Gadolhadorah

Whenever “they” get caught, “they” quickly invoke the “the Dems did it too” defense and rationalizations. Look at Cuomo, look at the mayor of Austin (who held a big chassanah and then flew down to Mexico with the mishpacha on a private jet in the worst month of the Pandemic). As of late today, AOC had raised $6 million to be distributed to low-income families facing whose homes were made uninhabitable from water damage. Others continue to volunteer and help constituents fill out FEMA form for low cost loans. Listen to Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCall’s interview on Meet the Press today commenting on Cruz. Same from most other Republican politicians in Texas. Cruz was uniformly hated on a bipartisan basis for his self-centered, narcissistic approach to politics.

CT Lawyer: I read the OP but I think the front-office staff to a large degree reflects the standards and expectations of the professionals who own the practice. However, as more and more of the previously independent practices are bought out and rolled up into large hospital-owned or regional mega-practices, the physicians no longer feel the same personal obligation for oversight of the reception staff or billing/accounting staff. In the latter case, the administrative staff may not even be onsite and when you call, you are transferred to a centralized billing office in another city or location. As these ownership changes continue and ownership is more concentrated and distant, the teflon effects will worsen as there is less accountability and oversight by medical caregivers and professionals.

The infamous “they” strikes again. I’ve had my share of interactions with younger medical caregivers and maybe I’ve been fortunate, but the large percentage of them have been caring, concerned professionals who take the time to listen and respond to questions. While the realities of modern day medical care economics doesn’t give the the luxury of spending as much time as was the case when I was growing up, they are frequently more accessible via telemedicine and at least in my experience, respond to questions on a timely basis (both via phone or text). Sure, I ‘ve had some who are curt and have zero social skills but I’m sometimes willing to put up with their personalities for the quality of care they offer. Also, the front-office staff of most medical offices needs improvement but a lot of the problem stems from the crazy overlay of government and insurance requirements. Yes, the world of medical care has changed, but so has nearly everything else.

Syag: Great News!! TDS (Trump derangement syndrome) has now been formally recognized by the American Psychological Association and has been assigned an HCPCS Code for insurance reimbursement purposes.

“I don’t think even the mods know anything about us beyond our IP and Email addresses”
I have heard from an adom gadol that the CR Mods (and certain posters) are extremely skilled in Gematria. For example, one of our most esteemed and chashuvah posters adopted the name of the author of the sefer The Baraita of the 32 Rules back in 200 CE (Reb Eliezer). This text (which is sold out on Amazon) enumerated 32 guidelines to be used by meforshim of Tanach. No.29 of 32 explained how through the use of gematria, one could discern much about a social media poster simply by studying the numeric components of his IP address.

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.