386 gymnasts allege sexual abuse over 20 years, report says

CBS

Over the past 20 years 368 gymnasts have alleged some form of sexual assault,according to an investigation conducted by the Indianapolis Star/USAToday.

The report contains details about various forms of sexual abuse against gymnasts at the hands of coaches, gym owners and other adults working in gymnastics in the U.S, CBS Sports reports.

The nine-month investigation concluded that coaches found to have committed abuse were allowed to move from gym to gym, and that USA Gymnastics often turned a blind eye to the horrific infractions. Victims also were often met with skepticism when they reported abuse, the report concludes.

According to the report, the “vast majority of officials put children’s well-being ahead of business and competition, some officials at every level have not.”

The report claims that USA Gymnastics was negligent in its tracking of predatory coaches, who sometimes went without any form of punishment. Coaches suspsected of sexual abuse were allowed to keep their jobs as long as they accepted special monitioring, while others were allowed to finish the season. And, in 2009, USA Gymnastics named Doug Boger Coach of the Year, despite being under investigation for alleged sexual abuse. [...]

Calif. sex offender found guilty of murdering 4 women while being tracked by GPS

CBS

A California sex offender was found guilty Thursday of killing four women while he was being tracked by GPS. He now may face the death penalty.

Steven Dean Gordon was found guilty of four counts of murder for the attacks in 2013 and 2014. Orange County jurors only deliberated for about an hour before issuing the verdict. They also found true special circumstances of murder during a kidnapping and multiple murders, which will make Gordon eligible for a death sentence. [...]

Authorities said the 47-year-old Gordon and 30-year-old sex offender Franc Cano abducted and killed four women. Prosecutors charged both men with rape but later dropped the rape charges against Gordon.

Investigators said they pieced together the case after the body of missing 21-year-old Jarrae Nykkole Estepp was found at a recycling center in Anaheim. Authorities said the men’s tracking devices linked them to the disappearance of the women. [...]

Gordon and Cano were registered sex offenders after being convicted in separate cases of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14. Gordon was convicted in 1992 and also has a 2002 kidnapping conviction, while Cano’s conviction dates back to 2008.

At the time of the killings, Gordon was living in an RV in an industrial area of Anaheim where the men brought their victims and wore a GPS device during at least three of the murders, according to grand jury testimony.

Police believe Cano and Gordon knew each other since at least 2010, when Cano cut off his GPS device and fled to Alabama, where he was arrested with Gordon. Two years later, they again cut off their monitoring devices and boarded a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas using fake names before being arrested two weeks later by federal agents. [...]

Obama Says U.S. Will Retaliate for Russia’s Election Meddling - Trump twists the truth again

NY Times

President Obama said on Thursday that the United States would retaliate for Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election, asserting that “we need to take action,” and “we will.”

The comments, in an interview with NPR, indicate that Mr. Obama, in his remaining weeks in office, will pursue either economic sanctions against Russia or perhaps some kind of response in cyberspace.

Mr. Obama spoke as President-elect Donald J. Trump on Thursday again refused to accept Moscow’s culpability, asking on Twitter why the administration had waited “so long to act” if Russia “or some other entity” had carried out cyberattacks.

The president discussed the potential for American retaliation with Steve Inskeep of NPR for an interview to air on Friday morning. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our election,” Mr. Obama said, “we need to take action. And we will — at the time and place of our choosing.”

The White House strongly suggested before the election that Mr. Obama would make use of sanctions authority for cyberattacks that he had given to himself by executive order. But he did not, in part out of concern that action before the election could lead to an escalated conflict.[...]

On Thursday, pressure grew on Mr. Trump in Congress for him to acknowledge intelligence agencies’ conclusions that Russia was behind the hacking. But aides said that was all but impossible before the Electoral College convenes on Monday to formalize his victory.

Mr. Trump has said privately in recent days that he believes there are people in the C.I.A. who are out to get him and are working to delegitimize his presidency, according to people briefed on the conversations who described them on the condition of anonymity.

The president-elect’s suspicions have been stoked by the efforts of a group of Democratic electors, as well as one Republican, who called this week for an intelligence briefing on the Russian hacking, raising the prospect that votes in the Electoral College might be changed.

In his Twitter posting on Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested that the government’s conclusions on Russian hacking were a case of sour grapes by Mr. Obama. The president-elect falsely stated that Mr. Obama had waited until after the election to raise the issue.

“Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Mr. Trump asked, although the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., formally blamed Russia on Oct. 7 for cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other organizations.

In September, meeting privately in China with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Obama not only complained, the White House says, but also warned him of consequences if the Russian activity did not stop.

Among those in his own party, Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the evidence that Russia was the perpetrator was raising growing concerns, with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying he would not vote for Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, unless Mr. Tillerson addressed Russia’s role during his confirmation hearings.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump’s stated doubts about Russia’s involvement will subside after Monday’s Electoral College vote. He and his allies have been concerned that the reports of Russian hacking have been intended to peel away votes from him, although even Democrats have not gone so far as to say the election was illegitimate.

“Right now, certain elements of the media, certain elements of the intelligence community and certain politicians are really doing the work of the Russians — they’re creating this uncertainty over the election,” Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, told reporters on Thursday after meeting with Mr. Trump.

But many other Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, have publicly argued that the evidence leads straight to Russia. They have called for a full investigation, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged Mr. Obama on Thursday to complete an administration review quickly.

Mr. Trump’s Twitter post was his latest move to accuse the intelligence agencies he will soon control of acting with a political agenda and to dispute the well-documented conclusion that Moscow carried out a meticulously planned series of attacks and releases of information to interfere in the presidential race.

But as he repeated his doubts, Mr. Trump seized on emerging questions about the Obama administration’s response: Why did it take months after the breaches had been discovered for the administration to name Moscow publicly as the culprit? And why did Mr. Obama initially opt not to openly retaliate, through sanctions or other measures?

White House officials have said that the warning to Mr. Putin at the September summit meeting in China constituted the primary American response so far. When the administration decided to go public with its conclusion a month later, it did so in a statement from the director of national intelligence and the Homeland Security secretary, not in a prominent presidential appearance.

Officials said they were worried that any larger public response would have raised doubts about the election’s integrity, something Mr. Trump was already seeking to do during the campaign when he insisted the election was “rigged.”

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, criticized Mr. Trump on Thursday for questioning whether Russia was behind the attacks, referring to Mr. Trump’s call during the campaign for Moscow to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, a remark his team has since dismissed as a joke.

“I don’t think anybody at the White House thinks it’s funny that an adversary of the United States engaged in malicious cyberactivity to destabilize our democracy — that’s not a joke,” Mr. Earnest said. “It might be time to not attack the intelligence community, but actually be supportive of a thorough, transparent, rigorous, nonpolitical investigation into what exactly happened.”

While he declined to confirm news reports that Mr. Putin was personally involved in directing the cyberattacks, Mr. Earnest pointedly read part of the Oct. 7 statement that said intelligence officials believed “that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

He said that language “would lead me to conclude that based on my personal reading and not based on any knowledge that I have that may be classified or otherwise, it was pretty obvious that they were referring to the senior-most government official in Russia.”

In a conference call with reporters later on Thursday, aides declined to explain Mr. Trump’s position on whether Russia had been responsible for the breaches or to describe what he would do about the issue as president. Jason Miller, a spokesman, said he would let Mr. Trump’s “tweets speak for themselves” and added that those raising questions about the hacking were refusing to come to terms with his victory. “At a certain point you’ve got to realize that the election from last month is going to stand,” Mr. Miller said.

Charlie Sykes on Where the Right Went Wrong

NY Times

After nearly 25 years, I’m stepping down from my daily conservative talk radio show at the end of this month. I’m not leaving because of the rise of Donald J. Trump (my reasons are personal), but I have to admit that the campaign has made my decision easier. The conservative media is broken and the conservative movement deeply compromised.

In April, after Mr. Trump decisively lost the Wisconsin Republican primary, I had hoped that we here in the Midwest would turn out to be a firewall of rationality. Our political culture was distinctly inhospitable to Mr. Trump’s divisive, pugilistic style; the conservatives who had been successful here had tended to be serious, reform-oriented and able to express their ideas in more than 140 characters. But in November, Wisconsin lined up with the rest of the Rust Belt to give the presidency to Mr. Trump.

How on earth did that happen?

Before this year, I thought I had a relatively solid grasp on what conservatism stood for and where it was going. Over the previous decade, I helped advance the careers of conservatives like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan; Gov. Scott Walker; Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Senator Ron Johnson. In 2010, conservatives won big majorities in the Wisconsin State Legislature, and I openly supported many of their reforms, including changes to collective bargaining and expansions of school choice.

In short, I was under the impression that conservatives actually believed things about free trade, balanced budgets, character and respect for constitutional rights. Then along came this campaign.[...]

That is what I saw, and this is what it might mean for the future of conservatism. When I wrote in August 2015 that Mr. Trump was a cartoon version of every left-wing media stereotype of the reactionary, nativist, misogynist right, I thought that I was well within the mainstream of conservative thought — only to find conservative Trump critics denounced for apostasy by a right that decided that it was comfortable with embracing Trumpism. But in Wisconsin, conservative voters seemed to reject what Mr. Trump was selling, at least until after the convention.

To be sure, some of my callers embraced Mr. Trump’s suggestion for a ban on Muslims entering the country and voiced support for a proposal to deport all Muslims — even citizens. One caller compared American Muslims to rabid dogs. But right to the end, relatively few of my listeners bought into the crude nativism Mr. Trump was selling at his rallies.

What they did buy into was the argument that this was a “binary choice.” No matter how bad Mr. Trump was, my listeners argued, he could not possibly be as bad as Mrs. Clinton. You simply cannot overstate this as a factor in the final outcome. As our politics have become more polarized, the essential loyalties shift from ideas, to parties, to tribes, to individuals. Nothing else ultimately matters.

In this binary tribal world, where everything is at stake, everything is in play, there is no room for quibbles about character, or truth, or principles. If everything — the Supreme Court, the fate of Western civilization, the survival of the planet — depends on tribal victory, then neither individuals nor ideas can be determinative. I watched this play out in real time, as conservatives who fully understood the threat that Mr. Trump posed succumbed to the argument about the Supreme Court. As even Mr. Ryan discovered, neutrality was not acceptable; if you were not for Mr. Trump, then you were for Mrs. Clinton.

The state of our politics also explains why none of the revelations, outrages or gaffes seemed to dent Mr. Trump’s popularity.

In this political universe, voters accept that they must tolerate bizarre behavior, dishonesty, crudity and cruelty, because the other side is always worse; the stakes are such that no qualms can get in the way of the greater cause.

For many listeners, nothing was worse than Hillary Clinton. Two decades of vilification had taken their toll: Listeners whom I knew to be decent, thoughtful individuals began forwarding stories with conspiracy theories about President Obama and Mrs. Clinton — that he was a secret Muslim, that she ran a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor. When I tried to point out that such stories were demonstrably false, they generally refused to accept evidence that came from outside their bubble. The echo chamber had morphed into a full-blown alternate reality silo of conspiracy theories, fake news and propaganda.

And this is where it became painful. Even among Republicans who had no illusions about Mr. Trump’s character or judgment, the demands of that tribal loyalty took precedence. To resist was an act of betrayal.

When it became clear that I was going to remain #NeverTrump, conservatives I had known and worked with for more than two decades organized boycotts of my show. One prominent G.O.P. activist sent out an email blast calling me a “Judas goat,” and calling for postelection retribution. As the summer turned to fall, I knew that I was losing listeners and said so publicly.

And then, there was social media. Unless you have experienced it, it’s difficult to describe the virulence of the Twitter storms that were unleashed on Trump skeptics. In my timelines, I found myself called a “cuckservative,” a favorite gibe of white nationalists; and someone Photoshopped my face into a gas chamber. Under the withering fire of the trolls, one conservative commentator and Republican political leader after another fell in line.

How had we gotten here?

One staple of every radio talk show was, of course, the bias of the mainstream media. This was, indeed, a target-rich environment. But as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited.

That left a void that we conservatives failed to fill. For years, we ignored the birthers, the racists, the truthers and other conspiracy theorists who indulged fantasies of Mr. Obama’s secret Muslim plot to subvert Christendom, or who peddled baseless tales of Mrs. Clinton’s murder victims. Rather than confront the purveyors of such disinformation, we changed the channel because, after all, they were our allies, whose quirks could be allowed or at least ignored.

We destroyed our own immunity to fake news, while empowering the worst and most reckless voices on the right.

This was not mere naïveté. It was also a moral failure, one that now lies at the heart of the conservative movement even in its moment of apparent electoral triumph. Now that the election is over, don’t expect any profiles in courage from the Republican Party pushing back against those trends; the gravitational pull of our binary politics is too strong.

I’m only glad I’m not going to be a part of it anymore.

Trump throws a Twitter Fit One Day After Vanity Fair Lambastes His Restaurant

NPR

One day after Vanity Fair printed a highly critical piece about one of his restaurants, President-elect Donald Trump escalated his feud with the magazine's editor, calling him a "no talent."

"Has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine," Trump said in an early-morning Tweet. "Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!"

The tweet illustrates Trump's ability to use his very visible platform as president-elect to lash back at critics of his businesses and underscores the conflicts of interest he will face in office.

Trump was originally supposed to hold a "major press conference" Thursday to reveal how he would address the conflicts of interest, but he decided to postpone it until next month. His staff said dealing with the issue involved complex legal issues and Trump needed time to iron out the details.

Although Trump didn't refer to it directly in his tweet, Vanity Fair's website on Tuesday published a rough review of Trump Grill, located in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan. The article, by politics and media writer Tina Nguyen, was headlined, "Trump Grill could be the worst restaurant in America."

Nguyen lambasted the restaurant for its tacky decor and indifferent menu.

Among the foods served, she wrote, was a short-rib burger "molded into a sad little meat thing, sitting in the center of a massive, rapidly staling brioche bun, hiding its shame under a slice of melted orange cheese. It came with overcooked woody batons called 'fries'—how can someone mess up fries?—and ketchup masquerading as Heinz. If the cheeseburger is a quintessential part of America's identity, Trump's pledge to 'make America great again' suddenly appeared not very promising."

She was no less critical of the way the restaurant looked:

"The restaurant features a stingy number of French-ish paintings that look as though they were bought from Home Goods. Wall-sized mirrors serve to make the place look much bigger than it actually is. The bathrooms transport diners to the experience of desperately searching for toilet paper at a Venezuelan grocery store."[...]

The ideal woman: The righteous women of Egypt - Why the Jews were redeemed from Egypt

In trying to understand the Torah views of what the ideal woman is, one critical source is what woman have been praised for by our Sages. So far I have presented sources clearly stating that the ideal woman is one who helps her husband to reach spiritual perfection. Someone who is obedient and subordinate and takes care of the material aspects of life so her husband can devote himself to spiritual activities.

But their is another aspect where women - while being helpers - initialed actions that apparently the men were not able to or didn't want to do. This gemora presents women as being proactive - and not passive responders under the direction of their husband. In fact the men seem to be passive players under the direction of their wives. The women are specifically described as the reason for the Redemption from Egypt. I am not aware of any source that says the Redemption took place because of the actions of the men. In fact our sages say that 80% of the men died in Egypt because they weren't deserving of being redeemed. Thus at the beginning of the Jewish people - the most critical act - the Redemption from Egypt - was brought about through the women and not the men. This gemora is discussed by the Maharal (Gevuras HaShem 43). So far from degrading women, we see that the women are praised, while apparently the men contributed nothing and are not praised!

The following is Sotah (11b):  R. Awira expounded: As the reward for the righteous women who lived in that generation were the Israelites delivered from Egypt. When they went to draw water, the Holy One, blessed be He, arranged that small fishes should enter their pitchers, which they drew up half full of water and half full of fishes. They then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish, which they carried to their husbands in the field, and washed, anointed, fed, gave them to drink and had intercourse with them among the sheepfolds, as it is said: When ye lie among the sheepfolds etc.4 As the reward for ‘ When ye lie among the sheepfolds’, the Israelites merited the spoliation of the Egyptians, as it is said: As the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her pinions with yellow gold.5 After the women had conceived they returned to their homes; and when the time of childbirth arrived, they went and were delivered in the field beneath the apple-tree, as it is said: Under the apple-tree I caused thee to come forth [from thy mother's womb] etc.6 The Holy One, blessed be He, sent down someone from the high heavens who washed and straightened the limbs [of the babes] in the same manner that a midwife straightens the limbs of a child; as it is said: And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee.7 He also provided for them two cakes, one of oil and one of honey, as it is said: And He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil etc.8 When the Egyptians noticed them, they went to kill them; but a miracle occurred on their behalf so that they were swallowed in the ground, and [the Egyptians] brought oxen and ploughed over them, as it is said: The ploughers ploughed upon my back.9 After they had departed, [the Israelite women with their babes] broke through [the earth] and came forth like the herbage of the field, as it is said: I caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field;10 and when [the babes] had grown up, they came in flocks to their homes, as it is said: And thou didst increase and wax great and didst come with ornaments11 — read not with ornaments [ba'adi ‘adayim] but in flocks [be'edre ‘adarim]. At the time the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself by the Red Sea, they recognised Him first, as it is said: This is my God and I will praise Him.

Vayishlach 74 Autonomy – the Key to Character Education by Allan Katz

Allan Katz

During the night preceding the meeting between Jacob- Ya'akov and his brother Esau, a confrontation takes place between Jacob and Esau's angel guardian. The verse Genesis 32:25 says that Jacob remained 'alone' - le'vado' and he wrestled with a man until the outbreak of dawn. The Medrash commentary notes that in Isaiah 2 – and on that day G-d ' alone' –le'vado will be exalted, the same word, a G-dly attribute le'vado= alone is also ascribed to Jacob. On that night Jacob achieved the G-dly attribute of le'vado.

Le'vado =alone cannot be talking about being hermits and independent , as human beings are interdependent, supporting each other to create caring communities. Rabbeinu Yeruchum says that le'vado =alone means man using only his intrinsic qualities, in an autonomous and self directed way. A teenager can react to parental control by seeking independence. This is a reaction and not an autonomous decision by the teenager. It is not something that originates within himself. The teenager is reacting to his parent's agenda. Rabeinu Yeruchum then shares Ethics Of our Fathers =Pikei Avot 4:1 as examples of a person's expression of his ' autonomy and intrinsic value'. This is based on the Marahal from Prague 's understanding of the Mishnah.

The Mishnah says – who is a wise man – he who learns from every person. Who is a strong person – a man who subdues his evil inclination, who is rich – a man who is happy with his lot, who is honored – he who honors other people.

In the Self Esteem essay I described 2 types of people. The ' To have ' people who are concerned with achievement and having. They see' the self 'as an object and their self esteem is usually contingent on how others see them and their achievements. They usually suffer from what Brene Brown calls the scarcity syndrome of not being good enough, not perfect enough or being just ordinary. The 'To Be' people focus on experience and the process. They see the self as a process and their self esteem is something deep and constant.

The 'To Have' person defines a wise person as having much knowledge, the strong person as having much strength, and the rich person – as having all the money and things that are entertaining and can make a person feel rich and happy. A person who is honored is one for eg is honored by many people and whom the government honors. The wise person has more knowledge, the rich person has more wealth, the honored person has more honors and awards, in comparison with others. But this is all extrinsic and external to the person and becomes important only when we are able to compare to others. 'Having' does not say anything about your attributes or character nor does it change you. Honoring a person, does not intrinsically change them- they remain the same. Winning a lottery does not turn a miser into a 'giving' person, or exercising in a gym cannot transform one into a person of character and therefore become a ' To Be 'person. It can just give a person a distorted sense of self esteem and self worth.

The To Be person is not concerned about achievement but the process. He is a wise man because he has a passion for learning, he is a life- long learner who is continually active learning from all. He is not an 'object ' dependent on a teacher and focused on quantity of knowledge and achievement.

He is a strong person not because he can lift 200 kg , but he is able to subdue his evil inclinations and use them positively. The battle against the ' Yetzer Ha'ra is a life-long battle so he needs to have strength of character to be self –directed and not be subject to his passions and inclinations . The truth is that dealing with the evil inclination has more to do about having a clever plan to outwit the evil inclination and less about grit, self control and self discipline.

He is a rich person because he is always happy and content with his lot – whatever it is. His happiness comes from his intrinsic passion for life and making meaning from everything he does and learns. He is self-directed, competent and a builder of relationships. He acts wealthy and ' being wealthy ' he is not attached to his money and possessions and expresses this by giving of his wealth to more needy people. New wealth may lead to a feeling of being wealthy in the short-term but people soon get used their new standards of living and the feeling dissipates.

The respected and honored person is one that honors others. Being honored by others does not say anything about the person – he may be worthy or unworthy of the honor given. But the person who honors others is giving expression to an intrinsic part of his personality – he is somebody who has the attribute of honor.

Being wise, strong, rich and honored means 'acting' as a wise man continuously learning, acting as a rich man, being happy, content and 'giving', acting as a strong man means giving expression to your strength of character and an honored man –acting as one who gives expression to his attribute of honor.

The goal of education and character education is to help kids become passionate life-long learners, people who honor others and can build relationships, have strength of character to become caring and competent people, happy, content, intrinsically motivated and giving.

This can be done addressing the 3 needs of people vital to their happiness and development. The 3 needs according to the ' Self –Determined theory are autonomy, competence and relatedness=belonging. When kids feel they are self directed , competent and have a sense of belonging to people they will become life-long learners who have strength of character, are happy, content and giving and who honor the needs of others by being caring and respectful.

Trump's bullying continues: Department of Energy refuses to reveal names of climate scientists to Trump

C.S. Monitor

The Department of Energy (DOE) has refused to give the individual names of workers associated with work on climate change in response to a request from President-elect Donald Trump.

While a request for information for an incoming president is not unusual, questions from the Trump team asking for lists of who was involved with climate change research and negotiations under the Obama administration raised fears of a "witch hunt" among many DOE employees. Mr. Trump has called human-caused climate change a "hoax" on multiple occasions, putting him at odds with the majority of the scientific community.

While most politicians prefer agencies under their control to be staffed by employees and researchers sympathetic to their ideas and causes, the specific nature of the request and potential high cost of climate change denial have made this situation unprecedented. Few, if any, credible climate scientists still doubt that human activity contributes in some way to global warming, and most world powers agree that immediate action is necessary on a global scale in order to prevent warming to dangerous levels. In addition to the environmental concerns, many critics of Trump are also worried that his transition team's request indicates that climate change workers who are just doing their jobs could be unjustly marginalized by the incoming administration.

Last week, the Trump team sent a questionnaire to the DOE asking for details about various aspects in the agency's policies, not in itself an unusual occurrence. But as as The Christian Science Monitor previously reported:

The questionnaire specifically asked for the names of all DOE employees who attended the United Nation’s annual climate talks for the past five years, employees who helped develop the President Obama’s social cost of carbon metrics, and which programs are essential to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

All of which raises concerns that Trump’s administration will target employees involved in Obama-era policies that the president-elect spent his campaign promising to dismantle, including the Paris Climate Agreement, Clean Power Plan, and various other DOE and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.

"The identity of employees that worked on climate change projects may be a reasonable administrative request; however, their affiliations would seem to be beyond the pale, and an implicit statement that the employees are motivated by small 'p' politics rather than science." Daniel Riesel, principal of the environmental law firm Sive, Paget & Riesel, tells the Monitor in an email. "The new administration should be able to evaluate the climate change work without meddling in the employees’ personal predilections – unless of course that is the basis of the new Administration’s approach to climate change science."[...]

In an act of defiance to protect these employees, no less unprecedented than the initial questionnaire itself, the Department of Energy has refused to give Trump the names of specific employees requested by the team.[...]

But despite the evident strong feelings of the current administrators of the department, Eberly says the DOE would likely not be able to refuse or ignore a similar request under the Trump administration.[...]

The unfortunate case of Meir and Lonna Kin - Perspective of Rav Gestetner

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.

NY Times

When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk.

His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.

The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government’s best-protected networks.

Yared Tamene, the tech-support contractor at the D.N.C. who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His first moves were to check Google for “the Dukes” and conduct a cursory search of the D.N.C. computer system logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion. By his own account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several weeks — in part because he wasn’t certain the caller was a real F.B.I. agent and not an impostor.[...]

An examination by The Times of the Russian operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack.

The D.N.C.’s fumbling encounter with the F.B.I. meant the best chance to halt the Russian intrusion was lost. The failure to grasp the scope of the attacks undercut efforts to minimize their impact. And the White House’s reluctance to respond forcefully meant the Russians have not paid a heavy price for their actions, a decision that could prove critical in deterring future cyberattacks.

The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.

Even Mr. Podesta, a savvy Washington insider who had written a 2014 report on cyberprivacy for President Obama, did not truly understand the gravity of the hacking.[...]

In recent days, a skeptical president-elect, the nation’s intelligence agencies and the two major parties have become embroiled in an extraordinary public dispute over what evidence exists that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia moved beyond mere espionage to deliberately try to subvert American democracy and pick the winner of the presidential election.

Many of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides believe that the Russian assault had a profound impact on the election, while conceding that other factors — Mrs. Clinton’s weaknesses as a candidate; her private email server; the public statements of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, about her handling of classified information — were also important.

While there’s no way to be certain of the ultimate impact of the hack, this much is clear: A low-cost, high-impact weapon that Russia had test-fired in elections from Ukraine to Europe was trained on the United States, with devastating effectiveness. For Russia, with an enfeebled economy and a nuclear arsenal it cannot use short of all-out war, cyberpower proved the perfect weapon: cheap, hard to see coming, hard to trace.

“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and commander of United States Cyber Command said at a postelection conference. “This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily,” he said. “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”[...]

The United States, too, has carried out cyberattacks, and in decades past the C.I.A. tried to subvert foreign elections. But the Russian attack is increasingly understood across the political spectrum as an ominous historic landmark — with one notable exception: Mr. Trump has rejected the findings of the intelligence agencies he will soon oversee as “ridiculous,” insisting that the hacker may be American, or Chinese, but that “they have no idea.”

Mr. Trump cited the reported disagreements between the agencies about whether Mr. Putin intended to help elect him. On Tuesday, a Russian government spokesman echoed Mr. Trump’s scorn.[...]

Over the weekend, four prominent senators — two Republicans and two Democrats — joined forces to pledge an investigation while pointedly ignoring Mr. Trump’s skeptical claims.

“Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks,” said Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed.

“This cannot become a partisan issue,” they said. “The stakes are too high for our country.”[...]

Shawn Henry, who once led the F.B.I.’s cyber division and is now president of CrowdStrike Services, the cybersecurity firm retained by the D.N.C. in April, said he was baffled that the F.B.I. did not call a more senior official at the D.N.C. or send an agent in person to the party headquarters to try to force a more vigorous response.

“We are not talking about an office that is in the middle of the woods of Montana,” Mr. Henry said. “We are talking about an office that is half a mile from the F.B.I. office that is getting the notification.”

“This is not a mom-and-pop delicatessen or a local library. This is a critical piece of the U.S. infrastructure because it relates to our electoral process, our elected officials, our legislative process, our executive process,” he added. “To me it is a high-level, serious issue, and if after a couple of months you don’t see any results, somebody ought to raise that to a higher level.”[...]

Mr. Obama was briefed regularly on all this, but he made a decision that many in the White House now regret: He did not name Russians publicly, or issue sanctions. There was always a reason: fear of escalating a cyberwar, and concern that the United States needed Russia’s cooperation in negotiations over Syria.

“We’d have all these circular meetings,” one senior State Department official said, “in which everyone agreed you had to push back at the Russians and push back hard. But it didn’t happen.”

So the Russians escalated again — breaking into systems not just for espionage, but to publish or broadcast what they found, known as “doxing” in the cyberworld.

It was a brazen change in tactics, moving the Russians from espionage to influence operations. In February 2014, they broadcast an intercepted phone call between Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state who handles Russian affairs and has a contentious relationship with Mr. Putin, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the United States ambassador to Ukraine. Ms. Nuland was heard describing a little-known American effort to broker a deal in Ukraine, then in political turmoil.

They were not the only ones on whom the Russians used the steal-and-leak strategy. The Open Society Foundation, run by George Soros, was a major target, and when its documents were released, some turned out to have been altered to make it appear as if the foundation was financing Russian opposition members.

Last year, the attacks became more aggressive. Russia hacked a major French television station, frying critical hardware. Around Christmas, it attacked part of the power grid in Ukraine, dropping a portion of the country into darkness, killing backup generators and taking control of generators. In retrospect, it was a warning shot.[...]

But asked whether he believed the leaks were one reason for Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Assange seemed happy to take credit. “Americans extensively engaged with our publications,” he wrote. “According to Facebook statistics WikiLeaks was the most referenced political topic during October.”

Though Mr. Assange did not say so, WikiLeaks’ best defense may be the conduct of the mainstream American media. Every major publication, including The Times, published multiple stories citing the D.N.C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.

Mr. Putin, a student of martial arts, had turned two institutions at the core of American democracy — political campaigns and independent media — to his own ends. The media’s appetite for the hacked material, and its focus on the gossipy content instead of the Russian source, disturbed some of those whose personal emails were being reposted across the web.

“What was really surprising to me?” Ms. Tanden said. “I could not believe that reporters were covering it.”[...]

As the year draws to a close, it now seems possible that there will be multiple investigations of the Russian hacking — the intelligence review Mr. Obama has ordered completed by Jan. 20, the day he leaves office, and one or more congressional inquiries. They will wrestle with, among other things, Mr. Putin’s motive.

Did he seek to mar the brand of American democracy, to forestall anti-Russian activism for both Russians and their neighbors? Or to weaken the next American president, since presumably Mr. Putin had no reason to doubt American forecasts that Mrs. Clinton would win easily? Or was it, as the C.I.A. concluded last month, a deliberate attempt to elect Mr. Trump?

In fact, the Russian hack-and-dox scheme accomplished all three goals.

What seems clear is that Russian hacking, given its success, is not going to stop. Two weeks ago, the German intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, warned that Russia might target elections in Germany next year. “The perpetrators have an interest to delegitimize the democratic process as such,” Mr. Kahl said. Now, he added, “Europe is in the focus of these attempts of disturbance, and Germany to a particularly great extent.”

But Russia has by no means forgotten its American target. On the day after the presidential election, the cybersecurity company Volexity reported five new waves of phishing emails, evidently from Cozy Bear, aimed at think tanks and nonprofits in the United States.

One of them purported to be from Harvard University, attaching a fake paper. Its title: “Why American Elections Are Flawed.

Two haredi sex-abuse suspects live in capital without restriction

Jerusalem Post

If two men accused of sexual molestation and sodomy against minors were living freely in your neighborhood for three months without any court restrictions, you might be justifiably concerned.

If the presiding judge had stated that, after the initial police investigation the evidence against one of the suspects was “of considerable strength” and a written admission of guilt by the other suspect had been submitted to the police, the ongoing freedom of the accused might be more worrisome still.

And if there were at least seven complainants against the two suspects, the confusion, disquiet, and anger of the families of the alleged victims might be well understandable.

Yet this is the current situation of two ultra-Orthodox men who were arrested almost four months ago and investigated by the police on suspicion of sexual abusing teenage boys in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim neighborhood.

Since their release from jail at the end of August, the suspects have been living in Mea She’arim without police or court restrictions.

During 2016, and for a period of at least six months, it appears that the two suspects, age 27 and 23, routinely had boys as young as 13 over to their apartments in the haredi neighborhood and allegedly engaged in various sex acts, including sodomy, with their victims.

Evidence also exists that the two men paid the boys to perform these acts.

According to a source in the State Attorney’s Office, there are at least seven complainants against the two men, and it is possible that other victims have yet to come forward. [...]

Both men were arrested in August, and were released after several days in prison to house arrest. However, the house arrest term expired at the end of August, and neither man has since been under any police or court restrictions.

The State Attorney’s Office declined to answer why four months since the two were arrested, and with so many complainants and other evidence, indictments have not yet been handed down or the case closed.

The State Attorney’s Office said merely that the case involving the two suspects had been investigated by the police, and the findings and evidence passed to the Jerusalem district office last week, with a decision still pending.[...]

Speaking to the Post, Haim’s father said that the entire episode had put severe strain on the family and caused great anguish for himself and his wife.

Haim’s mother had what he described as a nervous breakdown, and was hospitalized on two occasions for almost three weeks. His wife is in therapy, as are some of the other children in the family and Haim himself.

“The whole house just got turned upside down,” he said. “My wife is a mother of eight children, and she can’t cope. She’s gone from being a very high-functioning person to a low-functioning person.

“My son is messed up. He’s very angry, he’s confused, and he’s in major therapy right now.

He’s not calm, he’s very edgy, he’s not trusting and he’s having a difficult time in school. He’s hard to be around, any little thing sets him off; it’s really hard.”

For his father, the suffering caused to Haim and his family is made worse by the fact that the men who allegedly abused his son are living without restrictions and are yet to be indicted.

One one occasion, he and Haim were driving through Mea She’arim and actually spotted one of the suspects walking into a synagogue.

Teacher from Beitar Illit convicted of molesting 3 students

Kikar HaShabbat

בית המשפט המחוזי בירושלים הרשיע הבוקר (ראשון) את משה אהרון ליסון, תושב ביתר עילית בן 34, בביצוע מעשים חמורים בנערים שאותם לימד.

ליסון, שימש כמלמד בתלמוד תורה "אוהלי מנחם" בביתר עילית ושם תקף שלושה אחים, שהיו בני 15-13 בעת המעשים. על פי כתב האישום, בין השנים 2014-2011 הזמין ליסון לביתו את הנערים כדי לסייע לו בנושאים שונים ואז ביצע בהם מעשים חמורים.

הרשעתו של ליסון אירעה בשל התעקשותה של אמם של השלושה שהחליטה ללחום באיש ובתופעה למרות הקושי בהתמודדות עם הנושא ואף הצעות כספיות שהוצעו לה על ידי משפחתו.

[...]

רות, אמם של שלושת הילדים אמרה הבוקר לעיתון 'ידיעות אחרונות': "כשבאנו להגיש תלונה הבטיחו לשמור על הפרטיות שלנו אבל ברגע שפורסמו פרטים כמו 'שלושה אחים', כל הסביבה הבינה שמדובר בנו".

לדבריה: "התגובות מהקהילה היו קשות מאוד. האשימו אותנו שאנחנו הורסים לו את החיים. הפסיקו לצרף את הילדים למניין; הטיחו בהם שהם 'מויסר', מלשינים; רבנים מהקהילה הגיעו לחזק אותו בדיונים. זה שבר את הילדים, הם עזבו את הישיבות ובקושי יצאו מהבית. הרגשנו מנודים ודחויים".

"באחד הערבים יוסי חזר מהישיבה ונראה מעט נסער. למחרת הוא ניגש למקום העבודה של בעלי ואמר לו שהוא רוצה לספר לו משהו חשוב: 'הרב ליסון פגע בי', הוא אמר אבל סירב להוסיף. בעלי היה מאוד נסער. הוא חשש לשתף אותי אבל ראיתי שעובר עליו משהו ושהבן לא הולך לישיבה, ולא הבנתי מה קורה. אחרי יומיים הוא סיפר לי: 'אני לא יכול להסתיר ממך אבל את חייבת להיות חזקה. מישהו פגע בבן שלנו'. באותה שנייה עלה לי לראש הרב ליסון. הרגשתי שהטוב לב שלו, המתנות והיחס החם הזה אלינו לא לחינם. כשבעלי אישר שזה הוא התחלתי לרעוד.

"ניגשתי לבן ששכב במיטה. הוא ראה שאני בוכה ורועדת ואמר 'אמא, אבא דיבר איתך?' אמרתי לו: 'יוסי, תגיד לי את כל האמת. אמא רק איתך'. הוא משך את השמיכה מעל הראש ואמר: 'אני לא יכול לדבר על זה'. אמרתי לו: 'בבקשה תגיד לי מה הוא עשה לך, שאני אתחיל להבין'. ואז הוא אמר: 'הוא פגע בי במקווה. אני לא יכול לדבר על זה. בבקשה תבדקי את האחים שלי'".

Is women's subordinate position obligatory, the optional ideal or temporary?

Lehrhaus Blog

"She Should Carry Out All Her Deeds According to His Directives:" A Halakhah in a Changed Social Reality

by Rabbi Yosef Bronstein is a professor of Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women and Isaac Breuer College of Hebraic Studies (IBC) Honors Program.

Similarly, our Sages commanded that a man honor his wife more than his own person, and love her as he loves his own person ... And similarly, they commanded a woman to honor her husband exceedingly and to be in awe of him. She should carry out all her deeds according to his directives, considering him to be [like] an officer or a king. She should follow the desires of his heart and shun everything that he disdains. This is the custom of holy and pure Jewish women and men in their marriages. And these ways will make their marriage pleasant and praiseworthy.

— Rambam, Hilkhot Ishut 15:19-20

In his description of the ideal Jewish marriage, Rambam differentiates the interpersonal relationship between the husband and wife from the proper hierarchy that is to be put in place. While on the interpersonal level marriage is defined by love and mutual respect, the decision-making authority remains with the husband. The wife is enjoined to act in accordance with her spouse’s will, even in instances where she disagrees. Practically, this would mean that if a couple disagrees on issues ranging from where to live, choosing a school for their children, to simply whether or not to invite guests to a Shabbat meal, the final word would be the husband’s.[1] Obviously, this description does not accord with the manner in which Western society conceives of an ideal marriage.

As is often the case, Orthodox rabbis in modern times have grappled with this problem. Does Rambam really mean what he seems to imply? If so, are his words binding for all generations? Out of this conundrum, at least three distinct interpretive approaches emerge. Part I of this essay will outline these interpretations. Part II will then use this case study to analyze a broader conceptual issue. Though these interpretations originate in an attempt to resolve a single point of conflict between one line of Rambam and a social reality, important methodological and theological assumptions can be identified in each approach. In particular, I will analyze a central debate between R. Soloveitchik and R. Kook regarding how to navigate conflicts between the words of Hazal and a changed social reality.

Part I: Three Approaches

Rav Avraham Arlinger

The simplest approach to unraveling the tension between the Rambam and contemporary mores is to undermine the validity of one of these two poles. In this vein, R. Avraham Arlinger, the former Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Kol Torah and the author of the popular series Birkat Avraham, forcefully rejects Western society’s conception of the authority-dynamic within a marriage and instead advocates adhering fully to the words of the Rambam. He writes the following:

In Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu [it states] “a proper woman is one who performs the will of her husband,” and it is cited in Rema in Shulhan Arukh (Even ha-Ezer 10:9). It appears that, since this is the way Hazal defined a proper woman, and without this quality she is not acting properly, it is fitting to educate girls from their young age for this [role], against the spirit of the time that women are partners with equal rights. Rather, they should act in accordance with the wisdom of Torah in all matters, i.e. that they are secondary (tefeilot) to men. Modesty regarding clothing is insufficient; [women] also need modesty of the mouth and heart, recognizing that in the future they will act based on their husband (see Rambam, Hilkhot Ishut 15:20), even regarding cases where her father’s behavior is different than the husband’s.[2] [...]

R. Aharon Lichtenstein

A second approach disentangles the tension by neutralizing the import of Rambam and relegating this halakhah to the realm of rabbinic advice which is not normative. While most of Rambam’s Code is clearly intended to be binding law, the above passage is introduced with the relatively rare phrase “the sages commanded.” R. Mordechai Willig, among others, surveyed Rambam’s usage of this expression and concluded that it refers to rabbinic advice as opposed to “a formal issur.”[4] Therefore, while Hazal, the Rambam felt, counselled a wife to ultimately submit to his opinion, this is not an obligatory model for Jewish marriage. As much as the original model was based on the counsel of the sages and not strict halakhah, a contemporary Torah sage can offer differing advice based on the changed societal circumstances.[5]

R. Aharon Lichtenstein presented a similar line of interpretation, though one broader in its scope.[6] He notes that there is little material in the Gemara regarding the proper relationship between husband and wife, and much of what does exist is internally contradictory. Even regarding the stories and statements that are recorded, R. Lichtenstein writes that traditional Jewish interpretation has not deemed them to be fully normative:

There exist, admittedly, some directives regarding some of these concerns. For the most part, however, they have been relegated to the realms of devar ha-reshut, an area not axiologically neutral but neither fully normative, with regard to which personal preference, with a possible eye upon meaningful variables, is characteristic. In a word, they are subject to the discussion, predilection, and decision of individual couples ... My point is simply that there is room for flexibility and mutual choice. Whether the character of a marriage is dictated by convention, contemporary mores, or conscious limning is another matter.[...]

R. Yehoshua Shapira

A third approach contends that the Torah allows for—and even anticipates—major developments in the husband-wife relationship over the course of history. Rambam, in the twelfth century, wrote that the husband should have the final word when disagreements arise. Situated as we are in a different stage of history, this position maintains, we need to find our marital guidance embedded in other Torah statements. For example, R. Yehoshua Shapira, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Ha-Hesder Ramat Gan, was asked the following question:

“A proper woman performs the will of her husband.” [Does this mean that] a woman needs to be completely nullified without desires?

He responded as follows:

The Torah’s statement “and he will rule over her” is a curse and not a blessing. Throughout all of history this curse lay strongly on humanity and diminished the female personality. In a non-negligible way it caused the male to act like a ruler, causing, at times, the development of bad character traits. Towards the redemption we merit the removal of the curses in Genesis. [The curse] “[b]y the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread” is continuously dissolving.[7] Also, a large percentage of the dangers of childbirth and the pain of “in pain you will bear children,” is being solved with the help of medicine. So too regarding the verse “and he will rule over you.” We correctly feel that the change is taking place in our midst, but nowadays it is accompanied by a sense of anarchy as is the way of any fruit that the hard shell precedes the growth and only afterwards comes the sweet fruit about which the prophet said that in the future “female will encircle male.”[8]

R. Shapira sees the changes in Western society’s conception of the ideal power dynamic between husband and wife as the slow dissolution of a divine curse. Rambam records that a wife should submit to her husband’s will in part because of Eve’s punishment. This was reflected in the structure of marriages throughout history. Much, though, has changed. Nowadays, as the ultimate redemption draws near, the power of the curse is waning and the “pre-curse” reality of the ideal, separate-but-equal relationship is set to emerge. In such a reality, clinging to older sources as our sole navigational tools would be a rejection of redemption’s social manifestations.[...]

Rav Moshe Feinstein's views on Feminism O.C. 4:49

Concerning the Feminist Movement (translation is copyrighted)

Igros Moshe (O.C. 4:49):Question: Concerning the international Feminist movement and in particular the religious women who want to fight against matters that are governed by Torah - for example some wish to pray in a talis - you want to know my views concerning this and how to respond to it?

Answer: First of all it is necessary to know that it is one of the foundations of our pure faith that the entire Torah - both  Written or Oral were given by G-d Himself at Mt. Sinai through Moshe Rabbeinu. And that it is impossible to change even the smallest detail - either for leniency or strictness. However we have been commanded that when there is the need for protective measures and decrees then the Sanhedrin and Torah scholars are to make decrees prohibiting certain matters or to obligate doing certain matters - with the clear understanding that this is only an emergency matter for a paricular crises. However from the time we have been scattered in Exile all over the world, we no longer have this ability to impose measures on the entire Jewish nation. But we still retain the ability on the local level for the scholars to make decrees for their communities – but only for a short time.

Consequently this that the Torah exempts women from time- bound commandments - is a Torah law. And the rabbis have not made a decree to obligate them because they did not see any necessity to do so. In fact they clearly understand the need to exempt them for the reasons that the Torah exempts them as well as for reasons which are not known to the masses or even to great scholars. And we are required to believe that G-d the giver of the Torah has great reasons.   There are reasons that the masses understand e.g., that the average woman is not rich and she has the obligation to raise the children which is a task which is most important to G-d and to the Torah. Furthermore G-d created the nature in every specieis  of living things that the female raise the children - and man is no exception - and woman are the most suitable to raise the children. Because of this they have the leniency of not being obligated in Torah study as well as time bound mitzvos.

Therefore even if the nature of society changes even for all women and the rich in every generation and it is possible to give the task of raising the children to certain men and women such as in our country - the Torah law does not change and not even a rabbinic law.

Therefore it doesn't help to have any campaigns concerning this matter - because we have absolutely no ability to change the halacha - even if the entire world  agrees. Consequently those women  who are stubborn and want to fight to bring about change in these matters are considered deniers (kofrim) against the Torah.

Look at the Rambam(Hilchos Teshuva 3:8), There are three who are called deniers  in the Torah. 1) One who says that there is even one word that Moshe wrote in the Torah on his own initiative 2) One who denies an explanation which is part of the Oral Torah 3) And one who says that G-d changed a mitzva.  Each of these three  is a denier of Torah and does not have a portion of the World to Come. Even though the Rambam says that “One who says that G-d changed a mitzva,” it is obviously telling us that  the same applies even if a person claims that man has the ability to change a mitzva. That is because it is also saying that the Torah is not eternal and there a number of verses which teach us that the Torah is eternal as the Kesef Mishna explains.

It is a fact that all women can fulfill even the mitzvos that the Torah doesn't obligate and they are regarded as keeping the mitzva and they also receive reward for doing these mitzvos. In addition, according to the view of Tosfos, they also can say the beracha on these mitzvos. According to our custom they fulfil the mitzva of Shofer and Lulav and they also say the appropriate beracha. Even the mitzvva of tzitzis, it is relevant for a woman to keep - as long as the garment has  a different appearence than that worn by men -   if she wears a four cornered garment that she put tzitzis on it. It is only problematic if she wants to put on tefillin - as Tosfos (Eiruvin 96a) states that it is necessary to protest women wearing Tefilin because  extra care is required to ensure that the body is clean and that it is necessary to be aware at all times that the person is wearing tefilin. In fact it is because of these concerns that men who are obligated to wear tefilin all day only wear tefilin the short tiime while they are saying the morning prayers. That in fact is the psak of the Rema (O.C. 38:3). An additional problem is that the Targum Yonasan on the verse "that a woman should not wear that which is worn by men" says it means that women should not wear tzitzis or tefilin because they are what men wear. This disagrees with Tosfos who apparently views that this desciption is not actually part of Targum Yonason.

Nevertheless it is obivous that doing this is only for women who have a strong desire to keep the mitzvos - even those which she is not commanded to keep. Thus if this is not her motivation but rather because she has complaints against G-d and His Torah - then it is not considered fulfilling the mitzva at all and in fact the opposite is true - it is viewed as prohibited. It is prohibited as an act of heresy that she thinks it is possible that there can be changes in Torah law even when she is being stringent.

Second of all it is necessary to know that the reason that they are exempt from time bound mitzvos is not because women are on a lower level of holiness than men. Because as regarding holiness they are equal to men in terms of the relevance of being obligated in mitzvos. Because it is only from the aspect of holiness that exists in all Jews that there is an obligation to do mitzvos. Because all the verses about holiness are also said about women - whether it was at the beginning of the acceptance of Torah "And they should be for me a treasure and you shall be for me a holy people" which was said to Beis Yaakov i.e., the women and "Tell the Children of Israel" i.e., the men or whether "Holy men you shall be to Me" said in Mishpatim or "And you shall be holy" which was said in Shemini or "And holy shall you be" and "you shall be holy" in parshas Kedoshim. Or "You are a holy people for G-d" in parshas Re'ah. The rule is that every place which mentions the holiness of Jews applies also to the women. Consequently women also say the beracha with the language , "who has sanctified us with His mitzvos" as the men say on the mitzvos - even on those mitvzos which the Torah does not obligate women to do.

The reason that the Torah does not require women to perform these mitzvos is only because of a leniency that G-d decided should exist for them as we discussed before - and not because they are inferior - G-d forbid.

And amongst the obligations between a man and his wife there is the obligation that a man needs to honor and respect her and she needs to honor and respect him - without any differential. There were many women who were prophetesses and they had the full status of prophet as that found amongst the men. Furthermore in many things - whether in the Bible or the words of our Sages - they were praised more than the men. There is no degradation of the honor of women.

And in all matters in which we find that they were exempt from Torah study and time bound mitzvos - there is absolutely no cause to complain at all. Therefore you should explain in every instance and be firm and strong in your mind that these are like the laws of the Torah and to protest against those women who after all this is explained - stubbornly insist on keeping their foolish and twisted views. It is important that nothing be changed from the holy Jewish conduct.