Zohar (Shemos 20b) As thorns are scattered among the lilies, so does G-d permit in His world the wicked to be found among the righteous, for, as without the thorns the lilies could not exist, so would the righteous go unrecognized in the world were it not for the wicked, as R. Judah said: “How are the righteous recognized? By contrast with the wicked I If it were not for the one, the other would not be known.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Wicked have righteous sons
Zohar (Shemos 12b) There are many wicked parents who beget more good sons than righteous parents, and that a good son born of wicked parents is of special excellence, being pure out of impure, light out of darkness, wisdom out of folly.
Death of Tzadikkim
Zohar (Shemos 10b) We have been taught that the righteous are removed from this world before their time for one of two reasons: one for the sins of their generation, for when there is much sin in the world the righteous are penalized for its guilt; the second is that when the Holy One, blessed be He, is aware that they would commit a sin if they lived longer, He removes them before their time.
Stefanik files ethics complaint against Judge Merchan
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/21/stefanik-ethics-complaint-judge-merchan-trump
Stefanik, a close Trump ally and one of his most vocal defenders in Congress, has filed five formal complaints against judges and prosecutors involved in cases against Trump.
French TV channel mistakenly reports Mossad agent ‘Eli Copter’ behind Iran president crash
During a live segment updating on the crash, Haik quoted a Telegram channel saying: “The pilot was a Mossad agent with the name ‘Eli Copter’, it’s not currently clear whether this is true or not, but that’s the rumour going around.”
Haik was ridiculed for not recognising the joke, which also works in French as the word for helicopter is the same as in English.
The Eli Copter joke, which is thought to have originated on Twitter/x and was spread on Israeli Whatsapp groups, last night and later reported as fact on Hamas channels on Telegram.
Russian Propagandist Sounds Alarm Over Mossad Agent ‘Eli Copter’
Citing “a French channel,” Solovyov aired a clip from a French-language segment of an Israeli TV network in which the anchor told viewers that Hamas “claims the helicopter pilot was a Mossad agent” named “Eli Copter.” The anchor, Daniel Haik, has already been widely mocked for taking the internet joke at face value and reciting it on-air.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Netanyahu’s Main Challenger Loses His Edge
Support for the leader of the National Unity Party soared after the Oct. 7 attack, when public anger with Netanyahu was at its height. Previously a member of the opposition, Gantz joined Netanyahu’s coalition as part of an emergency government, a move that gave him a seat on the powerful three-member war cabinet.
But as the war drags on, support for Gantz has slid while Netanyahu’s has stabilized. Many voters think Gantz has stayed in the emergency government for too long and he is now perceived as being part of the failures of the war instead of someone who can change its course.
Iran postpones execution of Jewish man who killed a Muslim
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjj9m4dxr
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, a 20-year-old Iranian Jew, was convicted of killing a Muslim man two years ago and was supposed to be put to death on Monday. On Sunday, the Jewish community in Iran was informed that the execution has been postponed until next month,
Just How Big of a Threat Is RFK Jr.?
Polling is a tricky indicator. History shows that third party candidates tend to poll higher than they perform on Election Day.
“Third party candidates tend to do a bit better when you’re further out because it's, in some ways, a measure of dissatisfaction with the current candidates,” Wagner says. “And I think it's fair to say that there is a fair amount of dissatisfaction with the current candidates.”
Polls should be examined with caution, she adds, as “we're six months out from election, so polls are not very accurate or indicative of what the results will be come November at this juncture in the election.”
Republicans are starting to worry about RFK Jr.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/22/republicans-are-starting-to-worry-about-rfk-jr-00153763
Republicans are waking up to the reality that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could sink their standard-bearer just as easily as he could hurt President Joe Biden, after a pair of new polls showed the presence of third-party candidates on the ballot might not necessarily benefit former President Donald Trump.
Even Trump is acknowledging his potential problem.
But recent polling broadly shows Kennedy drawing evenly from both of the major party candidates’ 2020 supporters. And Kennedy’s significantly higher favorable ratings among Republican voters suggests he has more room to eat into Trump’s vote share than Biden’s.
Tucker Carlson Launches Show On Russian State TV
https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-launches-show-russian-state-tv-russia-24-1903045
Conservative TV host Tucker Carlson has launched his own show on a Russian state television channel.
The former Fox News anchor is presenting the program Tucker on the rolling news channel Russia 24, with the first episode now available online, Russian state newspaper Rossiskya Gazyeta reported.
Message from Joseph Stalin to President Harry S. Truman expressing condolences on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt
https://alliance.rusarchives.ru/message-joseph-stalin-president-harry-s-truman-13-april-1945
In the name of the Soviet government and myself personally, I would like to extend heartfelt condolences to the government of the United States of America on the death of President Roosevelt. The American people and the United Nations have lost a great international politician and an advocate of the postwar organization of peace and security.
U.S. ‘Condolences’ for Raisi Reflect a Delicate Diplomatic Ritual
More often there is complicated nuance, even in the cases of infamous tyrants. Upon the March 1953 death following a stroke of the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, it was left to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to issue a response.
President Eisenhower sent condolences to Russia when Stalin died
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP70-00058R000100120061-0.pdf
When the butcher of Russia aka Stalin died while still in power President Eisenhower sent condolences to Russia.
Making excuses for dictators is nothing new: "Mr. Republican" and the Nazis
In 1940, the Wall Street Journal asserted that "our job today is not to stop Hitler," the dictator whom the editorial claimed had "already determined the broad lines of our national life at least for another generation." Note that the Journal, then as now the flagship of "respectable" conservatism, not only consigned Europe to Hitler's domination, but America as well, and for the following 30 years. The title of the editorial, "A Plea for Realism," is a reminder that in some quarters, "realism" means abandoning democracy and submitting to force.
Trump’s social media account shares video referencing ‘unified reich’
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/20/trump-social-media-video-unified-reich-00159067
Donald Trump’s social media account on Monday shared a video referencing a “unified reich” in a post about how the country will change if he becomes president again.
His campaign said a staffer did not see the word “reich” before it was posted — an explanation President Joe Biden’s team blasted on Monday night.
Trump’s social media account shares video referencing ‘unified reich’
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
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
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
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’
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
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
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
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.
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