Trump initial second-term approval rating among lowest in decades

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5116132-trump-approval-rating-gallup/?tbref=hp

A poll, released Thursday by Gallup, found that 47 percent of respondents support Trump’s term so far, just above the 45 percent he earned at this point during his first term.

It’s a rating that places him below all other elected presidents since 1953. He remains the only elected commander in chief with an approval rating below 50 percent, the survey found.

Trump’s disapproval rating is 48 percent, which is 3 percentage points higher than in 2017 and marks a new high for that rating at the start of a president’s term.

Former President Biden received a 57 percent approval rating, the same as former President George W. Bush.

Don’t Blame DEI for Crash at Reagan National Airport. Blame Ronald Reagan

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-problem-at-the-core-of-dc-plane-collision/

As has been widely noted, and as an official with extensive experience in airport operations affirmed to the Daily Beast on Thursday, the whole system is still suffering from the firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981 by the president for whom Reagan National Airport is named. The new controllers who took their place had a mandatory retirement age of 56, and many of them have been departing in recent years. An early FAA report after Wednesday’s crash noted that a single air traffic controller was doing work that customarily would have been done by two.

Lying or Deceiving is like idolatry?

Sanhedrin (92a)  Rabbi Elazar says: With regard to anyone who amends the truth in his speech, it is as though he worships idols. As, it is written here, in the verse where Jacob sought to resist taking his father’s blessing from Esau: “And I shall seem to him a deceiver [metate’a]” (Genesis 27:12), and it is written there with regard to idol worship: “They are vanity, the work of deception [tatuim]” (Jeremiah 10:15). 

Rashi says it is one who changes his speech speech so he is not recognized

המחליף בדבורו - משנה בדבורו שלא יהא ניכר:

However there is another gemorah in Bava Metzia (23b) which indicates that the phrase means to lie. 

With regard to these three matters alone, it is normal for Sages to amend their statements and deviate from the truth: With regard to a tractate, if he is asked whether he studied a particular tractate, he may humbly say that he did not, even if he did. And with regard to a bed, if he is asked whether he slept in a particular bed, he may say that he did not, to avoid shame in case some unseemly residue is found on the bed.

Why did Rashi ignore the explanation of the gemora in his explanation here? 

Lace-Front Sheitels: An Exploding Controversy

 http://www.5tjt.com/lace-front-sheitels-an-exploding-controversy/

 Rabbi Yitzchok Berkowitz rules that since there is no ma’aris ayin in sheitels according to the responsum of Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt’l (Igros Moshe Even HaEzer Vol. II #12), there would be no problem in lace-front sheitels. Rav Moshe’s letter was written in the summer of 1962 to Rabbi Dovid Lappa, z’l (who lived in Bayswater at the end of his life), and contained a number of rationales as to why there is no ma’aris ayin regarding sheitels. (1) Ma’aris ayin is only for a lav and not an issur aseih; (2) Most of the time it is recognizable that it is a wig; (3) Even if men do not recognize that it is a wig, women do recognize it, and that is enough to prevent a ma’aris ayin, as we can see in regard to shaving with an electric razor; (4) Since she is known as an ishah kesheirah, no one would dare suspect her of not following halachah.

Every president but Trump always began with sympathy after a plane crash

R. Hirsch as a Modern Orthodox Leader

 https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/rabbinic-thought/r-hirsch-modern-orthodox-leader

      Modern Orthodox communities tend to be open to some level of working together with other Jewish denominations on issues of common concern, as long as the Orthodox retain their autonomy over their own religious institutions. In contrast, R. Hirsch was a fierce champion of austritt, or separation.  Several scholars have wondered why a rabbi with cultural openness toward Gentile wisdom would be closed to working with other Jewish denominations.  Prof. Mordechai Breuer enumerates various approaches, but I am partial to Breuer’s own approach.  R. Hirsch was a man of yosher or truth.  He did not deny the truth that Gentile wisdom had something to contribute and that we could benefit from studying it.  For the same reason, he could not work with a group whose ideology he viewed as a distortion of the truths of Torah.[1]

In teaching them the languages of the civilized nations and introducing them to their literature we give them the key with which, when they are grown up, they can gain entrance to the intellectual creations of the peoples and feed and enrich their minds with all that is good and noble and true in the contributions of the noblest spirits to the realm of knowledge. (Judaism Eternal, vol. 1, p. 219)

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Academic Talmud Study

 https://etzion.org.il/sites/default/files/2022-05/Rabbi_Aharon_Lichtenstein_and_Academic_T.pdf

It is well-known that he studied English literature at Harvard, and he never concealed the fruits of those studies; to the contrary, he incorporated them into his spiritual and educational doctrine, both written and oral. The first four chapters of By His Light are based on lectures he delivered to English-speaking students during their first year at Yeshivat Har Etzion, and the book attests reliably to the yeshiva’s general intellectual and educational atmosphere. I will cite a few short examples from these chapters, allowing readers to absorb some of the music that students at Yeshivat Har Etzion absorbed from Rabbi Lichtenstein’s classes and discourses.

Elsewhere in the book, he writes:This activist approach … parallels the activist Jewish approach with respect to spiritual endeavors. In Christian theology there is a time-honored tradition—rooted in the words of  Paul and transmitted by Augustine, Luther and others—that sees human redemption as being dictated solely from Above. In Luther’s formulation, any human attempt to achieve spiritual or ethical perfection is a grave error, for it bespeaks arrogance (121)

Trump launched air controller diversity program that he now decries

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/30/faa-dei-trump-fact-checker/

At news conference, Trump read a list of disabilities he calls disqualifying, but his administration started such hiring in 201

Jesse Watters Unloads Bizarre ‘Dwarves’ DEI Theory for D.C. Crash

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/jesse-watters-unloads-bizarre-dwarves-dei-theory-for-dc-crash/

“The staffing shortages, Donald Trump is arguing, are a result of DEI policies,” Watters began on The Five’s Thursday newscast, referring to the president’s unsubstantiated claims that DEI quotas lowered the standards of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration subsequently causing the crash. “You go back to the Obama-Biden administration and they rejected 1,000 well-qualified applicants for air traffic control because they weren’t diverse enough. Joe Biden had a DEI quota.”

“And this isn’t about Black people,” Watters continued. “A lot of people hear, ‘DEI,’ you think Black. No, he is trying to set quotas for people who are deaf to get jobs, people who are dwarves to get jobs, people with transgender issues to get jobs.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Surveillance Folly

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/tulsi-gabbard-senate-intelligence-hearing-director-of-national-intelligence-section-702-478ef0e7?mod=hp_opin_pos_0

Tulsi Gabbard faced the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday for her confirmation hearing, and her performance wasn’t reassuring. Given a chance to walk back her opposition to Section 702 surveillance policy, she reinforced why she would be dangerous as White House director of national intelligence.

The Truth Behind The Viral Video Of The Public Protest Against Changes In The Igros Moshe

 https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2358163/the-truth-behind-the-viral-video-of-the-public-protest-against-changes-in-the-igros-moshe.html

This week there was a video clip circulating of a visibly agitated Yid, publicly protesting a deliberate modification found in the pages of the responsa of Maran Harav Moshe Feinstein ZT”L. The video went viral and outraged many, while others silently gloated as the changes, or lack thereof, was consistent with their respective narratives. YWN initially shared in the outrage as well, as this appeared to be an invasion of the Holy of Hollies and a blatant act to desecrate the sacred works of the Gadol Hador.

Curtis Yarvin’s Ideas Were Fringe. Now They’re Coursing Through Trump’s Washington.

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/30/curtis-yarvins-ideas-00201552

Even the ball’s name spoke to Yarvin’s outsize influence over the Trumpian right: For over a decade, Yarvin, an ex-computer programmer-turned-blogger, has argued that American democracy is irrevocably broken and ought to be replaced with a monarchy styled after a Silicon Valley tech start-up. According to Yarvin, the time has come to jettison existing democratic institutions and concentrate political power in a single “chief executive” or “dictator.” These ideas — which Yarvin calls “neo-reaction” or “the Dark Enlightenment” — were once confined to the fringes of the internet, but now, with Trump’s reelection, they are finding a newly powerful audience in Washington

Trump blames DEI for weakening FAA in aftermath of Reagan National plane crash - Another tragedy used as a club by Trump without evidence

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5116332-trump-0faa-dei-plane-crash/

Trump was asked how he could be so sure diversity played a role in the crash when he acknowledged himself the air traffic controllers may not have done anything wrong, he told reporters it was because he has “common sense.”

No evidence US spent $50 million on condoms for Gaza - More Lies

 https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/no-evidence-us-spent-50-million-condoms-gaza-2025-01-30/

Statements from the Trump administration saying it discovered a plan to send $50 million to fund condoms in Gaza have been denied by the humanitarian group named as the recipient and by a former U.S. official.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the remarks at a Jan. 28 press briefing about President Donald Trump having temporarily suspended U.S. foreign aid pending reviews of existing development programs. Trump repeated the claim about $50 million on condoms for Gaza on Wednesday.

Leavitt had told reporters, opens new tab that the Elon Musk-led advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza” (18:32 timestamp).

Posts online, opens new tab sharing a clip of Leavitt’s remarks said: “WILD: Karoline Leavitt EXPOSED that $50 MILLION in U.S. taxpayer money almost went to fund CONDOMS in Gaza before DOGE cut it.”