Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Trump’s social media account shares video referencing ‘unified reich’

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trumps-social-media-account-posts-video-referencing-a-unified-reich-6707b59b

A video shared by a social-media account of Donald Trump referenced imaginary headlines and a “unified Reich” in the context of him winning the election in November.

Fulfilling the Vision: Rabbi Steinsaltz’s Writings and Teachings are Accessible Online

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/390001

Rabbi Even Israel shares that one of the first to give his approbation for the Steinsaltz Talmud was American posek hador Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. “He said that the pictures and notes make it very useful for the layman, but especially so for Torah scholars.”

Trump Hilariously Claims He ‘Doesn’t Freeze!’ in Viral Gaffe Pushback

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hilariously-claims-he-doesnt-freeze-in-viral-gaffe-pushback

Footage of Trump’s performance—in which he stopped speaking for around 35 seconds while music played—was shared on X by the Biden-Harris campaign. The post accused the former president of playing “QAnon music during his bizarre slur-filled NRA speech,” but did not mention him freezing. Others did, however, including one from an account named “Biden’s Wins” which said Trump “just glitched out and froze at his rally tonight” and accused him of being “unfit for office” and “senile.”

Prosecuting Netanyahu Has Risks for International Criminal Court

 https://www.wsj.com/world/prosecuting-netanyahu-has-risks-for-international-criminal-court-2f69bbd3?mod=hp_lead_pos2

On Monday, Graham and Coons joined President Biden in condemning Khan’s move against Netanyahu and his defense chief, Yoav Gallant, who the prosecutor alleges committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by using starvation as a tactic against civilians in Gaza. The charges don’t include genocide, although South Africa has made that allegation against Israel in a separate proceeding before a United Nations tribunal, the International Court of Justice. 

US offers condolences over Iran chopper crash, blasts Raisi’s human rights record

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-offers-condolences-over-iran-chopper-crash-blasts-raisis-human-rights-record/

Explaining the decision to offer official condolences in a subsequent briefing, Miller said the US does not want to see anyone die under such circumstances.

However, he stressed that Raisi was a “brutal participant in the repression of the Iranian people for nearly four decades.”

“Some of the worst human rights abuses occurred during his tenure as president,” Miller added.

Monday, May 20, 2024

RFK Jr. suggests COVID-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to avoid Ashkenazi Jews

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/rfk-jr-suggests-covid-19-was-ethnically-targeted-to-avoid-ashkenazi-jews/

During a dinner with journalists, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. floated a conspiracy that the COVID-19 virus was “ethnically targeted” to mostly spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, according to video released Saturday.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said at the event Thursday in New York City, footage of which was published by the New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” he suggested.

RFK Jr. on people to blame for COVID: ‘We know who they were and they weren’t Jewish’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/rfk-jr-on-people-to-blame-for-covid-we-know-who-they-were-and-they-werent-jewish/

Kennedy, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential candidate, was responding to mounting backlash against his claim that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to avoid Jews and Chinese people. That remark, made without evidence at a campaign event earlier this month on the Upper East Side, led to criticism from a range of figures including Jewish leaders and Democrats in Congress. He has denied that it was antisemitic.

Biden has fought a pandemic before. It did not go smoothly.

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/04/joe-biden-contain-h1n1-virus-232992

It was April 2009 and the 3-month-old Obama administration was desperately grappling with the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression when homeland security adviser John Brennan arrived at the Oval Office to warn the president and Vice President Joe Biden of a new crisis: H1N1, the swine flu virus, was showing signs of rapid spread in Mexico, while cases were popping up in California and Texas.

Brennan pointed out that the Spanish flu — the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history — was an H1N1 strain. “It made their eyebrows go up,” Brennan says now, recalling Biden’s reaction in particular.

Body of President Raisi to be moved to city of Mashhad on Tuesday

 https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/raisi-iran-president-helicopter-crash-05-20-24/index.html

The body of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the other victims of Sunday's helicopter crash will be transferred on Tuesday from Tabriz to the northeastern city of Mashhad, where Raisi was born, according to Fars news. 

A large public ceremony is scheduled to take place at a prayer hall in Tabriz at 4 p.m. local time on Monday, Fars news reported. 

Therapeutic nihilism

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_nihilism#:~:text=Therapeutic%20nihilism%20is%20a%20contention,of%20their%20ills%20through%20treatment.


Perer Watson (Modern Mind) writes that one of Freud's radical ideas was that treating disease was beneficial.

A less familiar aspect of Viennese intellectual life that helped shape Freud’s theories was the doctrine of ‘therapeutic nihilism.’ According to this, the diseases of society defied curing. Although adapted widely in relation to philosophy and social theory (Otto Weininger and Ludwig Wittgenstein were both advocates), this concept actually started life as a scientific notion in the medical faculty at Vienna , where from the early nineteenth century on there was a fascination with disease, an acceptance that it be allowed to run its course, a profound compassion for patients, and a corresponding neglect of therapy. This tradition still prevailed when Freud was training, but he reacted against it. 13 To us, Freud’s attempt at treatment seems only humane, but at the time it was an added reason why his ideas were regarded as out of the ordinary. Freud rightly considered

Stefanik Rages at Fox News Host For Bringing Up Her Past Trump Hatred

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/elise-stefanik-rages-at-fox-news-host-shannon-bream-for-bringing-up-her-past-trump-hatred?ref=home?ref=home

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) attacked Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream on Sunday after Bream brought up a December 2022 New York Times article that chronicled Stefanik’s transformation from a moderate Republican to a Donald Trump acolyte—one that cited Stefanik’s own public comments attacking Trump.

Iran's President Raisi killed in helicopter crash

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-801726

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in the country's northwest on Sunday, Iranian state media agencies and government officials reported on Monday morning.

Raisi's death was reported along with the deaths of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, among others. According to Mehr, all passengers on board were killed.

The other officials who were killed include Seyyed Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the Islamic Republic's representative to the East Azerbaijan province, and Malek Rahmati, the province's governor. The aircraft's pilot and co-pilot were also killed.

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Helicopter carrying Iran’s president suffers ‘hard landing’

 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/19/helicopter-iran-president-hard-landing-00158791

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. Some began urging the public to pray for Raisi and the others on board as rescue crews sped through a misty, rural forest where his helicopter was believed to be.

The likely crash comes as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Meanwhile, Iran has faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.

Aircraft carrying Iranian President Raisi crashes, state media says

 https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/raisi-iran-president-helicopter-crash/index.html

Rescuers have not reached the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and have no update on their status, according to Iran government spokesperson Ali Bahadori Jahromi.