Women and authority

 Igros Moshe (Y.D. 02:044):Can the widow of a mashgiach be a mashgiah in her husband’s place? From the aspects of trustworthiness there is absolutely no concern and she could be relied upon. However there is a concern based on the Rambam (Melachim 1:5) who stated that all appointments to positions of authority have to be men, even though I don’t’ know the justification for his position. The Sifre cited by the Kesef Mishne, Radvaz and Migdal Oz only says king but not queen but not a general rule that applies to all positions of authority. It would appear that this is simply the Rambam’s personal thought and is not that of the Sifre. It appears from Kiddushin (76) that it is proper since a comparable position of supervising weights is permitted.It seems that even though the Rambam is opposed to appointing women but others appear to disagree, For example the Chinuch does say a king but not queen but doesn’t say that all other positions of authority are limited to men and also Tosfos(Sotah 41) as well as Rashi and Ran in Kiddushin (76) as I mentioned before. Therefore in a situation of great need one can rely on those who disagree with the Rambam and appoint her to replace her late husband.

George Conway reacts to Hawley's plan to force vote on election results

The real reason you need to worry about Hawley's objection to Biden victory

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/30/opinions/election-results-josh-hawley-joe-biden-douglas/index.html

 Don't be too nervous about Republican Sen. Josh Hawley's announcement that he will object to the certification of Joe Biden as President when Congress meets on Jan. 6. His ploy won't stop Biden from taking the oath of office on Jan. 20. But it should make everyone concerned about the long-term health of our democracy.

Don Lemon rolls the tape on Trump's 2020 'insane reality show'

Unrealistic effort underway to unseat President-elect Joe Biden

 https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/is-mike-pence-in-charge-of-deciding-the-overturn-of-2020-us-elections-653856

 In a tactical gambit to change the outcome of the November 3 US elections that has almost no chance of succeeding, a group of Republicans led by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas, 1st District) sued Vice President Mike Pence on Monday. Their goal is to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory.

A lawsuit filed against the Republican vice president by Republicans?

According to the Washington Post, this situation would be a violation of the law, and could land Pence in court. As such, political analysts and legal experts have indicated that these efforts have almost no chance of succeeding. 

Trump's Push for $2,000 Checks Flops as the GOP-led Senate Won't Vote

 https://time.com/5925606/2000-dollars-senate-vote-covid19-relief/

 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all but shut the door Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s push for $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid as he blocked another attempt by Democrats to force a vote.

The GOP leader made clear he is unwilling to budge, despite political pressure from Trump and even some fellow Republican senators demanding action. Trump wants the recent $600 in aid increased threefold. But McConnell dismissed the idea of bigger “survival checks” approved by the House, saying the money would go to plenty of American households that just don’t need it.

IAF Commander opposes US sale of F-35 to UAE

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/294034

Amikam Norkin, Commander of the Israel Air Force, on Wednesday commented on the deal to sell F35 aircraft from the United States to the United Arab Emirates.

Speaking during a discussion at the Weizmann Institute, Norkin said, "We want to maintain our qualitative advantage. We have no quantitative advantage."

"I feel a deep American commitment, that was also agreed upon with the Minister of Defense two months ago, to the qualitative advantage. It is not so good for us to have advanced aircraft in the region," he added.

Poll: 78% of Haredim back health rules, 60% broke them to send kids to school

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-78-of-haredim-back-health-rules-60-broke-them-to-send-kids-to-school/

A majority of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox believe in the importance of lockdown restrictions to curb the coronavirus, but a majority of the community also sent their children to school in violation of the rules, according to a survey published Wednesday.

The survey said that 78 percent of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Israelis believe there is “great” or “moderate” importance to adhering to the Health Ministry’s rules during the pandemic.

Trump's ridiculous exit strategy

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/21/opinions/trump-oval-office-transition-dantonio/index.html

Behold the crackpot presidency nearing its end.

After years of conspiracy theories, lies, and rage, the President seems to be turning the Oval Office into a stage set for the final scenes of a Biblical quality drama -- and more specifically, the tale of the super-strong Israelite warrior Samson, who declared "Let me die with the Philistines!" and in toppling the temple, died along with his enemies. 

 

Trump isn't Samson. America isn't a Philistine temple. Thank God there are still people around the President who resist the ridiculous drama.

GOP senator to delay affirming Biden victory by forcing votes on Electoral College results

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics/josh-hawley-force-votes-electoral-college-results/index.html

Rep. Mo Brooks, the Alabama Republican spearheading the effort to object in the House, said earlier this month Republicans were considering objecting to six states that Biden won, meaning as much as 12 hours of debate that would turn the process into a political circus and could spill into a second day of debate.

The last time the chambers voted on an objection was in 2005, when then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, joined with then-Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat, to object to Bush's Ohio win. Hawley cited the objection in his statement Wednesday.

But Boxer told CNN earlier this month the circumstances of the objection were starkly different to the GOP efforts to overturn Biden's election win.

"Our intent was not to overturn the election in any way. Our intent was to focus on voter suppression in Ohio," said Boxer, who has retired from the Senate. "They're talking about the vote that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump. It's not even a close comparison."

Vaccines Are Safe, No Matter What Bobby Kennedy Says

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/opinion/covid-vaccine-bobby-kennedy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

As a doctor, and as a member of the Kennedy family, I feel I must use whatever small platform I have to state a few things unequivocally. I love my uncle Bobby. I admire him for many reasons, chief among them his decades-long fight for a cleaner environment. But when it comes to vaccines, he is wrong.

Though his Facebook post linked to a dubious source — a website aligned with the Children’s Health Defense organization that publishes conspiratorially tinged stories on “Big Pharma” and “Big Food” — the basic premise was correct: two U.S. health care workers did suffer allergic reactions, one anaphylactic, the other more mild, to the Covid vaccine.

Shaking hands with women

Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:032.9):Shaking hands with women as greeting. It is obviously prohibited as I have written previously (O.C. 113) because of concerns for sexual arousal and pleasure. However I wrote (E.H. 56) that if you see religious Jews who are lenient to judge them favorably and assume that they are relying on the absence of sexual arousal and pleasure but I also wrote there that it is difficult to rely on this. I don’t see any inconsistency between prohibiting shaking hands but permitting riding on buses (E.H. 2:14) since there is no affection involved there for almost everyone

What We Know About AstraZeneca’s Head-Scratching Vaccine Results

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/health/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine.html

Surprisingly, the vaccine combination in which the first dose was only at half strength was 90 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 in the trial. In contrast, the combination of two, full-dose shots led to just 62 percent efficacy.

Fewer than 2,800 volunteers got the half-strength initial dose, out of the more than 23,000 participants whose results were reported on Monday. That’s a pretty small number of participants on which to base the spectacular efficacy results — far fewer than in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s trials.

How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works

 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is based on the virus’s genetic instructions for building the spike protein. But unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which store the instructions in single-stranded RNA, the Oxford vaccine uses double-stranded DNA.

The researchers added the gene for the coronavirus spike protein to another virus called an adenovirus. Adenoviruses are common viruses that typically cause colds or flu-like symptoms. The Oxford-AstraZeneca team used a modified version of a chimpanzee adenovirus, known as ChAdOx1. It can enter cells, but it can’t replicate inside them.