Friday, February 22, 2019

SpaceX successfully sends Israel’s historic moon mission on its way

https://www.cnet.com/news/spacex-space-x-beresheet-moon-mission-israel/


On Thursday evening, just after 5:45 p.m. PT, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a small spacecraft on its way to the moon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And if the little lander, known as Beresheet, makes it all the way to the lunar surface, it'll mark several milestones that've been years in the making

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Trump's mispronunciation in intel briefing stuns

Rinat.bas Chedva update report

Previously, the JP reported on Rinat bas Chedva, now enduring solitary confinement in an Israeli military prison, after her Jan.22 arrest over her Aug.28, '18 abandonment of the IDF, which, according to an IDF source, Gal Eliyahu, she claims was due to (1) three separate counts of sexual misconduct, by her military superior and another soldier; (2) the alleged failure of the IDF to address the problem;&(3) their internal cover up of her plight, in her view. This Sunday, she was sentenced to 41 days for fleeing the IDF.

Rinat also faces trial this Thurs., Feb.21, addressing her application to be exempted from service altogether. MK Meir Porush indicated that her case is harder, since it's after she had enlisted. However, Rinat enlisted only after being convinced by a IDF headhunter, before she realized the actual difficulties confronting religious girls (and non-religious ones as well) in the IDF (or in any military, for that matter). Her application for a religious exemption was initially rejected, despite the obvious incompatibility of any military service with issurei-arayos prohibitions, including Yichud and Lo Sik'rvu.

Moshe Lachover, previously a veteran Degel HaTorah Netanya City Councilman,  currently a Lev L'Achim official, denied the rumor that he tried to convince Rinat's father to advise her to return to the IDF. Moreover, he was unable to make any case to justify such an idea, given both Halachic and practical objections thereto. (National Religious Rabbis  prohibit military service for girls and women, under all circumstances. And, as a matter of practicality, returning to service would rob Rinat of what her advocates see as the only reliably effective incentive for the IDF to provide her an exemption, ie. broad, public pressure over her plight.)
###

Farrakhan: The 'Wicked Jews' Are Using Me to Break Up Women's March

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Was the U.S. on the brink of war with North Korea before Trump? A review of the evidence

politifact


Was the United States on the verge of war against North Korea during the presidency of Barack Obama? Donald Trump has said he thinks so.
"If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea with potentially millions of people killed," Trump said during his State of the Union address.
He repeated the claim recently when announcing an emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, saying that Obama was particularly out to get North Korea.
"I said, ‘What’s the biggest problem?’ (Obama) said, ‘By far, North Korea.’ And I don’t want to speak for him, but I believe he would have gone to war with North Korea. I think he was ready to go to war," Trump said. "In fact, he told me he was so close to starting a big war with North Korea."
We asked a range of North Korea and foreign-policy experts whether they thought it was likely, or even plausible, that the United States was on the precipice of war with North Korea during Obama’s tenure.
Universally, the experts we contacted said no.

Revere of Brookings dismisses Trump’s line about being close to war under Obama as a distraction.
"In pointing the finger of blame at Obama, Trump is seeking to distract us from the fact that he was playing both the arsonist and the fireman in stoking the flames of war and then riding to the ‘rescue’ in the form of his bromance with Kim," Revere said. "It has made for great theater, even if it has done nothing to rid us of the North Korean nuclear and missile threat."
Share The Facts
Donald Trump
President

"I believe Obama would have gone to war with North Korea. I think he was ready to go to war."

Summit on Preventing Clergy Sex Abuse


US ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick defrocked over abuse claims


A former Roman Catholic cardinal has been defrocked after historical sexual abuse allegations.
Theodore McCarrick is the most senior Catholic figure to be dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.
US Church officials said allegations he had sexually assaulted a teenager five decades ago were credible.
Mr McCarrick, 88, had previously resigned but said he had "no recollection" of the alleged abuse.
"No bishop, no matter how influential, is above the law of the Church," Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.
"For all those McCarrick abused, I pray this judgment will be one small step, among many, toward healing."

Monday, February 18, 2019

'Our President Is An Idiot’: Trump Facing Both Sides Over Emergency Declaration | Deadline | MSNBC

אזהרה נגד התערבות ליצמן לכאורה - כבר לפני שנה

https://www.kan.org.il/item/?itemid=47287


חקירת סגן השר יעקב ליצמן – פרטים חדשים: הרופאה האוסטרלית הבכירה שהתלוננה על ההתנהלות בהליך הסגרת מלכה לייפר, החשודה בעשרות מעשי פדופיליה, הזהירה כבר לפני שנה במכתב להסתדרות הרפואית כי ליצמן מתערב כדי למנוע הליך הסגרה בצורה פסולה. מחר יתקיים דיון בבקשתה של לייפר להשתחרר ממעצר.

במכתב ללשכת האתיקה של ההסתדרות הרפואית כתבה הרופאה, ד"ר מרים קוטנר, המשמשת נשיאת הפדרציה האוסטרלית-יהודית לרפואה: "לד"ר צ'רנס (הפסיכיאטר המחוזי בי-ם) 'לא היה זמן' לחתום על חוות הדעת... נראה שליצמן מעורב במקרה הזה ומעורבותו נובעת מכוונות זדוניות – והיא שהובילה להתנהגות לא אתית של ד"ר צ'רנס".


בתוך כך, בחדשות הערב פורסם כי הרב יואל דירנפלד, מרבני קהילת חסידות בעלז באשדוד, מנסה לגייס כספים עבור לייפר, ופרסם מכתב בבתי הכנסת בעיר, שבו נכתב: "בקשה אישית ונרגשת מכל נדיבי הלב, אישה חשובה בת גדולים וצדיקים היושבת במעצר זמן רב בתנאים קשים ואכזריים, השם ישמור, על מנת להסגירה למדינת עכו"ם בחו"ל שסכנה מרחפת בכל המובנים. כדי להצילה, זקוקים לעורכי דין מומחים ומיוחדים שעלותם מסתכמת בסכומי עתק". הרב סירב להגיב לדברים בשיחה עם כאן חדשות.

Every U.S. president since 1976 has declared at least one national emergency


In general, the President may initiate a state of emergency by issuing a declaration (typically via executive order). An existing state of emergency can be terminated by the President himself, or by a joint resolution by Congress. The President can veto such a resolution, however, requiring both houses of Congress to then override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
When President Donald Trump hinted in early 2019 his intention to bypass Congress and secure funding for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border by declaring a national emergency — and then followed through on that plan — the subject of “national emergencies” suddenly became a hot topic of public discussion. Since the public tends to associate that term with dire threats such as terrorist attacks, epidemics, or the outbreak of war, many people were surprised to learn that several dozen national emergencies had been declared since the passage of the NEA in 1976 — as reflected in a viral social media post:
















\\\\\\


The gist of the social media post displayed above is therefore correct, in that every U.S. president since 1976 (excluding Gerald Ford, whose term ended in January 1977) has declared at least one national emergency, although we came up with some slightly different numbers. (Our tally based on the Brennan Center’s list has Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush each declaring one more emergency than stated above, and President Barack Obama declaring one fewer than stated.) In additional, the majority of those emergency declarations remain in effect as of this writing.


Sunday, February 17, 2019

Japan’s PM nominated Trump for Nobel at Washington’s request – report



US President Donald Trump claimed Friday that Japan’s prime minister had nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for opening a dialogue with North Korea, a move that Japanese media said had come at Washington’s “informal” request.
Trump also complained about his predecessor Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and doubted he would be similarly honored.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize,” Trump said at a White House news conference when asked about his late February summit in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “He said, ‘I have nominated you, respectfully, on behalf of Japan. I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.'”
The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported Sunday that Abe had indeed written a five-page letter recommending Trump to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but had done so only after the US administration had “informally” asked for it following Trump’s summit with Kim in Singapore in June.

Ann Coulter after Trump's order: ‘The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot’

usatoday


President Donald Trump's announcement Friday that he was declaring a national emergency wasn't received well by all Republicans, none more vocal than Ann Coulter. 
The conservative commentator had for weeks been bashing Trump for what she said was him caving to Democrats over his demands for additional funding to construct a wall along the southern border, even calling him the "biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States". 
On Friday, the bickering made its way into a nationally televised news conference where Trump announced his plans to use executive powers to declare a national emergency to free up billions in funds for the proposed wall. 

Saturday, February 16, 2019

A Weak and Rambling President Declares a Fake National Emergency


On Friday morning, Donald Trump walked up to a lectern in the White House Rose Garden to make an announcement of monumental importance that clearly couldn’t wait a moment longer. “Before we begin,” he said, “I’d like to just say that we have a large team of very talented people in China. We’ve had a negotiation going on for about two days. It’s going extremely well.” Then Trump brought up North Korea, Syria, and the state of the U.S. economy. Finally, he moved on to the business of the moment: a desperate effort to put the best possible face on the humiliating defeat that he suffered on Capitol Hill over funding for his border wall. “We are going to be signing today, and registering, a national emergency,” he said. “And it’s a great thing to do because we have an invasion of drugs, an invasion of gangs, an invasion of people, and it’s unacceptable.”


He didn’t leave it at that; he doesn’t know the concept. Instead, he sought to justify his action by trotting out some of his old lies about undocumented immigrants, and some he’s added to his repertoire more recently. “We have far more people trying to get into the country today than probably we’ve ever had before.” (The number of interdictions at the southern border is running at roughly half the level it was a decade ago.) The crime and drug problem in El Paso is “a hundred per cent” better since the construction of a border barrier. (El Paso has long had one of the lowest crime rates of any city in the country.) Federal prisons are full of illegal immigrants. (Even setting aside people being held for immigration offenses, undocumented immigrants make up a tiny proportion of the federal-prison population.)

In this carefully concocted narrative, the wall isn’t a mere stretch of concrete or steel fencing stretching along the border; it’s a symbol of national sovereignty and regeneration. But, if it’s so important, why didn’t Trump get it built during his first two years in office, when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress? Trump’s failure to get his own party to support what was arguably his signature campaign pledge demonstrates that he is fundamentally a weak and isolated President. But, of course, he can’t admit that publicly, either. Instead, he said, “It would have been great to have done it earlier. But I was a little new to the job, a little new to the profession. And we had a little disappointment for the first year and a half. People that should have stepped up did not step up. But we’re stepping up now.” Take that, Paul Ryan!
This official unveiling of the former House Speaker as Trump’s 2020 whipping boy didn’t come as a surprise. Neither did the declaration of a national emergency. Trump has been threatening to make this move for months, and Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader in the Senate, had announced his intentions from the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon. Earlier on Thursday, according to a tick-tock by the Washington Post, Trump was still threatening to veto the bipartisan spending deal that allotted $1.375 billion to border barriers. In order to get him to sign the bill and keep the government open, McConnell agreed to support the declaration of an emergency and encouraged other Republicans to support it.

Here was yet another example of how the G.O.P. leadership’s Faustian pact with Trump has driven them to enable his more authoritarian tendencies. During his Rose Garden address, Trump freely conceded that his emergency decree will immediately be challenged in the lower courts, and quite likely get snagged there. But citing what happened to his travel ban, he said he was hopeful of prevailing in the Supreme Court—an outcome that can’t be ruled out given its conservative tilt.

If this happens, Trump will have succeeded in undermining the principle that the President proposes and the Congress disposes, which is contained in Article I of the Constitution. And, as Democrats and Republicans were quick to point out, he will have set a precedent. In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, invoked the prospect of “President Elizabeth Warren declaring a national emergency to shut down banks and take over the nation’s financial institutions.”