Trump Wants Americans to ‘Spend Less Time Worrying About Putin’

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-wants-americans-to-spend-less-time-worrying-about-putin/

The president’s comment came after his former national security adviser accused him of “coddling” the Russian strongman.

Two days earlier, McMaster accused Trump and Vice President JD Vance of “coddling Putin” after the two berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office for what they saw as insufficient gratitude for U.S. assistance amid his country’s defense against an ongoing Russian invasion.

After writing that McMaster is a “A WEAK AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE LOSER,” Trump immediately posted a follow-up on his Truth Social platform suggesting Putin was of limited concern.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country,” he wrote. “So that we don’t end up like Europe!”

Trump insists Putin wants peace. But the war is raging – and Ukrainian civilians are dying

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/03/europe/trump-putin-russia-ukraine-analysis-intl/index.html

As US President Donald Trump pushes for “a deal” to end the war in Ukraine – and dresses down Ukraine’s president in front of reporters at the White House – Moscow every day keeps launching deadly attacks against Ukraine.

And while Trump seemed to suggest Putin is ready to negotiate, the Russian leader has been busy reiterating demands that have long been unacceptable to Kyiv.

Putin has repeatedly made his goals clear: He wants to gain control over the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as hold onto the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.

Trump Has Glossed Over High Prices. Republicans Worry It Will Cost Them.

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-lower-prices-inflation-republican-concern-a5bf923a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

President Trump promised during the campaign to lower prices on day one of his presidency. But with costs still high, Republicans are worried the same economic factors that helped Trump win the election could come back to bite him if inflation remains stubborn.

In his frequent public appearances and social-media posts, Trump is more likely to talk about federal workers, diversity programs and foreign policy than the price of eggs. That is a contrast from last year’s presidential campaign, when Trump, urged by his advisers, made high costs a centerpiece of his bid to retake the White House.

Tim Snyder’s warning: Israel depends upon a functioning US. Trump and Musk are destroying it

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/tim-snyders-warning-israel-depends-upon-a-functioning-us-trump-and-musk-are-destroying-it/

 The Israeli-American relationship has always depended upon the American state capacity to do various things. But the crucial story of the Trump administration so far is the self-destruction of American state capacity.

So if Israelis in the future are expecting things like arms deliveries in crucial times, or they’re expecting the ability to broker peace talks or whatever, the Trump administration has essentially fired everybody who has the confidence to do that kind of thing, and the prospects are for more of that.

Iran's Supreme Leader Reacts to Trump-Zelensky Clash

 https://www.newsweek.com/iran-supreme-leader-donald-trump-zelensky-clash-ukraine-russia-nuclear-2038589

Iran's Supreme Leader has seized on the fallout from the clash between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to step up his warnings against negotiating with the United States.

In the wake of the Oval Office clash, Ali Khamenei reposted remarks condemning Ukraine's trust in the U.S. as a mistake, stating, "Western support for its allies is a mirage." Meanwhile, banners showing images of the heated Trump-Zelensky exchange have popped up across Tehran, amplifying Khamenei's long-standing opposition to diplomacy with Washington.

Advice for his son Rav Reuven on becoming 20 years old

Igros Moshe (YD III 96.9) Advice for  his son Rav Reuven  on becoming 20 years old You  write that on the 11th of Elul you will be twenty years old – you should have a long life which is good and sweet –this is the age that there is punishment for sins also from Heaven. You ask  advice as to how to behave the rest of your life . The most important thing is being strongly working in studying the Torah.  Rashi notes that one can easily err and for a Torah scholar this is considered a deliberate sin. Therefore G-d should help you to grow in Torah and to know everything clearly and this will lead to doing the right thing. Thus your entire purpose and goal in this world is that your entire lifes’s effort are in Torah.  If you do this I am confident that G-d will help you and send you a generous parnossa and plentiful blessing which are presents from G-d according to one’s merit and they are not the result of a job. You should not accept this G-d forbid – as an oath which is prohibited – but it should be your mental commitment. You should also train yourself in good attributes. The main thing is to avoid anger which is to be greatly avoided as well as excessively pride  If you try hard G-d will help you Also this should not be accepted as an oath. You should also be very careful with honoring your mother. This is something which is extremely difficult  since you have been familiar since childhood and thus it requires great effort. Even if she is forgiving disrespect you should not rely on that. You also ask about fasting. It is not proper for you and those involved in Torah study because it might interfere.  Instead of afflicting yourself, you should increase your Torah study. You should be constantly aware of my words and G-d should help you always. 

May a non-observant Jew be counted towards a minyan?

 https://oukosher.org/halacha-yomis/may-a-non-observant-jew-be-counted-towards-a-minyan/

Shulchan Aruch (OC 55:11) rules that a Jew who is not observant may be counted towards a minyan. However, the Pri Migadim (OC 55:4) writes that this ruling of Shulchan Aruch is only true for one who believes in the validity of the Torah, though he fails to be observant in practice. However, one who denies the legitimacy of Torah and mitzvos may not be counted towards a minyan. The Mishnah Berurah (55:46) rules this way as well. Nevertheless, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l (Igros Moshe OC 1:23) writes that if no one else is available one may include a non-believer as well in a minyan and recite Kaddish, Kedusha and Barchu. Rav Moshe reasons that the basis for a minyan is derived from the ten spies. The ten spies rebelled against G-d, and yet they constituted a minyan. If so, we see that all Jews may be included in a minyan, especially a Jew that was never taught to be observant (tinok she'nishbah).

Minyan – non observant Jews

 Igros Moshe (OC I #23) I was asked if in an emergency whether those who profane Shabbos can be counted to make a minyan. I answered that according to our accepted halacha views they can be counted. Just as the law of Kiddush HaShem requires giving up one’s life in the presence of ten Jews nd likewise one can not say a davar bekedusha with less than ten. So since one can be obligated to die in the presence of ten Jews even if they are not religiously observant but are Jews as we learn from the spies (Sanhedrin 74) who were openly deniers which is worse than violating Shabbos it is obvious that those who violate Shabbos can be part of a minyan to say Devarim shebekedusha

Russia gloats about shift in U.S. relations with Ukraine

 https://www.axios.com/2025/03/02/trump-zelensky-showdown-russia-reaction

Moscow is welcoming the apparent shift in U.S. relations with Ukraine following last week's tense Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump and Vice President Vance.

Washington now ‘largely aligns’ with Moscow’s vision, Kremlin says

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/03/02/russia-ukraine-trump-zelensky-clash/

“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television on Sunday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”

Moscow’s vision, which has focused on a push to reclaim influence over much or all of the former Soviet Union and defeat liberal democracy, has made Russia a pariah to the West. The United States has given hundreds of billions of dollars in arms and aid to Ukraine since Russia’s unprovoked invasion in 2022. Washington led allies in imposing new sanctions on Moscow; the International Criminal Court issued a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of war crimes.

The Oval Office blowup last week, in which Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of insufficient gratitude for U.S. support and Trump warned that his refusal to compromise with Putin was “gambling with World War III,” has been seen here as a “gift” to the Kremlin.

‘Putin Is on the Inside’: Shock as U.S. Caves to Russia in Cybersecurity Fight

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-is-on-the-inside-shock-as-us-caves-to-russia-in-cybersecurity-fight/

The White House is reportedly dropping Russia from its list of threats to cybersecurity and is instead honing in on China, part of the Trump administration’s apparent broader effort to curry favor with the Kremlin and push for a peace deal that would end the country’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

According to The Guardian, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has received a new list of directives that largely omit Russia as a threat to monitor. Part of the Department of Homeland Security, CISA monitors cyber threats made to the United States.

These directives were listed out in a memo, which singled out China and the protection of local systems as priorities, according to the newspaper. The document, however, failed to mention Russia—despite the country previously being a seminal focus at the agency.

Was 40-year-old Trump recruited by the KGB?

 https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-new-allegations-that-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb/

The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

Mussayev isn’t the only ex-KGB officer to have made such an assertion. Several years ago, Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major now resident in Washington, D.C., served as one of the key sources for Craig Unger’s best-selling book, “American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery.”

Just after Mussayev made his claim, another ex-KGB officer living in France, Sergei Zhyrnov, categorically endorsed the allegations in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist. According to Zhyrnov, Trump would have been surrounded 24/7 by KGB operatives, including everyone from his cab driver to the maid servicing his hotel room. Zhyrnov said that Trump’s every move would have been recorded and documented, and that he could have been either caught in a “honey trap” (“All foreign-currency prostitutes were KGB — one hundred percent,” he said) or perhaps recorded bribing Moscow city officials in order to promote his idea of building a hotel in the Soviet capital.

Trump’s Old World Order

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-brave-old-world-foreign-policy-ukraine-blow-up-china-russia-trade-allies-7e32b02a?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

Does he want deals with Russia and China to carve up the planet? He should tell Americans.

The conventional view of Mr. Trump is that he’s above all transactional. He wants deals, at home and abroad, that he can sell as great successes. But the way his second term is unfolding, this may undersell his ambition. Mr. Trump’s strategy seems to be moving toward that of Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, who view America as in decline and no longer able to lead or defend the West.

It seems clear that Mr. Trump wants to wash his hands of Ukraine. “You’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out,” Mr. Trump ordered Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. This will embolden Vladimir Putin to insist on even harsher terms for a cease-fire deal. Mr. Trump seems mainly concerned with rehabilitating Mr. Putin in world councils, such as the G-7. He wants an early summit with the Russian, though Mr. Putin has made no concessions on Ukraine or anything else.

Cut International Law Down to Size: National Sovereignty Trumps Utopian Alternatives

 https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/cut-international-law-down-to-size-national-sovereignty-trumps-utopian-alternatives

The ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) cases against Israel reveal a problem more fundamental than the mistreatment of Israel. The cases illustrate the dangers of expanding the definition and role of international law beyond its severe limitations to reduce the sovereignty of nations. Ireland’s ICJ intervention highlights the destructiveness of reinventing international law into a utopian solution for the world’s ills.