Dr. Michael Salamon: Getting Away With Abuse

Jewish Week

Just last week a New York State licensed teacher, an admitted and convicted child molester, received what is being referred to as a sweetheart sentence for his crimes. This 31-year-old charedi man sodomized a 6-year-old, bit his penis and among other threats put a gun to his head and warned that he would kill him and his family if he told anyone what happened. Yet this perpetrator received a sentence of probation from the court. No jail time for him. And he did not even have to register as a sex offender, something that under other circumstances would have at a minimum occurred.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that the district attorney prosecuting this case was willing to make this deal, allowing a misdemeanor plea, despite the fact that the perpetrator was originally charged with first-degree felony sexual acts against a minor because there may have been no other option. It is reasonable to assume that either one of two scenarios played out prior to sentencing: either the parents of the 6-year-old molested boy did not want the child to testify, or the community put significant pressure on the family to not testify against the perpetrator.

This is not mere conjecture; it is based upon the history of avoidance of reporting to the authorities within this particular segment of the Orthodox community. Many cases have not even made it to a courtroom for these reasons and the result is that sexual predators have been able avoid any prosecution. Despite a law requiring anyone who provides health care or teaches children to report any reasonable suspicion of abuse to the authorities, reporting in this community rarely happens.

This case was resolved the same week that the first Kol v’Oz conference was held. As reported in The Jewish Week (“This Is Something We Can’t Ignore,” Feb. 10), Kol v’Oz is an organization whose mandate is to bring together international professionals from across the Jewish world to prevent child sexual abuse in the worldwide Jewish community.

I was among the presenters and attendees at this important gathering and had the opportunity to ask some questions of religious leaders who presented their perspectives on the problem, suggested interventions and their rationale for the best way to react to protect children.

In virtually all cases we discussed it was clear that a state law exists that more or less indicates that those caring for children who suspect child abuse must report it. This is true in Israel, where everyone is considered a mandated reporter. In the State of New York, the State Department of Education issued a clear ruling that even in private schools, anyone who works with children must report suspected abuse. This ruling by the department has no room for delaying or discussing a suspicion with anyone but the properly trained authorities. This makes a great deal of sense as it is only those professionals who know how to conduct a proper investigation who should do so. Further, any delay allows a perpetrator time to continue to offend, threaten those who he or she has already abused and make excuses for previous offenses.

There are those in the Jewish world, perhaps now a minority view, who argue that prior to reporting to the authorities, a rabbi should be consulted. When asked at the Kol v’Oz conference about this view, one rabbi would not take a position against it. My follow-up question to him was about licensed professionals who by law are mandated to report their suspicions immediately. Were these professionals, I asked, also supposed to ask a rabbi first or were they required to follow the law and report immediately?

The response I received was disconcerting. The rabbi started out by saying that he would not answer the question. He went on to suggest that the law was open to interpretation and a case could be made that a report may not have to be made instantly. I had several follow-up questions that I could not ask and they bother me still: Who assumes the responsibility of protecting the child during the delay, and if the state chooses to prosecute the professional for not reporting as required, will the Jewish community pay the legal fees? [...]

Stephen Colbert talks about the Trump administration: Is this comedy or tragedy?

Mike Flynn might be done – but Trump’s nightmare has just begun

Irish Times

Cast your mind back to four months ago, when Donald Trump was just a long-shot candidate with a hot-headed adviser by the name of Michael Flynn.

It was the homestretch of the presidential election and national security wasn’t some side issue, mentioned in passing. Trump promised he would be a tough national security president with the toughest national security team.

In fact his closing argument was that Hillary Clinton couldn’t be trusted with the country’s national security because, he claimed, she couldn’t be trusted with her private email server.

It sounded ridiculous at the time. But after a month of this gonzo president, our memories are already fading. Propaganda will do that to you, as George Orwell warned us all in 1984. Sometimes two and two are four. Sometimes they are five.

Still, it’s true that the Trump campaign seized on the preposterous FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails to issue this press release: “Clinton’s Careless Use of a Secret Server Put National Security At Risk.”

Less than a week later, at their second presidential debate, Trump took the attack one step further, threatening to jail Clinton if he ever took power: “She didn’t know the word – the letter C on a document. Right? She didn’t even know what that word – what that letter meant.”

Let’s just pretend that Trump knew that C means Confidential, not Classified, as he was suggesting. Let’s even play along with the notion that Clinton’s server was a security risk to the country.

What do Michael Flynn and Mar-a-Lago mean for national security?

To the fee-paying members of Trump’s Florida club, it means greater access to watch the president and Japanese prime minister reacting to the news of a North Korean missile launch in real time: huddling over documents and making phone calls on cellphones in public.

Or as one guest, Richard DeAgazio, put it on Facebook: “HOLY MOLY!!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan. The Prime Minister Abe of Japan huddles with his staff and the President is on the phone with Washington DC…Wow…the center of the action!!!”

Never mind classified information. Here is a president who is so careless that he can’t handle a national security incident in a confidential manner.

This kind of spectacle does wonders for the fees at Mar-a-Lago, where initiation has just doubled from $100,000 to $200,000 since its owner became president. But it does little for the national security of the country or its allies.

In case you think this is just one small lapse over dinner, Mr DeAgazio also posted to Facebook photos of the military aide carrying the nuclear codes that are frighteningly close to Trump’s trigger-happy mouth.

These are just minor details in the life of a commander-in-chief whose national security adviser was himself a national security risk.

Michael Flynn was so careless about his cellphone conversations, and so mistaken about his foreign policy priorities, that he called the Russian ambassador to the US before taking office.

Clearly clueless about how such conversations are transcribed by all parties, he talked about President Obama’s sanctions against Russia for interfering with the election that ended with Trump in the White House.

Then he denied talking about those sanctions at all, allegedly misleading the vice-president Mike Pence, who in turn misled the American people on national television about the same call.

Based on those reports that he misled the vice-president, Flynn could have been compromised by Russian blackmail. But then again, the Russians might already have enough ammunition against him if he accepted secret payments from the Kremlin when he traveled to Moscow in 2015.[...]

We can’t be sure what’s going on underneath Trump’s coiffured combover. Unless he’s watching cable news and simultaneously tweeting about his thoughts in real time.

Instead we have to rely on his public comments about Vladimir Putin’s Russia and his own United States. Comments like the ones he made barely a week ago, when Bill O’Reilly of Fox News dared to suggest that Putin was a killer. “We’ve got a lot of killers,” said Trump. “What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump is correct: his version of America is not so innocent. It’s the kind of place where a candidate can accuse his opponent of running a foundation that is “a criminal enterprise” for accepting money from foreign governments. Then, once that candidate becomes president, invite foreign governments to give his businesses money in Washington DC and Mar-a-Lago.

Perhaps Trump’s real problem with the Clinton Foundation wasn’t about Hillary’s character. It was just professional jealousy.

The only things protecting Trump from impeachment for his egregious behaviour are his poll numbers and the false sense of security they give to Republicans in Congress.

Sadly for Trump, those numbers are tumbling faster than the ratings of Celebrity Apprentice. In just three weeks, Trump has lost 5 points in his Gallup approval polls to hit 40%.

It took Richard Nixon four years to reach this low point, just a year before he quit the presidency. At this rate, Trump will reach Nixon’s all-time low of 24% approval before the end of April.

We have barely begun to scrape the surface of Trump’s fatal compromises with Russia. It was only last week that US officials say they corroborated some of the communications in the famous British dossier detailing those compromising situations.[...]

Lower Back Ache? Be Active and Wait It Out, New Guidelines Say

NY Times

Dr. James Weinstein, a back pain specialist and chief executive of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System, has some advice for most people with lower back pain: Take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning.

On Monday, the American College of Physicians published updated guidelines that say much the same. In making the new recommendations for the treatment of most people with lower back pain, the group is bucking what many doctors do and changing its previous guidelines, which called for medication as first-line therapy.

Dr. Nitin Damle, president of the group’s board of regents and a practicing internist, said pills, even over-the-counter pain relievers and anti-inflammatories, should not be the first choice. “We need to look at therapies that are nonpharmacological first,” he said. “That is a change.”

The recommendations come as the United States is struggling with an epidemic of opioid addiction that often begins with a simple prescription for ailments like back pain. In recent years, a number of states have enacted measures aimed at curbing prescription painkillers. The problem has also led many doctors around the country to reassess prescribing practices.

The group did not address surgery. Its focus was on noninvasive treatment.

The new guidelines said that doctors should avoid prescribing opioid painkillers for relief of back pain and suggested that before patients try anti-inflammatories or muscle relaxants, they should try alternative therapies like exercise, acupuncture, massage therapy or yoga. Doctors should reassure their patients that they will get better no matter what treatment they try, the group said. The guidelines also said that steroid injections were not helpful, and neither was acetaminophen, like Tylenol, although other over-the-counter pain relievers like aspirin, naproxen or ibuprofen could provide some relief.

Dr. Weinstein, who was not an author of the guidelines, said patients have to stay active and wait it out. “Back pain has a natural course that does not require intervention,” he said.

In fact, for most of the people with acute back pain — defined as present for four weeks or less that does not radiate down the leg — there is no need to see a doctor at all, said Dr. Rick Deyo, a spine researcher and professor at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Ore., and an author of the new guidelines.

“For acute back pain, the analogy is to the common cold,” Dr. Deyo said. “It is very common and very annoying when it happens. But most of the time it will not result in anything major or serious. ”

Even those with chronic back pain — lasting at least 12 weeks — should start with nonpharmacological treatments, the guidelines say. If patients still want medication, they can try over-the-counter drugs like ibuprofen or aspirin.

Scans, like an M.R.I., for diagnosis are worse than useless for back pain patients, members of the group said in telephone interviews. The results can be misleading, showing what look like abnormalities that actually are not related to the pain.[...]

It is surprising, some experts in back pain say, how often patients are helped by treatments that are not medical, even by a placebo that patients are told at the start is really a placebo.

Dr. Standaert cited a study in which patients with chronic low back pain were offered a placebo, and were told it was a placebo, along with their usual treatment — often an anti-inflammatory drug like ibuprofen or naproxen. Or, the patients remained with their usual treatment alone.

Those taking the placebo reported less pain and disability than those in the control group who did not take it. The placebo effect, although modest, was about the same as the effect in studies testing nonpharmacological treatments for back pain like acupuncture, massage or chiropractic manipulations.

Many people with chronic back pain tend to shut down, avoiding their usual activities, afraid of making things worse, Dr. Standaert said. Helping them is not a matter of prescribing drugs but rather teaching them to set goals and work toward returning to an active life, even if they still have pain.

“They have to believe their life can get better,” Dr. Standaert said. “They have to believe they can get to a better state.”[...]

Chastisment should be from love not from superiority and contempt

דף על הדף ערכין דף טז עמוד ב

בגמ': עד היכן תוכחה כו' עד קללה כו' עד נזיפה.

בס' אמת ליעקב להג"ר יעקב קמינצקי (פ' ויצא ופ' קדושים) הקשה מהו כוונת שאלת הגמרא עד היכן תוכחה, וכי מה זה יהי' שונה מכל המצוות כמו תפלין ותפלה? ועוד צ"ב למה אם חבירו נוזף בו או מקללו - כבר נפטר הוא מחיוב תוכחה?

ותירץ דגדר תוכחה אינו מדין בין אדם למקום, טעות הוא לחשוב שמצות תוכחה הוא שכיבכול אנחנו ה"שוטרים" של הקדוש ברוך הוא, אלא הוא דין "בין אדם לחברו" - לאהוב את הזולת ולדאוג לו לטובת נשמתו ורוחניות שלו, להובילו לדרך הישר, שזהו עיקר החיים שלו. וז"ל הרמב"ם (הל' דעות פ"ו ה"ז): הרואה חבירו שחטא כו' מצוה להחזירו למוטב כו', וידבר לו בנחת ובלשון רכה, "ויודיעו שאינו אומר לו - אלא לטובתו" עכ"ל.

ולפ"ז מובן שאלת הגמרא עד היכן חיוב תוכחה, דאם העובר לא אכפת לו מעצמו, אם כן יש לדון טובא עד היכן יש החיוב להובילו לדרך הישר.

והמסקנא הוא עד כדי נזיפה וקללה, והטעם הוא, שאין זה "שיעור" בחיוב תוכחה, אלא שאם חבירו נוזף בו ומקללו, או אז "סימן" הוא, דחסר בעצם מהות התוכחה, דאילו הי' חבירו יודע מכיר ומרגש שהמוכיח חבר הוא לו ורוצה הוא אך ורק בטובתו, לעולם לא הי' מתריס נגדו, צועק עליו ומקללו.

ובס' ילקוט דברי אסף (ערך תוכחה אות ג') מביא מהרע"ב במסכת אבות (פ"ב מ"ט) על המשנה "חבר טוב", שמבאר דהיינו מי שמוכיח אותו כשרואה אותו עושה דבר שלא כהוגן, והיינו שהתוכחה צריכה להיות נובע מאהבת זולתו, וכמו הרואה שור חבירו וחמורו תועה בדרך מצווה להשיב לו, כן הרואה חבירו עצמו תועה בדרכים נלוזות, צריך להוכיחו ולקרבו לאבינו שבשמים.

ובזה מבאר הסמיכות "לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך - הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך" (ויקרא י"ט י"ז) דהתוכחה לא יהא מצד עליונות וטינא, אלא בדיוק להיפוך מצד אהבתו וחמלתו עליו, יחוס ויחמול על נפש חבירו, שלא ישגה באולת. 

Accused Hitman Points Finger At Dan Markel In-Law In Jailhouse Confession

Tallahasse Democrat

Interviews with inmates who spent time with Sigfredo Garcia in the Leon County Jail may corroborate what one of his co-defendants and investigators have said all along about the death of Dan Markel — that Garcia was allegedly recruited by the law professor’s in-laws in a murder for hire plot.

The interviews, with two inmates at the Leon County Jail, reveal that while housed in L Pod, 34-year-old Garcia opened up about the Markel investigation and how he ended up driving to Tallahassee from Miami to allegedly shoot the Florida State legal scholar.

Garcia, his girlfriend Katherine Magbanua and Luis Rivera were all charged with Markel’s July 2014 shooting. In October, Rivera pleaded to second-degree murder. His statement, which he provided in exchange for a 19-year prison sentence that runs concurrently with a 12-year federal term he already was serving, led to Magbanua’s arrest.

Garcia is still awaiting trial.

Police have asserted that Markel’s former in-laws, chiefly his ex-wife Wendi Adelson’s brother and mother, Charlie and Donna Adelson, were involved in planning and paying to have the legal scholar killed.

Markel’s murder in broad daylight, police contend, stemmed from the couple’s acrimonious divorce and the desire of the Adelson family to move their two young boys to South Florida.

The Adelsons remain suspects in the murder-for-hire plot, said Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman. They have denied any involvement and have not been charged.

One inmate, in a recorded interview with Tallahassee Police investigators, said Garcia started to tell his fellow inmates about his involvement in the crime around the time of Magbanua’s Oct. 1 arrest.

Garcia said he was propositioned by his girlfriend and mother of his two children, who had been asked by a woman named “Don Adelson” to kill someone for money, the inmate told investigators. [...]

Trump's National Security Advisor M. Flynn - resigns in disgrace for lying about contacts with Russia

Washington Post

Fired by one American commander-in-chief for insubordination, Michael Flynn has now delivered his resignation to another.

President Donald Trump had been weighing the fate of his national security adviser, a hard-charging, feather-ruffling retired lieutenant general who just three weeks into the new administration had put himself in the center of a controversy. Flynn resigned late Monday.

At issue was Flynn’s contact with Moscow’s ambassador to the United States. Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak appear to have discussed U.S. sanctions late last year, raising questions about whether he was freelancing on foreign policy while President Barack Obama was still in office and whether he misled Trump officials about the calls.

The center of a storm is a familiar place for Flynn. His military career ended when Obama dismissed him as defense intelligence chief. Flynn claimed he was pushed out for holding tougher views than the Obama administration about Islamic extremism. But a former senior U.S. official who worked with Flynn said the firing was for insubordination, after the Army lieutenant general failed to follow guidance from superiors.

Once out of government, he disappeared into the murky world of mid-level defense contractors and international influence peddlers. He shocked his former colleagues a little more than a year later by appearing at a Moscow banquet headlined by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Given a second chance by Trump, Flynn, a lifelong if apolitical Democrat, became a trusted and eager confidant of the Republican candidate, joining anti-Hillary Clinton campaign chants of “Lock Her Up” and tweeting that “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”

As national security adviser, Flynn required no Senate confirmation vote or public vetting of his record, and his tenure was brief but turbulent.

The Washington Post and other U.S. newspapers, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported last week that Flynn made explicit references to U.S. sanctions on Russia in conversations with Kislyak. One of the calls took place on Dec. 29, the day Obama announced new penalties against Russia’s top intelligence agencies over allegations they meddled in the U.S. election process to help Trump win.

While it’s not unusual for incoming administrations to have discussions with foreign governments before taking office, the repeated contacts just as the U.S. was pulling the trigger on sanctions suggests Trump’s team might have helped shape Russia’s response. They also contradicted denials about such discussions of the sanctions by several Trump administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence.

Flynn later backed off his adamant denials. On Friday, he said he “no recollection” of discussing sanctions policy but “can’t be certain,” according to an official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Seahawks' Michael Bennett withdraws from Israel trip, citing sympathy for Palestine

Chicago Tribune

Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett has withdrawn at the last minute from a sponsored trip to Israel, saying the government there is using him for a public-relations initiative and that he sympathizes with Palestinians.

Bennett was to be part of a delegation that is scheduled to arrive Monday and includes Seahawks teammate Cliff Avril, Delanie Walker of the Tennessee Titans, Mychal Kendricks of the Philadelphia Eagles, Cameron Jordan of the New Orleans Saints, Calais Campbell of the Arizona Cardinals, Carlos Hyde of the San Francisco 49ers, Dan Williams of the Oakland Raiders and Justin Forsett of the Denver Broncos. Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills tweeted that he also will not make the trip.

The trip, as Israeli Cabinet minister Gilad Erdan put it, is to combat "the false incitement campaign that is being waged against Israel around the world," with the players serving as goodwill ambassadors. Erdan, who heads the ministry for strategic affairs and public diplomacy, had no comment on Bennett's decision Sunday.

The visit to Israel will include stops at a hospital, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and a meeting with the "Black Hebrews," a community of African-Americans who live in southern Israel.

"I will not be used in such a manner," Bennett wrote in a letter addressed "Dear World" and posted on Twitter. "When I do go to Israel - and I do plan to go - it will be to see not only Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza so I can see how the Palestinians, who have called this land home for thousands of years, live their lives." [...]

"When you have a chance to change the world, you change the world," the Patriots tight end said. "It's not like, 'Here's my chance to change the world, I'm going to pass that up.' If I have a chance to change the world, I'm going to do everything I can to change the world."

Jerry Sandusky's son, 41, accused of child sex assault

CBS News

The 41-year-old adopted son of Jerry Sandusky has been arrested by Pennsylvania State Police and charged with sexually assaulting a child, reports CBS affiliate WTAJ.

Jeffrey Sandusky was arraigned on charges Monday afternoon, the station reports.

His father Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State assistant football coach, was convicted in 2012 on multiple counts of child sex abuse and sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.

State police began investigating the younger Sandusky in November 2016 after a child claimed to have received text messages from him, including some that asked for naked photographs, WTAJ reports. State police tell the station Jeffrey Sandusky was dating the child’s mother and had lived in their home for about five years.

The explicit text messages where shared with the child’s father, who then notified police. According to a criminal complaint obtained by the station, a second child was also allegedly abused dating back to 2013.

The station reports that after the allegations came to light, Sandusky was asked to leave the home.

Jeffrey Sandusky is charged with statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, photographing, videographing, depicting on computer or filming sexual acts, and unlawful contact with a minor, reports CBS affiliate WKBN. [...]

Trump makes false claim that he lost New Hampshire because of voter fraud - he provided no evidence

Washington Post

On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, President Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller wasn’t interested in shedding light on reality. If anything, he was running around turning lights off. Inadvertently, though, he did offer one bit of insight into what’s happening at the White House.

Miller was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about a comment Trump made in a meeting with senators last week, where Trump claimed that he had narrowly lost the presidential contest in New Hampshire because of voter fraud. Before we get into the exchange, though, let’s evaluate Trump’s claim.

Trump lost the state by 2,700 votes — a narrow margin but in a small state. It came down to about 0.4 percent of votes cast. Trump reportedly claimed that the difference was because of people being bused in from Massachusetts. He also claimed that former senator Kelly Ayotte (R) lost her race for the same reason.

That’s weird, though, because Ayotte lost only by 1,000 votes. What’s more, Hillary Clinton earned about 6,000 fewer votes in the state than did the Democratic Senate candidate, Maggie Hassan. Trump got about 7,800 fewer votes than Ayotte. So how does that work? People came in to vote just for Hassan but not Clinton? Did some illegal voters come in to vote for Ayotte but not Trump? In the same election, New Hampshirites elected Chris Sununu as governor. He’s a Republican. Were the illegal voters told to cast votes only for Senate and the presidency? This is a complicated operation, to be sure.

Fergus Cullen, who ran the state Republican Party in 2007 and 2008, expressed skepticism about the bused-in-voters claim on Twitter. “I will pay $1000 to 1st person proving even 1 out-of-state person took bus from MA 2 any NH polling place last Election Day,” he wrote. It’s a safe bet; a review of a decade of news reports on Nexis about voter fraud arrests in the state turned up the following:

A man from Manchester, N.H., who said he lived in Salem, N.H., to vote there.
A state representative who tried to cover up the fact that he’d moved out of his district.
The end.

With that background, here is Miller’s defense of Trump’s claim to Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me move on, though, to the question of voter fraud, as well. President Trump again this week suggested in a meeting with senators that thousands of illegal voters were bused from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and that’s what caused his defeat in the state of New Hampshire, also the defeat of Senator Kelly Ayotte.

That has provoked a response from a member of the Federal Election Commission, Ellen Weintraub, who says, “I call upon the president to immediately share New Hampshire voter fraud evidence so that his allegations may be investigated promptly.”

Here’s Weintraub’s tweet.

Follow
Ellen L Weintraub @EllenLWeintraub
I call upon @POTUS to immediately share NH voter-fraud evidence so that his allegations may be investigated promptly https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5381420/ELW-POTUS-voter-fraud-statement.pdf …
12:41 AM - 11 Feb 2017
5,979 5,979 Retweets 7,937 7,937 likes

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do have that evidence?

MILLER: I’ve actually, having worked before on a campaign in New Hampshire, I can tell you that this issue of busing voters into New Hampshire is widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire politics. It’s very real. It’s very serious. This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence.

A nationally televised program seems like a very good place to offer evidence to back up a contentious claim made by a president. It seems, in fact, like this is the reason that Miller is offered the chance to speak at all.

MILLER: But I can tell you this, voter fraud is a serious problem in this country. You have millions of people who are registered in two states or who are dead who are registered to vote. And you have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic.

Three claims here. First, that there are millions of people who are registered in multiple states. Second, that dead people are still registered. Both of those things are true. (Among those registered to vote in two places, by the way, are Trump’s son-in-law, treasury nominee, daughter and press secretary.) But that’s not voter fraud. It’s a sloppy registration system — and indifference from people whose first instincts when relatives die is not to ensure that the registrar of voters is informed.

The third claim is that 14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote, which is based on an academic analysis released several years ago. It has been subsequently shown to be problematic. As anyone paying attention to the issue should know.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You can’t make a — hold on a second. You just claimed again that there was illegal voting in New Hampshire, people bused in from the state of Massachusetts.

Do you have any evidence to back that up?

MILLER: I’m saying anybody — George, go to New Hampshire. Talk to anybody who has worked in politics there for a long time. Everybody is aware of the problem in New Hampshire with respect to —

If this is a rampant problem that has riddled New Hampshire politics, why has no losing candidate ever sought to overturn the results of an election by citing this horrible problem? If I spent a year running for office and then lost because of widespread illegal activity, my response would probably not be to shrug and say c’est la vie.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m asking you as the White House senior — hold on a second. I’m asking you as the White House senior policy adviser. The president made a statement, saying he was the victim of voter fraud, people are being bused from —

MILLER: And the president — the president — the president was.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any evidence?

MILLER: — issue — if this is an issue that interests you, then we can talk about it more in the future. And we now have — our governance is beginning to get stood up. But we have a Department of Justice and we have more officials.

An issue of voter fraud is something we’re going to be looking at very seriously and very hard. [...]

MILLER: But the reality is, is that we know for a fact, you have massive numbers of noncitizens registered to vote in this country. Nobody disputes that. And many, many highly qualified people, like Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, have looked deeply into this issue and have confirmed it to be true and have put together evidence.

And I suggest you invite Kris Kobach onto your show and he can walk you through some of the evidence of voter fraud —

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have — you have —

MILLER: — in greater detail.

STEPHANOPOULOS: — just for the record, you have provided absolutely no evidence. [...]

Pledge Allegiance to the Trump Brand - The new normal in the White House is Trump profits before country.

update  NY Times Trump’s Defense of Ivanka Reflects Approach That Could hurt the Economy

Ivanka Trump’s business just absorbed some blows. But more damaging than Nordstrom’s decision to drop her clothing line might have been the reaction from her father, the president. His lashing out at the upscale department store seems to reflect an approach to industrial policy that often brings unintended consequences.

In response to Nordstrom’s decision, President Trump took to Twitter to complain:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

5:51 PM

Lest the message be unclear, his official presidential account dutifully retweeted the complaint. And his son Donald Trump Jr.followed up with reports that supporters were planning to boycott the store.

Such actions, if meant to disrupt Nordstrom’s business, could be a signal to other retailers that it’ll be costly to cut off existing business relationships with the Trump family. This kind of bullying could have unintended consequences.

Put yourself in the shoes of a purchasing manager considering adding the Ivanka Trump Collection to your stores. Even if you think her products are excellent, Mr. Trump’s outburst provides an incentive not to stock them. After all, if it doesn’t work out, who wants to be in the cross-hairs of an easily angered president with 24.3 million Twitter followers and the power of the regulatory state? It might be far safer to do business with someone else. 

 And when you make it more expensive to exit a relationship, you make it more expensive to enter it. That extra cost can create a greater harm. It’s a lesson that many European governments have learned the hard way. Research shows that efforts to boost employment by making it difficult or costly to fire workers have backfired. The prospect of a costly and lengthy legal battle for laid-off employees makes it less appealing to hire new workers. The result has been that higher firing costs have led to to weaker productivity, sclerotic labor markets and higher unemployment.

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US News and World Report

"I pledge allegiance, to the Trump brand, and to the United States of America."

That's the direct order coming from the White House, and all Americans and corporations should take heed.

After the luxury retailer Nordstrom made the decision to stop carrying Ivanka Trump's label in its stores, as doing so was no longer profitable, the new president took action:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

5:51 PM - 8 Feb 2017

Adviser Kellyanne Conway took it even further on Thursday, telling "Fox and Friends" viewers, "It's a wonderful line. I own some of it. … I'm going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody." Meanwhile, White House press secretary Sean Spicer called Nordstrom's decision "a direct attack on his policies and her name."

Catch their drift? Private business decisions that hurt the Trump family bottom-line are seen as an official affront to the White House, and it's up to all of us as consumers to make sure the Trump brand is profitable.

The unabashed anger from the administration shows Trump was never serious when he and his family promised to separate their personal businesses from the business of running the country; they've been playing us for fools all along.

vanka pledged last month that upon her father taking office, she would resign from managing both the Trump Organization and her personal clothing and accessories brand. But ProPublica found that despite the promises, she's done neither – she hasn't even filed the appropriate paperwork in many cases.

Trump has been in office less than three weeks, and already his immediate family has given every indication they expect to profit off the presidency. Melania Trump specified in a defamation lawsuit that her new title of first lady gave her a "unique, one-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to garner "multi-million dollar business relationships." Taxpayers paid nearly $100,000 for Eric Trump to fly to Uruguay to promote the Trump Organization last month. The Department of Defense will soon pay the Trump Organization rent for space in Trump Tower, in order to "support the POTUS at his residence in the building."

Despite Trump's flashy press conference last month, complete with (possibly blank) piles of paper and folders, during which he promised to place his business holdings in a trust run in part by his son Don Jr., new documents show the trust specifies the assets therein are for the "exclusive benefit" of Trump himself, whose Social Security number still holds the accounts. He'll reportedly continue to receive updates on the profitability of his company. And if he'll reflexively attack Nordstrom for decisions on his daughter's company, it follows that he'll react in kind to perceived slights against his own organization.[...]

Beyond the glaring conflict of interest and economic blackmail the administration's response imposes on American businesses, it might also have broken the law. Federal law prohibits public office holders from endorsing any product or using public office for private gain. Even if the president is immune from legal restrictions on conflicts of interest (which is still up for debate in some cases), advisers like Conway are assuredly not.

Whatever the legal outcome, this appears to be the new normal from the White House: Trumps before country. For anyone looking to put themselves in the president's good graces, a good place to start would be showing up in Ivanka Trump accessories and shoes.

Trump's lies again! Tells Sheriff's group that the murder rate in U.S. is the highest in 47 years

Washington Post   CBS News

President Trump met Tuesday morning with a group of sheriffs from the National Sheriffs Association, a group that consists of more than 3,000 sheriffs from around the country. And to this sworn group of law enforcement veterans, with reporters taking notes, he again repeated a falsehood about the murder rate in America.

Trump told the sheriffs, “the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years.” He blamed the news media for not publicizing this development, then added, “But the murder rate is the highest it’s been in, I guess, 45 to 47 years.”

The country’s murder rate is not the highest it’s been in 47 years. It is almost at its lowest point, actually, according to the FBI, which gathers statistics every year from police departments around the country.

The murder rate is defined as the number of murders and non-negligent homicides per 100,000 residents. Beginning in 1957, when the rate was 4.0 murders per 100,000 residents, the rate rose steadily to a high of 10.2 in 1980. It then steadily dropped, to 7.4 in 1996, to 6.1 in 2006, to 4.4 in 2014. It went up in 2015 to 4.9. But that is less than half the murder rate of 1980, while the population has risen from 226 million in 1980 to 321 million in 2015.[...]

Trump Administration - "our friends in the White House "- Lists 78 'Under-reported' Terror Attacks - but ominously leaves out attacks in Israel

Haaretz

List includes attacks – such as the Bataclan attack and San Bernardino – that were widely covered by media. No reason was given how list was compiled, and why Israel not included.

The White House on Monday published a list of terror attacks from recent years that it claims were "under-reported" by the American media, after President Trump claimed in a speech that the media was refraining from reporting on terror attacks. The list includes 78 incidents worldwide, but notably, doesn't mention even one terror attack in Israel. 

The list published by the White House included a number of terror attacks that received wide coverage and dominated the headlines in the U.S. and around the world for days, contradicting the president's claim that the media was ignoring or downplaying terror attacks. 

For example, one event appearing on the list is the November 2015 attack in Paris which led to the death of 129 people and was the most covered news story in the world at the time. The White House did not include an explanation or any evidence to support the claim that this event did not receive wide coverage in the U.S. or international media. 

Another terror attack in Paris mentioned in the report was the attack on a Kosher supermarket in the French capital in January 2015, which occurred on the same week as the attack against the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. At the time, there were indeed complaints from French Jews that the attack on the supermarket received less attention than the attack on Charlie Hebdo, but nevertheless, it was an event that received widespread coverage in the U.S. and around the world. [...]

While the list includes dozens of attacks that were carried out in countries all across the world, it doesn't mention even one such attack against Israel, a country where dozens of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks have led to the deaths of Israeli citizens, policemen and soldiers in the last two years. The administration didn't clarify on Monday how the list was composed, and why it made sense to include widely-covered events like the Paris and San Bernardino attacks but leave out any reference to Israel. 

Israeli officials and supporters of Israel have been complaining for years that the international media is downplaying or minimizing terror attacks against the Jewish state. Another frequent complaint heard from Israel has been that the headlines chosen by certain international media organizations do not accurately reflect the nature of these terror attacks. 

Unlike Israel, other Middle Eastern countries were included in the list, including Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Algeria and Tunisia. Some of these attacks, such as the June 2016 attack on Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, dominated headlines around the world when they took place, while others, that included much less casualties, did not. 

On Tuesday morning, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a statement saying that "The White House's criticism of Western media of the 78 terrorist attacks deserves praise." The statement went on to attack the Western media for its criticism of Egypt's security services, following their failure to prevent attacks within the country. 

On Tuesday morning, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a statement saying that "The White House's criticism of Western media of the 78 terrorist attacks deserves praise." The statement went on to attack the Western media for its criticism of Egypt's security services, following their failure to prevent attacks within the country. [...]

Joe Schreiber - Jewish messianic - get 30 years for Florida mosque fire

Times of Israel   An ex-convict who posted anti-Islamic rants online pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday for setting fire to a mosque that the Orlando nightclub shooter attended occasionally.

Joseph Schreiber, dressed in a burnt orange jumpsuit, his wrists and ankles shackled, pleaded no contest during Monday’s hearing before Circuit Judge Steven Levin. A no contest plea is treated the same as a guilty plea. Schreiber answered Levin’s questions in a clear, unwavering voice before sentencing. He was also ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution although damages exceeded $100,000. Because he was declared a habitual offender, he could have received a life sentence.

He had confessed to detectives that he set fire to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce last September 11, the 15th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The damage to the mosque was so extensive that the leaders recently announced that it will move.

Omar Mateen was killed by police after opening fire at the Pulse nightclub on June 12 in a rampage that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded, making it the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen professed allegiance to the Islamic State group. His father is among roughly 100 people who regularly attend the mosque.

Schreiber, who is Jewish, posted on Facebook last July that “All Islam is radical” and that all Muslims should be treated as terrorists and criminals.

Prosecutor Steve Gosnell said Schreiber, 32, confessed to detectives that he set the fire, saying he believed Muslims “are trying to infiltrate our government” and that “the teaching of Islam should be completely, completely illegal.”

Before he was sentenced, Schreiber read a written statement entitled “From the Mountaintops, Stop the Killings” where he said the fire was not caused by hate but by his anxiety. He feared that Florida could be the site of another 9-11, Boston Marathon bombing or Pulse nightclub shooting, he said.

“My message is this to all the Muslim communities on the face of the Earth — make peace with America and make peace with Israel and stop the killings, stop the attacks,” he said.[...]

Ralph Alfonso said Schreiber joined a Messianic Jewish group he led because he was looking for a place to fit in. Messianic Jews follow Jewish law and the Torah but also believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He said Schreiber sometimes would say something negative about Muslims, but “we would tell him that’s not what we believe, that it is not godly.”[...]