation

DONALD TRUMP’S rally in Martinsburg—his third of the day in Pennsylvania—felt less like a political gathering than a greatest-hits concert of an ageing rocker. Vendors selling T-shirts, buttons and banners lined the streets leading to the airstrip. The talent trotted out all the golden oldies: “Crooked Hillary”, “They’ll confiscate your guns”, “Mexico is paying for the wall”, and abundant derision of a rival band (“Joe Biden and the Democrat socialists”).

 

 

The media has mostly not taken the bait on dubious Biden claims – with some Australia-linked exceptions

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/02/the-media-has-mostly-not-taken-the-bait-on-dubious-biden-claims-with-a-few-australia-linked-exceptions

The big difference between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections is that this time, mainstream media outlets are mostly not taking the bait on a dubiously sourced set of digital materials associated with the Democratic candidate.

Outside the rightwing bubble, the exceptions are disproportionately connected with Australia: Australian writers, Australian outlets, and/or outlets associated with News Corporation, who, like its founder, has Australian origins.

Anyone who reports on leaked digital materials, as I have, knows that it is trivially easy to fake, modify, subtract from or add to, and otherwise mess around with any documents in any cache. Some documents carry indelible marks, such as any emails that are signed with DKIM security signatures, but everything else can be messed with.

In this case, we haven’t seen the originals, just PDF printouts, and the New York Post has not been forthcoming with any detailed or satisfactory account of its own authentication process. It hasn’t said how it determined the authenticity of the cache as a whole, or individual items it has reported on, and has continued handwaving about the FBI subpoena, and the lack of denials from the Biden camp.

'A slap in the face': Keilar slams Trump Jr. for false claim

Trump’s comment at rally raises speculation about Fauci’s future at NIAID

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-hints-he-may-fire-fauci-after-election

The comments by Trump came after Fauci recently criticized his administration's handling of the pandemic, as well as White House coronavirus advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas during an interview published by the Washington Post on Saturday.

 Fauci added that he believed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was "taking it [the virus] seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump was “looking at it from a different perspective," according to the Washington Post. He said the president's perspective was “the economy and reopening the country.”

Donald Trump threatens to fire Anthony Fauci after US election

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/02/donald-trump-threatens-to-fire-anthony-fauci-after-us-election

Donald Trump has threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, during a midnight rally in Florida 24 hours before the US presidential election.

As crowds at the Miami Opa-Locka airport chanted “Fire Fauci”, the president allowed the chants to continue for several seconds before responding: “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit a

He continued: “Nah, he’s been wrong on a lot. He’s a nice man though. He’s been wrong on a lot.”

 Fauci, one of the world’s foremost infectious diseases experts, has served for over three decades as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He is one of the lead experts on Trump’s coronavirus taskforce and has frequently offered frank public health guidance in contrast to the president’s repeated falsehoods on the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a hard-hitting interview with the Washington Post published on Saturday night, Fauci said the US should prepare for “a whole lot of hurt” under the coronavirus pandemic and predicted a winter of 100,000 or more cases a day and a rising death toll.

Health Ministry warns against supplement touted as COVID-19 treatment

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/health-ministry-warns-against-supplement-touted-as-covid-19-treatment-647625

 The Health Ministry warned on Thursday against using the "N Corona" supplement publicized by the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) news outlet Kikar HaShabbat last week, stressing that the treatment had not undergone any professional testing or approval.

"The N Corona drops have never received the approval of the Helsinki Committee from hospitals in Israel needed in order to carry out clinical trials," wrote the Health Ministry in a statement. "It is forbidden to attribute medicinal properties to dietary supplements, and this is misleading to the public."

 

Hierarchy of authority parents versus yeshiva

 The question was recently asked

In the yeshiva world who is the final authority - parents or yeshiva? This is an old question

A related issues is father versus mother - can a woman have a Rav telling her to ignore her husband or to divorce him?

Can a woman have minhagim or chumros that differ from her husband?

Can a rosh yeshiva tell a bachur to marry someone that the parents don't think is appropriate

Can children  learn in a seminary or yeshiva that parent's don't like

Can they adopt minhagim that differ from their family?

 Is it different among Chasidim or Sefardim or even Yekke's 

Does modern Orthodox deal with this?.

If parents want children to get job training or go to college - do they have to listen?

If the yeshiva wants involvement in questionable financial aid programs but parents object

can a person be forced to vote for a particular candidate by parents or rabbis

Pollster who predicted Trump's 2016 win makes 2020 prediction

Politics is complicated

 Shabbos (11a) Raba b. Mehasia also said in the name of R. Hama b. Goria in Rab's name: If all seas were ink, reeds pens, the heavens parchment, and all men writers, they would not suffice to write down the intricacies of government. Said R. Mesharshia, What verse [teaches this]? The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.9

Shannon Nuszen: From missionary to observant Jew

 https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/shannon-nuezen-from-missionary-to-observant-jew-647124

 Some time ago, I met a most interesting woman, highly qualified to talk about the tactics of proselytizing Jews, to bring them to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and the training required by missionaries. She is Shannon Nuszen, a former Evangelical missionary, who is today a Torah-observant Jew. In light of the recent controversy in Israel concerning the now-defunct missionizing Shelanu TV program – an offshoot of the widespread GOD TV – both directed especially at Jews, I wanted to find out what spreading the Gospel to Jews implies, and its modus operandi.

'An incredible scar': the harsh toll of Trump's 400-mile wall through national parks

 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/31/trump-border-wall-wilderness-wildlife-impact

 Donald Trump entered the Oval Office with a campaign promise to build 450 miles of a new “border wall system” – a combination of infrastructure including bollard barriers, roads, perimeter lighting, enforcement cameras and other technology – even amid the pandemic, has continued at an increasing pace. According to Customs and Border Protection, 400 miles of the border wall system has been completed so far, with physical barriers from 18-30ft tall. If he wins, he may well aspire to wall off the border in its entirety.

Trump Thinks He’s Found Biden’s Greatest Vulnerability

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trump-waging-psychological-warfare-against-biden/616813/

After 18 months of flogging the Hunter Biden story, what does President Donald Trump have to show for his efforts? His opposition research on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son culminated in his own impeachment. Despite railing against the scion’s alleged swampiness at nearly every rally, Trump’s convoluted narrative about Biden family corruption has taken root only on Fox News. At the very least, the accusation that Hunter leveraged his father’s high office to enrich himself has failed to measurably move the polls. Even Trump’s ardent supporters are now encouraging him to change the subject. Yet he remains obstinate in his obsession.

 Without a coherent message or an affirmative vision for a second term, Trump has clearly been betting his reelection on what military planners would call a “psyop,” or a psychological operation. That is, he hopes to use gamesmanship to destabilize the mind of his adversary, forcing him into a moment of anger or incoherence that illustrates his lack of fitness for the office. (“Too old and out of it” is how Trump puts it.) His attacks on Hunter Biden should be understood as the pillar of this strategy.

Here's what happened when NBC News tried to report on the alleged Hunter Biden emails

 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/here-s-what-happened-when-nbc-news-tried-report-alleged-n1245533

 Trump and his allies say there is evidence of corruption in emails and documents allegedly found on a laptop belonging to Democrat Joe Biden’s son. They say those and other documents show that Hunter Biden used his father’s influence to enrich himself through business deals in Ukraine and China, and that his father not only facilitated that, but may have benefited financially.

But the Wall Street Journal and Fox News — among the only news organizations that have been given access to key documents — found that the emails and other records don’t make that case. Leaving aside the many questions about their provenance, the materials offered no evidence that Joe Biden played any role in his son’s dealings in China, let alone profited from them, both news organizations concluded.

Alleged Hunter Biden Emails Circulated in Ukraine as Rudy Giuliani Dug for Dirt There Last Year

 https://time.com/5902557/hunter-biden-rudy-giuliani-ukraine/

Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden, two people approached about the material during that period tell TIME.

The emails’ alleged availability, which has not been previously reported, comes to light in the wake of Giuliani’s recent claims that he obtained private photos and emails of Hunter Biden from a broken laptop abandoned in Delaware. Giuliani, who is President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has passed this material to right-wing news outlets, which began publishing it last week. Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment on the origins of the material he obtained.

A once restrained Fauci unleashes on White House coronavirus approach days before election

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/01/politics/donald-trump-anthony-fauci-2020-campaign/index.html

 As President Donald Trump fights his way through the final days of the presidential campaign denying the pandemic — by lashing out at doctors, disputing science and slashing the press for highlighting rising coronavirus case counts — the long-running rift between the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci burst into the open Saturday night.

For months as Trump undercut his own medical experts, sidelined scientists and refused to take basic steps to control the virus while mocking former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing a mask, the nation's top infectious disease specialist held his tongue and took the President's attacks in stride as he continued to plead with the American people to socially distance and wear masks.

 But Fauci's restraint appeared to have evaporated in a Washington Post interview that was published Saturday night, in which he called out the White House for allowing its strategy for fighting the virus to be shaped in part by a neuroradiologist with no training in the field of infectious disease and said he appreciated chief of staff Mark Meadows' honesty when he admitted to CNN's Jake Tapper during a recent interview that the administration has given up controlling the spread of the virus.

 

Historian who correctly predicted every election since 1984 makes his call

Marc Anthony

Doctors groups rip Trump for touting baseless conspiracy over COVID-19 death count

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/31/trump-claims-doctors-profiting-attributing-deaths-covid-19/6101540002/

  Medical groups are slamming President Donald Trump for resurfacing a baseless conspiracy on campaign stops that doctors are inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA in order to drive up profits during the pandemic.

 

 

Trump uses Midwestern swing to launch false attacks on doctors while Covid cases rise

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/31/politics/donald-trump-doctors-midwest-2020-election/index.html

"Our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, 'I'm sorry but everybody dies of Covid,' " Trump said at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, on Friday. Unearthing conspiracy theories from the bowels of the Internet, the President claimed with no evidence that doctors from other countries list underlying diseases as the cause of death, while US doctors choose coronavirus.

 "With us, when in doubt -- choose Covid," Trump said. "Now they'll say 'Oh that's terrible what he said,' but that's true. It's like $2,000 more, so you get more money."

White House aide says Trump's vaccine-by-Election Day promise was 'arbitrary'

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/30/white-house-aide-says-trumps-vaccine-by-election-day-promise-was-arbitrary-433670 

 A top White House adviser on Friday called President Donald Trump’s long-shot pledge to have a coronavirus vaccine by Nov. 3 “kind of an arbitrary deadline,” as Election Day prepares to come and go with no shot having even applied for approval yet.

“We’ve got nearly half a dozen vaccines that are in Phase Three clinical trials, which is record time to get it there for a novel virus like we’re dealing with,” White House strategic communications director Alyssa Farah told reporters. “We’re still highly confident we’ll have one by the end of the year and be prepared to deploy it to a hundred million Americans.” 

 In the Oct. 22 debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Trump claimed that “we have a vaccine” that is “ready” and would be announced “within weeks.”

 At a campaign rally in Arizona this week, Trump assured attendees that they would have a vaccine “momentarily,” a promise that came as the country has seen a surge in new cases nearly everywhere.

Twitter CEO suggests Holocaust denial not banned, in Senate grilling

https://www.timesofisrael.com/twitter-ceo-suggests-holocaust-denial-not-banned-on-platform-in-senate-grilling/ 

 Gardner specifically asked Dorsey: “If somebody denied the Holocaust happened, it’s not misinformation?”

“It’s misleading information,” Dorsey responded. “But we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information.”

Trump Rushes Sen. Martha McSally On Stage During Arizona Rally | NBC News NOW

Donald Trump has run a historically bad reelection campaign

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/29/opinions/trump-bad-reelection-campaign-wierson-honan/index.html

 As we head into the final days of the presidential contest -- a time when candidates generally race to make their best closing arguments to the voters -- it is worth looking at how badly run the Trump campaign has been.

Barr/Trump Lose Big in NY Court: Judge Rules DOJ Can't Protect Trump from E.Jean Carrol Lawsuit

White House informs Congress of plans to sell as many as 50 F-35s to UAE

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-informs-congress-of-plans-to-sell-as-many-as-50-f-35s-to-uae/

  The Trump administration has updated Congress of its intent to sell F-35 advanced fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, a ranking House Democrat announced on Thursday. The informal notification to the House Foreign Affairs Committee revealed that the White House plans to sell as many as 50 units of the Lockheed Martin-made jets for roughly $10.4 billion, a senior congressional staffer told The Times of Israel. Israel has ordered the same number of F-35s from the US, though not all of them have been transferred yet.

Donald Trump's secret sauce for not paying his debts

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/donald-trump-loans-debt-new-york-times/index.html

How do you get a bank to forgive almost $300 million in loans for a failed real estate project? You act like Donald Trump.

This, from The New York Times about a Chicago skyscraper built by Trump that led to him to incur $287 million in unpaid debt by 2010, is remarkable:

"When the project encountered problems, he tried to walk away from his huge debts. For most individuals or businesses, that would have been a recipe for ruin. But tax-return data, other records and interviews show that rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack — exactly what he seemed to have been counting on."

 Which means this: Donald Trump was such a public bully that the lenders preferred to work to eat the debt (or a large portion of it) rather than risk a fight with him because, well, they had made the calculation it simply wasn't worth it.

 

 

U.S. election result will shake up Israeli politics

 https://www.axios.com/us-presidential-election-israeli-politics-eb6a8835-dc54-4d15-b5f0-8f646b1e080d.html

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's biggest domestic political asset is on the ballot on Nov. 3 — his relationship with President Trump.

Why it matters: The outcome of America's election could help determine whether Israel soon faces yet another election of its own.

 

trump ended pandemic

 

White House Touts Trump’s 5 Science Accomplishments, Including ‘Ending The Pandemic’

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/10/28/white-house-touts-trumps-5-science-accomplishments-including-ending-the-pandemic/#670cdcdd5f24

Well, here’s some amazing news. On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a press release of the Trump Administration’s science and technology accomplishments from President Donald Trump’s first term. The release accompanied the unveiling of a longer document from the Office and listed five highlights. Guess what the first one on the list was. “Ending the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The press release included a quote from Ivanka Trump, listed as an Advisor to the President. Because, after all, when you think of science and technology, you think of Ivanka Trump, right? This was the statement from Trump’s daughter: “Over the past four years, President Trump’s policies and investments in science and technology ensure America stands ready to solve today’s most pressing challenges and that our workforce is prepared for tomorrow’s innovations. For years to come, these achievements will guarantee the United States remains the world’s leader in research, discovery and the advancement of industries that will shape our future.”

 

 

Trump claims he ‘ended’ the pandemic as cases surge

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/28/us-election-roundup-trump-pandemic-claim-early-voting

 The deluge of early votes for Tuesday’s US presidential election has topped 70m – the equivalent of more than half of all votes cast in 2016 – as Donald Trump brazenly listed one of the highlights of his presidency as “ending the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Trump’s claim, delivered in a White House press release, came in a week that has seen days of record new infections, daily deaths running at almost 1,000 a day, and a 23% increase in cases.

 But it was the coronavirus pandemic that continued to dominate the agenda. Asked about Trump’s claim to have “ended it”, even the White House communications director, Alyssa Farah, struggled to defend the assertion.

“I think that was poorly worded,” Farah told Fox news. “The intent was to say that it is our goal to end the virus. But what I would say is this, because of the president’s leadership, we are rounding the corner on the virus.”

Keilar calls out Trump's 'tone- deaf' plea to suburban women

Covid-19: Antibody levels ‘waning quite rapidly’ after infection, new study finds

 https://m.health24.com/Medical/Infectious-diseases/Coronavirus/covid-19-antibody-levels-waning-quite-rapidly-after-infection-new-study-finds-20201029-3

 

• Antibodies appear to decrease rapidly after SARS-CoV-2 infection, a recent study found

• Asymptomatic individuals involved in the study were also found to quickly lose antibodies 

• The results stress the need for everyone to continue following preventative measures
  

Covid-19 May Cause 'Significant' Declines in Cognitive Function, According to Survey of Patients

 https://gizmodo.com/covid-19-may-cause-significant-declines-in-cognitive-fu-1845499990

A study of more than 84,500 people backs prior indications that surviving the novel coronavirus may be associated with potentially serious cognitive deficits, Reuters reported on Tuesday. While the new study, which is based on an online survey, has some major limitations, other research has found that covid-19 can cause neurological issues even in people with mild cases.

The research team, led by Imperial College London’s Adam Hampshire, reviewed data from the Great British Intelligence Test—a collaborative project with BBC2 Horizon that collects a broad array of cognitive test and questionnaire data. It was expanded to include questions about covid-19 infection in May; in the dataset of about 84,500 people, 9,201 reported infections without respiratory symptoms; 3,466 had respiratory difficulties but did not obtain medical assistance; 176 required medical attention at home; 147 were hospitalized; and another 60 had to go on a ventilator.

 

 

Some Covid Survivors Have Antibodies That Attack the Body, not Virus

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/health/covid-antibodies-autoimmunity.html

 Some survivors of Covid-19 carry worrying signs that their immune system has turned on the body, reminiscent of potentially debilitating diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, a new study has found.

At some point, the body’s defense system in these patients shifted into attacking itself, rather than the virus, the study suggests. The patients are producing molecules called “autoantibodies” that target genetic material from human cells, instead of from the virus.

This misguided immune response may exacerbate severe Covid-19. It may also explain why so-called “long haulers” have lingering problems months after their initial illness has resolved and the virus is gone from their bodies.

Is Netanyahu dumping Trump? - opinion

 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/is-netanyahu-dumping-trump-opinion-647287

 Netanyahu, who is more fluent in many more languages than Trump, including English, has no doubt seen the writing on the wall, and in both directions it says Joe Biden has a good chance of becoming the next US president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been doing some of that writing on the wall himself, also took a slap at Trump this week when he exonerated the Bidens, declaring, “I don’t see anything criminal” about any business Hunter Biden might have done in Russia or Ukraine. Trump’s hysterical accusations of a Biden family criminal conspiracy, fed by a deranged Rudy Giuliani, have been crumbling.The US poll numbers Netanyahu has been reading show not only that Republicans could be in for a drubbing (I stopped making predictions after I said Hillary Clinton was a sure thing four years ago), but Jewish voters are once again expected to vote three-to-one Democratic.Trump and a Republican Congress were Netanyahu’s protection in the past. No foreign leader has embraced Trump and the GOP more tightly than this Israeli premier.

Jared Kushner bragged in April that Trump was taking the country 'back from the doctors'

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/politics/woodward-kushner-coronavirus-doctors/index.html

The statement reflected a political strategy. Instead of following the health experts' advice, Trump and Kushner were focused on what would help the President on Election Day. By their calculations, Trump would be the "open-up president."

Why deaths aren't rising as fast in Covid-19's second wave, despite big spikes in new infections

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/europe/coronavirus-death-rate-second-wave-lower-intl/index.html

The most obvious reason for the lower death toll is age.

The first wave of the pandemic hit Europe's elderly people particularly hard, spreading in hospitals and care homes, but this has changed over the summer, with the virus circulating more widely among younger people going to restaurants, bars and other public places.

 

 

10 Leaders Who Stuttered

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27126/quick-10-10-leaders-who-stuttered 

10. Joe Biden. Vice President Joe Biden came out very publicly a few years ago and said that he overcame a stutter after years of childhood teasing, including taunts from his seventh-grade teacher who mocked him in front of the whole class.

President Donald Trump’s Most Epic Gaffes of All Time