Fact-checking Trump's State of the Union address

cnn

Governance

Claim: "This new era of cooperation can start with finally confirming the more than 300 highly qualified nominees who are still stuck in the Senate — in some cases years and years waiting. Not right. The Senate has failed to act on these nominations, which is unfair to the nominees and very unfair to our country. Now is the time for bipartisan action."

This is misleading. While it is true that confirmations for Trump nominees lag behind the rate of confirmation for other American presidents, it is inaccurate to suggest that it is entirely the fault of the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.

Of the 705 key executive branch positions tracked by the Washington Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, 274 have not been confirmed. While Trump and Senate Republicans sharply criticize Democrats for slowing down the confirmation process, more than half of those — 144 to be exact — are open because the Trump administration has not yet nominated a candidate.

The jobs range from ambassadorships to important undersecretary roles to governorships at the Federal Reserve board.

Overall, the Partnership analysis shows that only 54% of Trump civilian executive branch nominations have been confirmed, much lower than the 77% of Obama nominees confirmed at the same point in his presidency.

-- Alex Rogers

Top US general says Trump didn’t consult him on Syria pullout

https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-us-general-says-trump-didnt-consult-him-on-syria-pullout/

The top general overseeing US military actions in the Middle East said Tuesday that US President Donald Trump did not consult him ahead of the decision to pull American troops from Syria.

Trump last month claimed the Islamic State jihadist group had been defeated in Syria and said all US troops were “coming back now.”

The US president had long questioned America’s multiple and seemingly interminable wars, but his withdrawal order came as a shock to Washington, upending years of doctrine in Syria.

Gedolim in the Trump post--Truth and alternative facts Era

Today it seems as personality is more important than knowledge of Torah/
 a Rabbi who can inspire and gives people what they want is viewed as a Gadol.

Torah laws can be ignored if you have enough money

as HaRav Sternbuch told me "money can purify even the status of mamzer"

Fox Host Tells Trump He's "Beacon for Repression"

9 מוסדות חרדיים נקנסו בגלל התפרצות חצבת

http://www.bhol.co.il/news/972931

9 מוסדות חרדיים במונסי קיבלו קנסות בסך כולל של 70,000 דולר, מכיוון שהם נמנעו להציג מידע בעניין חיסון נגד חצבת.

עקב התפרצות של כ-95 מקרי חצבת ב-12 שבועות האחרונים באזור רוקלנד קאונטי, בה שוכן כפר מונסי, משרד הבריאות האמריקאי דרש מכל מוסדות החינוך להציג רשומות של החיסונים שנערכים אצלם.

שני שליש מהמוסדות נענו לדרישה, אך תשע מוסדות חרדיים לא שיתפו פעולה ולא הציגו את המידע הנדרש.

הקנס על חוסר שיתוף הפעולה הוא 2,000 דולר ליום, וחלק מהמוסדות נקנסו על כך שבמשך שבועיים ימים הם לא העבירו את המידע. קנס של 14,000 דולר.

כעת שמונה מתוך התשע החלו להעביר את המידע הנדרש למשרד הבריאות. בזכות שיתוף הפעולה הם זכו למחילה של 10% מהקנס. לעומתם מוסד אחד, 'עטרת בנות', אינו מסכים להתניות ולא משתף פעולה.

"במהלך משבר בריאות ציבורי, אנו מצפים מכולם לשתף פעולה עם דרישות משרד הבריאות המחוזי", הכריז מנהל המחוז.

Business Secrets from the Bible

Psychiatrist Bandy Lee On What's Wrong With Trump's Mental Health

'Willful Ignorance.' Inside President Trump's Troubled Intelligence Briefings

http://time.com/5518947/donald-trump-intelligence-briefings-national-security/

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments.

Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called “willful ignorance” when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.

FACT CHECK Fact-Checking President Trump’s Interview With The New York Times

5 Takeaways From The Times’s Interview With President Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/politics/donald-trump-interview-takeaways.html

WASHINGTON — President Trump wanted to talk. He initially invited A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, to an off-the-record dinner. Mr. Sulzberger countered with a request for an on-the-record interview that included Times reporters. The White House accepted.

Trump Says He Summoned Intel Chiefs After Hearing They Contradicted Him | The Last Word | MSNBC

Fact-checking Trump's claim on cost of illegal immigration, number of immigrants here illegally

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan/28/donald-trump/fact-checking-donald-trumps-claim-cost-illegal-imm/

Our ruling

Trump said, "We are not even into February and the cost of illegal immigration so far this year is $18,959,495,168. Cost Friday was $603,331,392. There are at least 25,772,342 illegal aliens, not the 11,000,000 that have been reported for years, in our Country."

The source of Trump’s claim is unclear. We asked DHS and the White House to back Trump’s statement, but neither provided studies or any other data to support it.

Trump previously falsely claimed that the cost of illegal immigration was $250 billion a year. Even the highest annual estimates we found were significantly lower than that amount ($116 billion, after factoring in tax contributions).

Most estimates say there are around 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. A recent study from Yale University researchers said a mean number was 22.1 million, but several demographers have pointed flaws in the assumptions and findings of that study.

Without evidence from Trump or his administration to back this statement, we rate it False.

Rabbis: New York Reproductive Health Act 'declares war on life'

israelnationalnews

A prominent rabbinic organization has denounced New York State's newly-passed Reproductive Health Act. The law not only declares that abortion is a "fundamental right," but entirely removes illegal abortion, whether by a practitioner or malicious assailant, from the New York Penal Law. The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 1000 traditional rabbis in matters of public policy, called the law "indefensible" from a moral and humanitarian perspective.

"According to this law," said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, Chairman of the Rabbinic Circle of the CJV, "late-term abortions may be performed literally until right before birth, even by non-doctors, and not only in order to save the mother’s life but also 'to protect a patient’s health' — and even decriminalized illegal abortions. New York State has asserted that a woman’s convenience and whim are more important than the life of another."

Rabbi Gordimer, who has written extensively on this topic, also pointed to numerous cases where women were attacked specifically due to their pregnancy, with intent to harm or kill her fetus. "The same legislators who have defined entirely new 'protected classes' have stripped expectant mothers — and their unborn children — of protection. This is morally indefensible. That they imagine this better for humanity simply boggles the mind."

The state of Trump's presidency is, well, pretty feeble

nbcnews

As President Donald Trump begins his third year in office — after the longest shutdown in U.S. history and after another adviser was indicted — our new NBC News/Wall Street Journal pollprovides a check-up on his presidency.

The conclusion: He’s in pretty weak shape.

According to the poll, which was conducted before Friday’s deal to reopen the government, Trump’s job-approval rating stands at 43 percent among all adults — which is unchanged from December, and which is higher than other polls finding a slight drop in his approval since the shutdown’s start.

That’s some of the good news for Trump in poll. The bad news is that just a third of Americans (33 percent) are “extremely” or “quite” confident that he has the right set of goals and policies to be president, and slightly more than a quarter (28 percent) have high confidence that he has the right set of personal characteristics to be president.

Half of Americans (50 percent) say they are “not at all” confident in his personal characteristics.

What’s more, Trump gets poor marks on many key presidential qualities.

Notably, Trump is below 50 percent on all eight of these qualities. And the numbers for knowledge/experience, honesty and ethics are absolutely brutal.

Abortion Dr Steinberg

Trump hits Ann Coulter over recent criticism: 'Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something

the hill

President Trump on Sunday took a shot at conservative commentator Ann Coulter, a longtime supporter of his, after she criticized him for agreeing to reopen the government without a deal on his long-promised border wall.

“I hear she’s become very hostile,” Trump said in a new interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.”

His jab comes shortly after Coulter blasted Trump repeatedly for not securing funding for a wall along the southern U.S. border, his signature campaign promise.

ANN COULTER CALLS DONALD TRUMP 'BIGGEST WIMP EVER TO SERVE AS PRESIDENT' AS CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BLASTS ‘CAVE’ OVER WALL

newsweek

Conservative media hammered President Donald Trump for his surprising announcement on Friday afternoon that he has agreed to reopen the federal government for three weeks while continuing to negotiate with Democrats to secure the southern border. The agreement came without funding for his border wall.

Conservative political commentator and author Ann Coulter roasted Trump on Twitter without explicitly naming him.

“Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States,” Coulter tweeted.

Sex convict rabbi claims he can revive the dead – for $5,000 fee

https://www.timesofisrael.com/sex-convict-rabbi-claims-he-can-revive-the-dead-for-5000-fee/

Sex convict rabbi Eliezer Berland promises he can revive people who were officially declared brain dead, if family members pony up some NIS 20,000 ($5,400), according to a television report on Thursday that exposed the working of the miracles-for-cash services offered by the shadowy leader of the Shuvu Bonim community.

Berland has long been known to offer “pidyonim,” or kabbalistic benedictions, to the ill, whereby they receive a blessing after donating money. In late-night visits, and surrounded by dozens of followers, Berland frequently shows up at Israeli hospitals across the country, unattended by staff, to bless the sick, according to footage uploaded by his followers.

Israeli journalists from Channel 12 news, seeking to unearth how it works and after encountering victims of Berland’s scheme, invented the case of a 35-year-old woman, “Yael,” who was declared brain dead.

5 ultra-Orthodox men jailed for defrauding state in fake yeshiva student scam

timesofisrael.

The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday sentenced five ultra-Orthodox men to jail terms following their conviction for swindling millions of shekels from the Education Ministry by inflating the number of students learning at seminaries using forged identity papers and masses of impostors to fool school inspectors.

One of the defendants was sentenced to five years behind bars, four others were given sentences of between 16 months to four years, and another four defendants were give six months each, to be served as community service.

DONALD TRUMP ENDORSES END TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WITH STOPGAP SPENDING BILL WITHOUT WALL FUNDING

newsweek

President Donald Trump announced Friday that on the 35th day of the partial government shutdown, he will support a three-week continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the shuttered portions of the government through February 15.

It will not provide money for his southern border wall, but it will provide federal employees with backpay. The temporary spending solution will allow lawmakers time to negotiate a long-term border security plan that the president will support, in addition to providing federal workers and agencies with funding. 

The president warned that if a deal is not struck during the three-week funding stretch, he is prepared to shut down the government for a second time. 

Trump Makes Rare Cave on State of the Union Speech

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/01/24/trump-makes-rare-cave-on-state-of-the-union-speech/

WASHINGTON (AP) — The counter-puncher caved.

President Donald Trump’s decision to postpone his State of the Union address under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised allies, contradicted top aides who had been working on an alternative speech plan and left all of Washington trying to determine whether it signaled new willingness by Trump to make a deal to reopen the government.

“Well, it’s really her choice,” Trump said Thursday, acknowledging Pelosi had the upper hand when it came to scheduling the traditional presidential address to Congress. The speaker had made clear Trump could not deliver his speech from the House unless he waited until the government reopens.

So Trump, who is typically loath to show any sign of weakness, made a highly uncharacteristic about-face and one that highlighted the importance the president attaches to the type of symbolism and pageantry associated with a speech from the rostrum of the House.

The president concluded that there was no viable alternative that could match the gravitas of the traditional State of the Union address, in which all three branches of government come together under one roof, drawing the president’s largest television audience of the year. An alternative speech or rally also would have been a hard sell for television networks, which took heat earlier this month for airing the president’s prime-time Oval Office address in which he largely rehashed his case for a southern border wall.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/skokie/community/chi-ugc-article-rep-kalish-attends-gov-pritzkers-45th-anni-2019-01-22-story.html

Rep. Kalish Attends Gov. Pritzker’s 45th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Celebration

Community Contributor David Ormsby

[Chicago] - Newly appointed State Rep. Rabbi Yehiel "Mark" Kalish (D-Chicago) attended the 45th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Celebration hosted by Governor J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday.

"Protecting access to safe and legal reproductive healthcare for women in Illinois is a priority for me because a woman's right to choose is under assault from Washington," said Kalish. "That's why I think that it's important for me to stand with Governor Pritzker and my legislative colleagues on the 45th anniversary of the Roe decision."

Pritzker headlined the Roe celebration at Planned Parenthood's Chicago office on January 22.

Kalish, who was sworn in on January 20 after being appointed to the Illinois House seat vacated by State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), was also an active advocate on winning approval for Illinois House Bill 40, sponsored by State. Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), a measure that ensures that a woman's right to choose remains the law of the land in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Roe.

"I'm proud to have been one of the foot soldiers in Rep. Feigenholtz's successful effort to protect a woman's right to choose in Illinois," said Kalish. "It's clear that Roe is at risk from Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees."

In addition to protecting reproductive health care for women, Kalish also pledges to fight any attempts to roll back or chip away at marriage equality or undermine the civil rights of the LGBT community.

"Equality for all citizens is a fundamental constitutional and moral principle," said Kalish. "We are all equal under the eyes of the law and God, and marriage equality is no exception and that's why I support the law."

Why Do Some Ultra-Orthodox Jews Defy Their Rebbes And Refuse To Vaccinate?

forward

About 9% of Americans oppose vaccination, but Minke is unusual even among that vocal minority. She is an ultra-Orthodox Jew, part of a community known for adherence to the rulings of their rebbes — rabbinic leaders. And many of those rebbes have insisted that Jewish law requires vaccination. But a stubborn, if small, segment of the ultra-Orthodox community is saying that, when it comes to vaccines, their rebbes’ decrees do not apply.

“I believe that there is no Torah source to tell me exactly how to take care of my children,” Minke, 31, said in an interview. Minke requested a pseudonym because she did not feel comfortable having her views publicly known.

The real politics behind the Covington Catholic controversy, explained

vox

The Covington Catholic fight is American politics in microcosm.

Why is the Covington Catholic controversy still the nation’s biggest story?

It started simply enough. A short viral video shot on Friday shows a group of white teens in “Make America Great Again” hats surrounding a small group of Native American demonstrators, including an elder from the Omaha tribe named Nathan Phillips. One of the kids, identified as Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann, gets up in Phillips’s face and smirks, unaffected by Phillips’s drumming. It looks like a straightforward story of privileged racist white kids harassing a peaceful Native protester.

But shortly after the clip went viral, to universal and at times vitriolic condemnation, a pushback began in right-of-center media. They argued that mainstream media and left-wing activists alike were being unfair to the kids, who were actually defending themselves from insults and harassment from a separate group of protesters, members of the fringe Black Israelite movement. Even President Trump weighed in:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18192831/covington-catholic-maga-hat-native-american-nathan-phillips

The Covington Catholic fight is American politics in microcosm.

Steny Hoyer Is Furious At Republicans For Bowing To Trump On Shutdown

Steny Hamilton Hoyer is an American politician serving as U.S. Representative for Maryland's 5th congressional district since 1981, and has served as House Majority Leader since 2019. A Democrat, he was first elected in a special election on May 19, 1981 and is currently serving in his 20th term. Wikipedia

DRUCKMAN ATTEMPTS APOLOGY, SAYS RABBIS NEED TO OPPOSE SEX OFFENDERS

jpost.

Druckman has been strongly criticized for his failure to publicly condemn Rabbi Moti Elon and to apologize for having publicly supported him after he was convicted of sex offenses against a minor in 2013.

Two donors to institutions connected with the rabbi have cut off their funding due to his failure to publicly distance himself from Elon.

Druckman made his comments in a letter to the heads of hesder yeshivas on Tuesday. They are due to meet in coming weeks on the subject of sexual abuse in educational frameworks and the national-religious community more broadly.

“This is an opportunity for me to express my position regarding our full obligation to deal with sexual abuse and to stand on the side of those who are harmed, and to stand against those who do such harm, without a hint of hushing or covering it up,” Druckman wrote.

“Unfortunately, I acknowledge that part of my activities in this realm gave a different and wrong impression because the steps I took were not properly understood.”

“I am very saddened by this and especially if there are people who were offended by this,” he continued. He finished by saying that he very much appreciates those who work in the field of combating sexual abuse and helping those affected by it, saying that he felt a responsibility to give back to those working against abuse.

Elon was convicted in 2013 of two counts of sexual assault against a minor. Druckman, however, publicly criticized the conviction, and invited Elon to lecture at his yeshiva in Merkaz Shapira.

)rthodox supporter of Roe

letter from Lubavitcher Rebbe about Rav Solovetchik

Judge Rules that Hospital Must Rescind Death Certificate for Orthodox Patient

hamodia

A judge has ruled that Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital must rescind a death certificate that it issued for an Orthodox Jewish patient some three weeks before his death. The decision could have far-reaching effects for religious groups and the obligation of hospitals and medical professionals to accommodate their beliefs, especially regarding “end of life” policies.

The patient, Yechezkel Nakar, z”l, was niftar in the spring of 2017 and the legal fight over what his family perceived as an illegitimately issued death certificate began soon after. The suit gained wide media attention, but a ruling was only issued this past Friday for what Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Devin Cohen only identified as “technical reasons,” according to the Nakar family’s attorney Morton Avigdor.

The delay aside, Mr. Avigdor said the ruling was “terrific.”

“This is a clear and very strongly worded legal recognition of the responsibility of hospitals to accommodate religious beliefs,” he told Hamodia. “This is not just about one hospital, it will affect all of the city and likely beyond, who will have to rethink the way they treat religious rights.”

Against the objections of the patient’s family, the hospital had conducted tests to show if Mr. Nakar, who was unconscious after suffering a stroke, was wh

ant-abortion

Minnesota Rabbi Busted In Underage Sex Sting Sentenced To Probation

forward

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Ramsey County Sheriff’s O...

The police photo of Cohen.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Read more: https://forward.com/fast-forward/417771/minnesota-rabbi-busted-in-underage-sex-sting-sentenced-to-probation/

Ramsey County Sheriff’s O...

The police photo of Cohen.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, a popular Minneapolis rabbi, was sentenced to three years probation on Wednesday after being caught by police in a child sex sting last year, TC Jewfolk reported.

Read more: https://forward.com/fast-forward/417771/minnesota-rabbi-busted-in-underage-sex-sting-sentenced-to-probation/

Who Wrote the Late Volumes of Igrot Moshe?

seforimblog

Though this article deals with a factual question, it often seems to devolve into an ideological one. I therefore wish to state: I have no horse in this fight. I have not taken halakhic positions from Igrot Moshe volumes 7-9. I went into this with a genuinely open mind, and in the course of researching this question, I have taken the affirmative and negative sides of this question at different points.

Ever since Igrot Moshe volume 8 was published, and to a lesser degree volume 7, people have cast aspersions or directly accused it of being a forgery. The claim, generally, has been some variation of direct accusation or insinuation that somebody, usually either one of the Tendlers or R. Shabtai Rappaport, inserted his own teshuvot into the volume. Volume 9 is, as they say, ‘right out’. Some even call these volumes ‘Igrot Moshe David’.

As an example, Hirhurim several years ago published this quote from R. J.D. Bleich, though the comment thread is likely a better example.

Given

the preponderance of evidence that the later Igrot

Moshe volumes

are real (and spectacular), I think we can put the various theories

of alternative authorship to rest. The claims of the editors — that

the latest teshuvot were

dictated[6] — explains the ‘steroid spike’, and all available

evidence supports their central contention, that they didn’t change

the actual content. In short: it’s legit.

Timesunion

In the quest to "liberate" women, pro-choice feminists in New York have rallied around the Reproductive Health Act. Many buzz phrases have circulated to describe the RHA's meaning, such as "Abortion is not a crime" and "Abortion is health care," but beyond these buzz words lie the RHA's real implications: It dehumanizes the disabled; healthy, viable humans in utero; children who are aborted but born alive; and pregnant victims of domestic violence.

By completely gutting abortion from New York's criminal law, the RHA removes the state's only prosecutorial tool for holding violent abusers accountable for the death of wanted unborn children. Studies show that domestic violence escalates during pregnancy. New York's version of a fetal homicide law lies within the abortion provisions of its penal law, which the RHA repeals.

If reproductive freedom and equality lie at the heart of the RHA, as pro-choice feminists claim, how could the bill's drafters have overlooked this injustice? How could any feminist strip away the right of a woman to prosecute a violent partner for killing her wanted fetus? Depriving women of the opportunity to punish violent partners for killing their wanted unborn children is anti-woman.

The RHA dehumanizes viable, healthy humans in utero — who could survive outside the womb — by enacting a broad rather than a narrow health exception to New York's current ban on third-trimester abortions.

The RHA dehumanizes the disabled by explicitly permitting the unimpeded destruction of unborn children incapable of surviving outside the womb during the third trimester of pregnancy.

The RHA dehumanizes yet another class of humans, namely infants born alive during abortions — which does occur, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The RHA fully repeals state Public Health Law 4164, which requires that after the 20th week of pregnancy, a separate doctor be present to provide life-saving treatment to children who survive abortions. The current law also affords them civil rights. Without PHL 4164, it is unclear what protections children who survive abortion would have.

From a pro-life feminist perspective, the RHA warps women's rights to bodily integrity and individual autonomy and undermines basic human rights. For a group of people such as women, who have long endured historic dehumanization, the RHA should be embarrassing.