Gadolhadorah

Unfortunately, I think we are headed back to ‘over-regulation” of bank location decisions with the new administration. Specifically, they are prone to using very mechanical rules governing “access to banking” metrics which operate on the theory that “unbanked” individuals are in that status because they lack close physical proximity to a traditional retail bank location. Bank is not a “field of dreams” business where if you build it, “they will come”. In reality, Banks are actually very good at decisions on their retail branches and if they can make money, they will be there quickly. Studies have shown that for most of the “unbanked”, giving them debit cards where balances can be easily tracked on a cheap phone is one of the most cost-effective solutions.

No. Each undocumented voter will get TWO ballots, one to make up for the prior elections in which he/she was unable to cast a ballot.

Seriously, though, if you even bother to read the draft Biden proposal, it will be many years before most of these voters actually are able to earn eligibility for voting.

If we didn’t have too many bank branches, we wouldn’t have new Starbucks locations.

My post-inaugural resolution was to retire the “Trumpkopf” nomenclature (albeit he was not a regular CR poster) and with one or two reversions, have kept my resolution. Its sometimes difficult to separate the commentary from the commentator, especially when the post is explicitly designed to troll and is either so patently false, vacuous or inappropriate, you don’t even want to dignify it with a response.
An no, your never on a “high horse” by advocating civility, although those of us riding around on a kleyn ferd may not always take it that way.

I assume you are referring to the last update (series 7) Apple introduced last year. Problem is those changes were very slight The changes are slight over the Series 6 iPod Touch that came out back in 2015 (mainly a slightly better processor). It is cheap (especially if you can find a Series 6) small, and has a decent speaker and decent speed, but the screen is very cramped, hard to link to Apps and has no cellular connection if your son will need to use it outside of WiFi range.

Perhaps a variation of the OP is whether one who comes to daven to say kaddush on the yahrtzeit of someone for whom saying kaddish iis not a chiyuv gets any priority to be the baal -teffilah or gets an aliyah or kovod over one saying kaddish with a chiyuv or even someone not saying kaddsh at all.

On TV this Am, Graham again tried to walk back his words immediately after the attacked where he unequivocally blamed Trump for the rioting and said “I’m done with him”. Within 48 hours he was saying he really didn’t mean what he said and started blaming ANTIFA, Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris for what happend at the Capitol. Now, he is flying down to Mar a Lago, to be the Trumpkopf’s forgiveness

Edited

Super, super over-simplified: If treif wine, especially fortified wines with a high sugar content (remember all that yayn nesech stuff) soaks into the wood barrels in which it was aged and those barrels are subsequently used to age schnops and the wine in the wood is released and mixes with the schnops, the schnops is arguably “contaminated”. Again, over super simplified analogy.

“…tens of thousands of Cuomo’s victims who are no longer alive”
Are you totally looney tunes or simply feel compelled to continually indulge in Trumpian hyperbole. Suggest your go back and read “Trolling for Dummies’. Rule 1. Always make the post appear credible, albeit at the margin of rational discourse.

Check with the mashgiach ruchani of your kiddush club. In most shuls, he has the most current information and halachic expertise on “spiritual” matters.

“Trump, at worse, encouraged a lawful and constitutionally protected demonstration to get disorderly..”
And as we approach Purim, (which certain CR posters have apparently begun to celebrate 2 weeks early) we have to remember that Haman was engaging in protected speech when he argued to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the yidden—young and old, women and children—and steal their possessions on 13 Adar. In reality, he was only engaged in political hyperbole and was a true ohev yisroel.

Its all relative and depends what you mean by “financial crisis”The 5T is not Monsey or Lakewood. Average family incomes in the 5T is considerably higher than either Monsey or Lakewood. Family size is clearly one factor since 5T frum families are generally MO with fewer kids and a higher percentage of professionals with higher incomes. Also, the cost-of-living is higher in the 5Ts if you use average home sale prices or similar metrics.
The simple answer to the OP question is not so simple. You need to first establish exactly what is meant by “financial crisis” , adopt some uniform metrics on how that crisis is measured etc.

Health: Many Dems spoke out against the mindless looting and rioting in the name of “social justice’. Most members of the northwest delegations have also been demanding that the mayors of Portland and Seattle, along with local DAs get serious rather than catering to a small number of local anarchists. We have our crazies and the Republicans have theirs.

Sadly, anyone considering using USPS for shalach monos clearly made such a decision in an ‘ad shelo yadah” state of mind which would imply that the shalach manos would have even been mailed until after 15 Adar which by definition, means it will arrive late.

BK613. Actually, words do matter and so do the implications of those words.
ConEd and NatGrid are “public utilities’ in the classical sense and have been granted exclusive distribution franchises in the areas they serve and are guaranteed recovery of all their prudently incurred costs plus a market rate or return. No other company can legally erect poles and wires and distribute electricity in their service areas. They used to have a monopoly on sales of energy as well but that market was opened to competition over a decade ago.
Amazon does not have a monopoly and is not guaranteed cost recovery plus a regulated profit by the government. Anyone who doesn’t like their service can purchase cloud or web hosting services from Microsoft or one of at least a dozen other companies. For example, within 10 days of losing Amazon services, they contracted with another provider.
Most lawyers agree that the ONLY legal course of action for the type of issue you cite would be under the Federal Trade laws and even then, the burden would be difficult to show they had a pattern of misleading consumers in the application of their standards of conduct. In Parler’s case, Amazon had warned them about the need for a capability to moderate and delete postings explicitly advocating violence and they refused to take timely action. The FTC, however, doesn’t have legal authority to tell Amazon how those standards should be applied as between political messaging, hyperbole etc. Amazon is not subject to First Amendment laws as would a government agency enforcing its rules.

BK613: You are using terminology a bit too broadly. I think you meant to say you thought there was merit to regulating “the internet” as a “public utility” rather than a “public good”. First, there is no single commodity or service that constitutes “the internet”. There are ISPs, social media platforms, cloud service providers, a gazillion Aps, etc. Next, a “public good” is a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization and the provider is unable to capture the value of the benefits it offers since it doesn’t lend itself to exclusion via pricing. A “public utility” is an essential service with high barriers to entry and where there are social benefits to granting franchise service areas to monopoly providers in return for cost-based regulation, Either way, I’m no sure any component of internet service lends itself to such regulation, For example, ISPs were once limited to copper wire and then a wide range of optical cable providers but can also be offered over the airwaves.
Server farms and cloud service require purchasing a bunch of servers in a large air-conditioned building with good electrical service (as Amazon has done all over norther Virginia). What are you going to “regulate”.

Lower tuition: You can safely send shalach monos via USPS. Although they are guaranteed to arrive before the sedorim, perhaps consider some really good buys on leftover macaroons from last year.

Putting aside the mathematical skills of common saychel et. al., does anyone who has looked at the YWN news page in the past 48 hours really believe that its OK to participate in large gatherings for Purim or any other reason right now, irrespective of which Rav may have endorsed the same or hopefully urged against it? It seems like there has been an acceleration in the number and rate of chashuvah rabbonim having been niftar from Covid, or maybe its just my imagination.

Common Saychel: Thanks for the vote of confidence. My most recent test scores were at 0.738 percent so I am well above your threshold for recognition of my psak on foregoing shalach monos this year.

There are anecdotal reports of several smaller and poorly funded yeshivos permanently closing due to Covid related issues. However, the OP seems to imply the numbers are much greater. Most are struggling with local shutdown orders and dealing with the same difficulties of distance/remote learning but I’m skeptical that large numbers involving major schools have closed their doors.

“some people just got out of hand”
According to the FBI, SOME=approximately 700-800 individuals directly engaged in breaking doors and windows to enter the Capital and nearby office buildings, physically assaulting police and vandalizing the interior or the Capital. Otherwise, just a few ordinary guys with funny red hats and camo jackets engaging in peaceful protests.

Yup….everyone else “knows Trump won the 2020 election”. Even the 78 Federal and State Judges (22 appointed by Trump) in 58 separate cases, the Attorney General, FBI director and head of the federal cyber aency, ALL TRUMP Appointees, etc. all agreed that Trump really won. After the Senate trial (where most of the courageous Republican Senators will vote to acquit) let the poor guy live out his remaining years in Florida with all his eyniklekh watching reruns of MAGA rallies on OAN.

Grenell was among the biggest Trump sycophants and grossly unqualified to serve in a senior intelligence capacity. Devos at least knew something about the subject matter of education although she spent 4 years trying to defund the public schools at the expense of private schools along with enriching private online colleges who defrauded their students.