The Way It Iz

Last week, America ended.

Well, not exactly. But the end of the Republic seems to be the message that Democrats are going with. William Barr is a political hack. He is protecting the president better than any of his personal attorneys ever have. (Well, let’s be honest: there wasn’t much competition there to begin with.) But Democrats have painted Barr as a liar and a joke following his testimony in front of Congress regarding his management of the Mueller Report. They don’t like the summary of the report his office issued on March 24. They don’t like his characterization of wrongdoings of the Trump campaign and administration since the Mueller investigation began. They don’t like him. At this point in the game, I think it’s important to look back at the case as a whole from the beginning and see if the Democrats have a point.

In December of last year I wrote a column outlining what I think would happen if the Mueller report came up with no evidence of collusion with Russia. Here is an unedited excerpt of that column: “If the report comes back with no proof that Donald Trump was involved in collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, the left will still believe he is guilty and the right will be convinced he’s innocent. In these days of ‘making the data say what you want it to say,’ it’s much easier to manipulate a narrative than numbers. Since we already do it with numbers, it shouldn’t be so difficult to do it with the Mueller report. The report will undoubtedly show many wrongdoings by the Trump campaign, and even if there is nothing in the report showing collusion, Democrats will still have the opinions of ‘well, he didn’t collude, but I knew he did something.’”

A few weeks ago, I had the unfortunate necessity to spend Shabbos with my daughter in a hospital. And while I am aware that a tremendous amount of political news broke over the past few weeks, I would like to take a break from politics to discuss my experience as an Orthodox Jew spending Shabbos in Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, Long Island. Thank G-d, my daughter is fine, and she received excellent care while in the hospital. Most of what was done was precautionary, and by now the incident is behind us. Also, I would like to make the disclaimer that I am not reviewing the hospital and its staff for their medical prowess; this is just going to be analyzing Winthrop as it relates to being shomer Shabbos in a hospital.

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed close to 400 individual cases of measles in 2019. CNN reported that this is the second-largest number of reported cases since 2000, when the disease was declared to be eradicated. Here, in the Jewish community, we often hear about cases in our communities of individuals traveling to Israel and unfortunately bringing back the virus with them. However, these cases are not restricted to the Jewish community. The CDC reports that in addition to New York and New Jersey, measles outbreaks (defined as three or more cases) are ongoing in California and Washington State. Individual cases have also sprouted in 10 other states across the country.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned from her post in the Trump cabinet. To say that her tenure was controversial is putting it mildly. However, for some reason, any time there is any news surrounding the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Patrol, or ICE, a national discussion about immigration reform automatically ensues. Regardless of how you personally feel about the former secretary and her policies, you probably believe that our current immigration system is broken and needs a tremendous overhaul.