Duckworth to Trump: I won't be lectured by draft dodger

Trump's powerful message of rage

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/04/opinions/trump-mount-rushmore-speech-monuments-rhetoric-dantonio/index.html

 

Breathe easy, America. President Donald Trump's got this. A deadly pandemic is tearing through the country, but the statues are going to be all right.

Trump swooped into the heartland on Friday and delivered this news, along with a message of rage at the foot of Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Ignoring the fact that nearly 130,000 Americans have already died from Covid-19, with new cases topping 50,000 a day, he stoked fears of an "angry mob" engaged in "a merciless campaign to wipe out our history." In an address that could be called "American Carnage II" for following the emotional blueprint he laid out in his inaugural address, Trump declared that federal officers would be dispatched to protect monuments and statues wherever they were threatened.

Trump's 40-minute speech was a master class in rhetorical deception. He lumped together the racists of the Confederacy with the figures on Mt. Rushmore, insisting they are all being reconsidered in the same way. Several elected officials have ordered the removal of Confederate monuments in an effort to recognize the painful legacy of slavery, while the debate over monuments of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt is more nuanced, given their positive contributions to the nation. No sweeping effort is being made to remove all of these monuments and to suggest one exists amounts to sounding a false alarm.

In his speech, Trump appeared to want to associate himself with the more admired figures of the past; as he spoke of Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others, Trump sounded like a fifth-grader reading random pages of a history book. There was Washington crossing the Delaware, Jefferson dispatching Lewis and Clark and Roosevelt overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal.

In the simpleton's view of history offered by Trump, there is no room for the slaves owned by Washington and Jefferson or for Roosevelt's white supremacy. According to this perspective, sins and flaws must be denied; otherwise the greats of history cannot be honored. This is, of course, what a child might think upon learning that his or her parents are not quite perfect. But with maturity, children, like citizens, can both revere their heroes for their strengths and criticize them for their failings -- and judge who, in the end, deserves to be on a pedestal.

Kansas paper published by Republican posts cartoon likening masks order to Holocaust

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/04/kansas-paper-republican-cartoon-masks-holocaust

A Kansas newspaper whose publisher is a county Republican chairman posted a cartoon on its Facebook page likening an order from the state’s governor requiring people to wear masks in public to the round-up and murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

The cartoon on the Anderson County Review’s Facebook page depicts Democratic governor Laura Kelly wearing a mask with a Jewish Star of David on it, next to people being loaded on to train cars. Its caption is: “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask ... and step on to the cattle car.”

How fear of a US retreat from the Mideast is driving Netanyahu toward annexation

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-fear-of-a-us-retreat-from-the-mideast-is-driving-netanyahu-toward-annexation/

 

Why is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so keen on annexation? Theories range from the psychological — he’s seeking a legacy — to the political — to distract the public from his corruption trial — to the ideological — he’s an expansionist ideologue empowered by a right-wing American administration.

Some have spoken about the “window of opportunity” represented by the remaining months of the Trump presidency — assuming, as most Israelis do, that Donald Trump is not reelected.

Trump gives divisive 4th of July speech as US coronavirus cases soar | DW News

Who wrote the Torah?

     Bava basra 14b) Who wrote the Scriptures? — Moses wrote his own book and  Balaam and Job. Joshua wrote the book which bears his name and [the last] eight verses of the Pentateuch.19 Samuel wrote the book which bears his name and the Book of Judges and Ruth. David wrote the Book of Psalms, including in it the work of the elders, namely, Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, Heman, Yeduthun, Asaph,
 (22) ספר פרי צדיק פרשת בלק - אות ב
 דאיתא בגמרא (ב"ב י"ד ע"ב) משה כתב ספרו ופרשת בלעם ופירש"י אף על פי שאינן צורכי משה ותורתו וכו' וקשה למה נקט דוקא פרשת בלעם יותר משאר סיפורים שבתורה ככל ספר בראשית ואם בשביל צורך ישראל גם פרשת בלעם לצורך ישראל גם נזכרו אלה המלכים אשר מלכו וגו' וכהאי גוונא וכמו דחשב בזוהר הקדוש (בהעלותך ק"ב ב') מילין דהדיוטין כגון מילין דעשו מילין דהגר וכו' גם למה נקרא פרשת בלעם ולא פרשת בלק כמו שאנו קורין פרשה זו פרשת בלק. וכן הוזכרה בלשון זה בגמרא (ברכות י"ב ע"ב) בקשו לקבוע פרשת בלק בקריאת שמע וכו' גם בזוהר הקדוש שם מילין דבלק מילין דבלעם ובע"י כתב בשם ריטב"א שהיה ספר מיוחד שנקרא פרשת בלעם. וזה קשה לומר שהרי כל הספרים לבד התנ"ך לא ניתן לכתוב וקרי להו ספרים החיצונים. אך נראה הענין על פי מה שכתב בספרי (פרשת ברכה) ולא קם נביא עוד בישראל כמשה אבל באומות העולם קם ואיזה זה בלעם וכו' והוא על פי מה שכתב (ספרי מטות) שהנביאים נתנבאו בכה אמר מוסיף עליהם משה שנתנבא בזה הדבר. והיינו דהנביאים נתנבאו בכה אמר שמתחילה שמעו הנבואה מהשם יתברך ואחר כך אמרוה ומשה נתנבא בזה הדבר, היינו שבשעה שאמר הנבואה אז שכינה מדברת מתוך גרונו, והיינו זה הדבר כמורה באצבע ובזוהר הקדוש (פרשה זו ר"י ב') הרי כ"ה וכו' דכד תפתח פומך היא תמלל מילין וכו'. והיינו שהוא לא היה מדבר רק השכינה הוא המדברת. וזהו הענין מה שנאמר מקודם במאמר ה' לבלעם ואך את הדבר אשר אדבר אליך אותו תעשה ומה לשון תעשה והוה ליה לומר תדבר. ומקודם לעשות קטנה או גדולה שייך לשון עשיה אבל כאן שהוא רק דיבור מהו הלשון תעשה. אך הוא על פי האמור שהוא לא ידבר רק השכינה והוא יהיה עושה רק תנועות מוצאות הפה ועל דרך שאמרו (ב"מ צ' ע"ב) עקימת פיו הויא מעשה. ואחר כך במאמר המלאך לבלעם אשר אדבר אליך אותו תדבר כתיב


תלמוד בבלי מסכת בבא בתרא דף יד עמוד ב
ומי כתבן? משה כתב ספרו ופרשת בלעם ואיוב; יהושע כתב ספרו ושמונה פסוקים שבתורה;

רבינו גרשום מסכת בבא בתרא דף יד עמוד ב
ופרשת בלעם. אף על גב דבלעם גופיה הוה נביא. שמונה פסוקים שבתורה מן וימת משה. על ידי עשרה זקנים ועל ידי אדם הראשון. על ידי אדם הראשון היינו מזמור שיר

The Consequences of Attending a Trump rally - Stories from a Super-spreader

Disunity on display as US riven by divisions marks independence

https://www.timesofisrael.com/disunity-on-display-as-us-riven-by-divisions-marks-independence/

 

Demonstrators chanting “Black Lives Matter” exchanged words with activists waving pro-Trump signs outside a fortified White House as America’s Independence Day was marked Saturday in Washington and elsewhere by confrontations and disunity.

In Seattle, one woman was killed and another was seriously hurt when a speeding car barreled into a Black Lives Matter protest. In Baltimore, protesters yanked a statue of Christopher Columbus free and threw it into the city’s harbor, and in Washington, US President Donald Trump railed against protesters as the Independence Day holiday put some of the nation’s deepest divisions on display.

Republican Governors Hate Themselves For Taking Trump's Advice

'Shattered The Previous Record': Florida Records More Than 11,000 Coronavirus Cases In One Day

'Trump Is A Threat To Our Nation’: Hundreds Of Ex-Staffers Under George W. Bush Endorse Biden

Incitement? Hatred? Look no further than Israeli campuses

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/282961

 

Here in our snug little corner of the Middle East, we often cry foul about the plethora of anti-Israel injustices occurring at universities worldwide, and for good reason. These wrongdoings have been steadily rising for years, and continue to threaten Jewish and Zionist students. However, a bastion of misinformation and terrorist sympathizers exists right here in our own backyard that doesn’t face nearly the opposition it should: Israeli universities.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the

‘Almost hard to believe’: Joe Biden attacks antisemitism on the left in US and UK

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-antisemitism-us-uk-israel-trump-palestine-a9524056.html

Joe Biden has issued criticism against those whose condemnation of Israeli politics veered towards antisemitism.

“Criticism of Israel’s policy is not antisemitism,” the presumptive Democratic nominee for president told donors on Tuesday. “But too often that criticism from the left morphs into antisemitism.”

 

From Left to Right, Jewish Groups Condemn ‘Repellent’ Black Lives Matter Claim of Israeli ‘Genocide’

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/from-left-to-right-jewish-groups-condemn-repellent-black-lives-matter-claim-of-israeli-genocide

On Monday, an alliance of groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement unveiled their first official platform. The 40,000-word manifesto contained many recommendations, including concrete policy proposals, for rectifying the wrongs perpetrated against America’s African-American citizens in the past and present. Unfortunately, the platform also contained a vicious bigoted slur against the Jewish state, which the document’s foreign policy section accused of perpetrating “genocide” against Palestinians. (The platform also labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and joined with the BDS movement in calling for the total academic, cultural, and economic boycott of the country—a demand made for no other state.)