Politics
- Obama, come to Israel – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has orchestrated Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel to fall out on Tisha B’av, when Jews around the world fast to mark the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Netanyahu has cautioned us often, albeit in a general manner, about an upcoming catastrophe. But those warnings seem to be more accurate when taking into account the actual historic events that led to the Second Temples’ destruction – when an extremist Jewish messianic regime confronted a superpower, and thereby brought tragedy to the people of Israel.
It’s easy to be fed up with Netanyahu. At least, it’s easy for liberal Israelis. It’s easy as well for Barack Obama. It’s easy when Netanyahu’s patron, Sheldon Adelson, serves as the largest funder of the anti-Obama campaign; when Israel establishes a university in the territories precisely at a moment when it needs American support; when an Israeli government that is supposedly casting itself as a moderate force facing religious extremism dissolves its unity alignment, strengthening the state’s religious lawmakers – all this encourages the fed up feelings.
As in the case of the destruction of the Second Temple, at a point in time when internal and external support for the State of Israel should be cultivated, Netanyahu has chosen instead to rely on the extremists. These include the religious-right camp in Israel and the Jewish right in the United States, as well as messianic evangelicals who await the Armageddon in Israel as a necessary apocalyptic event that they believe must precede the return of Jesus.
- Romney’s twisted road on abortion – The Last Word
- Jon Kyl Berates Obama For Focus On Middle Class
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama should stop talking about the middle class because it turns people against rich Americans, who should be embraced as the Michael Jordans of the U.S. economy, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz,) said Monday.
Declaring that the use of the phrase “middle class” is “misguided and wrong and even dangerous,” Kyl argued in a Senate floor speech that Obama is “spreading economic resentment [that] weakens American values” and ignoring “the uniquely meritocratic basis of our society.”
“We have a president who talks incessantly about class, particularly the middle class,” Kyl said.
“I just think the whole discussion of class is wrong. it’s not what we do here in America,” said Kyl, the Senate minority whip. He added, “I don’t think there’s anything called ‘middle class values’ that are different from the values of other people in this country. Tell me what’s different about the values of someone who the president identifies as middle class?”
Democrats have long argued that the nation’s tax system favors the wealthy, and with the economic downturn, inequality has reached levels not seen since the roaring ’20s.