It has been 5,113 days since the al Qaeda attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the failed third assault that was intercepted into a farm field in Shanksville, Pennsylviania, by American patriots. To borrow a phrase from a past generation that certainly applies to this event, it is a day that will live in infamy. But few would believe where our country is today given the events of that fateful day. Today Americans stand viciously divided in our politics as a society that rationalizes Islamofascist aggression (and, in the case of Iran, facilitates it), even as we harbor ideological factions that stand in protest of our law enforcement officers. We have moved away from the cohesive and united front we embraced shoulder-to-shoulder at the smoking pile of rubble that was the remnants of the World Trade Center; the tomb that holds so many souls.
1/Rosh Hashanah (“beginning of the year” in Hebrew) is a universal, stock-taking holiday of hope and renewal, celebrated onthe 6th day of The Creation, whenthe first human being, Adam, was produced.
Shana (שנה) is the root of the Hebrew words שנוי (change/transform) and שינון (rehearse): changing negative – and repeating positive – behavior.
The Shofar (ritual horn) is the key symbol of Rosh Hashanah, the Jubilee, Sabbatical years, new months, gathering people to the battlefield and the ingathering of Jews – symbols of Jewish unity.
On Rosh Hashanah, the Shofar gathers people to a soul-searching battle between positive and negative attitudes, sounding the gun for the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, invoking the sounds of the Shofar on Mt. Sinai, when Moses received the Ten Commandments.
The Torah does not mention Rosh Hashanah, but calls for a memorial of blowing the Shofar as a wake-up call – triggering awe – to enhance human behavior, and to remember the events/attitudes which led to the destruction of the two ancient Temples and the subsequent exiles. Rosh Hashanah is also called “Yom Te’roo’ah” (the day of blowing the Shofar). Shofar (שופר) is a derivative of the Hebrew word for enhancement (שפור), which requires humility, symbolized by the bent and non-decorated Shofar.
“Let’s roll.”
Todd Beamer, Passenger United Flight 93
Lest we forget, the first Americans who fought the war on terror were passengers on a commercial airliner. They gathered together, likely led by Todd Beamer, as the first US warriors on a hijacked flight high in the sky over Pennsylvania, and though they died, their sacrifice made it possible for our congressional leaders, our government leaders, our fellow citizens to live out the day on 9-11, unaware that Flight 93 was heading for Washington, DC.
2015
As of September 2015 Freedom Tower is built. The Memorial is open. The Twin Tower Lights will once again illuminate the New York skyline. Many will take a moment of remembrance, and think back…..
2001
The morning of September 11th, 2001 was not unlike most weekdays in America – people going to work, others enjoying their morning coffee, some admiring sky scrapers dotting the NY skyline, while tourists photographed historic buildings in the nation’s capital or along the lower part of Manhattan or on the river boat docks near the Pentagon.
“There will be bloodshed but Israel is strong.”
“Israel has been, and should be, operating under the assumption that Iran is going for and will probably acquire nuclear weaponry; there’s no doubt in my mind that this is what is happening,” former Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens told The Algemeiner on Wednesday, following the Obama administration’s securing of the support it needed to prevent a veto override in Congress over the nuclear deal.
“Whether the Iranians actually use this weaponry — or when — is a different question,” said Arens, who served several years as a Knesset member, three terms as defense minister, once as foreign minister and a stint as Israel’s ambassador to the United States. “The probability is small, but not zero.”
What is certain, he said, is that the Islamic Republic’s proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups, have been empowered.
As we approach Rosh Hashana, the people of Israel need to recognize how lucky we are. True, today, we find ourselves largely alone, set apart from our traditional partners in the Western world. But standing alone isn’t always the worst option. Today it is certainly not the worst option. Over the past several years, we have witnessed the growing radicalization and fragmentation of the societies of neighboring lands. Sunnis fight Shi’ites and one another. Minority populations are slaughtered, enslaved and oppressed. Regimes fall, rise and fall again. Today, every Arab society is either in danger or at war. And in almost every case, it isn’t good fighting evil but varying degrees of evil and barbarism fighting one another. From the PLO to Islamic State, through Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Assad regime in Syria, the ayatollahs of Iran, Hezbollah, the Erdogan regime in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and every single actor in the region resorts to some degree of torture and oppression.
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s national lead over her rivals for the Democratic nomination has shrunk, and she is in a statistical tie with leading Republicans in head-to-head surveys, a new CNN/ORC poll released Thursday evening showed.
Mrs. Clinton is getting support from 37 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is running in the Democratic contest, getting 27 percent, the survey found. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is considering a run of his own and who has been included in several recent public surveys, received 20 percent support.
Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, is at 3 percent, while Jim Webb, the former Virginia senator, received 2 percent, and Lincoln Chafee, the former governor of Rhode Island, is at less than 1 percent.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/09/ny-times-launches-its-jew-tracker.php
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/09/us/politics/lawmakers-against-iran-nuclear-deal.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
The New York Times today offers up a table examining the Democratic (but not Republican) Senators and House members opposed to Obama’s Iran agreement, noting whether they are Jewish and the proportion of Jewish constituents in their state or district. Like this:
Senators Schumer and Cardin are underline in yellow.
How Democrats will blame the GOP for Iran becoming a nuclear power.
The Iran nuclear deal is presented as an international agreement between the major powers and Iran. But the fact is that there are really only two parties to the agreement – President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party on the one hand, and the Iranian regime on the other.
Over the past week or so, more and more Democrats have fallen into line behind Obama. At the same time, word is getting out about what Iran is doing now that it has its deal. Together, the actions of both sides have revealed the role the nuclear pact plays in each side’s overall strategies for success.
On the Iranian side, last Wednesday the National Committee of Resistance of Iran revealed that North Korean nuclear experts are in Iran working with the Revolutionary Guards to help the Iranians prevent the UN’s nuclear inspectors from discovering the scope of their nuclear activities.
The NCRI is the same opposition group that in 2003 exposed Iran’s until then secret uranium enrichment installation in Natanz and its heavy water plutonium facility in Arak.
According to the report, the North Koreans “have expertise in ballistic missile and nuclear work areas, particularly in the field of warheads and missile guidance.”
“Over the past two years the North Korean teams have been sharing their experiences and tactics necessary for preventing access to military nuclear sites,” NCRI added.
Although, as The Washington Times reports, NCRI’s finding have yet to be verified, it is unwise to doubt them.
Demonstrating her profile in cowardice, Hillary Clinton waited to explain in detail her support for President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran until it no longer mattered politically what she said. She held back until Obama had secured enough support from Democrats to sustain a veto of a resolution of disapproval of the deal and possibly enough votes in the Senate to filibuster the resolution to death. “By now, the outcome of the deal in Congress is no longer in much doubt,” Hillary declared in her remarks at the Brookings Institution on September 9th.
A real leader aspiring to be president and commander-in-chief should have weighed in with her opinion while “the outcome of the deal” was still up in the air. But that’s not the way the presumed front runner for her party’s presidential nomination operates. Everything she does is calculated to enhance her own image. To make up for her procrastination in explaining why she endorsed the deal and how she would implement it as president, Hillary used her speech to pose as a tough commander-in-chief should Iran dare to test her.
“I support this deal. I support it as part of a larger strategy towards Iran,” Clinton said. “We have to say ‘Yes – and.’ ‘Yes, and we will enforce it with vigor and vigilance.'”
The phrase “Only a Clinton” entered our lexicon in the nineties. Ever since then the unsinkable Clintons have continued spewing outrageous lies and ridiculous ploys that only a Clinton could get away with.
Hillary Clinton tried campaigning for the White House without actually taking positions on anything. Iran was a particularly touchy subject because the Democratic Party has two constituencies that are sharply divided on the issue. Jewish voters oppose the deal while left-wing voters back it.
Hillary Clinton couldn’t pander to both at the same time. Or could she?
Hillary Clinton endorsed the deal while in true “Only a Clinton” style running against it. She endorsed the deal using militant rhetoric that threatened Iran with war. Her message is that she endorses a deal that gives Iran near zero breakout time to the bomb and lets it self-inspect and fund terrorists, but that she’ll be the toughest terror deal supporter you ever saw. No one will be tougher on that deal than her.
