NJ LGBT bills scheduled for MONDAY

BS"D

22 Teves, 5781 / January 6, '21

Esteemed Leaders,

Two major NJ LGBT bills, as feared, have just been scheduled for this coming Monday January 11: A4454 (public schools), and S2545 (healthcare facilities).

The letter to the editor regarding the bills should already be online at the NJ Jewish Link (https://www.jewishlinknj.com, although I've not seen it yet).  A brief report should be coming out in the Jewish Press today too. 

Action Items:

1.)  Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D) of Passaic needs massive pressure to kill both bills, by exposing them and rallying others likewise to do so. Without pressure, he'll exploit the standard myth that "they'll pass anyway" (as Einstein is reputed to have said, a sign of an idiot is repeating the same acts -- in this case, doing nothing to expose the overt evils of both bills - and/ or even actively voting for them -- while somehow expecting different results).

2.)  For Lakewood residents, your legislators should be urged to lead the charge against both of these dangerous bills, to at least procure maximum Republican opposition. 

3.)  Tips:

1)  Even non-religious legislators need to hear that this "Education" bill isn't about education, it's about indoctrination. 

2) This Healthcare facilities legislation is not about healthcare or fairness, it's about enabling the sexual assault of our most vulnerable in long term healthcare facilities, of course, predictably perpetrated in the name of procuring newly concocted "rights" (for those who choose to flaunt biological reality). 

3)  That bill, which would ultimately make it practically impossible for religious people to use such facilities, also been accurately branded as one of NJs rape-enabling bills [along with the joint "no questions asked" Abortion / Human- Trafficking enabling legislation they've been trying to pass recently].

The recent escalation of Divine Judgement should prompt us to oppose all measures to legitimize immorality, inasmuch as when sexual immorality is rampant, G-d allows massive collective retribution which kills some good people along with the evil ones. Let us not be counted among the good people who could have done more to protest and combat the evildoers - so we may merit to avoid being punished along with them.

Thank you all again,

Rabbi Noson Shmuel Leiter,

Executive Director,

Help Rescue Our Children

TorahJewsForDecency@gmail.com

US: 845.642.1679

Israeli Hotline: 03.721.3337

PS. some recent posts:

Why Rabbis Should Fight LGBT Exploitation:

 http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2021/01/why-rabbis-should-fight-lgbt.html
(Thu, Dec 31, 2020)

LGBT in Education, Healthcare facilities:
°  10Teves Alert: Making LGBT Exploitation Legal [Again]

http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2020/12/10th-of-teves-alert-making-lgbt.html

(Fri, Dec 25, '20)

° S2545: https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2020/Bills/S3000/2545_I1.HTM

° Educational Indoctrination:
A4454 2R
https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2020/Bills/A4500/4454_R2.HTM (Kindergarten version)

° https://firstamendmentactivist.blogspot.com/2020/12/lgbtexploitation-of-njs-most-vulnerable.html

° Also: https://www.jerseyconservative.org/blog/2020/12/24/lgbt-exploitation-of-njs-most-vulnerable-kids-amp-elderly

 

Advice to Rav Reuven Feinstein

 Igros Moshe (Y.D. 03:96.9):   You will soon reach the age of 20 which is also the age for being liable to punishment also at the hand of heaven and you are asking how you should conduct yourself during your lifetime?  Obviously the primary thing is being engaged in Torah study as Rashi notes in Bechukosi if a person doesn’t learn it is possible to make mistakes and our Sages state that the mistakes of a talmid chachom are considered intentional because he should know better by learning everything to know the truth and then G-d will help that you grow in Torah and come to know everything clearly which will also lead to deed. As they say “Great is study since it brings about deed.” Thus your entire purpose in the world should be that all your life should be devoted to Torah and then I am sure that G-d will help you and also send you a generous livelihood and bountiful blessing because they are only gifts from G-d as our Sages(Kiddushin 82b) note  that poverty or riches are not the result of a specific job but everything is from Heaven according to our merit. G-d forbid that you accept this through an oath or promises which is prohibited but rather you need to be determined in your thoughts and mind and do it. You also need to work on having good personality traits especially to distance yourself from anger. Because pride and anger are things needed to be avoided to an extreme degree. And when a person wants to do this in a determined manner then G-d will help you but G-d forbid that this should be done by promises and oaths as we mentioned before. You also need to be careful in honoring your mother. This is typically very difficult for people since they are habituated from their childhood, therefore you have to be very careful because even if she is forgiving G-d forbid to rely on that. And this that you ask about the need to fast for various reasons? It is not appropriate for you and others who are engaged in Torah study because G-d forbid it can cause bitul Torah (time loss from Torah study) even if not in quantity - in quality. Our Sages (Taanis 11a) say a person who regular fasts is a sinner. So instead of afflicting yourself you should increase your Torah study. My words should always be before you and G-d will always help you.

Pence faces pressure from Trump to thwart Electoral College vote

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/05/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-electoral-college/index.html

Vice President Mike Pence's four years of faithful service to his boss, President Donald Trump, will culminate this week in a ceremonial act he's under increasing pressure to thwart.

Over the past several weeks, Trump has become intensely interested in Pence's ceremonial role during the certification of the Electoral College. He has raised the matter repeatedly with his vice president and has been "confused" as to why Pence can't overturn the results of the election on January 6, sources told CNN.

As he was flying to Florida for his vacation last month, Trump retweeted a call from one of his supporters for Pence to refuse to ratify the Electoral College results on January 6 -- a prospect that has captured his imagination even if it remains completely impossible.

Daniel Dale on Trump rally: As a fact checker, I'm bored

Yichud of brother and sister

Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:064.3): Yichud of brother and sister The gemora )Kiddushin 81b) says that a person can have yichud with his sister and live with his mother and daughter. Rashi explains he is allowed to have yichud  with his sister occasionally but not live together with her constantly in a house. So what does occasionally mean? It is makes no sense to say to say it is once in 30 days we say for the beracha on seeing the ocean because the gemora only describes the time for berachos. Look at the brief rulings of the Rosh who says a person can live temporarily with his sister and permanently with his mother. In other words it needs to be clear that he comes to her house only occasionally as a guest and is ready to leave every day and not as one who comes to stay a fixed short time. Thus it is not the actual amount of time but rather that it transient and temporary. So even if he ends up staying for a year or two  or more and then leaves it is not consider permanent. Consequently  it needs to be clearly seen that he came to her house as a guest and not to live permanently which is prohibited even for a single night. As a guest he can sleep overnight even several nights. The same applies for his sister visiting him. Thus it is not a fixed time but the normal behavior of guests in that community. If there is any doubt it is forbidden and not like rabbinic doubts for which we are lenient. Regarding a brother and sister who are still living with their father and likely are very habituated and live closely together which was true even in Talmudic times and yet there were no concerns for yichud

Yichud between Father and adopted children?

Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:064.2): Yichud between Father and adopted children? It is a great mitzva for a person to raise an orphan. Also many people who didn’t have children adopt children and raise them and don’t inform the children that they are adopted until they grow up. Some don’t want to ever reveal this. But that is prohibited since it might result that they marry relatives that are prohibited to them. It is also prohibited to conceal from them the names of their biological parents unless the intent is merely to wait until they grow up. At some point it is required that they be informed not only the names of the father and mother but where she is. However in most cases this information is not known by the adoptive parents since the adoption was done through an agency which cannot be believed whether the mother was Jewish. Therefore we need to assume the child is not Jewish and there needs to be a conversion because of the doubt. Nevertheless when this is done properly we still have to be concerned about yichud even though this is often ignored until the age the adopted daughter reaches the age of 8 or 9 since she is being treated all these years as if she is the biological daughter.  Yichud is a bigger problem then showing her affection by hugging and kissing which are not done from lust and are not prohibited (Shach Y.D. 157.10).  It is possible to say there is not a problem of yichud for short periods of time because he is afraid his wife will find out. Therefore if his wife dies he needs to be careful not to have yichud with his daughter or his adopted daughter

Don't act surprised: Donald Trump was never going to accept the election results if he lost

 https://www.salon.com/2021/01/03/dont-act-surprised-donald-trump-was-never-going-to-accept-the-election-results-if-he-lost/

Though the media took his denial of election reality as a shock, President Donald Trump was never going to accept the results of this year's election unless he was declared the winner. He said so himself years ago.

This is the elephant in the room, the undeniable fact that demolishes his credibility when he says he was actually reelected — and, incidentally, the reason why both he and the people backing his unprecedented post-election temper tantrum will be remembered by history as forever losers. Indeed, long before the 2020 election, Trump's go-to response to even the possibility of losing any election has been to accuse the other side of cheating.

 At this point the president and his legal team have resorted to gish galloping, or attempting to win an argument by overwhelming an opponent with an excessive number of spurious claims — that all of these Republican and/or pro-Trump judges and officials are part of a giant conspiracy to steal the election from him, that large numbers of dead people voted, that Dominion voting machines changed results, and so on — in the hope that they will not be able to keep track of and thereby comprehensively debunk all of them. As my colleague Amanda Marcotte has written, there is evidence that many Trump supporters don't even sincerely believe that the election was stolen, but are making intentionally bad faith arguments out of a mixture of partisanship, wounded pride, a desire to delegitimize President-elect Joe Biden and the hope that they can perhaps help the president pull off a coup.

Trump's strategy: overturn result, cheat democracy

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/03/the-guardian-view-on-trumps-strategy-overturn-result-democracy

This week, Donald Trump will undermine democracy in the US by supporting the claim that Democrat Joe Biden did not fairly win last November’s presidential election. A peaceful handover of power in a democracy requires losing candidates and their followers to admit defeat. But Mr Trump has manufactured a controversy purely to maintain power and to overturn a legitimate election.

US courts have repeatedly thrown out Mr Trump’s evidence-free cases. This has not stopped the president’s accomplices in Congress. They, backed by Mr Trump’s vice-president, on Wednesday plan to challenge Mr Biden’s win to force a debate and votes in Congress. Some scholars point to a historical precedent as offering a slim, perhaps vanishing, chance that the nightmare will continue. Mr Trump will not let an opportunity pass to relitigate an election he lost.

For the good of America, he must fail. The alternative is ultimately the collapse of political norms and civil strife. A classic demagogue, Mr Trump is signalling to his supporters that they, like him, should refuse to respect the election’s outcome and reject Mr Biden’s presidency. There is a well-grounded fear that protests could erupt, some of them armed. Mr Trump might call out the national guard or send federal agents to deal with demonstrations. This chaos, Mr Trump no doubt hopes, will pave the way for an autocratic takeover.

'Traitors and patriots': Republican push to keep Trump in power seems doomed

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/03/trump-republicans-electoral-college-results-senators-cruz-hawley-romney

“It all recalls what Ulysses S Grant once wrote in 1861,” Jake Tapper said on State of the Union, before quoting a letter the union general wrote at the outset of a civil war he won before becoming president himself: ‘There are [but] two parties now: traitors and patriots.’

“How would you describe the parties today?” Tapper asked.

The attempt to overturn Trump’s defeat seems doomed, a piece of political theatre mounted by party grandees eager to court supporters loyal to the preside

As Georgia votes, Trump tries to destroy America's faith in democracy

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/05/politics/donald-trump-georgia-election/index.html

 Desperate, deluded and dangerous, President Donald Trump drove America deeper into a political abyss on Monday night in his zeal to steal an election he lost and to destroy faith in the democracy that fairly ejected him from office.

The President spewed lies, conspiracy theories and nonsensically false claims of vote fraud before an angry crowd in Georgia on a trip scheduled to help two Republicans in toss up run-offs Tuesday set to seal the Senate balance of power.

But as usual, and as it has been for the last four years, including during the fast-worsening pandemic that he ignored, the outgoing President's primary concern was himself.

Trump created a nightmarish picture of a ranting, demagogic commander-in-chief, wallowing in fantasies of the political fringe -- a frightening prospect since he retains the awesome powers of the presidency for another 15 days.

Yichud with daughter after conversion

Igros Moshe (E.H. 04:064.1): 1. Is it permitted for a father to have yichud with his biological daughter after they convert to Judaism? Those that convert with their children it is reasonable to say that there is no problem of yichud because there is no natural lust for his mother or daughter. It is irrelevant that according to halacha they are not considered relatives after conversion. Therefore is also no problem of living together with one’s mother or one’s daughter. But the situation is different regarding a brother and sister, even though there is also no natural lust but that is only because of the actions of the Men of the Great Assembly to weaken lust for relatives. Therefore there is still the possibility of pleasure and slight lust even though it is not overwhelming but yichud should only be occasionally and it is permitted to sleep in the same house at night. It is not permitted to live together permanently. The same applies to his father’s sister or mother’s sister This is true for Jews and non Jews.

Read the full transcript and listen to Trump's audio call with Georgia secretary of state

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-transcript/index.html

 CNN has obtained the full January 2 audio call between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump is joined on the call by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and several lawyers.

CNN obtained the audio from a source who was on the call and had direct knowledge of the conversation. CNN has redacted the name of one individual about whom Trump made unsubstantiated claims.

Here is the full transcript and audio of the hour-long call.

'Worse than Watergate': Bernstein says Trump tape the ultimate smoking gun

MSNBC Morning Joe 1/4/2021 6AM | MSNBC Breaking News Today Jan 4, 2021