Congress split into two different hemispheres

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/congress-republicans-democrats-two-hemispheres

 So, there are two distinct hemispheres on Capitol Hill now. One where lawmakers appear to make progress and may yet solve some seemingly intractable political and policy issues. Infrastructure. Police reform. Protecting the Capitol. Even probing the riot itself – although House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,R-Calif., now says he opposes that package.

And then there is the other hemisphere where the wounds of January 6 and the November election never seem to scab over.

 Sometimes, lawmakers may even cross over into both hemispheres, depending on the issue or the politics. It’s not uncommon for there to be dichotomies on Capitol Hill. Strange bedfellows. Members working together on one set of issues. Opposing each other – sometimes vehemently – on others.

But rarely has it been so personal. So raw. So exposed.

And that’s why these distinct hemispheres may never merge.

Media torches Marjorie Taylor Greene for Holocaust analogy after normalizing Nazi comparisons for past 4 years

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/media-torches-marjorie-taylor-greene-for-holocaust-analogy-after-normalizing-nazi-rhetoric-for-past-4-years

 After Greene had doubled down on trivializing the Holocaust, making the analogy that vaccine passports were similar to the yellow star Jews wore during the Holocaust, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as well as other Republican leaders, condemned her "appalling" comparison and other top GOP lawmakers followed suit.  

Greene's comments follow years of news organizations normalizing such hyperbolic rhetoric towards former President Trump, his voters, and Republican politicians for the past four years

Even the Holocaust isn't out-of-bounds in Marjorie Taylor Greene's age of outrage

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-holocaust-outrage/index.html

 In many ways, Greene's behavior -- after being stripped by a Democratic-led House of her committee assignments for past anti-Semitic statements and condoning violence against Democratic leaders -- is in the image of Trump.

She seems to pick the most incendiary possible comment, designed to attract outrage and attention, and that brings down a media storm -- which she (and Trump) then turns on its head to suggest she is the one being persecuted.

"The media and Democrats and everyone feeding into it is allowing them to hide the truth, which is the digusting (sic) anti-semitism within the Democrat Party," Greene said in a tweet thread on Tuesday.

As is often the case in such controversies, her statement, which was really a new attack filled with rage, contained an apology that was not an apology.

"Sorry some of my words make people uncomfortable, but this is what the American left is all about," Greene wrote. The Georgia lawmaker's firebrand reputation has made her a celebrity in conservative media -- and one of her party's most prolific fundraisers since she arrived in Washington in January.

The next likely stage of the latest Greene saga could be expected to feature pro-Trump media propagandists claiming that "mainstream" journalists are willfully misinterpreting her remarks, powering new disinformation on biased news networks that helped to convince millions of Republicans that Trump's lies about a stolen election are true.

White supremacists, far-right groups behind most US domestic terror incidents in 2020, group says

 https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/america-in-crisis/white-supremacists-far-right-groups-behind-most-us-domestic-terror-incidents-in-2020-group-says

 The vast majority of domestic terror events that have taken place in 2020 were conducted by white supremacist groups and other "like-minded extremists," according to a study by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

The CSIS, which describes itself as a "bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization," added in its study that while there has also been an increase in terror plots conducted by "anarchist" or "anti-fascist" groups this year, they accounted for 20% of domestic terror plots.

Long Island rabbis accused of ‘Mafia-like’ methods in kosher turf battle

 https://nypost.com/2021/05/23/long-island-rabbis-accused-of-mafia-like-methods-in-kosher-turf-battle/

A clique of rabbis on Long Island are being accused of Mafia-like tactics to maintain what amounts to a monopoly over the local kosher certification process — sparking a twisted turf war that has outraged local residents and businesses alike, The Post has learned.

A lawsuit filed last month by Chimichurri Charcoal Chicken — located on the busy Rockaway Turnpike across from a McDonald’s — claims the rabbis behind the Vaad Hakashrus of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway ordered observant residents to stop eating at the chicken joint last year after it started using a competing certification service.

 

Jewish groups sound alarm on rise in antisemitic hate crimes amid tensions between Israel, Hamas

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/05/22/israel-hamas-conflict-jewish-groups-sound-alarm-antisemitism-us/5220334001/

 Five Jewish groups penned a letter to President Joe Biden on Friday expressing concern about the recent surge of antisemitic hate crimes in the U.S. amid the military confrontation between Israel and Hamas, which agreed to a cease-fire this week.

The American Jewish Community, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, Hadassah and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America called on the president to use his platform to condemn antisemitism and take a number of actions to combat anti-Jewish hate in the U.S.

"We are grateful for the current ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, but we fear that the way the conflict has been used to amplify antisemitic rhetoric, embolden dangerous actors and attack Jews and Jewish communities will have ramifications far beyond these past two weeks," the groups wrote.

For Orthodox Brooklyn’s private police, a code of silence hides domestic abuse

 https://forward.com/news/470033/for-orthodox-brooklyns-private-police-a-code-of-silence-hides-domestic/

 New York’s Community District 12, which covers the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, has by far the city’s lowest reported rate of domestic violence: 459 incidents per 100,000 residents in the most recent year the police department has published data.

But that doesn’t mean the largely Haredi community does not have a domestic violence problem. In fact, an analysis of crime data and court records, coupled with interviews of abuse victims, social workers, police officers and experts, show that the low rate instead reflects a code of silence in the insular religious enclave — and, until recently, a longstanding — if unwritten — agreement between the authorities and Orthodox leaders to let the community handle the problem internally.

“In Borough Park they like things taken care of in-house,” said Yael Machtinger, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies domestic violence in religious communities. “It’s definitely part of the culture that they don’t really want to be airing out their dirty laundry.”

‘Anti-Semitic Dog Whistle’: Joy Reid On Marjorie Taylor Greene Comment

'Don't you dare speak for me': Berman fires back at Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene doubles down on mask-Holocaust comparison

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/306804

 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia put the call out for “rational” Jewish people to back up her claim that mask mandates are like the Holocaust.

Her colleagues think that’s nuts.

The latest controversy involving the freshman Republican lawmaker started on Friday when she appeared on a podcast hosted by Christian Broadcasting Network’s chief political analyst, David Brody, to discuss an order by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, that Congress members who refuse to wear masks on the floor must provide proof of having taken the coronavirus vaccine.

המיסיונר שהתחפש לחרדי, הוריד את התחפושת

 https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1225130

המיסיונר שהסעיר את העולם היהודי בכך שחי חיי שקר כחרדי עם משפחתו, התגלה היום בבית שמש כשהוא ללא התחפושת, על פי עדי ראיה, הוא חיפש אפשרות לעבור למקום, וביקר במועצה המקומית, במתנ"ס ובחנויות בסביבה.

תושבים ברמת בית שמש ג' חוששים מהאיש שהתגלה כלא יהודי לאחר 10 שנים שחי בתחפושת חרדית, האיש אמנם הוריד את התחפושת, אך לא ברור מה תוכניותיו.

Study: 20 years later, Rabin assassination conspiracy theories have risen dramatically online

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/study-20-years-later-rabin-assassination-conspiracy-theories-have-risen-dramatically-online-430141

 “The Hate Report”, an online report compiled by the Berl Kaznelson Foundation, has found that out of 90,000 mentions of Rabin on the Internet and social media since the beginning of the year, some 22,000 showed support for conspiracy theories surrounding the murder, 9,000 said assassin Yigal Amir is innocent, 1,800 called for him to be released, and the majority of those 22,000 said that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) or Shimon Peres were directly responsible for his murder.

Some 200 people expressed their belief that Yitzhak Rabin is still alive.

 

Only 60% of Israelis think Yigal Amir murdered Rabin — poll

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/only-60-of-israelis-think-yigal-amir-murdered-rabin-poll/

 The case against Amir was clear-cut. He was caught on video raising a gun to Rabin. He calmly confessed to the police, re-enacted the crime for them, and never recanted his testimony. 

 Fringe conspiracy theories have emerged over the years positing a number of possibilities other than Amir being the assassin. The theories rely on some purportedly ambiguous facts surrounding the night of the murder: claims that the bullets were blanks, witnesses who say they didn’t see blood at the scene, an abnormally long drive to a very near-by hospital. 

Both the court that convicted Amir and the subsequent Shamgar Commission, established to investigate the chain of events leading up to the assassination, rejected the conspiracy claims, and concluded that Amir was guilty of murder.

Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin_assassination_conspiracy_theories

Criticisms of the conspiracy theories

There are three types of criticisms of the conspiracy theories. The most common type refutes and relativizes claims made in the conspiracy theories or by the conspiracy theorists ^[1][24] and points out that the theories are detached from Israeli political culture, social relations and historic events. This criticism is not necessarily politically "coloured" and may refer to both the right wing and left wing conspiracy theories. The other criticism focuses entirely on the more common, right wing theories.

A second, mostly Israeli left-wing criticism, attacks the very existence of such theories as a denial of what they consider to be right wing "responsibility" for the murder.^{[citation needed]} This "responsibility" for the murder would have been by creating an extreme hostile environment to the late Prime Minister, in which Yigal Amir and his immediate accomplices Hagai Amir and Dror Adani were just a small group of the actors.

A third type of criticism, by right-wing activists, claims that the mostly Israeli right-wing conspiracy supporters embarrass the Israeli right by supporting fringe theories for which no proof exists. The conspiracy theorists, according to this criticism, move the debate away from the responsibility of what they call the "perpetrators of the Oslo crimes". These right-wing critics conclude that the right-wing conspiracy theorists serve the goals of the Israeli left.^[25]