President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday gave conflicting assessments of a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, as they said they were waiting on the other to act.
Trump told reporters that a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement was “sitting on Nancy Pelosi’s desk” and that she was refusing to advance it under orders from labor unions.
Several hours later, Pelosi described a much different process, saying she was awaiting final decisions from Trump’s U.S. trade representative after months of negotiations.
“We are within range of a substantially improved agreement for America’s workers,” Pelosi said. “Now, we need to see our progress in writing from the trade representative for final review.”

Paying a Shadchan

by Rabbi Berach Steinfeld

Rabbeinu Yonah (ben Avraham) of Gerondi, France(1200 [or 1180]-1263). The Ramban’s mother and Rabbeinu Yonah’s father were siblings. Many years later, the Ramban’s son, Rav Shlomo, married the daughter of Rabbeinu Yonah. Thus, the two great rishonim were mechutanim as well as first cousins. He was a student of Rav Shlomo ben Avraham Min Ha’Har. When King Louis XIV of France, “Saint” Louis,” burnt all the copies of the Talmud in Paris in the Square of the Louvre, Rabbeinu Yonah, one of the Rambam’s main detractors, felt that the events in Paris were a sign that he and the other opponents of the Rambam were seriously wrong.

More than 60 doctors have signed an open letter expressing “serious concerns about the physical and mental health of Julian Assange,” who is being held at a high-security British prison.
The founder of WikiLeaks was evicted from the Ecuadoran Embassy in London earlier this year and faces possible extradition to the United States on hacking charges.
The doctors, who hail from the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Sri Lanka and Australia, demanded that Assange be taken to a university teaching hospital for assessment and care and argued that he was not fit to stand trial next year. They said years of medical assessments and reports on Assange’s health informed their complaint.


In retrospect, it was a mistake to start with the sledgehammer.
That’s what Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has figured out since last week’s debut of the electric Cybertruck, an unveiling equally characterized by intrigue and schadenfreude. Musk had described the futuristic creation as “really tough — not fake tough.” But two of the Cybertruck’s supposedly unbreakable windows shattered when lead designer Franz Von Holzhausen hurled a steel ball at them during a demo, to Musk’s dismay and the internet’s delight.
Musk muttered an expletive and offered a joke before finishing his presentation in front of the broken windows.
“We’ll fix it in post,” he said.

Media pundits cry for impeachment as Nancy Pelosi pushed to avoid it.
WATCH:

Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not need to resign or take a leave of absence as interim prime minister due to the indictments against him.
“There is no practical relevance for a prime minister’s resignation during an interim government,” Mandelblit said in his legal decision about whether or not Netanyahu needed to step down as the head of a caretaker government.
“Therefore, in the current circumstances, the question of a temporary leave of absence should likewise be left in the political-public sphere, and there is no justification at this time for the attorney general to rule that the prime minister is unable to carry out his duties,” the statement said.

The federal investigation into two associates of Rudy Giuliani is exploring a wide range of potential crimes – includingwire fraud and failure to register as a foreign agent – as prosecutors dig into the pair’s interactions with the president’s personal lawyer and the main pro-Trump super PAC, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Giuliani’s dealings with the two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, are being investigated by federal prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office of the Southern District of New York. That office has already filed campaign finance charges against Parnas and Fruman and accused them of conspiracy and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission.

The mother of an Israeli woman imprisoned in Russia on drug-smuggling charges has asked President Vladimir Putin to pardon her after he snubbed repeated pleas from Israel’s embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, handed Putin a letter from Naama Issachar’s mother, Yaffa, asking for clemency at a Kremlin meeting last week. A copy of the request signed Nov. 18 seen by Bloomberg asks Putin “with all the pain of a mother’s heart to pardon my daughter and return her to her family.”

https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/MMuruRQuybMe0z7u.mp4
President Trump on Monday welcomed to the White House the military working dog wounded in last month’s raid against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria.
“Conan came over from the Middle East,” Trump said at an impromptu ceremony at the White House Rose Garden, referring to the Belgian Malinois dog by its name. “We just gave Conan a medal and a plaque.”
“Conan is a tough cookie. And nobody is going to mess with Conan,” Trump said.
The president joked that Conan was trained to attack if reporters opened their mouths, and later said to one journalist that he was lucky the dog was not in a bad mood.

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