Trump’s Defense of His Lies: ‘I’m President and You’re Not’

NY Magazine

It is remarkable — and perhaps praiseworthy — that Donald Trump gave a long and detailed interview on the subject of his being a pathological liar. The interview, with Time’s Michael Scherer, covers a wide range of Trump’s lies, and features many of his own justifications for them. The truly revealing moment of the interview comes at the end, when Trump gives up the game. “But isn’t there, it strikes me there is still an issue of credibility,” asks Scherer, referencing Trump’s hallucinatory claims to have been surveilled by his predecessor, which his own intelligence officials have refuted. Trump rambles through various talking points, and lands on this conclusion: “I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”

This small line is an important historical marker of the bizarre and disconcerting reality into which American politics has plunged. Trump is not merely making an attack on truth here. He is attacking the idea of truth. His statement is a frontal challenge to the notion that objective reality can be separated from power.

Trump and his officials have been dancing around this notion since November. When challenged on almost any of their lies, they point to the election, which proves that the credibility of the crooked Fake News media is nonexistent, and theirs is beyond reproach. Questions about veracity are met with responses about voting in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Trump made the argument explicit: The only measure of his veracity is power, which he has, and his critics do not. [...]

Jewish Center Bomb Threat Suspect is Jewish - Is Arrested in Israel

NY Times

The police on Thursday arrested an Israeli teenager who holds American citizenship in connection with scores of threats to Jewish institutions, including dozens of community centers in the United States, law enforcement officials said.

A spokesman for the police here, Micky Rosenfeld, said the suspect, from the Ashkelon area of southern Israel, had also made threats to institutions in Australia and New Zealand, as well as to at least one commercial airline flight, forcing an emergency landing.

“This is the guy we are talking about,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.

The authorities did not immediately identify the teenager, who they said was Jewish and 19. Other reports put his age at 18. He was expected to appear in court later Thursday.

The suspect’s motives were not immediately clear. He was being questioned by the international investigations unit of the Israeli police.

The arrest took place after a monthslong investigation in cooperation with the F.B.I. and other police and security agencies in the United States and Europe, the Israeli police said in a statement.

“The investigation began in several countries at the same time, in which dozens of threatening calls were received at public places, events, synagogues and community buildings that caused panic and disrupted events and activities in various organizations,” the statement said.

Representatives of the F.B.I. and police organizations from various other countries arrived in Israel to take part in the investigation, the statement said, adding that technology was used to track the suspect down. [...]

Vayakhel 75 - School as a community by Allan Katz

Guest post by Allan Katz

The word for community – ke'hilah comes from the word vayakhel- ויקהל , the opening word of our parasha. There are different types of communities , some positive and some negative depending on their goals and common purpose.  And Moses assembled – vayakhel = ויקהל the people  so he could share with the community God's commandments to observe the Sabbath and build a mishkan – a tabernacle which would come from the contributions offered by the people. The Sabbath had to observed especially by being careful to focus on bonding through learning and not kindling a fire -  including the fire of argument and conflict in the community.  The Midrash explains that while community is very important, Moses is setting a precedent, that  community   life  must be based on  learning. People should gather on the Sabbath and Moses would teach them about the Sabbath and other laws of the Torah. Houses of prayer, like the study halls should be places of learning as well as for  prayer. Community projects like the building of the mishkan- the tabernacle or any other projects that serve the community  must be  seen in the context of spiritual development and commitment to the Torah. This context is created by communal learning and observing the Torah laws. So community must be based on cooperative learning and projects  and be    guided by spiritual beliefs. The ideal situation is that people are drawn to a Rabbi and his place of learning and because they learn together, they pray together and participate in communal projects.

Schools are the perfect setting for building a community based on cooperative learning and social projects. Unfortunately many schools are more about instilling obedience and having control .It is for sure not a place that gives kids a voice and tries to  inspire them  to make their school a better and nurturing place for all. Teachers will use extrinsic motivation like prizes, grades and competition to motivate kids to behave and learn. Kids learn to ask themselves what will I get or what will be done to me. Kids are ranked according to their test scores and how well they behave ,  and the competitive ones see others as obstacles to their success. It does not help to talk about good character and caring , if the environment is competitive and problems are solved using punishment or bribes. The school has to create an environment which promotes cooperation between kids and pro-social behavior. If we go beyond discipline and grades and focus on community  and cooperative learning, kids will learn to  ask how do my actions impact on others , how can I make a contribution, what type of school or classroom would I like?  Kids will be intrinsically more motivated and develop a love for learning when they can participate in deciding on the curriculum. As one student remarked, my teachers always had the ability to give us the feeling that we decided on what we were going to study and learn.   Excellence is not measured by test scores but by taking responsibility for other kids and sharing your learning. Kids see each other as learning resources and look to each for support and friendship. There is the understanding that only a unity of purpose , cooperation and a caring atmosphere where every child is needed and valued,  can a community  and individuals meet  their goals.

Progressive schools see the importance of creating a community of caring learners and the best way children learn is when they are engaged in real-life situations that are important to them. Schools can implement a Jobs Program which allows kids to learn by doing.

Each School Group has a specific job to perform that helps the school community function smoothly. Some groups will tutor and become buddies for younger kids, other groups can run the school newspaper, the school store which supplies stationary and text books , the school garden , be involved in  sign making and running the  print shop. The children have ample opportunity to practice and expand their academic skills, including mathematics, reading and writing, while further developing leadership, critical thinking and problem-solving tools. Because they are performing real jobs that meet real needs, the children also develop a genuine sense of ownership and pride in their school community.

“Anyone working with or watching these children soon realizes the deeper psychological aspect of this type of program. It gives a child a sense of dignity and responsibility to be entrusted with a job whose importance he fully recognizes...All his abilities are called into play. He learns self-control, patience, self-discipline. He accepts the need for drill and for special work in areas where he is weak, so he will be better able to serve his customers and his community.” 
—Jean Murray, former principal of City &Country

When community is based on communal and cooperative learning, there is more growth, bonding and commitment to values and to be of service to other kids.

Nunes makes bizarre claim that some Trump transition messages were intercepted

Politico

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes declared Wednesday that members of Donald Trump’s transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November’s presidential election.

The White House and Trump’s allies immediately seized on the statement as vindication of the president’s much-maligned claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones — even though Nunes himself said that’s not what his new information shows.

Democrats, meanwhile, cried foul.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, cast doubt on Nunes’ claims in a fiery statement and blasted the chairman for not first sharing the information with him or other committee members.

Schiff also slammed Nunes for briefing the White House on Wednesday afternoon given that the Intelligence Committee is in the middle of an investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, including possible collusion with the Trump team.

“The chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or he is going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both,” Schiff said at a news conference Wednesday.

“And unfortunately,” he added, “I think the actions of today throw great doubt into the ability of both the chairman and the committee to conduct the investigation the way it ought to be conducted.”

Nunes set off the firestorm with a news conference earlier in the day in which he described the surveillance of Trump aides through what’s called “incidental collection,” something he noted was routine and legal. Such collection can occur when a person inside the United State communicates with a foreign target of U.S. surveillance. In such cases, the identities of U.S. citizens are supposed to be shielded — but can be “unmasked” by intelligence officials under certain circumstances.

Nunes, himself a Trump transition member, said a “source” had shown him evidence that members of the Trump transition team had been unmasked — and that their identities had been revealed in U.S. intelligence reports. Nunes had previously raised questions about the unmasking of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose communications with Russia’s ambassador were intercepted by the U.S. government and whose identity was leaked to the news media.

Nunes suggested this unmasking might have been done for political reasons, saying the evidence he had seen had been widely disseminated across the intelligence community and had "little or no apparent intelligence value." He added that he was trying to get more information by Friday from the FBI, CIA and NSA.

“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the president-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” the California Republican told reporters. “It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing.” He said the information he had seen was not related to the FBI’s Russia investigation.[...]

Other Democrats also took issue with Nunes’ decision to go straight to Trump.

Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Nunes’ trip to the White House “raises all sorts of questions.”

“What if it’s one of the president’s people who is being investigated?” the Connecticut Democrat said in an interview. “Is he going to damage the investigation? It all feels very, very odd.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), another member of the intelligence panel, said he was “troubled.”

“The House Intelligence Committee is charged with investigating Russia's interference into our election and whether any U.S. persons were involved,” Swalwell said in a statement. “The chairman's actions and closeness to a president whose campaign is under federal investigation have gravely damaged the Investigation's credibility.”

At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer read from Nunes' statement during a press briefing, showing how eager Trump's team was to amplify the remarks.

A political action committee associated with Trump, the Great America PAC, sent out a mass fundraising email claiming Trump’s wiretapping claims had proved accurate. Donald Trump Jr. also posted a message to Instagram crowing about Nunes’ comments.

WSJ editorial: Most Americans may conclude Trump 'fake president'

CNN

President Donald Trump's repeated lack of "respect for the truth" puts him in jeopardy of being viewed as "a fake President," The Wall Street Journal editorial board says.

"Two months into his presidency, Gallup has Mr. Trump's approval rating at 39%. No doubt Mr. Trump considers that fake news, but if he doesn't show more respect for the truth, most Americans may conclude he's a fake President," reads the editorial, which appeared online Tuesday night.

 

"This week should be dominated by the smooth political sailing for Mr. Trump's Supreme Court nominee and the progress of health-care reform on Capitol Hill," the editorial said. "These are historic events, and success will show he can deliver on his promises. But instead, the week has been dominated by the news that he was repudiated by his own FBI director."

 

While the Journal's editorial board was no friend of Trump during much of the 2016 campaign, the strong language in the editorial is particularly notable given the board's typically conservative outlook and the fact that the Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, with whom Trump has had a long and complicated relationship. Murdoch harshly criticized Trump in the wake of his 2015 putdown of Sen. John McCain but has gradually warmed up to the businessman-turned-President.

 

The editorial also slammed Trump for refusing to back off his administration's unsubstantiated allegations that President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower. Multiple lawmakers, including Republicans, have called on Trump to apologize to Obama for making the claim without providing any evidence.

 

"He has offered no evidence for his claim, and a parade of intelligence officials, senior Republicans and Democrats have since said they have seen no such evidence," the editorial board wrote. "Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims."

 

Asked about the editorial on CNN's "New Day" Wednesday morning, Texas Rep. Pete Sessions said Trump's unverified allegations do hurt his credibility.

 

"It does hurt," he said. "It hurts a lot not only for my party but for people to have a sobering look at what others are saying."[...]

 

 

Study indicated that the women who are most at risk of being harmed by men are those who themselves engage in physical violence against men

Arutz 7

Prof. Zeev Weinstock of the University of Haifa, one of the world's leading experts on violence between spouses, revealed this week the truth about violence between spouses, a truth hidden from the public.

Weinstock made an emotional speech at the first ever meeting of the Distributive Justice and Social Equality Committee, headed by MK Mickey Zohar (Likud). "For almost 50 years we have known that men's violence towards women takes place in similar proportions to the violence that women use against men in intimate relationships, in almost every culture and society that we know," said Weinstock, "from traditional societies to liberal Western societies.

"In addition, we know that in the motivations for violence, there is no difference between men and women. For the same reasons that men beat women, women beat men. The results are different, because of the differences between men and women, and men's physical endurance - they are injured less and therefore arrive less to the emergency rooms. So the visibility of the problem is very high in the case of women, but the motivations and the violent behavior are not a peculiarity of either particular gender."

The expert also told the committee about a study that determined that the women who are most at risk of being harmed by men are those who themselves engage in physical violence against men.

Automatic cataloging of men as violent

Despite these data, Professor Weinstock explained, systemic treatment in cases of violence between spouses refers to women automatically as victims of violence, while men are always labeled as perpetrators of violence - "Even in cases where this is not true at all. Even in cases where it is the opposite. Even in cases where it is mutual.

"The system today is structured to deal with the violence of men against women, and it does not intervene in cases where women are violent towards men. Even in cases where women are violent toward men, the women are always treated as if they are the victim, and the victim is treated as if he were the aggressor."

Being "crooked Trump" means never having to say you're sorry

Arizona Republic  by  EJ Montini 

President Donald Trump could invite former President Barack Obama back to the White House and apologize to him in person.

That would be nice.

A simple handshake.

“My bad.”

But that doesn’t seem to be his style.

FBI Director James Comey and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, appeared before a congressional committee Monday and said there was, in fact, an investigation into possible Russian meddling in the presidential election and also into whether Trump surrogates were in contact with the Russians.

Also, Comey said the FBI had “no information” to support Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that Obama had wiretapped him.

Lots of ways Trump could apologize

 This would indicate that an apology is in order.

So … flowers don’t really seem appropriate. Not really a guy thing.

Obama is said to enjoy chocolate-peanut butter protein bars. Maybe a box of those.

Or tickets to a basketball game. The former president loves basketball.

Or a round of golf at one of Trump’s resorts.

The White House could orchestrate a photo-op of two of them together on the links. Trump could even fly Obama down to Florida with him on Air Force One. It might take a little bit of the heat off Trump for the $2 million-plus it costs taxpayers every time he has the urge to head south. Which he does a lot. He's on track to spend more money in a year than Obama spent on vacations in eight years.

Plenty of people think Trump should apologize to voters for that.

Come to think of it, it would be nice for the president to apologize to voters for a few other things as well.

During the election campaign Trump promised he would not to cut Medicaid.

Looks like that’s going to happen under his health care bill.

He promised that his Obamacare replacement plan would provide “insurance for everybody.”[...]

When we were kids we were taught that when you break a promise to someone, or say something untrue about someone, you should apologize.

Trump doesn’t see the world that way.

He appears to consider broken promises and unproven accusations as “truthful hyperbole.”

In one of his books he described it this way, “I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.”

It sure helped him get elected.

As for apologies, during a September 2015 appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," Trump was asked if he ever apologizes.

He answered, "I think apologizing's a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future if I’m ever wrong.”

First, this is that future, and it wasn’t too distant.

Second … if you’re ever wrong?

Cue the theme song from "Love Story."

Apparently, "Trump" means you never have to say you're sorry.

President Trump faces his hardest truth: The FBI has confirmed that he is a liar

Washington Post

On the 60th day of his presidency came the hardest truth for Donald Trump.

He was wrong.

James B. Comey — the FBI director whom Trump celebrated on the campaign trail as a gutsy and honorable “Crooked Hillary” truth-teller — testified under oath Monday what many Americans had already assumed: Trump had falsely accused his predecessor of wiretapping his headquarters during last year’s campaign.

Trump did not merely allege that former president Barack Obama ordered surveillance on Trump Tower, of course. He asserted it as fact, and then reasserted it, and then insisted that forthcoming evidence would prove him right.

But in Monday’s remarkable, marathon hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Comey said there was no such evidence. Trump’s claim, first made in a series of tweets on March 4 at a moment when associates said he was feeling under siege and stewing over the struggles of his young presidency, remains unfounded.

Comey did not stop there. He confirmed publicly that the FBI was investigating possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and associates with Russia, part of an extraordinary effort by an adversary to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. election in Trump’s favor.

Questions about Russia have hung over Trump for months, but the president always has dismissed them as “fake news.” That became much harder Monday after the FBI director proclaimed the Russia probe to be anything but fake.

“There’s a smell of treason in the air,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “Imagine if J. Edgar Hoover or any other FBI director would have testified against a sitting president? It would have been a mind-
boggling event.”

For Trump, Comey’s testimony punctuates what has been a troubling first two months as president. His approval ratings, which were historically low at his inauguration, have fallen even further. Gallup’s tracking poll as of Sunday showed that just 39 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, with 55 percent disapproving.

The Comey episode threatens to damage Trump’s credibility not only with voters, but also with lawmakers of his own party whose support he needs to pass the health-care bill this week in the House, the first legislative project of his presidency.

Furthermore, the FBI’s far-reaching Russia investigation shows no sign of concluding soon and is all but certain to remain a distraction for the White House, spurring moments of presidential fury and rash tweets and possibly inhibiting the administration’s ability to govern.[...]

Spicer’s defense strategy was in part to distance Trump from the figures under investigation by the FBI for their ties to Russia. In Spicer’s telling, Paul Manafort was a virtual nobody, someone who “played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time.”

Manafort was actually Trump’s campaign chairman and de facto manager for five months last year, from the end of the primaries through the summer convention and the start of the general election season.

Watching Sean Spicer twist himself into a pretzel yet again to try to pretend that Paul Manafort isn’t an influential figure is ludicrous,” Wehner said. “It’s like saying Aaron Rodgers isn’t a central figure for the Green Bay Packers.”

Brinkley, who has published biographies of such presidents as Gerald Ford, Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, said of Trump’s start, “This is the most failed first 100 days of any president.”

“To be as low as he is in the polls, in the 30s, while the FBI director is on television saying they launched an investigation into your ties with Russia, I don’t know how it can get much worse,” Brinkley said.[...]

Trump’s biggest Obamacare lies

Washington Post   President Trump is like a broken record of Pinocchios, incessantly repeating false and misleading claims that have been debunked. As Congress debates the Republican replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, Trump has been on a greatest-hits tour of his favorite, and questionable, claims about Obamacare. We compiled a round-up of his most notable claims from the past week.

“This is the worst year of all … 2017 is going to be the worst because he’s [former president Barack Obama] gone. He knew that was the year. Let him be out before it implodes.”
— March 15
“It’s a catastrophic situation, and there’s nothing to compare anything to because Obamacare won’t be around for a year or two. It’s gone.”
— March 15
“They also want people to know that Obamacare is dead; it’s a dead health-care plan. It’s not even a healthcare plan, frankly.”
— March 17
“I have to tell you that Obamacare is a disaster. It’s failing. … Obamacare will fail. It will fold. It will close up very, very soon if something isn’t done.”
— March 17

Trump’s claims that Obamacare “is failing,” “is dead,” “will close up very, very soon” and “is not even a health-care plan [?]” are simply false.

Credible estimates suggest the health-care law boosted the number of people with health insurance by 20 million. The Congressional Budget Office, in its report on the GOP replacement bill, said that the individual market would be stable in most markets at least for the next 10 years under the Affordable Care Act.[...]

Our friends at FactCheck.org looked into this claim in depth and found “it is possible that some parts of the state will be without marketplace coverage next year.” But that’s not the same as Trump claiming half the state has no insurance company.

“I watched Bill Clinton saying, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
— March 17
“The Governor of Minnesota said that Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — no longer affordable. That’s what he said.”
— March 17

Trump takes both comments out of context and twists their meaning.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) on Oct. 12, 2016, faulted Republicans in Congress for refusing to adjust the law, which he said was the reason individual health insurance was “no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people.”

Dayton added that “the Affordable Care Act has many good features to it, it’s achieved great success in terms of insuring more people – 20 million people across the country – and providing access for people who have preexisting conditions and the like. But it’s got some serious blemishes and serious deficiencies. And we’re going to need both state and federal governments to step in and do what they need to do to remedy these problems.”

Bill Clinton’s remark on Oct. 3 about “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen” did not refer to the Affordable Care Act. Instead, he was talking about the fact that people who did not qualify for insurance subsidies did not have a way to buy into Medicare or Medicaid.

“The people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these subsidies. Why? Because they’re not organized, they don’t have any bargaining power with insurance companies, and they’re getting whacked,” Clinton said while campaigning in Flint, Mich. “So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care and then the people that are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world.”

Clinton noted that his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, had a proposal to deal with the problem by allowing affordable access into Medicare and Medicaid.

“Many of our best and brightest are leaving the medical profession entirely because of Obamacare.”
— March 20

There are anecdotes of some doctors, especially older ones, who are frustrated about adopting electronic health records under Obamacare. But physicians leave the industry for many reasons, mainly aging and burning out. As the baby boomer patient population gets older and has more complex conditions, there is greater demand on physicians and their services.

A 2016 survey of more than 17,000 physicians by Merritt Hawkins for the Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit for professional physicians, found low morale and burnout as key reasons physicians were leaving the industry. Less than one-quarter of physicians gave the Affordable Care Act a positive grade of A or B.

Recent data from the Association of American Medical Colleges shows physicians are actually retiring two years later, said Atul Grover, the group’s executive vice president. Grover said the group has not seen a significant number of physicians leaving the industry because of the law: “There is also no evidence of a declining interest in medicine since the ACA took effect. Applications to medical school are at an all-time high. The real challenge the physician workforce faces is the cap on federal support for graduate medical education established by Congress 20 years ago. As a result, there are not enough residency positions to fill demand.”

“People have been kicked off their plans, and their premiums have increased by double and triple digits. Arizona, up 116 percent.”
— March 20

Premiums increased overall in 2017 — but Trump cherry-picks data from Arizona, the state hit hardest by premium increases. The average increase for the second-lowest-cost silver plan (which is used as the benchmark to calculate government subsidies) is 25 percent. A few states, such as Indiana, will actually see a decrease.

But the majority of enrollees in the marketplace receive government premium subsidies and, in theory, are protected from such premium increases. So who is affected? The people who do not qualify for the tax subsidy. The GOP replacement plan would provide tax subsidies to a broader group of people but often provide less money per person to pay for insurance, so premiums may rise for many, especially the elderly, compared to current law, the CBO said.[...]

2 Months In, Trump May Already Own A First: Most Corrupt POTUS. Ever.

Huffington Post

Imagine a foreign potentate who uses his official position to promote his private businesses. Who makes face time with visiting dignitaries a perk for his paying customers. Whose top aide urges the citizenry to embrace products sold by the sovereign’s daughter.

For two months now, Americans have not had to imagine any of this. They have been living it.

As President Donald Trump enters his third month in office, he has already established at least one record, however dubious: the president most open and willing to use the prestige of the White House to enrich himself and his family.

“I’m at a loss,” said Robert Maguire, an investigator with the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that advocates for more transparency in government and campaigns. “This idea that the presidency is something to enrich your private interest to the extent he’s doing, not by going on the speaking tour or getting a big book deal after he leaves office, but while he’s in office, sort of milking the office for all it’s worth ― it’s tacky.”

For years, Trump made sure to feature one of his properties and his name-emblazoned jetliner in each episode of his reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Just so, over the past seven weekends, Trump has visited his hotel in Washington, D.C., his golf courses in Palm Beach County and, most frequently, his Mar-a-Lago resort there. The weekend of March 11 – only the second in a month and a half that he did not travel to Florida – he had lunch with top aides at his golf course across the Potomac River from the White House. He did not play golf. He did not stay overnight. All he did was have lunch.

And with each of these visits have come the attendant media coverage, with photos and videos of his for-profit enterprises.

“He should not use his official position to promote his businesses. That doesn’t make him a good businessman. That makes him a bad president,” said Richard Painter, the former top ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush’s White House.[...]

rump’s behavior has no precedent, going back to at least the turn of the last century, ethics experts say. Even in the presidency most often associated with open corruption, it was Warren Harding’s Interior secretary, not Harding himself, who had taken bribes in the Teapot Dome oil lease scandal.

Presidents in recent years have taken care to place their assets in blind trusts, to eliminate possible perceptions of conflicts between their personal interests and those of the United States.

“I don’t think any president in modern history has had a serious conflict,” Painter said.[...]

Meanwhile, the family of his brother-in-law and top White House aide, Jared Kushner, is reportedly negotiating a deal with a Chinese firm that analysts are calling unusually favorable to the Kushners. It would allow them to dramatically reduce their liability on a nine-figure loan on a Manhattan high-rise. At the same time, Kushner has emerged as Trump’s informal but possibly most influential foreign policy negotiator and has already met with Chinese leaders among others.

Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, has been the beneficiary of a different top Trump aide. Kellyanne Conway, reacting to news that department store chain Nordstrom was dropping Ivanka Trump’s clothing line because of poor sales, in a TV interview from the White House briefing room urged viewers to take action.

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff,” Conway told Fox News on Feb. 9. “I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.”[...]

And during the visit of Japan’s prime minister to Mar-a-Lago last month, Trump introduced Shinzo Abe to club members hosting a wedding reception. “They’ve been members of this club for a long time,” Trump explained. “They’ve paid me a fortune.”

“This pay-to-play game has got to stop. He’s president of the United States. It’s corruption of government,” said Painter, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota and part of the legal team suing Trump over the payments his hotels are receiving from foreign entities, possibly in violation of the Constitution.

The Center for Responsive Politics’ Maguire said Trump’s behavior has disproven predictions by those who believed he would evolve to meet the decorum expected of the presidency. “The expectation was, once he gets into office, of course he won’t be like this,” Maguire said. “And, of course, he has.”

So far, Trump has been mercifully incompetent

Washington Post

“The world is laughing at us. They’re laughing at the stupidity of our president.”

— Donald Trump, October 2016

Stupid is as stupid does. 

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump remarked often on the stupidity of our leaders. He was under the impression that the rest of the planet was indulging in some sort of global guffaw at our expense. “How stupid are we? The world is laughing.” If so, what must the mirthful world think of our current state of affairs? This past week alone:

The House and Senate intelligence committees said they saw no evidence for President Trump’s wild claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, and Britain protested that the White House falsely alleged that British intelligence was involved. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has been arguing that Trump didn’t mean wiretapping when he said Obama had Trump’s “wires tapped.” Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway suggested that eavesdropping could have been accomplished using microwave ovens. 

Trump’s fellow Republicans pronounced his budget dead on arrival in Congress — “draconian, careless and counterproductive” were the words used by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former House Appropriations Committee chairman — because it recklessly cuts (slashing the State Department by nearly a third and targeting Meals on Wheels for the elderly) yet still adds to the debt Trump promised to eliminate.

Legislation to replace Obamacare stalled in Congress and had to be rewritten because of a rebellion within Trump’s own party.

A judge halted Trump’s second attempt at a ban on travel from several Muslim countries.

And Republican lawmakers probing Trump’s ties to Russia threatened subpoenas over the executive branch’s stonewalling.

In one of the presidential debates, CNBC’s John Harwood asked Trump if he was running “a comic book version of a presidential campaign.” Now Trump seems to be running a cartoon version of a presidency, and he’s Elmer Fudd. His proposals could, if successfully implemented, be ruinous. But so far, at least, Trump has been mercifully incompetent. [...]

Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, lasted just 24 days on the job after misrepresenting his contacts with Russia. Attorney General Jeff Sessions falsely testified that he’d had no contacts with the Russians, forcing his recusal from Russia investigations once the truth came out.

Trump’s nominee to be labor secretary withdrew in the face of broad opposition. His education secretary, who suggested that schools need guns to defend against grizzlies, was confirmed only when the vice president broke a tie vote. 

Trump blamed a “so-called” judge for striking down his first travel ban and proposed blaming the court system if there was a terrorist attack; his own Supreme Court nominee called such remarks disheartening.

Trump conducted sensitive diplomacy over a North Korean missile launch with the Japanese prime minister surrounded by diners at his Mar-a-Lago country club, one of whom posted online a photo of the man carrying the nuclear football.

Trump, after inflating the crowd size at his inauguration and embracing a conspiracy theory that 3 million to 5 million Americans voted illegally, falsely accused the media of not covering terrorist attacks. The White House then produced a badly spelled list of attacks, most of which had been covered. Conway invented one attack, the “Bowling Green massacre.”

Conway pitched Ivanka Trump’s fashion line on Fox News. Taxpayers have subsidized millions of dollars’ worth of expenses related to Mar-a-Lago and the Trump sons’ foreign travel.

Trump marked Black History Month with remarks suggesting he thought abolitionist Frederick Douglass was still alive.

Trump opened a rift with Australia in an angry phone call with that ally’s prime minister. He provoked the Mexican president to cancel a trip to Washington, and he baffled the Swedes by alluding to fictitious refugee-related violence “last night in Sweden.” Britain postponed a visit from Trump in hopes that anti-Trump protests would cool.[...]

This tragicomedy adds irony when you consider that the main character is the same one who campaigned by saying “they laugh at our stupidity” and “we are led by very, very stupid people” and “I have the best words, but there’s no better word than ‘stupid.’ ”

Now the world has reason to laugh at us — because we’re with stupid.

Elad Zadikov dismissed from coalition and Torah culture portfolio for opposition to anti-family value dissemination ​​in kindergartens

Arutz7

Herzliya city council member Elad Zadikov was dismissed from the coalition and the Torah culture portfolio due to his opposition to the dissemination of anti-family values ​​in kindergartens.

Zadikov wrote a strongly worded letter to the mayor, Moshe Fadlon following articles on Arutz Sheva revealing the Hoshen organization's infiltration into kindergarten activities in various places, including Herzliya.

Zadikov - who is a council member from the Gesher faction, which represents mainly baalei teshuva - returnees to Torah observance - claimed to the mayor that he is turning the Herzliya education system "into the first in Israel to impart deviant tendency values ​​as a normal model, even to be emulated."

"On behalf of what public," he asked, "were you allowed to poison the minds of our kindergarten children and introduce a spirit of lasciviousness and confusion into the tender souls of Herzliya's 3,4,5-year-olds!? The fact that they are affiliated with the general public education system does not allow anyone to confuse basic concepts and the traditional values ​​of home and family unit."

Fadlon responded to Zadikov that "the education system in our city is among the most advanced and enlightened in the State of Israel. This is not the case with your letter which is full of inaccuracies, scientific and ethical ignorance, fear and lack of understanding of the age we live in. Perhaps if during your childhood, the education system was somewhat different, your letter would not represent so deep a confusion between superstition and fact."

He added:

"In 1920 women's suffrage was recognized in the United States, in 2001 the first female combat pilot finished the pilot's course in Israel, and ever since then the civilized world has realized that there is nothing to prevent women from also being in 'men's' trades, this does not hurt femininity in the family unit or in future education - the opposite is correct.

"In Israel, like in the entire world, the right is recognized to choose one's spouse, irrespective of sex, to establish a family unit, and live a dignified and equal life.

"Sexual orientation is not an incurable disease, is not contagious, and according to all the studies is not subject to education. What is given to education is accepting people as people, and the ability to look at difference, whether physical, emotional, or sexual, and this without making generalizations.

"Unfortunately, your approach is what has often brought harm to another in an attempt to expel him rather than to accept him, leading to physical injury.

"What you say in your letter, as well as in the committee you attended in the Israeli Knesset, carries libelous and offensive themes in their spoken parts, and constitutes incitement and is misleading in the written parts.

"In the old days special religious police were established who acted to harm non-virtuous girls and people with homosexual orientation, all under the shadow of a law which was canceled in 1988 (prohibiting homosexual relations in Israel).

"It would be proper for a Herzliya city council member to undergo broad educational training on individual rights, science, and human nature, accepting those who are different, and educational methods, so that a compilation of such nonsense will never again be written.

"The education system in Herzliya will continue to educate their children to love and accept one another, to mutual support and full equality, both among the religious public and different communities, and also on the subject of women.

"I do not see a place for a council member in the coalition who subscribes to dark medieval views against women and whole communities, to yet serve in a post responsible for Torah culture.

"In light of your words, and until you wise up and accept those different from you, on my authority, I am informing you that you are dismissed from your job in the coalition, and as holder of the Torah culture portfolio.

"Parenthetically I will note that I reserve for myself the right to take legal measures, if asked, for your words of slander and lies to the Israeli Knesset.

"Best regards,

Moshe Fadlon

Mayor"

White House Tries to Soothe British Officials Over Trump Wiretap Claim

NY Times

The White House has tried to soothe an angry Britain after suggesting that President Barack Obama used London’s spy agency to conduct secret surveillance on President Trump while he was a candidate last year but offered no public apology on Friday.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that the White House had backed off the allegation. “We’ve made clear to the administration that these claims are ridiculous and should be ignored,” the spokesman said on condition of anonymity in keeping with British protocol. “We’ve received assurances these allegations won’t be repeated.”

The reassurances came after British officials complained to Trump administration officials. Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to Washington, spoke with Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, at a St. Patrick’s Day reception in Washington on Thursday night just hours after Mr. Spicer aired the assertion at his daily briefing. Mark Lyall Grant, the prime minister’s national security adviser, spoke separately with his American counterpart, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

“Ambassador Kim Darroch and Sir Mark Lyall expressed their concerns to Sean Spicer and General McMaster,” a White House official said on condition of anonymity to confirm private conversations. “Mr. Spicer and General McMaster explained that Mr. Spicer was simply pointing to public reports, not endorsing any specific story.”

Other White House officials, who also would not be named, said Mr. Spicer offered no regret to the ambassador. “He didn’t apologize, no way, no how,” said a senior West Wing official. The officials said they did not know whether General McMaster had apologized.

The controversy over Mr. Trump’s two-week-old unsubstantiated accusation that Mr. Obama had wiretapped his telephones last year continued to unnerve even Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans. Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, said Friday that Mr. Trump had not proven his case and should tell Mr. Obama he was sorry.

“Frankly, unless you can produce some pretty compelling truth, I think President Obama is owed an apology,” Mr. Cole told reporters. “If he didn’t do it, we shouldn’t be reckless in accusations that he did.”

The flap with Britain started when Mr. Spicer, in the course of defending Mr. Trump’s original accusation against Mr. Obama, on Thursday read from the White House lectern comments by a Fox News commentator asserting that the British spy agency was involved. Andrew Napolitano, the commentator, said on air that Mr. Obama had used Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, the signals agency known as the GCHQ, to spy on Mr. Trump.

The GCHQ quickly and vehemently denied the contention on Thursday in a rare statement issued by the spy agency, calling the assertions “nonsense” and “utterly ridiculous.” By Friday morning, Mr. Spicer’s briefing had turned into a full-blown international incident. British politicians expressed outrage and demanded apologies and retractions from the American government.

Mr. Trump’s critics assailed the White House for alienating America’s friend. “The cost of falsely blaming our closest ally for something this consequential cannot be overstated,” Susan E. Rice, who was Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, wrote on Twitter. “And from the PODIUM.”

Mr. Trump has continued to stick by his claim about Mr. Obama even after it has been refuted by a host of current and former officials, including leaders of his own party. Mr. Obama denied it, as did the former director of national intelligence. The F.B.I. director has privately told other officials that it is false. After being briefed by intelligence officials, the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have in the last few days said they have seen no indication that Mr. Trump’s claim is true.[...]

Ki Sisa; Why Did Moshe Rabbeinu Suddenly Bow by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

Guest post by Rabbi Shlomo Pollak

In Parshas Ki Sisa , after the י''ג מדות של רחמים the Torah says [34;8] וימהר משה ויקד ארצה וישתחו - and Moshe Rabbeinu quickly bowed to Hashem... But, what was the rush?

Many different approaches are taken, one of which the Even Ezra says only ריקי מוח("Empty minds") can believe... The only problem is that many prominent Rishonom and even The Medrosh explain it that way?!?....

For questions and comments please email us at salmahshleima@gmail.com .

https://youtu.be/jS1dQfswSyM

Truth, Trust and Honesty:How to react to problematic leadership - religious or political by Joe Orlow

Guest post by Joe Orlow

Truth. Trust. Honesty. These are the oxygen for stable communities. The Torah brings this out numerous times. For example, cheating on weights is juxtaposed with the rise of our enemies.

So when Rabbinical leaders issue rulings that are out of whack, Rabbi Eidensohn steps to the plate and rebalances things.

And personal experience demonstrates just how unpleasant a community can be when some of its would-be leaders are out of order. The rank-and-file either consciously, or in a more subtle manner, end up mimicking the traits -- whether good or bad -- of its leaders. Sneaky leader: sneaky populace.

I'm writing this post in response to n invitation from Rabbi Eidensohn. My audience is the Z'kanim who follow this blog. Z'kanim: the Torah scholars who follow this blog and care what is written here, but don't care to take the extra step of commenting publicly here. So we have been told via the grapevine. I am reminded of the Z'kanim who start out escorting Moshe and Aharon on the way to confront Pharaoh. A funny thing happened on the way to the palace. At each corner a man was lost here, a man was lost there. Till it was just Moshe and Aharon to present the message of G-d to the earthly king.

These Z'kanim wonder why Rabbi Eidensohn has veered into the realm of politics. Is it not obvious? What is true of the Torah leaders holds true of civil leaders.

A Torah community with a fraudulent leadership is like a bridge that is rusting and corroded; like a highway with signs that misdirects drivers. Would you get in a road where the traffic lights routinely malfunction? Why in the world would anyone follow in the Derech of Gadokim who are off the Derech?!

A President that acts callously to protocol, precedent, and procedure can easily upend what a quarter of a millennia of statecraft has established. The cumulative effect of millions of citizens over centuries to build a more perfect form of government through blood, sweat and tears can come tumbling down like a majestic skyscraper shot through with passenger jet arrows.

I think that would be a good outcome. From the political ashes and rhetorical rubble we will build a moral foundation for the future. To me, Mr. Trump is like Noach, his ascendancy to the White House buoyed by my vote and the votes of sixty million of my friends.

I respect those who feel the flood of populism is really washing away the good, not the bad. So, the fact that I may disagree with Rabbi Eidensohn doesn't diminish my regard for him. Just the opposite, I've gained a new admiration for his courage in running this blog.

But for those who snip and snipe from the sidelines, they gather my disdain. Why haven't they started their own blogs? Where are their bold hearted Drashas calling out the misdeeds of a lazy leadership? Oh. I know. They don't want to lose their jobs. Or affect the marriage potential of their offspring. Risk averse cowards. Pulling back as we turn the corner of a momentous moment in history.

Donald Trump’s Big Health-Care Lie Puts Barack Obama’s Weak One to Shame

Daily Beast   Let’s first travel back in time to 2013, when Barack Obama was pilloried for saying “if you like your health-care plan, you can keep it.” Remember the furor over that?

Because he said it a lot, and it turned out to be untrue. And the right went absolutely ballistic—not only was Obama a bald-faced liar, but it showed what a shell game the whole health-care overhaul law was. It turned out that only 4 million people out of a total of more than 250 million insured lost their health-care plans, but still, 4 million is 4 million flesh-and-blood Americans. Obama’s lie was, as you might recall, named the “Lie of the Year” for 2013 by Politifact, which counted 37 separate times Obama had said with no caveats that everyone would be able to keep their coverage.

Well, I don’t know exactly how many times candidate and President Donald Trump has said things like everyone will have coverage under his Obamacare replacement. But it was a lot. His plan would be “something terrific.” “I am going to take care of everybody.” “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” It must be dozens. And that’s on top of the dozens of denunciations of Obamacare as a “disaster” that wasn’t helping people.

Well, now we have the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of the Republican replacement plan (which technically burst from the womb as Ryancare rather than Trumpcare, thought the White House pledged late last week to move heaven and earth to pass it even as it remains the one thing that Trump emphatically doesn’t want to smack his name on). And what does the CBO have to say about this terrific plan that’s going to take care of everybody and rescue America from the disaster?

It has to say: 14 million more uninsured by 2018. That’s a year and change! Fourteen million people thrown back to the wolves. And more—another 7 million by 2020, and another 3 million by 2024, making for a grand total of 24 million people who currently have health coverage thrown off the rolls as a direct result of this bill, the Republican “replacement” bill.

If Obama got Lie of the Year over 4 million, what does Trump get over 24 million? True, the competition for lies is a lot more robust than it was in that now innocent-seeming year of 2013. But surely this deserves some kind of prize.

Oh, there’s more. Remember all those times you heard Trump trash the premium increases under Obamacare? Not, I will note, without justification. Premium increases and high deductibles have been a bane of Obamacare for many consumers.

But what does the CBO say TRyancare will accomplish on the premium front? It projects increases in 2018 and 2019 of about 15 or 20 percent higher than under Obamacare.

Also, the CBO says that the Republican plan really socks it to a group that it’s never politically very wise to sock it to. I refer you to Table Four on page 34 of this .pdf, listing the CBO’s estimated premium increases for 21-, 40-, and 64-year-olds at different income levels under the GOP plan. The most striking thing is this: Under current law (Obamacare), a 64-year-old earning $26,500 a year pays a net premium (after the tax credit) of $1,700. RyanTrumpCare whacks away at that earner’s tax credit such that he is left paying a whopping $14,600.[....]

Because there are two styles of duplicity afoot in Washington right now. There’s Trumpian dishonesty, which consists of his plain-faced lies about his behavior and his evidence-free outbursts like the one he directed at Obama two weekends ago.

Then there’s your more standard Republican duplicity, like promises that health care would be easy to bring to everyone if we just got government out of the way and let the market work its wondrous magic. That may be how it works in Ayn Rand novels, but that isn’t how it works in the actual world. In the actual world, anyone who’s given the matter five minutes of honest thought (emphasis on honest thought) comes to the obvious realization that the only thing that can bring premiums and deductibles down is for more healthy people to have to buy insurance.[...]

And from there, if you’re being honest, you then realize that the only entity that can make people buy insurance is the federal government; and that you have to give them an incentive to do so, which means subsidies. And all that spells Obamacare. It’s complicated and flawed, sure. But any attempt to do it any other way will wind up where the CBO just tossed RyanTrumpCare: in the garbage, where it belongs.

Paul Ryan must know this deep down. Or no—lately we’ve begun to realize that maybe he doesn’t, right? That jaw-dropping line of his about it being the “fatal conceit” of Obamacare that the healthy pay for the sick revealed, as many have by now observed, that he doesn’t seem to understand what insurance even is.

And Donald Trump clearly doesn’t know it. That line of his a couple weeks ago, equally jaw-dropping, that “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated” was a howler. No, Donald. We all knew. It’s just that you didn’t, because while you were out there on the stump lying repeatedly about giving people the best possible coverage, you weren’t bothering to actually learn anything about the topic. Now you have to.[...]

Using Air Quotes, White House Walks Back ‘Wiretap’ Talk

NY Times

Two senior White House officials suggested on Monday that President Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama had tapped his telephone was not meant to be taken literally, arguing that Mr. Trump had been referring more broadly to a variety of surveillance efforts during the 2016 campaign when he made the incendiary accusation.

“He doesn’t really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

In fact, Mr. Spicer said, when Mr. Trump charged in a Twitter post last weekend that Mr. Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” he was referring generally to surveillance activities during the 2016 race — not to an actual telephone wiretap.

“The president was very clear in his tweet that it was, you know, ‘wiretapping,’” Mr. Spicer said, using his fingers to make a gesture suggesting quotation marks. “That spans a whole host of surveillance types of options.”

Continue reading the main story

Mr. Spicer said there have been “numerous reports from a variety of outlets over the last couple months that seemed to indicate that there has been different types of surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election.”

The remarks were the first time the White House sought to explain the accusation Mr. Trump made in a series of posts on Twitter saying Mr. Obama “was tapping my phones” and calling the former president a “bad (or sick) guy.”

The explanations came as the Justice Department asked the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, who had given a Monday deadline to produce proof of Mr. Trump’s claim, for more time “to determine what if any responsive documents exist.”

Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, said in an interview on Sunday that Mr. Obama could have employed any number of devices other than a traditional telephone wiretap, even including a microwave oven.

Ms. Conway clarified on Monday that she was not accusing the former president of snooping via a kitchen appliance, arguing that her comments had been taken out of context.

“I’m not Inspector Gadget,” she said Monday on CNN. “I don’t believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign.”

But in an interview with a columnist for The Record of Bergen County, N.J., the day before, she said Mr. Obama’s alleged spying efforts against Mr. Trump could have been far more extensive than a telephone wiretap.

“What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other,” Ms. Conway told the paper. “You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways.”

Surveillance can even be carried out with “microwaves that turn into cameras,” she added. “We know this is a fact of modern life.”

The unusual and shifting explanations from Mr. Spicer and Ms. Conway reflected the contortions that members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle have employed to explain the president’s explosive accusation, which he has yet to address personally. Neither Mr. Trump nor anyone at the White House has presented any evidence for the claim, instead asking Congress to investigate it as part of its inquiry into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.[...]