Donald Trump has some thoughts on fighting wildfires. They’re nonsense.

vox

The 2018 wildfire year has been devastating. As of Monday, the National Interagency Fire Center reports that there are 60 uncontained large fires across the country, with a total of 5.1 million acres ravaged by fire so far this year.

These deadly infernos have killed several firefighters, forced hundreds of people to flee, and destroyed hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of wilderness.

The Carr Fire in Northern California is now the state’s fifth-largest fire on record after igniting more than 160,0000 acres and killing seven people. But it’s been bested in size by the Mendocino Complex fire, which, at 273,000 acres, is the second-largest in state history.

Late last month, President Trump signed a federal emergency declaration for the state of California, allowing the federal government to assist with firefighting efforts.

So it’s not surprising that Trump would weigh in on the California blazes. But on Sunday night, he used them to bash environmental regulations:

California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!.3K people are talking about thi

There are a few reasons these statements are bewildering. First, human activity is definitely making these fires worse: People are building in vulnerable areas, they are igniting most of these fires, and humans are driving climate change, which makes fire conditions more severe.

But environmental laws about water that would be used to put the fires out?

Even wildfire scientists have no idea what the president was referring to here. California has been parched from drought for years, so there isn’t a “massive amount of readily available water,” and what little moisture is available is closely tracked.

“We do manage all of our rivers in California, and all the water is allocated many times over. So I’m not sure what he was recommending,” LeRoy Westerling, a professor at the University of California Merced studying wildfires, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Even if we eliminated all habitat for riparian species and fish, and allowed saltwater intrusion into the delta and set up a sprinkler system over the state, that wouldn’t compensate for greater moisture loss from climate change.”

Trump doubles down, blaming California's water policies for wildfires

thehill

President Trump doubled down on his criticism of California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), saying Monday that the state's water management policies are responsible for deadly wildfires.

“Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean,” Trump tweeted. “Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. Approvals.”

Trump said on Sunday that too much water from the northern part of the state is being allowed to flow into the Pacific Ocean, instead of being captured or redirected to use for firefighting, agriculture or other purposes.

The president's remarks echo longstanding Republican arguments that environmental policies like the Endangered Species Act make it harder for California to hold onto its water. Congressional Republicans for years have pushed for policies to direct more water into storage or to the southern part of the state.

In a strikingly ignorant tweet, Trump gets almost everything about California wildfires wrong

latimes

No one would mistake President Trump for an expert on climate change or water policy, but a tweet he issued late Sunday about California’s wildfires deserves some sort of award for most glaring misstatements about those two issues in the smallest number of words.

Trump blamed the fires on “bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized.” He complained that water needed for firefighting is being “diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

What he overlooked, plainly, is the increasing agreement among experts that intensifying climate change has contributed to the intensity of the wildfire season. California’s woodlands have been getting drier and hotter. As my colleagues Rong-Gong Lin II and Javier Panzar reported over the weekend, “California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own.”

Trump admits son met Russian for information on opponent

bbc

US President Donald Trump has admitted his son met a Russian lawyer in June 2016 "to get information on an opponent", but argues it was legal.

It is his most direct statement so far on the reason for Donald Trump Jr's meeting with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating US intelligence findings that Russians conspired to sway the election in Mr Trump's favour.

President Trump denies any collusion.

He has called the ongoing investigations in the US "the greatest political witch hunt in history".

time

President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to change his story about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that is pivotal to the special counsel’s investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent.

“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

That is a far different explanation than Trump gave 13 months ago, when a statement dictated by the president but released under the name of Donald Trump Jr.,. read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”

npr

It was a tweet that set off a storm. Was President Trump admitting to collusion between his campaign and Russia? Was he stipulating that the now notorious June 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by his son Donald Trump Jr. really was all about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton from a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer and not adoption issues as President Trump had earlier claimed?

"This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere," the president wrote in tweet early Sunday.

He concluded the tweet by saying, "I did not know about it!

It's unclear whether Trump's latest admission will affect Mueller's probe in any way. But, as NPR's Brian Naylor reports, if Mueller could prove Trump was aware of the meeting in advance, "or cast doubt on denials by Trump and Trump Jr., it would be a dramatic addition to Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential race and possible collusion by the Trump campaign."

SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMS AGAINST TOP SOCIOLOGIST MAY SHIFT JEWISH RESEARCH

jpost

 Over and over, across decades and cities throughout the United States, sociologist Steven M. Cohen painted a picture of American Jews using a consistent set of questions.

How much do Jews love Israel? How many Jewish friends do they have? Do they attend a synagogue? Do they belong to one? Perhaps above all, are they married to Jews and raising Jewish children?

Through countless papers, opinion pieces, speeches and books, Cohen’s research and interpretations have shaped how the organized Jewish community views itself and sets its priorities. They guided a national Jewish population study in 2001 and a New York study in 2011. Two years after that, Cohen consulted on the Pew Research Center’s landmark study of American Jews, which asked many of these same questions.

But in light of allegations of sexual harassment from several women, Cohen’s role as organized Jewry’s top sociologist is bound to diminish. Last week, the UJA-Federation of New York, the country’s largest federation, announced it would no longer work with him. Already some are wondering what his absence will mean for his research priorities, which have become the standard for the Jewish establishment.

 Over and over, across decades and cities throughout the United States, sociologist Steven M. Cohen painted a picture of American Jews using a consistent set of questions.

How much do Jews love Israel? How many Jewish friends do they have? Do they attend a synagogue? Do they belong to one? Perhaps above all, are they married to Jews and raising Jewish children?

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Through countless papers, opinion pieces, speeches and books, Cohen’s research and interpretations have shaped how the organized Jewish community views itself and sets its priorities. They guided a national Jewish population study in 2001 and a New York study in 2011. Two years after that, Cohen consulted on the Pew Research Center’s landmark study of American Jews, which asked many of these same questions.

But in light of allegations of sexual harassment from several women, Cohen’s role as organized Jewry’s top sociologist is bound to diminish. Last week, the UJA-Federation of New York, the country’s largest federation, announced it would no longer work with him. Already some are wondering what his absence will mean for his research priorities, which have become the standard for the Jewish establishment.

Haredi refusal to vaccinate caused measles outbreak

ARUTZ 7

New York's largest measles outbreak in decades was caused by haredi refusal to vaccinate, a JAMA Pediatrics report said.

The 2013 outbreak began when a haredi teenager visiting London returned home carrying the nearly-extinct virus, which spread in Boro Park and then to Williamsburg.

The virus infected 58 people between March-June 2013, 45 of whom had not been vaccinated due to "parental refusal or intentional delay."

Another 12 of the patients were under a year old - too young to have received the vaccination. One infected woman miscarried at 38 weeks after being infected with the disease.

The JAMA reported noted that, "Orthodox Jewish persons accounted for 100 percent of the case patients."

Minnesota rabbi charged in child sex sting operation

times of Israel

In most of the cases, the men responded to ads posted on Craigslist by undercover agents posing as young women or men seeking a hook-up.

Cohen, 44, who has no prior record, was arrested in February outside an apartment in North St. Paul, where the federal agent posing as a 15-year-old boy suggested they meet after a week of communicating through a hook-up site, the Forward reported.

Cohen was the director of outreach for the Minneapolis Community Kollel, an Orthodox community center that offers seminars and classes on Jewish texts and religious life. He ran the Kollel’s JWAY program for college students and recent graduates. He and his wife, Adina, also led private text studies with male and female students at the Hillel on the University of Minnesota campus, according to the Forward, though he was not employed by Hillel.

Cohen’s name was removed from the Kollel’s website.

Eikev; Can Malachim Read Minds? Rabbi Shloime Pollak

osfus in Meseches Shabbos 12b seems to imply that the Malachim (Angels) know everything that goes on in every person's mind. What is the source of Tosfus?!

Rabbi Shloime Pollak

Satmar leadership enraged after girls visit IDF museum

arutz 7

Leaders of the anti-Zionist Satmar hassidic sect were enraged after an Israeli Satmar girls summer camp were spotted visiting an IDF museum, Behadrei Haredim reports.

The Armoured Corps Museum in Latrun, near Modiin, is built on the site of a famous battle during the War for Independence in 1948 and memorializes Israel's tank corps. Early this week, photos surfaced of hundreds of hassidic girls enjoying a field trip at the site, which caused widespread condemnation throughout the anti-Israel community.

Satmar, known as one of the most dogmatically anti-Zionist Hassidic sects, refuses to recognize the State of Israel and calls on members living in Israel not to vote in national elections, even for haredi parties and not to accept any funding from the state, including National Insurance payments

Following an outcry from followers in both Israel and the United States, the Satmar leadership in Israel released a statement apologizing for the visit and explained that the girls had entered the tank museum because it was the only way to get to the nearby Latrun Park.

"When the students with the buses arrived there, they were not allowed to enter through there, but were brought down through the entrance of the impure army museum near the park," read the missive.

Corbyn ally says rabbis 'make up duff information' on anti-Semitism

ynet

Peter Willsman, a close ally of British Labour Party chairman Jeremy Corbyn, has accused rabbis of "making up duff information without any evidence at all" about anti-Semitism in the party, further escalating the crisis between Labour and the Jewish community in the UK.

A recording surfaced on Tuesday on comments Willsman made at a meeting of the Labour's national executive committee (NEC) last month, in which he is also heard accusing Jewish "Trump fanatics" of making up allegations of anti-Semitism in the party.

Leaders of the Jewish community expressed outrage over the remarks which were made during a meeting which concluded with participants deciding not to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

US imposes sanctions against Turkey

arutz 7

The Trump Administration imposed sanctions on Turkish officials Wednesday over the imprisonment of a US pastor Wednesday.

“Pastor [Andrew] Brunson’s unjust detention and continued prosecution by Turkish officials is simply unacceptable,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “President Trump has made it abundantly clear that the United States expects Turkey to release him immediately.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters: “We’ve seen no evidence that Pastor Brunson has done anything wrong and we believe he is a victim of unfair and unjust attention by the government of Turkey”

According to Bloomberg News, the Trump Administration compiled a list of individuals and institutions in Turkey to sanction if Pastor Andrew Brunson and other Americans are not freed.

The sanctions are based on the US sanctions in effect against Russia as well as associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Turkish lira dropped sharply in value in response to reports of the impending sanctions.

Last Thursday, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose economic sanctions on Turkey if Pastor Brunson was not released.

“The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a great Christian, family man and wonderful human being. He is suffering greatly. This innocent man of faith should be released immediately!” he tweeted.

Trump reportedly asked the Israeli government to release a Turkish citizen accused of aiding the Hamas terrorist organization as part of a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan to secure Brunson's release.

DONALD TRUMP KEEPS CALLING ADVERSARIES ‘GLOBALISTS,’ DESPITE WARNINGS IT’S ANTI-SEMITIC

President Donald Trump called out the Koch brothers, who are billionaire Republican mega-donors, as “globalists” on Tuesday. The brothers have long opposed Trump’s policy of increasing trade tariffs. 

On Sunday, Charles Koch, 82, devoted part of a news conference to criticizing Trump's tariff policies. "Every nation that's prospered is one that didn't engage in trade wars," he said, as reported by Bloomberg. Shortly afterward, it was made known that the Koch brothers would no longer back only Republican candidates.

Trump's attack echoed a line he used on the campaign trail to disparage adversaries, and sometimes allies, who disagreed with his worldview. On its surface, the word "globalist" seems like a convenient label for those who favor international cooperation over “America first,” isolationist policies.

Don Lemon: Trump lies coming in fast and furious

Alternative Medicine: Medically Disputed, Halachically Refuted? (Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler)

yutorah.

North Korea 'working on new missiles', US officials say

washington post
Trump’s self-proclaimed diplomatic coups keep unraveling

Whether you think President Trump is a success on the world stage or not, he's not nearly the success he's made himself out to be in recent weeks.

At several points, Trump has made claims about his foreign policy dealings that wound up being vastly overstated — if not completely...

What do the latest reports say?

On Monday, the Washington Post newspaper quoted officials as saying North Korea appeared to be building one or two new liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the Sanumdong facility near the capital, Pyongyang.

The factory is known to have produced the Hwasong-15, the first North Korean ICBM capable of reaching the US.

However, a US official told news agency Reuters that a liquid-fuelled ICBM didn't "pose nearly the threat that a solid-fuelled one would because they take so long to fuel".

Reuters also added that satellite imaging showed vehicles moving in and out of the facility, but not the extent of any missile construction.

What are experts saying about this?

These are not the first reports that North Korea may be continuing its weapons programme, casting doubt on the real impact of the summit in Singapore.

Satellite imagery of the Sanumdong facility shows that the site is "active", Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) told the Washington Post.

No, Donald Trump's poll numbers do not beat Lincoln, all other GOP presidents

politifact.

President Donald Trump is known for tooting his own horn. In recent weeks, one of the accomplishments he’s been trumpeting is his standing with Republican voters.

In a July 29 tweet, Trump wrote, "Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. There must be something wrong, please recheck that poll!"

Our ruling

Trump said, "Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan."

Credit where credit is due: Trump is very popular among Republicans, and at one point, his approval rating within his own party trailed only George W. Bush among postwar Republican presidents.

However, no pre-1936 president served in an era with scientific polling, so Trump’s comparison of himself to Lincoln is spurious. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating at the time of the tweet ranked in the middle of the post-World War II Republican presidents, and measured in other ways, his support among Republicans was actually worse than every post-war Republican president except for Gerald Ford.

We rate the statement False.