Hegseth readies actions against Trump foe Mark Milley - Baby Trump's revenge

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/28/mark-milley-hegseth-trump/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to remove retired Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, suspend his security clearance, and order an inspector general inquiry into his behavior as the Pentagon’s top officer, senior defense officials said Tuesday, taking extraordinary action against a frequent target of President Donald Trump.

Shortly after Trump was sworn in as president this month, administration officials sent a message by having a portrait of Milley memorializing his time as Joint Chiefs chairman removed from a wall in the Pentagon. Fox News reported Tuesday that another portrait of Milley recognizing him for his previous role as chief of staff of the Army was to be removed soon. The senior defense official confirmed that is the case, too.

US Senate blocks bill to impose sanctions on International Criminal Court to protest Netanyahu arrest warrant

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sylymr8u1e

It passed the House earlier this month 243-140, as 45 Democrats joined Republicans in voting "yes."

In the Senate, Democrats said they agreed with much of the bill, but said it was too broad and risked alienating important U.S. allies and imposing sanctions on lower level workers at the court in the Netherlands.

Urging colleagues to vote "no," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, accused the ICC of having "an anti-Israel bias that cannot be ignored." However, he said the bill was poorly crafted and also could target U.S. companies, such as those whose products help protect the court from foreign hackers.

Tulsi Gabbard, Edward Snowden and Intelligence

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tulsi-gabbard-senate-hearing-director-of-national-intelligence-edward-snowden-julian-assange-3e7b2476?mod=hp_opin_pos_0

Voters want disruption in Washington, but it’d be something else entirely for the Senate to confirm a director of national intelligence who has a record of defending those who subvert U.S. interests. When former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard testifies Thursday, will Republicans pose questions that serve the public interest, or go along to get along with President Trump?

Trump pledged to bring down food prices on Day One. Instead, eggs are getting more expensive

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/28/economy/trump-inflation-price-promises/index.html

 In August 2024, then-candidate former President Donald Trump delivered a press conference surrounded by packaged foods, meats, produce, condiments, milk and eggs.

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he said at the time.

It was a pledge he repeated on the campaign trail, often followed by the phrase, “drill, baby, drill.” And to many voters, inflation was a justifiable target: Years of sharply rising prices had taken a toll on their hard-earned pay and their livelihoods.

But Day One has turned into Day Seven, and those eggs are getting even more expensive.

Despite a flurry of executive actions, Trump’s price-related promises have gone unfulfilled, Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter addressed to the president.

“You have instead focused on mass deportations and pardoning January 6 attackers, including those who assaulted Capitol police officers,” according to the letter signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 20 congressional Democrats. “Your sole action on costs was an executive order that contained only the barest mention of food prices, and not a single specific policy to reduce them.”

In fact, the lawmakers added, Trump appears to be “backtracking” on those promises, conceding in recent weeks that it’s “hard to bring things down.

Donald Trump's Freeze on Federal Grants and Loans Halted by Judge

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-grants-loans-halted-federal-judge-2022493

A federal judge temporarily blocked a Trump administration order freezing federal grants and loans.

The judge issued a "brief administrative stay" while the matter is litigated

Trump pauses federal loans and grants, putting trillions at risk: ‘Waste of taxpayer dollars’

 https://nypost.com/2025/01/28/us-news/trump-admin-pausing-federal-loans-grants-amid-spending-overhaul-waste-of-taxpayer-dollars/

Back in 1974, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act, which imposes limits on a president’s ability to refrain from spending on items that the legislative branch has appropriated.

“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional,” Vought told senators during his confirmation hearing earlier this month. “I agree with that.”

Democrats erupted in fury and outrage over the move.

“Donald Trump’s Administration is jeopardizing billions upon billions of community grants and financial support that help millions of people across the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fumed in a statement.

“It will mean missed payrolls and rent payments and everything in between: chaos for everything from universities to nonprofit charities.”

Officials Scramble to Interpret White House Pause on Federal Financial-Assistance Programs

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/white-house-orders-pause-of-federal-financial-assistance-programs-8362a8e0?mod=hp_lead_pos4

Agencies parse through two-page order—down to the footnotes—to try to understand which programs would be halted

Federal, state and local government officials scrambled Tuesday to assess the impact of a broad and far-reaching order by the White House to pause hundreds of billions in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance-programs pending a review by the Trump administration.

Trump spending freeze upends Washington, triggering legal threats and delays

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/28/trump-spending-freeze-upends-washington-triggering-legal-threats-delays/

Hours after the Trump administration announced a sweeping freeze on federal spending, the U.S. government fell into chaos Tuesday, as officials braced for potential interruptions to programs that promote food safety, combat crime, provide college aid, produce medical research and respond to natural disasters.

Few in Washington appeared to understand the scope and intention of a White House memo that had directed them to “temporarily pause” the disbursement of key funds, leaving thousands of government services — totaling billions of dollars and dedicated primarily to Americans’ health, safety and well-being — at risk of shutting down, at least temporarily.

Trump administration announces freeze on all federal grants - to demand loyalty

Murphy on Trump Freezing All Federal Grants: This is What a King Does

Lawrence and Chris Hayes discuss the thing Trump most wants from you — and what you can do about it

We tried out DeepSeek. It worked well, until we asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan

 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/28/we-tried-out-deepseek-it-works-well-until-we-asked-it-about-tiananmen-square-and-taiwan

Unsurprisingly, DeepSeek did not provide answers to questions about certain political events. When asked the following questions, the AI assistant responded: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”

A shocking Chinese AI advancement called DeepSeek is sending US stocks plunging

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/27/tech/deepseek-stocks-ai-china/index.html

US stocks dropped sharply Monday — and chipmaker Nvidia lost nearly $600 billion in market value — after a surprise advancement from a Chinese artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek, threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry.

DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, revealed a stunning capability last week: It presented a ChatGPT-like AI model called R1, which has all the familiar abilities, operating at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s, Google’s or Meta’s popular AI models. The company said it had spent just $5.6 million on computing power for its base model, compared with the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies.

That sent shockwaves through markets, in particular the tech sector, on Monday.

Cholov Yisroel - Commercial milk in America

 Igros Moshe (YD I #47) Commercial milk in America In general milk needs to be supervised by Jews to be regarded as fully kosher.  So regarding the kashrus of commercial milk in America which while not being supervised by Jews nonetheless has a government inspector and anyone who adds the milk of an unclean animal will be punished and will also their business will be closed. Consequently the companies are definitely afraid to mix unkosher milk in the kosher milk and that is a major reason to permit as kosher their milk even according to the view of the Pri Chodesh even though there is no actual Jewish supervision.  Since a clear awareness of the consequences is the same as being watched as is stated in the gemora Shavuos regarding monetary issues. An additional proof can be found in Tosfos (Yevamos) concerning the requirement that conversion requires the direct watching by beis din of the immersion of the ger in a mikveh and it says that common knowledge is considered actually observing. This is the well known concept known as Anon Sahadi. Even in the case of witnesses for a marriage, even if they didn’t actually witness the event but only that the couple were secluded together, it is considered as if they actually witnessed the intercourse and the couple is halachacly married. And they would even get the death penalty if they are involved in an adulterous relationship afterwards and they are not allowed to marry someone else. Another case is the principle that a person is assumed not to be involved in fornication and this is treated as actually witnessing in order to validate a marriage even for a liency of not requiring a Get in the case of a child without miyun who is now an adult and she married another person.  There is also the case of adultery in which the witnesses do not have to see the actual intercourse but we rely on circumstantial evidence.  This is also the case for the crime of murder and other capital crimes that we rely on circumstantial evidence.  From all these cases we can conclude that knowledge is considered seeing even for the death penalty except where there is a derasha which requires actually witnessing an event. Consequently in the case of milk which is prohibited if a Jew has not watched it, it should be considered kosher simply by the clear awareness that a Jew has that is considered as witnessing  The awareness that if the milk is mixed with unkosher milk the company will be punished and the business will be closed and they will endup losing a lot of money and that the government is supervising them, this is clearly awareness and is considered as actually witnessing and there is no prohibition according to everyone. .Therefore, there is a major justification for someone to rely on this leniency and it is fitting as in fact the majority of religious Jews and also many rabbis in fact do. G-d forbid to claim that this is against the halacha!. Nevertheless a baal nefesh should be strict and not rely on this leniency and ir is nor viewed as sinful pride. I myself am strict not to rely on it. However all those not restrained by a neder derived from custom if they wish to utilize this leniency is not considered ridiculing prohibitions. .A person who was strict 3 times it constitutes a neder unless he was strict only because he thought he was required to by halacha. He does not have to annul the mistaken neder