Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Liz Cheney becomes lightning rod, battling Trump over who’s lying about 2020
In interviews and statements, Trump continues to say he was cheated out of a second term, despite the failure of his own Justice Department and dozens of lawsuits to prove any widespread fraud. The other side, mostly among Democrats and the media, have branded this the Big Lie.
In the latest round, the 45th president attempted to appropriate that term, emailing reporters that the last election "will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!"
That prompted this tweet from Cheney: "The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system."
Not surprisingly, Trump issued another statement hours later, calling her a "big-shot warmonger" and, for good measure, insisting that Wyoming residents "never liked her much."
CNN reports that Cheney remained adamant at a private American Enterprise Institute conference on Monday, saying the party can’t swallow the "poison" of arguing the election was rigged.
Pleasure on Shabbos
אִם־תָּשִׁ֤יב מִשַּׁבָּת֙ רַגְלֶ֔ךָ עֲשׂ֥וֹת חֲפָצֶ֖יךָ בְּי֣וֹם קָדְשִׁ֑י וְקָרָ֨אתָ לַשַּׁבָּ֜ת עֹ֗נֶג לִקְד֤וֹשׁ יְהוָה֙ מְכֻבָּ֔ד וְכִבַּדְתּוֹ֙ מֵעֲשׂ֣וֹת דְּרָכֶ֔יךָ מִמְּצ֥וֹא חֶפְצְךָ֖ וְדַבֵּ֥ר דָּבָֽר׃
Redak (Yeshaya 58:13) You should call Shabbos pleasure . It is a positive commandment to get physical pleasure on Shabbos. You should eat good tasting food. By enjoying pleasure on Shabbos this will lead to remembering the act of Creation and that G-d created the universe from nothing and rested on the seventh day and this will lead to praising G-d and glorifying Him verbally and in your heart and cause your soul to have pleasure.
Netanyahu returns mandate to the President
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/305572
The mandate given by President Reuven Rivlin to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government following the elections to the 24th Knesset expired at midnight on Tuesday.
Moments before the expiration of the mandate, the Likud released a statement indicating that the Prime Minister had returned the mandate to the President.
The Likud said, "Due to Bennett's refusal to commit to a right-wing government, which would certainly have led to the formation of a government with the addition of other Knesset members, Prime Minister Netanyahu has now returned the mandate to the President."
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's son forced to quit post for political comments
Yosef
served until October 2020 as the neighborhood rabbi for Har Nof in
Jerusalem, a public servant position in which the office holder is
required to act in accordance with the terms and regulations of the
Civil Service Administration.
Liz Cheney chooses truth over power -- a lonely path in Trump's GOP
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/05/politics/liz-cheney-donald-trump-gop/index.html
But in a tweet on Monday that might end up being the last straw for her colleagues, the Wyoming lawmaker directly rebuked Trump's efforts to rebrand the phrase the "Big Lie" as the name for his own false claims of voter fraud.
Justice Department ordered to release memo on why Trump wasn’t charged in Mueller probe
“In other words, the review of the document reveals that the Attorney General was not then engaged in making a decision about whether the President should be charged with obstruction of justice; the fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” Jackson wrote.
Barr cleared Trump of obstruction and conspiracy to help Russia interfere in the 2016 election in a four-page summary released in late March 2019, delivering a major victory for the former president weeks before Mueller’s full 448-page report saw the light of day.
Mueller — who wrote in his report that he could neither “conclude that the president committed a crime” nor “exonerate him” — later complained to Barr that the brief summary didn’t accurately reflect his findings and caused “public confusion.” At that point, however, Trump had already seized on Barr’s summary to bolster his claim that Mueller’s probe was a political “witch hunt.”
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
How to Clean Up Your Online Reputation
http://therecoverybook.com/how-to-clean-up-your-online-reputation/
If there are news articles, blog posts or other mentions about your less-than-stellar history, you can ask the publisher to remove them. Not everyone will cooperate, but it’s worth a try. In the long run, it’s best to push them down in search results with good stuff (see below).
The G.O.P. Won It All in Texas. Then It Turned on Itself.
As an unassailable citadel of Republican electoral power for a generation, and one whose demography and geography reflect the United States in miniature, Texas is often a leading indicator of political trends in the party. So it is a grim omen for Republican leaders that in this state, where the G.O.P. achieved what might be described as the best-case scenario for the party’s hopes in other states in the 2022 midterm elections, the state’s prominent Republicans are struggling against one another as if they had just gone down in a rout. Abbott, ostensibly the most powerful Republican in Texas, has seen his approval rating steadily plummet, reaching a four-year low of 45 percent in March, according to the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Though he remains broadly popular with Republican voters, in October his own state party’s leadership took the extraordinary step of protesting against him outside the governor’s mansion — “a striking display of intraparty defiance,” The Texas Tribune called it. Ever since, he has operated as if the protesters remain camped outside his door.
Conservatives Owe Kamala Harris a Huge Apology | Opinion
https://www.newsweek.com/conservatives-owe-kamala-harris-huge-apology-opinion-1588461
Simply put, many critics in conservative media and GOP politics got duped by a plausible-sounding story that confirmed our prior biases against this administration. We fell prey to the same "fake news" charge we often hurt at liberal media outlets.
And it's not enough to just move on to the next criticism. We owe the vice president an apology and an acknowledgment of the mistake.
But there's no ethical excuse for becoming the thing you decry. All self-respecting members of the conservative media should hold ourselves to a higher standard—yes, even if our opposition often doesn't.
Stop justifying the 45 deaths on Mount Meron - opinion
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/stop-justifying-the-45-deaths-on-mount-meron-opinion-667115
It is true that Mount Meron was a turning point in Israeli history. Not because of how many people died. That was shocking and horrible beyond words, a truly unspeakable tragedy. Rather, what made it a turning point was that it was the first time where I actually witnessed the Jewish community trivializing the deaths of fellow Jews with all kinds of blabber and the most insensitive nonsense, with no price being paid on the part of those uttering this garbage.
Whatever good we as individuals or the world in general receive from suffering can be brought about in a painless, joyful manner. And it behooves people of faiths especially to once and for all cease justifying the death of innocents and instead rush to comfort and aid the survivors.
A false facial recognition match sent this innocent Black man to jail
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/29/tech/nijeer-parks-facial-recognition-police-arrest/index.html
According to a police report obtained by CNN, the evidence presented by the police officers that led to Parks' arrest was a "high profile comparison" from a facial recognition scan of a photo from what was determined to be a fake ID left at the crime scene that witnesses connected to the suspect. The facial recognition match was enough for prosecutors and a judge to sign off on his arrest.
Monday, May 3, 2021
שיחת הרבי הנוקבת: "הגיע הזמן להתנהג באנושיות ולהגדיל את מירון"
https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1215442
שיחה מיוחדת נשא הרבי מקרלין לחסידיו, עקב האסון במירון וקרא לשנות את כללי המשחק במירון בנוגע לתשתיות הגרועות: "כבר הגיע הזמן להתנהג באנושיות, אנחנו כבר לא הציבור הקטן שהיה פעם. ה' עזר שעד השנה היו ניסים, זו אינה סיבה שנמשיך לסמוך על זה"