Serious Sanctions Time for Russia

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russia-ukraine-ceasefire-sanctions-bill-lindsey-graham-senate-gop-donald-trump-7941e3a4?mod=hp_opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s

As Putin strings along Trump, the Senate can send a message to Moscow.

President Trump told a reporter over the weekend that he’s “angry” at Vladimir Putin, and the Commander in Chief’s exasperation is welcome. The Russian dictator is stringing the President along over a 30-day cease-fire that Ukraine has already accepted.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine,” the President told NBC News, “and if I think it was Russia’s fault—which it might not be—but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia.” Under those so-called secondary sanctions, anybody buying oil from Russia “can’t do business in the United States.”

‘He is not a gang member’: outrage as US deports makeup artist to El Salvador prison for crown tattoos

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/its-a-tradition-outrage-in-venezuela-as-us-deports-makeup-artist-for-religious-tattoos

“Detainee Hernandez ports [sic] tattoos ‘crowns’ that are consistent with those of a Tren de Aragua member,” an agent at California’s Otay Mesa detention centre claimed, according to court documents published this week.

Those 16 words appear to have sealed the fate of the young Venezuelan stylist, who friends, family and lawyers say has never committed a crime.

On 15 March, after more than six months in custody in the US, Hernández was one of scores of Venezuelans flown from Texas to a maximum security prison in El Salvador as part of Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. To the horror of their relatives, some detainees were paraded before the cameras and filmed being manhandled by guards and having their heads shaved before being bundled into cells.

“Let my son go. Review his case file. He is not a gang member,” Hernández’s mother, Alexis Dolores Romero de Hernández, pleaded as she came to terms with her son’s disappearance into the notorious Central American “terrorism confinement centre”, known by the Spanish acronym Cecot.

“Everyone has these crowns, many people. But that doesn’t mean they’re involved in the Tren de Aragua … He’s never had problems with the law,” said Hernández, 65, who has not heard from her son since he called on the eve of his transfer to let her know – incorrectly – that he was being deported to Venezuela.

Trump administration says it mistakenly deported man to El Salvador

 https://www.axios.com

A Salvadorian national living in Maryland legally was wrongly deported to El Salvador, the Department of Justice has admitted in court papers filed Monday.

The erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, first reported by The Atlantic, is the latest stumble by the Trump administration as it seeks to deport more people using questionable methods amid a declining pace of removals compared to the Biden administration.

Vice President JD Vance on Monday posted on X, in a reply to podcaster Jon Favreau about the case, that Abrego Garcia was a gang member.

"My comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn't read he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here," Vance posted.

"My further comment is that it's gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."

 Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of gang-related crimes.

Trump administration concedes Maryland father from El Salvador was mistakenly deported and sent to mega prison

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/01/politics/maryland-father-mistakenly-deported-el-salvador-prison/index.html

 The Trump administration conceded in a court filing Monday that it mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador “because of an administrative error” and argued it could not return him because he’s now in Salvadoran custody.

he filing, first reported by The Atlantic, appears to mark the first time the administration has admitted an error related to its recent deportation flights to El Salvador, which are now at the center of a fraught legal battle.

“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the Trump administration filing states.

Abrego Garcia, who attorneys say fled gang violence in El Salvador more than a decade ago, had been identified by his wife in a photo of detainees entering intake at CECOT, the country’s notorious mega prison.

Trump administration admits it wrongly deported man to prison in El Salvador

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5225688-trump-administration-mistakenly-deports-salvadoran/

The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it mistakenly deported a Salvadoran man protected from removal, sending him to a facility in El Salvador where they argue they are unable to secure his return.

The filing lays bare the risks associated with the Trump administration’s removal of migrants to El Salvador without hearings or other review.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argue that he was sent “to El Salvador knowing that he would be immediately incarcerated and tortured in that country’s most notorious prison.”

Abrego Garcia is married to a U.S. citizen and is the father of a “disabled U.S.-citizen child.”

His attorney said while the government had numerous methods for raising questions about his status and seeking to deport him, “defendants found those legal procedures bothersome, so they merely ignored them and deported Plaintiff Abrego Garcia to El Salvador anyway, ripping him away.”

Trump has the world on edge as he mulls fateful tariffs decades in the making

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/01/politics/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-oval-office/index.html

He’s got the world hanging on his every word — and that’s how he loves it.

President Donald Trump held court in the Oval Office on Monday evening, ratcheting up suspense over his promised tariff war “Liberation Day” on April 2 and riffing on his 19th-century worldview that threatens to rock the 21st-century economy.

Many of the president’s allies on Capitol Hill still hope he’s bluffing — employing the familiar argument that he’s a great dealmaker who stakes out the most extreme position to extract concessions from adversaries.

But there’s a growing sense of hubris surrounding Trump and his team, some of whom falsely argue that tariffs represent a tax cut rather than a tax hike for consumers. Things rarely end well when presidents seem determined to prove their critics wrong, at any cost, in the face of inconvenient truths.

The White House is showing no signs of doubt ahead of a decision that could be fateful for Trump’s second term and the retirement savings of millions of Americans already hit by market sell-offs.

Flags in Synagogue

Igros Moshe (OC I #46) Question  There is a synagogue in which there are two flags set up one of America the other of Israel. Because of these flags there are people who refuse to pray there. Is there any genuine problem with having the flags? Answer  Assuming that this is a shul that was constructed properly to have the holiness of a shul and people have already prayed there assuming it was holy. Even if a serious sin were done there or a degrading act it is not profaned and lose its holiness because of that even at the time the sin was done.  As regards to the question of losing its holiness after the sin it depends. If it is used immediately after the sin to pray as a holy place then there is no loss of holiness. Consequently even if you want to claim that the flags are sinful it does not lose its holiness because of them. It is better to pray there  than to make a minyan in a secular place and it is treated as any other shul. However I don’t understand what sin you think is being done by these flags? There is no prohibition to bring non holy objects into a shul even if not needed for the shul. This is true even if not built as a shul and surely if it were built as a shul as ours are.  This is true even if the flags were erected as a sign of the state of Israel by wicked people. Nevertheless, the flags are not regarded as holy objectsthat might be cause to be concerned for idolatry. They are simply a sign and are clearly secular. .  .  This is true also for the American flag. The flags are merely showing appreciation of Israel and America.  Therefore while it is better not to have the flags there permanently especially not next to the aron Kodesh. There is no actual prohibition being violated as it is clearly not idolatry but only nonsense. It would be best if they could be removed in a peaceful manner. But if that would cause fights  it is clearly prohibited. Therefore a new minyan should not be made for those who object to having the flags. It simply an issue of politics brought about by the yetzer harah and Satan

Republicans fear Florida election upset could threaten Trump's agenda

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c209jxv77rjo

"Their 2025 agenda stops here," he promised, railing against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to slash government services and personnel.

Just an hour earlier, in a telephone town hall meeting, Randy Fine, his Republican opponent in Tuesday's special election, had a similar message – although he framed it as a warning, not a promise.

"Democrats are mad," he said. "They're going to do whatever it takes to grind Donald Trump's agenda to a halt."

To this end, some of the party's heaviest hitters stepped in to help. Last Thursday, Trump joined the Republican candidate in two telephone town hall events. On Monday night, Florida Congressman Byron Donalds and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro held their own event.

"Donald Trump's agenda is hanging by a thread," Shapiro said. "This is a district that simply cannot fall into Democratic hands."

Delta to resume flights to Israel Tuesday

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/03/31/delta-to-resume-flights-to-israel-tuesday/

Delta Airlines is set to resume its operations to Israel tomorrow (Tuesday), with the first flight scheduled to land in the country on Wednesday morning. The American carrier will operate daily flights on the New York-Tel Aviv route.

The airline will use the Airbus A330-900neo aircraft for these direct flights, providing approximately 2,000 seats weekly according to company announcements.

Delta becomes the second American airline to return to Israel, following United Airlines which resumed operations about two weeks ago. United has since doubled its service and now operates two daily flights to Israel. Following Delta's anticipated return, four airlines will be offering direct flights between New York and Tel Aviv: El Al, Arkia, United, and Delta.

Joe Rogan Splits From Trump on ‘Horrific’ Deportations

https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-rogan-on-horrific-trump-deportations-lets-not-get-innocent-gay-hairdressers-lumped-up-with-the-gangs/

“That’s bad for the cause,” Rogan added. “The cause is: Let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not get innocent gay hairdressers lumped up with the gangs?”

“How long before that guy can get out? Can we figure out how to get them out? Is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they’ve made a horrible mistake and correct it?” Rogan said, prompting his guest, political commentator Konstantin Kisin, to reply that the government isn’t likely to admit that it may have made a mistake.

“That’s the thing about politics, right? Never admit your fault. Never admit you’re wrong,” Kisin said.

“It’s so dumb,” Rogan said. “And this is the thing we’re seeing with the Signal thing, and this is the thing we’re seeing with this. It’s like, I don’t know if it’s been brought to their attention.

“I mean, I would assume someone’s alerted them to the fact that they might have rounded up this just random hairdresser and accused him of being a gang member,” he continued.

Why Trump’s Brattish Mini-Me Has MAGA Fearing They’ll Lose a Lay-Up

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-trumps-brattish-mini-me-randy-fine-has-republicans-in-fear-of-losing-easy-election/ 

The Democratic Party may be in disarray and largely leaderless, but many individual Americans are alarmed and outraged by the autocratic actions of the new administration. Key Lime used texts rather than mailers and online videos more than TV ads to trigger more personal responses and it raised $9.5 million for Weil. (It had a hiccup when it clashed with two prominent Democrats—Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg—over the unauthorized use of their voices in their ads, but that did little to stop the cash coming in.)

But the little bucks also point to what appears to be the second major factor in changing the race from a cinch into a maybe; Randy Fine himself. Not even a Trump endorsement can make this former Nevada casino consultant into an actually appealing candidate once his petty and choleric aspects become apparent. Those same qualities are forgiven on a large scale with Trump, but a mini-Donald just becomes a vituperative, vengeful brat.

Why do US Jews leave Orthodoxy? A new study tries to map out the reasons

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-do-us-jews-leave-orthodoxy-a-new-study-tries-to-map-out-the-reasons/

A new survey of American Jews who have left Orthodox Judaism asks tough questions of the community as it describes the complicated web of factors causing people to leave the fold.

Published by the Orthodox Union (OU), one of the Orthodox world’s most prominent organizations, the survey’s conclusions call for synagogues and schools to adopt more inclusive mindsets, for rabbis to look out for children on the fringes and for parents to establish clear expectations with love and support.

One of the study’s biggest surprises was that many of the surveyed individuals who left Orthodoxy remain connected to the community.

Secular studies in spare time in a superficial Manner

 Igros Moshe (YD IV #36.16) Question Those yeshiva students who desire to study medicine or other secular subjects in spare moments during the day in a superficial manner Answer I don’t see any problem with this as long as it doesn’t interfere with their Torah study schedule in yeshiva. This is not required but is merely permitted as long as it it a simple survey of the material without great effort or depth in spare time because it is viewed as pleasurable and perhaps useful. 

Those who are not capable of growth in Torah learning but are interested in Secular Studies

 Igros Moshe (YD IV #36.16) Question You ask about how to deal with those who are not capable of growing in Torah either because they lack the intelligence or because of laziness? Answer. Obviously it is not relevant to require them to learn as I wrote that the bnei Torah is required. It would be appropriate to teach them a skill that is most appropriate to their nature. Even if this largely interferes with their Torah learning to prepare them for this work. The Yavetz lists in his siddur those things that a person who can not learn a lot of Torah must be taught. If he is fit for learning engineering or medicine it is appropriate that he learn it as long as he can learn without being taught heresy and in classes without girls. It is best if the program is under rabbinical supervision.