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Trump sending armed thugs to Portland made what had been small scale protests into spectacular violence. His thugs even tear gassed Mayor Wheeler who was putting himself at risk trying to calm tthings down. The violence did not subside until the thugs were withdrawn.
“If you’re going to claim that the frum community has in fact complied with the law all along then you must be saying that there has been an resurgence of infections in spite of such compliance. ”
In my neighborhood we DO comply and go beyond what is required, which is what good frum Jews are supposed to do. Indoor minyans have really strict social distance rules. Many minyans are outdoors. No passing around the Torah. Anyone not in a mask is not allowed in. Same for schools: no mask, no entry. Lots of remote learning. Walls torn down for better ventilation and lots of disinfectant everywhere. No public funerals.
And no increase in cases.
This isn’t a burden. I like davening outdoors! It is like the Holy Kotel. And we even have a lot of feral cats running around to remind us of Jerusalem!!!
“churches were also kept closed ”
True. There is a Christian minister who lives two blocks from me. Once while taking my Shabbat afternoon walk a month or so ago, he was sitting on his front yard facing a video camera, recording his sermon to be given remotely to his congregation.
And live theater remains closed. Completely. Shuls are being treated more leniently. The theaters may have a First Amendment case, but not shuls.
“the stabber was found NOT GUILTY and then invited the jurors were invited to celebrate”
He was convicted of a different charge and served ten years in prison for his actions.
“What about Rosa Parks?”
Yes she was arrested. Were it not for the incredible courage of people like here, we would still have segregated buses and trains, all white hospitals, suburbs and law firms with no Jews, and bigots being able to get away with all kinds of bigotry. Trump wants to bring back all white suburbs.
“Someone moves right before an election and they’re not sure where to vote. They ask the county clerk and the clerk gives them the wrong information. So they vote in the wrong place.”
That happened to me once! Some think that I should have gone to prison for that. 🙁
“He’s from the old time doc’s that need definitive Proof.”
And you are from the old time pharma shills who would have let thalidomide into the US to cripple massive numbers of children. It was the Deep State that kept us safe, demanding proof.
In the case of HCQ, we now do have proof — that it is useless against COVID-19.
Another Trump conspiracy theory has been found to be false. Barr’s “unmasking” probe found nothing. That is because it was entirely appropriate to unmask the identity of someone claiming to be representing Trump who was negotiating with a hostile foreign power. That someone turned out to be an unregistered foreign agent whom Trump names as his National Security Advisor anyway, and it took a lie to the Vice President to get him fired.
The criminals are in the Trump Organization.
I have worn an N95 mask with a beard. I also trim my beard really close with an electric trimmer (not an electric razor; I have not shaved since 1986). Remember that pikuach nefesh overrides almost all halachic restrictions and shaving is not one of the exceptions. Good luck.
Wheeler is a good centrist mayor who deserves support rather than derision. But thanks in part to ignorant internet commenters and far right inciters (including Trump) he may lose this election to an actual far left nutjob. There are no other candidates on the ballot.
Somethign like this could repeat in NY if we keep up the vitriol against De Blasio and Cuomo.
I don’t blame Trump directly for the murder of Jews in Pittsburgh and Poway, but his rhetoric has made anti-Semitism acceptable as it has not been in over 50 years. And he has encouraged violence among his supporters, including the current Republican candidate for Governor of Montana who was convicted of assaulting a reporter.
Only self-hating assmilated Jews who have turned their backs on Torah could ever support Trump.
“The white supremacists happened to be on the same side as the conservatives and moderate liberals”
That is a lie. Real conservatives, and moderate liberals, don’t shout, “Jews Will Not Replace Us”. And contrary to Trump, people who shout that are not “very fine people”.
Biden is not the racist candidate in this election.
“When al sharpton incited a mob to murder R’ Yankel Rosenbaum and beat yidden, he was not arrested.”
He wasn’t arrested because he wasn’t there yet. He did plenty of horrible stuff but we don’t need to make up more. Freddy’s Fashion Mart was far worse. And he still hasn’t apologized to Steven Pagones.
Rosenbaum should have survived but the hospital missed one of his stab wounds. 🙁 The person who stabbed Rosenbaum would spend ten years in prison.
“All the Rabbonim I know of and respect have made clear time and time again the importance of following government COVID-19 regulations, such as masks and social distancing.”
Same here.
Rabbi Hershel Schachter in particular has written many tshuvot regarding what we should do during COVID-19, not just regarding masks and social distancing, but also regarding how we should adjust our practices at this time in a way consistent with halachah.
No question, A, as long as he had a broad exception on abortion for the health of the mother as Judaism demands. A is more consistent with traditional Jewish teaching.
Bob Casey or Joe Manchin come closest to A.
“Because they didn’t let him recommend Zinc + HCQ.”
HCQ proved to be a bust. Totally ineffective. Trump recommended it anyway and it helped, well, probably nobody.
“Removal is Not an Abortion!”
According the the anti-abortion Christians whom many commenters here mistakenly follow, it is.
“Trump listened to his advice but decided to reject it and placed a Ban either way.
In hindsight Fauci has stated Trump saved thousands of lives.”
Trump did not ban travel from China in January. He banned travel by Chinese nationals. That is xenophobic and racist. Tens of thousands of people traveled from China to the US after the racist travel ban.
“You wrote Delivery. Why do Abortion?”
In practice a healthy fetus would not be aborted at 34 weeks or later which is when preeclampsia often develops. But it can develop as early as 20 weeks when the fetus cannot survive.
“When it comes to the mitzva of Pidyan Shavuyim party does not matter.”
1) Would it apply to a Jewish serial killer who has been convicted of multiple counts of first degree murder after fair court proceedings? (This does not apply to Pollard but it brings up the question of whether we are obligated to spring every Jewish criminal from prison. My rav o”h was a prison chaplain for 25 years and he hated prisons.)
2) Does it apply when the person is not, in fact, in prison? (Pollard was released almost five years ago, one day before he was supposed to have been released.)
I had a job with a security clearance when Pollard was arrested. Every Jew with any connection to Israel whatsoever immediately became a security risk. Worse, many Jewish groups in America openly defended Pollard’s espionage.
And Donald Trump continues to promote this anti-Semitic dual loyalty canard to this day.
“The Americans threw the book at him.”
No, he actually copped a nice plea deal in which he would plea guilty to a single count of espionage when they could have thrown the book at him and at his then wife, who was also involved in the espionage.
But both Pollard and his then wife broke the terms of the plea deal by giving unauthorized interviews with the media. The judge was infuriated and threw the book at both of them. As he should have.
It should be noted that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after being convicted of spying for an ally. And Ethel was probably innocent.
If we would stop having mass spreading events, and more of us wore masks, he would not be targeting us.
I am attending outdoor minyans. Why isn’t the entire frum world moving its services outdoors? The weather has been remarkably good for this time of year. The holy Kotel is outdoors! The Beit HaMikdash Courtyard was outdoors!!!
Only a fool thinks that COVID is not a serious threat to health. Many of them are now dead.
Trump now says he wants a big stimulus package, throwing under the bus all his trolls who had backed him on rejecting one.
“Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University; Dr. Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and epidemiologist at Stanford University”
Dr. Kulldorff is actually a biostatistician. I used to work with him! He is wrong on this. And note that this was published in the trashy New York Post, not any medical journal.
A controlled experiment was actually done. Sweden didn’t lock down. Its death rate from COVID-19 is far higher than any of its demographically similar neighbors, which did. 5x that of Denmark, 9x that of Finland, 11x that of Norway. No lockdowns and we could easily have a million deaths now in the US. We certainly would have had tens of thousands of more dead here in NYC.
“the Data has proven lockdown are not simply bad policy.
They Are Dangerous.
They Are Killing people.
They Are harming people.”
All false.
“What he did with Lewinsky is considered by many to be assualt.”
Only by people who don’t know the definition of the term. They were both adults and they were both agreeable to the affair.
Clemency for a convicted spy is exactly what will drive most of the few non-Jewish non-evangelical supporters Trump still has into the Biden camp.
“The Torah defines same gender marriage as an abomination.”
No it doesn’t. It defines one particular act of sex between men as an abomination. Other abominations include idols, eating non kosher animals, using a harlot’s wages or profits from sale of a dog to pay for a Temple offering, cross dressing, remarrying your ex wife when she has been married to another man in between, and using false measures to cheat in business. (Trump has personally done the last one, falsifying the value of his assets.)
“The pro-abortion stand of the Democrat party is nothing less then being pro-murder.”
Abortion isn’t murder but the anti-abortion stand of the Republican Party is even more problematic for Jews as it would kill Jewish women who would not be able to get medically necessary abortions.
“How many people died of the flu under Obama?”
The largest number in any year was about 51,000. Trump surpassed that in his first year, with 61,000. COVID is obviously far more deadly.
“the death rate of those infected is in tenths of a percent”
Wrong. Dead wrong. The death rate is more like 3%. That would mean ten million dead Americans if we continue to act irresponsibly.
“He was accused by numerous women of actual assault. ”
Liar. The only somewhat credible allegation was by Juanita Brodderick, and she denied the allegation under oath. Clinton is a seducer, not a rapist.
Retract your motzi shem ra.
“How about you volunteer to work, build a business then pay 100 million dollars to the US Government that you do not owe them.
Better yet make it 200 million.”
If you have a profitable business you will owe taxes. Unless you commit fraud. Trump clearly has committed bank fraud becasue he lied to Deutsche Bank regarding the value of properties — he was telling property tax authorities one thing but the lenders another. That kind of “two sets of books” is the kind of stuff mafia bosses do. And many of Trump’s income tax deductions are highly dubious personal expenses that honest people do not try to deduct. Deutsche Bank is mainly famous today for money laundering so it is no surprise they were still willing to work with Trump.
“he seemingly disagrees with himself every month or so as “new data” becomes available”
That is called being a good scientist — letting the data drive your conclusions. I have personally been doing that in a career that has lasted over a quarter of a century. You don’t double down once your initial hypothesis has been debunked. Many commenters here need to learn that. (For example, hydroxychloroquine has been proven to be a bust.)
“Ever hear of Modern Medicine? There’s NO Such thing as the Mom’s life is in Danger!”
That is because we have legal abortions. Epidemiologic research has estimated that about one in every thousand pregnancies results in an ectopic pregnancy, which is life threatening. Fortunately most emergency departments, including the one in the (Jewish) health system I work for, perform emergency abortions in such instances, usually with methotrexate, a drug also used to treat cancer and autoimmune disese. Other life threatening situations are more rare but they do occur; my wife has had one case in her entire medical career where she had to refer a pregnant woman for such an abortion. My health system performs abortions under those circumstances, too.
Let’s see here….
Andriy Derkach is a leader of a pro-Putin political party in the Ukraine Parliament.
In December 2019, Derkach met with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in an attempt by Giuliani to dig up illicit slanders against the Bidens. Derkach has also been funneling information of questionable veracity to Sens. Ron Johnson and Charles Grassley.
In August 2020, Trump’s own Director of the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center, William Evanina, identified Derkach as a leader of Putin’s attempts to influence the US election this year.
In September 2020, Trump’s own Treasury Department slapped sanctions on Derkach for that very reason, saying that “has been an active Russian agent for over a decade”.
I thank the OP for bringing to our attention the attempts by someone close to Trump to solicit illegal foreign influence into the US electoral process. Trump himself probably knew. Giuliani is clearly the criminal.
No lockdowns in the frum areas in Manhattan or the Bronx. We are wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and holding a lot of outdoor minyans. Schools are mandating masks, breaking down partitiions between classrooms, and keeping kids separated. Not wanting to wear a mask has the same effect as not wanting to wear a yarmulke — child gets sent home.
“I am curious to know why this issue did not concern him with Clinton?”
It did. I publicly said that Clinton should resign for lying about having an affair.
But Clinton only had affairs. Trump has well founded charges of sexual assault against him. He is on tape suggesting to his mistress whom he had knocked up that she have an abortion. He paid hush money to a mistress.
But the worst immorality of all is Trump’s decades long history of cheating in business. Chazal say that business fraud is a more grievous sin that sexual transgressions. And Trump is particularly brazen about this.
That we still support him makes us look like hypocrites.
“So there will be another stimulus, just not now.”
Only if Biden is elected and the Democrats take control of the Senate. The Senate Republicans are opposed to any further actions to help anyone.
“She now comes to the table with a proposal that all Republicans ( and any sane individual) rejected months ago.”
Sane individuals realize that it is too small a stimulus. The Fed has printed seven trillion dollars to prop up the stock market. The rest of us are left to suffer.
Send every American a $10,000 check. Now. That will still be less than half what the Fed has done to prop up the stock market.
“Let me get this straight for months now Pelosi has refused to negotiate at all.”
Wrong. She got a stimulus bill through the House back in May; neither the White House nor the Senate Republicans were willing to talk at all.
Trump proved throughout his entire adult life that traditional morality and compassion are for other people. He only cares about himself and his family members, not about anyone else.
The real scandal is that so many supposedly moral religious people are continuing to support him. This could destroy traditional religion in America.
“its not like their forcing people at gunpoint to have an abortion”
The so called pro-lifers who support Trump would at gunpoint prevent women from having halachically mandated abortions — and have no problem with a thousand people a day continuing to die from COVID-19.
“it was ordered that the protesters be pushed back because it was to close to the white house and the secret service deemed it a threat”
Wrong. It was ordered that protesters be pushed back so that Trump could illegally seize the property of a church for a photo-op. Your synagogue may be next.
“obviously you know zero about trade, because when you put tariffs on materials that are not produced much in the US then you force manufacturers to produce them in the US”
Obviously YOU know zero about trade. That was literally Herbert Hoover’s idea when he signed the Smoot Hawley tariff bill into law. It brought about the Great Depression. It raised prices on imports, started a trade war, and reduced manufacturing. Trump’s tariffs have caused increased costs for American businesses and consumers and required a humongous bailout of farmers. And they caused US manufacturing to stop growing as our export oriented manufacturing sector was damaged by the retaliation that other countries took against the US.
Everyone loses in trade wars.
“the fact that he fires them”
He hired them.
“oh really trumps rallies killed people and was terribly evil but mass protests and riots encouraged by leftists like biden”
You are okay with Trump rallies killing people.
Biden does not support rioting and he has made that clear numerous times.
Regarding protests, it is a fact that the mass outdoor protests did not result in increases in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, or deaths. It actually is one of the things that has proven that COVID-19 is not transmitted easily outdoors when people wear masks.
Don’t get tested, so then when you kill someone you can claim that you didn’t know you were dangerous.
Precisely how does this reflect Jewish values?