Day: September 9, 2023

When one is an infant one can be forgiven for having things like temper tantrums. After all, a little baby cannot even talk yet. Babies cry frequently when they don’t get what they want. A good example of this just happened the other day.

“I can do whatever I want with them!” That was Donald Trump who I’m convinced has never left babyhood and whose brain must still be at about eight months old. In this now infamous interview with Hugh Hewitt, this was yet another subject that came up — the classified documents that Trump stole.

Trump actually came out and said these words. He came out and he said “I can do whatever I want with them.” I imagine this news made a couple of District Attorneys very happy. Trump cannot open up his mouth without incriminating himself so these words are actually very good news for us.

Still one has to wonder why would Trump further incriminate himself? Why doesn’t he just be quiet at this point? After all, he’s in so much trouble. The man seriously doesn’t wanna go to jail does he? I think it’s more about Donald Trump’s gigantic, bloated and bulbous never-ending ego.

It simply will not let the man be quiet. And these words may just spoil some of his lawyers’ defense strategies, particularly if they were going to try to say Trump had no idea he did anything wrong.

Trump, among all his issues, really does have a losing streak of self-sabotage. Every time he gets into trouble, he makes sure to make it a bit worse for himself. That’s why Trump will never be able to get out of this mess.

It’s not just the legal system that is making sure he gets what is coming to him. It’s not just Lady Justice. It’s also Donald Trump. Trump is assisting with his own demise by making statements like this. He is his own worst enemy.

The post Donald Trump’s worst enemy appeared first on Palmer Report.

Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed on Saturday to let in aid shipments from Azerbaijan-held territory for the first time in decades, in return for the restoration of road links to Armenia. 

The moves, initially reported by Armenia’s Armenpress state news agency and confirmed by Baku, appear at least partly to grant Azerbaijan’s decades-old demand to restore transportation links between Azeri government-held territory and the province, which broke free of Baku’s rule in the 1990s. 

Armenpress cited Karabakh authorities as saying that they had “decided to allow access of the Russian goods to our republic through the town of Askeran,” referring to a Karabakh town close to the front-line with Azerbaijan. 

“At the same time, an agreement has been reached to restore humanitarian shipments by the Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross along the Lachin Corridor,” the Armenpress report said, referring to the area through which the road linking Karabakh to Armenia passes. 

It said the move was driven by “severe humanitarian problems” in the blockaded region. 

Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, confirmed to Reuters that both routes would be opened simultaneously, while an Azerbaijani checkpoint on the road to Armenia would stay in place. He restated Baku’s longtime position that the Karabakh separatist authorities must dissolve and disarm. 

Karabakh is recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by its population of around 120,000 ethnic Armenians since a war that coincided with the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Azerbaijan recaptured large swaths of territory in a second major war in 2020, and for the past nine months has exerted new pressure on the region by restricting its access to Armenia through the Lachin Corridor. The road has been cut off except for urgent medical cases, leading to shortages of basic supplies, including bread. 

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of using the corridor to smuggle weapons, and of rejecting an offer to reopen the road simultaneously with another route into Karabakh. 

The apparent deal came on a day Karabakh’s parliament chose a new president of its self-proclaimed independent republic, a move Azerbaijan has denounced as illegal, amid days of escalating tensions between Baku and Yerevan. 

Azerbaijan said on Saturday that Armenian forces had fired on its troops overnight, and that Azerbaijan army units took “retaliatory measures.” Armenia denied the incident. 

The Armenian government said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held phone conversations on Saturday with the leaders of France, Germany, Iran and Georgia, and with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Azerbaijan said its foreign minister discussed the situation with a senior U.S. State Department official, Yuri Kim. 

Baku has a close relationship with Turkey, while Yerevan has historically held close ties with Russia, which sent peacekeepers to the area and promised to keep the Lachin Corridor open as part of a peace deal that ended the 2020 war. Pashinyan has lately complained that Moscow failed to live up to its assurances, leading him to seek wider international support. 

According to Armenia’s government, Pashinyan told the foreign leaders that tensions were rising on the border, and that Azerbaijan was concentrating troops there and around Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku has denied this, while accusing Armenia of similar steps. 

Pashinyan said he was ready to hold an urgent meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to defuse tensions, according to the Armenian government. Hajiyev, Aliyev’s foreign policy adviser, told Reuters Baku had received no such offer. 

Earlier on Saturday, Karabakh’s separatist parliament elected Samvel Shakhramanyan, a military officer and former head of the territory’s security service, as its new president, replacing an incumbent who resigned a week ago. 

In a speech to parliament, Shakhramanyan called for direct negotiations with Azerbaijan, and for transport links to Armenia to be restored. 

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry called the ethnic Armenian leadership of Karabakh a “puppet separatist regime” and said the vote was illegal. 

“The only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is the unconditional and complete withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and the disbandment of the puppet regime,” it said in a statement. 

In the capitals of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, residents told Reuters they feared a new war between the two countries. 

Tens of thousands of Israelis protested in cities across the country on Saturday ahead of a key decision by the Supreme Court over legislation passed by the coalition which stripped the court of some of its oversight powers.

Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition presented plans to strip the court of much of its powers with a package of legislation but, due to overwhelming public pressure, passed only one part of the plan.

Proponents say the judicial overhaul plans would restore balance to the branches of authority but critics say it removes vital checks on government powers.

The latest legislation, an amendment to one of Israel’s basic laws, removes the court’s power to strike down government decision’s or appointments on the basis of being “unreasonable.”

“I am demonstrating for Israel democracy,” protester Nattie Schwartz-Kershberg said in Tel Aviv. “I want to make sure that Israel will stay democracy and not a dictatorship.”

The overhaul plans have sparked weekly nationwide protests but the latest demonstrations held special significance as they came before the Supreme Court, for the first time in Israeli history, convenes its entire 15-judge bench on Sept. 12 to hear an appeal against the amendment.

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Moroccan earthquake survivors huddled for a night in the open on the High Atlas Mountains on Saturday, a day after the country’s deadliest quake in more than six decades killed over 1,300 people and laid waste to villages.

Neighbours were still searching for survivors buried on the slopes, where houses of mud brick, stone and rough wood were cracked open and mosque minarets toppled by the quake that struck late on Friday. The historic old city of Marrakech also suffered extensive damage.

The Interior Ministry said 1,305 people had been killed and 1,832 injured by the quake, gauged by the U.S. Geological Survey at a magnitude of 6.8 with an epicentre some 72 km (45 miles) southwest of Marrakech.

In the village of Amizmiz near the epicentre, rescue workers picked through rubble with their bare hands. Fallen masonry blocked narrow streets. Outside a hospital, around 10 bodies lay covered in blankets as grieving relatives stood nearby.

“When I felt the earth shaking beneath my feet and the house leaning, I rushed to get my kids out. But my neighbours couldn’t,” said Mohamed Azaw. “Unfortunately no one was found alive in that family. The father and son were found dead and they are still looking for the mother and the daughter.”

Rescuers stood atop the pancaked floors of one building in Amizmiz, bits of carpet and furniture protruding from the rubble. A long queue formed outside the only open shop as people sought supplies. Underlining the challenges facing rescuers, fallen boulders blocked a road from Amizmiz to a nearby village.

Nearly all the houses in the area of Asni, some 40 km south of Marrakech, were damaged, and villagers were preparing to spend the night outside. Food was in short supply as roofs had collapsed on kitchens, said villager Mohamed Ouhammo.

Montasir Itri, a resident of Asni, said the search was on for survivors.

“Our neighbours are under the rubble and people are working hard to rescue them using available means in the village,” he said.

The village of Tansghart in the Ansi area, on the side of a valley where the road from Marrakech rises up into the High Atlas, was the worst hit of any Reuters saw. Its once-pretty houses, clinging to a steep hillside, were cracked open by the shaking ground. Those still standing were missing chunks of wall or plaster. Two mosque minarets had fallen.

Abdellatif Ait Bella, a labourer, lay on the ground, barely able to move or speak, his head bandaged from wounds caused by falling debris.

“We have no house to take him to and have had no food since yesterday,” said his wife Saida Bodchich, fearing for the future of their family of six with their sole breadwinner so badly hurt. “We can rely on nobody but God.”

The village is already mourning ten deaths including two teenage girls, an inhabitant said.

Tremors were felt as far away as Huelva and Jaen in southern Spain. The World Health Organization said more than 300,000 people were affected in Marrakech and surrounding areas.

Street camera footage in Marrakech showed the moment the earth began to shake, as men suddenly looked around and jumped up, and others ran for shelter into an alleyway and then fled as dust and debris tumbled around them.

In the heart of the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, a mosque minaret had fallen in Jemaa al-Fna Square. Some houses in the tightly packed old city collapsed and people used their hands to remove debris while they waited for heavy equipment, said resident Id Waaziz Hassan.

Morocco declared three days of national mourning, during which the national flag will be flown at half staff throughout the country, the royal court said on Saturday.

The Moroccan armed forces will deploy rescue teams to provide affected areas with clean drinking water, food supplies, tents and blankets, it added.

Turkey, where powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people, was among nations expressing solidarity and offering to provide support.

Algeria, which broke off ties with Morocco in 2021 after escalating tensions between the countries focused on the Western Sahara conflict, said it would open airspace for humanitarian and medical flights.

The quake was recorded at a depth of 18.5 km, typically more destructive than deeper quakes of the same magnitude. It was Morocco’s deadliest earthquake since 1960 when a quake was estimated to have killed at least 12,000 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Mohammad Kashani, Associate Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering at the University of Southampton, compared scenes of the aftermath to images from Turkey in February: “The area is full of old and historical buildings, which are mainly masonry. The collapsed reinforced concrete structures that I saw … were either old or substandard.”

Marrakech is due to host the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from Oct. 9.

An IMF spokesperson, asked about the planned meetings, said: “Our sole focus at this time is on the people of Morocco and the authorities who are dealing with this tragedy.”

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(JTA) — Those who are Jewish, or Phish fans — or both — have likely noticed at one point: Jews really seem to love Phish.

There are many possible reasons for this, starting with the fact that the genre-bending jam band has many ardent fans of all stripes, having sold millions of albums and played to enormous festival crowds for decades. Two of the band members — bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman — are also Jewish, and the group has been known to play Jewish songs such as “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” and “Avinu Malkeinu” live.

But there’s something else — a certain kind of spiritual aspect to Phish fandom that seems to attract the average modern Jewish fan.

“Phish is one of many vehicles through which Jewish fans connect on a meaningful level with their cultural Jewish identity,” University of San Francisco Professor Oren Kroll-Zeldin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2019. “Phish provides an alternative venue to build Jewish community and Phish shows become a site where fans can have meaningful Jewish experiences outside the confines of traditional Jewish life.”

A new book titled “This Is Your Song Too: Phish and Contemporary Jewish Identity,” published this week by Penn State University Press, explores the ins and outs of the relationship through essays from several Phish fans and an interview with Gordon. It’s edited by Kroll-Zeldin and Ariella Werden-Greenfield of Temple University, who in 2019 hosted a conference — likely the first of its kind in academia — on the topic.

“There are so many connections and synergies between Jewish identity and Phish fandom,” Werden-Greenfield told JTA. “What we really have tried to highlight in this book… is the answer is different for every Phish fan who identifies Jewishly in and around Phish.”

As Phish’s legend grew in the 1990s, many Jews learned about them at Jewish summer camps, Kroll-Zeldin said. “Time and time again, people said ‘I learned about Phish from my camp counselor, and then I passed the music down to my campers, who then passed the music down to other campers,” in a process he compared to the Jewish tradition of passing the Torah down through the generations.

Since Phish is also known for their extensive live shows, Phish fans also love to intensely analyze setlists (along with their lyrics, musical styles and more).

“It’s’ very similar to how Jews engage with textual exegesis of Torah and Talmud,” Kroll-Zeldin added.

Another big part of the connection is a healthy sense of humor found in Phish’s lyrical themes and stage presence.

“They are playful and curious and experimental, and that is something that resonates with a lot of Jewish listeners,” Werden-Greenfield said of Phish.

Kroll-Zeldin and Werden-Greenfield were friends and college classmates at Skidmore College — where Phish played an early show in 1990. In the years afterward, they would see each other at Phish shows and then, once they both pursued careers as religious studies academics, at conferences. Both said they have lost track of how many Phish shows they have personally attended.

Their 2019 conference led to a call for papers, some of which ended up in the book.

While many Jewish Phish fans are secular, the book includes essays from devotees of the band who are more observant and often must reconcile the timing of shows with that of Shabbat. Religious services have been held during set breaks at Phish shows, with kosher food sometimes sold in the “shakedown” area, outside of concerts.

There’s also a chapter about Phish and food. The Jewish ice cream purveyors Ben and Jerry — natives of Vermont, where Phish formed — have been offering their Phish Food flavor for years, while Federal Donuts, owned by Philadelphia-based Israeli-American chef Michael Solomonov, has created out multiple special editions of Phish-themed donuts.

In addition to the essays, the book features numerous photographs, of everything from parking lot prayers to Phish-themed dreidels, bat mitzvah invitations and wedding ketubahs.

The band has always seemed to happily nod to its large Jewish fan base. The band got its start playing in cities, towns and colleges in areas with large Jewish populations, and the majority of their performances are still close to metro areas with large Jewish populations. Frontman Trey Anastasio played a solo show at the Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., in 2018.

A big part of the book, mentioned by several essayists, is Phish’s performance of “Avinu Malkeinu.” Phish does not play the song often — once every 23.9 shows, according to phish.net‘s exhaustive database — but the band has played it a total of 83 times over many years, between 1987 and 2022.

Why “Avinu Malkeinu”? The book shares the heretofore untold story of how Phish’s Gordon, while growing up in suburban Boston, first heard the song from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, a prominent rabbi and author in the Reform movement, who happened to be Gordon’s childhood rabbi. Kushner would sing the melody, sometimes wordlessly, “for everything,” including during Havdalah services. While, per the book, Gordon “admits that he never fully accepted Judaism’s belief system or rituals or and even rebelled against them,” that song stuck with him.

“[Aveinu Malkeinu] was getting not just into my ears but into my soul,” Gordon says in the book. “And so, when I’m bringing that song to the table [with Phish], in some ways… I’m referring back to an experience that was a deep soul experience for me, using that melody.”

The Phish bassist has a sister-in-law who is a cantor, and at the time of the interview, he was planning to sing with his daughter as part of a Zoom-based “Havdalah coffee shop.”

“Looking out into the crowd, it was easy to see who the Jews were because their eyes would light up when we went into it, and that was kind of fun,” Gordon said in the book of the band’s earliest performances of “Avinu Malkeinu.” “When we were playing in clubs and theaters and Jewish people wandering in having no idea that they were going to hear anything in Hebrew, there it was. A look of shock. I liked that part of it.”

For all of its Jewish connections, one thing Phish has not ever done is perform in Israel. There’s been a great deal of campaigning over the years for such a visit by Phish fans who live there, including one woman named Rachel Loonin Steinerman, interviewed in the book, who created the “OhKeePah,” a kippah made from the same fabric as the signature muumuu sported by drummer Fishman during shows. She inscribed #PhishInIsrael on the inside of each.

Music journalist Shirley Halperin says in the book that she spent time in Israel with drummer Fishman in 1993 — including an early-morning hike to the top of Masada — and that Gordon had reached out to her when he was trying to learn how to sing “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.”

“What is it about Phish and Jews? I don’t know, but a lot of Jews are doing Jewish stuff at Phish shows, which makes it a very joyful way to be Jewish,” Kroll-Zeldin said.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post What’s Jewish about the jam band Phish? Many things, according to a new book. appeared first on The Forward.

Two people in Brooklyn were shot and wounded steps away from a big box home improvement store on Saturday afternoon, and the gunman responsible remains at large, police reported.

One of the victims, a 26-year-old woman, is now fighting for her life at a local hospital after being shot in the head.

Law enforcement sources said the gunfire erupted at about noon on Sept. 9 at the corner of Willoughby Avenue and Sandford Street, near the entrance to The Home Depot, in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Officers from the 79th Precinct, in responding to a 911 call about the shooting, found the 26-year-old woman shot in the head and the second victim, a 35-year-old man, with a bullet wound to his right knee.

EMS rushed both victims to Kings County Hospital. The woman remains there in critical condition, while the man was listed in stable condition, police sources said.

The motive for the shooting remains unknown and under investigation. Sources familiar with the case indicated that police are investigating whether road rage was a factor, but an NYPD spokesperson could not confirm that report.

Detectives and officers scoured the crime scene looking for evidence, including the victims’ bullet-riddled car.

Police officers stand guard near the shooting scene.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell The entrance to the Home Depot parking lot in Brooklyn near where the shooting occurred.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell Police officers stand near a bullet-riddled car after two people were shot in Brooklyn on Sept. 9, 2023.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell Detectives at the scene of the shootingPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell

One local resident, while observing the police response, lamented the violence.

“Young people are dying over silliness,” said the resident, who did not provide their identity. “There is no love in New York City anymore.”

Meanwhile, the search continues for the suspected shooter, described by police as a Black man standing at about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighing 150 pounds. He was last seen wearing a red hat, a white shirt and black jeans while fleeing southbound on foot along nearby Nostrand Avenue.

So far, no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation, police said.

Anyone with information regarding the shooting or the suspect’s whereabouts can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.

Year-to-date through Sept. 3, the 79th Precinct has seen 16 shootings with 17 victims, down from the 20 shootings and 27 victims reported at the same point in 2022, according to the most recent CompStat report.

Casting a ballot in a Boston City Council election is usually about as meaningful as picking up your cellphone and dialing in a vote for your favorite D-list celebrity on Dancing with the Stars.

But this Tuesday, going to the polls could be important, because it might help determine who becomes mayor next year if (or when) Michelle Wu decides to move on.

Rumors are rampant that two years after her election, the 37-year-old drifter from Chicago is “despondent” over the job, as well she should be, as abysmally as she’s performed her duties.

Last week, Wu was asked by reporters if she’s been talking to Harvard about a job. She denied it, sort of.

Maybe they should have asked her about MIT. That’s the other rumor.

If Wu resigns, she would be replaced by the president of that third-rate clown-show known as the City Council.

The current president is Ed Flynn, son of former mayor Ray Flynn. Not a bad guy, but Ed’s never been on the short list for Mensa. When a riot breaks out at a Council meeting, he bangs the gavel and yells “Clear the galleys!”

Not galleries, galleys.

Under no circumstances is Ed Flynn going to become the next mayor. So if she wants out, Wu will have to wait until his term expires in January. Then her faction of comrades and card-carrying fellow travelers on the Council can vote in a successor to keep the program going.

What’s the program, you ask? To paraphrase Che Guevara on Vietnam in 1967:

“Two, three, many Mass & Casses.”

If Wu flees across the river, the local Reds want to replace her with Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune. Like Wu, she’s an acolyte of the fake Indian, Elizabeth Warren, who raised big bucks for the Haitian-American in her 2021 race.

Louijeune’s far-left bona fides are all in order — after Harvard Law she worked for Perkins Coie, the corrupt Democrat law firm that in 2016 served as a cut-out for funneling Hillary Clinton’s cash to concoct the phony Steele dossier used in the Russian collusion hoax.

But there’s a problem with the Louijeune succession. Some of the councilors from the Mass & Cass crew are jammed up legally. If the electorate votes them off the island, there’s an off chance someone who’s occasionally worked for a living could become the next mayor.

On the Council get-rid-of list, let’s start with incumbent Kendra Lara, a/k/a Hicks, who was recently busted for unlicensed driving of an uninspected, uninsured, unregistered motor vehicle. I don’t have the room (or stomach) to go into every sordid stunt this shrew has been mixed up in, but now she’s demanding to have all the latest charges against her dropped.

Which is amusing, because the guy prosecuting her is Kevin Hayden, the district attorney, whom she vehemently tried to defeat last year. Payback is a… Kendra Lara.

Who to vote for instead

In her West Roxbury-Jamaica Plain District 6, vote for William King to get rid of Lara. He is not known to DCF, and he has a driver’s license. In other words, he’s normal.

In District 5, which includes Hyde Park, Roslindale and Mattapan, incumbent Ricky Ricardo Arroyo is a boil on the body politic. He tried to rig the DA’s race last year against the aforementioned Hayden.

And he’s got other legal problems besides getting the shady U.S. attorney fired in his scheme to fix the election by leaking fake news to the corrupt Boston Globe.

Arroyo was just fined $3,000 by the State Ethics Commission for a different offense. And then there’s that ongoing investigation against him by the Board of Bar Overseers regarding a photo finish he had with the BPD during high school.

Jose Ruiz is running against Arroyo. He is a 30-year Boston cop. Vote Ruiz, not the sleaze.

Next, Tania Fernandes Anderson, the Roxbury city councilor, will be more difficult to knock off. She recently made a mysterious visit to Mass & Cass on a Saturday night at dusk and had her cell phone stolen. She claimed she had double-parked to deliver food to the junkies.

Anderson canoodles with a convicted thug doing life for murdering a (legal) immigrant. She brags of being the first African Muslim illegal alien elected to the City Council. She too has been fined by the State Ethics Commission — $5,000, for hiring both her son and her sister as aides.

Her most well-known statement on the City Council floor, after being told she had to fire her two nationwide searches:

“What the bleep does a black woman have to do on the bleepin’ Council to get some respect as a black woman?”

Maybe stop breaking the law, for starters.

In Roxbury, District 7, vote for Althea Garrison. She’s served on both the City Council and in the state legislature, and never disgraced herself, not once. Go Althea!

Incumbent Frank Baker is not running for reelection in Dorchester District 3. The Globe has endorsed one Ann Walsh — how much more do you need to know? She says she’s against the “secret knock” — meaning, I guess, the old-boy network.

Which is fine, but how is the “secret knock” any less odious, or racist, than “checking the box,” which is the sine qua non for every last one of these scoundrels in the Mass & Cass crew.

In District 3, vote for John FitzGerald, even if his father was the crooked state rep and bag-lady stalker Kevin “Money Fitz” FitzGerald. Even a FitzGerald spalpeen is preferable to a Globe stooge.

Meanwhile, to return to the subject of Michelle Wu’s likely departure, I’ve been futilely trying for 11 months now to get the Boston Police Department to hand over its dispatch records for her home in Roslindale.

The cops have dragged their feet, stonewalled me, given me spread sheets I didn’t ask for, told me I had to go to other agencies etc. etc.

Finally, last week the BPD admitted they have the records I’m seeking. They reveal all calls to an address by first responders — including ambulances.

But the BPD still won’t turn them over to me. I wonder why.

You’d almost think City Hall was trying to hide something. What’s in those records for the mayor’s house on Augustus Avenue that they’re so desperate not to release?

Anyway, vote Tuesday and then vote again Nov. 7, unless you want a Mass & Cass in every neighborhood in the city — their dream, everyone else’s nightmare.

At the top of this column, I compared a Council election to voting in Dancing with the Stars. But this year’s fight is more like The Gong Show.

On Tuesday, if you live in Boston, you can be Chuck Barris. Bang the gong on all these clowns. See ya later, Kendra, Ricky, Tania and all the rest!

Vote like your neighborhood depended on it, because it does.

Order Howie’s new book, “Paper Boy: Read All About It!” at howiecarrshow.com or amazon.com.