Monday, August 31, 2020
Israeli pitched covert pro-Trump plan while leading ‘nonpartisan’ iVote Israel
A former employee of the Israeli private intel company Psy-Group, who was cited by the US Senate Intelligence Committee in a report this month as a planner of a covert influence pitch by the firm to help Donald Trump win the 2016 elections, simultaneously headed iVote Israel, a purportedly nonpartisan group that aims to boost absentee voting in the US elections from Israel.
Republicans twice defy Leonard Cohen estate to play ‘Hallelujah’ at convention
The Republican National Committee used the late Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” on the closing night of its convention despite being denied permission, according to an attorney for his estate.
Trump tries to dance around a devastating backdrop
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/trump-economy-branding-coup-405626
In the nine weeks left in the 2020 campaign, President Donald Trump has an especially daunting task: Convince a skeptical American public that the coronavirus-ravaged U.S. economy is actually roaring back and will soon return to the status he regularly calls the greatest in world history.
He faces serious obstacles. The U.S. economy pre-coronavirus was far from the greatest in history, leaving most Americans with little cushion for the latest plunge. Now Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other senior White House officials risk sounding out of touch cheerleading a still-struggling economy with a jobless rate over 10 percent — above its peak during the Great Recession — and close to 30 million people getting some kind of unemployment assistance.
Trump Says Biden's Numbers Are Plunging—Poll Trackers Barely Show A Change
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-joe-biden-polling-election-plunging-1528669
President Donald Trump has suggested Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's poll numbers are plunging despite trackers showing his lead has dipped by less than a point over the last month.
Emboldened by one recent poll which gave him a lead, in the popular vote overall and in battlegrounds, the president hit out at Biden's numbers, suggesting his return to in-person campaigning is because they are plummeting.
However, poll trackers from FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics still put Biden ahead looking at the average of results from multiple surveys—despite some surveys having shown a slight tightening of the race.
Report: Justice Department Quietly Limited Robert Mueller's Russia Investigation
While Trump and his allies have repeatedly called the Russsian investigation a hoax, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report published on August 18 confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin directly ordered the hacking of the Democratic Party's servers and that Trump campaign officials sought to receive advanced notice of Russia-supplied WikiLeaks releases through Roger Stone, which the report confirmed Trump was aware of despite written answers from the president to Mueller saying otherwise.
New York Times: Justice Department secretly curtailed investigation into Trump's Russia ties
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/30/politics/trump-russia-investigation-rod-rosenstein/index.html
The US Justice Department in 2017 took secret steps to curtail the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign, former law enforcement officials told The New York Times.
Schiff vows to 'compel' intelligence on election security after DNI head Ratcliffe ends in-person briefings
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday that Democrats will consider a subpoena for National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe after he announced the House and Senate intelligence committees would no longer receive in-person briefings on election security.
In a letter to the heads of those committees Friday, the nation's top intelligence official said the move was intended to ensure intelligence regarding "elections security, foreign malign influence, and election interference is not misunderstood nor politicized."
Ratcliffe said on Fox News'
"Sunday Morning Futures" that he would "continue to keep Congress
informed" through written updates. He explained the main reason for the
change was to stop "a pandemic of information being leaked out of the
intelligence community."
"Congressional oversight of intelligence activities now faces a historic crisis," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a statement Saturday after Ratcliffe's announcement.
Rubio bemoaned intelligence leaks, citing media reports that included information shared by National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina in briefings this month.
"Yet, this
grotesque criminal misconduct does not release the intelligence
community from fulfilling its legal requirements to respond to
Congressional oversight committees," Rubio said. He said Ratcliffe
"stated unequivocally that he will continue to fulfill these
obligations" and "explicitly" said the Senate Intelligence Committee
"will continue receiving briefings on all oversight topics, including
election matters."
HALACHA, HASHKAFA AND DEMOCRACY sources Rabbi Manning
https://rabbimanning.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Democracy-in-Halacha-and-Hashkafa.pdf
A] General Issues• how to define ‘democracy’?
- appointment of the executive and legislature by popular vote• who gets to vote?
• is separation of state and religion an important element of democracy? need it be?
• note the political abuse of the term ‘democratic’ by left and right, especially in Israel
Judaism and Democracy (Part 2 of 2) Harav Aharon Lichtenstein
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/judaism-and-democracy-part-2-2
The relationship between Halakha and democracy must be examined not only in terms of reconciling the contradictions. There are certainly contradictions between Halakha and democracy – particularly in the sphere of the rights of individuals. We must rise above – but not ignore – these points of conflict. We may see Halakha not only as facilitating the existence of democracy, but also – in certain senses – promoting it, according with it, and going along with it in the same direction and in the same spirit.
Judaism and Democracy (part 1 of 2) Harav Aharon Lichtenstein
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/judaism-and-democracy-part-1-2
This subject used to be a popular one in our circles. In essence it is immanent to the wider western society within which we live. The crown of democracy has traditionally been accorded a fair degree of prestige. There was a period when even fundamentally totalitarian states – such as East Germany or Communist China – called themselves “democratic” countries. The term “undemocratic” or “anti-democratic” was perceived as something to be ashamed of, as opposed to the stamp of democracy, which became a sought-after commodity. Thus, there are many who seek to grasp this crown, regardless of whether it suits their reality or not.
The world of Torah, too, seeks inclusion within the sphere of democracy. This is understandable not only from the practical, pragmatic view – the public relations perspective. Fundamentally speaking, democratic perception and thinking include values that are very close to our hearts.