What do Jerusalemites think of Trump as US president?

 The Jerusalem Post;  "With Donald Trump back in the White House, the people of Israel's capital voice optimism, criticism, and biblical references."

“As he said, God saved him because he has a mission for the world, for America,” Eran said. “If he stands by the Jewish people and helps the Jewish people destroy their enemies and expel all the enemies that [are] living here, he’s a good guy.” 

“Forward-thinking.” “Egomaniac.” “A sense of God in his life.” “Controlling.” “Lunatic.” “A good Achashverosh.” These are some of the descriptions that the people of Jerusalem have used this week to describe the newly inaugurated Donald Trump. 

On two sunny but chilly days, four interns at The Jerusalem Post set out into the streets of this diverse city to hear how Jerusalemites were feeling about Trump’s becoming America’s 47th president.

Trump was sworn in for his second, non-consecutive term this month, and while Americans are divided over his presidency and the fate of the United States, Israelis are cautiously hopeful for their country. 

"From Mamilla Mall to the Mahaneh Yehuda market, in both English and Hebrew, the interviewees voiced optimism about Israel’s future, thoughts and criticisms regarding Trump as a person, and biblical analogies of his leadership and power." . . .

 

“ 'I also enjoy his New York attitude, with The Donald having grown up in Jamaica Estates, Queens, not far from where I grew up, in Hillcrest. I usually don’t find him offensive, though less biting posts wouldn’t hurt. He may be a jerk and insensitive at times, but he’s my jerk!” she said."

'Hamas will pay for breaching hostage deal,' military expert says   . . ."Arbel Yehoud was meant to be released on Saturday as part of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, but Hamas failed to return her. Instead, Hamas released four observation soldiers: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy.

"As per the terms of the hostage deal, Israeli female civilians were meant to be released before soldiers, including Yehoud." . . .

Look at this photo: I think those are Columbia college students! And it looks like the short one is Greta Thunberg chanting for "climate justice in occupied lands". TD

 

Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony ‘Kaddish’ and His Friend Samuel Pisar’s Lyrics Fill Carnegie Hall on the Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

The maestro and the Holocaust survivor composed a musical memorial to the Jews of Europe.  

"There is nothing minimalist about the conductor’s translation. Pisar’s voice, itself a prayer, proffers evidence that the story of Zion did not end at Auschwitz."

“How do you make it to Carnegie Hall?” That was the question Secretary Blinken asked the hundreds in attendance from the Perelman Stage at the redoubt of classical music on 57th Street. “Kaddish, Kaddish, Kaddish,” America’s erstwhile top diplomat explained. The edit of the classic gag was made to introduce a performance of Maestro Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphony No. 3 ‘Kaddish.’” The occasion was International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"The 71st secretary of state was in attendance because his stepfather, the lawyer Samuel Pisar, collaborated with Bernstein on “Kaddish” Pisar’s wife, Judith, and their daughter, Leah, read aloud the words that he wrote to accompany Bernstein’s symphonic rendering of the ancient Aramaic prayer for the dead. Pisar, who died in 2015, had survived Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Dachau. Mr. Blinken noted that of 900 children in Pisar’s town, he was the only survivor.

"Kaddish” is dedicated to the memory of President Kennedy, who was killed at Dallas weeks before the work’s premier at Tel Aviv, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The artistic director of Carnegie Hall, Sir Clive Gillinson, tells the Sun in a telephone interview that the man he still calls “Lenny” felt “incredibly strongly about his Jewish identity” and would “fly out to Israel when artists would fly in the other direction.”

"Bernstein, though, was dissatisfied with his own text, and felt that, as Sir Clive explains, Pisar could write “with an understanding of ‘what this was about.’” Bernstein, an American success story of the most glittering variety, who was born in Massachusetts and died at the Dakota, shared with Sir Clive that he “hadn’t suffered in any way that was meaningful.” He reckoned that “Kaddish” required the gravitas of the grave.

“ 'Kaddish” is divided into eight sections. It begins by calling Kennedy and Bernstein “beloved mentors and kindred souls,” bright lights in an “age of anxiety, marked by a century of hot and cold wars, which began with carnage and ended with terror.” The symphony’s performance mobilizes a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys’ choir, a soprano soloist, and a narrator — here Pisar’s widow Judith and his daughter Leah, reading alternatively." . . .

Noted Race Hustler Al Sharpton Declares Trump Racist, Incapable of 'Human Feeling' in DC Crash Remarks

 RedState  

"Meanwhile, Trump on Friday kicked off Black History Month by celebrating the accomplishments of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, economist Thomas Sowell, and abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. There could not be more of a contrast."

Joy Reid, The View, and Maxine Waters will love this!

"Other than perhaps civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, "social justice" activist Al Sharpton is the most prolific shake-down artist/professional racial hustler in the history of the United States, with one notable difference. Jackson, whether genuine or contrived, portrays a shred of decency, while Sharpton is not only smug to the max; he also personifies the height of hypocrisy.

"This takes us to Friday and MSNBC's ridiculous "Morning Joe," with Sharpton declaring that President Donald Trump is incapable of "having....human feeling." 

"Co-host Jonathan Lemire kicked off the festivities.

Let’s let’s get your thoughts here about what we heard from President Trump yesterday, blaming with no evidence whatsoever, acknowledging he had no evidence, blaming hiring practices centered around DEI, centered around diversity for what happened the other night.

"Before we get to Sharpton's race-obsessed response, note that Lemire raised the issue of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), which, as the left portrays it, is about not only black Americans, but also the gay community, and the "trans" community, with the latter seemingly being the most prominent among DEI activists.

"Yet, Sharpton went straight to the race card (emphasis, mine):

Well, clearly, the president has a racial obsession. He’s using whatever race-baiting he can to get elected and maintain. but you would think when we’re seeing 67 people that have been killed by an accident and that their families are dealing with the shock of that that he would try and appeal for all of us to one, mourn the families and give the families our grievances and condolences and prayers and bring us all together because any of us could have been on that flight.

"Sharpton accusing anyone of race-baiting is beyond amusing, and tantamount to left-wing independent filmmaker Michael Moore calling someone else overweight." . . . 

Aircraft in Philadelphia Plane Crash Was Medical Jet Carrying 'Pediatric Patient'; Fires Put Out

 Becca Lower

. . ."He said the plane then went "into the plaza, and into the Dunkin Donuts." Still in apparent shock, the man described seeing dead bodies, and "cars burned up." Earlier reporting stated that a gas line may have been severed, adding to the danger of explosions."

All 6 on medical plane that crashed in Philadelphia were killed | AP News

'Now, we're learning more about what happened in the plane crash earlier on Friday evening, and who was aboard the jet. Fox News spoke to a witness, who described as the aircraft "nipped a house" as it plummeted from the skies, then after it "hit a couple cars," there was an explosion.

"He said the plane then went "into the plaza, and into the Dunkin Donuts." Still in apparent shock, the man described seeing dead bodies, and "cars burned up."

"Earlier reporting stated that a gas line may have been severed, adding to the danger of explosions.

"Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams reported that she had spoken to senior fire officials about "multiple fires" spawned by the plane "spray[ing] jet fuel." The officials said that six homes and six cars caught fire, leading to explosions.

"McAdams added that while the first reporting was that it was a small plane, as she puts it, "a small, private jet," but it could carry at least seven people. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that there were six people on board. The plane was in the air for about 30 seconds after taking off.

"Thankfully, the fire officials said, their crews were quickly able to reach the homes, and safely . . .

Breaking Down the Philadelphia Air Ambulance Crash: What Went Wrong?

Seeing the bright light as the plane descends; could it have been afire? TD This narrator is the second experienced flier to advance the theory heard in this video. TD

More aerial video of the crash site

Fragment hits customer in head.

Democrats Still Don’t Get Why They Lost

 "They insist on insulting the intelligence of voters by touting fictitious accomplishments."

American Spectator     The Biden regime and congressional Democrats failed to provide anything but empty rhetoric on a large list of critical issues. 

"In order to grasp how little the Democrats learned from their recent defeat, all you need to do is watch Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) discuss their loss during Sunday morning’s interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press: “We did a lot of good things, but all too often Kristen, we talked about the mechanics of the legislation and the details of the legislation and we really didn’t show … average working families who didn’t realize how much we had done and how much we care for them.” Schumer, like most of his fellow Democrats, insists the problem was messaging. In reality, of course, they lost because of incredibly bad policies and even worse candidates.

"Schumer’s refusal to admit this is rooted in the deep-seated contempt with which he and most Democrats regard the voters. He goes on to confirm this when Welker confronts him with the fact that he lied about President Biden’s mental acuity. He looks straight into the camera, denies doing so, and quickly changes the subject to tired Democrat talking points about Biden’s “amazing record.” In other words, two months after the voters soundly rejected these fictitious claims, Schumer still believes we are stupid enough to believe them. The only people with more contempt for voters than the Democrats are the leftists who have colonized the corporate media. Yet, even the New York Times is forced to confront some realities.

The Democratic Party’s estrangement from working-class voters first became clear with Mr. Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton in 2016, powered by broad shifts in the preferences of white voters without college degrees, and it became even more unmistakable with his emphatic defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in November. That result was a reckoning for a party that thought it had fixed its problems with blue-collar voters by heavily reinvesting in domestic manufacturing but instead discovered even more erosion, this time among Black and Latino workers.

More...

President Trump Can Restore Sanity to California’s Environmental Policies

"The article elegantly creates scenarios for what the LA area residents impacted by the fires will encounter once they try to rebuild. While the number is great, it would appear that who was affected and where adds much more political muscle to their rebuild case. It would seem that only President Trump can help them, which means he will have to coerce the state into compliance with commonsense. It will be interesting to see what lengths its environmental lobby will go to thwart his effort. The article implies that these people will try to sue the administration into compliance with what they want, which is money to rebuild and keep the current environmental/anti-business (and anti-commonsense) status quo. So, it will be interesting to see who has the most political power in California, the environmentalist lobby or the people most impacted by the fires."  Comment from a reader to this post.

"The executive order issued by President Trump in response to the Los Angeles wildfires is the first step in what promises to be an extraordinary effort by his administration to beat some sense back into California’s environmental policies. Trump has “threatened to withhold federal disaster aid for wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles unless California leaders change the state’s approach on its management of water.” Unlike previous presidents, it is quite possible that Trump will make good on his threats.

"The Democrats who run California may decide to take Trump seriously, or they may merely use his remarks as additional fodder for performative litigation against the Trump administration. But regardless of how they react, it doesn’t change the fact that environmentalism run amok has inflicted grievous harm on the state. It has made California unaffordable at the same time as it has moved beyond helping the environment to actively harming the environment. The fires in Los Angeles are the latest proof.

"Anyone familiar with the consequences of environmentalist extremism in California will almost invariably point to one particular law as the biggest culprit, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), originally enacted by the state legislature in 1970. At that time, it was the first legislation of its kind in the nation, if not the world. Its original intent was to “inform government decision-makers and the public about the potential environmental effects of proposed activities and to prevent significant, avoidable environmental damage.”

"Over the past half-century, CEQA has acquired layers of legislative updates and precedent-setting court rulings, warping it into a beast that denies clarity to developers and derails projects. When projects do make it through the CEQA gauntlet, the price of passage adds punitive costs in time and money. Knowing this will happen deters countless investors and developers from even trying to complete a project in the state.

"The result of CEQA is higher prices and scarcity of everything, including housing, water, energy, and good jobs." . . .

Behind a paywall: The Spectacle Ep. 182: Los Angeles Fires and Gavin Newsom’s Incompetence  "Gavin Newsom is [and has been] a terrible governor."  

But Hollywood loves him!

Auschwitz’s Brutal Lesson

Diana L. Banister  

"Eighty years since the liberation of that Nazi death camp and it is still incomprehensible that any human being could do this to another."

 . . ."Too many stood by and allowed it to happen. Eric Metaxas, in his book on Lutheran Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, points out that even a majority of churches in Germany did nothing to stop this systematic murder of millions of Jews. 

"The radical Jew hatred on college campuses, at elite institutions and in our streets over the last year shows some have learned nothing from the past. We have seen the same despicable hatred toward a race of people that led to the systematic murder of 10 million people and a world war.

"No doubt our elite colleges and universities have become cesspools of hate and tyranny, cloaked in free speech but the cruel display of antisemitism and discrimination by race has now seeped into parts of our society.

"For this reason alone, President Donald Trump’s pursuit to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and departments from government departments is a critically important start. Perhaps we can turn back this obsession with separating people based on our differences that has been the focus for the last decades.

"Trump’s inauguration on the same day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King is significant. We can never go back to judging or discriminating against someone based on the color of their skin.

"Never again."

‘Completely disgraceful’: Douglas Murray rips into ‘political hack’ bishop

 Douglas Murray discusses the "Balmy Bishop"

"Donald Trump has demanded a public apology from a church and a bishop who face-to-face called on the US President to "show mercy" to LGBTQ children and immigrants.

“ 'I thought it was completely disgraceful and a great example of where the episcopalian church has gone in recent years,” Mr Murray told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio.

“ 'It is a demonstration of the church’s failing that they would have just this third-rate political hack when they could have had somebody who was talking about God and representing God on earth.” . . .

Potomac Crash, a Soldier’s View

 AFNN 

 "Take the money you save and plow that into modernization and training. Maybe we can prevent the next “pilot error” by giving them more training and experience. There should be little else that pilots do other than fly under the most rigorous and challenging positions we can create in training"

"In the 24-hour news cycle, everyone wants to play the blame game. It is not just the corrupt media that plays this game. Government agencies, media, and even senior “leaders” in the military are all active participants. We rush to blame someone before the data is gathered and the analysis is conducted.

"Let’s also stipulate that every bad thing that happens in the universe, from ingrown toenails to solar flares, is Donald Trump’s fault. Also, nothing good can be attributed to him, his family, or his cabinet. After ten days, he is clearly responsible for all the ills that festered over the last 18 years in our corrupt and increasingly overreaching federal junta. So, let’s think about the SECOND most important cause of the disaster since we know that somehow it was all mainly Trump’s fault.

"This will likely be blamed on pilot error of the helicopter pilot. That will be a sad eulogy for a young patriot and a mother of five suddenly left without a father and husband. (We know that to the Left, men and toxic masculinity are insensate evil and father figures are nefarious and unnecessary.) We don’t KNOW it was pilot error, ATC error, hardware failure, or some combination of all three, but let’s assume there was some pilot error involved. AS MUCH AS THE TALKING HEADS WOULD LIKE, THIS CANNOT BE BLAMED SOLELY ON THE PILOT.

"Much of this has to be laid at the feed to Lloyd Austin and the rest of his woke, poser, cosplaying general officers. Our “army of emptiness” must bear much of the responsibility for this disaster. At the same time that the FAA TRIPLED the number of hours necessary to become a commercial pilot, the Army has drastically cut the flight hours for pilots. Many junior officers do not get enough time behind the stick to be rated as a Pilot in Command (PIC) and able to be the primary pilot in a helicopter. In the recent past, Army pilots would get 500 hours of flying time. Today, it takes fewer than 200 hours in many cases to become a PIC. I don’t know if fuel costs and shortages, spare parts, or something else is the cause. I do know that in many aviation units, an E5 (Sergeant) acts as a platoon sergeant (an E7 position) and that there are not enough maintenance technicians to keep all the airframes properly serviced.

"More stick time means fewer pilot errors." . . .

Mexico --- Friend, enemy, neutral, or something else?

 Victor Davis Hanson

  . . ."Rather than worry about who is sending remittances, why not politely place a 20 percent tax (about $12 billion) on all cash sent from the U.S. to Mexico? We could also hail our mutual friendship and then reluctantly slap tariffs on imported assembled goods until the two-way trade is roughly balanced."  . . .VDH

"Mexican nationals, likely cartel members, recently crossed the border and shot and wounded an American hiker. Did they assume that Joe Biden was still president, and so it was still a veritable open season on Americans without consequences?

"Mexico also recently balked at allowing a U.S. transport plane to land, returning its own nationals apprehended as illegal aliens.

"Was its attitude that Alejandro Mayorkas was still Homeland Security Secretary and thus working with Mexico to ensure that millions of illegal aliens could stay in the U.S. indefinitely?

"After four years of Biden’s appeasement, Mexico seems to assume that it has a sovereign right to encourage the flight of millions of its own impoverished citizens illegally into the U.S. and further assumes that it can fast-track millions of Latin Americans through its territory and across our border.

"Mexico either cannot or will not address the billions of dollars of raw fentanyl products shipped in — mostly from China — and then processed for export to the U.S. by its cartels across a nonexistent border.

"Mexico seems to have little concern that some 75,000 Americans on average die from mostly Mexican-imported fentanyl each year — more deaths in just the last decade than all the Americans killed in action during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Who then is our friend, and who is our enemy?

"This appalling death toll is in part due to the deliberate efforts of the cartels to mask fentanyl as less deadly narcotics or camouflage the poison by lacing it into counterfeit prescription drugs.

"Mexico encourages its expatriate illegal aliens to send back some $63 billion per year in remittances. That huge sum constitutes one of Mexico’s largest sources of foreign exchange, surpassing even its tourist and oil revenues." . . .

Freed hostages detail sexual abuse while in captivity

i24NEWS English  

"In an emergency session at the Israeli parliament, released hostage recounts the sexual abuse female hostages face while in captivity. i24NEWS' Natasha Raquel Kirtchuk reports."

Close-knit figure skating community mourns DC plane crash victims

TODAY

"The tight-knit figure skating community is grieving the loss of several of its members in the tragic midair plane crash near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, including Tara Lipinsky and Nancy Kerrigan who shared emotional reactions to the tragedy. NBC’s Sam Brock reports for TODAY."