April 8, 2022 “He shall slaughter the sheep” Metzora 14:13
For whom must Republicans obsessively invent ways to arm the public, to encourage carrying weapons, to protect gun misuse from prosecution, and to abolish any form of regulation, including training, red flag laws, and curbs on arming the mentally ill? These days, guns are the only civil right they acknowledge.
April 1, 2022 “Declare him contaminated” Tazria 13:3
Here’s an idea: Never merely say, “Putin.” Instead, only say, “Putin Diyetka Ubiytsa”, in Russian: “Putin, baby killer “. Post it on Facebook. Tweet it. Get everybody you know to share and like it. Make it viral. Make it ubiquitous. Just as the Russians do when they disrupt us.
March 25, 2022 “Do not make yourselves abominable” Shemini 11:43
This Conservative Supreme Court has been the most activist since the 60’s. A sampling: Denying states’ the right to require campaign gift disclosure, inventing religious exclusions to civil rights laws, granting corporations 1st amendment rights (didn’t see that in the Constitution!). Republicans may decry “judicial activism”, but that’s just phony partisan hype.
March 18, 2022 “That soul shall be cut off from its people” Tzav 20:20
Republicans embrace Russian-style censorship in schools and public discourse. They’ve instituted Russian-style voting practices in states they control. Fox News mimics all the malign implausibility of TASS. Republican nativism has an ominously Russian kinship. Strangely though, Republicans derive their gun policies from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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March 11, 2022 “When a ruler sins” Vayikra 4:22
In 2018, Donald Trump scandalized the G7 by endorsing the Russian conquest of Crimea. In 2019, when Zelenskyy refused to join his anti-Biden carnival, Trump withheld $400M of weapons for months, including critical Javelin missiles. Since defeating Putin’s puppet, Joe Biden has re-established a Western democratic alliance, defending the Ukrainian people, and armed a heroic resistance in Russian aggression.
March 4, 2022 ” He emplaced the partition” Pekudei 40:21
Supporters of Jewish schools are schizophrenic about separation of church and state. For Jews, as legislatures and courts promote public funding of religious schools despite flagrantly discriminative practices and curricula exemptions, to condone any element of the crusade to limit 1st Amendment protections is ultimately naïve and dangerous.
February 25, 2022 “He made the dividing curtain” Vayakhiel 36:35
Trump’s deceits and exaggerations alternately irritate and amuse, but the wholesale embrace of his lies by Republican office-seekers – including Ohio – is shocking testimony to the paranoia and racism in large segments of Americans and their appetite for delusion. Those same tactics incited antisemitism for centuries.
February 18, 2022 “Erase me from your book” Ki Sisa 32:32
Jonathan Tobin’s blatantly partisan screeds abuse his platform in the Cleveland Jewish News. Whether trivializing anti-democratic election bills, ridiculing Jewish organizations that condemned the Jan.6 riot as insurrectionist, or peddling Republican anti-Biden memes, he ought to pay for his space, just as we do.
February 11, 2022 “Speak to the wise-hearted” Tetzaveh 28:3
February 4, 2022 “I will establish My word” I Kings 6:12 (Terumah)
Hyperbole is the lingua franca of politics, but the Orwellian lies the Republican establishment propagates hearken back to Stalinist Russia. Incredibly, whether distorting public health, Trump’s defeat, Jan. 6, climate change, or voting fraud, they have amassed power by harnessing tens of millions of gullible devotees to their deceptions.
January 28, 2022 “You shall not accept a false report” Mishpatim 23:1
Inflation and “disarray” are the media’s Biden memes. But, look more closely at record stock prices, unemployment below 4%, record jobs growth, infrastructure legislation the Trump Congress promoted, but failed to pass, the Afghani withdrawal Trump promised, but flunked, and at a year without Presidential corruption and deceit. How was YOUR 2021?
January 21, 2022 “Make known to them the path” Yisro 18:20
Why kill it? Build Back Better provides an urgent boost for clean energy, universal pre-K, child tax credits, home rather than institutional care for the infirm, and desperately needed affordable housing. Almost all of it gets funded by better IRS enforcement and modest taxing of the richest individuals and corporations who now pay little or no taxes. It shouldn’t require a miracle.
January 14, 2022 “Israel saw the Egyptian dead” Beshalach 14:30
Per CDC, in 4th Quarter 2021, U.S. COVID deaths totaled 126,200 of which approximately 111,000 were among the unvaccinated. Up to 100,000 deaths, thus, can be attributed to the likes of Robert Kennedy and his “Children’s Defense Fund” and to the blowhard politicians and Fox commentators who slyly comport resisting immunization with 1st Amendment freedoms. Murderous.
January 7, 2022 “Locusts ate all the grass of the land” Bo 10:15
Annual SSI, SNAP, TANF and Housing Vouchers for poor, non-working non-disabled non-elderly total $60 Billion: Welfare for “lazy” Americans? Just for Big Oil-Coal-Gas, the annual Intangibles, Depletion, Gasification, Fuel Tax, and Ethanol exemptions/subsidies/credits/allowances annually total $36 BILLION! Now that’s WELFARE. And don’t forget Defense, Big Ag ($46B), Foreign Weapon sales ($7B), Big Pharma ($15B) and state/local goodies.