Friday, January 26, 2024

Trump’s push to deny Biden border victory aggravates lawmakers

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4430186-trump-push-to-deny-biden-victory-aggravates-lawmakers/

“But the reality is that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border, and someone running for president ought to try to get the problem solved as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later,’” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Israel Offers Hamas 2-Month Ceasefire In Exchange for All Hostages

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/israel-offers-hamas-2-month-ceasefire-in-exchange-for-release-of-all-hostages?ref=home

Israel offered Hamas a two-month ceasefire in exchange for the return of all hostages—and the bodies of any hostages who may have died—as part of a deal brokered by representatives for Egypt and Qatar. Axios reported that Israel and Hamas would also agree how many Palestinian prisoners would be released per each Israeli hostage, who would be separated into categories based on gender, age, medical condition, and military service. According to the proposal, Israeli hostages who are women, men over 60 years old and the critically wounded or infirm would be released first. Israeli officials who spoke with Axios said the proposal includes plans to move some of its soldiers out of main population centers and allow for a gradual return of Palestinian civilians to Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip. They made it clear that Israel will not agree to end its offensive or to release all 6,000 Palestinian prisoners it holds, as Hamas has demanded.

Russia and Ukraine Agree on Trump

 https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-agree-trump-1862891

Russia and Ukraine have reached a rare point of agreement during the 23-month-long war: neither side believes that former President Donald Trump could bring an end to the conflict.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine would have never happened under his presidency and has promised to bring the war to an end within "24 hours" if reelected in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited Trump to Kyiv on two different occasions to deliver on his promise, although the Ukrainian leader has publicly doubted the former president's ability to find a peaceful end.

While speaking to reporters on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow agrees they have "no understanding of how" Trump could end the war, adding that they have had no contact with the former president about such negotiations.

Hamas causes buildings to collapse - 21 IDF soldiers dead, several injured

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-783287

Hamas forces fired a rocket-propelled grenade on multiple adjacent structures, along with landmines that the IDF forces had collected and brought into the buildings, which caused a total collapse that killed 19 soldiers and injured several others on Monday.

Trump Has Another Gaffe While Defending Cognitive State

 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-has-another-gaffe-while-defending-cognitive-state-1862992

Former President Donald Trump appeared to briefly forget that Republican Congressman Ronny Jackson no longer serves as White House doctor while insisting that he is "a lot sharper than" GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley.

Trump, 77, has recently raised eyebrows over a series of blunders that have included slurring his words during campaign speeches, seemingly suggesting that former President Barack Obama is currently in office and most recently appearing to confuse Haley with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Monday, January 22, 2024

Denial of Hamas' October 7 massacre spreads in US

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syxgwasy6

According to The Washington Post, the number of massacre deniers in the United States is currently small, but growing. Some claim the IDF carried out the massacre to "justify genocide in Gaza," while others believe some hostages were kidnapped by Israel. Some are even confident that the United States is behind the attack.

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Caged cells, mattresses, child's drawings found in Khan Younis tunnel

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkyl87ck6

Accessed from inside a home, tunnel suffocating and humid, tunnel believed to hold 20 hostages at various times is booby trapped in anticipation of troops

Israeli Army Photos Reveal Alleged Hamas Hostage Cells in Gaza

 https://www.newsweek.com/israeli-army-photos-reveal-alleged-hamas-hostage-cells-gaza-1862538

New images released by the Israel Defence Forces show what they said was a network of underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip with cells where Israeli hostages were believed to have been held.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions in Gaza still hold more than 100 of the over 230 hostages they seized during their unprecedented October 7 raid into Israel in which 1,200 Israelis were killed. That raid was followed by Israel's biggest offensive into the Gaza Strip, with air strikes and ground attacks that have killed nearly 25,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The tunnel where Israeli forces believe hostages were held was more than 2,700 feet long and 65 feet deep, according to an IDF statement sent to Newsweek. There was no immediate comment from Hamas or independent confirmation as to what the video and photos released by the Israeli forces showed.

The IDF said they had been recorded in the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

"This tunnel was part of a branching underground network, dug by the Hamas terrorist organization, under Khan Yunis," IDF said. "At the end of the examination, the tunnel was destroyed."


Trump pushes back on claims of mental missteps

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4420056-trump-pushes-back-claims-of-mental-missteps/

During his rally on Friday, Trump appeared to have mixed up Haley and Pelosi while talking about the insurrection in the Capitol, to which the former U.N. Ambassador responded by saying that she was concerned to have somebody whose “mental fitness” is questioned while serving in the Oval Office. 

“The concern I have is, I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this,” Haley said. 

During the Saturday rally, Trump continued the defense of his mental acuity, stating that he will let people know when he “goes bad” 

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Your Healthspan Is as Important as Your Lifespan—and It’s Declining

 https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/americans-unhealthy-chronic-disease-3f35c9f5?mod=hp_listc_pos2

Americans are living longer, but spending less time in good health.

The estimated average proportion of life spent in good health declined to 83.6% in 2021, down from 85.8% in 1990, according to an analysis of the latest data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease study, a research effort based at the University of Washington.

The decrease of time spent in good health is partly because medical advances are catching and treating diseases that once would have killed us. But it is also because of the rising prevalence, often among younger people, of conditions such as obesity, diabetes and substance-use disorders.

For most Palestinians, October 7’s savagery is literally unbelievable. Blame the TV news?

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-most-palestinians-october-7s-savagery-is-literally-unbelievable-blame-the-tv-news/

No Israeli civilians were killed in the October 7 onslaught on communities near Gaza, Palestinain diplomat Abdullah Abu Shawesh claimed matter of factly to Al Jazeera last week. Accounts of rape and other atrocities “were lies,” he said, dismissing the overwhelming evidence that Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel included indiscriminate massacres and sexual violence.

Netanyahu pushes back on report he told Biden he isn’t ruling out Palestinian state

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-pushes-back-on-report-he-told-biden-he-isnt-ruling-out-palestinian-state/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against a report that he’d told US President Joe Biden he has not ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state.

The rare statement put out by Netanyahu’s office on Shabbat came after CNN, citing a person familiar with the conversation, reported that Netanyahu told Biden that the public comments he had made a day earlier — in which the prime minister appeared to reject the idea of creating a Palestinian state — were not meant to rule out that outcome entirely.

Pizza Hut Faces Boycott Calls for Feeding Israeli Soldiers

 https://www.newsweek.com/pizza-hut-boycott-israel-support-1862489

Pizza Hut is facing boycott calls after it supplied Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) with pizza.

The restaurant chain's Israeli Instagram account reposted a story of two IDF soldiers holding stacks of branded Pizza Hut boxes, and it has been widely shared online. Originally posted by a user with the handle @alex_shults, the two soldiers can be seen smiling and dressed in uniform. Newsweek has as yet been unable to verify where the image was taken and contacted Yum Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, for comment on Saturday via phone call.

Jews died in plague of Darkness because they were being frum

 Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky (Emes L’Yaakov Shemos 10:22) Rashi states, “Why did G-d bring about the plague of Darkness? Because the Jews in that generation were wicked and did not want to leave Egypt and therefore thousands died in the three days of darkness.” So even though that in reality that entire generation were not considered righteous (tzadikim) as we see the angels claimed that both the Jews and Egyptians were idolaters – so why kill the Egyptians to save the Jews. In other words the angels could not see the slightest difference between the Jews and the Egyptians and thought all should die. And thus the Jews that died were apparently killed entirely because they were preventing the other Jews from leaving Egypt because they had a tradition that the Jews must remain enslaved in Egypt for 400 years and since the time had not passed they were afraid that they would suffer the fate of the Ephraimites who left prematurely.

 They thus did not believe the words of Moshe and the Elders that G-d's calculation was based on the merit of their forefathers. Therefore G-d killed only those but not all the Jews even though in the eyes of the angels they were all idolaters. Only G-d was able to distinguish Jews from the Egyptians and know that the Jews would eventually be capable of accepting the Torah at Sinai  This inner nature of the Jews was not noticed by the Angels and G-d had to prove it by showing the Angels Yosef’s coffin [Bereishis Rabbah 7:8] that Jews were inherently different. [See my previous comments to Shemos 13:9]..[to be continued]