Tuesday, May 21, 2024

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

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/us/politics/us-condolences-raisi.html#:~:text=In%20a%20direct%20message%20to,Minister%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.”

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

 https://www.salon.com/2023/01/07/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’

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trumps-social-media-account-posts-video-referencing-a-unified-reich-6707b59b

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

 https://www.wsj.com/world/prosecuting-netanyahu-has-risks-for-international-criminal-court-2f69bbd3?mod=hp_lead_pos2

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

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-offers-condolences-over-iran-chopper-crash-blasts-raisis-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

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/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’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/rfk-jr-on-people-to-blame-for-covid-we-know-who-they-were-and-they-werent-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

 https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/raisi-iran-president-helicopter-crash-05-20-24/index.html

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.