Thursday, August 15, 2024

Columbia President Steps Down After Blowback Over Campus Gaza Protests

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/columbia-president-minouche-shafik-steps-down-after-blowback-over-campus-gaza-protests?ref=home

Shafik, who has served as president since July 2023, drew widespread criticism on both sides of the political spectrum for the university’s handling of pro-Palestine student protests that began towards the end of the spring semester.

Walz Has 'No Personal Relationship' With Controversial Muslim Cleric, Campaign Says

 https://www.newsweek.com/tim-walz-imam-asad-zaman-controversy-hitler-1938773

This is not the first time Walz has been targeted for his stance on Israel and its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza. After Harris selected him as her vice-presidential pick, Republicans were quick to suggest she chose Walz over Josh Shapiro, the popular Pennsylvania governor, due to Shapiro's Jewish faith and support of Israel.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump claimed again last week that he is the better candidate for Jewish voters, saying that any Jew who votes for the Democratic ticket needs to get "their head examined."

Walz has been consistent in expressing his support for Israel. Shortly after Oct. 7, he condemned Hamas while condemning those who demonized all Palestinians for the actions of the militant group. He has also advocated for increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

FBI probes whether Iran envoy Malley committed crimes in handling of classified info Lock Trump up?

 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/10/fbi-probes-iran-envoy-malley-classified-info-00157321

Investigators are trying to determine if any crimes were committed, according to the person briefed on the case and another person familiar with the matter. But it is not yet clear if the Department of Justice will bring any charges against Malley or what the scope of any charges might be. The people were granted anonymity to discuss a highly sensitive issue.

Political positions of Donald Trump

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump

In a 2004 interview, Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat", explaining: "It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats...But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans."[5] In a July 2015 interview, Trump said that he has a broad range of political positions and that "I identify with some things as a Democrat."[4]


The views of both Trump and Vance are constantly changing. It is thus to be expected they will turn against Israel and providing costly support. To help their Arab and Russian friends. Or they will simply lie about it like Trump's claims that Covid would just go away with warm weather or that the election was stolen or Mexico was paying for the Wall or that they were pro-family or even stating they were concerned by Clinton's reckless handling of government information but saw nothing wrong with taking classified document and failing to keep them in a secure location

Listening to anti-Israel activists, then shushing them, Kamala Harris walks a tightrope

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/walking-tightrope-kamala-harris-listens-to-anti-israel-activists-then-shushes-them/

Direct and unequivocal support came soon enough. Harris “has been clear: she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups,” Phil Gordon, Harris’s national security adviser, said in a tweet. “She does not support an arms embargo on Israel. She will continue to work to protect civilians in Gaza and to uphold international humanitarian law.”

Intel is sued by fired Jewish employee over ex-supervisor's alleged antisemitism

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-814603

A Jewish former employee of Intel INTC.O sued the chipmaker on Tuesday, saying he was fired after complaining that the senior executive he reported to openly celebrated antisemitism, Hamas and terrorism against Israel.

The plaintiff, a former vice president of engineering using the pseudonym John Doe, said Intel fired him on April 2 in a purported cost-cutting move barely two months after assigning him to report to Alaa Badr, vice president of customer success.

Former aide: Trump ‘feels this election slipping away’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4825718-sarah-matthews-trump-aide-election/

Sarah Matthews, a onetime spokesperson to former President Trump, said Monday the GOP presidential nominee is embracing false theories about his political opponent because he’s getting “desperate” as Vice President Harris’s campaign benefits from a boost in voter enthusiasm.

“I think that he feels this election slipping away from him, and that’s where you’re beginning to see him spiral and cling to these conspiracy theories, as you noted with the AI-generated crowds, which obviously can be easily disproven,” Matthews said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

Joseph McCarthy - Trump's Source of Inspiration

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army's chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, 1954,[137] the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive lawyers' association.[138] In an impassioned defense of Fisher, Welch responded, "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman "call the next witness". At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called

Blinken approves sale to Israel of military equipment worth over $20b.

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-814606

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday approved the possible sale to Israel of fighter jets and other military equipment worth over $20 billion, the Pentagon said.

In a statement, the Pentagon said Blinken approved the possible sale of F-15 jets and equipment worth nearly $19 billion. He also approved the possible sale of tank cartridges worth around $774 million and army vehicles worth $583 million, the Pentagon said.

The tank rounds would be almost immediately available for delivery. The Boeing Co F-15 fighter jets would take years to produce and deliver.

IDF confirms: Missiles towards Tel Aviv launched from humanitarian route

 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.

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

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-is-looking-like-a-loser-again-mar-a-lago-news-conference-2024-election-02ec5c8f?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

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