Tag: history

The Jew Who Wrote America’s Most Beloved Holiday Songs

On this day in 1989, September 22, the world bid farewell to Irving Berlin, the self-taught musical titan born Israel Isidore Baline on May 11, 1888, in the Siberian town of Tyumen, Russia. As the youngest of eight children in a poor Jewish family, Berlin’s early life was upended by pogroms. At age 4, his family fled to New York City in 1893, seeking refuge in the tenements of the Lower East Side. Tragedy struck young. His mother died soon after arrival, and by 13, after his father, a cantor, passed away, Berlin dropped out of school to sing on street corners and hustle as a singing waiter in Chinatown dives. He never learned to read or write music, composing instead on a custom piano that transposed keys to fit his ear, but that didn’t stop him from penning over 1,500 songs, revolutionizing American popular music for more than seven decades.

Berlin’s genius lay in his uncanny ability to capture the American spirit: the grit of ragtime in “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911), the romance of the Jazz Age in “Blue Skies” (1926), the showbiz dazzle of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1946 from Annie Get Your Gun), and the unyielding patriotism that defined his era. During World War I, he served in the Army and wrote the cheeky hit “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.” In the lead-up to World War II, he crafted “God Bless America” (1938) as a peace prayer, donating all royalties forever to the Boy and Girl Scouts, a gesture that continues to pour millions into youth programs today. His Broadway triumphs included Top Hat (1935 with Fred Astaire’s “Cheek to Cheek”), Call Me Madam (1950), and the Easter Parade film score. By his death at 101 in his Manhattan townhouse, Berlin had earned four Oscars, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Congressional Gold Medal, yet he remained humble, once quipping, “I’m a simple man. The only thing I know how to do is write songs.”

Perhaps Berlin’s most enduring gift is “White Christmas,” the wistful 1942 ballad from the film Holiday Inn that Bing Crosby made the best-selling single of all time, over 50 million copies. Inspired by his homesick troops during a 1942 USO tour and his own longing for the snowy holidays of his adopted home, Berlin stipulated it couldn’t be performed in color films to preserve its black-and-white nostalgia. It’s a song that tugs at the heartstrings of longing amid joy, profoundly American and profoundly ironic given its creator’s Jewish roots and aversion to schmaltz.

In a delicious twist of cultural assimilation, Jewish songwriters like Berlin dominated Tin Pan Alley’s holiday output, crafting the soundtrack to a Christian celebration they observed from afar. Of the top 25 most-performed Christmas songs tracked by ASCAP, at least 18 were penned by Jews, a testament to their outsized role in shaping American pop during the mid-20th century’s “Great American Songbook” era. Berlin kicked it off with “White Christmas,” but join him on the list: Johnny Marks gave us “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949) and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (1958); Mel Tormé and Robert Wells dreamed up “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” (1945); Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne delivered “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” (1945) and “The Christmas Waltz” (1954); Jay Livingston and Ray Evans teamed for “Silver Bells” (1951); and don’t forget “Santa Baby” (1953) by Joan Javits and Philip Springer or Felix Bernard’s music for “Winter Wonderland” (1934). These weren’t just tunes, they were bridges, born from immigrants’ ingenuity, turning December’s chill into evergreen warmth for everyone.

Berlin lived to 101, outlasting two world wars, the Depression, and his own hits. As he once said, “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.” What’s your favorite Irving Berlin gem or Jewish-penned holiday banger that sneaks onto your playlist? Drop it below.

#IrvingBerlin#JewishSongwriters#WhiteChristmas#AmericanSongbook#OnThisDay#HolidayMusic#MusicHistory#TinPanAlley

WE ARE NOW IN A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP

What to do about this? I like Option 3

Raul Maseda

WE ARE NOW IN A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP, BUT THERE IS YET HOPE

Edited For Brevity

By Raul Maseda

“In 1933, German conservatives thought they could control Hitler. Two years later, they were being executed in their own homes. I spent weeks researching this question, desperately looking for counter-examples, for hope, for any time in history where people successfully stopped fascists after they started winning elections.

The pattern is so consistent it’s almost funny if it weren’t so terrifying. Every single time it goes like this: Conservatives panic about socialism or progressives or whatever. They ally with fascists as the ‘lesser evil.’ Fascists take power. Fascists immediately purge the conservatives who helped them. Then it’s 30-50 years of dictatorship. This happened in Germany, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Romania, and Hungary.

Want to know how many times conservatives successfully ‘controlled’ the fascists they allied with? Zero. Want to know how many times fascists purged the conservatives after taking power? All of them. Every single time.

And here’s the part that breaks your heart. Violence works. For them. Fascists use violence while claiming to be victims. They create chaos that ‘requires’ their authoritarian solution. Then they purge anyone who opposes them. Meanwhile, democrats keep insisting on following rules that fascists completely ignore. They file lawsuits. They write editorials. They vote on resolutions. And fascists just laugh and keep consolidating power.

The Supreme Court declared Trump above the law. He’s threatening to arrest political opponents. He’s already sent the FBI after elected officials when they haven’t committed crimes. Congress is his. Most state governments are his. Billionaire oligarchs openly coordinate with him.

So let’s start talking about what you do when fascists already control the institutions but haven’t fully consolidated power yet. Because historically, nobody’s been here before, not like this.

But that also means the old rules about what’s possible might not apply.

Option 1: The Blue State Coalition

California’s economy is bigger than the UK’s. New York controls global finance. The blue states collectively represent over 60% of America’s GDP. They could, theoretically, make the federal government irrelevant.

Imagine if California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, and others started coordinating directly. Ignoring federal mandates. Creating their own interstate compacts for everything from climate policy to civil rights. They already started this with climate agreements when Trump pulled out of Paris. But I’m talking about going much further.

State-level cryptocurrency to avoid federal monetary control. State-funded healthcare systems that ignore federal restrictions. State-level immigration policies that simply refuse to cooperate with ICE. Make the federal government have to physically enforce every single policy, stretching their resources to breaking.

The precedent? The way Northern states nullified fugitive slave laws in the 1850s. The way states are currently ignoring federal marijuana prohibition. But coordinated and comprehensive.

Option 2: Selective Compliance and Irish Democracy

The Irish called it ‘Irish Democracy’ when they were under British rule, the silent, dogged resistance of millions who simply ignored laws they found illegitimate. Don’t protest. Don’t riot. Just don’t comply.

Red states need blue state money. Blue state taxes fund red state governments. What if millions of people in blue states simultaneously decided to claim exempt on their W-4s and simply… stopped paying federal taxes? Not as protest but as a coordinated ‘forgetting.’ Overwhelm the IRS. Make enforcement impossible.

Doctors in blue states could ignore abortion restrictions. Teachers could ignore curriculum mandates. State police could refuse to enforce federal laws. Not dramatically, just… incompetently. ‘Sorry, we couldn’t find them.’ ‘The paperwork got lost.’ ‘Our systems are down.’

Make every single act of authoritarian control require physical enforcement, then make that enforcement impossibly expensive and difficult.

Option 3: Secession

We already have two incompatible visions of what America should be. One side wants a multi-ethnic democracy with a social safety net. The other wants a white Christian ethnostate with unlimited corporate power. These cannot coexist indefinitely.

What if blue states started seriously discussing secession? Not threatened as political theater but actually planned. Constitutional conventions. Referendums. Negotiations for national debt division. Military base transfers. Currency agreements.

Yes, the last time states tried to leave it caused a civil war. But that was over slavery, with clearly defined geographic boundaries and two relatively equal economic systems. This would be the economic powerhouses leaving the welfare states. What would the red states do, invade California? With what money?

The mere serious threat might be enough to force structural changes. Quebec nearly left Canada twice and got massive concessions both times just from credible threats.

We’re past normal. The fascists already won round one. They control the institutions. They have their judges. They have their media ecosystem. They have their army of true believers who will excuse anything.

But they don’t have the money. They don’t have the cities. They don’t have the educated workforce. They don’t have the young. And most importantly, they don’t have legitimacy in the eyes of the majority.

The historical record says once fascists gain power, they stay for 30-50 years. But the historical record doesn’t have examples of fascists taking over a country where their opposition controls most of the economy, technology, and cultural production. We’re in uncharted territory, which means we need unprecedented responses.

The German conservatives who said ‘we can control him’ were all dead or fled within two years. We’re just months into our version of this story. The question is: are we going to be the first generation that finds a new way out, or are we going to be another cautionary tale future historians write about?

At least we’re finally asking the right questions.”

– Chris Armitage

It Was Intimidation

We are becoming a dictatorship!

From the Los Angeles Times

‘Are you from California?’ Political advisor said he was detained at airport after confirming he’s from L.A.

  • Longtime L.A. political consultant Rick Taylor was returning from a weeklong vacation in Turks and Caicos with his wife and daughter when he was held by Customs and Border Protection for 45 minutes without reason.
  • He believes he was unjustly targeted and was intimidated during his holding.

Veteran Los Angeles political consultant Rick Taylor said he was pulled aside by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents while returning from a trip abroad, asked if he was from California and then separated from his family and put in a holding room with several Latino travelers for nearly an hour.

“I know how the system works and have pretty good connections and I was still freaking out,” said Taylor, 71. “I could only imagine how I would be feeling if I didn’t understand the language and I didn’t know anyone.”

Taylor said he was at a loss to explain why he was singled out for extra questioning, but he speculated that perhaps it was because of the Obama-Biden T-shirt packed in his suitcase.

Taylor was returning from a weeklong vacation in Turks and Caicos with his wife and daughter, who were in a separate customs line, when a CBP agent asked, “Are you from California?” He said he answered, “Yeah, I live in Los Angeles.”

The man who ran campaigns for L.A.’s last Republican mayor and for current Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla when he was a budding Los Angeles City Council candidate in the 1990s found himself escorted to a waiting room and separated from his family.

There, Taylor said he waited 45 minutes without being released, alleging he was unjustly marked for detention and intimidated by CBP agents.

“I have no idea why I was targeted,” said Taylor, a consultant with the campaign to reelect L.A. City Councilwoman Traci Park. “They don’t talk to you. They don’t give you a reason. You’re just left confused, angry and worried.”

Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the incident brought to mind Sen. Alex Padilla, who was arrested and handcuffed June 12 while trying to ask a question during a Los Angeles press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“My former chief of staff and political consultant, Rick Taylor, was detained at Miami International Airport by federal authorities after returning from an international vacation,” he said in an email. “As Senator Alex Padilla said a couple of weeks ago, ‘if it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.’ This Federal government operation is OUT OF CONTROL! Where will it end?!”

A representative from the Customs and Border Protection in Florida said an inquiry made by the Los Angeles Times and received late Friday afternoon will likely be answered next week.

“If Mr. Taylor feels the need to, he is more than welcome to file a complaint online on our website and someone will reach out to him to try and get to the bottom of things,” CBP Public Affairs Specialist Alan Regalado said in an email.

Taylor, a partner at Dakota Communications, a strategic communications and marketing firm, said he was more concerned about traveling and returning to the U.S. with his wife, a U.S. citizen and native of Vietnam.

He said he reached out to a Trump administration member before leaving on vacation, asking if he could contact that individual in case his wife was detained.

The family flew American Airlines and landed in Miami on June 20, where he planned to visit friends before returning to Los Angeles on Tuesday.

In a twist, Taylor’s wife and daughter, both Global Entry cardholders, breezed through security while Taylor, who does not have Global Entry, was detained, he said.

He said after the agent confirmed he was a Los Angeles resident, he placed a small orange tag on his passport and was told to follow a green line. That led him to another agent and his eventual holding room.

Taylor described “95% of the population” inside the room as Latino and largely Spanish-speaking.

“I was one of three white dudes in the room,” he said. “I just kept wondering, ‘What I am doing here?’”

He said the lack of communication was “very intimidating,” though he was allowed to keep his phone and did send text message updates to his family.

“I have traveled a fair amount internationally and have never been pulled aside,” he said.

About 45 minutes into his holding, Taylor said an agent asked him to collect his luggage and hand it over for inspection.

He said he was released shortly after.

“The agents have succeeded in making me reassess travel,” Taylor said. “I would tell others to really think twice about traveling internationally while you have this administration in charge.”

The only way Trump is going to be stopped

Opinion by Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. 

If the Trump regime can dictate what the universities of America teach or research or publish, or what students can learn or say, no university is safe.

Not even the truth is safe.

If the Trump regime can revoke student visas because students exercise their freedom of speech on a university campus, freedom of speech is not secure for any of us.

If the Trump regime can abduct a permanent resident of the United States and send him to a torture prison in El Salvador, without any criminal charges, no American is safe.

What do we do about this?

We stand up to it. We resist it. We denounce it. We boldly and fearlessly reject it —regardless of the cost, regardless of the threats.

As columnist David Brooks writes in his column yesterday (I’m hardly in the habit of quoting David Brooks):

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

But what does a national civic uprising look like?

It may look like a general strike — a strike in which tens of millions of Americans refuse to work, refuse to buy, refuse to engage in anything other than a mass demonstration against the regime.

And not just one general strike, but a repeating general strike — a strike whose numbers continue to grow and whose outrage, resistance, and solidarity continue to spread across the land.

I urge all of you to start preparing now for such a series of general strikes. I will inform you of what I learn about who is doing what. (One possible place to begin is here.)

In the meantime: This evening, Friday, April 18, bells will be sounded in Boston’s Old North Church (the one-if-by-land church where lanterns signaled Paul Revere to warn the Minutemen of the approaching troops) and in churches across the country, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolution. I urge you to have your place of worship join in the ringing. (More information can be found here.)

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 19, protests are being organized around the country by 50501. See here.

My friends, what the Trump regime has unleashed on America is intolerable. It is time — beyond time — for a national civic uprising. We must take action.

Should you be interested, here’s what I said yesterday at a rally on Berkeley’s famed Sproul Plaza, the site of the beginning of the Free Speech Movement, a little over 60 years ago.

—

This is not going to happen in the near term because a majority of Americans today support Trump.

Having launched a historic global trade war that set the stock market on rollercoaster week, Trump’s approval ratings were bound to change. His presidential approval rating remained steady over the first two months and even reached his all time highest rating in either of his terms.

However, his third month in office is showing that the American public’s opinion has soured amid the onslaught of tariffs and trade wars and the mounting fears of a possible recession.

According to the HarrisX polls, Trump’s approval rating has dropped since he took office, but still above water with an overall job approval rating of 48% versus 46% that disapprove. 

Amid last week’s tariff turmoil, the Quinnipiac University Poll shows 72% of voters think tariffs will hurt the U.S. economy in the short-term while only 53% think the tariffs will hurt in the long-run and 41% think it will help the economy in the long-run.

According to Rasmussen Reports daily polling, Trump has enjoyed over a steady job approval rating over over 50% on any given day since his inauguration — until April 3 — the day after the sweeping tariff announcement. His rating has since slipped lower every day to a current 47% approval and 51% disapproval.

US green card holders, student visa holders can be deported

Can a green card holder be deported from the United States? The recent arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist involved in organising campus protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict at Columbia University in New York City, has raised questions about the protections foreign students and green card holders have against deportation from the US.

A green holder and student visa holders have been given a privilege. They have no rights

A green card holder has lawful permanent resident status, allowing them to live and work in the US indefinitely. However, this status is not absolute, and deportation remains a possibility under certain circumstances. 

Rights and responsibilities of green card holders 

According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), green card holders have the right to:

< Work in any legal job they qualify for, except some roles restricted to US citizens for security reasons

< Be protected by all US laws, including state and local regulations 

They are also subject to specific responsibilities: 

< Obey all US and local laws

< File income tax returns and report income to the Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities

< Support the democratic form of government (without voting in elections)

< Register with the Selective Service if they are male and between 18 and 25 years old

< Work in any legal job they qualify for, except some roles restricted to US citizens for security reasons

< Be protected by all US laws, including state and local regulations 

 Can green card holders be deported? 

Yes, they can. 

“Generally, green card holders have the same First Amendment rights as US citizens. Constitutionally protected speech, including peaceful protest, would not normally be grounds for cancelling a green card. Green cards are typically revoked for serious crimes or other obvious violations,” Russell A Stamets, partner at Circle of Counsels told Business Standard. 

“While they have strong legal protections, such as the right to a hearing before an immigration judge and the ability to appeal deportation orders, they can still be removed for reasons like aggravated felonies, fraud, national security threats, or abandoning their residency by staying outside the US for too long,” Aurelia Menezes, partner at King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates and Attorneys, explained to Business Standard.

As protests over the Gaza conflict ignited rancor and division at Columbia University last year, one student stood out for his role as a negotiator representing activists in talks with the school officials who were desperate to achieve peace on campus.

Mahmoud Khalil, 30, emerged as a public face of students opposed to the war, leading demonstrations and granting interviews. He delivered a message that his side viewed as measured and responsible but that has been branded by some, including the Trump administration, as antisemitic.

Mr. Khalil has been involved in demonstrations as recently as January, when four masked demonstrators entered a class on the history of Israel taught by an Israeli professor at Columbia to accuse the school of “normalizing genocide.” Videos of an unmasked Mr. Khalil at a related sit-in were soon circulated on social media among critics of Columbia’s protest movement, with some calling for him to be deported.

Over the weekend, Mr. Khalil was at the center of the news again. He was arrested by federal immigration officials in a drastic escalation of President Trump’s crackdown against what he has called antisemitic campus activity. Mr. Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States, had been living in Columbia’s student housing when he was detained and then transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, La.

A green card holder and student visa holders have been given a privilege. They have no rights. Deportation for bad behavior by ICE is a consequence of that behavior. Deporting Mr. Khalil and others who are guests in this country is the right thing to do.

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

Charlie Reese  (January 29, 1937 – May 21, 2013) was a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. This is his final column.

545 vs. 300,000,000 People

-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?( John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. ) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. [The House has passed a budget but the Senate has not approved a budget in over three years. The President’s proposed budgets have gotten almost unanimous rejections in the Senate in that time. ]

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ..

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees… We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Jimmy Carter dies at 100

After a year in hospice care former President Jimmy Carter has died at 100.

Carter’s achievements were few. Carter was sworn in as the 39th president of the United States. On his first full day in office in January 1977, he pardoned most Vietnam-era draft evaders. He signed treaties to return the Panama Canal back to Panama in 1999. Senate narrowly ratifies them in 1978.  In September 1978: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Carter signed Camp David accords, which lead to a peace deal between Egypt and Israel the following year.

Sadly he did little to rescue 52 hostages that Iranian militants took when storming the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The inflation rate hit a record high of 14.6% in March and April of 1980.

It was the high inflation and his failure to rescue the hostages held in Iran that led to Carter’s defeat in that fall’s election.

In my opinion Jimmy Carter was the worst president since Herbert Hoover.

Democracy suffers when navigated by a ship of fools

Abridged and edited article by Lloyd Axworthy

Special to The Globe and Mail a Canadian Newspaper

Directed to Canadians but applicable to the United States.

Almost 2,400 years ago, Plato wrote a mocking allegory in his dialogue The Republic, depicting how in democracies, leaders emerge who use the electoral process to amass personal power and proceed to govern autocratically. He likened such leaders to sailors who knew nothing of navigation yet claimed the right to steer the ship, leading to irrational decisions and chaos – a “ship of fools.”

Over the succeeding centuries, Plato’s allegory has been used to highlight the importance of good leadership and the risks of governing with ignorance and malfeasance. It serves as a warning about the perils of populism and demagoguery.

The potential second term of Donald Trump has given new meaning to this metaphor. The crew of miscreants that Mr. Trump is bringing on board the Washington ship of state, coupled with his pronouncements that they are chosen solely because of their loyalty to him and his mission of undermining democratic governance, has renewed questions about how democracies can be transformed into autocracies.

He is not unique. An epidemic of far-right political movements is under way globally, exploiting the civic malaise brought on by the pandemic, surging migration, growing inequality, and inflationary increases to mobilize discontent and translate it into electoral success.

American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum has warned that these autocratic movements have aligned into sophisticated networks that undermine democracy. They share common interests in power and wealth, often supporting each other financially and politically to destabilize democratic societies.

In these turbulent times, we need not a ship of fools but a ship of reason – a vessel steered by leaders who understand navigation, who respect the complexity of democratic governance and who are committed to charting a course through challenging waters with wisdom, transparency and genuine public service.

Our democratic journey requires not blind loyalty or reactionary impulses but thoughtful leadership that can unite rather than divide, that can inspire rather than incite and that can restore faith in our collective ability to navigate toward a more just and hopeful horizon.

Say Hello to Polio

The polio vaccine developed by Dr. Salk and colleagues is licensed in the U.S. Before the polio vaccine, the disease had been a major cause of disability in children. About 16,000 cases of polio (paralytic poliomyelitis) occurred each year in the U.S. in the 20th century compared with none in 2020.

An attorney connected to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, filed a petition on behalf of an activist group asking the Food and Drug Administration to suspend or withdraw approval of a polio vaccine for children.

Senator Elizabeth Warren sounds the alarm about Donald Trump’s idiotic decision to put conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

She didn’t pull any punches…

“Say goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio — that’s what’s on the horizon if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becomes the Secretary of Health and Human Services,” Warren wrote on X along with a video.

“You know I would laugh if it weren’t so scary,” she said in the clip. “Donald Trump just picked RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. This is a man who wants to stop kids from getting their polio and measles shots.”

“He’s actually welcoming a return to polio a disease we nearly eradicated,” she continued. “But it doesn’t stop there. RFK Jr. also doesn’t believe fluoride should be in your water and that’s what keeps your teeth from rotting.”

“You can’t make this stuff up!” she added.

Khazaria the Thirteenth Tribe

The question is why are there so many Jews in Ukraine, today’s southern Russia, Poland, and Germany?

The Thirteenth Tribe is a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler[1] advocating the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, the thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the historical Israelites of antiquity, but from Khazars, a Turkic people. Koestler hypothesized that the Khazars (who converted to Judaism in the 8th century) migrated westwards into Eastern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries when the Khazar Empire was collapsing.

Koestler used previous works by Douglas Morton Dunlop, Raphael Patai and Abraham Polak as sources. His stated intent was to make antisemitism disappear by disproving its racial basis.

Popular reviews of the book were mixed, academic critiques of its research were generally negative, and Koestler biographers David Cesarani and Michael Scammell panned it. In 2018, the New York Times described the book as “widely discredited.”[2] Neither was it effective in disproving antisemitism, as antisemites merely adapted it — like prior work on the hypothesis — to argue the illegitimacy of present-day Jews.

The Khazar Khaganate was a powerful and influential Turkic state that existed between the 7th and 10th centuries. Located primarily in the northern Caucasus and western steppes of modern-day southern Russia, the Khazar Khaganate controlled vast territories, including parts of the Volga River, the Crimea, and the Caspian Sea region.


Key Points about the Khazar Khaganate:
1. Origins: The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who emerged as a political force following the collapse of the Western Turkic Khaganate in the mid-600s. They eventually established their own state, with a ruling class known as the Khaganate.
2. Religion: One of the most unique aspects of the Khazar Khaganate was the ruling elite’s conversion to Judaism sometime in the 8th or 9th century. The exact reasons for this conversion remain debated, but it set the Khazars apart from their Christian and Muslim neighbors, such as the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphates.
3. Trade and Economy: The Khazars were known for their significant role in the Silk Road trade network, controlling key trade routes between Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Their capital, Atil, on the Volga River, was a major commercial hub.
4. Diplomatic Relations: The Khazar Khaganate maintained a strategic diplomatic balance between the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Caliphates, often serving as a buffer state between the two. They also had interactions with the emerging Kievan Rus and other Slavic states.
5. Military Power: The Khazars had a strong military and often engaged in warfare with their neighbors. They were known for employing a mix of cavalry and mercenary forces, and their military might helped them maintain control over their vast territory.
6. Decline and Fall: The Khazar Khaganate began to weaken in the 10th century due to internal strife, economic pressure, and attacks from external forces. One key factor in their decline was the rise of the Kievan Rus, which defeated the Khazars in a series of campaigns, culminating in the destruction of Atil around 965 AD. By the early 11th century, the Khazar state had largely disintegrated.
7. Legacy: The Khazars are often remembered for their unique religious identity and their role in medieval trade and diplomacy. Their influence extended over a wide area, and they are considered a key player in the history of the Eurasian steppes.
The Khazar Khaganate holds a special place in history for its blend of Turkic nomadic culture, religious diversity, and strategic political positioning.