Donald Trump is a threat to world peace. Read about what one expert says- Scott D. Sagan

Echo Opinion  published in the Detroit Free Press by Scott D. Sagan Sagan: I study nuclear war. Kamala Harris must be our next president.

The risk of nuclear war in the Middle East today is dangerously high, and Donald Trump is responsible. Let me explain.

IMO This essay brings to my mind the "Daisy" political ad of 1964

I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. I clearly remember the "duck and cover" exercises we conducted in elementary school, crawling under the wooden desks when an alarm bell rang out at the Greenfield Village School. Our teacher tried to calm our nerves by claiming this was “a hurricane drill.” But, with Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis on the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite, we all knew what the drills were really about.

And I recall how scared I was again about the danger of nuclear war a few years later, as a teenager in the 1970s. On October 6, 1973, Israel was attacked by Egyptian and Syrian forces in a surprise attack in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The Israeli Defense Forces gradually fought back, supplied by U.S. emergency arms shipments, defeating the Syrians and crossing the Suez Canal to surround the Egyptian Third Army in the Sinai desert. Then, on October 24, 1973, the Soviet Union threatened to send troops to Egypt to enter the war, on the side of its Egyptian allies.

Daisy ad changed political advertising and influenced the outcome of the 1964 election. IMO The powerful ad conjured up the image about the threat of nuclear war.

Suddenly, President Richard Nixon put U.S. nuclear forces on a high-level DEFCON 3 alert to try to deter the Soviet Union from sending forces to the Middle East. Threatening nuclear war was not prudent (I thought that even in my teenage years), but simultaneously, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger successfully put pressure on Israel to accept a cease-fire and end the 1973, war. This cease-fire eventually led to the Camp David Accords and the peace between Israel and Egypt that still exists today.

We also now know that Nixon, facing Watergate soon thereafter, was so distraught and irrational in his decision-making that Secretary of Defense James Schlessinger actually warned the Joint Chiefs of Staff not to automatically follow military orders from the president, but rather to check with him first. 

Schlessinger’s actions were not constitutional, but were prudent and wise.  This dark history is relevant today. For I have never been worried about a nuclear war in the Middle East since then ... until now.  

No deal: A war is raging in the Middle East, and Iran is on the brink of getting nuclear weapons.  Donald Trump is responsible for this dangerous development because his administration withdrew, in 2018, from the U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal that restricted Tehran's ability to make highly enriched uranium bomb material.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in Iran verified that Tehran was in compliance, but then ❗- (former) President Donald Trump claimed that he, the self-proclaimed “master of the deal,” would get a better agreement.

He did not.   Iran was a year or two away from getting the bomb when the Obama Administration negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement, and when Trump cancelled it. Now, U.S. intelligence agencies report that Iran “has greatly expanded its nuclear program” and “has the infrastructure and experience to quickly produce weapons-grade uranium.” The head of the IAEA now estimates that Iran has “amassed enough nuclear material for several weapons, not just one.” That is the direct result of Trump's ego and poor decision-making.

In the coming weeks or months, Israel may well attack the Iranian nuclear facilities in response to Iran’s recent missile and drone attack on Israel. But, Israel lacks the confidence that it could destroy all of the Iranian nuclear materials, both because the enrichment centrifuges are in deep underground facilities — and because most of the IAEA inspectors were kicked out of Iran due to Trump’s rash withdrawal from the nuclear deal. 

This means Israel can’t be sure that it knows where all Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities are now located. And even if an attack is successful in the short-term, Iran will likely then rush to rebuild a nuclear arsenal.

High stakes:  When you get to the polls, think about that scenario.

Do you want a President Kamala Harris who supports Israel, but has expressed doubts about the way Israel is fighting its wars today?

Or do you want a President Trump, who criticized calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, has said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “knows what he’s doing” and advised him “have victory, get your victory, and get it over with.”

Do you want a President Harris, a former prosecutor known to stay calm and focused under pressure?

Or do you want a 😔President Trump, who was so impulsive and vengeful at the end of his term in office that his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, like Nixon’s secretary of defense, told senior military officers to check back with him before following any presidential orders to use military force?

The voters of Michigan may well decide who is the next president of the United States. They should remember that the risk of nuclear war is on the ballot in November. 

Scott D. Sagan is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University 

Voters support Kamala Harris on her economy to lower middle class taxes and on reproductive freedom

Echo opinion letter published in the Richland Source, a Ohio newspaper:

Dear Editor: I am voting for Kamala Harris because I agree with her approach on the economy.

The highest earners and corporations should NOT have a lower tax rate than a firefighter, teacher, or nurse.

The concept of giving corporations higher tax breaks with the thought they will pass on those savings to their own working class employees is a joke. They don’t do that.

Their profits get higher and higher while their employees wages and benefits are stagnant.

So, to combat that, maybe they pay more in taxes, so the government can use that money to invest in the middle class — help them with housing, child care, health care — when we have a strong, healthy middle class, the entire economic system will be stronger.

And of course, I agree with her stance on reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights and protections, racial equity, her philosophy that affordable health care is a basic human right rather than a privilege to those who are fortunate enough to have an employer that will help pay their premiums.

She wants to help all Americans rather than stoke divisiveness and petty grievances. There is really only one candidate that has actual ideas and solutions. Vote Blue 2024

And there is only one candidate that is willing to make compromises with the opposition in order to actually get things done. The negativity and fear mongering that DonOLD Trump spews every time he speaks is just not what I want in a President. It’s appalling.

Character matters to me.

From Melissa Hammond in Bellville, Ohio

JD Vance is an embarrasement! Yale University gave this man a diploma? What were they thinking?

Echo essay published in Politico by Greta Reich:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear came out swinging against the former president and his current running mate when he said on ABC’s “This Week” that “there is no lie too big for Donald Trump and JD Vance,” referring to their refusal to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020, election.

Governor Beshear has the highest approval rating of any Democratic governor in the country,

“I mean, when you ask [Vance] about the last election, all you’re asking him to do is admit reality,” Beshear, a Democrat, told “This Week” host Martha Raddatz. “And we deserve to have a Vice President who believes in democracy and can say, yes, DonOLD Trump lost the last election, and now we’re running in this election.”

Beshear appeared on “This Week” just moments after an appearance by Vance himself, where Raddatz questioned him repeatedly about whether or not Trump lost the 2020, election.

Vance’s responses echoed what he said during the vice presidential debate, and multiple times after, when asked the same question.

“I’ve said repeatedly, I think the 2020, election had problems. You want to say rigged, you want to say he won, use whatever vocabulary term you want,” Vance told Raddatz, adding that he wants “to focus on the fact that we had big technology firms censoring our fellow citizens in a way that violated our fundamental rights.”

This censorship is in reference to independent studies that have — Vance has said — suggested affected the vote.

Adding to his critique of intentionally spreading misinformation, Beshear also slammed Trump and Vance for lying about FEMA’s disaster response during Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

“In Kentucky, we went through our worst tornado disaster and our worst flood disaster in our history, and I didn’t have to deal with any of the shenanigans that Donald Trump is putting out right now, and these lies can hurt people,” Beshear said, presumably referencing the lethal tornadoes that hit his state in May.

“I mean, the line that $750 is all that’s available,” he said. “That means that individual might not apply for the $40,000-plus in individual assistance.” ($750 is the initial money given to those affected to help with immediate needs.)

He continued: “If you truly care about the people that are harmed more than yourself, you wouldn’t politicize this. You wouldn’t be putting out all this misinformation. As somebody who has led through national disasters, it hurts.”

When asked why the race appears so tight despite the lies, and the record-breaking amount of money raised for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, Beshear blamed heightened partisanship.

“It’s something that I hope after this election that the Vice President can move us beyond, that she can remind us that this isn’t supposed to be an us versus them, that Donald Trump seems to do in everything that he’s about,” he said. “She can remind us that we are all Americans first, and Democrats, Republicans, and independents, second, third, or fourth.”

By the way, shame on Yale University! When J.D. Vance applied to law school, he viewed it as a pathway out of his chaotic upbringing in working-class Middletown, Ohio. Then he won a spot at his dream school. Yale Law not only accepted him for the fall of 2010, but also offered a nearly full ride the first year (What were they thinking?)

Donald Trump speaks in jibberish dog whistles with racist euphemisims but makes no sense

Yes, this is what DonOLD Trump really sounds like. Echo editorial opinion published in The Washington Post - Democracy dies in darkness. 

No, you cannot ignore it.

The former president’s rallies and interviews should remind voters what he really represents.

In her “60 Minutes” interview last week, Vice President Kamala Harris asked voters to watch DonOLD Trump’s rallies, particularly because Trump chose not to follow custom (surprise) and ditched appearing on the show. For those who can sit through the rally exercise, it’s revealing.

But if you haven’t been able to take Ms. Harris up on her suggestion, here is some of what you would have heard. It’s a useful reminder of what the Republican candidate for president has been saying.

Last month in Wisconsin: “They will walk into your kitchen,” Trump said of undocumented immigrants. “They’ll cut your throat.” Later, he called the same people “animals.”

Scranton, Pa., Trump claimed (impossibly) that he would pay off the national debt despite his promises of massive tax breaks and new expenditures. After sniping at “stupid” Mitt Romney, whom he said attendees should be glad to be getting “the hell out of here,” he took aim at his opponents. Ms. Harris, he claimed, is a “radical left Marxist” — a tame attack in comparison with another contention: that she was born “mentally impaired.” 

In Reading, Pa., he called “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg “demented” as well as “filthy dirty, disgusting.”

Then there is Trump’s latest crusade, to re-rename North Carolina’s Fort Liberty by dubbing it Fort Bragg once more, so that the base will again honor a Confederate general. This reignites a fight he waged as president, when he vetoed a bipartisan military spending bill over the issue — and saw that veto, also in bipartisan fashion, overridden.

On Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club, he returned to the matter of immigrants: “We allowed them to come in and raid and rape our country. ‘Oh, he used the word rape.’ That’s right, I used the word rape. They raped our country.”

Trump has acquitted himself no better in the various radio and podcast interviews he has given these past few weeks.

To conservative commentator, (Romn Catholic) Hugh Hewitt, he conjured a fantastical statistic on global warming: “The ocean will rise one-eighth of an inch in the next 500 years.” (Hewitt is a Post Opinions contributor - (Although he claims to be Catholic, he talks like a right wing anti-immigration fanatic.)

In the same conversation, Trump embraced discredited theories of eugenics. Returning to the theme of illegal immigration, he again called immigrants murderers — asserting that “it’s in their genes.” He continued, “We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

It’s hard to discern degrees of bad, but the former president’s lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of two major hurricanes pummeling the Southeast have been particularly insidious. On (fake❗)Fox News, he insisted: “They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas. They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.” Elsewhere, he declared that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for” — you guessed it — “illegal migrants.” These allegations of a politically motivated emergency response are false, but they have discouraged people in need of aid from going to the agency for help. (And, as it turns out, Politico reports, it was Trump who as president hesitated to give disaster relief to blue parts of the country.)

Sometimes, Trump’s rhetoric is harmless, and, to be sure, he does not follow through on every outlandish thing he says. There’s arguably ridiculous entertainment in his invocation of “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” or in business leaders inquiring of the candidate, “How do you get up in the morning and put your pants on?” Yet the line between amusing and discomfiting cuts too close for comfort, and irresponsible rhetoric on a rally stage would make for a bleak reality in the Oval Office. 

Trump’s chaotic term as president showed that he often means what he says. Certainly, voters should examine Ms. Harris’s record and rhetoric. But they should also take seriously the words expressed by her (dangerous❗⚠️ ) opponent❗

Truth be told- If Vice-President Harris rambled incoherently like DonOLD Trump does, would the New York Times notice?

Opinion: Harris' economic speech lacked anger and racism. 

So Harris can stay focused and complete a sentence❓ So what🤷❓ Who knew you could give such a speech❓😉😁😲

Tongue in cheek echo opinion essay by Rex Huppke published in the Tennessean newspaper

What's wrong with her❓ Harris' thoughtful rhetoric on the economy does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless!

Comrade Kamala Harris (aka- the Vice-President) gave an economic speech in Pittsburgh, and let me tell you, it was light on the two things I demand out of a serious leader: rambling stories that have nothing to do with the economy and rabid xenophobia.

Ms. Harris wasted my time by using her speech to detail a plan and vision for the American economy, promising things like a middle-class tax break for more than 100 million Americans that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s lives; working with builders to add 3 million more homes to the market, bringing home prices down, and helping first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down payment assistance; and doubling the number of registered apprenticeships while eliminating degree requirements for federal jobs.

Oh yeah? Well, what about the damn battery-powered boats that keep sinking and the people getting eaten by sharks 🦈, huh❓ What about the fact that GOP presidential candidate DonOLD Trump has told me, and (fake❗)Fox News host Sean Hannity has confirmed, that America is a dystopian, third-world hellhole and the only way to fix it is to yell “TARIFFS!” as loud as possible?

What, Madam Vice President, do you have to say about the late, great Hannibal Lecter❓ No answer❓ It figures.

Harris' economic speech may have had details, but Trump\'s had anger.

Shortly before Harris took the stage in Pittsburgh to speak with highly suspicious clarity and compassion, Trump was in North Carolina showing REAL AMERICANS how it’s done.

Trump, under a banner that read "JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!", showed us his plan to boost the economy by being mad that former President Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize, promoting his nearby golf course and suggesting that the Iranians want to kill him because he might harm their furniture-export operations.

“All of your furniture-makers are going to come back and come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before,” Trump said. “They’re mostly gone. They're all coming back. This is why people in countries want to kill me. They’re not happy with me. It is, it’s a risky business❓ presidents, remember that.”

Right on! So Harris Wow! She can stay focused and complete a sentence So what?

Trump continued to masterfully demonstrate how a real he-man leader stays on topic: “I will end the chaos in the Middle East quickly, and I’m the only one that's gonna do this. We have never been so close to World War III as we are right now, we are so close. I will be sure that World War III will not happen, I’m the only one who can say it, won’t happen. But you’re very close, and that will be a war like no other because I always say it’s not going to be two army tanks, two tanks, which by the way our country wants to convert to electric, I’m not going to let that happen. They want electric tanks. 😫😳😰😜 But...They don’t work well (ya'think❓). The battery size is so big you’re going to have pull a trailer behind the tank, can you believe this, they want electric tanks, they don’t care, they want to have a nice, free, beautiful for the environment as we blast our way through countries. These people are crazy, they’re crazy.”  (Correctamundo❗ As TV character Fonzi would say.... because, DonOLD Trump is obviously mentally ill.😵😕)

Right! ☝ Vice-President Harris can stand there all she wants and “discuss actual policies” while “not sounding like her brain fell out of her ear” and “appear to care about people other than herself.”
Harris spoke with compassion. And that makes me very angry.

She can say things like: “I remember being there when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Cooking meals for her, taking her to her appointments, just trying to make her comfortable, figuring out which clothes were soft enough that they wouldn’t irritate her, and telling her stories to try to make her laugh. I know caregiving is about dignity, it really is. And when we lower the cost and ease the burdens people face, we will not only make it then easier for them to meet their obligations as caregivers, we will also make it more possible for them to go to work.”

That kind of thoughtful rhetoric does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless! Trump gives us specific details about made-up immigrant stories.  Trump caused the hate circuit in my brain to light up during his speech when he said: “But Kamala should have closed the border years ago and we wouldn’t have hostile takeovers of Springfield, Ohio; Aurora, Colorado; where they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over apartment buildings, they’re taking over real estate, they’re in the real-estate development business, congratulations. ... In that case, people from Venezuela, young street gang members that were sent here by the Venezuelan government.”

The fake news media will tell you that’s all nonsense, but it sounds exactly like a fever dream I had the other night after spending 17😒😞😩😪 hours watching (fake❗)Fox News, so I believe it’s absolutely true.
(fake ❗) Fox News didn\'t air Harris' speech, but for some bewildering reason it showed some of Trump's incoherent rambling.

And speaking of (fake ❗)Fox News, I know from watching that network that Harris is a complete mystery candidate who never gives any details about her policies and economic vision. So, did (fake ❗)Fox News cover Harris’ speech, when she gave details about her policies and economic vision❓ 😧No. It wasn’t even mentioned on the network’s "X" account, while the speech was going on.

That makes perfect sense to me. Real Americans have better things to do than listen to a liberal speak rationally about the economy. Instead, we’ve got plenty to worry about, with electric tanks and immigrants with massive machine-gun-type equipment coming to take over our apartment buildings and who we are going to get irrationally mad at next and which of Trump’s golf properties that we can’t afford to visit is the best. You know – the stuff that matters.

JD Vance obvously does not read the Ten Commandments because he spreads false witness about innocent immigrants

Echo opinion by columnist Cameron Smith published in The Tennessean newspaper:

OMG! eating pets are nonsense designed to divide Americans
We mostly ignore the “e pluribus unum” on the cash in our pockets. America affirms “From many, one.” It’s an imperfectly executed ideal, but it begs us to connect instead of divide.

When my oldest son spends time with Dennis and Isaiah, they don’t ask to see his proof of citizenship.

They recognize his family traditions are a little different, but they always include him even if he doesn’t quite understand what’s going on.

The language barrier is significant, but they make it work because they genuinely care. I can’t definitively say whether my son has eaten any domesticated dogs or cats, but his friends love him more than they fear his cultural influence.

Refusing to reflect the same gracious approach to our myriad differences rejects one of America’s highest ideals.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched my Republican brethren contort themselves to justify “noble” political lies drawing the nation’s attention to an immigration situation in Springfield, Ohio.

The Republican nominees for president and vice president have claimed that pets, cats, dogs, and possibly geese, are being eaten by Haitian immigrants.

The horrible claims were accompanied by a viral video of blood-soaked Alexis Ferrell who was arrested and charged in August for allegedly killing and eating a cat just outside of Canton, Ohio, which is about 150 miles from Springfield. 

Guess what❓Ferrell is neither Haitian nor a migrant❗ She’s also raising insanity as a defense against the charges brought against her.

JD Vance creates stories, but here are the facts on Haitian immigrants:  When pressed on the matter J.D. Vance said, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” ahhh....so what about the suffering Vance caused to the innocent immigrants❓ (So let me get this ❓😏- Vance claims to be a Roman Catholic convert.  HELLO❗ As a practicing Roman Catholic woman I can tell the world with 100 percent certainty that when anybody creates false stories about people, the sin falls into the Ten Commandments:  Thout shalt not bear false witness. Exodus 20:16. Amen.)

Springfield faces a legitimate immigration challenge. Political hyperbole only makes it worse.

Haitian immigrants fled to the United States to avoid abject poverty and political violence. The vast majority have utilized President Joe Biden’s legal pathways to enter America which include work authorization under Temporary Protected Status.

As a result, about 15,000 Haitians have migrated to Springfield over the last several years. They now comprise almost 20% of the population and 15% of the workforce.

That much growth in a short time frame creates strain on existing infrastructure.

In sending additional resources to the city, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine noted the difficulties facing the community. “When you go from a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people onto that, you're going to have some challenges and some problems,” DeWine said. “And we're addressing those.”

Contrary to Vance’s stupid lies and assertions, the issue has also been widely covered by the media. From migrant perpetrated violence to America’s southwest border to Congress, it’s hard to miss the immigration as a topic of public interest.

Just this year, our political leaders developed and Republicans dismissed immigration legislation that would have addressed a wide range of immigration issues including asylum.

We don’t need to accuse a discreet migrant group of eating pets to enable such conversations. We must also ensure that our “cultural concerns” aren’t racism by another name.

My son, Cam, first met Dennis and Isaiah at Barefoot Republic, a Christ-centered summer camp which facilitates Christ-centered relationships between individuals from diverse racial, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Isaiah is bilingual and served as an interpreter since phones at the cam were off limits. The teens discovered that they lived about a half hour from each other in the Middle Tennessee area, and they’ve been spending time together ever since.

Cam wouldn’t appreciate his friends and their families questioning his immigration status because of the color of his skin. He’d be understandably upset if they made fun of his hair or clothes. I’m pretty sure he still hasn’t decided if he likes the nickname “Papi Chulo.” Imagine if his friends accused the Williamson County kid of stealing family pets and eating them.

Do we care about “e pluribus unum”? Let’s act upon it then

My son now frequently finds himself in the unfamiliar minority, and he’s treated exceptionally well. He realizes what it’s like not to understand. His friends help him.

He feels what it’s like to look different. They let him borrow their clothes. It creates real empathy that lasts when he’s back in a majority context.

We mostly ignore the “e pluribus unum” on the cash in our pockets. America affirms “From many, one.” It’s an imperfectly executed ideal, but it begs us to connect instead of divide.

We can both enforce immigration laws faithfully and simultaneously refuse to assume that people who speak a different language or have different amounts of melanin in their skin don’t belong.

That’s the America I want❗⭐🌟🤩

I don’t need a political champion to bring it about. I don’t want legislation introduced to fix it. I just need “Papi Chulo” and his friends to build lasting relationships instead of giving way to those who shout that fear is the safer course. 

I’m not so naive as to believe that everyone will follow their example. I have hope that enough will.

Jewish response to the danger of living with antisemitism and kudos to those who support Jewish neighbors

Echo essay published in the Houston Chronicle by Brian Strauss and David Lyon:

Several years ago, a young man from our Houston Jewish community in Houston Texas, wanted to give back and help make the world a better place, so he decided to join an overseas volunteer program after he graduated from college. When it came time to sign up, however, COVID had shut down the organization’s operations. So he enlisted with the Israel Defense Forces instead to help keep the people of Israel safe.

He had only a few months left in his service in an elite IDF combat unit on October 7, when Hamas invaded southern Israel and began slaughtering civilians. He happened to be in the middle of a training exercise that morning, so his helicopter was quickly redirected to one of the many Israeli communities that was under terrorist assault.

His chopper was the first to arrive on the scene. It was fired upon as it closed in on the area and had to make an emergency landing. When he got off the helicopter, he was immediately shot. The bullet cut into his flesh but miraculously missed his heart. The medic next to him was able to keep him alive until he could reach a hospital, where he went through multiple surgeries. 

After months of rehab and completing his military service, he came back to Texas to continue his academic studies.

There are clearly many remarkable aspects to his story, but one of the most disheartening is the reason we didn’t name the young man and that he doesn’t want to describe his experience publicly: After risking his life to save civilians from a terrorist assault, he’s afraid of the personal attacks and social ostracism he could face on campus as antisemitism has roiled universities here in Texas.

What does it say about our world when this is the response to someone who by any measure is a hero? And what does it say about our own state when scorn and hate greet members of the Jewish community who work to protect their fellow Jews?

The scope of the challenge is astonishing. As the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations William Daroff pointed out in a recent op-ed, Hillel International has documented over 1,800 antisemitic incidents on college campuses since October 7, the highest number ever recorded in a single academic year. “This staggering statistic represents countless Jewish students who face harassment, intimidation, and violence simply because of their identity,” Daroff wrote.

More can be done to keep our students safe. The U.S. Senate should listen to the Jewish community and pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which already passed the House of Representatives earlier this year in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. The Act would give the Department of Education the ability to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws in order to protect Jewish students.

Away from campus, the Houston Jewish community has experienced support and solidarity from many local officials, fellow clergy and non-Jewish neighbors, over the past year. In particular, the Houston Police Department is extremely dedicated to our ewish security and wellbeing. These are people who truly care about us and ensure we’re safe. Many have even learned some Hebrew and Yiddish words of greeting.

Still, there’s a limit to what public services can provide. Given the very serious threats to Jewish safety in Houston, we are forced to devote huge amounts of our budgets to creating a safe environment for our members, whether it’s installing fences and cameras along the perimeter of our properties or panic buttons in the sanctuary in case of an emergency. We also hire off-duty police officers to be present whenever people are in the building.

And yet, each Sabbath, we have congregants who join our services online instead of coming in person. Many of these people don’t feel safe entering a Jewishly identified building. Congress has designated funds for security enhancements to help nonprofit organizations at high risk of a terrorist attack by creating the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, but according to the Jewish Insider, fewer than half of applications for that funding were fulfilled in the 2024 grant cycle. We need to do better.

During the Jewish High Holidays season 

(Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) our security costs only increase. 

In Houston, we are blessed with large communities, but in the past that means we’ve each had to spend over 💲100,000 per synagogue just on security for these services. That’s only a fraction of our annual security costs, and this year it will surely be higher. It’s a price we must pay for the much more valuable cause of gathering and praying together.

When we do assemble, we will tell our congregants that we need to stay the course as a community. We need to stay unified. We need to give people a sense of security, a sense of confidence, a sense of hope. And we need to keep finding ways to contribute to making the world a better place.

Brian Strauss is the senior rabbi of Houston's Congregation Beth Yeshurun, the largest Conservative synagogue in the United States. David Lyon is the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel and president-elect of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis.  October 7, 2024

DonOld Trump tells American GOP voters to elect him because he supports racism

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by LZ Granderson:

In September 2024, there were 254,000 jobs were added to the US economy, bringing the unemployment rate down to 4.1%. When President Obama was elected, the Great Recession had pushed the rate to 7.8%. President Trump inherited a rate of 3.6%, and he gave President Biden a mishandled pandemic and 6.4% unemployment.

(Vice-Presiddent Harris😊), the next president is likely going to inherit an economy that is strong, even if many Americans aren’t feeling that way. The next president will also bring with them a narrative about the economy. 

In the case of DonOLD Trump, it’s a story we’ve heard far too many times: Blame the minorities.

Over the eight years of the Obama administration, wages went up and unemployment reached historic lows, but the subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2007 left a lasting mark on housing. How could it not, when home ownership fell to its lowest point since 1965? Construction slowed, but demand for housing did not, and that’s how we ended up with the affordability crisis we have now.

Trump wants voters to blame desperate migrants for the shortage of affordable housing, but it was his friends on Wall Street who began this cycle.

Just as it was his intentional downplaying of the pandemic during the first few months — something he said he did to prevent panic — that left Americans misinformed and sent the economy into a tailspin. Instead of preparing us, Trump told us to blame China. That rhetoric sparked a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes.

During the Obama administration, more than 2.5 million immigrants were deported. That’s more than any other administration had forced out before, and Americans were still losing their homes — because that housing crisis was caused by corporate greed, not by illegal immigration.

Trump fared well in 2016, by blaming desperate Black and brown people as the root cause of housing problems and any other economic issue, neatly avoiding any context about Wall Street’s role. And because this helped get him to the White House the first time, I understand why there’s a temptation for his campaign now to couch this rhetoric as policy — to claim, for instance, that deporting people will ease the housing shortage or that disaster relief money for victims of Hurricane Helene was diverted to migrants at the border.
But it’s not policy.

It’s just racist. And, so, ❗💥💢we need to just call it out for what it is❗😡

This week, the Trump campaign sent out a press release that read “Kamala’s Open Border Jeopardizes FEMA’s Hurricane Response.”

It was in response to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reiterating that the Federal Emergency Management Agency may not have enough funds to make it to the end of hurricane season in November. The agency initially raised concerns at the beginning of the season in June, and the Biden administration overhauled aspects of FEMA relief to get funds out quicker. From Hurricane Katrina in 2005, through 2021, FEMA has spent more than $12 billion a year. From 1992, to 2004, it was $5 billion.

It was weather, not immigrants, that forced more than 3.3 million Americans out of their homes in 2022, nearly half that number for more than a month. 

Nevertheless, the Trumpzi campaign didn’t mention climate change, perhaps because the former president still thinks it’s a hoax. But, the data show more funds were needed in response to the sweeping damage caused by natural disasters, not because of any trend in immigration.

Trump fared well in 2016, by blaming desperate Black and brown people as the root cause of housing problems and any other economic issue, neatly avoiding any context about Wall Street’s role. And because this helped get him to the White House the first time, I understand why there’s a temptation for his campaign now to couch this rhetoric as policy — to claim, for instance, that deporting people will ease the housing shortage or that disaster relief money for victims of Hurricane Helene was diverted to migrants at the border.

But it’s not policy.  It’s just racist.

And yet, the Trump campaign’s press secretary said: (false❗) “FEMA run out of money for the rest of the hurricane season because Kamala Harris used funds for giveaways to illegal immigrants.”

That’s not true❗ (In other words.....🤥 a lie. )

During the vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) took every opportunity he could to fault migrants and immigration for economic issues, echoing his boss. For his part, Trump’s comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” echoed Adolph Hitler. No wonder Vance compared Trump to Hitler in 2016, before switching allegiances.

Now the two of them are floating “mass deportation” as a solution … to problems caused by corporate greed. Never mind that deportations would aggravate many problems, including food costs and housing shortages.

In 2019, more than half the farmworkers in the country — 450,000 — were immigrants. In addition to the billions it would cost for the Trump-Vance deportation plan, what do you think would happen to food prices if they had their way? And to housing availability if a huge percentage of construction workers were deported? In Texas, half of the industry’s laborers undocumented.

Blaming Black and brown people might be red meat on the campaign trail, but it just isn’t sound economic policy.

It’s just racism❗

@LZGranderson