November 5, 2018

Teens hurl pole through synagogue window as Jews are praying

New York Post (Metro)

By Tina Moore, Cedar Attanasio and Kevin Sheehan

November 4, 2018 | 5:30pm

https://nypost.com/2018/11/04/teens-hurl-pole-through-synagogue-window-as-jews-are-praying/

(Security video of attack at link)


A group of teens launched a metal pole through a glass window of a Brooklyn synagogue as members of the congregation observed the Sabbath on Saturday evening, authorities said. “People were praying inside at the time,” a man who was at the temple on Franklin Avenue near Myrtle Avenue in Williamsburg said on Sunday. “Everyone is upset already. So, this we don’t need this now.” The man, who did not give his name, lives in the largely Hasidic apartment complex above the first-floor synagogue, where one of the lower-floor windows was shattered by the pole.

Police are looking for four boys around the age of 16 after a witness reported the attack at about 5:45 p.m. Saturday. The youths ran south on Franklin Avenue after smashing the window, police said. Officials estimated that the property damage exceeded $250. Congregants on Sunday covered up the gaping hole in the synagogue window with a piece of black plastic.

It’s the latest in a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in New York City. Police on Saturday also released footage of a vandal who scrawled swastikas on a Brooklyn Heights wall. James Polite, 26, was also busted Friday for allegedly writing “Kill All Jews” in the stairwell of historic Union Temple in Prospect Heights. No one was injured in any of the attacks.

October 15, 2018

Trump administration plans to require drug companies to include prices in ads

The Hill
October 15, 2018

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/411505-trump-administration-to-require-drug-companies-include-prices-in-ads

Drug companies would be required to include list prices in advertisements under a Trump administration proposal released Monday. The proposed rule, announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar Monday, is the next step in the administration’s efforts to bring down drug prices. "Patients deserve to know what a given drug will cost when they're being told about the benefits and risks it may have," Azar said during a speech Monday in Washington, D.C. "And they deserve to know when a drug company has pushed its prices to abusive levels, and they deserve to know this every time they see a drug advertised to them on TV."

The pharmaceutical industry opposes the proposal, arguing it would confuse consumers because a drug’s list price is often lower than what the patient will actually pay. PhRMA, the deep-pocketed trade group representing pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., tried getting ahead of Azar’s announcement, telling reporters Monday morning that its members would begin directing patients to more information about drug costs in television ads.

Every ad mentioning a prescription drug by name will include a voiceover or text telling patients to go to a company-sponsored website where they can find information about the list price, as well as a range of potential out-of-pocket costs and potential patient assistance. “We want patients to have more cost information and support using direct-to-consumer advertising,” said PhRMA President Steven Ubl, but “just including list prices is not sufficient and would be misleading.” Azar noted PhRMA's plan in his speech Monday afternoon, but said it doesn't go far enough.

"It is no coincidence that the industry announced a new initiative today that will help make price and cost information more accessible," Azar said. "We appreciate their effort. The placing information on a website is not the same as putting it in an ad."

+++++++++++++++

Color me shocked. Drumph did something useful.

October 15, 2018

Victim of Hate Crime Speaks Out

Boropark24 (NYC)
October 14, 2018

https://www.boropark24.com/exclusive-interview-i-feared-for-my-life-victim-of-hate-crime-speaks-out/

"I feared for my life. I knew it’s either I fight myself out of this, or I might be dead.”

In an exclusive interview with BoroPark24, Lipa Schwartz said that the attack is going to leave him traumatized. “Burich Hashem I’m out of the hospital with some minor bruises, but the trauma of being attacked by someone who seemed to want revenge will stay with me forever,” Mr. Schwartz, 62, said. Revenge for what still remains to be seen. Mr. Schwartz said he was on his way to Shul, walking down 13th Ave. when he suddenly heard a short stop and saw the driver jumping out of the car. “I instantly froze, hoping he’s running past me” he said. But the attacker seemed to target him in what police are calling a hate crime. The victim said he saw death before his eyes. “In that instant I saw death for my eyes, I saw two choices, either I fight back and wrestle myself out of this attack or…”

Luckily another passerby saw the attack which caused the perpetrator to run from the scene. Mr. Schwartz said a passerby stopped the attacker from running and immediately called NYPD and Shomrim which assisted the NYPD in apprehending the suspect. The suspect, Farrukh Aszal, a 37-year-old resident from from Staten Island, has been charged with a bias crime, criminal mischief for breaking the victim’s glasses, and harassment. He has 8 priors arrests on his record

“I want to thank the NYPD, Shomrim and Hatzolah for saving my life,” Mr. Schwartz said. Adding the names of Mr. Yidel Perlstein, Chairman of Community Board 12, and Mr. Yanky Meyer, President of Misaskim for assisting him throughout the day.

September 20, 2018

Arrest Made in Stabbing Death of Runner in Logan Circle

Source: NBC News (Washington DC)

An arrest has been made in the stabbing death of a 35-year-old woman who was attacked as she jogged through D.C.'s Logan Circle neighborhood. Wendy Martinez of Northwest Washington was out for a run in the 1400 block of 11th Street NW when she was stabbed multiple times just before 8 p.m. Tuesday. The suspect, who has not been identified, was arrested Wednesday night, sources tell News4.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Peter Newsham were scheduled to appear at a news conference Thursday morning to give an update on the case. After the stabbing, Martinez staggered into a nearby carryout restaurant. She collapsed a short time later.

The manager of the restaurant said he heard someone scream and saw Martinez covered in blood. "I scared. I don’t know what happened, and I just try to call police," said the manager, who asked not to be identified. Strangers rushed to the woman's side to help her, and the manager called 911. Martinez died of her injuries a short time later.

Police released surveillance video Wednesday afternoon showing the suspect walking along 11th Street NW. Footage from another camera shows him walking with a knife in his hand. The knife used in the stabbing was found nearby. D.C. police chief Peter Newsham said police do not have a motive yet, but the "unsettling" attack was likely random.

Read more: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Arrest-Made-in-Stabbing-Death-of-Logan-Circle-Runner-493827731.html

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Glad they caught him.

September 7, 2018

Naked (Guess) man starts house fire while baking cookies on George Foreman grill in Niceville

The Ledger
September 7, 2019
By: GateHouse Media

NICEVILLE — Responding to a house fire last week, Niceville police officers and firefighters encountered an odd sight.

When firefighters got to the home around 5:30 p.m., they could see smoke coming from inside. A naked man opened the front door, said, “I’m sorry” and closed the door. Police officers arrived shortly after to assist.

The man came to the door again, left it open and went back into the house.

According to the offense report from the Police Department, the man showed no signs of understanding the danger he was in. There were several things on fire inside the home, including some towels. An officer detained the man and removed him from the house for his own safety. Firefighters said that if he had stayed in the home much longer, he could have possibly died from smoke inhalation.

In the report, an officer said he and another officer were in the house for about five minutes and had a hard time breathing. Firefighters went inside with oxygen masks to remove the burning items. The man admitted to drinking two liters of vodka and smoking marijuana starting around 9 a.m. that morning. He was examined at the scene and had no life-threatening injuries, the report said. He refused further medical treatment. Based on the fire department’s investigation, the man allegedly tried baking cookies on a George Foreman grill — which he left unattended. The grill and cookies caught fire, so he put dry towels on top of the grill. Those caught fire, too, causing the fire to spread.


http://www.theledger.com/news/20180906/naked-florida-man-starts-house-fire-while-baking-cookies-on-george-foreman-grill-in-niceville

July 23, 2018

A childhood friend died

I grew up in a small town that was either in Poland or Germany, depending on what year and political wind was flowing. It had a large, well-integrated, Jewish community. We went to synagogue on Sunday, for example. We fit in, were productive, if a bit poor. But we did not mind so much.

My father fought for Germany in WWI and came back to be a mechanic, a skill he learned in the Army.

My best friend, born 3 days before me, was a German boy I am going to call "Fritz Schmidt" for purposes of keeping his family business, their family business. His real first name was "Fritz." His last name was quite distinct.

Fritz was my next door neighbor, and we grew up inseparable. His dad and my dad worked together. His mom and my mom would look after us, depending on what was going on. We walked to school together. I went to his confirmation.

He would have gone to my bar mitzvah, but as the 1920s came to a close, an ill-wind was blowing, so I did not have one until I was much older.

My father's mechanical skills enabled him to get a much-desired visa to the USA to work in a shipyard, a rare boon during the Great Depression, so we left. I threatened to stay with Mrs. Schmidt, and she hugged me dearly when I left. "Moshe," she told me, "you will love America. There all men are free." She gave my forehead a kiss, and Fritz and I had an awkward young boy handshake, tears in our eyes. (It was just dust, I told my mom.)

World War II came around. As I have related here before, I was not much of a solider. I packed a typewriter along with my rifle, and my job was translating things Germans said, asking them questions, and telling Germans to do what my Captain told them to do."

And so, after the hostilities ended, I did not get a prompt discharge. I was busier than ever. I was promoted to Lieutenant and stationed at War Crimes Enclosure No. 1, formerly known as Dachau.

It had been re-purposed to house German POWs suspected of war crimes. My job was to interview German POWs to investigate crimes. I had a lot of discretion in my position. I can't think of one recommendation that was overruled. Most of the German soldiers I saw were beaten down, hungry, and very forthcoming.

It was a typical day. I had a line of people coming forward, each would sit on a little wooden chair. I usually had their German file with me, and we'd go through the list.

That day, I had a list of SS enlisted to go through. No guards. No obvious criminals. But still SS. So they bore a close look. If someone spouted out unrepentant antisemitic crap at me, I sent them back. Otherwise they were free.

And, yes, along came Fritz. A sergeant, I believe. He looked exactly the same, only talller. Still the boyishly handsome face.

"Fritz," I said. "It's Moshe. Moshe Feingold." He looked at me warily. With some hatred. "I was your neighbor," I said.

He looked right through me. "I had no Jew neighbor," he replied.

"Your mother's name was 'Ada'!" I exclaimed. "See, it says so right here!" I responded, showing him his own file. "She would bake cookies. Your home address is till the same!"

He looked me coldly in the eye. "My mother would not bake cookies for a Jew," he said with a sneer. "And I had no Jew neighbor."

I looked down at his file and considered. There was no obvious link to a war crime. He was not in a camp unit, but definitely in a support roll. He had to have known what was going on. But then, so did most Germans, despite what they said. I could have sent him either way.

I stamped his file "no evidence", and he walked out a free man, with a pre-printed sheet telling him to avoid certain public gatherings and . Caught a bus back home, I suppose.

Eventually, the post-war activities wound down and I went home. I forgot about Fritz.

Then I got old, and the Internet happened. Facebook, in particular.

I'd periodically either stalk or friend people I knew. Sure enough, I found Fritz. His profile was mainly private, but I could see his picture. It was him, all right. Same town, even. A mechanic, like his dad and my dad.

My hand hovered over the "friend" button, but I never clicked it.

Recently, I stalked him again. I had a brush with seriously illness, and was thinking a lot about my childhood and the war.

His page had been closed and turned into a memorial page. It was open.

Fritz had gotten married to a lovely woman, now dead. His mother, Ada, of course was dead.

He was survived by three children, two daughters and a son: Ada and Hilda.

And his son, Moshe.

June 26, 2018

(Jewish Group) After banning Jewish flag, Chicago Dyke March displays PLO flags

After banning Jewish flag, Chicago Dyke March displays PLO flags
Arutz Sheva
26 June 2018

The Chicago Dyke March, an LGBT pride parade, prominently featured Palestinian flags one year after ejecting marchers waving Jewish flags.

Participants in Sunday’s march can be seen waving Palestinian flags in a video posted by the Windy City Times, a newspaper serving Chicago’s LGBT community. Marchers also waved Mexican, Puerto Rican and rainbow flags, and chanted “No pride in occupation, no pride in deportation,” according to the newspaper. The march this year was explicitly “a very pro-Palestinian event,” according to the Windy City Times.

Last year, three women were ejected from the Dyke March for waving rainbow flags emblazoned with Jewish stars. Critics accused the march of anti-Semitism, and one woman at the march wrote on Facebook that “Removing those flags, and the people who marched with it, shows a deep level of ignorance, and yes, it also shows antisemitism masquerading as liberal values.” One of the ejected women, Laurel Grauer, works for A Wider Bridge, a pro-Israel LGBT group.

“People asked me if I was a Zionist and I said ‘yes, I do care about the State of Israel, but I also believe in a two-state solution and an independent Palestine,'” Grauer said last year. “It’s hard to swallow the idea of inclusion when you are excluding people from that. People are saying ‘You can be gay but not in this way.’ We do not feel welcomed. We do not feel included.” March organizers said last year in a statement that the women were ejected because they were pro-Israel while the march was explicitly anti-Zionist, and because of the Jewish star flag’s “similarity to the Israeli flag and the flag’s long history of use in pinkwashing efforts.”

Excerpted. More at:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/248012

Given the PLO puts homosexual people to death, I am not sure I understand this.

June 26, 2018

(Jewish Group) Jokes for Jews

Shlomo the tailor was a very successful tailor in London, England. He made formal wear for all the important royals, and even made Winston Churchill's suits during WWII. He did a great job, had a Royal Appointment, and was very well respected.

After many years of service, the Queen decided that he should be knighted for his loyal service, much to his joy and pride.

Shlomo, despite rubbing elbows with royalty for 50 years, was a humble and simple man. He had never been to an event where his fine suits were worn. So he asked a client what the proper procedure was. The client explained the dress, the process, and even the knighting ceremony to him. The hardest part was he had to memorize a phrase in Latin for when he was actually knighted.

He made himself a fine set of formal wear, got a good hair cut and beard trim, and set out to memorize the procedure and the phrase.

Well, the big day came. He and the other knights-to-be was taken to the castle in a carriage. Walked down the red carpet among all the beaming people, so happy to see him honored at last. He watched the honorees, kneel before the Queen.

They would each get down on one knee, bow, and she would touch his (or her, there were, indeed several lady knights) shoulder with the sword. They would say the Latin phrase. Then they would switch knees, she would touch the knight on the other shoulder with the sword, and they would arise, a Knight of the Kingdom.

Well, it got to be Shlomo's turn. He approached the Queen, got down on his knee, she touched his shoulder with the sword.

And he blanked on the Latin phrase. Completely blank.

Panicked, he said the first non-English phrase that came to his mind: "Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, she'heheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higi'anu la'z'man ha'ze!"

The Queen then touched his other shoulder. Once again, Shlomo said: "Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, she'heheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higi'anu la'z'man ha'ze!"

Puzzled, the Queen turned to her advisor and asked: "Why is this knight different from all the other knights?

June 25, 2018

Public safety 'This universe can end,' said driver in video posted on day he mowed down family on b

Source: Tampa Bay Tribune

By: Josh Fiallo

Published: June 25, 2018
Updated: June 25, 2018 at 03:19 PM

TAMPA — Pedro Aguerreberry pedaled along New Tampa Boulevard on Sunday pulling his son Bennett in a trailer as his other son Lucas rode alongside them. As father and sons headed east on a paved bike path, a former star track and field athlete named Mikese Morse drove west in a Dodge sedan, Tampa police say. Morse didn’t know the family, but he decided at that moment to make the trio his target, police allege. Morse, 30, spun the Dodge around, crossed a lane of traffic, tore across a grassy easement and then sped up just before slamming into the father and two sons, according to police.

All three were taken to local hospitals. Pedro Aguerreberry, 42, was pronounced dead a short time later. Bennett, 8, was treated for a broken leg, and Lucas, 3, had minor injuries. Morse fled the scene of the mid-day Sunday collision and was arrested later on charges including premeditated first-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash with death. He was held without bail at the Hillsborough County Jail.

Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan said an account from a witness who saw Morse make the U-turn indicates that he intentionally mowed them down. But investigators were still working to answer a critical question: Why? "What type of person would purposely run over a family that was just bicycling down a bike path?" Dugan said at a Monday news conference. He said Morse seemed "disturbed" after he was detained, admitted to the attack but didn’t offer "a complete explanation" for his motive. Videos and other posts on Morse’s Instagram page — some of them apparently posted near the time of the crash and later that day — paint a portrait of a man unraveling, fixated on what he claimed to be the devil’s power over him. "I still will kill every single one of y’all on that motherf-----’s head right now," Morse said in a video posted Sunday. He appears to be walking along the edge of a wooded area while recording with his phone.

(More at link)

Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/Driver-deliberately-struck-family-riding-on-New-Tampa-bike-path-killing-father-police-say_169452923

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This appears to be a random attack by a man with known spiraling mental problems.

This time he chose a Dodge Avenger as his weapon, instead of a gun, but the end effect is the same.

In today's political climate there are very few areas of agreement, but this is the time we could get Republicans to spend more money on public mental health services, more money to make mental institutions decent places (as much as they can be), and more reasonable laws so dangerous people can be detained for their own and others safety.

I don't know if others remember, but our current practice of drugging the mentally ill and then setting them out in public with the false hope they take their medicine came about because of a bad combination of events in the 70s:

1. Drug companies with new drugs that lied about how effective they would be, to make money;
2. Republicans refusing to spend the money to make mental institutions humane places;
3. Scaremongering TV from idiots (chiefly Geraldo Rivera, believe it or not) that made the bad mental institutions look like horror novels;
4. Well-meaning, but misguided, public activists who filed lawsuits to get people out of terrible mental institutions (supported by money and fake experts from not-well-meaning drug companies).

We now know better; and this is literally the ONLY thing I think we can get Republicans to act reasonably about.

June 11, 2018

Food Truck Worker Hurls Bottle, Racial Epithet at Black Woman

Food Truck Worker Hurls Bottle, Racial Epithet at Black Woman After She Tries to Pay With Change: Report

The Root
June 8, 2018
By: Angela Helm, Contributing Editor
https://www.theroot.com/food-truck-worker-calls-black-woman-n-word-after-she-tr-1826632841

A black woman in Oregon was allegedly called out of her name and assaulted by a food truck owner, all because she tried to pay for her food with change. According to Willamette Week, Carlotta Washington says she was called a “nigger” by Islam El Masry after she tried to pay for her lunch with quarters (not pennies, mind you).

In a short video provided to the outlet by a bystander, El Masry can be seen telling Washington to “get the fuck out from here” and calling her a “stupid bitch” after throwing a Gatorade bottle at her for confronting him.
In a portion not captured on video, Washington says, El Masry sprayed her with Sriracha, which was confirmed to the news outlet by witness Rachel Good, who said that she found Washington’s shirt, face and shoulders covered with the Thai hot sauce.

“It was in my eyes and all on my skin. It was burning terribly,” Washington says. After Washington asked that police be called, El Masry was booked into Multnomah County jail on charges of misdemeanor harassment and assault. Bail is set at $4,000.

Video at link.