Sunday, August 30, 2020
Sheldon Silver at upstate prison some inmates call coronavirus death camp
https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/sheldon-silver-is-at-upstate-prison-with-covid-19-worries/
“These are people who are elderly with serious underlying conditions and it’s just mind-boggling that the prison is not adhering to the US attorney general’s directives,” said Neal Sher, a Manhattan lawyer who has been lobbying for the “compassionate release” of three elderly inmates. “The real threat is that this is a death sentence.”
One prisoner who Sher wants released is Mendel Epstein, a 75-year-old New Jersey Orthodox rabbi who is obese and has high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and impaired kidney function.
“His heart health remains in precarious condition, necessitating
multiple medications daily and rendering him incredibly susceptible to
illness,” wrote Sher in a May letter to the Bureau of Prisons seen by
The Post.
In 2015, Epstein was convicted along with two other Orthodox rabbis of the kidnapping and torture of Jewish men to force them to grant religious divorces or “gets.” His release date is in 2024, according to public records.
Meacham On The DNC And The RNC: Patriotism Vs. Propaganda | The 11th Hour | MSNBC
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Judith Miller: Democrats and Republicans spread fear, warn of disaster if opposing party wins White House
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/republican-democratic-conventions-judith-miller
Whether the ploy works depends on what many Americans fear most — disorder or the coronavirus pandemic
“Be afraid, be very afraid.” As a political independent who closely followed both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, I felt that fear was the underlying theme of both. While there were moments of eloquence and inspirational joy at each gathering, the number of upbeat messages paled in comparison to the harsh attacks and negative warnings issued by both sides.
Trump touts online viewership for GOP convention after trailing in TV ratings
President Trump on Saturday touted online viewership for the Republican National Convention after his speech drew a smaller TV audience than Joe Biden's address, with the GOP saying total viewership across TV and online for its event surpassed that of the Democratic convention.
Republicans said Friday that 147.9 million people watched the four-day GOP convention, which culminated Thursday night with the president's speech on the South Lawn of the White House. By comparison, Biden's campaign said last week that the Democratic convention drew around 122 million total viewers.
Trump blames media after DNC tops RNC in TV ratings
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-blames-media-dnc-tops-rnc-tv-ratings/story?id=72701391
In a series of tweets Saturday morning, President Donald Trump targeted news outlets for correctly reporting that the Republican National Convention and his speech accepting the nomination were beat in TV ratings by the Democratic National Convention and Joe Biden's speech a week earlier.
Trump’s speech at the RNC Thursday night drew 23.4 million viewers compared with Biden’s speech, which drew 24.6 million, according to Nielson ratings. Overall, the average viewership for all four nights of the conventions were also higher for Democrats than Republicans. The RNC had an average 19.4 million viewers while the DNC averaged 21.6 million, according to the data.
Saturday, August 29, 2020
The Biden I Know
https://mishpacha.com/the-biden-i-know/
AJC president Jack Rosen has been hobnobbing with the high-and-mighty for over a quarter century, pressing his case for Jewish concerns and leveraging ties to benefit Israel’s security. Yet even as he admits that Trump has been a faithful friend of Israel, he still thinks his close friend, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, is the Jewish state’s best bet for the next four years. What does he know that we don’t?
“There can’t be too many presidents,” he says, “who are more pro-Israel than Trump — maybe Truman who helped create the State of Israel, you might say.”
But he points to the withdrawal of US troops from Syria last year, ordered by Trump, as something that endangered Israel.
“At the end of the day, moving the capital to Jerusalem may be symbolic, it may have some religious components to it, but there’s nothing in it that moves the problems in any better direction,” Rosen declares determinedly. “It’s good, it’s terrific, it needed to happen.
“On the other hand, you move troops out of Syria, you now have Iran on [Israel’s] border,” Rosen says. “Instead of the US controlling the skies on your border, you have the Russians. So Israel has to contend with Iran on its border and the Russians in the skies. So the end judgment on this will be, as good as Trump is for Israel — and his heart is in the right place — what was the outcome? It’s a balancing act. You get the embassy, you get the Golan Heights, but you also get Iran on the border.”
It’s a precarious argument: The troop withdrawal from Syria ultimately did not prove detrimental for the US, for a variety of reasons. Trump took out Revolutionary Guard head Qassem Soleimani; Tehran is buffeted by tightening sanctions and mass protests; the coronavirus outbreak devastated the Islamic Republic; and a fierce campaign of Israeli airstrikes pushed Iran back from the border and almost out of Syria.
Nevertheless, Jack Rosen is doggedly insistent that Joe Biden’s personal makeup makes him the better choice for Jewish voters.
“I had him at my house last September,” Rosen said. “He got up, and one of the first things he said was, ‘Jack and I disagree on Iran.’ The thing about him is, you could disagree with his policies — I don’t agree with everything he says — but he still has a certain respect for you. Many in the Jewish community, certainly in the Orthodox Jewish community, disagree with his policies, but I think he’ll respect your opinion on it. He has a soul and will respect your pain.