There's nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/20/us/angry-white-men-trials-blake-cec/index.html

 But consider the potential danger of other White men -- or any person wielding a gun in public -- feeling emboldened to use deadly force against even an unarmed person by evoking the logic in those defenses, said Eric Ruben, a Second Amendment expert. 

 "In other words, their own decision to carry a gun became a justification to use it, lest it be wrested away from them," Ruben recently told the New York Times. 

 Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham warned the GOP that "We're not generating enough angry White guys to stay in business for the long term."

The Rules of Halacha by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

 https://www.aish.com/jl/m/pm/48932007.html

God therefore granted the Jewish people as a whole a sort of collective Divine Inspiration so that they would be able to recognize the correct opinion in questions of Torah law. Therefore, when there is any question, it is ultimately decided on the basis of what becomes common practice. Hence, when a decision is accepted as a general custom, it becomes universally binding.

Therefore, any practice, decision or code that is universally accepted by the Jewish people is assumed to represent God's will and is binding as such. Even when a decision is initially disputed, the commonly accepted opinion becomes binding as law.

The lionization of Kyle Rittenhouse by the right

 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/19/the-lionization-of-kyle-rittenhouse-by-the-right-523054

“When you turn a foolish young man into a hero, you’ll see more foolish young men try to emulate his example,” wrote conservative commentator David French in The Atlantic. “And although the state should not permit rioters to run rampant in America’s streets, random groups of armed Americans are utterly incapable of imposing order themselves, and any effort to do so can lead to greater death and carnage.”

But those voices have been in the minority. More common has been a refrain that Rittenhouse has been a victim of media hysteria like others before him. Kirk pointed to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Nick Sandmann, the Kentucky teen falsely accused of trying to intimidate a Native American drummer at the Lincoln Memorial, as similar cases of media “smear jobs.”

 

Pregnant people with COVID face higher risk for stillbirths, CDC data show

 https://www.axios.com/stillbirths-cdc-covid-pregnancy-pandemic-5f8e0715-f48f-4f24-9c4e-eebc286c968c.html

Pregnant people who are infected with COVID-19 face a greater risk of experiencing a stillbirth compared with uninfected people, new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released on Friday show.

Driving the news: The data found that of the 8,154 stillbirths documented between March 2020 and September 2021, 1.26% of deliveries among people with COVID-19 resulted in stillbirth, compared to 0.65% of deliveries among uninfected individuals.

• "These findings underscore the importance of COVID-19 prevention strategies, including vaccination before or during pregnancy," the CDC wrote.
• Among patients with COVID-19, stillbirths were more common in people with chronic high blood pressure and other complications, such as individuals in intensive care or on breathing machines,

 

Young US Jews thriving the least in their spiritual lives — cross-religious survey

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/young-us-jews-thriving-the-least-in-their-spiritual-lives-cross-religious-survey/

A massive survey conducted over the past year found that even as young Americans are rejecting traditional organized religion, they are still embracing faith and spirituality, broadly defined.

The pollsters behind the Springtide Research Institute, a new nonprofit dedicated to research about the “inner and outer lives” of young people, say their poll, of more than 10,000 Americans between 13 and 25, is without recent precedent in its size and breadth. They also said Jewish respondents — 215 in total, a sample size they identified as statistically significant — appeared to be among those thriving the least in their religious and spiritual lives.

 

Kyle Rittenhouse case: Why it so divides the US

 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59348734

The facts of that night have never been up for debate - Kyle Rittenhouse killed two men and injured a third.

Instead the jury had to work out why he did it. He was being chased by a group of people when he fired the fatal shots. Was he acting in self-defence or was he a dangerous vigilante provoking an already volatile situation in a city he did not belong to?

Many groups who want tighter gun control say it was the latter. They are worried that by being cleared of the charges, Mr Rittenhouse's case now sets a precedent - that anyone can turn up to angry protests with a gun, but without facing any consequences.

Vigilante behaviour?

Mishlei (26:17) מַחֲזִ֥יק בְּאׇזְנֵי־כָ֑לֶב עֹבֵ֥ר מִ֝תְעַבֵּ֗ר עַל־רִ֥יב לֹּא־לֽוֹ׃  

 A passerby who gets embroiled in someone else’s quarrel
Is like one who seizes a dog by its ears.

Fox News to interview Kyle Rittenhouse amid protests over not guilty verdict

 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/nov/20/fox-news-tucker-carlson-interview-kyle-rittenhouse

 Mark Richards, an attorney for Rittenhouse, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that a Fox film crew was embedded with the defense team for the duration of the trial, which Richards did not approve of. “I threw them out of the room several times,” Richards said. “I don’t think a film crew is appropriate for something like this.”

In the aftermath of the Rittenhouse verdict and the success of his self-defense argument, some experts have raised concerns that Rittenhouse’s verdict will empower extremist movements and provoke violence in the name of vigilantism.

“It has never taken more than a whisper of approval to fan the flames of militant right action, and the Kenosha acquittal is a shout,” wrote Kathleen Belew, a historian who studies the white power movement, on Twitter.

Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wave Educational Fund, an organization in Wisconsin that aims to prevent gun violence, told NBC News that the trial is “feeding this idea that individual citizens need to be out there, not as part of a functioning society, but as these rogue dispensers of justice”.

 

Here's what legal experts say helped acquit Kyle Rittenhouse

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/19/us/legal-experts-what-helped-rittenhouse-acquittal/index.html

 Wisconsin law allows the use of deadly force only if "necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm." And because Rittenhouse's attorneys claimed self-defense, state law meant the burden fell on prosecutors to disprove Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

And it was an uphill battle to climb from the start, because of the facts in this case, experts said.

"(Prosecutors) weren't able to show that his response to each of these men, to each of these sets of threats was unreasonable," criminal defense attorney Sara Azari told CNN's Pamela Brown.

 

"The prosecution ... has to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt to all 12 jurors. How do you do that when you saw no real provocation going on?" Bianchi said. "There wasn't a real trial lawyer ... that didn't sit here and say this is an amazingly good self-defense case."

Kyle Rittenhouse's case was always going to be an uphill battle

 https://us.cnn.com/2021/11/20/opinions/kyle-rittenhouse-acquitted-rodgers/index.html

 Public sentiment after an episode that is viewed as unfair -- and there are plenty of people who are incensed that Rittenhouse went free because of a self-defense claim when he placed himself in the situation in the first place -- can spark change. For example, in Georgia, after the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, the legislature repealed the citizen's arrest law that Arbery's alleged killer and his co-defendants are relying on for their defense (although the defendants in the Arbery killing are still able to assert it).

Steve Bannon tries to shield himself with 'podcaster privilege'

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/18/opinions/steve-bannon-criminal-contempt-eisen-lydgate-perry/index.html

 Bannon's own words have been even more damaging than his lawyer's. When he surrendered himself to the FBI on Monday, Bannon brazenly outlined his intent, "I don't want anybody to take their eye off the ball...We're taking down the Biden regime." 

 

Third, Bannon can't hide behind his lawyer any more than he can hide behind Trump. Schoen claims that Bannon was merely acting on the advice of his lawyer, who told him to honor Trump's privilege invocation. But the majority of federal courts hold that reliance on a lawyer's advice isn't a defense to criminal contempt. The Godfather's Vito Corleone didn't get to break the law with impunity because Tom Hagen told him it was OK.

The Conversion Psak: Some Comments and One Observation

 https://cross-currents.com/2008/05/16/the-conversion-psak-some-comments-and-one-observation/

If and when the dust settles, one consequence will remain. The status of every convert over the last decades is potentially in jeopardy. No one can change this – not after the passing of Rav Moshe zt”l and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l, when we lost the last figures whose piskei halacha would be accepted by all parts of the Torah world. Today, what one authority says will be rejected by another. This is what makes gerus different from a psak in hilchos muktzah or giving a hechsher on a restaurant. If someone disagrees with the muktzah psak or finds the resturant’s standards wanting, he doesn’t have to move the object or patronize the eatery. If the decision is objectionable, the consequences are mostly local and circumscribed. Gerus is different. Its effects are felt for all time, and in a plethora of applications. It doesn’t matter if objections are valid or not. If there is room to question a gerus, it will be questioned, and there is no objective way to quiet the questioners. Some – many – people will treat the conversion with suspicion. 

 The only way to safeguard against this is to operate conversion courts according to standards acceptable to all. Many will strain against this. It is not fair, they say, to limit the discretion of the rav who follows some different standard. Perhaps. But it is less fair and exceedingly cruel to imply to a conversion candidate that his/her gerus is in order, knowing that many people will question it. It is foolish and naïve to think that a court employing the standard of some daas yachid will somehow “get away with it” unnoticed.

New details on spy in Defense Minister's house

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317190 

 Kan 11 reported that the cleaner and his wife worked at the Gantz residence twice a week on average. He and his wife managed their own cleaning company and Gantz paid them directly. Gantz's office stated that all payments to the cleaner were done legally and that all receipts were kept.

 The Shin Bet admitted on Thursday that there had been security failures and that the backgrounds of those who work in close proximity to senior officials would be re-examined. The current investigation has revealed that Goren has a lengthy criminal record, including five convictions and 14 police cases between 2002-2013, including two bank robberies, burglary, theft and more. He was sentenced to prison four times, and most recently served four years behind bars for robbery.

The Censure of Paul Gosar Matters

 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/paul-gosar-censure-aoc-anime.html

 Gosar faced no immediate punishment for that, nor for speaking at the white nationalist conference in February. In April, he was linked with an effort to start an America First Caucus in the House that, according to a draft memo, sought to defend “a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and, among other things, call for an infrastructure that “befits the progeny of European architecture.” While his colleague in that since-abandoned effort to start the caucus, Greene, had already been punished by a House vote to strip her of her committee assignments for her history of conspiracy theories and threatening statements, Gosar just kept sliding. He maintained his standing on the Natural Resources Committee, a valuable resume item for any member from Arizona.