https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-voting-surge-red-wave-gop-mar-lago-fbi-raid-1733904
Donald Trump has claimed the Republicans could win "many additional seats, both in the House & Senate" as a result of the FBI's raid on his Florida residence.
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
SHAIMOS GUIDELINES By: Rabbi Moshe Heinemann
https://www.star-k.org/articles/kashrus-kurrents/4476/shaimos-guidelines/
NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES AND TAPES
Newspapers and magazines which contain secular information should not be put into shaimos as they degrade the real shaimos that are buried with them, especially if the advertisements and pictures are not within the spirit of the Torah. The pages that do contain Torah may be removed and placed into shaimos if the other side of that page also contains Torah or is blank. Alternatively, the whole paper may be put into a bag which should then be put into another bag so that the paper is double wrapped, known as kli besoch kli. It can then be placed into the garbage or into recycling. Missionary material that contains pesukim may be burnt or double wrapped and discarded.
Tapes and CD’s containing divrei Torah and shiurim may be disposed of after they have been double wrapped in plastic.
*In the above cases, the shaimos or divrei Torah may be cut away from the paper and buried if so desired.
Monday, August 15, 2022
Espionage Isn’t the Strongest Case Against Trump. It’s Simpler Than That.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/14/trump-classified-documents-doj-opinion-00051584
Despite Trump’s insistence that if the government wanted the records back, “all they had to do was ask,” the government repeatedly asked for the records and Trump refused to give them back, giving them only “what he believed they were entitled to.” Although Trump may believe that highly classified defense secrets are his own personal property, or that he could keep Top Secret documents because he informally “declassified” them without following established procedures, it will be difficult to convince jurors that he had a legitimate reason to keep such sensitive national security information at his Florida resort.
Republicans pressure Garland as intrigue deepens over search of Trump home
Presidents do have substantial powers to declassify information. But ex-presidents do not. And there is so far no clear evidence of any process undertaken by Trump to officially declassify the documents when he was in office. And even if the material was declassified, possible lax storage arrangements at his residence could still have posed a national security threat. Furthermore, none of the three laws cited in the criminal warrant solely hinge on whether information was deemed to be unclassified, which may make the declassification point somewhat irrelevant anyway.
It is also unclear why an ex-President needed such information.
"What was the motivation for accumulating them, moving them to Mar-a-Lago?" James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, said on CNN's "Newsroom" on Saturday. "I don't understand what the purpose was. I mean, you know, the imagination can run wild here as to what the potential purpose or motivations might have been."
Anti-Biden commentators spread false claim that he affixed a Medal of Honor 'backwards' - lies because he deserves it!
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/fact-check-biden-medal-of-honor-backwards/index.html
Biden correctly put the medal around Birdwell's neck, as clear footage of the Tuesday ceremony proves. The graininess of the footage that went viral on social media made it difficult to see that the medal was hanging entirely normally near the top of Birdwell's tie.
You can watch clear footage here of Biden giving the medal to Birdwell at the White House. Nothing went wrong during the process.
The false claim that Biden affixed the medal "backwards" was previously fact-checked by Snopes, Newsweek, the Associated Press and others.
The person who operates the obscure Twitter account told CNN in a message on Thursday that they had found the video on Telegram, a messaging and chat app, along with the claim that the medal was backwards. The person said that although they are aware that people have said "it's the way the medal is and it's not backwards," they do not plan to take down the viral tweet.
"I was debating deleting it and I decided not to because it's Biden and he deserves the scrutiny," they said.
Why Trump is wrong to suggest Obama personally kept ‘33 million pages of documents’
Trump said, "President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!"
Trump is wrong. News reports starting in 2016 showed that the National Archives and Records Administration would oversee transfer of Obama’s presidential records. The agency announced it would digitize the records and that classified records were sent to a facility in College Park, Maryland.
Obama does not have them. We rate this statement Pants on Fire!
Fox News’ Bret Baier Shuts Down Trump: ‘Obama Documents Were Handled Properly’
“There is a process,” Baier explained, noting that President Obama “followed those processes to get those documents to Chicago.” While “there was a lot of grumbling that they weren’t posted online as promised,” he said, “how they were handled was done by that process.”“The President Obama documents were handled properly,” Baier added. “And the question is whether there’s a paper trail and a process for these documents if that’s what the Trump lawyers and the former president are arguing.”Specifically, Trump is claiming that he personally “declassified” all of the documents in question—evoking Michael Scott’s declaration of bankruptcy on The Office—but as Baier also noted on Fox Friday afternoon, it’s not that simple.“Now that is a big power that the president has, a sweeping power to declassify, but there are also regulations that have to, a process has to take place,” he explained. “It’s not like you wave a wand and say all these boxes are declassified.”
Ron Johnson Calls Mar-a-Lago 'Pretty Safe Place' for Classified Documents
https://www.newsweek.com/ron-johnson-calls-mar-lago-pretty-safe-place-classified-documents-1733514
Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, called Mar-a-Lago a "pretty safe place" to keep documents with sensitive information on Friday.
"I'm not overly concerned about some top secret information being leaked out," Johnson told ABC News affiliate WSIN, adding that while he is "always" concerned about classified documents, he thinks that the documents in the possession of former President Donald Trump are in a "secure location guarded by the Secret Service."
However, the Secret Service said that it used to conduct physical screenings to ensure no banned items were brought into Mar-a-Lago and to secure the then-president, but it didn't decide who was given access to the residence when Trump was in office, Reuters reported on Saturday.
Republicans foolishly try to roll out the ‘what about Obama’ tack
Update: Just as I was publishing this, Trump issued a written statement that read, “President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!”
This has all the sophistication of someone who generally writes with crayons, but more importantly, it seemed to hint at a possible concession that Trump did take nuclear-related materials.
Second Update: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) issued a written statement this afternoon, making clear that Trump's lying.
Mar-a-Lago -- and its owner -- have long caused concerns for US intelligence
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/14/politics/trump-documents-mar-a-lago/index.html
Mar-a-Lago, the stone-walled oceanfront estate Donald Trump labeled the "Winter White House," has long been a source of headaches for national security and intelligence professionals. Its clubby atmosphere, sprawling guest-list and talkative proprietor combined into a "nightmare" for keeping the government's most closely held secrets, one former intelligence official said.
Trump calls for return of privileged documents reportedly seized at Mar-a-Lago
Citing unidentified sources familiar with the investigation, Fox News on Saturday evening reported that the FBI seized five boxes that included information covered by attorney-client privilege as part of its extraordinary search at Trump’s Florida property on Monday. The network also reported that its sources said some records could be covered by executive privilege.
Trump is claiming some secret documents are covered by attorney-client privilege - How does that work? If he illegally discussed secret documents with an attorney it now belongs to him?!
Sunday, August 14, 2022
Responding to FBI search, Trump and allies return to his familiar strategy: flood the zone with nonsense
In response to the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's home in Florida on Monday, Trump and his allies in Congress and right-wing media have returned to his preferred strategy for communicating in a crisis: say a whole bunch of nonsense in rapid succession.
From his battles against impeachment to his effort to limit the political fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump has attempted to flood the zone with such a quantity and variety of lies, conspiracy theories and distractions that Americans will tune out, turn away or cease to know what is true and not. And he has regularly been joined by a large cast of eager defenders.
Rand Paul Calls for Espionage Act Repeal as Trump Fumes Over FBI Search
https://www.newsweek.com/rand-paul-calls-espionage-act-repeal-trump-fumes-over-fbi-search-1733488
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, called for repealing the Espionage Act less than a week after the FBI executed a search warrant at former President Donald Trump's Florida residence, with the legal document citing a provision of the federal law that the federal agency suspected had been violated.
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