Angela Merkel knows how to insert a dagger – Meanwhile in America

Trump, as well as Jair Bolsonaro from Brazil and Vladimir Putin from Russia, must have felt his ears burning when the German Chancellor was destroyed their approach to coronavirus in Thursday’s speech. “As we have experienced firsthand, you cannot fight a pandemic with lies and disinformation like you can fight it with hatred or incitement to hatred,” Merkel said. “The limits of populism and denial of basic truths are being set aside.”

Merkel and Trump are destined to clash. A former scientist, he is cool, careful, independent, fact oriented and quiet despite his toughness. Trump is … none of that. At the end of 2016, the forthcoming US President, whom Merkel sometimes referred to as “Liebe (dear) Barack,” flew to Berlin on a mission – to convince him to run for another term. Once Trump was in the Oval Office, Obama reasoned, Merkel needed to lead the liberal international order.

But Merkel, who does not plan to run for the fifth term next year, can read the poll. And even though he might never say it, he wants to beat Trump.

Updating Fifth Avenue

“I can stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I will not lose voters,” Trump claimed in 2016.

In a deliberate sign of changing times, the Manhattan Fifth Avenue icon has now been painted with the words “Black Lives Matter” – right in front of the entrance of 90s era gold tones to Trump Tower.

Trump asked the police not to let “this symbol of hatred be posted on New York’s greatest street.” But even the mayor of the city, Democrat Bill de Blasio, took a roll of paint with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton on Thursday.

‘Since the early days of the Republic,’ everyone ‘including the President of the United States’

Sometimes you can win by losing, Trump has learned in two important Supreme Court decisions about trying to summon his financial records.

At 7-2, the court rejected Trump’s claim that he was immune from investigations as President. The ruling justified the New York prosecutor who examined the President on suspicion of a silent money scheme.

In a separate case, the court also ruled that Congress – which wanted financial records from Trump’s bankers and accountants – had the right to investigate a President. But with the same 7-2 division, it is stated that such requests must be limited. Thus the judges found a solution that elegantly affirmed constitutional principles – and saved their court from a political shootout.

Both cases will now return to lower courts for months more litigation. Trump was unhappy with the results, which made him have considerable legal and political exposure – but they ensured that prosecutors and House Democrats would not get their taxes and financial records until after the election. Because one of the goals of the challenge of the Supreme Court is to kick cases through November, the President’s lawyers do their work.