AP FACT CHECK: Trump's relentless drive to be given credit

abcnews

President Donald Trump's relentless drive to be given credit for all manner of things suffused his speech to Michigan supporters this past week.

These efforts are largely familiar by now: He counts job gains from the Obama era as his own, rebrands his predecessor's veterans health care initiative as a Trump achievement, attributes auto factory expansion long in the making to his leadership, and hails a Republican rescue of health care that has not materialized.

But there was a new one on Thursday night. "We have some breaking news!" he said. "Can you handle it? I don't think you can handle it."

He then declared that after decades of failure by lawmakers to get money to clean up the Great Lakes, he was coming ahead with $300 million for that effort. The crowd roared.

But the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative was getting that money already . Trump had proposed slashing it.

The Zebu Controversy- Do All Animals Need A Mesorah?

Rockland declares state of emergency over measles outbreak, bars unvaccinated from public places

New York (WABC) -- Rockland County has declared a state of emergency over the ongoing measles outbreak, with Executive Ed Day announcing that non-vaccinated minors are now barred from public places. 

Now in effect, anyone who is under 18 years of age and is not vaccinated against the measles is prohibited from public places until the declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive the MMR vaccination. 

Officials said law enforcement will not be patrolling the streets or asking for vaccination records, but if someone is found in violation of the declaration, their case will be referred to the district attorney's office. 

Parents will also be held accountable for their children if they are found in violation of the state of emergency, and could face fines and possible jail time. 

Yona Weinberg

Yona Weinberg Slander Trial Continues Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 28, the next hearing of registered sex offender Yona Weinberg's slander trial against me will take place via teleconference from New York City. The hearing centers on one of Weinberg’s claims, namely that I ruined his reputation by falsely accusing him of being a fugitive from the United States, having posted on Twitter that he fled from Brooklyn to Israel fearing arrest for allegedly harming yet another child. 

For the record, this claim could or should have been rejected outright since a major media outlet had previously published this information The Daily News -- Convicted Sex Offender Flees on January 15, 2015, before my first tweet about Weinberg.   

The Israeli judge hearing this case declared NYPD Detective Fehrenbach’s letter inadmissible, because his written testimony was not subject to cross-examination. Therefore, tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. N.Y. Time, I will be with Detective Fehrenbach when he testifies in Israeli court via teleconference from New York so he can be cross examined and his testimony accepted.  

I am deeply committed to protecting the right of child safety advocates to warn Israeli parents of the life-threatening danger child abusers like Yona Weinberg present to their children, and will fight this lawsuit to the very end – and beyond if needed.

Yakov 


update

Dear Readers, At the Weinberg slander trial teleconference hearing today, the NYC Detective who was in charge of the Weinberg case in 2014, clearly stated that there is an active charge against Yona Weinberg and that Weinberg would be arrested as soon as he steps on American soil. Equally important, or perhaps even more so, when the judge asked Weinberg’s American lawyer to share his understanding of Weinberg’s status, the lawyer responded thatWeinberg is, in fact, facing charges in New York and may be arrested upon his return. So; while is it never wise to predict the outcome of a court case, it can be stated with certainty that we are in a far better position now than we were before the hearing, as Weinberg’s claim that I slandered him by calling him a "fugitive" seems to have disintegrated.  Moving forward, sometime after Pesach, Weinberg will submit his final statement to the judge. We will be given time to review it, and then submit our final statement. Once the judge receives and reviews both our statements, she will issue her ruling. Thank you for your support and emails of encouragement. Yakov

Rav Roth

Colbert: All The Other Reasons Trump Is A Bad President

Scientists rise up against statistical significance

nature

Let’s be clear about what must stop: we should never conclude there is ‘no difference’ or ‘no association’ just because a P value is larger than a threshold such as 0.05 or, equivalently, because a confidence interval includes zero. Neither should we conclude that two studies conflict because one had a statistically significant result and the other did not. These errors waste research efforts and misinform policy decisions.

Guest Post Short and Sweet, Hold the Gloat

Donald Trump told the truth when he said there was no collusion. He did not obstruct justice by opposing those who maintained the possibility he colluded.

Those who were overly suspicious that he colluded, were deluded into making his alleged collusion their reality, who became obsessed with prosecuting him for collusion, and who maintained he was narcissic and insane, and who made power grabs to dislodge him from the Oval Office, they are the crazy ones.

From the losing Presidential candidate to much of the media, to some Democratic elected officials, to Deep State bureaucrats, they pinned their hopes on something that existed only in their minds.

No winners here. Honest men and women were wounded; the scurrilous and devious are defeated.

Rocket-sirens-heard-in-Kfar-Saba-area-584520

Hamas officials have said that the rocket which struck a home in central Israel injuring seven civilians was fired from the Gaza Strip by mistake, Israeli media reported Monday morning.

According to the reports after the long-range J-80 rocket was fired by Hamas operatives by mistake, the group evacuated positions across the coastal enclave in anticipation for an Israeli retaliation.

Trump's Golan Heights decision: It's all about Iran, stupid!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23631

Since President Trump announced the U.S. would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, political pundits of both parties claim to understand the rationale of the POTUS for his announcement. They are all wrong! To paraphrase James Carville’s famous line, “It’s All About Iran Stupid.” The reason for the president’s announcement was to protect American interests in the Middle East.

Iran has deployed several thousand Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops Syria to help Assad. Additionally, Iran has brought in its buddy Hezbollah to join in on the war. To put the icing on the Iranian cake, Iran’s bought in thousands of Shiite fighters, paid by Tehran and following Iran’s orders.

But don’t think that Iran is trying to help their buddy Assad out of the goodness of their collective hearts. Its presence in Syria helps the rogue regime fulfill two interrelated strategic objectives.

A Secret Database of Child Abuse

theatlantic

In March 1997, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Jehovah’s Witnesses, sent a letter to each of its 10,883 U.S. congregations, and to many more congregations worldwide. The organization was concerned about the legal risk posed by possible child molesters within its ranks. The letter laid out instructions on how to deal with a known predator: Write a detailed report answering 12 questions—Was this a onetime occurrence, or did the accused have a history of child molestation? How is the accused viewed within the community? Does anyone else know about the abuse?—and mail it to Watchtower’s headquarters in a special blue envelope. Keep a copy of the report in your congregation’s confidential file, the instructions continued, and do not share it with anyone.

Thus did the Jehovah’s Witnesses build what might be the world’s largest database of undocumented child molesters: at least two decades’ worth of names and addresses—likely numbering in the tens of thousands—and detailed acts of alleged abuse, most of which have never been shared with law enforcement, all scanned and searchable in a Microsoft SharePoint file. In recent decades, much of the world’s attention to allegations of abuse has focused on the Catholic Church and other religious groups. Less notice has been paid to the abuse among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian sect with more than 8.5 million members. Yet all this time, rather than comply with multiple court orders to release the information contained in its database, Watchtower has paid millions of dollars to keep it secret, even from the survivors whose stories are contained within.

That effort has been remarkably successful—until recently.

Schwarzenegger Steps In to Defend John McCain’s Legacy

.theatlantic

Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain saw in each other a willingness to buck the Republican Party and became fast friends and political allies. Mindful of McCain’s legacy, the former California governor said on Wednesday that he couldn’t stay silent in the face of President Donald Trump’s recent spate of attacks on the late senator.

He told me that Trump’s swipes at McCain are both disgraceful and destructive. “He was just an unbelievable person,” Schwarzenegger said. “So an attack on him is absolutely unacceptable if he’s alive or dead—but even twice as unacceptable since he passed away a few months ago. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to do that. I just think it’s a shame that the president lets himself down to that kind of level. We will be lucky if everyone in Washington followed McCain’s example, because he represented courage.”

Trump, Schwarzenegger suggested, should shift his focus from tweeting to governing.“The president should lift people up, should lift the nation up rather than always tearing people down,” he said.

Trump, he said, should consult the first lady, who has made online bullying a cause: “Why don’t you go and sit down with your wife for just a few minutes, Mr. President, and listen to the first lady when she’s talking about stopping online bullying. That is a really great message. Which way do we go? Your way, or her way? That’s really the question here.”

Trump: Time to recognise Golan Heights as Israeli territory

.bbc

President Donald Trump says it is time the US recognises Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967.

In a tweet, Mr Trump declared that the plateau was of "critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability".

Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.

There was no immediate response from Syria, which has sought to regain control of the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has warned about the military "entrenchment" of his country's arch-enemy Iran in the Syria conflict, tweeted his thanks to Mr Trump on Thursday.