Strike on Doctors Without Borders

The American media, it seems, when reporting on this American strike upon a Doctors Without Borders hospital make it seem it is in the hip pocket of the military behemoths and the corporations that make billions off eternal war. This was an ugly attack in Afghanistan on the Doctors Without Borders medical facility. In the many wars the US has fought so called “collateral damage” has happened many times but this was a Doctors without Borders facility which is recognized by the international laws of war as OFF LIMITS. Doctors Without Borders sent their coordinates to the Afghan and US forces allegedly many times. When the US bombing ensued burning human beings in their beds loud and desperate calls were made to the American military from Doctors Without Borders, a neutral party, to stop bombing their hospital. It went unheeded.

Doctors Without Borders treats EVERYONE – Taliban and Afghan forces alike – who may be in need of medical treatment. The wounded and the dying can get treatment from them. They make NO distinction between an enemy and others.

The policy of Doctors Without Borders treating everyone I have read was an irritant to the Afghan government who did NOT want them to treat the Taliban enemy at all and hence the bombing of them ensued by the US.

This strike, if it occurred by our military forces, on a Doctors Without Borders hospital killing many of the brave and humane doctors as well as their suffering patients is one of the most egregious war crimes committed by our military in a sea of war crimes in that theater of war.

I knew the questioning of Gen. Campbell by the committee set up to “investigate" this egregious action today would be questioning light and it was. The senators sitting on that committee should be pounding their fists asking WHY if the coordinates were given many times by Doctors Without Borders to the Afghan and American military, a request by Doctors Without Borders for a cease and desist order of the bombing of that hospital went unheeded.

If true, this is a huge black eye on the American prosecution of this never ending eternal war. It helps no one. War crimes should be levied against those most responsible for this utterly egregious act. Its action goes against the laws of war, is a crime against humanity and against the laws of human dignity that the Nuremberg trials against the war criminals of Germany mandated should be bestowed on everyone. When crimes like this go unpunished the words “Never again” is just a platitudinous phrase and means nothing.

Hillary in New Hampshire

Hillary this a.m. spent over an hour with voters in New Hampshire answering tough questions from Savannah Guthrie. One of the questioners asked her what her favorite book was. Answer: "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky. Not only did she answer it she discussed it showing her gargantuan intellect. She was brilliant and some were asked later if they thought so. A resounding yes was heard even from those who were undecided or who were voting for a challenger. They changed their mind.

Now I ask you to compare and contrast that to ANY candidates in the Republican arena. Most especially compare it to the thank-God-she-did-not-win, Sarah Palin who could have been a heart beat away from an old man in the presidency. She could not even answer the question except she said "All of them" Yeah, right. Case closed!  Democrats are infinitely smarter.

The Republicans still have nothing. Out of 17 candidates none of them has the depth and gravitas no matter how many billionaires there are among them that Hillary Clinton has.

There is no question who is the most electable, has the most experience and is the smartest. I won't tell. You figure it out.

‘Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS’ by Joby Warrick

Getty images/globe staff photo illustration

As its name makes clear, the Islamic State is after something far more permanent than its nihilistic, destructive methods might suggest. Over the past few years the movement has come terrifyingly close, confidently deploying modern tools of warfare and propaganda to establish a blood-soaked caliphate whose barbarity feels prehistoric. In his new book “Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS,” Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick sets out to explain how a motley group of criminals considered too unruly by Al Qaeda transformed into the world’s most successful and savage jihadi group.


Warrick’s account centers as much on American missteps as it does on the jihadi long game to build capacity. He telegraphs his disgust with ISIS without turning his book into a two-dimensional jeremiad and takes pains to include accounts of the group’s thinking, evolution, and internal political disputes.

The Islamic State, better known here by the acronym, ISIS, swept into American consciousness about a year ago when it conquered northern Iraq and almost toppled the US-backed government in Baghdad. But ISIS didn’t come out of nowhere. Inhabitants of the Arab heartland had followed the steady entrenchment of jihadi groups in the region.

Since Sept. 11, America’s counter-terror establishment has been obsessed with kill lists, personalizing Al Qaeda and its offshoots as the fiefdoms of a few easily demonized leaders.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, Syria, and on computer screens around the world, a vast, well-funded network recruited legions of talented and capable individuals, learned from its setbacks, innovated, and built effective institutions to buttress a durable reign of horror.

“Black Flags” tries hard to explain how ISIS came of age and why so many supposedly moderate or conservative forces in the Arab world have been willing to stand with extremists.
Most bracing of all is Warrick’s historically-grounded corrective, which blames the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 as the single most pivotal factor in the organization’s creation.

Warrick spends plenty of time on a riveting and detailed biographical account of the man who founded the group that became ISIS, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian thug whose commitment to violent religious extremism was forged in jail. Blithe prison officials allowed jihadis free reign and then carelessly released them to curry political favor for the new king.

The US government made Zarqawi famous by naming him as the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, part of the spurious grounds to justify the Iraqi invasion. America’s mistakes were a bonanza for Zarqawi, who hired from the ranks of newly jobless soldiers and intelligence officials and capitalized on the disenfranchisement of Sunni tribes suddenly in need of a new protector.

Zarqawi reengineered the parameters of violence — no small feat in a neighborhood where despots like Saddam Hussein and the Assad dynasty in Syria already had spawned a vast torture complex. He personally beheaded civilians on video; directed suicide bombs at targets that other jihadis considered off limits like the UN, NGOs, and Arab embassies; and struck Shia religious targets with the ultimately successfully goal of provoking a destabilizing Sunni-Shia civil war. Even Al Qaeda thought he was going too far, Warrick notes, but Zarqawi’s methods proved to have enduring traction long after his death in 2006.

His successors built ISIS into an organization determined to go much further than Al Qaeda and implement a brutal caliphate immediately. Today ISIS runs oil fields, banks, and a formidable military. The group’s executions grab our attention, but ISIS applies equal zeal to tax collection, education, and indoctrination — all good reasons to suspect that it may remain part of the scene for years to come.

There are a few missing pieces in this otherwise fine book. Warrick neglects the rich context of torture, abuse, and extremism fed by Arab governments and international patrons, including the United States, in the decades before Al Qaeda and then ISIS came to maturity. He mentions but does not delve deeply into the widespread sympathy for hardline Islamist ideas among the Arabian peninsula monarchies and many supposedly mainstream Sunnis.

Also some big questions remain at the end of “Black Flags,’’ including the mystery of the group’s technical achievements. How did ISIS refine its training, military tactics, and administrative abilities so thoroughly that it could control a nation-sized swath of Syria and Iraq? Warrick’s account fills in important conceptual blanks, but doesn’t explain why this time around the same old cocktail of takfiri jihad, Gulf money, and impressionable testosterone-filled volunteers yielded an army and government-in-waiting more effective than any of its regional peers.

Overall, however, Warrick’s book might be the most thorough and nuanced account of the birth and growth of ISIS published so far. “Black Flags’’ is full of personalities, but it keeps its gaze carefully focused on the wider arc of history.

Thanassis Cambanis writes The Internationalist column for Globe Ideas and is a fellow at The Century Foundation in New York. His most recent book is “Once Upon a Revolution: An Egyptian Story.’’

The Hidden Holocaust -- Sixty Minutes segment

This is one of the most excellent pieces of investigative journalism I have seen. It involves the most moral and righteous among nations, a Catholic priest Father Patrick Desbois, who made it his life's work to uncover Jewish dead about whom the Nazis wanted no one to know.

I knew that my grandparents who came here at the turn of the 20th century could not have known what would happen to their friends, family and neighbors who were fellow Jews in Shepatovka, Ukraine and they could never have known that had they not left they would have been among those killed and buried in mass unmarked graves courtesy of the Einsatzgruppen, German death squads dispatched to Eastern Europe to kill Jews -- all of them.

I knew in 1941 that most of them were shot and fell into the killing fields of Eastern Europe while many who were not Jewish stood by and watched. I urge you to watch it and the extra segments including the one on ISIS and NEVER forget!

Linked below.

The Hidden Holocaust

A priest is determined to find forgotten victims of the Holocaust whose bodies lie in unmarked mass graves in the former USSR

cbsnews.com

Kee Slapping Funny -- Hillary on Saturday Night Live

Hillary Clinton Saturday Night Live.  Val the bartender!

She was HILARIOUS! 

I still do not think Bernie can win.  So I say Hillary 2016!!!

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live

Pope Francis expected to fire the Archbishop who tricked him into meeting Kim Davis

By Bill Palmer | October 2, 2015 | 13

After Pope Francis wrapped up a successful goodwill tour of the United States, he saw his that goodwill largely undermined when it leaked out that he had met with Kentucky marriage license clerk Kim Davis, who is considered by many Americans to be enemy number one when it comes to gay rights. This prompted the Pope to put out a statement clarifying that while the meeting took place, he in no way endorsed her agenda. And now he’s expected to go a step further, removing the Archbishop who set up the meeting.

Francis and the Vatican also made clear that while he was in Washington DC, the only official one-on-one meeting he had was with a former student of his, Yayo Grassi, who is gay. Instead they maintain that the meeting with Davis was part of a receiving line and that she was essentially slipped in by Washington Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. The New York Times says that he is now “likely to be removed at the first respectable opportunity.”

It’s not immediately clear how far such a move will go toward repairing the sudden damage done to the Pope’s otherwise largely stellar reputation. Some may skeptically view the Archbishop as a designated fall guy amid unexpected public relations fallout. But the Vatican is stressing that no one within its Rome organization was involved in setting up the meeting in any way, and that it was orchestrated solely by Viganò, who was presumably carrying out his own agenda.

What may be most remarkable is that Pope Francis, who technically answers to no one in his religious role, is going to such great lengths to explain himself and try to atone for the meeting. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s not a supporter of Kim Davis’ agenda in any way, shape or form. Read more here.

Before Meeting Kim Davis, Pope Met With His Gay Friend In Washington

"I don’t think he was trying to say anything in particular... He was just meeting with his ex-student and a very close friend of his."

Jaweed Kaleem Senior Religion Reporter, The Huffington Post

Posted: 10/02/2015 02:05 PM EDT | Edited: 2 minutes ago

Marisa Marchitelli In this still from a video taken by Marisa Marchitelli, Yayo Grassi, left, and his partner Iwan Bagus, center, can be seen greeting Pope Francis, right, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.

 

Pope Francis privately met with a gay couple last week while visiting Washington, D.C., according to several news reports Friday.

Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentine-American caterer who lives in the Washington area and is a former student of the pope’s, met with Francis at the Apostolic Nunciature one day before the pope met Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has been at the center of a national controversy over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Joining Grassi was his boyfriend of 19 years, Iwan Bagus.
The news was first reported Friday by CNN, which published an interview with Grassi and described a video of him embracing the pope. A partial video of Grassi's encounter with Francis can be seen below. The Associated Press reported Friday that the Vatican confirmed Francis had met with a "gay former student and his partner."

Grassi did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Huffington Post.

Grassi, who studied under the pope when Francis taught at Inmaculada Concepcion high school in Flores, Argentina, in the mid-1960s, told CNN the meeting was arranged via the Apostolic Nunciature, which is the Vatican's embassy in Washington.

According to a Vatican statement on Friday, the embassy also arranged the pope’s meeting with Davis, which the Vatican said “should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.” The Vatican said the pope only had one “real audience” while at the embassy, which was his former students.

Grossi’s description of himself as a former student would seem to match the Vatican’s.
In an interview with The New York Times, Grossi said that he did not think the pope was making a statement with the meeting, which reportedly lasted between 15 and 20 minutes.
“I don’t think he was trying to say anything in particular,” he said. “He was just meeting with his ex-student and a very close friend of his.”

According to a HuffPost translation of the above video, Grassi introduced Francis one by one to several of his friends from Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand and Bolivia.

One of the women, an Argentine friend of Grassi's, fell to tears as she exchanged greetings with Francis.
"Pray for me," the pope said, a phrase he is famous for.

"We've taken up too much of your time," Grassi said.
"No, by God, thanks for having me," Francis replied.

The pope, following Argentine custom, kissed Grassi and Bagus each on the cheek when saying goodbye.
The news that Francis met with a gay man in a long-term relationship within hours of meeting with one of the highest-profile opponents of same-sex marriage in the U.S. elicited surprise and applause from LGBT advocates, some of whom had said they were offended by the pope's meeting with Davis.

"Pope Francis never ceases to surprise us," said Christopher J. Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, in a statement. "The news that Francis met with a gay couple should put to rest any notion that Pope Francis is held down by the narrow ideological divisions that plague the United States. He is first and foremost a pastor who is willing to encounter and engage anyone."

"Once again, this shows that the Pope meets with a wide variety of people on his trips," said the Rev. James Martin, editor at large of American Magazine, a Jesuit publication, in an email to HuffPost. "Of course it does not betoken any sort of papal approval of same-sex marriage. But if the story is accurate, I'm glad to hear that the Pope keeps in touch with old friends, gay or straight."

UPDATE: 2:15 p.m. -- The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a spokesman for the Vatican, issued the following statement Friday afternoon: "Mr. Yayo Grassi, a former Argentine student of Pope Francis, who had already met other times in the past with the Pope, asked to present his mother and several friends to the Pope during the Pope’s stay in Washington, DC. As noted in the past, the Pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue."

President's Press Conference

He is simply a BRILLIANT man. His press conference was long, detailed and 100% on target. I wish he could be president for 8 more years. He is so far and above any of Republican so called leadership it is staggering!

Vatican Denies Kim Davis' Meeting With Pope Francis Indicates Support

At least he's trying to walk that nasty ovation to someone who in my opinion does not deserve it (link below.) What about the others she decimated with her ugly belief. Belief does not give one the right to torture others and that is just what she did.

I'm glad he clarified and I believe he should meet with gay people who have suffered immensely at the hands of those who bully them ALL the time!

NOW GO OUT AND WORK FOR DEMOCRATS EVERYWHERE. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, I BELIEVE, HAS LOST ITS MIND. OH YES, THEN GO ON TO RACHEL MADDOW'S SITE AND HEAR HER STORY ABOUT KEVIN MCCARTHY THE SOON-TO-BE-SPEAKER -- AN OXYMORON. HE MAKES GEORGE BUSH LOOK LIKE AN ELOQUENT LINGUIST.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vatican-denies-kim-davis-meeting-pope-francis-indicates-support-n437356

Maritally Misguided

The story "Kim Davis, Clerk to Refused to Issue Marriage Licenses to Gay Couples Met the Pope" made me retract my former opinion heaping mountains of praise on Pope Francis. Sometimes I jump the gun before I wait to see if anything else is known. Now I will say the Pope meets the martially misguided clerk who pays no attention to the feelings and rights of others wanting to be married to the one they love. Ms. Davis says no you can't because my religious views trump your happiness. I say an emphatic no they do not! As a public clerk she has the obligation to perform her public duties and if she cannot then find another who can. No one is telling her what to believe but she has no right to impose her private beliefs on the public while doing her public job.

Still, Pope Francis's message generally, except on this issue and some others, was a humane one. I do believe Davis CAN refuse marriage licenses to gays but must let someone else who will issue marriage certificates do so. It is the law after all.

I think some in the Papal Curia are at odds with Francis's other liberal positions. He did say on homosexuality "Who am I to judge?" So he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. I have no idea why he chose to meet with this divorced four times and had-children-out-of wedlock lapsed former Catholic.

I would love to ask Pope Francis: Does he think homosexuals who have been ostracized, bullied, kicked out of their homes onto the street by their parents, turned to drugs and worse attempt suicide are less worthy of his empathy and support? I do NOT get it and yes I am bothered by what he did and loathe looking stupid myself piling tons of praise on him.

I tried to love him and still think he is better than Benedict and many other popes before Benedict but Pope Francis disappointed me on this one. Maybe someday he will say by meeting Davis: Father, forgive me, I know not what I did.

Soft Landing

Cardinal O’Malley said “Pope Francis’s first visit to the United States was something akin to a national religious retreat.” Never, the cardinal said, had he witnessed a papal visit generate such widespread interest, particularly from non-Catholics. I am one of them. I cannot believe that I, who have been laser sharp critical of Vatican history, could find a Pope Francis so wonderful.

I put aside my disagreements as no one is perfect but, in general, this Pope gave many a soft landing on the sharp vicissitudes of life. I watched his visit, hours of it, because I was mesmerized by his stamina and the message he delivered to so many so many times. People (including me) are hungry for humane and smart leadership. Will he accept women priests, married priests, and gay humanity? He is not Superman of the Catholic Church but he has changed the tone and the general feeling that comes from a man who knows hardship, poverty and knows how to use his intelligence promoting kindness and humane policy for greater good.

He came here with painful stenosis, sciatica, one lung and who knows what other physical maladies that sometimes come with age. The amount he did and the stamina with which he did it were miraculous. He was amazing to me and made me think twice about mending fences that were broken in my own life.

In the end we are the sum total of who we were in life. I want to be remembered for the help I gave, the kindness I showed and the humane political policy for which I advocated.

Jesus is said to have said "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." Rabbi Hillel summarized Judaism by saying as I have repeated often: "Do NOT do unto others that which you would NOT want done to you. All the rest is commentary."

I could not have said it better myself!

Months After White Supremacy Scandal, Steve Scalise May Become House Majority Leader

(See link below.)  What happened to my country? I am just sad. Where did it go so wrong? It was always divided for as long as I remember but not this extremist badly. The president for the 2010 midterms I am sorry to say did NOT sell his healthcare plan well enough and logically enough. He needed to make a huge tour around the country doing so as if he were up for reelection. The Tea Bags and Republicans sustained a huge majority it still has and legislation ordinarily easily passed was/is like pulling teeth. The nation had suffered tremendous upheaval with bank bailouts and CEO's getting so much taxpayer money and bonuses to boot.

The Republican Party that is now the Republican Party's anti-government base revolted against the government debt and the spending of more taxpayer bucks. Instead of these middle class whites gravitating to the Democratic Party where they economically truly belong the Republican Party that allegedly hated spending lassoed them in taking full advantage of their opposition to social programs meaning their money perceived to go to persons of color and hence the basically all white, conservative, southern and Midwestern tea bag party was born and became right wing extremist persons with power. They literally economically stepped on their own toes because the at least old Republican Party is NOT about them. It is about the richest 1% but hey racism tops it all.

Months After White Supremacy Scandal, Steve Scalise May Become House Majority Leader

The Louisiana congressman had spoken to a group founded by former KKK leader David Duke.

huffingtonpost.com

Pope Francis Makes Surprise Stop To Bless Sculpture Symbolizing Catholic Unity With Jews

Another wow moment. Pope Francis is touching every base and this base is particularly impressive to me! It is worth reading for Jews and Christians alike really for everyone emphasizing man's ability to right centuries' long wrongs and work together uniting us in our common humanity. It is nothing short of amazing. It is our 1962 Vatican II's "Nostra Aetate" (In Our Time) in 2016. Here is the link or below. I urge you to read it!

http://forward.com/news/321629/pope-francis-makes-surprise-stop-to-bless-sculpture-symbolizing-catholic-an/?utm_content=daily_Newsletter_TopSpot_Title_Position-1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Daily%202015-09-28&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20%28Monday-Friday%29

God's Plan

"Hundreds Turned Away From Only Session On Gays At Catholic Meeting"

"The room was changed last minute from one that could hold 10,000 to another that seated just 1,000." Link here or below.

 

Justice and fairness are part of this papacy and should be no less so for gay Catholics. I love this Pope and have said it numerous times even though I am not even Catholic BUT the second class citizenship of Catholic gays is also a part of the Church and a view of the Pope's that has changed somewhat as he said when asked about homosexuality “Who am I to judge?”  It has, though, obviously, changed not enough if hundreds of gay Catholics can be frozen out of a room lest it look like there are too many.  Guess what?  There ARE many.

 

It is ridiculous to assume everyone else on planet earth can enjoy another human being in the closest way possible but this is something if one is born gay, and I believe it is DNA directed for most, that no person should be denied. It is preposterous that they moved hundreds of gay people and maybe more so they could include only a small amount of gays in the room because it just looks better. I ask better to whom?  It is like persons of color being told it's natural for them to sit separate from whites in the back of the bus or that they cannot enjoy a movie in the same way whites can; indeed, told they are not the same or as good as whites and should not enjoy the privilege white bestows. 

Gays are human beings, part of God's plan but they are evidently to the Church not quite as good as straights.  I say baloney this cannot be coming from a Church just a decade ago that was a magnet for male homosexual priests whose thought process was often not celibacy.

I want to love this Pope and his papacy even more but until they make the human life experience acceptable and not an instrument of torture for their gay brothers and sisters I cannot say that I do accept it more ... yet.

 

I believe in time the Church will know the etiology of one's sexuality and accept it as it did Galileo’s understanding of the earth's place among the planets with the sun as its center. I believe in time the Church will accept women as priests, I believe in time that it will allow priests to marry in the same way it has lightened the load for divorced Catholics and brought the Church back into to the lives of the poor, the elderly, the sick and the dispossessed.

 

Until that time Pope Francis, though I love him much more than any other Pope I have subjected to my own historical analysis, will still leave an empty spot in the many hearts of his gay flock.

REPUBLICANS WE KNOW WILL MAKE ROOM FOR NO ONE EXCEPT THE COLOR WHITE.  ANOTHER IMPERATIVE TO MAKE SURE TO TURN OUT IN NUMBERS LARGE THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/world-meeting-of-families-gays_5605df2ee4b0768126fdb237?utm_hp_ref=religion

Methods to Some Madness

One should READ this article below instead of simply a knee jerk response that Russia is bad. There are methods to some madness and Putin's rationale might just be correct AND serve US interests in the process. Are there NO smart, prescient minds in our National Security state?


http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/why-russias-vladimir-putin-standing-syrias-embattled-bashar-assas-n432936

A World of Miracles

When I go to my email first thing in the a.m. I now am on an email list from the "Forward" newspaper, a long known Jewish paper created in 1897. It was (and still is) progressive, dedicated to the Jewish Community at that time. It was called then "The Daily Forward." The story it sent last night to me is a story of interest posted here or below.

Some I know saw the Therezen concentration camp (sometimes it said called Theresienstadt) and is entitled "Searching for a Photo of Childhood Friend Lost in the Holocaust." It is an amazing heart string-pulling story that has a rather miracle ending. It is truly a wonder in our mind numbing age of technology and the reach of Facebook.

http://forward.com/news/321503/a-survivor-searched-for-a-photo-of-her-lost-childhood-friend/?utm_content=daily_Newsletter_TopSpot_Title_Position-1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Daily%202015-09-26&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20%28Monday-Friday%29

I am not Catholic but I may become one. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this Pope!

"Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade." - Pope Francis, in his concluding remarks to the U.S. Congress

Bye Bye Boehner!

John Boehner Republican Speaker of the House resigned as I am sure most now know.  Many progressives and extreme right "conservatives" cheer but for significantly different and polar opposite reasons.

Who comes next?  I do not know but Boehner was, as Republicans go, not the worst of them.  Kevin McCarthy may -- I say may -- be in line which is a good thing because there are far worse nearly KKK like right wing extremist conservatives who could and would, God forbid, take the job.

Speaker Boehner says he is resigning and did it for the institution.  I wish he had said he did it for the nation's poor, elderly, disabled, the sick and the dispossessed but such is not how Republicans think.  They think big; big money, big business, big donors, big millionaires and big billionaires.  The tax decreases came NOT for the middle class but for the 1% wealthiest in the nation about which Bernie Sanders and other Democrats speak so eloquently. They have created the widest disparity of wealth in this nation's history -- some legacy.

It is imperative, no it is mandatory that if you care about the human beings about whom Pope Francis spoke so beautifully then you will make sure that you kick Republicans out the door and elect to the most powerful legislative body in the world, human beings that have a heart.

Speaker Boehner it is said by Republican extremists was too squishy for them.  God only knows what qualities would it take to get someone who was less squishy.  I shudder at the thought.

The Republcan Party, as it has evolved, is frightening.  It is made up of southern white religious fanatical often racists who yearn for the culture of the old south and the Confederacy it represented.  Well if they yearn for it so much maybe those House members should secede from office and let human beings with compassion and empathy take their place!

YES, VOTE DEMOCRAT IN 2016 ON EVERY STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL.  DO IT FOR YOURSELVES, YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN.  YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT IF YOU DO BUT IF YOU DO NOT NONE OF US MAY BE AROUND TO CARE.

Letter to the "Forward": Jewish Fundamentalism kills even Jewish babies

"New Controversial Circumcision Rite Rules: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" related in today's Forward allow us to behold the fruits of fundamentalist irrational religious thought no matter the faith.

That disgusting piece about the dangers the ultra orthodox face due to their circumcision ritual -- you know the same sect that would love to stone homosexuals and adulterers to death -- of sucking the blood from an infant's circumcision and the disastrous infection which can result is staggering.

In the face of the faux excuse of "religious freedom" Mayor DeBlasio acquiesced to pulling the consent form that parents were compelled to sign because the ultra orthodox community was going to sue and did take the city to court. 

Now four infants have died due to Herpes infection probably transmitted by the rabbi or mohl's mouth because a large percentage of everyone has the latent Herpes infection which is transmittable by mouth.  Say this barbaric ridiculously backward and insane practice ain't so!

In the 21st century the rabbi puts his filthy mouth on the baby's newly bloodied circumcised penis?  Is that possible?  Those who are involved in utterly irrational fundamentalist religious practice are the reason for much of the murderous violence on our earth over fairy god myths and lies written by men. 

It does not matter whether it is Christian, Muslim or Jew -- fundamentalism kills even infants. 

 http://forward.com/news/321465/new-circumcision-rules-metzitzah-dont-ask-dont-tell/?utm_content=daily_Newsletter_MainList_Title_Position-1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Weekly%202015-09-25&utm_term=Weekly%20%2B%20Daily

JJ Goldberg - "Why Does Everybody Sound So Anti-Semitic All of a Sudden?" My opinion

Mr. Goldberg, you wrote what I thought was a most interesting opinion here and below in the Forward on the above referenced subject.  As a prolific letter, opinion writer and blogger on contemporary political and social issues your article to my own chagrin solidified views about which I had subliminally been thinking but which had not risen to the forefront nor articulated by me to spell danger, yet again, to our small Jewish group. I worried that some of my opinions might have stepped on toes I never would have stepped on before.

 

Yes, I am an ardent and forever liberal Democrat cemented in my opinion through decades of political thought beginning in the late 1960's with Howard Zinn as my political mentor against the murderous policy of the war in Vietnam and much later (perhaps a bit late) against ultimately the Iraq War and its contemporary Middle Eastern madness.  Most Jews, I dare say, were, as I was, vociferously, against the war in Vietnam and later even against the Iraq War.  The horrific debacle of Iraq and our present Middle East quagmire was promulgated by influential men -- the NeoCons – some of whom just happened to be Jewish – among them Paul Wolfowitz, Daniel Pearl,  Douglas Feith, Scooter Libby and others who were not Jewish.

 

Their views to me, like fingernails on a blackboard, screeched against my moral fiber.  Their alliances with Bush administration power was, in my eye, responsible first for the Trade Center collapse of 9/11 in that Bush was warned in his PDB but failed to act, and worse when he did act he was responsible for the worst, most costly and murderous foreign policy decision in US history – invading a country which did nothing to us and whose strong-arm leadership of Hussein we needed and even once supported in his war against Iran.  It gave Iran (supposedly our arch enemy) power and a major influence in that vital region.

 

The Iraq War killed, mutilated and dismembered thousands of American soldiers lured into battles they should not have fought and into a life of disability they should not have to suffer.  It killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (no one knows the true number) and displaced millions.  Worse it destabilized the Middle East tinder box we encounter today.  We placed, through our nefarious Neo-Con actions, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant with its offshoot the murder machine ISIS/ISIL.  It subverted Middle East peace and encouraged Middle East eternal war madness.  My moral compass changed.

 

NeoCons, made up of many in AIPAC, to my embarrassment, have brought, as I see it, the US to perpetual war.  Along with this gargantuan Iraq failure comes criticism of the nation's symbiotic relationship with Israel toward which I was never critical until the trajectory of Bush's foreign blunder and AIPAC's, it seemed to me, undue influence on American military policy became a monstrosity.  AIPAC, I perceived, was against my first alliance, America, and for some in its group their first alliance is to Israel.  I love Israel and always have.  I was supportive of it often without exception but in the end I am not Israeli.  I am an American and my first allegiance is to the US.  If Israeli influence is oppositional to what I believe American interests should be then I reject it.

 

The icing on the cake, for me, a Democrat in extremis, was Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Republicans in Congress with pointed opposition to the vital nuclear Deal with Iran; a deal which so many scientists, politicos, experts on foreign policy and many Israelis, too, deem a good one and one which will prevent yet another Middle Eastern quagmire against, this time, a capable nation, Iran, this nation could not afford.  Rejection of it would further isolate the US from the other P5 allies which support the Deal and would not back down from it.

 

Those who are waxing anti-Semitic in this nation and around the world are very worrisome, of course, to me but it is more worrisome to me that this nation be taken to a place in which its interests do not lie and toward which its morality should not go.

 

http://forward.com/opinion/321364/why-does-everybody-sound-so-anti-semitic-all-of-a-sudden/?utm_content=daily_Newsletter_TopSpot_Title_Position-1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Daily%202015-09-24&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20%28Monday-Friday%29

 

 

The Papal Mass Washington DC--The Good News

The papal mass in Washington was an absolutely gorgeous ceremony. I was moved to tears and I am Jewish. This Pope is the one who made me enthralled in its ritual. At other times with other popes I would not have even watched. I watched now in its entirety and come away with awe and inspiration because of this gifted humane man.

I wish him long life and many moments in which he can spread his good news!
 
This man spreads our word -- comfort for the sick, the poor, the immigrant and the dispossessed -- the least of these as Jesus is thought to have said. Hear his words and then get out and vote accordingly!

Bella and the Pope -- Paradise Found

There are few stories that grabbed my attention more than the murdered "Baby Doe" later known as Bella Bond whose tiny lifeless body was first placed in a refrigerator wrapped in a trash bag then thrown into the ocean washing up on the Deer Island shore as if she were nothing but refuse. My mind drifted like the currents did to her small body yearning to know how anything so heinous could be perpetrated on that innocent 2-year old. What could she have done to warrant such a blood-curdling end? The answer, of course, is nothing. That innocent child could have done nothing to warrant her fate. My mind wafts to the apex of incredulity that a member of the human species could stoop so low as to do that unspeakable horror to a child. Truthfully, though, why should I be shocked when I examine human history's cacophonous squeal? From the legend of Lizzie Borden to Charles Manson and Adolph Hitler the human wreckage of man’s carnage can be seen far and wide over the ironically beautiful earth’s landscape. But this was an innocent child we say straining to make some sense of it all. We cannot because there is no sense to be made.

To save our sanity in our time I believe we must look at humanity with a carpenter's level. We must know that our fellow travelers on this planet do not come in black and white. There are many shades of grey as one can see so many offers to bury free-of-charge that sinless child. Even Cardinal O’Malley offered to say mass for her. One can see monuments of candles, teddy bears and hearts left in her memory. If one looks carefully one can even find a Pope.

There is a reason so many love Pope Francis, including this Jewess. He represents man's search for acceptance, search for love and search for goodness in what is an otherwise cold, lonely and war-like world saturated in violence. This Pope has managed to capture even the most implacable hearts. Is he perfect? No one is but there is, in our time, no better example of empathy, kindness and justice that embodies this man. I laud you, Pope Francis, and ask you to say one for Bella, the personification of goodness and innocence on our earth. I look to the youthful purity of Bella gone well before her time and the aged wisdom of a Pope among us now trying to teach us understanding, acceptance and love as Jesus in parables is said to have done. Through Bella and the Pope the Paradise lost is the way to a Paradise found. To that I say Amen.

The Great Con -- the "Debate"

The Republican “Debate” - Do NOT be Conned!

Republicans ALL are utterly awful. They may have different ways of saying it but they ALL say mostly the same thing in different styles. The ONLY thing, the one and ONLY thing on which I agree with Trump is that the top has to be taxed more and the middle class has to be relieved of its burden. Those who can afford it most must and SHOULD, as the Christians they SAY they are, assume greater responsibility instead of the opposite – giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

I thought we just went through the GREAT recession during Bush’s murderous administration. Even Alan Greenspan said before Congress that they with their Ayn Randian laissez-faire economic fallacy erred – trickle-down economics failed because Reaganesque economics does NOT trickle down it trickles up and jobs for the middle class are eradicated because unmonitored and unregulated Wall Street got away with literally murder. The accrued profits by those at the top went to their yachts and not to jobs for the middle class. Even trade policy was fixed by lobbyists for the very rich. Suicides and deaths resulted because people lost jobs and the money that comes from jobs to sustain their health and their life. Many lost it all and some ended up on the street. The banksters who perpetrated the fraud and trade policy fixed by the very rich created the Great Recession. The 1% had jobs alas they walked away with even more millions, hundreds of millions and the middle class got stuck with the bill!

RepubliCONS are CONS for the 1% and if people fall for the lies they peddle then they have themselves to blame when RepubliCONS take us backwards into a 19th century world!

ALL of the Republicon “debaters” would be a nightmare. They care more about fetuses than they do about living breathing fully human women! All are simply terrible. Trump connecting vaccines to Autism sells fallacy and even death as people eschew vaccines that have been scientifically proven over decades to prevent diseases that can kill. There has been NO absolutely NO proven scientific correlation between vaccines and autism but hey RepubliCONS do not believe in science now do they?

Evolution will wipe out those who do not accept its science instead of touting fantasy beliefs that have no proof and will probably take those of us who revere science with them IF they gain power. Do NOT be conned!

I WILL SAY IT AGAIN AND AGAIN, WORK FOR DEMOCRATS. THE LIFE YOU SAVE WILL BE YOUR OWN!

Who By Bullet: Rabbi Meszler's High Holy Day Message

A Rabbi's New Year Message beautifully written.  Tears roll down my face!

From the Rabbi Write to Congress to ensure domestic abusers do not have access to guns by clicking here. Rabbi Meszler's Rosh Hashanah message: On the High Holy Days, we read the disturbing prayer entitled Unetaneh Tokef, containing the famous passage, "who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water." This prayer asks us to recognize our mortality and how much of life is beyond our control. It is therefore all the more mind-boggling when there are dangers that are within our power to avoid and we ignore them. Reflecting on this past year, to me the most obvious needless danger that we tolerate in America is gun violence. In the Unetaneh Tokef prayer of 2015, we could easily add the phrases: "who by bullet and who by negligence, who by semi-automatic weapon and who by unlicensed handgun, who by lack of background check and who by accident."  We as a society have no one else to blame but our sick culture and our lack of political will. Let me share with you just a few personal encounters I have had with this particularly American issue. I was in my last year of Rabbinical School when I got a call about my classmate Rabbi Joel Mosbacher. His father had been taken out of his store in Chicago at gunpoint. After the robbery, he was shot and killed. I remember driving up to the home to gather for the stunned shiva . My friend's life was changed forever. This is criminal gun violence. But there is also accidental gun violence. A year later, I was in serving a congregation in Washington DC. I received the following letter from a congregant named Eve in anticipation of the Million Mom March, a march for gun control, which took place on Mother's Day, May 14, 2000. The march was in reaction to the Columbine High School massacre.      Dear Rabbi,      Nate and I are by nature not marchers. We do not enjoy crowds, preferring to promote causes privately. Almost in spite of ourselves, this year's Million Mom March will be an exception.      In 1983, our first child, David, was shot and killed by another child. It was an accident that we have never been able to move beyond. For 17 years, our lives have been shaped, in a way deformed, by that event. It has hurt our souls, our marriage, our subsequent children, our families and our friends. It becomes a barrier between us and those who do not know because it is so difficult to say that there was a child who is not here anymore.      People are kind but unless you explain they do not understand. There is no polite way to say that we had a beautiful, bright 22-month old baby whose babysitter loved him very much but they kept a gun for protection and one day their four year old son found the gun and accidentally shot David through the head and killed him.      We really feel uncomfortable sharing that story because although we have been over every nuance for so many years, it is always a shock to bring it up. But there is no way we can go out for a meal on Mother's Day and know that others have given up their Sunday and we have not. So we will both be at the March and hope that you understand that if only there had been a safety mechanism on that gun, David would still be with us.      Our hope is that you will think about us, and about David, and give thought to what it means to make our children safe through gun legislation. I marched with this family and many others then. While the march brought many people together, it did not produce any change in policy.  More than a decade later, the epidemic continues unabated without any legislative response, even after Newtown. Proposed legislation focused on things I cannot imagine are objectionable: requiring background checks  on all firearm sales and on passing new and expanded assault weapon and high-capacity magazine bans . Yet no legislation has been passed. I thought the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 would be the tipping point. It was not. But mass shootings only account for 1% of the gun homicides in our country, even though they are the ones that get our attention. There are shootings that happen all the time. Last month, a 23 year old young man who just graduated from American University, Matthew Shlonsky, who grew up at a synagogue in North Carolina, got out of a cab in DC. A stray bullet hit and killed him in broad daylight. That could have been a member of any one of our families. In Baltimore, while I was visiting my family in Maryland this summer, fourteen people were shot in one night . It was in that moment that I decided I needed to speak on this issue today. So what does Judaism say about this issue? Judaism is not just about lighting candles on holidays, life-cycle events and how to be a better person. Judaism is also a religion of ethics, law, and the street. Make no mistake, Judaism is not a pacifist religion. We have a clear obligation for self-defense. Jewish tradition emphasizes the sanctity of human life. It also says that we are entitled to defend ourselves and even take a life to save ours. " If someone comes to kill you, kill them first" (Berachot 58a) is a fundamental principle in the Talmud. Rashi adds that a thief in the night better beware because the resident has a right to kill someone breaking in, assuming their worst intentions. Added to this is the obligation on us to assist other people who are in trouble: " You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds"  (Leviticus 19:16). On the other hand, these laws are not absolute. When it comes to owning weapons, the Talmud teaches ( Avodah Zarah 15b): " One should not sell [those of criminal intentions] either weapons or accessories of weapons, nor should one make any weapon for them."  Further, in the Talmud says (Bava Kama 46a): " Rabbi Nathan teaches: From where is it derived that one should not breed a bad dog or keep a damaged ladder in his house? From the verse [ Deuteronomy 24:8 ], 'You shall not bring blood upon your house.'"  If things that are inherently dangerous, like rabid dogs or broken ladders, are forbidden, all the more so should gun safety be maintained. Finally, Judaism views weapons not as sporting goods but as necessary evils. This negativity can be felt in tractate Shabbat (63a): " One must not go out [on Shabbat] with a sword, nor with a bow, nor with a...shield, ...nor with a spear... The sages say they are nothing but a stigma, for it is written [ Isaiah 2:4 ]: 'They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.'" Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe, Dean of the Institute of American and Talmudic Law in New York, summarizes the conclusions of Jewish law by asking: What type of weapons, magazines, etc., do people reasonably need for self defense? How can we make sure that those with a criminal past or the mentally unstable cannot access weapons? This would include restrictions on weapon ownership by those with whom they reside. We are obliged to use every possible technological means to prevent these people from acquiring arms under any circumstances, for example, a robust national system of background checks. Now there is a very small Jewish minority who make the argument that we should all be armed, for if the Jews of Germany had guns, then the Nazis would have never been able to take them away. I do not think this is a reasonable comparison. Currently, we are far more endangered by the all-too-common instances of domestic violence, someone thinking of suicide having access to a firearm, or an accident than the relatively rare instance of an armed intruder much less a genocidal regime in our streets. Self-defense is part of Judaism, but licenses, background checks, and safety are within not just the spirit but the letter of Jewish law. The Union for Reform Judaism has long recognized the need for gun safety legislation, passing many resolutions to that effect. I recognize that guns are part of American recreation and culture, and many people want them for home defense. My grandfather, of blessed memory, grew up in Pennsylvania and was part of that culture. He hunted regularly and belonged to the National Rifle Association. He told me he canceled his membership when the NRA insisted on the right to own assault weapons. He explained to me, "If you shoot an assault weapon in home defense, you'll take out a wall of your house. If you shoot a deer with it, there will be nothing left of the deer to bring home. It just doesn't make any sense." The fact is, I believe we are talking about basic health and safety legislation, the same way we have laws for cars or medicines. While no gun legislation will prevent all shootings, we know that strong gun safety laws do reduce the incidents of gun violence. Gun safety legislation saves lives, unequivocally. States with more gun control have less gun violence, and states with less gun control have more gun violence. Consider the 2014 study from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, which looked at how gun deaths in two states correlated with the repeal or enactment of permit-to-purchase (PTP) laws. After Missouri repealed its PTP regulations in 2007, it saw a 25 percent increase in homicides by firearm. Bordering states did not experience an increase, and the national murder rate declined 5 percent. Missouri murders not involving guns remained steady. When Connecticut enacted PTP laws in 1995, over the following decade it experienced a 40 percent reduction in firearm homicides. It also raised the handgun purchasing age from 18 to 21 and required prospective purchasers to complete eight hours of safety training after applying for a permit with local police in person. In other words, a 25% increase in one state and a 40% decline in another occurred solely because of a change in their laws. These laws did not forbid owning a gun but required a background check to see if you were a violent criminal or mentally unstable. People sometimes point out that new legislation would not have prevented most of the major gun massacres. They also like to say the slogan, guns don't kill people, people kill people. As one of my high school classmates cleverly wrote on Facebook, "You don't blame a pencil for spelling mistakes or a car for traffic accidents; why should you blame a gun for shootings?" The difference is that a pencil is made for writing and a car is made for taking people from one place to another. An assault weapon is only made for killing a lot of people at once. Even so, even if you believe you do need a gun for safety, which is well within Jewish tradition, why on earth should there be no background checks at gun shows the same as at gun stores? Why should assault weapons be permitted? Why shouldn't we develop and promote available smart gun technology that recognizes fingerprints in order to fire, much like a smartphone, so a child cannot shoot another child? We must learn to say: "Your right to own a gun ends with my family's right to live safely." "You shall not bring blood upon your house." So what can you do? A bipartisan bill has been introduced into Congress called the Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act (H.R. 3130 ). The bill will close a loophole in federal law that allows some perpetrators of domestic violence to access firearms. Now obviously this is a small step, pitiful even, but at least it is a step we can take. Please take the time to write to anyone and everyone that known domestic abusers should not be able to buy a gun anywhere and there ought to be a background check. Gun violence is a plague of our own own making. Even though we have not been successful in the past, we still must say, "This is not right. As a Jewish American, I protest." I believe, despite all of the past failures, that gun violence is an issue we can do something about. We cannot eliminate it completely, but we can reduce it. Change can begin with small steps. The proposed law is one such step. Almost every attempt at gun legislation has failed in the past twenty years. Nevertheless, we have to keep dreaming of a better tomorrow, as it says in the optimistic song by Arik Einstein: " Ani v'atah m'shaneh et ha-olam : You and I can change the world. You and I, and then others will follow. It's been said before, but that doesn't matter. You and I will change the world." Shanah tovah.   Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler Temple Sinai of Sharon