akuperma

IRS excuses:
Covid10 (and teleworkers who aren’t as efficient as when they come to the office)
Congress (which changed the tax law after filing was open basically the IRS to start over from scratch)
Delayed filing date (which delays the deadline for paying refunds before they have to pay interest)

The difference in terms of national issues is minimal. Purple states (such as Florida) don’t count. The “Red” states picked up perhaps two or three seats, but since part of the reason is migration of Democrats it will work the cancel any shifting (note how Georgia and North Carolina turned “purple” due to liberal migrants.

What matters to the frum community is the extent frum neighbors grew or shrunk, and whether that reflects migration patterns in our community. Also note that migration can result in increasing the number of districts in which frum Jews are common that the politicians listen to us (rather than if we approach a majority that can elect one of our own).

Once Floyd was no longer resisting there was no reason to keep beating him up. While his misbehavior (possibly drug induced) would allow the police to subdue him, it would be for the judge to decide what to do with him (note that American law no longer allows beating up people as punishment). While there were elements of coercion used on the jury (letting them know that a wrong verdict would lead to massive violence, which implied their lives were at risk if they didn’t give a politically correct verdict), based on the press accounts it is reasonable that a jury could find that if the officer stopped using force at the point that Floyd was subdued and handcuffed, Floyd would not have died that night.

If a person was authorized by Beis Din to subdue an insane person or a criminal, and after the person had been subdued, the person sent by Beis Din decided to beat him up (note that the Beis Din had not decided to order the person flogged, which they wouldn’t do if his misbehavior was due to drug overdose), and as a result of the illegal physical punishment (beyond what was necessary to subdue the offender) the person being beaten died, the person sent by the Beis Din would be in very big trouble. Note that when a Beis Din ordered someone flogged, they had to confirm that they weren’t killing him.

1. It is politically incorrect to study ancient history, especially of civilizations that were deficient by 21st century standards. Since most dumb ideas have been tried previously, if politicians studied history they would have to give up all their favorite proposals and would be truely bored, and would have to come up with no, and probably worse, dumb ideas.

2. However not overreacting to a mob has much that can be said for it. What if, on Jan. 6, the Capitol Police and National Guard and opened fire and killed a few dozen unarmed, but rioting, protesters? Past examples of excessive force have often backfired (e.g. Boston 1770, Amritsar 1919, St. Petersburg 1905). If a mob is angry, one should find a way to address their grievances without making matter worse.

Perhaps chicken #1 was pregnant (note that laying unfertilized eggs is a relatively modern development, from human supplied genetic modification).

According to our own sources, pre-dating modern sciences, the multiverse includes many places where intelligent extra-terrestial beings exist. As these extra-terrestials lack American citizenship, if they come to the USA they will be “aliens” (though presumably they are citizens of their home worlds).

I don’t eat hametz while wearing a mask, so no problem.

I am washing the white mask I wear on yuntufs that matches my yuntuf tie. I’ll probably wash the black and blue ones to match the ties I wear on Hol ha-Moed.

One has doubts about masks as health measures but they a great fashion accessories as coordinated with one’s tie.

Whatever you favor, the “filibuster” (requirement of a super-majority in the Senate) is against. The super-majority requirements are likely to block Biden legislation, just as they previously blocked Trump legislation. Many things Trump wanted to do the Democrats consider racist, were blocked by the filibuster. The many administrative laws (executive orders) that were issued since Congress refused to act (due to the super-majority requirement in the Senate), would have been enacted as statutes but for the filibuster.

In general, the super-majority rule protects minority groups who fear the majority will gang up on them and act contrary to their interests. That is probably a good thing.

Until the mid-20th century, men would be arrested for indecent exposure if they went swimming without a shirt. So are the Yidden in 2021 less modest than the goyim were 100 years ago?????

If you exclude the situation where one party wants to stay married (in which case it is arguably premature to talk about a “get”, and that usually is a temporary problem), one way to address the matter would be to have the Beis Din be associated with a “legal clinic” that if the parties cooperate would do all the legal work for getting the divorce (details approved under Beis Din supervision) approved by the government courts, and if one party refuses to go along, to provide legal services to the other party (which in itself, would create a very strong incentive to be cooperative, since no one wants to go to an American court in which your opponent as “deep pockets”). There would be the need to raise money for such legal clinics, and the problem if that parties can’t agree on a Beis Din, though if they each prefer different Beitei Din, that should not be a big problem since most rabbanim get along much better than most divorcing couples. Also, if a divorce is caused by one party going OTD, the other party’s legal bills get paid by the our community. There would also be the mater of “Haseges Gevul” pertaining to frum matrimonial lawyers.

Biden. He was elected fair and square (albeit with the help of the Republicans kicking the ball into their own goal).

Note that while Reagan was suffering from dementia, he successfully reinvigorated the economy that was tottering from stagflation after years of “big government” and launched the policies that result in the Cold War coming to a happy conclusion (freeing many countries from socialist tyranny without spilling a drop of blood).

From this we see that senility seems to have little or no impact on the ability of one to be president. The government follows the policies of the leader (which in the current situation, might be less than ideal given that the Democratic platform calls for destroying the private sector, appeasing our enemies and replacing with civil rights with entitlements to politically correct factions).

and since most non-frum Jews intermarry as often as not, and have been doing so for about 200 years (depending on when their ancestor was OTD), if a non-frum “Jew” has a Jewish surname, it is reasonable to suspect that the person has non-Jewish ancestry on the maternal line

In the United States, approximate 1% (that’s roughly three million) people die every year. And the US death rate is lower than most economically advanced countries (not so much a function of health care as of higher fertility, since death rate is largely a function of age – that’s why Israel has a lower death rate than almost any advanced country).

Covid19 is little more than a “blip”. The US death rate, with Covid19 is still lower that many if not most countries before Covid19. And since overwhelmingly the fatalities are of people retired from work (press reporting of sensational exceptions not withstanding), there should not have been severe economic disruption except for serious government incompetence (blame Trump and Cuomo and all their colleagues – except for programs affecting senior citizens nothing should have been closed down and people should have been told not to panic).

Indirectly. YWN needs to avoid antagonizing most of the “frum” establishment, and they favor going along with the politically correct position that Covid19 is an existential threat to society, and the vaccines are critical for survival. Almost all of their advertisers would be forced to withdraw if YWN did otherwise. If you clash with the “party line”, you get cancelled.

The issue with credibility on Covid19 (especially among frum Jews since we are radically younger than the rest of society, plus our “older than boomers” age group are diminished due to holocaust) is that our personal experience doesn’t reflect the horrendous plagues in the past. This is true of many goyim as well. In past epidemics, most children lost multiple playmates. People of working age were dying so fast that the economy was undermined. In past epidemics, the death rate rose by many multiples (e.g. a smallpox epidemic is 16th century America killed over 50% of the population), whereas with Covid19 the death rate rose by about one-sixth, killing about one in a thousand, and numerous people had Covid19 or were quarantined without getting seriously ill.

Had those in charge not overstated the seriousness of Covid19, and relied on facts and science rather than scare mongering, there wouldn’t have been any issues (there also wouldn’t have been any school closings, any bans on davening, any closing “non-essential” business, and no recession). The real danger is if there ever is a serious public health threat, it won’t be taken seriously.

Nassrallah, like many politicians, likes to let his mouth run. Since he doesn’t need to worry about what the local voters think, he is free to say anything that he wants. If he had some secret weapon or brilliant strategy, the last thing he would do is to announce it in advance.

1. If the election was limited to in-person, verified (at least by signature) voters, there is a good chance that Trump would have won.

2. In states such as Georgia, where Republicans controlled the voting process, the data clearly indicates both that absentee voters were disproportionately Democratic (perhaps reflect a greater germ-phobia among Democrats), but suggest no one did any ballot box stuffing (since had that been the case, the Republicans would have lost badly in local races, and in fact they di rather well. This suggests that many Republicans chose not to vote for Trump.

3. The Republicans failed to effectively campaign for mail-in votes (similar to how the Democrats in 2016 ignored the “deplorables” )

The Tulips played a major role in Netherlands going from being a major world power to a cute little neutral. It would be bad for Yidden if Bitcoin brings the end of America’s role as a great power.

Maybe they should stop using the courts to harass each other, so the courts and resolve real disputes in a timely manner. Adopting the English rule (loser pays the winner’s legal fees) for law suits by or for politicians would probably solve the manner.

ujm: but by the time immigrant children reach adulthood they are so assimilated that it doesn’t make any difference — if you are really concerned about socialist radicalization, work to close down the elite universities. Kids who become hard working stiffs will turn into “deplorables” whose votes are up for grabs

Banks will do what is profitable. If they think branches bring profits, that is what they do. Banks that do not make profits go out of business.

In all fairness, in the 20th century (at least the first part), most Jews in the world relied on “ingredient kashrus”. They look at the label for known non-kosher ingredients. At first there were very few products with formal hecksherim, and even fewer where the item being sold has a kosher label. Even today, many people rely on ingredient kashrus rather than demanding a hecksher.

But now we can find almost anything with a formal hecksher, including most types of alcoholic beverages. And since food processing is much more complicated, labels are more unreliable than ever. So not insist on a hecksher?

Ingredient kashrus belongs to an area where Jews had to shave and try to look like goyim to keep jobs, even if it meant walking three hours to get home on Shabbos during the winter when work ended too late to use transit (and considered yourself fortunate to have a found a job that didn’t require working on Shabbos, since a six-day, 54 hour work week was the norm). It is from an era where wearing a yarmulke in public put you at risk of bodily harm, and precluded almost all possibilities of employment other than working for a frum owned business or a frum institution.

If the Sherry had a hecksher, it would not be an issue.

HaKatan: If housing prices are too high, move to a cheaper location or move to a smaller apartment. If tuition is too high (or rather the “discounts” offered are too low), move to a cheaper school. While it is nice that some frum Jews can afford upper crust areas such as Nassau County or New York City, that does happen to be among the most expensive places to live. Overall in America, there is a steady migration from high-cost areas to affordable areas.

Perhaps should you be asking if there is an upper class frum family financial crisis?

There always has been such a financial crisis, and there always will be. Just say Baruch ha-Shem. Having large families is for us a “feature” and not a “bug”. The law of supply and demand (cf: Adam Smith) will dictate that the level and expense of services offered (the supply) will fall so that it is in equilibrium of what families can afford (the demand), and this will a happen without any fancy committees doing anything.

Note that “middle class” is always a relative term – once it meant that everyone in the family had their own bed, the parents didn’t sleep in the same room as the children, and you had something other than potatoes to eat during the week.

You are confusing Gog uMagog with the three stooges. Perhaps you are watching too much of the goyim’s media which have an absurd focus on “end of the world”. Relax and get back learning and davening and stop worrying so much.