Thursday, January 29, 2026

Fuel tanker overturned, flooding section of Highway 60 in Jerusalem with flammable material

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/wwecwhp07

A gasoline tanker rolled down a hill onto Highway 60 in Jerusalem, between the neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Neve Yaakov, flooding the road with flammable material. Firefighting teams and a hazardous materials unit are working at the scene in coordination with police to prevent ignition.

https://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/930728.shtml#5

Melania Trump documentary bombs with only 1 ticket sold

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/01/28/melania-trump-documentary-box-office-failure-empty-theaters/

First Lady Melania Trump's documentary "Melania" sells just one or two tickets per screening worldwide, turning Amazon's $75M investment into a historic flop.

The Daily Beast reported that the flagship Vue cinema location in Islington, London, sold just one ticket for the 3:10 p.m. screening and two tickets for the 6:00 p.m. showing. A similar picture emerged at an AMC theater in Orange County, California, which failed to sell a single ticket for Saturday evening's screening – evidence that the failure has crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

Online reactions have been scathing. The Queerty website noted that users of the film review social media platform Letterboxd left insulting comments on the page for the 2020 film "Looking for Melania Trump" – which is unrelated to the new film. One called the new documentary "a 104-minute perfume commercial for 'gold-plated despair.'" Another user wrote, before the comment was deleted: "No one asked for this burning garbage."

Not to disagree with Evil People!?

 The gemora seems full of contradictions. Tonite I leaned that one should not figtht against Evil Men

Sanhedrin (110a)With regard to the verse: “And Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram” (Numbers 16:25), Reish Lakish says: From here we derive that one may not perpetuate a dispute, as Rav says: Anyone who perpetuates a dispute violates a prohibition, as it is stated: “And he will not be like Korah and his assembly, as the Lord spoke by the hand of Moses to him” (Numbers 17:5). Even the aggrieved party must seek to end the dispute. Dathan and Abiram accused Moses and by right should have initiated the reconciliation. Nevertheless, Moses was not insistent on this; he went to them.


However The Mishna Berura and many others say that one should protest against evil doers and hate them until they are defeated and destroyed

Biur Halacha (1.1) And he should not be embarrassed - Refer to the Mishna Berurah quoting the Beis Yosef.  Know that the Beis Yosef is only dealing with [a case of]  where he does [an exclusively] personal Mitzvah  and men mock him, for then certainly their is no thoughtful assumption to mock them, nor to quarrel with them. However, if he is in a situation where there are heretics who rise against the Torah, and want to pass certain rules in matters of the city, and through this, detach the public from the will of Hashem, and, if one would try to negotiate peacefully, they wouldn't listen to his words- the Beis Yosef wasn't speaking about an example like this at all. Rather, it is a Mitzvah to hate them and to quarrel with them and to contradict their advice in whatever way one is able. As King David said in the verse, "For indeed, those who hate you, O Hashem, I hate them, and with those who rise up against you I quarrel! With the utmost hatred, I hate them...."(Psalms 139, 21). 

Senior Hamas official: We never agreed to disarm, no one’s raised it with us directly

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-hamas-official-we-never-agreed-to-disarm-no-ones-raised-it-with-us-directly/

Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said Wednesday that Hamas never agreed to disarm, casting doubt on whether the terror group will fulfil a key US and Israeli demand included in the American-backed plan for postwar Gaza.

Abu Marzouk’s statement runs contrary to the insistence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump that the terror group give up its weapons in the near future as part of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire. Trump has repeatedly asserted that Hamas “promised” to lay down its arms, and has threatened the group over the issue.

Abu Marzouk also suggested Hamas has a de facto veto on any appointment to the new technocratic committee set up to run the Gaza Strip, and stressed that Hamas still rules over the part of the enclave that, in accordance with the ceasefire, is not under IDF control.

Trump and Fox News Blame Greg Bovino for Violence in Minneapolis as Some Agents Leave:

National Guard deployments cost taxpayers almost half a billion dollars

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/28/national-guard-deployments-cost/

President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard and active-duty Marine personnel to U.S. cities cost approximately $496 million between June and December last year, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Continuing the deployment for the next year could cost the nation over $1 billion, the estimate found.

Trump has repeatedly said his deployments are necessary because local leaders have not done enough to combat crime in major cities. The deployments, however, have been repeatedly challenged in court, and legal experts have warned that Trump may be exceeding his authority.

‘Our cities are no longer safe’: GOP mayors condemn Trump immigration enforcement

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/28/republican-mayors-trump-ice-00754195

At a gathering of mayors in Washington on Wednesday, Republicans criticized the White House’s recent immigration crackdown as chaotic and damaging.

A number of Republican mayors are condemning the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, as they call on the president to pull back from Minneapolis and worry their cities might be next.

The Republican leaders’ calls for Trump to deescalate after the fatal shootings of two Minnesotans by federal agents show the GOP’s deepening fissures over the administration’s aggressive immigration agenda, even as the mayors and Republicans broadly offered support for the president’s overall goal. And their alarm comes as ICE ramps up operations in other states, including Arizona and Maine.

I was a Marine in Afghanistan. ICE’s tactics are strategically incoherent.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/28/minnesota-ice-unrest-reader-reaction/

In 2009, I was a Marine in Helmand province during the height of the shift to counterinsurgency operations. We were heavily armed and trained for violence, as Marines are expected to be.

But when we encountered local Afghans, we took off our helmets. We removed our sunglasses. We put a hand over our hearts, we looked the Afghans in the eye and said Salaam Alekum, or “peace be upon you.” If the situation allowed, we sat down. We drank tea. We talked. This wasn’t weakness or wokeness. It was strength, discipline and strategy.

We were still Marines. When it was time to fight, we did so decisively. But we also understood something essential: You cannot intimidate your way into lasting security. You cannot terrorize a population into cooperation. And you cannot claim moral authority if your posture communicates only contempt or fear.

I reflect on those lessons as I watch an anti-immigration agenda in the United States that has gone badly off course. Masked officers in military-style gear, conducting raids with theatrical dominance rather than measured authority. Communities treated as hostile terrain rather than neighborhoods. I find this not only disturbing but also strategically incoherent.

In Afghanistan, we understood that showing up as faceless, armored enforcers was a fast way to lose the population’s trust. We knew that intimidation buys compliance only temporarily, and resentment compounds faster than control.

If Marines could understand this in a war zone, we should be able to understand it in our own country.

Opposition MKs send ‘deep regret’ to Biden for PM blaming ’embargo’ for IDF deaths

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/opposition-mks-send-deep-regret-to-biden-for-pm-blaming-embargo-for-idf-deaths/

Lawmakers pen letter thanking former US president for post-Oct. 7 support, say he is ‘one of Israel’s greatest friends’; senior Israeli security officials said ‘furious’ with PM’s claim

Biden has not commented on Netanyahu’s claim, though when he was in office, his administration denied the premier’s previous allegations that the US had placed an “embargo” on arms shipments to Israel, saying that it had only withheld one batch of 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs amid concerns about how they would be used in the southern Gaza city of Rafah at that time.

Why de-escalation training and communication matters when federal agents police city streets

 https://www.npr.org/2026/01/25/nx-s1-5687866/why-de-escalation-training-and-communication-matters-when-federal-agents-police-city-streets

WEXLER: Look, what would it take for both sides to ratchet it down? But I think that starts, honestly, with ICE sort of saying look, let's step back, and let's look at how we're doing these kind of cases. How can we do them differently? And if this was a local police department, they would be reaching out to the community. They would get the community involved. They would say, we need you. We need to build trust. But when you have federal agents coming into a community, they can sometimes come off as an occupying army. And in American policing, that's not what we've learned. We know, you know, communication, trust, all of those things are essential.

WEXLER: I mean, that's a good point. American police have recognized it's important for them to have their name, their ID, to be visible, to communicate. American police wear body-worn cameras. All of these efforts have been to try to regain trust and legitimacy with the community. I think when you go into these situations masked, it creates this image - somehow, whatever they're doing is not legitimate. And look, they have a difficult job. I don't envy ICE agents. I think, though, when you put them in these positions and you put masks on their face, and they're not communicating, they have no relationship with the community, it really becomes almost, you know, a recipe for disaster.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

ICE 'cowboys' put Americans at risk with bad training as Minneapolis woman killed | Maj. Gen. Enyart

Trump says he shuts eyes in Cabinet meetings because they're 'boring as hell'

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/27/trump-closes-eyes-sleeps-boring-cabinet-meetings-health-fitness-president/88375341007/

President Donald Trump explained that he closes his eyes during Cabinet meetings because he finds them extremely boring, and his aides say he is still listening. He defended his health, saying he feels as fit as 40 years ago, and White House staff described his eye‑closing as a thinking posture rather than dozing.

Trump Finally Admits Why He Was Sleeping in All Those Cabinet Meetings

 https://newrepublic.com/post/205695/trump-admits-asleep-cabinet-meetings

After months of denials, President Trump has finally admitted that he has been falling asleep during Cabinet meetings.

In an interview with New York magazine published Monday, Trump said that he closed his eyes during those meetings because they were “boring as hell.”

It’s a stark admission in an article about Trump’s health that the president agreed to in an attempt to quash negative reports about his age and his visibly declining mental and physical fitness. The president previously claimed to be “resting” or “blinking” his eyes, despite having fallen asleep multiple times in full view of the press and public: in the middle of his own military parade, while meeting foreign leaders, and four different times in the month of December.

Much of the article is Trump telling doctors, staffers, and members of his Cabinet to brag to writer Ben Terris about how healthy and energetic he is. At one point during his interview, he turned to his physicians from Walter Reed hospital and asked, “Real fast. Is my health perfect?

Netanyahu’s incendiary accusation against Biden underlines need for the state inquiry he opposes

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-incendiary-accusation-against-biden-underlines-need-for-the-state-inquiry-he-opposes/

Unprompted, the PM alleges that an arms embargo instituted by the previous US administration directly caused the loss of soldiers’ lives. It’s a charge he’s never made before, and it finds no echo in the IDF’s war probes

Even as he claimed central credit for the return of the final hostage Ran Gvili — the police officer who heroically went to war with a broken shoulder on October 7, 2023 and was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim, and whose body was located by the IDF in a Muslim cemetery in Gaza City on Monday — he characteristically refused to acknowledge any direct responsibility for the original sin, the failure to prevent Hamas’s invasion, massacre and mass abductions.

In briefings with military correspondents, officials repeatedly gave assurances that military operations were not affected, and that soldiers would not be sent on missions without adequate means to carry them out. No military probe to date has found that a soldier was killed because the necessary ammunition was not available.

This is the commission that, with its authority to issue subpoenas, is so manifestly necessary to probe everything that went wrong surrounding October 7, and to ensure there can be no recurrence.

This is the independent inquiry that, correctly fearing its conclusions regarding his principal culpability, Netanyahu has stubbornly resisted for the more than 27 months since the gravest catastrophe to befall our revived modern nation.