“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l

Thursday, December 8, 2022

AOC Under Investigation Over Possible Ethics Violations

 

AOC is being investigated by Congress over possible ethics violations.

The House Committee on Ethics is investigating NY Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, according to a statement the panel released on Wednesday.

The statement said that the panel will announce its course of action after its organizational meeting in the next Congress.

Although few details have been released, the socialist’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti has been accused of diverting more than $1 million in campaign donations into a slush fund controlled by two private companies registered to him.

A spokesperson for AOC said that she is confident that the case would be dismissed. “The Congresswoman has always taken ethics incredibly seriously, refusing any donations from lobbyists, corporations or other special interests,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The Office of Congressional Ethics forwarded its inquiry into Ocasio-Cortez to the House ethics panel in June. Typically, when that office refers an investigation, it is because the office has reason to believe an ethics law was broken.

Wednesday’s statement was attributed to acting Chair Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Ranking Member Michael Guest (R-Miss.).

The House Committee on Ethics recently voted to extend the investigation, triggering Wednesday’s disclosure.

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

How to scrub your phone number and address from Google search

 


This is important to know in case any of your personal (NOT professional) information gets posted publicly. 

That means if your cell phone number that you don't want clients or anyone you don't know to have comes up in a Google search for your name, you can request this to be removed. 

 You can use this request feature if personal information has been shared (on a website you don't control or in a news story to harm you, for example) against your wishes.

 If you don't have a Google account, use this form to request information be removed from a Google search result. 

 If you do have a Google account, follow these steps.
 1. Go to Google.com and search for your name 

 2. Find the search result that includes personal information (email, phone number, or home address) you don't want to appear in this search result 

 3. Next to the link of every Google search result, you'll see three vertical dots, like this: Tap the three dots to request that Google remove information from a search result.

 4. Tap the three dots to reveal menu options 

 5. Tap Remove result 

6. Tap It shows my personal contact info

 7. Fill out the information (be sure to use the exact information shown on the search request) and submit your request. 

8. Click I'm done You'll receive an email confirmation that your request was submitted within a few hours. 

Requesting this be removed does not guarantee it, but it's helpful to try and remove any personal information you don't want online.

DemonRats Ignore The Biden Crooks and Investigate the Kushner family business dealings

 


Demonrats on a pair of congressional committees have launched an aggressive new effort to obtain information about whether Jared Kushner’s actions on U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf region as a senior White House adviser were influenced by the bailout of a property owned by his family business.

Citing previously undisclosed emails and other documents related to former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, the committees on Monday night sent letters to the State and Defense departments requesting material that they say could shed new light on whether “Kushner’s financial conflict of interest may have led him to improperly influence U.S. tax, trade and national security policies for his own financial gain.”

Hatikva Played in Bahrain

 

Did Arabs and Jews live in peace in 19th century Palestine?

 

I saw once again today the assertion, in an academic paper, that Arabs and Jews lived quite well together in the late 19th century in Palestine. 

I looked at the footnote and it refers to a 2014 paper by Menachem Klein, which brings an impressive amount of evidence for cooperation between the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs, including Arabic words that became part of Palestinian Yiddish and Yiddish words that became part of Arabic, as well as evidence of the groups working together, even politically, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Whenever I read this sort of thing, I wonder how this jives with anecdotal evidence of derision and insults from Arabs to Jews in the 19th century. For example, John MacGregor published in 1870 that "Men in Palestine call their fellows 'Jew' as the very lowest of all possible words of abuse."  

In an 1824 letter from Rev. W. B. Lewis to the London Society, he writes, "Jerusalem is truly miserable, groaning under the tyranny of the oppressor. Jews...are subject to daily insults, and are shamefully and inhumanly oppressed." He then gives page after page of examples of Muslims treating Jews like garbage, stealing from them, the Ottoman authorities falsely accusing Jews and their Rabbinic leaders of petty crimes and torturing them and extorting obscene sums of money as fines. (See below)

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem from 1846-1863, says that Jerusalem Jews were forced to bury their dead at night: - "the usual practice is to pay the gate-keeper to let them out of the town in the middle of the night, and this from fear of having the dead disinterred by Moslems or Christians."

There were pogroms against Jews in 1834 in Hebron and Safed, in 1837 in Safed again, and in 1847 a Jewish boy was accused of a blood libel in Jerusalem.

How can we reconcile the stories of Arab abuse of and attacks on Jews in Palestine with the academics who claim that Jews and Arabs lived so cooperatively?

It appears that before the 1840s, the Jews were indeed treated like dirt. Then things started changing. 
The reason is that the increasing number of European Jews could appeal to their own governments for protection, starting in that decade. Different European powers even competed for influence in the Ottoman Empire and protecting Jews gave them more power. 

Oddly, in 1848 the Russians told their Jewish subjects that they would no longer be protected, and the British consul stepped in to be their protector. This protection made it much harder for Jews to be routinely harassed by the Arabs - being backed by European powers suddenly gave the Jews powers they hadn't had beforehand.

Only after the Jews came under the protection of European states did the Arabs start to treat the Jews with more respect. The Ottoman leaders were no longer able to mistreat most of their Jewish subjects out of fear of creating an international incident.

It is an old story:
 Arabs respect power. When Jews were powerless, Arabs treated them like garbage. Only when they had some protection did the Arabs start to "live with them together in peace." Did the Arabs suddenly become philosemitic? Of course not. But they were practical: The Jews couldn't be attacked with impunity anymore.

And that is the story of Israel in a nutshell. When Israel acts weak, it invites Arab (now, Palestinian) derision and attacks. Acting strong is the only formula for peace. It isn't a peace based on love or friendship, but a peace based on respect. 

It is no different now than in was 200 years ago.

(Some information here comes from Arabs and Jews in Ottoman Palestine: Two Worlds Collide, by Alan Dowty.) 

___________________________________

Here are excerpts of the 1924 letter from W. B. Lewis with many examples of Arab oppression of Jews, most first-hand:

New York Slimes Walks Back False Report on Gaza Fishing Industry

 

New York Times Anti-semitic Cartoon

The New York Times has published an editor’s note correcting its false report that Gaza’s fishing industry is on the verge of collapse due to an Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave.

Using official Palestinian statistics, the media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) proved to the Times that the claim is false. CAMERA provided information indicating that the fishermen have more than doubled their annual catch in the last 15 years. In addition, the number of registered fishing boats has also more than doubled, according to Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA’s Israel’s office.

In a Nov. 27 article, “Amid Israeli Blockade on Gaza a Fishing Fleet Limps Along,” Times correspondent Raja Abdulrahim claimed the Israeli blockade has been “devastating for the Gaza Strip’s fishing industry.”

But CAMERA refuted the claim and provided the Times with research data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics disproving the false statement.

On Dec. 3, the Times printed the editor’s note acknowledging the article omitted important context, leaving the impression that the industry has been devastated. “The current catch is higher than that in the early years of the blockade,” the note reads.

“CAMERA staff are doing the basic research that Times staff should be doing themselves,” stated Andrea Levin, executive director and president of CAMERA. “Abdulrahim’s story claiming Gaza’s fishing industry is collapsing falls completely apart when you look at the facts. But the Times’ impulse to run with any storyline blaming Israel subverts ethical reporting norms and leads again and again to these blunders.”


Dems Secure Senate Majority as Anti-Israel Warnock Wins Georgia

 

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock on Tuesday beat Republican Herschel Walker by a margin of 51.3% to 48.7% in a runoff election, becoming the first full-term first Black senator from Georgia. Warnock, a Methodist pastor, and Medicaid activist, initially won his seat in a 2020 special election, defeating incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler. His win gave the Democrats 50 of the Senate seats, and they ruled the chamber with the help of Vice President Kamala Harris who is the president of the Senate.

Chaidie Leaders of Meron now Attempting to Shift Blame on Police

 

  The senior officers said it will take time because of the huge crowd to get through! 

Why not focus on the actual issue of how FRUM leaders allowed this to happen to begin with?!?! They were warned of the potential disaster but, as usual, they knew better! They have blood on their hands!

In newly released recordings of police discussions which occurred during the hour prior to the Meron disaster in 2021, police can be heard warning their superiors of an impending catastrophe.

Israel’s Kan news revealed the jarring recordings from the half hour preceding the tragic disaster in which 45 people were trampled to death. Reporter Moshe Steinmetz says that the recording demonstrates that the Meron tragedy was not only the result of poor infrastructure and overcrowding, but was also a huge tactical failure on the part of police senior officials, who were warned by their subordinates that the situation was dangerous and they needed more backup forces but did not provide the necessary reinforcements to close the deadly bottleneck at the Dov bridge.

At 12:14 police officers at the bridge said that “its getting very crowded here, there are huge gatherings, people are jostling, come here now.” A similar warning was issued at 12:22, more than 20 minutes before the catastrophe. The warnings became more urgent as the catastrophe grew closer, and the local police headquarters queried what was going on. The police answered that they needed urgent backup, asking: Where are the sleeping officers?” Police further up at the Kohanim porch also noticed the unusual crush and asked for backup to close the porch and stop the masses from exiting the area.

One of the senior officers attempted to calm the juniors, stating “its because of the Hadlakah [Toldos Aharon] it will take at least another half an hour.” The police at the Kohanim porch succeeded belatedly in stopping people from descending but it was too late for the masses near the Dov bridge, who were already being crushed as they attempted to descend. The senior officers were still asking why reinforcements were needed while the juniors said that the entrances needed to be closed because “people are trampling one another.”

Naftali Bennett Sues Rabbi Who Claimed His Parents Are Not Jewish

 

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett has filed a 1 million shekel lawsuit against a rabbi who falsely claimed that Bennett’s parents, Myrna and Jim, were not Jewish.

The defamation lawsuit alleges that the false claims and “appalling epithets and curses” were seen by hundreds of thousands of people. The rabbi has more than 150,000 followers on social media.

In “sermons” posted online, he falsely claimed that Bennett’s mother underwent a Reform conversion in the US, and that he is “worse than a dog,” who is at least loyal.

To illustrate how widespread the claim was, Bennett pointed out that Google users search for his mother are suggested by algorithm to add the words “Christian” or “convert .

Bennett said that his mother, Myrna — whose parents come from generations of Jews, some of whom “were murdered in the Holocaust for being Jewish” — received “many inquiries over the past year in regard to doubts about her Judaism,” which “brought her great pain and sadness.”

Bennett said that damages he receives from the lawsuit will be donated to organizations that assist the families of fallen IDF soldiers.

One million shekel is equal to over $292,000.

Monday, December 5, 2022

UTJ said to request full authority at Meron, site of disaster So they can Cover-up the Faults of the Chareidie Leaders

 

Years before this tragedy, police were warning the Chareidie Askanim and leaders that this Meron was a "tragedy waiting to happen" but the Rebbes refused to listen and in fact fought tooth and nail not to have any police supervision of Meron. They called it "Zionist Intervention." 
All public places where the police are in control, places like the Kotel, Kever Rachel, Mearas Ha'Machpeilah etc are basically places that crowds can safely enter and exit.
We don't really know what happened at Meron, but now we will never find out. The families of the victims must sue every one of these Chassidishe Rebbes in court so that maybe just maybe we would get some of the truth out. 
Chareidim blamed the police and it could be that police did have a hand in this tragedy but now we will never know,

United Torah Judaism MK Meir Porush has requested full responsibility over Mount Meron, a significant religious site in the Upper Galilee, including implementing recommendations made by a committee investigating the deadly disaster during Lag B’Omer festivities there last year, according to a Sunday report.

The Haredi party lawmaker made the request during coalition talks with the Likud party, the Walla news site reported.


Citing sources involved in the talks, the report said the ultra-Orthodox lawmaker wants responsibility over any changes to be made as a result of the findings of the government committee probing the tragic crush at the site in 2021 — which left 45 people dead and more than 150 injured.