Trump Makes Rare Cave on State of the Union Speech

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/01/24/trump-makes-rare-cave-on-state-of-the-union-speech/

WASHINGTON (AP) — The counter-puncher caved.

President Donald Trump’s decision to postpone his State of the Union address under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised allies, contradicted top aides who had been working on an alternative speech plan and left all of Washington trying to determine whether it signaled new willingness by Trump to make a deal to reopen the government.

“Well, it’s really her choice,” Trump said Thursday, acknowledging Pelosi had the upper hand when it came to scheduling the traditional presidential address to Congress. The speaker had made clear Trump could not deliver his speech from the House unless he waited until the government reopens.

So Trump, who is typically loath to show any sign of weakness, made a highly uncharacteristic about-face and one that highlighted the importance the president attaches to the type of symbolism and pageantry associated with a speech from the rostrum of the House.

The president concluded that there was no viable alternative that could match the gravitas of the traditional State of the Union address, in which all three branches of government come together under one roof, drawing the president’s largest television audience of the year. An alternative speech or rally also would have been a hard sell for television networks, which took heat earlier this month for airing the president’s prime-time Oval Office address in which he largely rehashed his case for a southern border wall.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/skokie/community/chi-ugc-article-rep-kalish-attends-gov-pritzkers-45th-anni-2019-01-22-story.html

Rep. Kalish Attends Gov. Pritzker’s 45th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Celebration

Community Contributor David Ormsby

[Chicago] - Newly appointed State Rep. Rabbi Yehiel "Mark" Kalish (D-Chicago) attended the 45th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Celebration hosted by Governor J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday.

"Protecting access to safe and legal reproductive healthcare for women in Illinois is a priority for me because a woman's right to choose is under assault from Washington," said Kalish. "That's why I think that it's important for me to stand with Governor Pritzker and my legislative colleagues on the 45th anniversary of the Roe decision."

Pritzker headlined the Roe celebration at Planned Parenthood's Chicago office on January 22.

Kalish, who was sworn in on January 20 after being appointed to the Illinois House seat vacated by State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), was also an active advocate on winning approval for Illinois House Bill 40, sponsored by State. Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), a measure that ensures that a woman's right to choose remains the law of the land in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Roe.

"I'm proud to have been one of the foot soldiers in Rep. Feigenholtz's successful effort to protect a woman's right to choose in Illinois," said Kalish. "It's clear that Roe is at risk from Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees."

In addition to protecting reproductive health care for women, Kalish also pledges to fight any attempts to roll back or chip away at marriage equality or undermine the civil rights of the LGBT community.

"Equality for all citizens is a fundamental constitutional and moral principle," said Kalish. "We are all equal under the eyes of the law and God, and marriage equality is no exception and that's why I support the law."

Why Do Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews Defy Their Rebbes And Refuse To Vaccinate?

forward

About 9% of Americans oppose vaccination, but Minke is unusual even among that vocal minority. She is an ultra-Orthodox Jew, part of a community known for adherence to the rulings of their rebbes — rabbinic leaders. And many of those rebbes have insisted that Jewish law requires vaccination. But a stubborn, if small, segment of the ultra-Orthodox community is saying that, when it comes to vaccines, their rebbes’ decrees do not apply.

“I believe that there is no Torah source to tell me exactly how to take care of my children,” Minke, 31, said in an interview. Minke requested a pseudonym because she did not feel comfortable having her views publicly known.

The real politics behind the Covington Catholic controversy, explained

vox

The Covington Catholic fight is American politics in microcosm.

Why is the Covington Catholic controversy still the nation’s biggest story?

It started simply enough. A short viral video shot on Friday shows a group of white teens in “Make America Great Again” hats surrounding a small group of Native American demonstrators, including an elder from the Omaha tribe named Nathan Phillips. One of the kids, identified as Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann, gets up in Phillips’s face and smirks, unaffected by Phillips’s drumming. It looks like a straightforward story of privileged racist white kids harassing a peaceful Native protester.

But shortly after the clip went viral, to universal and at times vitriolic condemnation, a pushback began in right-of-center media. They argued that mainstream media and left-wing activists alike were being unfair to the kids, who were actually defending themselves from insults and harassment from a separate group of protesters, members of the fringe Black Israelite movement. Even President Trump weighed in:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18192831/covington-catholic-maga-hat-native-american-nathan-phillips

The Covington Catholic fight is American politics in microcosm.

Steny Hoyer Is Furious At Republicans For Bowing To Trump On Shutdown

Steny Hamilton Hoyer is an American politician serving as U.S. Representative for Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981, and has served as House Majority Leader since 2019. A Democrat, he was first elected in a special election on May 19, 1981 and is currently serving in his 20th term. Wikipedia

DRUCKMAN ATTEMPTS APOLOGY, SAYS RABBIS NEED TO OPPOSE SEX OFFENDERS

jpost.

Druckman has been strongly criticized for his failure to publicly condemn Rabbi Moti Elon and to apologize for having publicly supported him after he was convicted of sex offenses against a minor in 2013.

Two donors to institutions connected with the rabbi have cut off their funding due to his failure to publicly distance himself from Elon.

Druckman made his comments in a letter to the heads of hesder yeshivas on Tuesday. They are due to meet in coming weeks on the subject of sexual abuse in educational frameworks and the national-religious community more broadly.

“This is an opportunity for me to express my position regarding our full obligation to deal with sexual abuse and to stand on the side of those who are harmed, and to stand against those who do such harm, without a hint of hushing or covering it up,” Druckman wrote.

“Unfortunately, I acknowledge that part of my activities in this realm gave a different and wrong impression because the steps I took were not properly understood.”

“I am very saddened by this and especially if there are people who were offended by this,” he continued. He finished by saying that he very much appreciates those who work in the field of combating sexual abuse and helping those affected by it, saying that he felt a responsibility to give back to those working against abuse.

Elon was convicted in 2013 of two counts of sexual assault against a minor. Druckman, however, publicly criticized the conviction, and invited Elon to lecture at his yeshiva in Merkaz Shapira.

)rthodox supporter of Roe

letter from Lubavitcher Rebbe about Rav Solovetchik

Judge Rules that Hospital Must Rescind Death Certificate for Orthodox Patient

hamodia

A judge has ruled that Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital must rescind a death certificate that it issued for an Orthodox Jewish patient some three weeks before his death. The decision could have far-reaching effects for religious groups and the obligation of hospitals and medical professionals to accommodate their beliefs, especially regarding “end of life” policies.

The patient, Yechezkel Nakar, z”l, was niftar in the spring of 2017 and the legal fight over what his family perceived as an illegitimately issued death certificate began soon after. The suit gained wide media attention, but a ruling was only issued this past Friday for what Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Devin Cohen only identified as “technical reasons,” according to the Nakar family’s attorney Morton Avigdor.

The delay aside, Mr. Avigdor said the ruling was “terrific.”

“This is a clear and very strongly worded legal recognition of the responsibility of hospitals to accommodate religious beliefs,” he told Hamodia. “This is not just about one hospital, it will affect all of the city and likely beyond, who will have to rethink the way they treat religious rights.”

Against the objections of the patient’s family, the hospital had conducted tests to show if Mr. Nakar, who was unconscious after suffering a stroke, was wh

ant-abortion

Minnesota Rabbi Busted In Underage Sex Sting Sentenced To Probation

forward

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Ramsey County Sheriff’s O...

The police photo of Cohen.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Read more: https://forward.com/fast-forward/417771/minnesota-rabbi-busted-in-underage-sex-sting-sentenced-to-probation/

Ramsey County Sheriff’s O...

The police photo of Cohen.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Read more: https://forward.com/fast-forward/417771/minnesota-rabbi-busted-in-underage-sex-sting-sentenced-to-probation/

Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?

seforimblog

Though this article deals with a factual question, it often seems to devolve into an ideological one. I therefore wish to state: I have no horse in this fight. I have not taken halakhic positions from Igrot Moshe volumes 7-9. I went into this with a genuinely open mind, and in the course of researching this question, I have taken the affirmative and negative sides of this question at different points.

Ever since Igrot Moshe volume 8 was published, and to a lesser degree volume 7, people have cast aspersions or directly accused it of being a forgery. The claim, generally, has been some variation of direct accusation or insinuation that somebody, usually either one of the Tendlers or R. Shabtai Rappaport, inserted his own teshuvot into the volume. Volume 9 is, as they say, ‘right out’. Some even call these volumes ‘Igrot Moshe David’.

As an example, Hirhurim several years ago published this quote from R. J.D. Bleich, though the comment thread is likely a better example.

Given

the preponderance of evidence that the later Igrot

Moshe volumes

are real (and spectacular), I think we can put the various theories

of alternative authorship to rest. The claims of the editors — that

the latest teshuvot were

dictated[6] — explains the ‘steroid spike’, and all available

evidence supports their central contention, that they didn’t change

the actual content. In short: it’s legit.

Timesunion

In the quest to "liberate" women, pro-choice feminists in New York have rallied around the Reproductive Health Act. Many buzz phrases have circulated to describe the RHA's meaning, such as "Abortion is not a crime" and "Abortion is health care," but beyond these buzz words lie the RHA's real implications: It dehumanizes the disabled; healthy, viable humans in utero; children who are aborted but born alive; and pregnant victims of domestic violence.

By completely gutting abortion from New York's criminal law, the RHA removes the state's only prosecutorial tool for holding violent abusers accountable for the death of wanted unborn children. Studies show that domestic violence escalates during pregnancy. New York's version of a fetal homicide law lies within the abortion provisions of its penal law, which the RHA repeals.

If reproductive freedom and equality lie at the heart of the RHA, as pro-choice feminists claim, how could the bill's drafters have overlooked this injustice? How could any feminist strip away the right of a woman to prosecute a violent partner for killing her wanted fetus? Depriving women of the opportunity to punish violent partners for killing their wanted unborn children is anti-woman.

The RHA dehumanizes viable, healthy humans in utero — who could survive outside the womb — by enacting a broad rather than a narrow health exception to New York's current ban on third-trimester abortions.

The RHA dehumanizes the disabled by explicitly permitting the unimpeded destruction of unborn children incapable of surviving outside the womb during the third trimester of pregnancy.

The RHA dehumanizes yet another class of humans, namely infants born alive during abortions — which does occur, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The RHA fully repeals state Public Health Law 4164, which requires that after the 20th week of pregnancy, a separate doctor be present to provide life-saving treatment to children who survive abortions. The current law also affords them civil rights. Without PHL 4164, it is unclear what protections children who survive abortion would have.

From a pro-life feminist perspective, the RHA warps women's rights to bodily integrity and individual autonomy and undermines basic human rights. For a group of people such as women, who have long endured historic dehumanization, the RHA should be embarrassing.