The Kuzari Principle: Not a Proof but Evidence of Plausibility

 https://www.thetorah.com/article/modern-faith-in-sinai

With our account of the nature of faith, the Kuzari principle doesn’t have to be strong enough to provide evidence sufficient for belief, but can still play a role in making your faith reasonable. The more pressing question is less to do with evidence, and more to do with values. Is it desirable that there should have been such a revelation, and that God should have chosen a certain people, and communicated that which He was said to have communicated to them? That seems to depend a great deal upon how you view the notion of the Jewish election (was it exclusive, and what end did it serve), and what you take the content of the revelation to be – how do you interpret the laws and their ethical significance?

THE KUZARI PRINCIPLE - INTRODUCTION

 https://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Kuzari_Principle_Intro.htm

  One of the foundations of Judaism is the revelation at Sinai. In this chapter we will see that belief in Sinai is reasonable. There is enough evidence in favor of the revelation to make it reasonable to accept. The evidence is of a very special sort, and that requires a long introduction

The Kuzari Principle

 http://www.theapj.com/the-kuzari-principle-2/

What we call the Kuzari Principle is what I italicized in the quotation: Personal experience is equal to uninterrupted tradition as a ground for belief. Surely the principle is in need of some refinement, but the basic idea is true. The scientific community doesn’t feel the need to repeat every experiment ever conducted before accepting the relevant findings for themselves. If there wasn’t a modicum of trust given to the testimony of past scientists about their findings, then we could never move on, because we’d first of all have to repeat the entire history of science in our own laboratories. If we take the best elements of these medieval arguments and try to fashion them into something formal, and prima facie worth considering, we end up with something like the following:

 If a reliable witness, called person-y, witnesses an event, event-x, and an uninterrupted chain of reliable sources passes on person-y’s testimony, even over many years, then, given certain provisos about the make-up of the chain, about person-y and about the reported circumstances of the original observation, we have good reason to believe that event-x transpired.

(KP2)     The epistemic warrant provided by such a chain increases with the number of reliable observers in the chain who claim to have witnessed the event themselves.

There were 12 Golden Calves not one

 Rav Yakov Kaminetsky (Emes L’Yakov Shemos 35:1): The sin of the Golden Calf was the opposite of the Giving of the Torah. Because our Sages said that at the Giving of the Torah the Jews were totally united. In contrast the Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 10:2) says there in fact were 12 Calves made because they desired many gods such as the god of Moab and the god of Edom in other words they desired the unique power of every nation. Why did they desire multiple gods? It seems that amongst the Shevatim themselves there were different views as to which god to chose and therefore each Shevat made their own god i.e, their own Calf. Consequently when Moshe came to give the commands regarding the Mishkan he first needed to unite them in one place for a common goal.

Sanhedrin (63a):Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai The verse teaches that the Jewish people desired many gods; they were not satisfied with the golden calf alone.

Dr Matthew Offord MP - Reuniting Beth Alexander with her boys - Schlesinger Twins in Vienna

Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but Putin

 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/25/tucker-carlson-fox-news-russia-putin

“Rather than blame the actual aggressor for attacking his weaker neighbor, right-wing media pinned the blame on Biden for supposedly projecting weakness and vulnerability to Putin,” Media Matters, a non-profit which monitors conservative media, wrote.

“In the right-wing media echo chamber [...] the fault for this invasion lies with a mind-boggling variety of scapegoats, including Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, American environmentalists, the LGBTQ community, and even the team here at Media Matters for America - anybody, that is, other than Putin.”

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Cheney Rips Trump, Pompeo for 'Praising' Russian President: 'Putin Is Evil'

 https://www.newsweek.com/cheney-rips-trump-pompeo-praising-russian-president-putin-evil-1682980

In a Friday evening Twitter post, Cheney shared screenshots from Russian media promoting remarks from Trump, Pompeo and Fox News host Tucker Carlson that appeared to be favorable to Putin. The GOP congresswoman knocked the right-wing politicians and commentator for their positive assessments of the Russian adversary.

White Nationalists Raid CPAC But Find Themselves Right at Home

 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/cpac-afpac-nick-fuentes-marjorie-taylor-greene-1313210/

The Conservative Political Action Conference, the nation’s premier gathering of right-wing, pro-Donald Trump die-hards is here this year. The American First Political Action Conference, the nation’s premier gathering that includes right-wing, pro-Donald Trump die-hards who are also overt and public white nationalists, is here this year too. In theory, the two events are separate, hosted at different hotels, selling different tickets, and separated by 10 miles of Florida highway. In practice, and in ideology, the lines are a bit blurry, and it’s unclear whether anyone in CPAC leadership cares enough about the white nationalist presence to do anything significant about it.

It is clear, however, that some prominent CPAC speakers are, as the kids say, here for it.

That’s most obvious with Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, the House Republican from Georgia who proudly took the stage at AFPAC on Friday night, hours before her Saturday speaking appearance at CPAC. On Friday she was introduced by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist whose own AFPAC address featured giggling praise of Adolph Hitler. Greene spoke at CPAC on Saturday morning, and pressed afterward about AFPAC and Fuentes, she said she was there to address his audience and claimed to have no knowledge of him nor any affiliation with — effectively pleading total ignorance and detachment from a conference she’d been a featured speaker at and a leader who’d introduced her.

Cheney Rips GOP Silence Over Greene, Gosar Joining 'White Supremacist' Event

 https://www.newsweek.com/cheney-rips-gop-silence-over-greene-gosar-joining-white-supremacist-event-1683002

Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, condemned GOP Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar for participating in a far-right "white supremacist" event, while also criticizing Republican leaders for failing to quickly "renounce" their actions.

Greene attended and spoke at the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in Florida on Friday while Gosar appeared and spoke via video link. Nick Fuentes, who the anti-defamation league describes as a "white supremacist," founded AFPAC in 2020 and has even trolled other right-wing events, such as those organized by Turning Points USA and CPAC.

During Friday's event, Fuentes remarked: "Now they're going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin is Hitler—they say that's not a good thing." He and the audience then laughed loudly before he added, "I shouldn't have said that!"

Fuentes went on to lead the audience in chants in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Can we give a round of applause for Russia?" he asked the attendees who cheered for Russia's leader.

Trump, in U-turn on Putin, Condemns Atrocities, Salutes Zelenskyy's Courage

 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-u-turn-putin-condemns-atrocities-salutes-zelenskyys-courage-1683019

Former President Donald Trump headlined the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday night in his home state of Florida, and his conference focused on bashing Democrats as a war rages between Russian and Ukraine.

Trump trumpeted his own one-term presidency, saying Russia had attacked no other countries during his administration. Trump said he brought peace, and that powers like Russia stood down while he was at the helm during this century.

"Under Bush, Russia invaded Georgia; under Obama, Russia took Crimea; under Biden, Russia invaded Ukraine," Trump said. "I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country."

Claiming “De-Nazification,” Putin’s actions recall other Nazi crimes

 https://forward.com/culture/483010/putin-nazi-denazification-ukraine-jewish-president/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_3778361

As Russia invaded Ukraine, beginning at five in the morning, Vladimir Putin’s statement that his purpose was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine clearly disgusted Ukraine’s first-ever Jewish President.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy — whose three great-uncles were murdered in the Holocaust — responded on Twitter that Russia attacked Ukraine just “as Nazi Germany did.”

“As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history,” Zelenskyy said. “Russia has embarked on a path of evil.”

The framing of Zelenskyy as a Nazi has been going on for a while. In October, the former president of Russia and current deputy chairman of its Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, published “an expletive-laden article aimed at Ukraine and at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing his country as a vassal state of the U.S. with whom it is impossible to negotiate,” according to Stephen Blank, an expert on Russia and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Medvedev compared Zelenskyy to the Sonderkommando.

TUCKER CARLSON HOPING WE CAN JUST FORGET ABOUT ALL THE TIMES HE INSISTED PUTIN WAS THE BEST

 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/tucker-carlson-vladimir-putin-praise#intcid=recommendations_right-rail-personalized-popularity-mab-experiment_c3408632-c3d4-4d43-a2b1-794634bba4aa_personalized-popularity-mab-strategy

If you happened to tune into Fox News on Thursday night, you might have seen something extremely strange: Tucker Carlson condemning Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, and suggesting that what Russia is doing there—activities that have included shelling of a kindergarten—is actually big deal. “It’s a tragedy, because war always is a tragedy, and the closer you get to it, the more horrifying it seems,” he told viewers, adding, of the Russian president: “Vladimir Putin started this war, so whatever the context of the decision that he made, he did it. He fired the first shots. He is to blame for what we’re seeing tonight in Ukraine.” At this time, you might be asking yourself why it’s strange to denounce a country for waging an unprovoked war on its neighbor, or to place the blame squarely on the guy who made the decision to do so. And the answer is that it’s not strange, it’s what normal people who are not doing free P.R. for the Kremlin have been saying, but it is a tad odd given that, prior to Thursday, Carlson was this-close to inviting Putin on his show and asking him, “Any chance we can get you to run in 2024? I know it’s a long shot but…I’d love to see it.”

Conservatives Can’t Blame Biden for Putin’s Ukraine Attack

 https://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-t-blame-biden-putin-095718302.html

When it comes to their understanding of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are generally two types of Republicans. The first type is basically siding with Russia. They may couch this by saying that Vladimir Putin has never done anything to me, that Putin is “smart” and “savvy,” or that Putin just feels cornered by an encroaching NATO.

The second type of Republican thinks it’s bad for Russia to invade Ukraine—and it’s all Joe Biden’s fault!