https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/394605
Hamas fired missiles from adjacent to humanitarian route in Khan Yunis, IDF strikes back, exposes terror group's use of Gazan civilians as human shields.
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Trump made at least 20 false claims in his conversation with Elon Musk
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/13/politics/fact-check-trump-musk-20-false-claims/index.html
Former President Donald Trump delivered his usual bombardment of false claims – at least 20 in all – during a Monday conversation with billionaire supporter Elon Musk, which aired on Musk’s social media platform, X.
Most of the falsehoods uttered by the Republican presidential nominee were claims that have been repeatedly debunked before, some of them for years. They spanned a broad range of subjects, from immigration to the economy to foreign policy to Trump’s record in office to Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent.
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Is Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal About to Dump Trump?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-murdochs-wall-street-journal-about-to-dump-trump?ref=home
The conservative-leaning Journal editorial board has never appeared eager to anoint Trump, with its November 2022 editorial titled “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser,” following Republicans’ razor-thin midterm wins that cycle, serving as a prime example of its frustration toward his temperament. Yet the paper has still oscillated between defending (and advising) Trump and attacking President Joe Biden.
Trump Is Looking Like a Loser Again
By my calculation, about one-third of Mr. Trump’s remarks fell into three categories: false, obtuse or lunatic.
I’m not even talking here about the usual grotesque hyperbolic assertions or baffling verbal manufactures, the finest of which last week was surely the description of “people dying financially because they can’t buy bacon.”
I am talking about things like these:
• The argument that he must have won Georgia in 2020 because he easily won Alabama and South Carolina, suggesting he thinks that Georgia—which has two Democratic senators, and which two Democrats have carried in the last eight presidential elections—is politically indistinguishable from states that no Democratic candidate has carried since 1976.
Monday, August 12, 2024
Torah Learning on Tisha B'Av
There are texts that everyone knows are permitted to learn.
https://www.ou.org/holidays/the_story_of_the_churban_the_destruction/
However, certain portions of the Torah are permitted to be studied even on Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year. They include the Book of Job, which is a dramatic probe into the question of seemingly undeserved suffering, “Megilat Eichah,” the Book of Lamentations of the Prophet Yirmiyahu over the fate of Yerushalayim, the Laws of Mourning and certain portions of the Talmud.
The permitted Talmudical portions are in the “Aggadic” part of the Talmud; that is, the non-legal, but rather, historical or poetic, but with a moral lesson, portions. In particular, those portions of the Aggadah which are permitted to be studied are those dealing with the “Churban,” or Destruction, of Yerushalayim and of the Temple, the destruction of Beitar at the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt with its river, literally, of Jewish blood, and of certain similarly tragic episodes in Jewish History. Presumably, books about the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, may their name be erased, are also acceptable reading matter on Tisha B’Av.
The major location in which these Aggadic portions are found is in “Masechet Gittin,” the Volume of the Talmud the legal portion of which deals mainly with “Gittin,” or Divorces (pages 55b – 58a). This is most appropriate, since the destruction of Yerushalayim and the Temple about two thousand years ago represented a “temporary” divorce, separating G-d and the Jewish People.
In addition Rabbi Friefeld told me in the name of Rav Hutner that it is also permitted to learn sefarim that help correct the sins that led to Tisha B'Av
Trump Rolls Out Bonkers Harris Plane Conspiracy—but Photographer Disproves It
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane. She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches.”
Trump falsely accuses Harris campaign of fabricated AI crowd photos
The event last week at an airport hangar in Detroit was live-streamed, widely attended by the media including The Washington Post, and many attendees posted their own pictures and video showing a packed venue. Local news outlet MLive estimated that 15,000 people filled the hangar and that attendees spilled out into the tarmac.
Trump spreads false conspiracy theory about Harris’ Detroit crowd size
Donald Trump falsely claimed in a series of social media posts Sunday that “nobody” attended Vice President Kamala Harris’ Michigan rally last week — and said his Democratic rival should be “disqualified” over a “fake crowd picture.”
The former president appeared to have fallen for a far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved by photos and videos captured by attendees and media showing thousands of supporters at the event at an airport hangar near Detroit.
Trump spreads false conspiracy theory about Harris’ Detroit crowd size
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/11/politics/trump-harris-crowd-size-conspiracy-theory/index.html
Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said on LinkedIn that he analyzed the photo with two models designed to detect patterns associated with AI-generated images. Both models found no evidence of AI generation, he said, adding that “the text on the signs and plane [showed] none of the usual signs of generative AI.”
“While the lack of evidence of manipulation is not evidence the image is real,” he said, “we find no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered.”
JD Vance’s ‘Constitutional Crisis’ in the Making Deep State (Swamp) is only good if loyal to Trump
Currently, the vast majority of federal employees who keep the government running are career civil servants with employment protections and who serve from one administration to the next regardless of party. This is a key part of the “deep state” that Trump and Vance want to eradicate; Schedule F would convert these workers into political appointees who could then be summarily fired by the president and replaced with partisans loyal only to Trump.
Insurance vs Bitachon
Igros Moshe (OH 2:111): Concerning whether buying life insurance is prohibited as a lack of bitachon that G d has the ability to make a person wealthy so that he will be able to leave to his heirs a large amount of money? In my humble opinion buying life insurance is absolutely not an indication of lack of bitachon in G d. It is exactly like any commercial activity that a person is not only allowed but is in fact obligated to do for his livelihood. In fact it is prohibited for him to say that even if he doesn’t do anything that G d will provide a livelihood at the appropriate level.
Behind the Curtain: Inside Trump's slump
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/11/trump-slump-assassination-attempt-2024-election
Don't buy the public bravado. Former President Trump's advisers are deeply rattled by his meandering, mean and often middling public performances since the failed assassination attempt.
They're pleading with him to adopt a new "hard-hitting" stump speech to define Vice President Harris as liberal and weak, advisers tell us. And praying he'll stop the recidivistic pull to simply improvise haphazardly.
Why it matters: Trump, who looked and felt like a clear front-runner heading into last month's Republican convention, has fumed, stewed and stumbled in private and public ever since.
Re: Trump's Betrayal of Profamily Agenda & Supporters
BSD
Aug. 11. '24
My point is that we DO ACTUALLY HAVE A choice - right now. We can still decide about whether or not we render Trump even worse than he'd be without his base enabling his leftward plunge.
By continuing to pledge Trump support, money and votes, and by confirming Trump's perception that his conservative base is a herd of useful idiots - who will encourage him as he continues to betray them - we ourselves thereby render Trump even worse - ie., we render the Lesser Evil even more "Evil" - and less of a "Lesser"...
Rational consideration would mandate that we ought to loudly protest his betrayals on morality issues -- and condition any assistance to Trump, while he still needs us, on meaningful shifts in his morality policy and personnel, specifically on LGB issues.
And, at best, his Ever-Trumper Amen-Chorus ought to just remain silent, if they can't bring themselves to actually do anything productive. Right now, their self-adulatory hot air isn't convincing many of the fence-sitters, but it is encouraging Trump to disregard fears from his right flank.
Most of the pro-Trump ululations by (formerly) rightwing desperates do nothing -- but egg Trump on - ever leftward.
When we collectively grasp that obvious fact, we'll have some hope of gaining traction.
Rabbi Leiter
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