Pelosi says Esper firing shows Trump intent on sowing 'chaos'

 https://thehill.com/homenews/house/525175-pelosi-says-esper-firing-shows-trump-intent-on-sowing-chaos

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday blasted President Trump for firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper just two days after Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the presidential election.

“The abrupt firing of Secretary Esper is disturbing evidence that President Trump is intent on using his final days in office to sow chaos in our American Democracy and around the world," Pelosi said in a statement.

"Continuity and stability are always important during a presidential transition; they are absolutely imperative at this moment, as this historically erratic Administration prepares for its departure," she added.

Pfizer CEO Dismisses Accusations that Vaccine Report Timed for After Election: 'We Announced It the Moment We Learned About It'

 https://www.newsweek.com/pfizer-ceo-dismisses-accusations-that-vaccine-report-timed-after-election-we-announced-it-1546161

 The CEO of Pfizer dismissed any suggestions that his company waited until the presidential election was decided before announcing the promising results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials.

 Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer, completely rejected these suggestions in a Monday interview with CNN. "We announced it the moment we learned about it," Bourla said. "I said multiple times that the election for us is an artificial timeline."

Why Donald Trump’s Refusal to Give Biden Keys to Office Space Matters

 https://time.com/5909532/donald-trump-joe-biden-administration-transition/

 The General Services Administration is the federal government’s de facto real-estate firm. It provides incoming administrations with the basics — like office space and computers — to make the transition between election results and Inauguration Day as easy as possible. But the current head of the GSA, a former senior aide on Capitol Hill who was appointed by Trump, has said she has not seen any certification outside of the media that Biden won, thus she has no obligation to contradict her boss, who says he has. GSA aides say they are merely following precedent set in 2000, when there was a dispute and a recount.

Fox News cuts away from Trump campaign press conference

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/290911

 Fox News on Monday cut away from a Trump campaign press conference outlining its allegations of election fraud in the presidential election.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany began her press conference by saying Democrats were the only party opposing voter ID, verifying signatures, citizenship, residency, eligibility, and trying to keep observers out of the count room.

“You take these positions because you are welcoming fraud and you are welcoming illegal voting,” she said just before Fox News cut away.

Gov. Cuomo lifts restrictions on Jewish neighborhoods as COVID rates drop

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/gov-cuomo-lifts-restrictions-on-jewish-neighborhoods-as-covid-rates-drop-648579

 Parts of Brooklyn that had high COVID test positivity rates in early October, including some with large Orthodox Jewish communities, will face fewer restrictions after seeing the rates fall.

The neighborhoods labeled “red zones” last month have been reduced to “orange,” the middle level for restrictions. One of the neighborhoods is Midwood, which has a sizable Orthodox population.

Trump accuses FDA, Pfizer of deliberately delaying vaccine news until after vote

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-accuses-fda-pfizer-of-deliberately-delaying-vaccine-news-until-after-vote/

US President Donald Trump on Monday falsely accused the US Food and Drug Administration, drugmaker Pfizer and the Democrats of apparently conspiring to delay an announcement of progress on a coronavirus vaccine until after last week’s elections.

Pfizer Inc. said Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine may be a remarkable 90 percent effective, based on early and incomplete test results that nevertheless brought a big burst of optimism to a world desperate for the means to finally bring the catastrophic outbreak under control.

DOJ's top election crimes prosecutor quits in protest after Barr tells federal attorneys to probe unsupported allegations of voting irregularities

 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/william-barr-voting-irregularities/index.html

 The Justice Department's top election crimes prosecutor resigned Monday in protest after Attorney General William Barr told federal prosecutors that they should examine allegations of voting irregularities before states move to certify results in the coming weeks.

Richard Pilger, director of the elections crimes branch in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, told colleagues in an email that the attorney general was issuing "an important new policy abrogating the forty-year-old Non-Interference Policy for ballot fraud investigations in the period prior to elections becoming certified and uncontested." Pilger also forwarded the memo to colleagues in his resignation letter.

 

An unusual medrash about King David

 Yalkut HaMakiri  Tehilim (118 28): Tehlim (51:7) Behold I was born in sin. One view is that Dovid’s mother was the son of a beloved wife while another  says  a hated wife.. Yishai was separated from his wife for three years. After three years he had a pretty maid servant that he lusted for. He said to the slave,”My daughter; I prepared myself for you tonight to free you.” The slave went to his wife, “ “Save yourself and the soul of your husband from Hell.”She replied, “What is happening?”The slave told her everything. She replied, “My daughter what can I do since he hasn’t touched me for three years?. Go prepare yourself and so will I” And she did. That evening, the slave got up and extinguished the candle. and closed the door. The wife entered and the slave left. The wife was with her husband the whole night and became pregnant with Dovid. Because of his strong passion for the slave  Dovid was born very ruddy compared to his brothers. His brothers wanted to kill him seeing that he was red {a sign of adultery]. However their father told them to leave him alone so instead of killing him they treated him instead as a slave and shepherd. 

 http://www.daat.ac.il/he-il/tanach/iyunim/neviim/rishonim/shmuel/prakim/grosman-ahavati.htm

A Dose of Optimism, as the Pandemic Rages On

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/health/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-optimism.html

Clearly, the pandemic has not ended. So far some 215,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus, and reliable estimates suggest that the number could reach 400,000. Health experts agree that, with stronger leadership, the death toll would have been far lower.

Since January, when I began covering the pandemic, I have been a consistently gloomy Cassandra, reporting on the catastrophe that experts saw coming: that the virus would go pandemic, that Americans were likely to die in large numbers, the national lockdown would last well beyond Easter and even past summer. No miracle cure was on the horizon; the record for developing a vaccine was four years.

Events have moved faster than I thought possible. I have become cautiously optimistic. Experts are saying, with genuine confidence, that the pandemic in the United States will be over far sooner than they expected, possibly by the middle of next year.

Brooklyn rabbi accused of molesting kids dies of COVID-19

 https://nypost.com/2020/11/07/brooklyn-rabbi-accused-of-molesting-children-dies-of-covid-19/

 Rabbi Joel Kolko, one of NYC’s most notorious accused pedophiles, has reportedly died of COVID-19 while in Israel, sources told The Post.

Kolko, 74, was visiting the country for recent holidays and fell ill with the coronavirus, they said.

 n 2016, Torah Temimah agreed to pay an unprecedented $2.1 million [https://nypost.com/2016/10/23/brooklyn-yeshiva-settles-with-sexual-assault-victims-for-2-1m] to two former students who charged that Kolko sexually assaulted them.

Biden’s call for unity a welcome change from pain, mistrust and division under Trump

 https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-victory-speech-election-richard-fowler

  Unfortunately, many Republicans have been quick to attack Biden’s call for unity. That’s a mistake. Perhaps once Trump’s term of office is over, at least some Republicans will accept Biden’s olive branch and agree to work in the national interest instead of fanning the flames of division.

Trump plans to revive campaign-style rallies as he pursues legal challenges to election results

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-plans-to-revive-campaign-style-rallies-as-he-pursues-legal-challenges-to-election-results

 According a report by Axios and confirmed by Fox News, Trumps’ campaign plans to take less traditional path to challenging the results of the election, including holding “a series of Trump rallies” focused on the campaigns ongoing legal efforts in numerous states across the country.

Along with the rallies, Trump is also planning to use obituaries of people who allegedly voted but are actually dead as evidence of the voter fraud he's been claiming. The campaign is also sending recount teams Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, with Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., heading up the effort in the Peach State.

President Trump refuses to concede

Mary Trump: ‘If he thinks he’s going down, he’s going to try to take the rest of us down with him.’