US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull American troops out of Syria has created a serious policy dispute with Israel, potentially complicating his relationship with the mainstream US pro-Israel community for the first time since he took office.
The withdrawal of some 2,000 soldiers from Syria will likely make it more difficult for Israel to fight Iranian efforts to entrench itself in the war-torn country and expand its influence in the region.
Much like Israel’s government, which is faced with trying to preserve its tight bond with the Trump administration despite reports of Jerusalem feeling “betrayed,” the pro-Israel community in the US is also having to find a way to navigate between backing Trump and backing Israel.
Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade grilled a White House spokesperson on Monday morning over President Donald Trump’s controversial move to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
Mercedes Schlapp, who works as the White House’s director of strategic communications, appeared on the morning program to discuss Trump's recent decisions. When the subject of the president’s sudden move to pull American forces from Syria and Afghanistan came up, Kilmeade pushed back hard.
“Can you name an adviser the president has that recommended he pull out 2,000 troops?” Kilmeade asked Schlapp.
Declining to answer the question directly, Schlapp said she was “not going to get into the internal discussions of how the decision was made.” Trump reportedly made the call against the wishes of many top advisers, leading to the resignation of Secretary of Defense General Jim Mattis andBrett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, or ISIS.
At a town hall event on Dec. 11, Rep.-elect Mark Green of Tennessee inaccurately claimed that vaccine preservatives might cause autism. He also repeated an unsubstantiated claim that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “fraudulently managed” data that showed a link between vaccinations and autism.
Both of these statements are bogus:
Multiple large studies already have investigated whether any aspect of vaccination — including preservatives — can cause autism and found no evidence they do. The CDC alone has conducted nine investigations into the preservative thimerosal, finding no link to the disease.
There is no evidence that the CDC “fraudulently managed” vaccine data. Green said he was referring to an allegation of a CDC cover-up that was brought to the House floor in 2015. Those claims, however, are unsupported.
According to the Tennessean, which first reported the story, Green’s vaccine claims came in response to a question from a woman asking about possible cuts in Medicaid funding. She said she was the parent of a young adult with autism.
Green, Dec. 11: Let me say this about autism. I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County, to stand on the CDC’s desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines. So, as a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against CDC, if they really want to engage me on it. But it appears some of that data has been — it appears some of that data has been, honestly, maybe fraudulently managed. So we’ve got to go up there and stand against that and make sure we get that fixed, that issue addressed.
Fox Newsreported Friday that other officials may quit the Pentagon in Mattis’s footsteps. “More resignations at the Pentagon could be coming,” it said.
It also said that several potential successors to Mattis would likely share the outgoing defense chief’s positions on US military involvement in both Syria and Afghanistan. Noting that “Gen. Jack Keane and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are considered the frontrunners to replace Mattis,” Fox pointed outthat “neither candidate seems likely to embrace Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy and “Both came out against the withdrawal from Syria in strong terms.” cnn
The defense secretary's decision to quit Thursday was a warning that will ring through history about an impulsive President who spurns advice, disdains America's friends and proudly repudiates the codes of US leadership that have endured since World War II.
His recognition that he could no longer work for an erratic commander in chief who decided to pull US troops out of Syria, apparently without consulting anyone, could lead to a new period of global uncertainty as Trump slips his remaining restraints.
Grave faces on Capitol Hill and the shaken voices of retired military men on cable news reflected the Pentagon chief's renown as more than a decorated warrior, retired four-star general and the most admired Cabinet member.
He is a talisman.
For two years, politicians, foreign policy experts and allied diplomats would quietly confide their belief that as long as Mattis was in the Situation Room, alongside the impulsive Trump, everything would be OK.
Defense Secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, whose retirement from the Pentagon was announced Thursday by President Trump, is an archetypal American warrior. This country loves military leaders like him who speak their minds without any concern for how it will make the sensitive types feel.
In more than four decades as a Marine, Mattis’ job was defending our nation and killing our enemies. He was brilliant and extraordinarily effective doing that. One of his more memorable quotes showcases his attitude and persona perfectly: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
Mattis fought bravely in the Persian Gulf War, in Afghanistan and in the Iraq War. Plenty of bad people got what they deserved when he put his plans into action.
When Mattis was tapped to be secretary of defense by President Trump he received nearly universal acclaim – one of the few Trump appointments that both Democrats and Republicans said was a wise one.
Mattis and President Trump started out sharing a strong position against North Korea, which was conducting regular missile and nuclear weapons tests and presented a growing danger. They both fired some powerful rhetoric at the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. And they gave the impression that the secretary of defense was ready to put some teeth into those threats if need be.
But that was about the last of the smooth sailing for the Trump-Mattis partnership. It didn’t take long to see that the two men were not well-aligned on either style of substance.
It also seemed like Mattis never really felt comfortable in a suit and tie as opposed to combat boots and a helmet. In the early days of Trump’s Cabinet, Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson soon emerged as a sort of counterweight to the president’s more assertive ambitions.
The Iran nuclear deal soon became a particular sticking point. President Trump had promised to dismantle what he correctly called one of the worst deals America had ever made. Mattis and Tillerson worked diligently and in concert to change the president’s mind and even to slow down the process of withdrawing from the nuclear agreement.
This eventually angered Trump and in a famous blow-up he reportedly told both Mattis and Tillerson to bring him the plans for pulling out of the Iran deal he had asked for – or heads would roll.
The president eventually got his way – he is the commander-in-chief, after all. But his relationship with Mattis continued to sour amid disagreements over the policy on transgender troops and Mattis’ concern over Trump’s regular attacks on some of our longstanding allies.
The FBI arrested five leaders of the Jewish extremist cult Lev Tahor in Mexico, Yeshiva World News reported.
In a nightly operation and in cooperation with Interpol, the FBI raided Lev Tahor-owned properties in Mexico and is working on transferring the suspects to the US, the report said.
Ordinarily, “Fox and Friends” may be a political haven for President Trump, but on Thursday co-host Brian Kilmeade took an unusual double-barrel shot at him.
The co-host said that “in a stunning and, I think, irresponsible move” Trump has “blindsided” Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and national security adviser John Bolton, as well as the State Department, which he said is now “packing their bags.”
“Why have advisers?” he said, throwing up his hands.
he Terumas HaDeshen (responsum 211) writes that since sakanah(danger) is more serious than issurim (prohibitions), beis din must distance people from sakanah just as they do from issur. Thus, it is clear – as numerous rabbanim have already publicly stated – that every child possible must be vaccinated to stop the deadly measles outbreak in the frum community.
Yet, some people – even amidst this dangerous outbreak – have embarked on a PR campaign to scare Jews away from vaccinating their children, arguing that vaccines carry dangerous side effects. Some are even downplaying the dangers of measles. How do we account for such irresponsible activism?
Although I personally have always supported vaccinating children against deadly diseases, I never studied the issue until the recent measles outbreak. With an open mind, I sought out anti-vaccination proponents, some of whom I am quite friendly with. In doing so, though, I was repeatedly shocked by the sheer arrogance and recklessness some of them evinced as well as inconsistencies in their own arguments.
The resolution voiced “grave concern over the progressive militarization of Crimea” and called on Moscow to “end its temporary occupation of Ukraine’s territory.”
18:50-21:50 into the recording: Rav Willig says that there is no mekach ta'ut in the case of a prominent case of claimed psychiatric illness to void a marriage.
