Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary, will begin admitting and ordaining students who are in relationships with non-Jews, following a decision by its board to drop a longstanding ban on interfaith relationships for rabbinical students.
Friday, June 21, 2024
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Trump’s Final Foreign-Policy Report Card
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/05/trumps-final-foreign-policy-report-card/
It’s worth recalling what he promised to do. Like most of his political platform, Trump’s foreign policy sprang from a sense of grievance. He thought the rest of the world was taking advantage of the United States; he was going to put “America first” instead. Allies would pay full price for U.S. protection, adversaries would be confronted and vanquished, and the United States would pursue its own self-interest with scant regard for diplomatic niceties. He’d stop China from “stealing” American jobs and take the United States out of “bad deals” like the Paris climate accord and the nuclear agreement with Iran. Portraying himself as a master negotiator, he promised to reach “beautiful” new trade deals that would restore U.S. manufacturing and usher in a new era of prosperity. The United States would play the sucker no longer: It would get “out of the nation-building business,” crack down on immigration, rebuild a supposedly weak defense establishment, and get Mexico to pay for a wall on the southern border.
But it was more than a missed opportunity, because Trump’s blunders have left the United States in much worse shape than when he took office. For President-elect Joe Biden and his team, the bad news is that they have an enormous amount of repair work to do. The good news, such as it is, is that it won’t be hard to do better than the people they are succeeding
Trump’s better deal with Iran looks a lot like Obama’s
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/17/trump-iran-deal-obama-1417801
“Trump got rid of the Iran nuclear deal because it was Barack Obama’s agreement,” said Jarrett Blanc, a former State Department official who helped oversee the 2015 deal’s implementation. “If you were to present to Trump the same deal and call it Trump’s deal, he’d be thrilled.”
Killing the Iran nuclear deal was one of Trump's biggest failures
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-nuclear-deal/
Six years after former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the disastrous consequences of this decision are still adding up.
In addition to Iran being closer than ever to a nuclear weapons capability, now we must consider how the declining security situation in the Middle East has raised the stakes significantly. Trump promised a “better deal” but instead we got an increasingly costly blunder that may be impossible to fix
President Trump's Policy Towards Iran Was A Disaster
Murphy laid out the failures of the Trump administration’s Iran policy: “Here's the facts. When Donald Trump came into office, Iran was over a year from being able to achieve a nuclear weapon. By the time President Trump left office, that breakout time had dropped to months. When President Trump came to office, proxies of Iran were strong. When he left office, they were just as strong, if not stronger. This idea that Iran stopped sending money to Hezbollah during Trump's presidency is just wrong. $700 million was the annual amount of support delivered from Iran in the middle of Trump's presidency; [and] that's what was being delivered at the end of his presidency. There were no attacks on US forces in Iraq when Donald Trump became president. From 2019 to 2020, attacks on US forces in Iraq increased by 400%. It got so bad that Secretary Pompeo started to close down the embassy in Baghdad because it had become so dangerous. Attacks on US forces raised to epidemic levels from the beginning of Trump's presidency to the end. The anti-Iran coalition wasn't strengthened, it was shattered. We had Russia and China on board with the JCPOA. By the end of the Trump presidency, Europe wasn't supporting our Trump politics, our Iran policy, they were undermining it.”
As few as 50 hostages may still be alive
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/391824
Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, mediators in the talks and a US official familiar with the latest US intelligence have placed the number of hostages still alive as potentially just 50.
Trump's War on the Truth Has Officially Gone Full Orwell
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a22547037/donald-trump-orwellian-truth-reality-eyes-ears/
It has long been clear that the president is attempting to build a genuine authoritarian movement over which only his word has any power, and which he can use to ride roughshod over the institutions of democracy. So far, this attempt has been an unmitigated success, as his supporters inhabit the same infotainment vortex he does and other members of the Republican Party—which controls both Houses of Congress and has a constitutional duty to provide a check on the Executive Branch—bow to him out of craven fealty.
Radical skepticism Permission to believe only what you want to believe
Radical skeptics hold that doubt exists as to the veracity of every belief and that certainty is therefore never justified.
Or to quote Trump - Don't believe your lying eyes or fake news only believe me.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Biden and Trump: How the two classified documents investigations came to different endings
Trump is accused of not only hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, but trying to hide them from investigators and working to block the government from clawing them back. Prosecutors have alleged that Trump showed off the documents to people who did not have security clearances to review them and enlisted others to help him hide records demanded by authorities.
Tzadik and Time
Sfas Emes (Chaye Sara 641) G-d knows the days of innocence... and just as the righteous break the power of nature and cancel their physicality for the sake of the Creator's commandments, so it is in their power to alter nature and elevate time to attach it to the highest source, that is why it says about Abraham “he comes in the days”, that indicates he elevated all his days to exist forever...
Tzadikim will be called by G-d's Name
Shelah (Toldos Adam Ben Dovid 73) Tzadikim will in the future called by G-d’s Name as it is said Everything that is called in My Name and for My Honor, I created it, even I made it. And those who adhere to it are called tzadik by His Name, because they bind and unite the Heavens with the Earth. And He said that they are made like the image of G-d, because G-d has creation, formation, and action in Him. Even the tzaddik below has included in him all of these, to establish the Divine Honor below.
Bava Basra (075b) Tzadikim will in time to come be called by the name of G-d; for it is said: Every one that is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory. I have formed him, yea, I have made him. R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Johanan: Three were called by the name of G-d, and they are the following: The righteous, the Messiah and Jerusalem.
Bava Basra (075b) There will come a time when ‘Holy’ will be said before the righteous as it is said before G-d; for it is said: And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remains in Jerusalem, ‘shall be called Holy.
Marhasha (Bava Basra 75b) 3 things are called on the name of G-d. Seeing that it does not say with the name of G-d, but they were called on the name of G-d. This means the name of G-d will be associated with them - the Messiah, meaning the Lord's Messiah, Jerusalem, meaning the city of G-d, as well the tzaddik, meaning, a tzaddik to G-d. In other words all their actions are for the sake of Heaven. This as also true for Messiah that all his deeds are for the sake of Heaven. Also concerning Jerusalem the only ones allowed there will be those whose deeds are only for the sake of Heaven.
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