Since at least the Reagan era, Republicans have generally been proponents of free trade, but that started to shift under Trump. Very few Republican pols want to cross Trump right now.
Perhaps his most vocal GOP critic on tariffs inside Congress is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
“Tariffs are simply taxes,” Paul vented on X. “We won the last election by complaining about Democrats’ policies, which gave us high prices. Tariff lovers will be forced to explain the persistence of high prices.”
The editorial board, often viewed as a mouthpiece of owner Rupert Murdoch, has condemned many of Trump’s policies since he took office last month. It said Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters sent “a rotten message from a president about political violence done on his behalf” and called his decision to strip his political enemies of their security details part of “some vindictive whim.”
While it has defended some of Trump’s decisions, its critical tone has put the traditionally conservative newspaper’s editorial board on the same plane as the more liberal voices of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Paul Gigot, the editor of the Journal‘s editorial pages, told the Associated Press last week: “We are covering Trump like we do every president, and that means supporting his decisions when they warrant it, and criticizing them when that is deserved. It’s no more complicated than that.”
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-have-us-taxpayers-sent-200-billion-ukraine-1796322
This figure has been repeated by a number of right-leaning politicians and public figures in the past two months including Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ), former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, and former Republican candidate for Arizona governor Kari Lake.
In total, Congress has allocated $113 billion in a combination of mostly military, government, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since last year, according to the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.
This strongly suggests that the U.S. has not spent anywhere close to $200 billion. Furthermore, Newsweek has so far been unable to find any statement from the presidential office of Ukraine which supports that higher number—the office has been contacted via email for comment.
André Frank, Project Lead for the Ukraine Support Tracker, told Newsweek that the $200 billion claim was "wrong" and suspected it may have been a misinterpretation of the tracker's data, perhaps by using information from a since-updated database.
In any case, there is no evidence to support the notion that the U.S. has spent $200 billion, with expert research indicating that total direct spending has not even reached the $100 billion mark, let alone double that number.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/02/02/trump-tariffs-baffling-trade-war/
Trump knows the United States has more leverage over its neighbors than they do over his country. But exploiting that position of strength could cause a historic rupture. “The U.S. willingness to ignore its treaty obligations, even with friends, won’t make other countries eager to do deals,” noted the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board. “Maybe Mr. Trump will claim victory and pull back if he wins some token concessions. But if a North American trade war persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in history.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/02/trump-tariffs-republicans-applaud-trade-war
As trade war fears circulate, lawmakers are manning their posts: Democrats are warning prices will skyrocket — while Republicans say the potential discomfort will be worth it in the end.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that if "prices go up, it's because of other people's reactions to America's laws."
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) characterized Trump's tariffs as a border tool, telling NBC's Kristen Welker they "are meant to bring Canada and Mexico the table for the fentanyl that is streaming into our communities."
His fellow Virginian, Sen. Tim Kaine (D), said Trump's first-term tariffs were "a tax on Virginia consumers," predicting Americans will see "higher prices for energy, higher prices for groceries."
Kaine said he was struck by what he saw as the "irony" of Trump's executive order declaring an "energy emergency" followed by 10% tariffs on Canadian energy.
"The emergency is self-created," Kaine said.
In reversal, Amman said to give Hamas one day to find Ahlam Tamimi another home or it will send her stateside, where she is wanted over 2001 attack that killed 16, including 2 Americans
President Trump on Sunday ripped The Wall Street Journal for criticizing his recent tariffs.
“The ‘Tariff Lobby,’ headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA,” said the president on his Truth Social platform.
A Saturday op-ed from the Journal’s editorial board criticized Trump’s tariff plan and predicted a declining trend in trade and manufacturing capability in the wake of signed sanctions.
“Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home. This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out,” said the op-ed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-spews-crazy-claims-after-seizing-federal-payment-system/
Elon Musk took aim at a pair of federal agencies Sunday, shortly after his Department of Government Efficiency team received access to the massive system that manages government payments.
Specifically, Musk targeted the U.S. Treasury Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), alleging with little evidence that both were “breaking the law” by approving “fraudulent” payments.
“Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress,” Musk wrote on X Sunday. “This needs to stop NOW!”
To back up his claim, Musk shared a summation of a relevant statute compiled by Grok, an artificial intelligence service run by his social media app, X.
The explosive claims come just hours after the billionaire and his DOGE team were reportedly granted full access to a federal payment system by President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.
President Trump conceded Sunday that there may be “some pain” from his sweeping tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but they will eventually lead to a new “GOLDEN AGE.” Nice of him to promise a glorious future because the pain is already unfolding, and the tariffs won’t even take effect until Tuesday.
We appreciate Mr. Trump’s attention, though we’re anti-tariff and not lobbyists. But bad policy has damaging consequences, whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to admit it. Mr. Trump can’t repeal the laws of economics any more than Joe Biden could on inflation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/02/business/trump-economy-tariff-mexico-canada-china/index.html
The Wall Street Journal went a step further, publishing a scathing op-ed on Saturday titled: “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”
The op-ed argued that Trump’s justification for an “economic assault” on Canada and Mexico “makes no sense” and warned the strategy could end in disaster.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/02/politics/us-tariffs-americans-pay-imports/index.html
A day after signing steep new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, President Donald Trump acknowledged what economists, members of Congress and even some of his own aides — in their previous lives — have been saying all along: Americans may find themselves paying the costs.
“THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA! WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump posted, in all capital letters, on his Truth Social platform.
“WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID,” Trump wrote. “WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE — AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!”
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-plane-crash-blame-2023677
Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek on Thursday that Trump's response to the plane crash in Washington "missed the mark."
"Instead of simply stating that he didn't yet have all the information to decide what caused the crash, he injected politics into an already highly emotional situation," Klink said.
He continued, "The President needs to realize that the election is over, and while he wants to smash the status quo, which people who voted for him support, at this particular moment, Americans were looking for reassurance from the commander-in-chief that he and his new team, which isn't even complete, would get to the bottom of what caused the crash and enact changes to make sure that events like the crash are rare."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kmp99431mo
Trump's orders set in motion threats that the president has discussed for months, striking at shipments from America's top three trade partners, which together account for more than 40% of the roughly $3tn goods the US imports each year.
Canadian oil and other "energy resources" will face a lower 10% rate. But otherwise, there will be no exceptions, the White House said.
Israel freed 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, shortly after three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 were released by the terror group in the Gaza Strip.
According to Palestinian authorities, 18 of the prisoners were serving life sentences. Over 100 were from the Gaza Strip, arrested after October 7, 2023, and were being held without trial.
Thirty prisoners, including three serving life sentences, were released for each of the hostages Keith Siegel and Ofer Kalderon, and 12 prisoners serving life sentences were released for Yarden Bibas.
Rav Yakov cites Rashi that the reason for the plague of Darkness was to conceal the death of millions of Jews who did not believe Moshe and Aron that it was time to leave Egypt. He asks "How did the Jews at that time perceive theses deaths"?. They obviously questioned that this was the time of redemption if more |Jews were suffering than Egyptians. He said during the Holocaust that this should be understood as comfort for us despite what is happening.
Multiple water management experts told Politico that moves like the one initially planned to hit Tulare County could have serious consequences.
“Something really bad could happen because of their nonsensical approach,” said a former official at Bureau of Reclamation, the primary agency responsible for delivering water in the western U.S. “Floods are real. This isn’t playing around with a software company.”
Hernandez was in agreement.
“Channel capacity is very dangerous,” he said. “People don’t understand that [with] channel capacity, you’re going to have flood damage down below.”
“Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home. This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out,” they outlined.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-new-wars-trump-boasts-he-bombed-somalia/
Newly elected President Donald Trump, who made a campaign promise of not starting any "new wars," seemingly went back on his word when he announced on X on Saturday that he had ordered bombings in Somalia. “This morning I ordered precision Military air strikes on the Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia,” Trump shared on the platform. “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies. The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians,” he continued. His announcement wasn’t complete without throwing in a jab at Joe Biden, who Trump says “wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done.” “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’” Trump wrote at the end of his message. Underneath his post, Trump devotees applauded the strikes.
Speaking hours after the Star-Spangled Banner was booed at a hockey game in Ottawa, Trudeau spelled out an aggressive response of his own to go toe-to-toe with Trump on the sudden trade sanctions. At almost exactly the same time, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum imposed retaliatory tariffs to match Trump’s on her country—meaning America, for the first time in history, is in a trade war with its northern and southern neighbors.
President Trump has repeatedly said he wants Palestinians in Gaza to move out of the devastated enclave and into neighboring Egypt and nearby Jordan. The Arab world is pushing back, ostensibly because it would undermine efforts to create a Palestinian state.
President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/tariffs-trump-campaign-promise/index.html
Saturday’s tariffs amount to a starting gun on what could escalate into a global trade war, with the potential for higher costs, disrupted supply chains and a loss of jobs. The duties he approved Saturday have a lower 10% rate on Canadian energy, a tacit acknowledgement that the tariffs could lead to higher gas prices. Even Trump acknowledged the potential for adverse consequences on American consumers.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/mexico-canada-china-tariffs-trump/index.html
President Donald Trump announced extraordinary new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China — signing the long-promised economic policy at his Mar-a-Lago club on Saturday. The Trump administration said tariffs are aimed at curbing the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants into the US, but they potentially risk substantial price increases for American consumers across an array of common goods from avocados to sneakers to cars.
Hours later, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country will impose retaliatory tariffs, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced “far-reaching” retaliatory levies. China’s commerce ministry said it will file a complaint with the World Trade Organization and “take corresponding countermeasures,” without elaborating.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403250
As far as the Nation of Israel is concerned, this deal is one that brings degradation and dishonor to our people. One does not make deals with terrorists. One kills them and erases them from the earth. And especially when we have to accept their dictates. That is why this is a really terrible deal in my eyes and in the eyes of many others, not just because of the dangers but because of the damage done to the honor of both the heavens and Israel.
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/29/trump-deport-immigrants-criminals
President-elect Trump is vowing to launch the "largest deportation of criminals in American history" as part of his plans to remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
What he doesn't say: There aren't that many criminals who could be deported immediately.
Driving the news: Less than 0.5% of the 1.8 million cases in immigration courts during the past fiscal year — involving about 8,400 people — included deportation orders for alleged crimes other than entering the U.S. illegally, an Axios review of government data found.
The Trump transition team declined to address the low number of current immigration cases involving immigrants who've committed crimes.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-reality-tv-presidency-just-got-bitten-by-reality/
President Trump’s new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s resume includes roles on three reality shows: The Real World: Boston in 1997, Road Rules: All Stars in 1998, and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons which aired in 2002. In that last series, Duffy and his partner crushed the competition, winning challenges that included rounding up cows while riding horses and playing a version of musical chairs involving inner tubes? Sure.
He continued, offering a distressed public and grieving families insightful observations like, “Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that.”
Still, the last person Trump would blame for this tragedy is himself because, unlike Harry Truman, the buck never stops at his desk.
Meanwhile, expect more tragedies. Trump’s regime is parroting Musk’s failed Twitter tactics, slashing funds for staff and oversight on the federal government. Failing to round up a cow is one thing on TV, but failing to enforce safety regulations across air, land, and sea travel is quite another.
That’s the reality. And it’s a deadly one.
The mother of freed hostage Emily Damari revealed Friday that her daughter was held by Hamas at UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip, and that her captors refused to give her access to medical treatment.
Emily lost two fingers in her left hand after being shot by Hamas terrorists during her abduction on October 7, 2023. Her mother Mandy said it was “a miracle that she survived,” in a post on X thanking British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for calling them earlier in the day.
“Hamas held Emily in UNRWA facilities and denied her access to medical treatment after shooting her twice,” wrote Mandy, who like her daughter has British citizenship. “It’s a miracle that she survived, and we need to get aid to the remaining hostages now.”
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-840165
Trump administration officials have pressured six senior FBI officials, as well as the heads of many field offices, to leave their posts by Monday or face termination, NBC reported on Friday.
Additionally, the Department of Justice fired two dozen federal prosecutors involved in the January 6 investigations on the same day.
The FBI was ordered to provide by Tuesday a list of all employees who worked on a 2024 criminal case brought by the Justice Department against leaders of Hamas, according to a memo seen by Reuters. A source briefed on the matter also said the FBI was asked to provide a list of employees who worked on the two Trump cases brought by Smith.
Tulsi Gabbard faced the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday for her confirmation hearing, and her performance wasn’t reassuring. Given a chance to walk back her opposition to Section 702 surveillance policy, she reinforced why she would be dangerous as White House director of national intelligence.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5116132-trump-approval-rating-gallup/?tbref=hp
A poll, released Thursday by Gallup, found that 47 percent of respondents support Trump’s term so far, just above the 45 percent he earned at this point during his first term.
It’s a rating that places him below all other elected presidents since 1953. He remains the only elected commander in chief with an approval rating below 50 percent, the survey found.
Trump’s disapproval rating is 48 percent, which is 3 percentage points higher than in 2017 and marks a new high for that rating at the start of a president’s term.
Former President Biden received a 57 percent approval rating, the same as former President George W. Bush.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-problem-at-the-core-of-dc-plane-collision/
As has been widely noted, and as an official with extensive experience in airport operations affirmed to the Daily Beast on Thursday, the whole system is still suffering from the firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981 by the president for whom Reagan National Airport is named. The new controllers who took their place had a mandatory retirement age of 56, and many of them have been departing in recent years. An early FAA report after Wednesday’s crash noted that a single air traffic controller was doing work that customarily would have been done by two.
Sanhedrin (92a) Rabbi Elazar says: With regard to anyone who amends the truth in his speech, it is as though he worships idols. As, it is written here, in the verse where Jacob sought to resist taking his father’s blessing from Esau: “And I shall seem to him a deceiver [metate’a]” (Genesis 27:12), and it is written there with regard to idol worship: “They are vanity, the work of deception [tatuim]” (Jeremiah 10:15).
Rashi says it is one who changes his speech speech so he is not recognized
המחליף בדבורו - משנה בדבורו שלא יהא ניכר:
http://www.5tjt.com/lace-front-sheitels-an-exploding-controversy/
Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz rules that since there is no ma’aris ayin in sheitels according to the responsum of Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt’l (Igros Moshe Even HaEzer Vol. II #12), there would be no problem in lace-front sheitels. Rav Moshe’s letter was written in the summer of 1962 to Rabbi Dovid Lappa, z’l (who lived in Bayswater at the end of his life), and contained a number of rationales as to why there is no ma’aris ayin regarding sheitels. (1) Ma’aris ayin is only for a lav and not an issur aseih; (2) Most of the time it is recognizable that it is a wig; (3) Even if men do not recognize that it is a wig, women do recognize it, and that is enough to prevent a ma’aris ayin, as we can see in regard to shaving with an electric razor; (4) Since she is known as an ishah kesheirah, no one would dare suspect her of not following halachah.
Modern Orthodox communities tend to be open to some level of working together with other Jewish denominations on issues of common concern, as long as the Orthodox retain their autonomy over their own religious institutions. In contrast, R. Hirsch was a fierce champion of austritt, or separation. Several scholars have wondered why a rabbi with cultural openness toward Gentile wisdom would be closed to working with other Jewish denominations. Prof. Mordechai Breuer enumerates various approaches, but I am partial to Breuer’s own approach. R. Hirsch was a man of yosher or truth. He did not deny the truth that Gentile wisdom had something to contribute and that we could benefit from studying it. For the same reason, he could not work with a group whose ideology he viewed as a distortion of the truths of Torah.[1]
In teaching them the languages of the civilized nations and introducing them to their literature we give them the key with which, when they are grown up, they can gain entrance to the intellectual creations of the peoples and feed and enrich their minds with all that is good and noble and true in the contributions of the noblest spirits to the realm of knowledge. (Judaism Eternal, vol. 1, p. 219)
https://etzion.org.il/sites/default/files/2022-05/Rabbi_Aharon_Lichtenstein_and_Academic_T.pdf
It is well-known that he studied English literature at Harvard, and he never concealed the fruits of those studies; to the contrary, he incorporated them into his spiritual and educational doctrine, both written and oral. The first four chapters of By His Light are based on lectures he delivered to English-speaking students during their first year at Yeshivat Har Etzion, and the book attests reliably to the yeshiva’s general intellectual and educational atmosphere. I will cite a few short examples from these chapters, allowing readers to absorb some of the music that students at Yeshivat Har Etzion absorbed from Rabbi Lichtenstein’s classes and discourses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/
At news conference, Trump read a list of disabilities he calls disqualifying, but his administration started such hiring in 201
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jesse-watters-unloads-bizarre-dwarves-dei-theory-for-dc-crash/
“The staffing shortages, Donald Trump is arguing, are a result of DEI policies,” Watters began on The Five’s Thursday newscast, referring to the president’s unsubstantiated claims that DEI quotas lowered the standards of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration subsequently causing the crash. “You go back to the Obama-Biden administration and they rejected 1,000 well-qualified applicants for air traffic control because they weren’t diverse enough. Joe Biden had a DEI quota.”
“And this isn’t about Black people,” Watters continued. “A lot of people hear, ‘DEI,’ you think Black. No, he is trying to set quotas for people who are deaf to get jobs, people who are dwarves to get jobs, people with transgender issues to get jobs.
Tulsi Gabbard faced the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday for her confirmation hearing, and her performance wasn’t reassuring. Given a chance to walk back her opposition to Section 702 surveillance policy, she reinforced why she would be dangerous as White House director of national intelligence.
This week there was a video clip circulating of a visibly agitated Yid, publicly protesting a deliberate modification found in the pages of the responsa of Maran Harav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L. The video went viral and outraged many, while others silently gloated as the changes, or lack thereof, was consistent with their respective narratives. YWN initially shared in the outrage as well, as this appeared to be an invasion of the Holy of Hollies and a blatant act to desecrate the sacred works of the Gadol Hador.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/30/curtis-yarvins-ideas-00201552
Even the ball’s name spoke to Yarvin’s outsize influence over the Trumpian right: For over a decade, Yarvin, an ex-computer programmer-turned-blogger, has argued that American democracy is irrevocably broken and ought to be replaced with a monarchy styled after a Silicon Valley tech start-up. According to Yarvin, the time has come to jettison existing democratic institutions and concentrate political power in a single “chief executive” or “dictator.” These ideas — which Yarvin calls “neo-reaction” or “the Dark Enlightenment” — were once confined to the fringes of the internet, but now, with Trump’s reelection, they are finding a newly powerful audience in Washington
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5116332-trump-0faa-dei-plane-crash/
Trump was asked how he could be so sure diversity played a role in the crash when he acknowledged himself the air traffic controllers may not have done anything wrong, he told reporters it was because he has “common sense.”
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/no-evidence-us-spent-50-million-condoms-gaza-2025-01-30/
Statements from the Trump administration saying it discovered a plan to send $50 million to fund condoms in Gaza have been denied by the humanitarian group named as the recipient and by a former U.S. official.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the remarks at a Jan. 28 press briefing about President Donald Trump having temporarily suspended U.S. foreign aid pending reviews of existing development programs. Trump repeated the claim about $50 million on condoms for Gaza on Wednesday.
Leavitt had told reporters, opens new tab that the Elon Musk-led advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza” (18:32 timestamp).
Posts online, opens new tab sharing a clip of Leavitt’s remarks said: “WILD: Karoline Leavitt EXPOSED that $50 MILLION in U.S. taxpayer money almost went to fund CONDOMS in Gaza before DOGE cut it.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio's decision to freeze foreign aid over the weekend included pulling millions of dollars-worth of US funding for condoms in Gaza, Fox News Digital reported.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the funding pause during her first briefing Tuesday. "That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money. So that's what this pause is focused on, being good stewards of tax dollars," Leavitt said, according to Fox News Digital.
Over the past decade, Hamas has used condoms to create IED-carrying balloons that winds would fly into southern Israel, raising the alarm on schoolyards, farmlands, and highways. These improvised explosive devices burned thousands of hectares of land and caused extensive damage.
The State Department's review comes in response to President Donald Trump's executive order, "Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid," issued last week directing a 90-day pause on most US foreign assistance disbursed through the State Department.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-27/la-me-trump-water-military
President Trump on Monday night heightened his battle with California over water policy by suggesting U.S. military troops had arrived in the state to turn on pumps and send more water flowing — something state officials quickly denied.
On Monday evening, Trump wrote that the military “just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond,” in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
California officials said late Monday that the U.S. military did not enter the state and release a large flow of water, as President Donald Trump had earlier claimed in the latest back-and-forth between Trump and the state over water resources.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5115038-schumer-trump-funding-freeze-memo/
The reversal followed massive blowback on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers were bombarded with calls from constituents who had questions about which programs would be affected and about access issues to web portals, including for Medicaid.
“When the Trump administration announced this awful directive on Monday night, we knew immediately it was shortsighted, disastrous, cruel, and dumb,” Schumer said at the press conference.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) warned federal workers against taking the offer in a Senate floor speech Tuesday night.
“The president has no authority to make that offer. There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work,” he said. “If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/2025-01-30/live-updates-839868
According to information presented to mediators of the deal, five Thai citizens are also expected to be released by Hamas.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to root out corruption between industry and government. Yet the man who wants to be the nation’s Secretary of Health and Human Services refused to rule out personally making money from lawsuits against drug makers. This ought to be disqualifying
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/29/white-house-budget-office-spending-freeze/
The White House budget office on Wednesday rescinded an order freezing federal grants, according to a copy of a new memo obtained by The Washington Post, after the administration’s move to halt spending earlier this week provoked a backlash.
The original White House order freezing federal grants, which became public on Monday, caused mass chaos and confusion across Washington, appearing to imperil government programs that fund schools, provide housing and ensure low-income Americans have access to health care. States reported issues accessing funds under Medicaid, and even as of Wednesday, public housing authorities reported being locked out of their funding portal. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that assistance for individuals would not be affected.
Years before Tulsi Gabbard became Trump’s pick to coordinate U.S. spy agencies, she tried to evade unwanted scrutiny
https://www.newsweek.com/caroline-kennedy-rfk-jr-video-letter-family-2022650
Caroline Kennedy alleged Kennedy Jr. "put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks," adding that "it was often a perverse scene of despair and violence."
Kennedy Jr.'s use of drugs was also brought up by Caroline Kennedy, who accused him of leading his siblings and cousins "down the path of substance abuse, addiction, illness, and death," while he went on to "cheat his way through life."
Two of his siblings and his niece wrote an op-ed saying he has "helped to spread dangerous misinformation," and is "complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines."
The photograph of President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence shows how a teenage Gabbard took part in a ritual dedicated to Chris Butler, the leader of the Science of Identity Foundation, while she was a student at one of its boarding schools.
Gabbard was around 15 when the photograph of her at Butler’s altar, the first visual evidence of her participation in the group, was taken in the Philippines. Her parents, both deeply enmeshed in Butler’s movement, had sent her to one of the group’s boarding schools there.
Fourteen members of a small religious sect in Australia have been found guilty of the manslaughter of an 8-year-old girl, who died after they withheld insulin needed to treat her diabetes because of their unwavering belief that God would heal her.
Instead, as she lay dying, they turned to prayer and song, maintaining a vigil around her bed, and even after she’d stopped breathing, sought divine intervention to raise her from the dead.
A central tenet of their faith was the healing power of God, and they rejected conventional medicine, which some members described as “witchcraft,” the ruling said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/29/politics/donald-trump-funding-freeze-analysis/index.html
US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan summed up a surreal and baffling day after pressing a Justice Department attorney, saying: “The government doesn’t know the full scope of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause.”
In seeking to freeze loans and grants and align them with his priorities laid out in a blizzard of executive actions, Trump was seeking to redirect or halt funding already appropriated by Congress.
“It is a direct challenge against Congress and its ability to be able to approve and authorize its expenditure of money,” Kettl said.
But presidents and their advisers are not kings and don’t get to decide what is constitutional. If they did, the system of US democratic governance would collapse.
“What democracy requires isn’t that as soon as the president comes into power, they could wipe away everything that came before,” said Corey Brettschneider, author of “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens who Fought to Defend it.”
“The idea of a democracy is that when laws are passed, take the 1964 Civil Rights Act or environmental protection, that those laws bind not just citizens, but bind even the president,” said Brettschneider, a constitutional law and politics professor at Brown University.
There are ignorant people who claim they are relying on Rav Moshe Feinstein to annul a marriage because the husband has an incurable psychological issue. It is clear that not every personality order justifies such an approach. This can be seen clearly in one of the classic tshuvos where he annuls a marriage when it was discovered that the husband was a homosexual and he states that this applies only if the husband were exclusively homosexual.
Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:113): Concerning the present matter where the wife has discovered that her husband has had homosexual relations since we find that this is considered a major defect the marriage is a mistake also for the wife as I have explained in Igros Moshe (E.H. 1:79 and 1:180).. It is also reasonable that the fact that the husband is involved in homosexual relations - which are the worst possible abomination and most disgusting thing - it is a disgrace to the whole family. And surely it is extremely degrading to his wife that her husband prefers this disgusting intercourse rather than intercourse with his wife. Thus it is definitely a mistaken marriage. It is clear to us that no woman would be willing to marry such a disgusting, repulsive and debased man as this. Consequently if immediately after she was informed about this she left him - that if it is impossible for her to receive a divorce from him - that she should be permitted to remarry because of having a mistaken marriage. However if it is possible to obtain a divorce, it is necessary to try with all that is possible in order to obtain a kosher get. On the other hand, if he is not fully immersed in homosexuality - but only occasionally because of the influence of his lust - perhaps this should not be considered to be a mistaken marriage. So even though he is a complete rasha (wicked) - even for the sake of a single incident – there are those who mistakenly imagine that this is called a mistaken marriage. However if he is fully immersed in homosexuality - in that he gets more pleasure from homosexual intercourse than from relations with women – it is definitely a mistaken marriage. All of this is if she left him immediately when she found out. But if she remains with him even after being notified, then it is difficult to nullify the marriage. If his behavior is the result of foolishness, since this is something which is unnatural it is definitely a defect. Since it is from foolishness it is likely that there are other manifestations of foolishness. However in essence it is from wickedness and is repulsive - which also makes it a mistaken marriage.
Igros Moshe (C.M. 2:68): … The Torah reserves capital punishment for those sins which are very serious such as murder, kidnapping, sexually prohibited relations and idolatry. The perpetrator in these cases is unrestrained and is capable of doing whatever disgusting and cruel acts in the world that are in his heart that he thinks are for his benefit. However the death penalty is not administered out of hatred to evildoers or fear for the welfare of society because Bava Metzia (83b) tells us that G‑d will punish transgressors. That in fact is the halacha as poskened by the Rambam (Hilchos Chovel u’Mazik 8:9) as well as all other poskim. So on the one hand the purpose of capital punishment is to let people know the severity of these prohibitions so that they will not transgress them. On the other hand the laws of capital punishment emphasize the importance of each soul and other concerns. Therefore we are commanded that only the Sanhedrin with proper semicha can judge these cases. Only the greatest people in Torah scholarship and other knowledge receives this semicha. In addition to their knowledge they also need to have perfected their character and be very humble as well as G‑d fearing people. They also need to hate money and love the truth as well as wonderful people who are beloved by all…They don’t have any imperfections or bad reputations and they are very merciful. That is why very old people are not appointed judges because they have forgotten the stress of raising children. Also people without children are not appointed because they lack mercy to some degree and they will be too angry at those who have committed sins.
Even these great and good people cannot judge unless they constitute a Sanhedrin of 23 people.However it is not enough there are 23 such people to make a Sanhedrin. They also need to have before them 3 rows of very great Torah scholars who are not yet great enough to be part of the Sanhedrin – but are almost great enough. This is to protect the Sanhedrin from making a mistake in judgment. That is because when these three rows of scholars think that the Sanhedrin is mistaken in their ruling of innocence they will protest and will not listen at all to their words. Another safeguard against making a mistake is that they do not convict based on circumstantial evidence – no matter how convincing. They only convict a person based on two valid witnesses who have not the slightest bias in the matter... Furthermore the witnesses are warned concerning the severity of the sin of false testimony as well as the seriousness of the sin of murder so that they are very afraid of mistakenly convicting or mistakenly declaring the suspected murderer innocent. Even with all of this the witnesses also have to warn the person against murder and the suspected murderer has to acknowledge the warning by saying that even though he is aware of the seriousness off the crime he is still doing it. As a consequence of all these safeguards, only once in many years would someone be convicted of murder. In addition it was impossible to judge capital cases unless the Temple existed and that the Sanhedrin of 71 of the greatest scholars was in session on the Temple Mount. In fact capital cases were not judged even in those countries where the king gave the Jews permission to judge their own people according to the law of the Torah.
As a consequence of these two factors there were almost no Jewish murderers because of the awareness of the severity of the prohibition of murder and because they were educated by means of the Torah and the punishments of the Torah to understand the seriousness of the crime. They were not simply afraid of punishment in the sense of getting caught but were afraid of the crime itself.
However this use of the Torah system to run society was only when the crime of murder was not common but was simply the result of someone’s great lust or some quarrel concerning money or honor. But when people killed simply because it was viewed as an insignificant thing and the murderer was simply a callous and cruel person or similarly if there was a great deal of murders and wickedness – then a different system of law was utilized that was concerned with the pragmatic question of stopping killing and the goal became saving the society.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/28/mark-milley-hegseth-trump/
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to remove retired Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, suspend his security clearance, and order an inspector general inquiry into his behavior as the Pentagon’s top officer, senior defense officials said Tuesday, taking extraordinary action against a frequent target of President Donald Trump.
Shortly after Trump was sworn in as president this month, administration officials sent a message by having a portrait of Milley memorializing his time as Joint Chiefs chairman removed from a wall in the Pentagon. Fox News reported Tuesday that another portrait of Milley recognizing him for his previous role as chief of staff of the Army was to be removed soon. The senior defense official confirmed that is the case, too.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sylymr8u1e
It passed the House earlier this month 243-140, as 45 Democrats joined Republicans in voting "yes."
Voters want disruption in Washington, but it’d be something else entirely for the Senate to confirm a director of national intelligence who has a record of defending those who subvert U.S. interests. When former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard testifies Thursday, will Republicans pose questions that serve the public interest, or go along to get along with President Trump?
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/28/economy/trump-inflation-price-promises/index.html
In August 2024, then-candidate former President Donald Trump delivered a press conference surrounded by packaged foods, meats, produce, condiments, milk and eggs.
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at the time.
It was a pledge he repeated on the campaign trail, often followed by the phrase, “drill, baby, drill.” And to many voters, inflation was a justifiable target: Years of sharply rising prices had taken a toll on their hard-earned pay and their livelihoods.
But Day One has turned into Day Seven, and those eggs are getting even more expensive.
Despite a flurry of executive actions, Trump’s price-related promises have gone unfulfilled, Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to the president.
“You have instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers,” according to the letter signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 20 congressional Democrats. “Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them.”
In fact, the lawmakers added, Trump appears to be “backtracking” on those promises, conceding in recent weeks that it’s “hard to bring things down.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-grants-loans-halted-federal-judge-2022493
A federal judge temporarily blocked a Trump administration order freezing federal grants and loans.
The judge issued a "brief administrative stay" while the matter is litigated
Back in 1974, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act, which imposes limits on a president’s ability to refrain from spending on items that the legislative branch has appropriated.
“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional,” Vought told senators during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. “I agree with that.”
Democrats erupted in fury and outrage over the move.
“Donald Trump’s Administration is jeopardizing billions upon billions of community grants and financial support that help millions of people across the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fumed in a statement.
“It will mean missed payrolls and rent payments and everything in between: chaos for everything from universities to nonprofit charities.”
Agencies parse through two-page order—down to the footnotes—to try to understand which programs would be halted
Federal, state and local government officials scrambled Tuesday to assess the impact of a broad and far-reaching order by the White House to pause hundreds of billions in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance-programs pending a review by the Trump administration.
Hours after the Trump administration announced a sweeping freeze on federal spending, the U.S. government fell into chaos Tuesday, as officials braced for potential interruptions to programs that promote food safety, combat crime, provide college aid, produce medical research and respond to natural disasters.
Few in Washington appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that had directed them to “temporarily pause” the disbursement of key funds, leaving thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.
Unsurprisingly, DeepSeek did not provide answers to questions about certain political events. When asked the following questions, the AI assistant responded: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/27/tech/deepseek-stocks-ai-china/index.html
US stocks dropped sharply Monday — and chipmaker Nvidia lost nearly $600 billion in market value — after a surprise advancement from a Chinese artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek, threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry.
DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, revealed a stunning capability last week: It presented a ChatGPT-like AI model called R1, which has all the familiar abilities, operating at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s, Google’s or Meta’s popular AI models. The company said it had spent just $5.6 million on computing power for its base model, compared with the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies.
That sent shockwaves through markets, in particular the tech sector, on Monday.
Igros Moshe (YD I #47) Commercial milk in America In general milk needs to be supervised by Jews to be regarded as fully kosher. So regarding the kashrus of commercial milk in America which while not being supervised by Jews nonetheless has a government inspector and anyone who adds the milk of an unclean animal will be punished and will also their business will be closed. Consequently the companies are definitely afraid to mix unkosher milk in the kosher milk and that is a major reason to permit as kosher their milk even according to the view of the Pri Chodesh even though there is no actual Jewish supervision. Since a clear awareness of the consequences is the same as being watched as is stated in the gemora Shavuos regarding monetary issues. An additional proof can be found in Tosfos (Yevamos) concerning the requirement that conversion requires the direct watching by beis din of the immersion of the ger in a mikveh and it says that common knowledge is considered actually observing. This is the well known concept known as Anon Sahadi. Even in the case of witnesses for a marriage, even if they didn’t actually witness the event but only that the couple were secluded together, it is considered as if they actually witnessed the intercourse and the couple is halachacly married. And they would even get the death penalty if they are involved in an adulterous relationship afterwards and they are not allowed to marry someone else. Another case is the principle that a person is assumed not to be involved in fornication and this is treated as actually witnessing in order to validate a marriage even for a liency of not requiring a Get in the case of a child without miyun who is now an adult and she married another person. There is also the case of adultery in which the witnesses do not have to see the actual intercourse but we rely on circumstantial evidence. This is also the case for the crime of murder and other capital crimes that we rely on circumstantial evidence. From all these cases we can conclude that knowledge is considered seeing even for the death penalty except where there is a derasha which requires actually witnessing an event. Consequently in the case of milk which is prohibited if a Jew has not watched it, it should be considered kosher simply by the clear awareness that a Jew has that is considered as witnessing The awareness that if the milk is mixed with unkosher milk the company will be punished and the business will be closed and they will endup losing a lot of money and that the government is supervising them, this is clearly awareness and is considered as actually witnessing and there is no prohibition according to everyone. .Therefore, there is a major justification for someone to rely on this leniency and it is fitting as in fact the majority of religious Jews and also many rabbis in fact do. G-d forbid to claim that this is against the halacha!. Nevertheless a baal nefesh should be strict and not rely on this leniency and ir is nor viewed as sinful pride. I myself am strict not to rely on it. However all those not restrained by a neder derived from custom if they wish to utilize this leniency is not considered ridiculing prohibitions. .A person who was strict 3 times it constitutes a neder unless he was strict only because he thought he was required to by halacha. He does not have to annul the mistaken neder
