More Questionable Voting Results. Not Educated Enough To Reason Nor Know History. More.

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Maricopa or Die

By Jack Gleason, AM THINKER

It’s been a month since the November elections, and it’s obvious that serious irregularities exist in our voting systems.  Unless they are exposed and fixed, our country will have been taken over by our internal and external enemies, and we will never recover.

All of the efforts to fight back against the fraud nationwide have been unsuccessful except for in Maricopa County, Arizona. Kari Lake, the gubernatorial candidate, is still fighting — filing lawsuit after lawsuit in an effort to overturn the “results” in her campaign, where the current secretary of state in charge of the election, Katie Hobbs, was her opponent.  Hobbs wouldn’t recuse herself despite the fact that she would be overseeing her own election.  Unbelievable!  When outrageous election problems caused some counties to withhold their vote certifications, Hobbs threatened them with class 6 felonies

Not only did Katie Hobbs bully her own county supervisors, but Elon Musk’s recent revelations show how she worked with Twitter to silence her critics.

The mainstream media have been working overtime to repress the story and trash the credibility of Kari Lake.  But there are a few brave souls tilting against the windmills of organized propaganda — if you know where to look.

Lara Logan, the investigative journalist from South Africa known for her heroics as a war correspondent, was a star on CBS 60 Minutes, but she seems to have missed the memo about reporting on inconvenient political corruption.

In a recent interview, she explained that the problem is with not just the Democrats, but also some Republicans, who have joined them to create a UniParty willing to ignore blatant election fraud in exchange for a share of the pie.

On the day of the election, stories about problems with voting machines, tabulators, and printers in Republican districts only were largely ignored.  Republicans, forced to wait in long lines, were told to put their ballots in a “special box” to be counted later.  We later learned that these votes were commingled with others that had already been counted and probably never made it into the totals.

The biggest story that has appeared almost nowhere in mainstream media, including the once “fair, balanced, and unafraid” Fox News, is that in Maricopa County, in-person voters showed up for the August 2 primary, and they choose the Republican candidate 80% of the time…but they suddenly seemed to change their minds in the general election.

On November 8, in-person voters came from the following parties:

Democrat, 17%

Republicans, 53%

Independents, 31%

In the primary on August 2, of the 31,000 registered “Independents” that showed up, 74% asked for a Republican ballot.  Only 23% asked for a Democrat ballot.

The November Election Day results were reported in batches as they were counted…

Reported Thursday, November 11, 50.7% Hobbs, 49.3% Lake, total 72,000 ballots

Reported Saturday, November 13, 48.2% Hobbs, 51.8% Lake, total 85,000

Reported Sunday, November 14, 46% Hobbs, 54% Lake, total 97,000

With 254,000 votes cast on Election Day, that’s about 127,000 votes per candidate with about 94,000 votes from Independents.

In order for these results to have been accurate, you would have to assume that all Independents voted for Hobbs when they had shown up 90 days earlier and voted 74% for the Republican.

This means that 65,000 Independents changed their minds on Election Day and suddenly voted for Hobbs.  The final margin of Hobbs’ victory was only 17,000 votes, and this single county would have meant a switch of 131,000 votes.

This seems likely, since all the polls prior to the election showed Kari Lake with a 10% lead.

Here is some math you might want to check out…

             Hobbs %Lake  %Total    Hobbs      Lake

Thursday 50.        49.3      72,000   36,504   35,496

Saturday 48.2        51.8    85,000    40,970   44,030

Sunday 46               54       97,000    44,620   52,380

Totals                            254,000  122,094 131,906

Primary vote turnout by party

Primary %     HobbsLake  

Democrat 16.6% 42,164 100%  42,164

Republican 52.7 133,858 100% 133,858

Independent 30.7%  77,978 74%  18,247    57,704 switch?

TOTAL VOTES 254,000

TOTAL   60,411  191,562  251,973    131,151

Primary vote turnout by party Primary % Hobbs Lake

Democrat              16.6%          42,164         100%      42,164

Republican                   52.7%        133,858         100%     133,858

Independent              30.7%          77,978              74%       18,247     57,704 switch?

TOTAL VOTES         254,000     TOTAL  60,411   191,562        251,973    131,151

If that’s not enough, The Gateway Pundit reported that the totals show that the GOP candidates for governor, secretary of state, Senate, and attorney general received thousands fewer votes than the candidates for state treasurer and state mine inspe

It is common for the “top of the ballot” — the major candidates — to get more votes than the lesser-known “down-ballot” candidates.  The normal pattern of more top-ballot votes held true for the Democrat side.  This strongly suggests that results were manipulated in favor of the Democrats.

These same top-of-ballot counts were also less than the total votes counted for all U.S. House races.  In the nine Arizona districts, 1,325,000 votes were counted for GOP House candidates, while 1,196,000; 1,271,000; and 1,254,00 were totaled for the Senate, governor, and secretary of state GOP candidates.  Again, the Democrat side showed the normal pattern: more top-of-ballot votes.

The idea that anyone is being fooled by Democrat assertions that our elections are “free and fair” is not believed by most of the American people.  Problems with the election in Arizona have Republicans furious, and a majority of nationwide voters agree that our “sacred right to vote” is at risk.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 71% of Likely U.S. voters believe it’s likely — including 40% who say it’s Very Likely — that problems with the election in Maricopa County affected the outcome of the Senate election in Arizona. …

After reports of Election Day problems with vote tabulation in Maricopa County, (Kari) Lake called the election “botched” and declared: “This isn’t about Republicans or Democrats. This is about our sacred right to vote, a right that many voters were, sadly, deprived of on November 8th.” Seventy-two percent (72%) of Likely Voters agree with Lake’s statement, including 45% who Strongly Agree.

We can only hope that Kari Lake will continue her fight against this fraud.  Send her a few bucks to defray legal expenses.

Why is the standard for proving election fraud so high?  “You must prove in a court of law that enough cheating occurred to flip the results.”  Instead, our Boards of Elections should be able to produce evidence to anyone who asks how they ensured an honest election, including how the ballots were generated, verified, transported, and totaled in front of non-partisan or bi-partisan observers.  If not, they should lose their jobs.

We can also hope that the new Republican House of Representatives will conduct thorough investigations into voter fraud in the 2022 and 2020 elections, though it is unsure if Kevin McCarthy will have the stones to do an honest job.  In the meantime, call your representatives and tell them you expect answers, not waffling.  Make no donations to the Republican National Committee unless their leadership changes from Ronna McDaniel, who has been silent about voter fraud.

In the corporate world, the burden of proof for accurate bookwork is the responsibility of the company CEO and CFO.  It is not the job of the shareholders to prove wrongdoing.

If fraud can be clearly proven in even one county, the dam of deceit will burst, and hundreds of cases of vote fraud will be brought to attention.  Elections will be overturned or revoted, and the perpetrators should end up in jail.

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MOST YOUNG AMERICANS ARE NOT EDUCATED ENOUGH WHEN ITCOMES TO REASONING AND THEY CERTAINLY DO NOT KNOW HISTORY.  BLACKS ARE EVEN IN A WORSE POSTION.

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Blacks should learn from Jews, not hate them

By Joan Swirsky, RENEW AMERICA December 9, 2022

[…]

Why? “Because when you admire someone and you want to be like them,” Steve told me, “You study what they do, how they act, what they say. You try to find out what the secrets of their success are, with the goal of achieving what they’ve achieved, or at least coming close. And that goes for farmers or hedge-fund managers, ballerinas, or composers, or astronauts, rich or poor, black or white…that goes for everyone!”

Indeed, intelligent people who play sports realize when they’re quite young that the way to achieve your goals is to emulate the people you admire…their discipline, drive, sacrifice, demeanor, behavior. And to learn the lessons that only sports—not school—teaches: humility, how to handle disappointment with grace, how to be modest in victory, how to be grateful for the gifts of health and talent that God has given you.

Ye and Kyrie know all this

Certainly, the rap star and clothing designer Ye (aka Kanye West) is not stupid, as anyone who watched his interview with Tucker Carlson saw with their own eyes. He is articulate and thoughtful. He told Carlson that he was raised by a mother he loved and a father he idolized, “the most brilliant man.” His father, he proudly stated, was a member of the Black Panther Party, a Marxist-Leninist and black power organization founded in 1966.

Before it was founded, Blacks and Jews comprised an influential alliance, with Jews contributing significant financial aid and both moral support and concrete assistance to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and many other Black organizations fighting for equality and against racism—not to omit their collaborative efforts to enroll Blacks to vote, for which New York residents, Jewish volunteers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were savagely murdered in 1964 in Mississippi.

Yet given this history, quite familiar to Ye, he nevertheless tweeted on October 9, 2022, that his intention was to go Def Con 3 on Jewish people, which to most people meant to wipe out the Jews who so irritate and enrage him, and that includes the power that he apparently believes the Jews in his life––his managers, agents, handlers, doctors, etc.––seem to have over him.

And while spewing this hatred, he also insisted that he was one of the “real” Jews, ostensibly referring to the Hebrew Israelite group or cult or whatever it is.

Kyrie Irving, too, the Brooklyn Nets phenom basketball star, is, like Ye, highly intelligent and thoughtful. But on October 27, 2022, he tweeted a link to an Amazon listing page for Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, a 2018 film based on a book of the same name, which promotes Black Hebrew Israelite ideology, apparently theorizing, as Chaim Lax spells out, that Blacks were really the first Jews.

Clearly neither of these grievance purveyors has ever seen the massive number of proud dark-skinned Israeli Jews who hail from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Ethiopia. In fact, Barry Shaw—author, journalist, and executive in the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies—writes that “white Israelis are a minority in the Jewish homeland.”

The film also includes denials that the Holocaust occurred, admiring quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler, and the vicious anti-Semite Henry Ford, who claims that Jewish people worship Satan, as well as accusations that Jews controlled the Atlantic slave trade and currently control the media.

Who are the real victims?

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Hate Crime statistics, Jews remain the highest target of rampant racism in America, but it is rare to see any reaction from the media when Jews are assaulted, insulted, harassed, vilified, physically attacked, and even murdered, not only in America but around the world. So, it was quite out of the ordinary when Ye was immediately and severely sanctioned by the advertisers who have made him a billionaire and that overnight he lost that status and was reduced––a big boo-hoo here—to being worth a mere $400-million dollars

Kyrie, too, was sanctioned, suspended from playing for five games, and lost millions in advertising revenue, including from Nike, which cancelled his pricey contract. To his credit, however, he posted this tweet:

“While doing research on YHWH, I posted a Documentary that contained some false antisemitic statements, narratives, and language that were untrue and offensive to the Jewish Race/Religion, and I take full accountability and responsibly for my actions,” Irving wrote.” I am grateful to have a big platform to share knowledge and I want to move forward by having an open dialogue to learn more and grow from this.”

Note: YHWH, Yahweh, is the name for the God of the Israelites, which was the Hebrew name revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus.

A Natural Alliance gone wrong

Why was the Black-Jewish alliance natural? Because Blacks had been slaves in Africa and America, and Jews had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years. Blacks were always reviled minorities outside of Africa and Jews were always reviled minorities in every country they have been exiled to for the past 4,000 years, except for the United States of America, which is 246 years old, and Israel, which is on the brink of its 75th anniversary.

Even today, Blacks in the U.S. represent approximately 14 percent of the population, while Jews represent approximately 2.4 percent of the population. Blacks have been vilified, marginalized, mistrusted, and, yes, lynched and murdered, just for being Blacks. Jews have been vilified, marginalized, mistrusted, and, yes, six million murdered in cold blood simply because they were Jews.

But instead of these two naturally simpatico minorities supporting each other, we have the larger minority, Blacks, engaging in fulminating hatred of Jews for many decades––thanks to career race hustlers and brutal anti-Semites like the pompous pontificating racists––the Devils quoting Scripture––Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as well as Barack Obama, “the Squad“ in the U.S. Congress, and now Ye and Kyrie, to name a teeny tiny sample of Black hatred toward Jews. All of whom have taught their acolytes to consider themselves victims!

But is it really hatred?

The human race is driven by emotion. It’s nice to fantasize that we’re driven by empiricism, facts, objective truths. But both history and everyday life contradict that fantasy. Emotion rules the day.

The Number One emotion is fear, which we all witnessed as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the globe, forced children to miss two years of schooling, destroyed many thousands of businesses, frightened millions of people into taking an experimental, DNA-altering vaccine, often with significantly dire consequences, etc.

Jews are all too familiar with the emotion of fear, as are Blacks.

The second most powerful emotion is jealousy. Most crimes––including murder––are committed in the name of this raging sentiment, and lesser crimes and everyday hostility are also caused by the monster of green-eyed envy. Basically, the person with this curse of an emotion is saying: I want what you have and the fact that you have it, and I don’t have, makes me blind with rage, makes me hate you.

On the surface, it seems obvious that what Ye and Kyrie and the Jew haters who have weighed in on their behalf are experiencing is blind jealousy. “How come,” they seem to be asking themselves, “that with all my intelligence, talent, charm, connections, good looks and money, it’s the Jews who run Hollywood and the music business and the media and me???”

Objectively, numerically, these accusations are simply not true. Here, Rory Rochman, noted speaker on Jewish rights, addresses Ye’s admitted jealousy problem with Jews. But sticking with the issue at hand, human emotions, is it really jealousy?

After jealousy, the third and hugely powerful emotion is anger, an easy emotion to access, whether it involves dealing with an irritating relative, witnessing a boyfriend who hurt your daughter’s feelings, hitting a pothole that breaks your axle, even trying to reach your doctor by pushing 2, then 4, then 7, then more horrible music.

But fear, jealousy and anger are only three layers of the psychological onion.

There is a fourth, but let’s look first at where the rage of the Blacks should really be––but isn’t.

Wh should Blacks be furious at?

Who has inflicted the most harm on Blacks? In a word…Democrats.

Who fought ferociously against President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed 3.5 million Black slaves for all time? Democrats!

Who created the Ku Klux Klan, which hunted down, tortured, lynched, and murdered Blacks during its entire tenure (from 1865 to today)? Democrats!

Who created the Jim Crow laws which mandated racial segregation in all public facilities? Everyone from Democrat President Woodrow Wilson to Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace (“segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”) to Virginia Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, on and on and on—all Democrats!

Who fought fiercely against the Civil Rights legislation of 1964, which dismantled Jim Crow segregation, combatted racial discrimination, removed barriers to black enfranchisement in the South that banned poll taxes, literacy tests, and other measures that effectively prevented African Americans from voting? Democrats!

It gets worse

When all that failed to get rid of Blacks––as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, stated as her goal––Democrats figured that the sure-fire way to keep Blacks voting for them was to destroy their families and thus insure that they remained in poverty and especially in ignorance.

To that end, they created a welfare system with the following rule: I will support you, Ms. Black Woman, with housing, food, medical care, and childcare…no matter how many babies you give birth to…with one condition: you cannot marry! If you marry, your benefits will either be substantially reduced… or eliminated!

Poof! The one-parent home was created, where Black mothers still had to work to make ends meet, where their children had no inspiring or disciplining male role models, and where single motherhood exploded from only seven percent––when the War on Poverty began in 1964 under Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson––to 23 percent today.

…and worse

In the Great Northward Migration between 1910 and 1970, six-million Blacks left the rural south for the urban northeast, Midwest, and west, many of them to New York, where a criminal public school system has kept them ignorant and unemployable to this very day.

That system has “graduated” thousands upon thousands of Black students who are unable to read, calculate, or even speak coherently. Inevitably, they find work with the neighborhood people who drive fancy cars, sport Rolex watches, and have huge wads of cash on hand––pimps, organized crime figures, and drug dealers. And then they end up in prison, often for life!

And who contributes mightily to this destructive system? None other than the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1998 to today, Democrat Randi Weingarten, a woman former Secretary of State Mick Pompeo says “is a danger to our children.”

That’s right, Weingarten represents the teachers who have mal-educated generations of Black students, supports the preposterous construct of Social Promotion–– promoting a child to the next grade regardless of skill mastery in the belief that it will promote self-esteem––all while she engages in anti-parent screeds and is lionized at the Biden White House!

The public schools run by Democrat-controlled unions and benefits-infatuated teachers have only vile insults at the mention of Eva Moskowitz, the woman who founded the first Charter School–– Success Academy––in New York City––there are now dozens, with Black parents clamoring to enroll their children. These schools educate children largely from black ghettos, who pass the Regents with flying colors on MERIT, score high marks on the SATs on MERIT, graduate from high school and go on to top-flight colleges on MERIT, and then go on to lives of independence and success.

…AND EVEN WORSE

Then there was the Democrat idea of Affirmative Action, the policy of favoring individuals for college admissions who belong to groups regarded as disadvantaged or subject to discrimination. Of course, it was a crashing failure. In essence, it said to Blacks: Look, you’re not that smart or motivated or accomplished, but you can still succeed if you don’t have to pass these whitey tests to get into college.

Did the proponents of this plan think so little of the native intelligence of Blacks that they wouldn’t see through the tremendous patronization and insult it inflicted? Did the program itself fail to see that Blacks who “graduated” from inferior high schools would not only be unable to keep up with the academic burden, but would be further wounded by their failure to do so?

So, they tried another strategy, the truly horrific, nonsensical and basically illiterate-supporting Common Core curricula inflicted on students by the Obama regime. Yet another crashing failure by the liberals, leftists, progressives among us––unless you think that credit should be given for students who can explain how they arrived at 2 + 2 = 5!

THE LAST LAYER OF THE EMOTIONAL ONION

Underneath the paralyzing layer of fear, below the obsessive nature of jealousy, under the blind rage and anger, there is the devastating emotion of despair. Of feeling that it’s all too much, too impossible, too overwhelming. This is the stuff of clinical depression. This is the stuff of suicide.

After all, fear and jealousy and anger are mobilizing! What can I do? Which protest group can I join? Who can I wreak my revenge on?

But despair has no allies. It is lonely. It is scary. It is immobilizing.

It is also what Ye and Kyrie and the legion of anti-Semites are most afraid of, with good reason, as suicides among Blacks have recently escalated dramatically.

THE SOLUTION

Don’t despair! The absolute cure for Black rage, jealousy, anger, and despair lies in one simple word: Emulate!

Spend one month of your entire life living with an observant Jewish family, reading the Bible, learning of the extreme emphasis Jews place on family unity, education, philanthropy, and mitzvahs––good deeds that can range from a simple smile to building a cancer research center to rushing all over the world to help in disaster areas.

Study why Jews, because of vicious discrimination, were forced literally to create Hollywood, why they were forced to build some of the best medical and research centers in America because they were barred from internships and residencies, the list of survival strategies is long and impressive.

Stop your jealousy. Stop your rage. Stop listening to the screeching racist preachers and politicians who have told you that you were a victim starting in your mother’s womb!

Start joining us Jews in fighting the real enemy, the actual powerful forces that have kept you down, defeated, and depressed: Liberals, Leftists, and Progressive Democrats and a horrific public education system.

Or, alternatively, stay in your perpetual rageful victim mode and see how far you’ve progressed in the next five or 10 or 1,000 years!

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com

Joan Swirsky (www.joanswirsky.com) is a New York-based journalist and author who wrote for the NY Times for over 20 years. She has been writing columns on conservative issues for various internet sites for the past 30 years. She can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com.

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We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated.  If we do the haters win.

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Opinion: How it feels to be Jewish today

By Alicia Chandler

Last weekend, a man drove into the parking lot of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township and began yelling at parents escorting their young children to Hebrew lessons. I will not use this space to discuss what he did or the actions of the police or the violation my community feels.

Instead, I want to describe to friends who are not from a marginalized community how it feels to me to be Jewish in America today — now, after fielding countless calls from frightened parents, exchanging texts with staff, lay leaders and members of my congregation, after the press releases and court hearings and Instagram videos — in this moment where I finally let my guard down allow myself to feel.

I feel broken.

Are there surveillance cameras in you church?

As the President-Elect of Temple Beth El, I walk into synagogues — mine and others — multiple times a week: sometimes for meetings, sometimes to sign checks and pay bills, sometimes to drop my children off, and sometimes to go to services or celebrations.

And every single time, I am greeted by security.

As someone living a multi-faith life with many friends of different faiths, I often find myself walking into churches. And every time I do, part of me is surprised that I can just open the door without being buzzed in. I look for security guards. I scan church vestibules for cameras, wondering who and what is protecting the space I am in. Because I have never had the privilege of walking into a synagogue without security precautions in place.

More:Police: Dearborn suspect told people at Michigan synagogue they were 'going to die'

More:Mitch Albom: Holy day brings a sad reminder: Antisemitism is always around

When I walk into Beth El, I am usually greeted by Morris. Morris is a kind man. I am often late leaving Temple because I stop at his desk and we talk about sports – sometimes my kids’ sports, sometimes Michigan football, sometimes the Lions or the Tigers. When Ken, who fills in for Morris, is there, he asks me if my son has put on pants yet — amused by his penchant for wearing short to temple, even in the Michigan deep freeze.

Last Sunday, I walked in the building and Morris was there. Morris is not usually there on weekends, but this day he was, so I asked him if I could give him a hug.

I did not have words, but I quietly teared up as I walked away, because Morris was one of the two men — along with JaJuan from the maintenance staff — who put themselves between Temple Beth El families and the man who came to remind them that antisemitism is alive and well in 2022. Both employees were subjected to racial epithets because they had the audacity to protect us from hate speech.

I have spent the week past talking about our wonderful security team, as well as the security apparatus of the Jewish Federation, which provides support to synagogues across Southeast Michigan. But what I want my friends from outside of the Jewish community to understand is the tax that hate places on us.

The cost of vigilance

Hate taxes us. It taxes our resources, because we must raise funds to pay for personnel and emergency response systems and who knows what else to keep us safe. It taxes our mental health, because we have to ask ourselves if we feel safe walking into a Jewish building, or wearing a Jewish symbol, or practicing our faith publicly.

It taxes our leaders — myself included — who would much rather be thinking about remodeling bathrooms or employee health benefits, but must instead spend their time deciding when the the openness and inclusiveness that their congregations and community crave must give way to security needs that force us back behind the locked ghetto walls.

For my friends who are not part of a marginalized community, who have not felt hatred directed at you for who you are, I do not expect you to understand what this moment feels like. In fact, I am jealous that you do not have to understand what it feels like.

But I do ask for your support in fighting hate. Not just hate against Jews. But hate in all its forms. Because hate is insidious. It burrows inside us and it distorts reality. It warps our minds. It divides communities. It metastasizes. It destroys.

• But lastly, even in this moment, where I let myself feel exhausted and broken and angry and frustrated and sad, I would like everyone outside of the Jewish community to understand that hate will never dissuade me for a moment. It will never distract me. I am a Jew. I may struggle with my faith, but I love my religion and will never stopped growing and struggling and learning as a Jew. Even when I have felt marginalized and isolated within my community, I have never stopped being proud of my community. And even when I feel fear, that fear will never be keep me away from synagogue that I love.

  Alisha Chandler is the president-elect of the Temple Beth El. She is also the co-founder of Nu?Detroit, on whose website this essay first appeared.

• +++
• But at least one courageous and decent Congressman is willing to speak out.
• +++
• Congressman Ritchie Torres: ‘Holocaust deniers are the scum of the Earth’
• Despite being one of the youngest members of the House at just 34, Torres has become synonymous with the fight against antisemitism and support for the State of Israel.
•  Representative Ritchie Torres speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, US, September 30, 2021.  (photo credit: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS)
• 
• Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was born and raised in the Bronx, a geographically tiny but highly impactful district of New York he now represents in the House. Despite being one of the youngest members of the House at just 34, Torres has become synonymous with the fight against antisemitism and support for the State of Israel. He is vice chair of the Homeland Security Committee and serves on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection & Innovation. 
• 
  
• For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org
• 
  
• The congressman spoke with Felice Friedson of The Media Line about his defense of Israel, the rise of antisemitism in the US and the steps needed to counter this alarming phenomenon, and how his challenging upbringing led him to a life of public service.  
• 
  
• The Media Line: Congressman Ritchie Torres, thank you so much for taking the time with me on The Media Line.
• Rep. Richie Torres: It's an honor to be here.
• 
  
• Congressman Torres, while antisemitism soars as it's not in four decades, you rebuked justice officials in New York and Washington for failing to devote time and attention to it. And it deserves more. In a letter, you cited one hate crime conviction in more than 100 cases. Tell us more.
• Well, the statistics surrounding antisemitism have been shocking. As you pointed out, the ADL has reported that we've seen the highest levels of antisemitism in more than four decades, to an extent not seen since the ADL began recording incidents about antisemitism.
• 
  
• And then, according to the FBI statistics, the Jewish community is the target of more than 50% of all religiously motivated hate crimes. And we've seen an outbreak of antisemitic hate crimes and hate violence in New York City, which has the largest Jewish population outside Israel.
• 
  
• And so all of those signs are cause for concern. And there was an article a few months ago in Tablet, indicating that since 2008 there have been probably about more than 100 cases relating to antisemitism. Yet only one person has been imprisoned or convicted.
• 
  
• And so I wrote a letter to the Justice Department, calling on them to investigate New York's failure to systematically prevent police and prosecute hate crimes. 
• 
  
• If you're a criminal who is intent on committing antisemitic violence and you see that there's no policing, no prosecution, you're going to continue committing these crimes with impunity.
• 
  
• And I worry that within elements of the Jewish community, confidence in the criminal justice system has been shaken. There's a sense that, what is the point of reporting crime if the reporting rarely results in actual policing and prosecution? And so I worry about a crisis of confidence in the criminal justice system within the Jewish community with respect to hate crimes.
• 
  
• Experts have shared with us that there are copycatters. There's the danger of this when it comes to antisemitic acts. This, of course, is one reason that reckless statements by celebrities are dangerous. So you recently took on Kanye West over his antisemitic remarks: ‘Every human being has brought something of value, especially Hitler. I love Hitler.’ Now, why did you get involved here?
• We all have an obligation to speak out and stand up to extremism, including antisemitism, no matter what form it takes, no matter what direction from which it comes.
• 
  
• There are those on the left who only speak out against antisemitism from the right. There are those on the right who only speak out against antisemitism from the left. I speak out against antisemitism from all directions because I have zero tolerance, no matter what form it takes.
• 
  
• Antisemitism has no place.The purveyors of Antisemitism, like Kanye West, must be held accountable in the marketplace. https://t.co/zyb2ryFXZU
• 
  
• — Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 25, 2022
• 
  
• Kanye West is one of the most influential cultural figures in American life, in the world. He has more followers than there are Jews in the world. And we cannot allow his antisemitism to go unchecked.
• 
  
• As a public servant, I have an obligation to forcefully denounce antisemitism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. And we've seen some of the crudest expressions of antisemitism from Kanye West. You don't get anything cruder than praising Hitler.
• 
  
• You challenge Kanye West to visit Yad Vashem, where they document incidents of antisemitism and what Jews went through during the Holocaust and many of these issues. Do you think that he's going to take up the challenge? 
• I can only hope that he will, because he's a man whose heart is consumed with hatred. And he should understand the profound evil of Nazism, the profound evil of Hitler. He should go to Yad Vashem. He should go to the Children’s Museum in Yad Vashem, and understand that the man who he claims to love is responsible for the systematic murder and slaughter of 6 million Jews, including millions of children.
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• Kanye: The problem is that you’re not thinking. You’re hating. I just came from Yad Vashem, a place that you should visit. You need to understand that Antisemitism is one of the most dangerous and deadliest forms of hate the human heart has ever conceived. pic.twitter.com/BJeXi3xGgE
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• — Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 4, 2022
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• That is not someone who’s worthy of praise, that’s someone who should be seen as the very embodiment of evil. And I feel like he needs a deeper understanding of the history of oppression against Jews. And hopefully that would chasten him. But I have no confidence that he’s actually going to go to Yad Vashem.
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• You recently wrote on Twitter that combatting antisemitism is not and should never be the sole responsibility of the Jewish community. It’s a moral obligation that binds all of us. How did we get to this point?
• History is destiny. The Jewish community has historically been the victim of vicious and violent scapegoating and conspiracy theories.
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• As the Vice Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, I held a hearing on Antisemitism. Combating Antisemitism is not and should never be the sole responsibility of the Jewish community. It is a moral obligation that binds all of us. pic.twitter.com/eGCiI9wTej
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• — Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 6, 2022
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• The Jewish community is no stranger to oppression. If you look at the history of the Jewish people, what you find are one episode after the next of oppression - whether it’s the mass suicide of Jews at Masada in order to escape enslavement at the hands of the Romans or a millennia of exile and pogroms and inquisitions, or the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East, or the systemic slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust. Trauma and tragedy has been a part of the Jewish story and that’s why I feel so strongly that we need a strong Jewish state that can provide a sanctuary for historically oppressed people.
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• What do you say to naysayers?
• You’re wrong and you should learn your history. Because if you were a student of history, you would understand both the historical and moral necessity of Israel as a Jewish state and Israel as a sanctuary for the Jewish people.
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• Congressman Torres, 180 nonprofit and civil rights organizations sent a letter to Elon Musk stating that the exchanges of ideas on Twitter must not undermine the safety or wellbeing of users, especially those from vulnerable communities. They called on him to sign onto the IHRA working definition of antisemitism as a guiding tool to stymie the spread of Jew-hatred. They included more than 1,000 examples of antisemitic tweets. What role should the Hill be playing with these social media giants?
• I have real concerns that Twitter has descended into a cesspool of antisemitism. And we should hold these social media platforms accountable for filtering out extremism, for filtering out antisemitism. 
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• Again, I believe in a diversity of viewpoints, but in my mind, there’s a clear difference between expressing an opinion, which should be welcomed, and promoting and propagating hate. 
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• And when you announce to the world that you love Hitler, you’re not expressing an opinion, you’re conveying hate. And that should have no place on social media. So, there should be a zero-tolerance policy. 
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• If you are a figure like Kanye West or Nick Fuentes, and you’re propagating antisemitic content, you should be removed from social media; your content should be moderated. And we in Congress have to seriously think about whether we want to amend Section 230. 
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• Section 230 protects social media companies from civil liability. But I wonder if that protection from civil liability has made the social media companies indifferent to extremism on their own platforms.
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• Congressman, there are many studies coming out now – the AMCHA organization just released a study that really scoped 100 colleges and universities to look at antisemitism and particularly relative to Jewish identity on campuses, and the prognosis does not look good. There was another recent study that came out by Resume Builder, which is an online résumé building firm, that stated that one in four hiring managing companies would not move forward with a Jewish applicant. This is 2022, heading into 2023. What is the recourse, if any?
• Well, the Department of Education, which primarily funds higher education – it is a principal funder of higher education – should hold institutions of higher learning accountable for protecting their students from intimidation and harassment. 
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• What we have seen in the American academy is the creation of a hostile environment for pro-Israel Jews. It often seems as if our colleges have a safe space for everyone except pro-Israel Jews, and that’s unacceptable. And that should elicit a response from the federal government – a civil rights investigation – to ensure that every child receives an education without fear of harassment or intimidation or violence, period. Education should be a physical safe space for the children who wish to learn. 
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• When you are speaking about antisemitism, there are those who will come back and say, hate crimes and you’re not dealing with the whole picture. Obviously, in this space, it’s the story of the Jews and the story of the Blacks and the story of Christians and the story of Muslims, and everyone can say we have our version of problems. How do you look at today and answer young people who are very confused when it comes to the issues of race, racism in the United States in particular?
• I think we should start with the founding principle of our country, which is, we’re all created equal. We all have equal moral worth and dignity. We all should command respect and dignity. And out of that comes an obligation to fight extremism, no matter what form it takes; to fight racism, and – make no mistake – antisemitism is a form of racism, it’s anti-Jewish racism and it's unacceptable and we should have zero tolerance for it. 
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• And people often ask me why do you care so deeply about fighting anti-Semitism and they're asking the wrong question. Why wouldn't I care, is the right question. For me, there should be nothing puzzling about me as a Black person fighting antisemitism, just like there should be nothing puzzling about a Jewish person fighting anti-Black racism. We are all in this together, it's a recognition of our moral interdependence.
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• You are known for your love of Israel, and you have been noted for not joining other progressives such as ‘the squad,’ why?
• I'm independent and I call myself a pragmatic, pro-Israel progressive; I come to my own conclusions. You know, my view is people should be careful not to rush to judgment against Israel, that before rushing to judgment you should actually go to Israel and speak to both Israelis and Palestinians, and within Israel speak to both Jews and Arabs and listen to a variety of perspectives and then come to your own conclusions. 
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• But what I often find is that people who know nothing about Israel, who know nothing about the region, have some of the strongest opinions and are quick to demonize Israel as a Jewish state, and so much of the criticism comes not only from malice but also from just sheer ignorance.  
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• A few years ago, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America circulated a questionnaire to city council candidates, and it was about 14 pages and on the final page it was a foreign policy section. And the foreign policy section only had two questions. Question number one: Do you pledge never to visit Israel if elected to the city council? And question number two: Do you pledge to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement? And I found that question to be blatantly antisemitic, but it also was telling because there's nothing that the BDS Movement fears more than people actually going to Israel and seeing the truth with their own eyes, rather than allowing themselves to be brainwashed by the propaganda that is amplified on social media.
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• Speaking of propaganda, what do you say to Holocaust deniers?
• To Holocaust deniers? Holocaust deniers are the scum of the earth. I think the Holocaust is one of the greatest atrocities ever perpetrated in humankind. It has left deep scars, not only in the Jewish community but on humanity. Anyone who denies it is engaged in a profound evil. I have no patience, no tolerance for Holocaust denial – it's the worst form of conspiracy theory. 
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• What are the goals of the bipartisan Homeland Security Committee?
• The mission of the Homeland Security Committee is its name - to secure the homeland from terrorism, from a whole host of threats. And one of the issues that we do cover is the need to protect people from domestic extremism and domestic terrorism. And so the Homeland Security Committee has authorized a program known as the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides vulnerable communities and institutions with funding for security enhancements, security improvements. 
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• And so some of the organizations that have received funding from the not-for-profit security grant program are Jewish day schools and synagogues and yeshivas, for their own protection. My understanding is that a decade ago it was uncommon for Jewish day schools and yeshivas to have heavy security protection, and now it's become the norm because we live in an age of heightened antisemitism. 
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• The United States historically has been a safe space for the Jewish people outside of Israel, and I worry that we're becoming increasingly indistinguishable from Europe, and that worries me.
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• Earlier you spoke about the police, I'm coming full circle with you. What's gone wrong?
• There is a culture of complacency when it comes to combating hate crimes, but one obvious problem is the failure to even fully collect data. There's no consistent, comprehensive, accurate data collection when it comes to hate crimes. 
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• Under federal law there's no actual obligation for state or local government to report hate crimes. 
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• So as a result not every police department reports hate crimes, and the majority of those that do report claim to have no hate crimes, which is implausible. And so my view is if you're not taking the problem seriously enough to record it, then surely you're not taking it seriously enough to prevent it or police it or prosecute it effectively. And so for me the starting point is just proper data collection, which would contribute toward greater awareness of the full extent of the problem.
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• You were a Bronx boy, you were raised by your mom; what in your background inspired you to get involved in these very dire issues that we are all facing today?
• I was born and raised in the Bronx; I spent almost all my life in poverty. I was raised by a single mother who had to raise three of us on minimum wage, which in the 1990s was $4.25 an hour. I've had to face food insecurity and housing insecurity, growing up in slum conditions in public housing. So I'm no stranger to suffering, but out of suffering comes greater empathy – not only for your own struggles, but for the struggles of others. And my empathy is what inspired me to go into public service. I'm looking to do an enormous amount of good for an enormous number of people. I'm just enormously privileged to be a public servant in the greatest country in the world, the United States of America. 
• 
  
• Congressman Ritchie Torres, appreciate you and appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining me here on The Media Line.
• It was an honor. Take care 
+++++++++

• MUST READ – Our Most Important Report of the Midterm: Election Fraud, It’s Voter Roll Manipulation – Not Ballot Gathering! - GATEWAY
• ++++++++++++

• The GOP Is Not Listening to the Base By Kurt Schlichter +++

  Biden's Deal for the Devil By Katie Pavlich +++

  Here's a Thought: Let's NOT Hand Democrats Exactly What They Want By Larry O'Connor +++

  Have I Mentioned Lately Just How Corrupt Maxine  Waters Is? By Derek Hunter +++ The History behind Russia’s Expansionary Foreign Policy Featuring Stephen Kotkin via Policy Ed Is Russia inherently imperialist and expansionist? Russia wasn’t forced to invade Ukraine, but its leaders chose to do so because they want Russia to become a great power. If Russian elites could somehow relinquish their unwinnable competition with the West, they could set their country on a less costly and more promising course. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If everything the Democrats and their radical cohorts did to win the 2020 election were reversed, I daresay they would be screaming to the mountain top. I hear silence now from those who mocked me for questioning the veracity of the election results. +++ FBI Reported Leak And Hack Operation, Coordinated With Big Tech (JustPatriots.com)- According to paperwork submitted to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), the FBI forewarned Twitter specifically of a “hack-and-leak operation involving Hunter Biden” before the 2020 presidential election, offering new context for the social media platform’s choice to censor the New York Post’s explosive exposé about the contents of a laptop linked to President Joe Biden’s son. The statements were made in a signed declaration annexed to a letter that Twitter sent to the FEC’s Office of Complaints Examination and Legal Administration on December 21, 2020. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of site integrity, made them. That letter was written in response to a complaint by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that Twitter’s removal of articles published by the New York Post about the items on Hunter Biden’s laptop from its platform constituted an “impermissible in-kind contribution” to Biden’s presidential campaign. In the attached declaration, Roth claimed that the FBI informed him during a series of meetings held before the 2020 election that the agency had warned against the possibility of hacked materials being disseminated on social media. According to Roth’s declaration, he was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that people connected to political campaigns would be the target of hacking attacks and that information obtained through those hacking attacks would probably be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter. In these discussions, Roth wrote, “I also discovered that there were suspicions that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the New York Post ran a story about a supposedly Hunter Biden laptop with emails that seemed to indicate that then-candidate Joe Biden was aware of and allegedly participated in his son’s international business operations. President Joe Biden has adamantly maintained that he was unaware of and had no role in his son’s business dealings. According to Roth’s affidavit, the Twitter Site Integrity Team took action on October 14, 2020, to suppress the distribution of the articles after determining that the New York Post’s writings about the laptop breached the platform’s rules against the sharing of hacked materials. Roth says the site’s Site Integrity Team hid the Hunter Biden laptop hacking story because there was “smoke” from a Russian cybercrime operation. Elon Musk has claimed that his company’s parent company, Meta, was told by the FBI to be on “high alert” for “Russian propaganda” before the 2020 election. Musk made good on his promise that installments of the so-called “Twitter Files,” which reveal steps taken by the site to stifle free speech, would be released. ++++++++++++++++++++++  FBI in cahoots: +++ FBI Reported Leak And Hack Operation, Coordinated With Big Tech (JustPatriots.com)- According to paperwork submitted to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), the FBI forewarned Twitter specifically of a “hack-and-leak operation involving Hunter Biden” before the 2020 presidential election, offering new context for the social media platform’s choice to censor the New York Post’s explosive exposé about the contents of a laptop linked to President Joe Biden’s son. The statements were made in a signed declaration annexed to a letter that Twitter sent to the FEC’s Office of Complaints Examination and Legal Administration on December 21, 2020. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of site integrity, made them. That letter was written in response to a complaint by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that Twitter’s removal of articles published by the New York Post about the items on Hunter Biden’s laptop from its platform constituted an “impermissible in-kind contribution” to Biden’s presidential campaign In the attached declaration, Roth claimed that the FBI informed him during a series of meetings held before the 2020 election that the agency had warned against the possibility of hacked materials being disseminated on social media. According to Roth’s declaration, he was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that people connected to political campaigns would be the target of hacking attacks and that information obtained through those hacking attacks would probably be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter. In these discussions, Roth wrote, “I also discovered that there were suspicions that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” In the months leading up to the 2020 election, the New York Post ran a story about a supposedly Hunter Biden laptop with emails that seemed to indicate that then-candidate Joe Biden was aware of and allegedly participated in his son’s international business operations. President Joe Biden has adamantly maintained that he was unaware of and had no role in his son’s business dealings. According to Roth’s affidavit, the Twitter Site Integrity Team took action on October 14, 2020, to suppress the distribution of the articles after determining that the New York Post’s writings about the laptop breached the platform’s rules against the sharing of hacked materials. Roth says the site’s Site Integrity Team hid the Hunter Biden laptop hacking story because there was “smoke” from a Russian cybercrime operation. Elon Musk has claimed that his company’s parent company, Meta, was told by the FBI to be on “high alert” for “Russian propaganda” before the 2020 election. Musk made good on his promise that installments of the so-called “Twitter Files,” which reveal steps taken by the site to stifle free speech, would be released. ++++++++++++++++++++