Disgraced former New York City police commissioner and Trump confidante Bernard Kerik has turned over a tranche of documents to the House select committee investigating the events surrounding the events of Jan. 6, Politico reported. One set of documents Kerik provided reportedly includes emails between Kerik and others in which they discussed paying for rooms at the Willard Hotel so Trump allies could meet to brainstorm ways to block Joe Biden’s electoral win from being certified. Another, titled, “STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN—GIULIANI PRESIDENTIAL LEGAL DEFENSE TEAM,” reportedly lays out a strategy to convince congressional Republicans not to formalize Biden’s victory. In addition to the documents requested by the committee, Kerik also reportedly provided a so-called privilege log that listed the materials he refuses to share. One of them is titled “DRAFT LETTER FROM POTUS TO SEIZE EVIDENCE IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS.”
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
Facebook Denies Suspending, 'Censoring' Marjorie Taylor Greene's Account
Facebook is denying Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's claim that the social media platform temporarily suspended the congresswoman's account over a post that violated misinformation standards.
This comes a day after Twitter permanently suspended Greene's personal account for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
Chief Rabbinate, Rav Druckman Speak Out Against Conversion Reforms
https://hamodia.com/2022/01/03/chief-rabbinate-rav-druckman-speak-out-against-conversion-reforms/
The senior leader of the Religious Zionist community, Rabbi Chaim Druckman, attended a meeting of the Chief Rabbinate Council on Monday, which aims to form a joint religious front against the conversion plan led by Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahana.
There have been various reports about Rabbi Druckman’s position on the issue of conversion, with Kahana claiming that Rabbi Druckman supported the outline he presented and would also allow city Rabbanim to oversee conversion.
The decision of the Chief Rabbinate Council Council was also signed by Rabbi Druckman, in which they express outright opposition to the conversion reform of Kahana.
Monday, January 3, 2022
Marjorie Taylor Greene's Twitter account suspended permanently
https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-691374
A Twitter spokesperson told CNN that Greene's @mtgreenee account was permanently suspended for "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy."
Her official congressional account @RepMTG was still in operation as of Sunday afternoon.
In a post on the GETTR social media platform, Greene called Twitter an "enemy to America" which "can't handle the truth."
Millions of Angry, Armed Americans Stand Ready to Seize Power If Trump Loses in 2024
America's massive and mostly Republican gun-rights movement dovetails with a growing belief among many Republicans that the federal government is an illegitimate tyranny that must be overthrown by any means necessary. That combustible formula raises the threat of armed, large-scale attacks around the 2024 presidential election—attacks that could make the January 6 insurrection look like a toothless stunt by comparison. "The idea that people would take up arms against an American election has gone from completely farfetched to something we have to start planning for and preparing for," says University of California, Los Angeles law professor Adam Winkler, an expert on gun policy and constitutional law.
Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein removes Rabbi Tau's books over Chaim Walder case
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319776
Rabbi Tzvi Tau, one of the senior rabbis of religious Zionism and the head of Har Hamor Yeshiva, condemns the accusations made against children's author Chaim Walder, who committed suicide due to allegations of sexual harassment. A few days later, Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein, chairman of the Tzohar Rabbinical Association and the president of the Feuerstein Foundation, removed the writings of Rabbi Tzvi Tau from his personal libraries.
"Last week I removed Walder's books, which my
children and later my grandchildren read. And this week I removed Rabbi
Tau's writings from my library and from my home," said Rabbi Feuerstein,
explaining: I do this to show the desecration of G-d's name that
results from this great man. For the Rambam writes (Yesodei haTorah
Chapter 5 Verse 11): "There are other deeds which are also included in
[the category of] the desecration of [G-d's] name, if performed by a
person of great Torah stature who is renowned for his piety - i.e.,
deeds which, although they are not transgressions, [will cause] people
to speak disparagingly of him. This also constitutes the desecration of
[G-d's] name."
Exclusive: Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at the Capitol
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-secret-commandos-shoot-kill-authority-were-capitol-1661330
The presence of these extraordinary forces under the control of the Attorney General—and mostly operating under contingency plans that Congress and the U.S. Capitol Police were not privy to—added an additional layer of highly armed responders. The role that the military played in this highly classified operation is still unknown, though FBI sources tell Newsweek that military operators seconded to the FBI, and those on alert as part of the National Mission Force, were present in the metropolitan area.
The lingering question is: What was it that the Justice Department saw that provoked it to see January 6 as an extraordinary event, something that the other agencies evidently missed.
Objection to Rabbi Eliyayahu's verdict on Walder
Rabbi Rafi Feuerstein,chairman of Tzohar, removes writings of Rabbi Tau after he claims that Chaim Walder accusations are 'built on a lie'.
But Eliyahu has also faced backlash from nationalist Haredi Rabbi Zvi Tau, who spoke in defense of Walder, claiming the accusations against the publisher are baseless. In recordings leaked on Friday, Tau could be heard claiming that Eliyahu is feeding the flames of a leftist media bent on promoting secularism.
Leading rabbis meet to discuss dispute over Chaim Walder case
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319762
Two leading rabbis from the national religious sector met Monday morning in a bid to resolve an ongoing dispute over the handling of the Chaim Walder case.
Rabbi Tzvi Tau, dean of the Har HaMor Yeshiva in Jerusalem, hosted Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Tzfat and one of the rabbis who probed allegations of sexual misconduct by the late haredi author and educator Chaim Walder, prior to Walder’s suicide.
The "Witch Hunt," the "Backlash," and Professionalism
The sexual victimization of children is a highly emotional issue. Publicity and controversy over complex topics such as repressed memory, satanic ritual abuse (SRA), and suggestibility of children have divided and polarized many child advocates, the media, and the American public. Especially in controversial cases, those at one extreme often claim that children are easily manipulated and that the allegations are frequently part of a big "witch hunt" led by overzealous fanatics or incompetent and money hungry "experts." Those at the other extreme often claim that victims do not lie about sexual abuse, that everything alleged happened exactly as alleged, and that protestations to the contrary are part of a powerful "backlash" led by child molesters or those denying the extent and reality of child sexual abuse. The continuing media coverage, movies, articles, and opinions about cases such as the Mc Martin case in Manhattan Beach, California, exemplify this highly polarized controversy
The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Turning a Blind Eye to the Evidence in the So-Called Name of Justice
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30145961/
For more than two decades, conventional wisdom about the high-profile day care cases of the 1980s and early 1990s suggests all were modern-day witch hunts, based on false allegations made by highly suggestible children during an era when society was gripped by a "believe the children" hysteria. Author Ross Cheit refutes conventional wisdom by conducting an exhaustive examination of original data from dozens of cases bearing the witch hunt label. He concludes there was no witch-hunt epidemic, finding substantial evidence of sexual abuse in nearly every case he reviewed, contradicting the assertions made about those cases by what he calls the witch-hunt narrative. Cheit examines the legacy of the witch-hunt narrative and contends its exaggerated claims about the suggestibility of children have had a negative effect on the credibility of children today who allege being sexually abused.
How the daycare child abuse hysteria of the 1980s became a witch hunt
“We believe the children” became both the unofficial motto of advocates for the prosecution and a catch-all response to those few who asked whether the accusers had completely lost their minds. The approach was based largely on the work of psychiatrist Roland Summit, who claimed that, of every 1,000 children who say they were sexually abused, only two or three are guilty of inventing or exaggerating. He also said it was normal for children who had been sexually abused to retract their claims and say they made it all up. The upshot: No matter what children said, they were sexually abused, and if you didn’t believe them, something was wrong with you.
Yet “believing the children” glossed over the fact that, often, adults believed only what they wanted to hear. In the McMartin case, the social workers who interviewed children not only considered Summit’s theory as gospel but interrogated (not too strong a word) the children repeatedly, becoming more bullying with each session. When one child denied seeing a game called “Naked Movie Star” played at his preschool, the therapist replied: “Well, what good are you? You must be dumb.”
How the ‘Witch Hunt’ Myth Undermined American Justice
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-witch-hunt-myth-undermined-american-justice
In 1993, a young man dying of AIDS gave a tearful interview on CNN after filing a lawsuit alleging that Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin had sexually abused him many years before. Bernardin defended himself eloquently at a press conference. Several months later, when reporters unearthed information about plaintiff Steven Cook that cast doubt on his veracity, he withdrew the suit, saying he could not trust his memory.
Newsrooms turned on a dime. Time’s cover pictured Freud as a disassembling picture puzzle. National coverage shifted from a focus on bishops concealing predators to “false memory,” hysteria fueled by the suggestibility of young victims, faulty investigators, quack therapists, and a court system hard-pressed to safeguard presumption of innocence.
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