WH fires member who hijacked antisemitism hearing to condemn Israel

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/12/white-house-fires-commissioner-antisemitic-outburst-hearing/

A hearing at the White House Religious Freedom Commission, held Monday and focused on antisemitism in the United States, devolved into an extraordinary confrontation after committee member Carrie Prejean Boller chose to redirect the discussion toward Israel and Gaza while incorporating antisemitic statements, leading to her removal from the commission. One of the central witnesses in the discussion was Shabbos Kestenbaum, a American-Jewish activist, who said he was surprised not only by the questions asked but by the disregard for the actual topic.

Noem boasts of Trump administration ensuring ‘we have the right people voting’ ahead of midterms

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5739328-noem-voting-midterm-elections/

“I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust, is reliable, and that when it gets to Election Day, that we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country through the days that we have, knowing that people can trust it,” she said.

“This is Trump’s idea of democracy: leaders get to select their voters instead of the other way around,” Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on the social platform X.

Trump has so far defended Noem and resisted bipartisan pressure for her resignation or firing. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod suggested in a post on X that Noem’s comments on election security could help explain why.

“THIS is why @KristiNoem will remain in place, despite her flagrant, corrupt mismanagement of the @DHS, at least through the midterm elections,” he wrote. “@POTUS wants a loyal apparatchik in place who will do whatever is necessary to ensure ‘the right leaders’ win.”

U.K. ‘Grooming Gang’ Leader Sentenced to 35 Years for Rape

 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/world/europe/uk-grooming-gang-sentencing.html

Seven men in all were sentenced on Wednesday over their roles in a decades-old national scandal in Britain involving child sexual abuse.

Britain’s Rape Scandal Returns to the Front Pages

 https://www.commentary.org/articles/stephen-pollard/britains-rape-scandal-persists/

Jess Phillips, a member of the Labour Party’s huge majority in the British House of Commons, was first elected to

Parliament in 2015 and has made a name for herself as a champion of female victims of male violence. Every year since her arrival, she has read out a running list of the names of women killed by a man. After Labour’s election victory last year, Phillips was, appropriately enough, appointed as—to provide her full title, including parentheses—parliamentary under-secretary of state (minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls).

Given the extent of the national scandal, which Phillips herself campaigned on while in opposition, one might have expected the answer to Oldham Council’s request to be an obvious yes—and for the inquiry to be nationwide in scope rather than limited to Oldham. But Phillips said no. This had, she said, nothing to do with her or the government. It was a local matter for the council to deal with. And so the “grooming gang” scandal is back in the news, where it should al-ways have been.

To understand that, you need to add the key element to the story I have so far omitted. The victims of the rape gangs were almost all young white girls and the rapists almost all adult Pakistani men. The main reason the gangs were allowed to operate with impunity was the widespread view among the police and the authorities responsible for the welfare of the girls that it would damage “community relations” if the crimes were investigated, let alone prosecuted—and that on no account should the ethnic background of anyone involved ever be discussed.

White House religion committee declares Jews killed Jesus

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/10/white-house-commissioner-antisemitic-remarks-hearing/

The first hearing of the White House Religious Freedom Commission, which focused on antisemitism in the United States, turned into an extraordinary confrontation over Israel on Monday following sharp statements by one of the committee members, Carrie Prejean Boller.

As first reported by Jewish Insider, Boller, who serves as a committee member appointed by President Donald Trump and is tasked with formulating policy recommendations on religious freedom issues, declared during the debate that she believes "Jews killed Jesus" and that due to her Catholic faith, "she does not support Zionists." During the hearing, she also asked panel participants, "Does my opposition to the State of Israel make me antisemitic, yes or no?" and received boos from some of those present in the room.

Two men jailed for life over plot to attack Greater Manchester’s Jewish community

 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/13/men-jailed-plot-deadly-attack-greater-manchesters-jewish-community

Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.

On Friday, the pair were sentenced at Preston crown court after being found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May 2024.

The prime mover in the plot, Tunisian-born Saadaoui, of Abram, Wigan, was ordered to serve a minimum of 37 years.

Hussein, of no fixed address, was ordered to serve at least 26 years.

Saadaoui’s younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 37, of Hindley, Wigan, was sentenced to six years in prison for failing to disclose information about the plan.

Two jailed over plot to attack Jewish community

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8gv2327y7o

Two men who planned to target the Jewish community in Manchester in what police said could have been "the UK's most deadly terror attack" have been jailed for life.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, arranged for guns to be smuggled into the UK as part of an "Isis-inspired plot", Preston Crown Court heard.

They were caught by an undercover operative who played a "crucial role" in foiling their plans, Greater Manchester Police said.

Saadaoui and Hussein were given minimum prison terms of 37 and 26 years respectively.

Two men jailed in UK for Islamic State-inspired plot to kill hundreds of Jews

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/men-jailed-in-uk-for-islamic-state-inspired-plot-to-kill-hundreds-of-jews/

Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.

Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.

Barack Obama Breaks Silence on Apes Video Shared by Trump Account

 https://www.newsweek.com/obama-breaks-silence-on-apes-video-11499257

Senator Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, posted on X last week: "Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize."

During an interview with journalist Brian Tyler Cohen that was published on Saturday, former President Barack Obama responded to a video that featured him and former first lady Michelle Obama portrayed as apes that was posted on President Donald Trump's Truth Social account last week.

Obama responded: "The majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling. It's true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. As I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people. They still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness."

He added: "There's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office. So that's been lost."

Where to find evidence-based adult vaccine recommendations

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/12/vaccine-recommendations-adults-acp-medical/

Many readers praised the American Academy of Pediatrics for issuing its own childhood immunization guidance after federal health officials stopped broadly recommending key vaccines for children. Bruce, a family physician from Ohio, wrote that the AAP’s guidance, now endorsed by 12 other major medical organizations, gives him the professional backing he needs to continue advocating the shots.

That’s no longer the case, said ACP President Jason M. Goldman. An internist in private practice in Florida, he called what is happening with the CDC “absolutely horrifying.”

“I never thought in my lifetime [that] I have to say we can’t trust the recommendations coming out of the CDC, which was always the gold standard for the world,” he said.

Terror ban on Palestine Action ruled unlawful by UK High Court

 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/13/uk/uk-palestine-action-ban-gbr-uk-intl

The UK High Court has ruled that the government’s decision to ban activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last summer was unlawful.

It follows one of the largest campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience in recent history, with nearly 3,000 people – many of them pensioners or the elderly – arrested at solidarity protests nationwide since July.

Most of those arrests were for holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” at the demonstrations, according to Defend Our Juries – which has been instrumental in organizing the protests.

Tzadikim Die early to save them from sin

 Zohar (Bereishis 56b) There is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that there be righteous men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked, etc.. How there are righteous men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked we have just explained, viz. that because their deeds are good, God removes them from the world before their time and before they become liable to punishment. The rest of the verse, there be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous, means that God gives them a respite and is long-suffering with them. Thus the good die early in order that they may not degenerate, and the wicked live on in order that they may have a chance to repent, or in order that a virtuous progeny may issue from them. See now, Enoch was virtuous, but God saw that he would degenerate, and therefore gathered him in in time, as one gathers lilies  because of their good scent. And he was not, for God had taken him. This means that he did not live to a great age like his contemporaries, because God took him before his time. R. Eleazar said: God removed Enoch from the earth, and took him up to the highest heavens, and there presented to him wonderful treasures, including forty-five mystical key-combinations of graven letters which are used by the highest ranks of angels, as has been explained elsewhere.

Magic Origin

 Zohar (Bereishis 56a) In the time of Enosh, men were skilled in magic and divination, and in the art of controlling the heavenly forces. Adam had brought with him from the Garden of Eden the knowledge of “the leaves of the tree”, but he and his wife and their children did not practise it. When Enosh came, however, he saw the advantage of these arts and how the heavenly courses could be altered by them, and he and his contemporaries studied them and practised magic and divination. From them these arts descended to the generation of the Flood and were practised for evil purposes by all the men of that time. Relying upon these arts, they defied Noah, saying that divine justice could never be executed upon them, since they knew a way to avert it. The practice of these arts commenced with Enosh, and hence it is said of his time, THEN WAS THE NAME OF THE LORD CALLED UPON PROFANELY. R. Isaac said: All the righteous men that were among them sought to restrain them, such as Jered, Methuselah, and Enoch, but without success, and the world became full of sinners who rebelled against their Master saying, “What is the Almighty that we should serve him?. This is not so foolish as it sounds, for they knew all the arts we have mentioned and all the ruling chieftains in charge of the world, and on this knowledge they relied, until at length God disabused them by restoring the earth to its primitive state

Tzadikim are godly

Bamidbar Rabbah (14:4) when the tzaddikim decree, Hashem fulfills their words.

Bereishis Rabbah (08:10) When G-d created Adam, the ministering angels mistook him for a divine being and wished to exclaim ‘Holy’ before him. What does this resemble? A king and a governor who sat in a chariot, and his subjects wished to say to the king, ‘ Sovereign!’ but they did not know which it was. What did the king do? He pushed the governor out of the chariot, and so they knew who was the king. Similarly, when the Lord created Adam, the angels mistook him for a divine being. What did G-d do? He caused sleep to fall upon him, and so all knew that he was but mortal man; thus it is written, Cease ye from man, in whose nostrils is a breath, for how little is he to be accounted!

Devarim Rabbah (10:03) The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spoke to me: Ruler over men shall be the righteous, even he that ruleth in the fear of God. And what means, ' The righteous, even he that ruleth in the fear of God? The righteous have power over the same things as God, if one may say so. In which way? Everything that God does, the righteous do. How is this illustrated? God remembers barren women; Elisha, too, remembered the Shunammite woman. Whence this? For it is said, At this season, when the time cometh round, thou shalt embrace a son. God quickens the dead; and Elisha, too, brought back to life the son of the Shunammite woman. God parts the seas, Elijah and Elisha, too, parted seas. Whence this? For it is said, And smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither. God heals without emollients, and Elisha healed Naaman without emollients. God sweetens the bitter waters, and Elisha sweetened the bitter waters, for so Scripture says,  And he said: Bring me a new cruse, etc., and it is further written, So the waters were healed. God withholds the rain, and Elijah withheld the rain, as it is said, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, etc.. God causes rain to fall, and Samuel caused rain to fall, as it is said, Is it not wheat harvest to-day? I will call unto the Lord, etc.. God sends down fire, and Elijah brought down fire from heaven, as it is said,Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt-offering.

Zohar (Bereishis 10a) Who raises the dead to life? Only G-d alone,  yet Elijah and Elisha came and raised the dead to life. Who causes rain to fall? Only the G-d yet Elijah came and kept back the rain and then made it descend again, through his prayer. Who made heaven and earth? G-d alone yet Abraham came and they were firmly established for his sake. Who regulates the course of the sun? None but G-d yet Joshua came and ordered it to stand still in its place and it stood still, as it is written, And the sun stood and the moon stayed  G-d issues decrees, but similarly Moses issued decrees, and they were fulfilled. Further, G-d pronounces judgements and the righteous of Israel annul them, as it is written, The righteous ruleth the fear of God.