Friday, July 26, 2024
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
What’s behind Trump’s lashing out at Netanyahu after Hamas’ attack on Israel
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-netanyahu-biden-rcna120078
An adviser to Netanyahu said there had been no outreach by Trump in the wake of the attacks. Instead, Trump has leveled repeated broadsides at the leader of a close U.S. ally in remarks on the campaign trail as he seeks a return to the White House.
“He’s pissed off because Bibi praised Biden and the Biden White House for being supportive,” said a former Trump adviser, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.
Trump posts letter from Palestinian leader ahead of Netanyahu meeting
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/24/trump-palestinian-leader-letter-netanyahu-meeting-peace
But in April 2021 Trump told me his conclusion from four years of working on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was that Abbas wanted peace, while Netanyahu didn't.
"I thought he was terrific," Trump told me of Abbas, reflecting on their "great" first meeting. "He was almost like a father. Couldn't have been nicer. I thought he wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu."
Suddenly Trump Looks Older and More Deranged
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-looks-older-and-more-deranged/679186/
Whatever happens next, the frame has altered. Now it is the Republicans who are saddled with the elderly candidate, the one who can’t make a clear argument or finish a sentence without veering off into anecdote. Now the Democrats are instead proposing something new. Now it is the many pundits who were already bored by the race and ready to wrap it up who look foolish.
Elon Musk Backs Away From Reports He’s Donating Huge Sums to Trump
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-backs-away-from-reports-hes-donating-huge-sums-to-trump
Elon Musk is backing away from reports that suggest he was set to donate huge sums of money to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying in a podcast interview this week that his plan to “commit” tens of millions of dollars to the former president—first reported by The Wall Street Journal—was “simply not true.” He added: “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.”
Monday, July 22, 2024
She Sucked Up to Trump but He Dropped Her Anyway
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elise-stefanik-sucked-up-to-trump-but-he-dropped-her-anyway
It’s got to hurt to be Congresswoman Elise Stefanik right now. Lots of women have been there on some level—proven their loyalty time and time again to the company, only to get passed over for the promotion by a less-qualified man. And boy is J.D. Vance ever less qualified. Just for funsies (and like Rep. Stefanik probably does every night before she goes to sleep now) let’s compare resumes.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Project 2025 shreds American values
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/19/larry-hogan-project-2025-trump-abortion/
On the left, the refusal by some to clearly stand up to radicals such as antisemitic and pro-Hamas protesters, advocates of defunding the police, and the open-borders movement has done substantial damage. However, on the right, there is no clearer example of the threat to American values than Project 2025.
Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech
Former President Donald Trump repeated his claim that President Joe Biden wants to hike people’s taxes by four times.
This is false, just as it was when Trump made the same claim during the 2020 election campaign and in early 2024.
Biden has not proposed quadrupling Americans’ taxes, and there has never been any indication that he is seeking to do so. The nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center think tank, which analyzed Biden’s never-implemented budget proposals for fiscal 2024, found this: “His plan would raise average after-tax incomes for low-income households in 2024, leave them effectively unchanged for middle-income households, and lower after-tax incomes significantly for the highest-income taxpayers.”
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Biden hits Trump over RNC speech: ‘What the hell was he talking about?’
President Biden took to social media Friday evening to blast former President Trump over the speech he gave while accepting the GOP presidential nomination at the final night of the Republican National Convention (RNC).
“I’m stuck at home with COVID, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump’s speech to the RNC,” Biden posted on social media platform X. “What the hell was he talking about?”
Professor Who Accurately Predicted Past Elections Says 'Biden Can Win'
https://www.newsweek.com/allan-lichtman-accurately-predicted-elections-joe-biden-can-win-1927988
Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University who has accurately predicted past elections, said in an op-ed on Saturday that President Joe "Biden can win" against former President Donald Trump in this year's presidential election.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Fact-checking night 2 of the Republican National Convention
Facts First: Johnson’s claims about dramatic increases in violence and crime are false, as is the convention video’s claim that there is a problem “everywhere” with “rising crime.” Official data published by the FBI shows violent crime dropped significantly in the US in 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024, though there were increases in some communities; violent crime is now lower than it was in 2020, President Donald Trump’s last calendar year in office.
Stefanik’s claim of a “violent crime crisis” under Biden is subjective, but she certainly did not acknowledge that the current numbers under Biden are superior to final Trump-era numbers.
Kamala Harris did not call Joe Biden a racist on the debate stage
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9244041620
CLAIM: California Sen. Kamala Harris called former Vice President Joe Biden a racist when they were facing off as potential Democratic candidates for president in 2019.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Harris criticized Biden on certain topics related to race during a debate in June 2019, but she prefaced those remarks with “I do not believe you are a racist.”
Donald Trump's Chances of Winning Election Are Declining
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-polling-data-five-thirty-eight-1926226
Donald Trump's chances of winning the November 2024 presidential election are declining, according to a new aggregation of polls.
FiveThirtyEight's poll tracker, which was originally published on July 8 and updated on July 16, shows Joe Biden with a 53 percent chance of winning the election, while Trump has a 46 percent chance.
According to the tracker, Biden is favored to win in 534 out of 1,000 of FiveThirtyEight's simulations of how the election could go, while Trump wins in 462. The poll also shows that the simulations indicate that Biden is on track for a three-point win.
Historian who predicted 9 of the last 10 election results says Democrats shouldn't drop Joe Biden
Allan Lichtman, the historian who has correctly forecast the results of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections argued on Saturday that replacing President Joe Biden could cost Democrats the 2024 election.
Lichtman, a professor at American University, rejected the growing chorus of political pundits and Democratic activists who have called on Biden, 81, to bow out of the presidential race after his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. The pivotal moment brought fresh questions about Biden’s age and ability to serve a second term.
“It’s a huge mistake. They're not doctors. They don't know whether Biden is physically capable of carrying out a second term or not,” Lichtman said during an interview with CNN of calls to replace Biden. “This is all foolhardy nonsense.”
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Judge Cannon goes another step too far
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/15/trump-documents-cannon-dismiss-case/
The courts have blessed the tradition, pointing to the 19th-century statute that authorizes the attorney general to “appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.” The Supreme Court cited the code in U.S. v. Nixon after Watergate; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit confirmed the same thinking in a case about the Iran-contra independent counsel; the D.C. Circuit said in 2019, pursuant to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III, that “binding precedent” settled the debate. Judge Cannon, meanwhile, looked not to precedent at all. Her only reference was Justice Clarence Thomas’s recent concurring opinion in a Trump immunity case — in which no other justice joined.
JD Vance, Trump’s VP pick, once called him a ‘moral disaster,’ and possibly ‘America’s Hitler’
Vance also said that racism and xenophobia played a role in Trump’s rise.
“There is definitely an element of Donald Trump’s support that has its basis in racism, xenophobia, but a lot of these folks are just really hardworking people who are struggling in really important ways,” Vance said in a September 2016 “PBS NewsHour” Interview.
“Definitely some people who voted for Trump were racist and they voted for him for racist reasons,” Vance said in an interview at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Speaking with CNN in October 2016, Vance criticized Trump for “actively antagonizing” Black voters, claiming this tactic was a long-standing Republican strategy.
“It’s not just that Donald Trump doesn’t speak to issues of special concern of minority voters or Black voters, it’s that he seems to like actively antagonizing a lot of the Black voters,” Vance said during a panel discussion.
THE TRUMP–VANCE TICKET IS A DISASTER FOR AMERICA’S DEMOCRACY AND ISRAEL’S FUTURE
“With Trump and Vance in the White House, the Israeli right would have full US support for their wildest fantasies – a judicial coup, West Bank annexation, settlements in Gaza and military confrontations with both Hezbollah and Iran,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “Vance will enthusiastically help bulldoze the democratic foundations of our union, embed antisemitic conspiracy theories deeper into our society, and hand victory to Putin in Ukraine. We cannot afford to have Donald Trump and JD Vance in the White House.”
Where JD Vance stands on Ukraine, Israel and China
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4773538-jd-vance-foreign-policy/
In a speech delivered at the Quincy Institute in May, Vance addressed the contradiction between his conditional support for Ukraine — “ I think we should stop supporting the Ukrainian conflict,” he said — and unconditional support for Israel.
Trump’s Judge Cannon Found Her Legal Tutor: Clarence Thomas
While Judge Cannon’s opinion is weak and might even appear to the cynical as a well-timed audition for an appointment to the Supreme Court should Trump win, there is an aspect of her decision that raises the important question of why DOJ needs any form of special counsel.
We Should Condemn Violence. And Trumpism
https://www.newsweek.com/we-should-condemn-violence-trumpism-opinion-1925422
There is a narrative being sold that this attempted assassination was the result of unfair or misapplied rhetoric against Trump, as if he is just some peaceful character or a Republican of times past, who we simply have differences of opinion with. Don't buy into it.
What Trump said with his ‘very fine people’ comments vs. what he meant
It is true, as the Snopes headline indicates, that Trump said that he was not talking about the white nationalists when offering praise for some of the participants in Unite the Right. But as The Washington Post’s Fact Checker pointed out in a 2020 assessment of the controversy, it’s not clear that there were any participants who weren’t allied with the white nationalist elements that announced the rally in the first place. The Washington Post reported Aug. 10 that there would be a “white nationalist rally” in Charlottesville; does someone who attends a white nationalist rally deserve rhetorical distance from white nationalism?
Donald Trump’s New Mr. Nice Guy Act Doesn’t Even Last a Day
“As we move forward in Uniting our Nation after the horrific events on Saturday, this dismissal of the Lawless Indictment in Florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of ALL the Witch Hunts — The January 6th Hoax in Washington, D.C., the Manhattan D.A.’s Zombie Case, the New York A.G. Scam, Fake Claims about a woman I never met (a decades old photo in a line with her then husband does not count)....
Why Is Snopes.com Helping Trump Clean Up “Very Fine People”?
https://newrepublic.com/article/183082/nopes-trump-very-fine-people
According to Trump, there were “very fine people” in both of the two groups, which included the people who went to the rally organized by neo-Nazis and people who protested the neo-Nazis. Those were your “sides.” Trump, here, said that within the group of people at the neo-Nazi rally, where “the night before” they were marching with tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us,” there were “very fine people.”
What to know about Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/jd-vance-trump-vp-what-to-know/index.html
Other tweets liked by Vance said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” called him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs,” and, in a since-removed set of tweets, harshly criticized Trump’s response to the deadly 2017 White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — something Vance now defends Trump over.
KFile also previously reported that Vance deleted past anti-Trump tweets ahead of his announcement in July 2021 that he would run for the open Ohio Senate seat. Vance in February 2016 privately wondered whether Trump was “America’s Hitler,” and a few months later wrote in The Atlantic that Trump was “cultural heroin.”
Vance also said he even contemplated voting for Clinton in 2016, but ultimately said he would vote for independent candidate Evan McMullin.
Monday, July 15, 2024
Aileen Cannon’s nuking of the Trump documents case continues her trend of embracing long-shot legal theories
After a year of court hearings examining far-fetched theories about presidential classification power, flimsy accusations of prosecutorial misconduct and heated debates about redacting court filings, Judge Aileen Cannon ended Jack Smith’s classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump on Monday for a more foundational – but nonetheless astonishing – reason.
She said Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel and that the funding of his office also violated the law. Her dismissal of the case on that rationale is at odds with several other court rulings from judges across the country that have upheld the Justice Department’s use of special counsels to spearhead politically sensitive investigations.
J.D. Vance’s journey from a ‘Never Trump’ guy to Trump’s VP pick
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/15/jd-vance-vp-pick-trump/
“I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR that August. “I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy. I never liked him,” Vance told Charlie Rose in October 2016, weeks before Trump was elected president. That same year, he compared Trump’s candidacy to cultural heroin and reportedly told a former roommate that Trump was either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.”
Unity’ Doesn’t Mean Covering Up the Truth About Donald Trump
About his speech, Trump, showing his new softer side said, “I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration.” Then he added, “But I threw it away.” He then said, “I want to unite our country.” Which is an idea that held up during his conversation with with New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin all the way until when asked about how he would change his tone that policy differences were, in Goodwin’s words, “the stumbling block.”
But has he changed? As soon as the dismissal of the classified documents case was announced Monday, Trump took to Truth Social to call for the dismissal of all the other charges and cases he faces, overseen by a “Democrat Justice Department.”
Thomas uses Trump immunity ruling to question Jack Smith appointment
Thomas was weighing in on what is generally considered a far-fetched legal theory pushed by Trump’s attorneys in lower courts and by some conservative legal groups. They argue that Smith was illegally appointed and funded and say the criminal cases against Trump should be dismissed.
Schumer: ‘Misguided’ dismissal of Trump classified docs case ‘must be appealed’
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4772736-schumer-trump-classified-documents-dismissed/
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Florida Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the felony charges accusing former President Trump of mishandling classified documents “breathtakingly misguided” and called for her ruling to be “appealed immediately.”
“This breathtakingly misguided ruling flies in the face of long-accepted practice and repetitive judicial precedence,” Schumer said in a statement issued shortly after the ruling.
Judge Cannon Dismisses Trump Classified Docs Prosecution: ‘Unconstitutional’
Cannon based her decision largely around Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent concurrence that cast doubt on the legality of special counsel appointments. In his presidential immunity opinion, Thomas questioned whether the Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause by appointing a special counsel to an office not created by law, writing that the Executive Branch “cannot create offices at his pleasure.”
Trump’s classified documents case dismissed over Jack Smith appointment
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4772516-trump-classified-document-case-dismissed/mlite/
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday tossed former President Trump’s criminal charges accusing him of mishandling classified information, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed.
Candace Owens Weighs In on Donald Trump Shooting 'Conspiracy'
"So you're telling me that guy walked up and was trying to get the attention, the Secret Service saw him, and he's pointing and he's saying, 'This guy's got a gun,' and they're pretending they don't know what's going on? I mean, am I crazy?"
Trump’s vow to only be a dictator on ‘day one’ follows growing worry over his authoritarian rhetoric
As Donald Trump faces growing scrutiny over his increasingly authoritarian and violent rhetoric, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave his longtime friend a chance to assure the American people that he wouldn’t abuse power or seek retribution if he wins a second term.
But instead of offering a perfunctory answer brushing off the warnings, Trump stoked the fire.
“Except for day one,” the GOP front-runner said Tuesday night before a live audience in Davenport, Iowa. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
And in case anyone missed it, he reenacted the exchange.
“We love this guy,” Trump said of Hannity. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
Chazal - authority on Medicine
Rav Avraham ben HaRambam (Discourse on Agada): We are not obligated to accept the views of the sages of the Talmud on matters concerning medicine, natural science or astronomy - simply because of their greatness and authority - as we are concerning their explanations of the Torah. That is because concerning Torah, they were the ultimate experts and they had the exclusive authority to teach it as it says in the Torah, “You should do according to the Torah that they teach.”
Why Many Leaders Are Suggesting Trump Is Ordained by God After the Assassination Attempt
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/trump-assassination-texas-christians/
Many evangelical supporters and far-right Christian leaders now have come to see Trump as their ordained champion in the fight for the country they believe is rightfully theirs. Any resistance—a legal challenge, an electoral loss, a bullet of still-mysterious origin, caught in the early stages of investigation—only further sanctifies the cause and its vessel. God’s ways are not mysterious to them. His ways, they believe, are their own.
Sunday, July 14, 2024
Pro-Trump Christian extremists use scripture to justify violent goals
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/13/trump-christian-nationalist-violent-rhetoric/
Democrats aren’t opponents, but enemies to be “smited.” Vice President Harris is depicted as Jezebel, the epitome of womanly wickedness who meets a grisly end. Teachers, librarians, drag queens — all perceived as introducing dangerous ideas to children — are condemned to drowning with millstones around their necks, a la Matthew 18:6.
Friday, July 12, 2024
Trump gets away with dodging the key questions
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-809813
Trump may see the media as his permanent enemy but in reality they are his greatest ally. He is a skilled performer and his rage and rants at his rallies have been rewarded with more airtime and ink than his opponents, and with minimal scrutiny. He’s been more entertaining than any of his opponents, Republican and Democratic, and that attracts the viewers and advertisers.
Economists Say Inflation Would Be Worse Under Trump Than Biden
In a Wall Street Journal survey, economists see Trump’s plans to raise tariffs and crack down on illegal immigration as putting upward pressure on prices
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Americans Aren't Abandoning Joe Biden
"I spent time in Pennsylvania the weekend after the debate. Not a lot of folks were worried," Democratic Senator Chris Coons told Newsweek.
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Joe Biden Starts to Turn the Tide on Rebel Democrats Published Jul 09, 2024 at 9:28 PM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-starts-turn-tide-rebel-democrats-1923058.
MAGA Senator Josh Hawley Advocates for Being a Christian Nationalist
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) assured the National Conservatism conference on Monday that he is a “Christian Nationalist.”
Hawley has previously written that “America as we know it cannot survive without biblical Christianity,” reiterated his Christian nationalist bona fides for the conservative conference.
“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation. And so I am,” Hawley told the crowd. “And some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do.”
'186,000 Gazans dead’: Lancet magazine publishes new blood libel
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-809632
The Lancet magazine, an esteemed medical journal founded in 1823, published a piece earlier this week authored by doctors Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee and Salim Yusuf, which claimed that “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Health Ministry says 153 diagnosed with West Nile fever since start of outbreak, 11 have died
The Health Ministry reports that 153 patients have been diagnosed with West Nile fever in an ongoing outbreak, and a total of eleven people diagnosed with the virus have died.
Biden gaining ground on Trump in battleground states despite disaster debate: new poll
https://nypost.com/2024/07/06/us-news/biden-gain-ground-on-trump-in-battleground-states-poll/
It’s the smallest gap since the poll began in October.
Although Biden is losing in Pennsylvania, the state where he grew up, he now leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Saturday, July 6, 2024
NJ mother said she murdered 2 daughters for 'religious purposes': Court docs
https://abc7ny.com/post/naomi-elkins-lakewood-nj-mother-kids-killed/15006859/
During an interview with police, she allegedly said that she knew that it was illegal to kill her children and that what she did was wrong.
Friday, July 5, 2024
Disturbing footage: Hamas operatives beat Gazans who 'stole' from aid storehouses
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/392608
Footage published by the IDF Arabic language spokesman shows the brutal public beating of Gazan civilians who attempted to procure food from Hamas-controlled storehouses.
Biden moves into tie with Trump in new survey
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753402-biden-trump-race-white-house-poll/
Each candidate received 40 percent support in the poll. That’s a 2-point improvement for Biden, who trailed Trump 41 percent to 39 percent in an identical poll in mid-June. A fifth of respondents were undecided.
The results for Biden could lessen concerns about his candidacy after a poor debate performance last week. A rising number of Democrats have called on Biden to leave the presidential campaign and let another candidate lead the ticket in November.
Supreme Court’s weakening of public corruption safeguards sparks alarm
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4754860-supreme-court-decision-bribery-law-corruption/
Ethics and legal experts warn that the Supreme Court has struck a serious blow to prosecutors’ ability to crack down on the abuse of power and public corruption.
And that’s ringing alarm bells when Donald Trump, who was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and who was hit with a $355 million penalty in a civil fraud trial in February, is leading in the presidential race.
A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset
Donald Trump was a tool in a long-running Russian campaign to weaken the United States. That’s been documented in Republican-led investigative reports, and now it has been updated with new evidence, thanks to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment of the 2020 election. The report, drafted by the CIA, the FBI, and several other agencies, was released in unclassified form on Tuesday, but it was presented in classified form on Jan. 7. In other words, it was compiled, written, and edited during Trump’s administration. It destroys his lies about the election, and it exposes him as a Russian asset.
Senate Russia report proves Trump collusion was very real. But do voters care?
Far from a hoax, as the president so often claimed, the report reveals how the Trump campaign willingly engaged with Russian operatives implementing the influence effort. For instance, the report exposes interactions and information exchanged between Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. According to the report, campaign figures “presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence vulnerabilities.” (Manafort was later convicted of tax and bank fraud.)
All of Trump’s Russia Ties, in 7 Charts
These charts illustrate dozens of those links, including meetings between Russian officials and members of Trump’s campaign and administration; his daughter’s ties to Putin’s friends; Trump’s 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant; and his short-lived mixed martial arts venture with one of Putin’s favorite athletes. The solid lines mark established facts, while dotted ones represent speculative or unproven connections.
Links between Trump associates and Russian officials
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials
By April 19, 2019, The New York Times had documented that "Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition."[16]
Segula- Rav Moshe Shapiro
From Looking into the Sun by Rabbi Menachem Nissel published by Feldheim
Rav Moshe explained that segulos are not a magical shortcut. The avodah (hard work) for parnassa includes tefillah, maasim tovim, and working on emunah. If you've worked on these things, the heavenly shefa can come pouring down. 1he segulah can then be a vessel to contain them.
Rav Shlomo pressed on. "What did Rav Moshe think of the new custom where Ashkenazic men do pesichah (opening the Ark)when their wives are in their ninth month?" Rav Shlomo's greatgrandfather,Rav Shimon Schwab, did not approve of the custom. (Note: The custom is mentioned in the Chida, Avodas Hakodesh 1:90.)
Rav Moshe replied that pesichah all year round unleashes rachamim min haShamayim. However, to do so without kavanah and tefillah is a maaseh kof b'alma, nothing more than the actions of a monkey.
Not all my friends received such positive responses. When asked about the Yerushalmi segulah of going to the Kosel for forty days, Rav Moshe responded with, "Why can't you just daven?" When a close talmid suggested a certain segulah, Rav Moshe gave him a piercing look and said, "Why don't you just hang up a horseshoe?"
Trump wasn’t exonerated by the presidential immunity ruling, even though he says he was
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday misrepresented in a social media post what the U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday ruling on presidential immunity means for his civil and criminal cases.
“TOTAL EXONERATION!” he wrote in the post on his Truth Social platform. “It is clear that the Supreme Court’s Brilliantly Written and Historic Decision ENDS all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the WHITE HOUSE AND DOJ INSPIRED CIVIL HOAXES in New York.”
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Justices claim immunity ruling allows presidents to poison staff, have Navy SEALs kill political rivals
But although the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly stated that the president "is not above the law" and immunity is only a factor when it involves an "official act" — the justices sent the case back to lower courts to determine if the acts at the center of Trump's case were "official" — the ruling raised a series of frightening possibilities, according to the trio of dissenting justices.
Trump immunity decision shows that conservative ‘originalism’ is a farce
Writing for a 6-3 majority, Chief Justice Roberts announced that presidents have a presumption of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. He identified a handful of obvious official acts that underpin Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment of Donald Trump for his actions relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which must therefore now be excised from the case — while at the same time refusing to draw any lines for unofficial acts, instead punting that question to the lower courts for the justices to resolve in an inevitable appeal another day
Trump’s attorney argues that fake elector scheme falls under 'official acts' of president
In an interview with CNN, the attorney, Will Scharf, also argued that Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election qualify as official acts, which would shield the former president from prosecution.
Trump's Lawyers Claim paying Hush Money to PornStar in White House is Core Presidential duty
Trump’s lawyers say jurors should not have heard the Hicks testimony, and other evidence from the ex-president’s stint in the White House that they claim unfairly influenced the jury.
What is an ‘official’ act, and how will a judge interpret Trump’s immunity?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/07/02/official-act-trump-immunity-trial-judge/
The Supreme Court sent Trump’s federal Jan. 6 case back to a trial judge to decide three questions: Which alleged acts by Trump charged by special counsel Jack Smith fall under the executive branch’s exclusive constitutional authority and are therefore immune from prosecution? Which are official acts but prosecutable because they pose no danger of intruding on the power or function of the presidency? And what acts can be prosecuted because they involve private conduct, such as actions taken by Trump as a candidate, not as an officeholder?
Garnel disagrees with this
Garnel IronheartJuly 4, 2024 at 5:28 PM
The Constitution defines what official acts are available to the President. He cannot push someone into traffic and claim it's an official act. Kal v'chomer activating a SEAL team to go and assassinate an American citizen who is no objective threat to the country.
The hysteria surrounding this ruling is not unlike claiming Jews poisoned the local well.
Project 2025 Leader Unveils Plan for Life After Second American Revolution
https://www.newsweek.com/project-2025-heritage-foundation-republicans-american-revolution-1920870
In a statement to Newsweek, Roberts echoed the remarks he made on X and said, "Unfortunately, it's the Left that has a long history of violence, so it's up to them to allow a peaceful transfer of power. As we saw in 2020, organized groups on the Left have the capacity to carry out violent riots, take over cities, and weaponize taxpayer-funded agencies to target their political opponents."
Roberts outlined how the ruling might help transform the federal government with conservative policy proposals, should Donald Trump win the White House in November and adopt Project 2025. The Project 2025 website states that it is a presidential transition project seeking to "build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook."
Can the President Send SEAL Team Six to Assassinate His Rival? After Monday, Yes.
But as Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in her dissent, the lesson from Nixon is that when presidents use their power to commit official acts in pursuit of a criminal scheme, that is when we should be most concerned about their conduct and most eager for them to face accountability. Because that is when their criminal conduct poses the most heightened threat to democracy. If the president can take this immense power we entrust him with and manipulate it for corrupt ends—knowing he will never face accountability—then we have fundamentally changed the nature of what the presidency is. He is no longer a person who is elected by the people to represent them for four years. He is an emperor who walks into office, surveys his new powers, and gets to decide how to use them for his own corrupt advantage—to enrich himself, to entrench his authority, to prevent the peaceful transition to power, to even execute his rivals. I just think that is exactly the opposite of how the executive power had been understood until Monday morning. And I find myself baffled that six justices would say that presidential accountability is now constitutionally prohibited rather than constitutionally required
Fauci says he has ‘no doubt’ Biden is capable of continuing as president
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4754808-fauci-no-doubt-biden-capable-as-president/
He called Biden “very probing in his questions, very analytical, very calm about things,” and said during briefings, Biden always asked “very relevant questions.”
Fauci continued, “So my interactions with him, I have to say, have been very, very positive, in every way.”
Conservative Heritage leader: ‘Second American Revolution’ will be bloodless ‘if the left allows it to be’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4753439-heritage-leader-second-american-revolution/
The leader of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation argued the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity will reinforce a “second American Revolution,” which he said would “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Trump attorney argues ‘fake electors’ scheme was an ‘official act’
Trump attorney Will Scharf told CNN Monday night that some acts alleged in the former president’s federal election subversion indictment do constitute private conduct but the effort to put forth slates of alternate electors in 2020 from key battleground states is not one of them.
“We believe the assembly of those alternate slates of electors was an official act of the presidency,” Scharf said, noting the Supreme Court left that question for lower courts to decide.
John Dean says Nixon ‘would have survived’ Watergate under immunity ruling
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4750581-supreme-court-immunity-nixon/
John Dean, former White House counsel for the Nixon administration, said he believes former President Nixon “would have survived” the Watergate scandal if the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling issued Monday, which largely shields former presidents from criminal prosecution for actions in office, existed at the time.
Not Responding to Embarrassment Gives power of Beracha?
There is a widespread claim that not responding when someone insults or embarrasses you gives you the power of Beracha
Does anyone know its source?
I have been told it comes from the statement "toleh eretz al blima" but can find nothing, it is also claimed the following is the source but I don't see how?
Chullin (89a)With regard to that verse, Rabbi Ile’a says: The world endures only in the merit of one who restrains [shebolem] himself during a quarrel, as it is stated: “He hangs the earth upon nothing [belima]. Rabbi Abbahu says: The world endures only in the merit of one who renders himself as if he were non-existent, as it is stated: “And underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27), i.e., one who considers himself to be underneath everything else is the everlasting arm that upholds the world.
Rambam (Sanhedrin 26:06) Although a judge or a nasi has the right to look past affronts to his honor, he cannot look past being cursed. Similarly, with regard to other people, even though the person who was cursed is prepared to look past the matter, the person who uttered the curse is lashed, for he committed a transgression and incurred liability. If, however, a person is obligated to be placed under a ban of ostracism, because he conducted himself in an unbridled manner in court, and the judges desire to look past the affront to their honor and not impose a ban of ostracism, they have that license, provided it will not lead to a decline in the honor of the Creator. For example, people at large were repudiating the words of the Torah and the judges. Since the people overstepped the bounds, the court must act firmly and punish as they see necessary.
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Donald Trump Says Fake Electors Scheme Was 'Official Act'
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fake-electors-scheme-supreme-court-1919928
Donald Trump lawyer has said that an alleged fake elector scheme was an "official act" and so should be immune from prosecution in Trump's federal election interference case.
Trump's team is alleged to have created and submitted fraudulent certificates to falsely claim Trump had won the Electoral College vote in certain states to disrupt President Joe Biden's victory.
Johnson dismisses Democratic ‘hyperbole’ over immunity ruling: ‘It’s madness’
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4750970-house-speaker-dismisses-presidential-immunity-fears/
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday shrugged off Democrats’ concern over the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, calling their fears of future presidential criminality “madness.”
“Look, there’s all sorts of hyperbole tonight…and just this, fantastical, these hypotheticals they’ve made up [that] future presidents are going to turn into assassins and all the rest,” Johnson said Monday in an interview on Fox News. “It’s madness.”
“Listen, remember this. The president and vice president are the only two officers in our constitutional system that are elected by all the people, no one who is elected to that office going to be prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity,” Johnson added.
Trump’s Assassination Fantasy Has a Darker Purpose
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/trump-biden-assassination-fbi/678476/
Trump has a way of projecting his own vices onto others. His view of presidential power is absolute—to the point that his lawyer recently argued before the Supreme Court that ordering the military to assassinate a political rival “could well be an official act.” There is probably some limiting principle to this particular argument, but the fact that the issue is even under discussion is not a good sign for our democracy. Perhaps he believes that Biden was out to shoot him because he thinks that’s an order that presidents can freely give.
The Supreme Court’s disastrous Trump immunity decision, explained
https://www.vox.com/scotus/358292/supreme-court-trump-immunity-dictatorship
Roberts’s opinion in Trump, however, seems to go even further than Trump’s lawyer did. The Constitution, after all, states that the president “shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” So, if presidential authority is “conclusive and preclusive” when presidents exercise their constitutionally granted powers, the Court appears to have ruled that yes, Trump could order the military to assassinate one of his political opponents. And nothing can be done to him for it.
Macron’s implicit endorsement of ‘antisemitic,’ ‘pro-Hamas’ far left shocks French Jews
Macron, who will remain president regardless of the parliamentary electoral results, “just endorsed a party controlled by pro-Hamas” forces, Yohann Taieb, a French-Jewish journalist, wrote on X on Monday. The Jewish groups that endorsed him were “being taken for a ride,” Taieb added.
This sentiment, shared by many French Jews, stems from a series of unusual choices by Macron throughout one of the most tumultuous political episodes in France’s recent history.
Hypothetical SEAL Team 6 political assassination resurfaces in Supreme Court presidential immunity dissent
In their dissents, both Sotomayor and Jackson addressed the question of whether a president would have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts of murder -- including ordering the assassination of a political rival.
"This new official-acts immunity now 'lies about like a loaded weapon' for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation," Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
When the president "uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution," she continued. "Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune."
I Saw the Grim Brutality of a Conservative Supreme Court Close Up
As Justice Sotomayor began to read her dissent, the atmosphere in the courtroom grew palpably more tense. In a powerful dissent joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, Sotomayor called out the majority’s lack of legal reasoning, writing: “[a]rgument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force” and calling the majority’s conclusions “utterly indefensible.”
Supreme court ruling would permit Biden to assassinate Trump as a threat to Democracy
Legal experts said Monday that yes, as horrific and authoritarian as that sounds, the 6-3 decision by the court’s conservative supermajority means that President Joe Biden could theoretically order that Trump be killed and be immune from criminal prosecution.
Biden issues a warning about the power of the presidency – and Trump – after Supreme Court’s immunity ruling
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/01/politics/joe-biden-immunity-supreme-court/index.html
President Joe Biden on Monday condemned the Supreme Court’s decision which ruled that presidents have an absolute immunity from prosecution for core official acts, and issued a stern warning over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump.
“There are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden said in a speech from the White House.
Sigmund Freud and the Lubavitcher Rebbe
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12519653_Sigmund_Freud_and_the_Lubavitcher_Rebbe
In the winter of 1902-1903, Rabbi Shalom Dov-Ber Schneersohn, the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe (known by the acronym RaSHaB), from a scion of Chassidic Rabbis, travelled from Russia to Vienna to consult with 'the famous Professor Sigmund Freud. This paper discusses their 'encounter.'
Monday, July 1, 2024
As a Therapist, Freud Fell Short, Scholars Find
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/06/science/as-a-therapist-freud-fell-short-scholars-find.html
New revelations depict a Freud who seems at times mercenary and manipulative, who sometimes claimed cures where there were none, and who on occasion distorted the facts of his cases to prove his theoretical points. And, judged by current knowledge and standards, it is a Freud who, at least once, stepped over the line into malpractice.
In one little-known case that barely missed becoming a major scandal, researchers say, Freud induced two patients to divorce their spouses and marry each other. In addition, he hinted that the man should make a generous donation to his psychoanalytic fund.
Supreme Court Deals Blow to Trump’s Prosecution, Ruling He Has Broad Immunity
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/donald-trump-immunity-supreme-court-ruling-7ce6415b
The Supreme Court dealt a major blow to Donald Trump’s prosecution on charges he sought to subvert the 2020 election, ruling 6-3 Monday that former presidents enjoy sweeping immunity for their acts while in office.
The president “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, joined in whole or part by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
The court on its own threw out parts of the prosecution’s case against Trump, including on his alleged efforts to use the Justice Department to advance his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and submit slates of false electors to replace those President Biden won.
The ideologically divided decision didn’t kill the prosecution entirely, with the chief justice saying a president “enjoys no immunity for unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official.”
Scathing Sotomayor dissent: "The President is now a king above the law"
Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not hold back in her dissent.
“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.”
The justice did not end the dissent with the traditional “respectfully” language.
“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” Sotomayor wrote.
Psychological projection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Projection (German: Projektion) was conceptualised by Sigmund Freud in his letters to Wilhelm Fliess,[12] and further refined by Karl Abraham and Anna Freud. Freud considered that, in projection, thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings that cannot be accepted as one's own are dealt with by being placed in the outside world and attributed to someone else.[13] What the ego refuses to accept is split off and placed in another.[14]
Freud would later come to believe that projection did not take place arbitrarily, but rather seized on and exaggerated an element that already existed on a small scale in the other person.[15] (The related defence of projective identification differs from projection in that the other person is expected to become identified with the impulse or desire projected outside,[16] so that the self maintains a connection with what is projected, in contrast to the total repudiation of projection proper.)[17]
Some studies were critical of Freud's theory. Research on social projection supports the existence of a false-consensus effect whereby humans have a broad tendency to believe that others are similar to themselves, and thus "project" their personal traits onto others.[37] This applies to both good and bad traits; it is not a defense mechanism for denying the existence of the trait within the self.[38] A study of the empirical evidence for a range of defense mechanisms by Baumeister, Dale, and Sommer (1998) concluded, "The view that people defensively project specific bad traits of their own onto others as a means of denying that they have them is not well supported." [38] However, Newman, Duff, and Baumeister (1997) proposed a new model of defensive projection in which the repressor's efforts to suppress thoughts of their undesirable traits make those trait categories highly accessible—so that they are then used all the more often when forming impressions of others. The projection is then only a byproduct of the real defensive mechanism.[39]
Freud Was a Fraud: A Triumph of Pseudoscience
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/freud-was-a-fraud-a-triumph-of-pseudoscience/
Freud was a despicable person with multiple character flaws. He betrayed his scientific training in a tour-de-force of self-deception, succumbing to all sorts of irrational beliefs. His vaunted psychoanalyses never objectively helped a single patient. It is astounding that his ideas and his cult were so influential for so long. Freud was a fraud, a liar, a bad scientist, and a bad doctor; but Crews’ book about him is excellent. Crews’ detailed, well-referenced investigation of Freud’s descent into pseudoscience is a fascinating read. Readers familiar with the development of alternative medicine treatments will find many parallels.
Moses and Monotheism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_and_Monotheism
Moses and Monotheism shocked many of its readers because of Freud's suggestion that Moses was actually born into an Egyptian household, rather than being born as a Hebrew slave and merely raised in the Egyptian royal household as a ward (as recounted in the Book of Exodus).[4][5] Freud proposed that Moses had been a priest of Akhenaten who fled Egypt after the pharaoh's death and perpetuated monotheism through a different religion,[6] and that he was murdered by his followers, who then via reaction formation revered him and became irrevocably committed to the monotheistic idea he represented.[1]
KA please provide Torah sources for your hero
The Philadelphia Inquirer calls on Donald Trump to drop out after debate performance
"The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage," the Inquirer wrote.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Civilization and Its Discontents Summary
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/civilization-and-its-discontents/summary
Despite Freud’s initial willingness to entertain the idea of religious feeling, here he takes a more hostile attitude towards exactly that religious belief. Freud admits to not understanding how it is that intelligent, rational, indeed “scientific” people are religious. Thus Freud admits to seeing religion and scientific objectivity as, effectively, opposites.
CNN Flash Poll: Majority of debate watchers say Trump outperformed Biden
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/debate-poll-cnn-trump-biden/index.html
An 81% majority of registered voters who watched the debate say it had no effect on their choice for president, with another 14% saying that it made them reconsider but didn’t change their mind. Just 5% say it changed their minds about whom to vote for.
Trump decries Biden’s poor debate performance overshadowed his ‘fantastic’ showing
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4747692-donald-trump-joe-biden-shaky-debate-performance-2024/
Former President Trump took a victory lap Saturday after this week’s debate, but argued President Biden’s poor showing overshaded his own “fantastic” performance.
“As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reports and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and stories history of Presidential Debates,” Trump posted to his Truth Social site. “The all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!’”
“But by Friday evening it was all about the poor performance of Crooked Joe and now so much about how well I did,” he continued. “Oh well, that’s the way it is but, importantly the result is the same!!!”
OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS
In "The Disposition to Obsessional Neurosis: A Contribution to the Problem of Choice of Neurosis" (1913i), Freud defended the idea that the choice of this neurosis is linked to developmental inhibitions, and he stressed the role of fixation and regression to the anal-sadistic stage. He suggested "the possibility that a chronological outstripping of libidinal development by ego development should be included in the disposition to obsessional neurosis. A precocity of this kind would necessitate the choice of an object under the influence of the ego-instincts, at a time when the sexual instincts had not yet assumed their final shape, and a fixation at the stage of the pregenital sexual organization would thus be left" (p. 325). Thus, in the object relation, hate will precede love and "obsessional neurotics have to develop a super-morality in order to protect their object-love from the hostility lurking behind it" (p. 325). This opposition between love and hate for the object was underscored by Freud in the case of the "Rat Man," related in "Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis" (1909d). He saw it as the source of the doubt, compulsions, and ambivalence that are characteristic of obsessional functioning.
Dying together: Why a happily married couple decided to stop living
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0jjq2vynq7o
Jan and Els were married for almost five decades. In early June, they died together after being given lethal medication by two doctors. In the Netherlands, this is known as duo-euthanasia. It’s legal, and it’s rare - but every year, more Dutch couples choose to end their lives this way.
Saturday, June 29, 2024
The pundit class turned on Biden. Does it matter?
Friday was a story of the D.C. class that chatters versus the D.C. class that matters. The pundits abandoned President Joe Biden in droves, while elected officials stayed silent or stuck with him.
It is surely more significant that Biden won support from Clinton and Obama Friday, that he delivered a well-received rally speech, that polls showed only minor movement in the race and that not a single Democratic elected official called for Biden to drop out of the race.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Supreme Court Tosses Mayor’s Bribery Conviction, Again Raising Bar for Public-Corruption Prosecutions
In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that “Snyder’s absurd and atextual reading of the statute is one only today’s Court could love.” Joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, she argued that by using the word “rewarded” Congress intended to cover past acts, and said that lawmakers excluded innocent courtesies from prosecution by specifying the measure applied only to gifts accepted “corruptly.”
Jackson noted the evidence prosecutors presented against Snyder: He appointed a friend to oversee the bidding process, which was tailored to favor Great Lakes Peterbilt, a company owned by two brothers who Snyder was frequently calling and texting. Dealership employees “testified that Snyder never performed any consulting work” and no contract, invoice or other documentation was produced relating to any such work, Jackson wrote.
Thursday, June 27, 2024
The Supreme Court rules that state officials can engage in a little corruption, as a treat
https://www.vox.com/scotus/357170/supreme-court-snyder-united-states-corruption
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion in Snyder v. United States for the Court’s Republican-appointed majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the dissent on behalf of the Court’s three Democratic appointees.
Snyder turns on a distinction between “bribes” and “gratuities.” As Kavanaugh writes, “bribes are payments made or agreed to before an official act in order to influence the official with respect to that future official act.” Gratuities, by contrast, “are typically payments made to an official after an official act as a token of appreciation.” (Emphasis added.)
The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery
The case concerns James Snyder, who in 2013 was serving as the mayor of small-town Portage, Indiana. Late that year, the city of Portage awarded a contract to Great Lakes Peterbilt, a trucking company, and bought five tow trucks from them; a few weeks later, Snyder asked for and accepted a check for $13,000 from the company. Snyder was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. He argued that the kickback was not illegal because it came after he awarded a contract to the company that ultimately paid him off, not before.
Absurdly the US supreme court agreed, classifying such payments as mere tokens of appreciation and claiming they are not illegal when they are not the product of an explicit agreement meant to influence official acts in exchange for money.
Bowman ouster underscores political danger for progressives
Bowman’s criticisms of Israel amid the ongoing war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks made his race a referendum on how palatable his stance is, especially since his district has a strong Jewish population. Now Democrats are trying to determine what the lessons from his race are for the party nationwide.
“You never can lose touch with your district,” said one Democratic lawmaker, speaking without attribution to express a critique of Bowman. “You’ve got to know who your voters are. And so when you lose touch with your voters, this is what happens.”
“Of course there was a ton of money put into the race, but I think primarily he lost touch with his district,” the lawmaker added.
Dems to Biden: You must out-populist Trump at the debate
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/26/biden-debate-anti-corporate-billionaires-00165178
Biden advisers contend that the president has increasingly leaned into his populist credentials. They also pointed to stepped-up efforts in recent months to portray Trump as out of touch with the working class and Biden — by contrast — as focused solely on policies that will make Americans’ lives better.
Trump suggests his mug shot and indictments appeal to Black voters
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/23/politics/trump-biden-racist/index.html
Former President Donald Trump suggested Friday that his criminal indictments and mug shot appeal to Black voters and claimed that “what’s happening to (him) happens to them.”
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing. They were doing it because it’s election interference and then I got indicted a second time, and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges across the cases, told a gathering of Black conservatives here, on the eve of the state’s first-in-the-South Republican presidential primary.
IDF officer who secretly filmed female soldiers nude convicted of dozens of sex crimes
A former senior Israel Defense Forces officer accused of filming his female subordinates while nude without their knowledge was convicted on Wednesday by a military court of dozens of counts of sex offenses and invasion of privacy.
Lt. Col. Dan Sharoni was arrested in 2021 for his actions, which included collecting sexual images of soldiers and some civilians over the course of at least eight years. He was dismissed from duty that year.
A military court convicted Sharoni of 67 offenses in total: 23 counts of indecency, 39 counts of privacy violation, three counts of illegally hacking a computer, one count of attempted indecency — for a case in which he installed a hidden camera in someone’s room but ultimately only photographed them fully clothed — and one count of conduct unbecoming a soldier.
IDF: Slain Gazan named as Doctors Without Borders staffer was Islamic Jihad rocket maker
A Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket expert, named by Doctors Without Borders as a staffer, was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Gaza City on Tuesday, the military said.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, reported on Tuesday morning that Fadi al-Wadiya was one of its staffers.
The organization said in a post on X that al-Wadiya was killed along with five other people, among them three children, while riding his bicycle to the MSF clinic where he worked.
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
The rape allegation against Bill Clinton, explained
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10722580/bill-clinton-juanita-broaddrick
In their 2000 book The Hunting of the President, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons note that the FBI investigated the allegation for Kenneth Starr's Independent Counsel office, and found the evidence "inconclusive." There are no direct witnesses and no physical evidence to back up the accusation. "It’s important to note — and Broaddrick concedes — that aside from her, there are no witnesses and as far as we know, no one saw Clinton enter or leave Broaddrick’s room, or even the hotel," Myers said in the NBC broadcast. "She took no photos, kept no evidence and the hotel has no records to confirm that she stayed there." That said, there are plenty of rapes where the victim has no physical evidence or good witnesses with which to back up their story. The lack of those categories of evidence makes the key question in the case, "Do we believe Broaddrick, or do we believe Clinton?"
In his memoir The Clinton Wars, White House aide Sidney Blumenthal notes that when Paula Jones's lawyers first approached Broaddrick, she refused to cooperate, and upon being subpoenaed signed an affidavit saying, "I do not have any information to offer regarding a nonconsensual or unwelcome sexual advance by Mr. Clinton." Only after that did she file another affidavit insisting the assault did occur, at which point, Blumenthal argues, she "had no standing as a reliable witness." That's one interpretation. But it often takes a while for rape accusers to come forward, so Broaddrick's initial unwillingness to relay the allegation is hardly airtight proof she's lying.
No one besides Bill Clinton and Juanita Broaddrick knows the true story here — and ultimately, the matter comes down to which of their two accounts one believes. There is certainly not enough here to convict Clinton in a court of law, even if there weren't a statute of limitations. There's no physical evidence. There's just Broaddrick's and her friends' words against Clinton's.
Cures are Harmless but are prohibited
Chinuch (231) And Rambam, said as the reason of the commandment that it is in order that the soul of the one that curses not be moved to vengeance and that he not become used to anger. And he wrote at further length about this in his book. And it appears to me from his words that, in his opinion, he does not see any injury to the one cursed from the curse, but rather that the Torah is distancing the matter from the perspective of the one that curses — that he not accustom himself to vengeance and anger and to lowly traits. And we shall accept all the words of our rabbis, though our hearts hold more of what we have written.
Amusing Ourselves to Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which totalitarian governments seize individual rights, from that offered by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, where people medicate themselves into bliss, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights. Drawing an analogy with the latter scenario, Postman sees television's entertainment value as a present-day "soma", the fictitious pleasure drug in Brave New World, by means of which the citizens' rights are exchanged for consumers' entertainment.
Trump isn't a politician, he's an entertainer
https://www.salon.com/2017/10/14/the-entertainer_partner/
Trump is unquestionably our worst president. Yet, in terms of air time and occupying mental space, he is our most successful entertainer ever. He doesn’t care about the first. He clearly obsesses over the second.
Trump’s address proved he is a genius entertainer. Democrats ought to worry.
Whatever else I think of President Trump, and almost none of it is favorable, I know this much is true: He is an incredibly gifted entertainer. And his skills have almost never been more effective than during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, when Trump’s flair for reality television met up with his penchant for stories of bloody violence, sentimental anecdotes and bromides. You don’t have to like it to acknowledge that it’s a powerful thing for a president to function as a one-man television network.
Trump’s endorsement is starting to show its limits
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/26/trump-endorsement-losses-00165023
Mainstream GOP groups — who have spent big in primaries trying to cull hard-liners from the House Republican Conference — sought to block Williams and Burns. In those instances, Trump’s preferences clashed with Republicans’ desire to avoid adding to the group of rabble-rousers who have derailed their legislative agenda and ignited intraparty wars over the last two years.
Conservatives for American Excellence and America Leads Action, two super PACs that have played in safe-seat Republican primaries across the country this cycle in an attempt to thwart potential troublemakers, dropped about $2 million to boost Crank over Williams. Burns was also the target of more than $500,000 in outside spending from those two groups.
The loss of Williams and Burns is a huge relief to mainstream Republicans, as was attorney Jeff Hurd’s win in another Colorado district. He beat the far-right Ron Hanks, who proved so controversial that the top House GOP super PAC spent against him because it worried he could lose the red-leaning seat.
The Reason U.S. Arms Shipments to Israel Have Slowed
The current delivery pace is only a slowdown compared with the massive airlift of tens of thousands of weapons in the initial months after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, a State Department official said, and is currently similar to or even higher than peacetime levels.
“Our pace is normal, if not accelerated, but slow relative to the first few months of the war,” said a State Department official.
Jewish parents join suit challenging Louisiana law requiring Ten Commandments in schools
The text of the Ten Commandments mandated by the law is a Christian version and “does not match any version or translation found in the Jewish tradition.”
Jews and different Christian denominations do number the commandments differently. The version prescribed by the bill omits part of the first commandment in Judaism, the section of the first verse about God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.
Exasperated Biden Spokesperson Swats Away Trump’s ‘Silly’ Drug Test Demand
Trump, after setting the bar quite low for Biden by questioning his acuity, has recently reversed course by priming viewers to view the president as on some sort of stimulant. This about-face has been dutifully echoed on Fox News and other MAGA-friendly outlets. Similarly, Trump and his allies pushed the baseless narrative after Biden’s State of the Union address back in March.