Explosive. But I think Republican strategists misunderstand the scandal, or miss the heart of it. It isn’t really about abortion or hypocrisy. It is about children born and the father says to the mother: You can raise it by yourself or you can abort it but I won’t help you raise it and act as a father. That is the story, that Walker is accused of abandoning his little kids, and it came from his son, Christian, 23, a conservative activist, who made the furious videos that blew the story up. That is the aspect Christian focused on: “My father . . . had all these random kids across the country, none of whom he raised. . . . Family values people: He has four kids—four different women—wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women. . . . You have no idea what me and my mom have survived.”
Monday, October 10, 2022
Sunday, October 9, 2022
Trump Blames U.S. for 'Almost Forcing' Putin to Invade Ukraine
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-blames-us-almost-forcing-putin-invade-ukraine-1750145
"It's something Putin has been thinking about for many years," he said. "I think Putin basically launched this campaign to annex what was two territories—but is now four territories—to expand the Russian Federation. I think this was an example of imperial intent. He wanted to expand his territory and the Russian empire."
Saturday, October 8, 2022
Zionism must be disqualified for Moshiach to come
Devarim (32:36) 9 For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
Sanhedrin (97a:)The Sages taught in a baraita: The verse states: “For the Lord shall judge His people and atone for His servants, when He sees that their power is gone and there is none shut up or left” (Deuteronomy 32:36). From the phrase “their power is gone” it is derived that the son of David will not come until informers will proliferate. Alternatively, the Messiah will not come until the number of students of Torah diminishes. Alternatively, the Messiah will not come until the peruta will cease from the purse. Alternatively, the Messiah will not come until they despair from the redemption, as it is stated: “And there is none shut up or left,” as though there were no supporter or helper for the Jewish people.
אמת ליעקב דברים פרק לב פסוק לו
(לו) כי ידין ה' עמו גו' ואפס עצור ועזוב.
הנה בסנהדרין [דף צ"ז ע"א] ילפינן מהכא שאין בן דוד בא עד שיתייאשו מן הגאולה כביכול אין סומך ועוזר לישראל, ועיי"ש. והנה מאמר חז"ל זה טעון ביאור, וכי תנאי הוא שחס ושלום ישתכח עיקר א' מהשלש עשרה עיקרים, והלא הרמב"ם מנה תקות הגאולה בין העיקרים. אבל הכוונה בזה הוא שכל זמן שכלל ישראל מצפה לגאולה שתבוא באופן טבעי, והיינו שירחמו עלינו אומות העולם ויתנו לנו איזה מקום לבנות לנו מולדת וכדומה, ודאי לא תבוא הגאולה, כי חסד לאומים חטאת ובאמת שנואים אנחנו מכל יושבי תבל, ורק אם נתייאש לגמרי מאשליות כאלו ונבין כי אין לנו לישען אלא על אבינו שבשמים אז יבוא בן דוד ויגאלנו גאולה אמיתית, והבן.
וזה גם הטעם במה שאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה לילך לפרעה ולדרוש ממנו כי יוציא את בני ישראל ממצרים, ומיד לאחר זה הכביד פרעה את עולו עליהם עד כי לא שמעו אל משה מקוצר רוח ומעבודה קשה, והיינו שרצה הקדוש ברוך הוא שיבינו בני ישראל כי לא פרעה הוא המשחררם וכאילו בטובו וחסדו תלוי הדבר, אלא אדרבה - לאחר שראו שמשה ביקש מפרעה לשחררם והוא סירב באמרו מי ד' אשר אשמע בקולו, מיד נתייאשו בני ישראל מלצפות שאמנם תבוא הגאולה באופן טבעי ושוב לא תלו תקוותם בפרעה, ולכן מיד אחר זה באה הגאולה האמיתית, ודו"ק.
Friday, October 7, 2022
Psychology's tall tales
https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/09/tall-tales
"Psychology, unlike many of the other sciences, doesn't have a canon of uncontested facts," says Mark Levine, PhD, of the University of Exeter, who co-authored the American Psychologist article. "Because of this, psychology textbooks are not made up of facts students must learn. Instead, they are full of experiments and research techniques. Parables like the Kitty Genovese story serve to link the experiments to the real world. There is thus a strong incentive not to abandon the stories in the textbooks, even if the stories themselves are on shaky ground."
New Study Disavows Marshmallow Test’s Predictive Powers
https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmallow-tests-predictive-powers/
The new study may be a final blow to destiny implications formed in marshmallow test research, which like many findings from earlier psychology studies, have been questioned in recent years.
Shadowy "modesty squads" police ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn
https://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/shadowy_modesty_squads_police_ultra_orthodox_brooklyn/
The Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, housed on the second floor of a Williamsburg row house, issues guidelines on modesty, but says it does not explicitly enforce any code.
“We give out proclamations,” Rabbi Yitzchok Glick, its executive director, told the Times. “We don’t enforce. It’s like people can decide to keep Shabbos or not. If someone wants to turn on the light on Shabbos, we cannot put him in jail for that.”
But others, community members say, have used force and coercion to enforce the code.
“There are quite a few men, especially in Williamsburg, who consider themselves Gut’s polizei,” Yosef Rapaport, a Hasidic journalist, using the words for “God’s police,” told the Times.
“It’s somebody who is a busybody, and there are quite a few of them — zealots who take it upon themselves and they just enforce. They’re considered crazy, but people don’t want to confront them.”
The Mod (read modesty) Squad Gets Aggressive
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/israel/the-mod-read-modesty-squad-gets-aggressive
THE CLASHES BETWEEN THE two communities are about control of public space and turf, activists say. According to Dr. Benjamin Brown, senior lecturer in the department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and an expert on ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel, Beit Shemesh is a “bastion of zealots.”
Many of these people have moved to Beit Shemesh, Brown says, not merely because of the available housing, but also because they want to escape their rabbis, who have tried to restrain their extremism. These zealots, Brown says, will listen to no one but their own. “Even the most venerable rabbis and leaders hesitate to issue rulings,” says Brown, “for fear that they will be publicly disobeyed by the extremists.”
Thursday, October 6, 2022
What Happened to the Jews of Arabia?
https://aish.com/what_happened_to_the_jews_of_arabia/
Did you know that Saudi Arabia once hosted a thriving Jewish community? For almost a thousand years (three times longer than the Jews have been in America), Jews lived in the oases of Teyma, Khaybar, and Yathrib (later known as Medina), in the northern Arabian Peninsula. According to Dr. Hagai Mazuz, an Orientalist specializing in Arabic language, Islam, and Islamic culture, “The Jewish community of northern Arabia was one of the largest ancient Jewish communities in the history of the Jewish people.”1
They were powerful and wealthy. They were respected by the local Arabian tribes for their religion, culture, erudition, and literacy. They built castles on mountaintops and developed productive plantations. They had military prowess, horses, and advanced weaponry. And they were almost totally annihilated in the short span of a few years.
The 7th-Century Massacre of Arabian Jews, and Its Legacy
The turning point came after one of those tribes, the Banu Nadir, chose to sit out a battle rather than fight alongside the prophet—because they didn’t want to fight on Shabbat. When he was defeated, he took out his rage on these Jews:
Muhammad’s atrocity against the Qurayza Jews
https://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/qurayza_jews.htm
In AD 627, Muhammad committed an atrocity against the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina: the Qurayza.
He beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. In doing this, he wiped an entire tribe "off the map" to use the language of the President of Iran, recently.
The purpose of this article is full disclosure and straightforward analysis about early Islam. How and why did this atrocity unfold?
Herschel Walker's 'Baggage' Becoming 'Unbearable': Georgia GOP Lt. Governor
https://www.newsweek.com/herschel-walker-baggage-unbearable-geoff-duncan-1749512
"And if we're being intellectually honest, Herschel Walker won the primary because he scored a bunch of touchdowns back in the '80s, and he was Donald Trump's friend. And now we've moved forward several months on the calendar and that's no longer a recipe to win."
What Jewish-free zones mean on campus
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/what-berkeleys-jewish-free-zones-mean/
Anti-Zionism is flatly anti-Semitic. Using "Zionist" as a euphemism for "Jew" is nothing more than a confidence trick. Like other forms of Judeophobia, it is an ideology of hate, treating Israel as the "collective Jew" and smearing the Jewish state with defamations similar to those used for centuries to vilify individual Jews. This ideology establishes a conspiratorial worldview, sometimes including replacement theory, which has occasionally erupted in violence, including mass shootings. Moreover, Zionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many Jews. Its derogation is analogous, in this way, to other forms of hate and bigotry.
DeSantis Warned by Fox's Rivera He Will 'Feel the Wrath' of Latino Voters
https://www.newsweek.com/desantis-warned-foxs-rivera-he-will-feel-wrath-latino-voters-1749268
Fox News host Geraldo Rivera warned that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will suffer losses at the polls from Latino voters upset with the governor for transporting migrants to Martha's Vineyard last month.
"Governor DeSantis will soon feel the wrath of Florida's Latino voters outraged by his toying with the lives of those Venezuelan refugees he exploited," Rivera wrote in a tweet Wednesday.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Jerusalem Haredi phone store destroyed in fire; owner claims foul play
https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-haredi-phone-store-destroyed-in-fire-owner-claims-foul-play/
A cellphone store in Jerusalem was gutted by fire overnight Sunday, with the shop’s owner claiming it was a deliberate attack over for his refusal to stop selling a certain device considered by some to be “non-kosher.”