Top Three Reasons for Joining the Celebrate Israel Parade
Dear Editor:
Three top reasons for joining the annual Celebrate Israel Parade this coming Sunday, June 2, beginning at 11:30 a.m. (East 62nd to 74th Streets on Fifth Avenue), complete with tight security:
You want to be part of the largest outpouring in the US of our love for Israel.
- What would the kids and other marchers – or our Israeli brethren – feel if they saw sidewalks devoid of supporters?
- You want to show the bad guys that they can’t scare us away.
See you there!
Glenn Richter
Dear Editor:
Ireland, Norway, and Spain have decided to overrule G-d and recognize half of the Land of Israel as sovereign, Judenrein, Palestinian territory without any negotiations with Israel. Unadulterated chutzpah. Therefore, Israel should immediately respond to their brazen actions with acts that will illustrate to them the danger of their precipitous political deeds.
Israel can recognize Northern Ireland, with its distinct culture and identity, as the legitimate homeland of the Irish people.
Similarly, Israel can demand that Norway grant formal autonomy to their indigenous people, the Sámi.
As for Spain, Israel should recognize the Catalan movement’s desire for independence, supported by 80% of referendum voters.
Chazak, Chazak, V’Nis’chazeik!
Henry Moscovic
Dear Editor:
In his column “Been There” (QJL 5/15), Warren Hecht takes whataboutism to a whole new level. In attempting to compare President Biden’s refusal to supply Israel with sorely needed weapons needed to fight against Hamas to actions of prior presidents, he fails to make a compelling defense or even an attempted explanation of Biden’s mistreatment of Israel. Merely because other presidents may have erred (in very different circumstances) does not absolve Biden of blame.
Whataboutism is always a weak argument. Such reasoning never provides a cogent defense of a given situation.
Sincerely,
Arlene Ross
Forest Hills, New York
The United States Dept. of Injustice
Dear Editor:
Joe Biden’s Department of “Justice” recently put former Donald Trump aide Peter Navaro in prison after Congress held him in contempt for his failure to divulge conversations he had with Donald Trump while he was President.
Steve Bannon is headed to prison for the same offense. Their claims of executive privilege for private conversations they had with President Trump in the White House, regarding policy, fell on deaf ears. Joe Biden has also asserted executive privilege for the conversations he had with Special Prosecutor Robert Hur to prevent release of his video testimony from the investigation into his felonious behavior regarding his mishandling of classified documents.
The problem with Biden exercising executive privilege is that it’s entirely inappropriate and inapplicable in this instance. Robert Hur was not a subordinate of Biden like Bannon and Navarro were to Trump; Hur was appointed Special Prosecutor and was questioning Joe Biden to determine whether Biden committed multiple felonies.
Moreover, we all know what Joe Biden said in the interview because the transcript of his rambling and incoherent answers was made public! Robert Hur of the Biden Department of “Justice” concluded that Biden did in fact commit multiple felonies with classified documents, but he was too old and senile to be tried in a court of law.
Biden’s same Department of “Justice” then attempts to eliminate Trump from the 2024 election by bringing charges for misuse of classified documents, the same charges Biden eluded on grounds he has dementia. So, we are supposed to believe that Biden is too demented to stand trial for his crimes, but he’s just fine to be president for another four and a half years.
This is partisan hackery at its worst. Joe Biden’s Department of “Justice” is protecting Joe Biden from having video tape released confirming what we all know: that Biden is a frail, senile, doddering old fool who would be in assisted living right now, but for the fact that he somehow still occupies the White House.
Avi Goldberg
Lawfare Cases vs. Trump Is Not a Dealbreaker!
Dear Editor:
In last week’s column, Warren Hecht laments the lack of quality Presidential candidates this year. He references the unfavorability ratings of Biden and Trump, and then cites the criminal cases against Trump, which he states would have been a deal breaker had Trump been running for President in 1968.
Mr. Hecht, how much longer will you keep legitimizing these joke trials, which represent the worst case of election interference in the history of this country? The Georgia case fell apart because Special Prosecutor Wade perjured himself in court and was so unethical, he and Fani Willis were profiting from Trump’s phony prosecution.
The Florida classified documents case is the most absurd example of selective prosecution, because Joe Biden (who unlike Trump, was only Vice President at the time) stole classified documents, put them in his garage, and read them to his ghostwriter – and is not being prosecuted for it.
As for the trial that’s ongoing in New York, the prosecution’s main witness is a convicted felon who admitted to stealing $60,000 from Trump. Last I checked, larceny was a far more serious felony than whatever bookkeeping error Alvin Bragg is prosecuting on this phony case. Mr. Hecht, as someone who represents others in court for a living, I am sure you have had to put your personal biases aside and fulfill your fiduciary duties to the clients you represent. I humbly suggest you do the same for the readers of your column. It’s getting ridiculous.
Jason Stark
Worrying
Dear Editor:
My former boss used to call me “Debbie Downer.” I never understood that moniker until someone told me it referred to a character on SNL. She was wrong. I really should be called “Debbie Worrier.” I can “out-worry” anyone about anything. Naturally, since October 7, I’ve gotten even worse. As a news junkie, I begin and end my days with CNN, the news on my phone and The Wall Street Journal.
All my worrying seemed genetic until I started adding a pasuk to my Amidah davening that started with a daled and ended with a hei. What a shock when it turned out to be a pasuk in Mishlei that began with the word “d’agah” (which means “worry” in English). I guess Shlomo HaMelech knew a thing or two about worrying, considering he had 1,000 wives. Samuel Alito and Senator Menendez take care of their worries by blaming their wives for everything.
Please remember not to say to your worrying friends, “Don’t worry.” That doesn’t accomplish anything. Instead, I find polishing silver and folding laundry help suppress my worrying. Maybe saying T’hilim or listening to Nach Yomi will help you. Ironically, I don’t worry about big things like taxes or surgeries. This must work, since most of my hair hasn’t turned gray.
I must stop now, because I have to go out and buy groceries before it starts raining or turns too hot and humid to go out.
Debbie Horowitz
Some Context on Biden vs. Reagan
Dear Editor:
I commend the Queens Jewish Link for having the best Letters to the Editor section of all the local newspapers. And the insertion of Vice President Pecoraro’s comedic letter in last week’s edition was a splendid addition, demonstrating that the QJL is not resting on its laurels.
VP Pecoraro compared Biden to President Reagan, which I concede is fair, given that they both suffered from debilitating cognitive issues, and it remains unclear whether one or both are currently deceased. One major difference VP Pecoraro omitted in his letter was how the wives of each president reacted to their unfortunate circumstances.
Nancy Reagan exhibited class and did everything within her power to preserve President Reagan’s dignity by not having him appear in public once it became clear that there was a high risk he would suffer a public embarrassment due to his impairment.
In contrast, Jill Biden is an evil, disgusting, shameless, and power-hungry First Lady. If she cared at all about her spouse, she would tell him that half a century in politics was a nice run, but it’s time to move on to shuffleboard, bingo, and early bird specials. Instead, she allows him to humiliate himself daily on the public stage. He cannot remember names or where he is, can’t figure out how to get off a stage, and like Rob Burgundy from the movie “Anchorman,” will read out loud whatever is put into the teleprompter, including his instructions to pause or repeat a line. Yet, Jill Biden loves being in the limelight so much, she allows Joe Biden to commit one gaffe after another with nary a thought about how embarrassing it is to her husband, the Office of the Presidency, or the country.
VP Pecoraro continues on with his hilarious boasts of all of Biden’s fictitious “accomplishments.” He brags of Biden’s oil policies, yet somehow neglects to mention gas was $2.25/gallon under Trump and is currently sitting around $3.65/gallon under Biden. He mentions the incredible wage growth under Biden, yet every month between April 2021 and April 2023 inflation outpaced wage growth, leading to a net wage decrease. VP Pecoraro gloats over the success of “Bidenomics,” but even the White House has realized what a failure “Bidenomics” is and stopped using the term months ago.
VP Pecoraro ends the hilarity with the line that “President Biden has had the most successful first three years of any president in living memory.” I’m not sure we can agree on how to define success. If Mr. Pecoraro defines a successful presidency by the having the highest inflation in 40 years, a stagnant economy, record illegal immigration, with super-high gas prices, one is left to wonder what an unsuccessful Biden presidency would look like in the eyes of VP Pecoraro.
Doniel Behar
Dear Editor:
Mr. Pecoraro left out several other amazing accomplishments of our current President that deem him suitable to be reelected. He has overseen the largest supply chain debacle in history: two container ships crashing into bridges (halting passage into the local ports), and a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Contrary to Mr. Pecoraro, we are not near zero inflation. Our inflation rate skyrocketed to over 9% due to all the spending. It’s now down to just over 3.5%. If the inflation rate were near zero, the Federal Reserve would be lowering interest rates, which they cannot do. Why? Because we are in stagflation. The value of the dollar has decreased, inflation rate is still high or increasing, and our economic growth rate has slowed.
There are two wars raging in the world, with a third – China and Taiwan – about to begin, as China has just finished two days of war games in the South China sea. Our southern border doesn’t exist, and over ten million illegals have entered the country. Anti-Semitism has grown like a cancer throughout the country on almost every college campus. Gas prices are creeping back up to $4.00 per gallon. The president has released more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, now at its lowest levels ever in the history of the country, as a political move, to artificially bring gas prices down. Food prices are still up over 20%. He throws his political opponents in prison. The FBI had shoot-to-kill orders on the SWAT raid of the former president’s residence as they look for documents. The list is incredible.
Justice Sotomayor has the most questionable ethics of any of the nine justices, so I find it hysterical that Mr. Hecht attacks the two that have the greatest fidelity to our Constitution. A person is not responsible for the conduct of another, especially a spouse, but they are responsible for their own conduct! Sotomayor has had taxpayer staffers push her book. Sotomayor’s staff has often prodded public institutions that have hosted the justice to buy her memoir or children’s books, works that have earned her at least $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. If you heard the questioning by Justice Kagan or Brown-Jackson during the Trump immunity case, you’d know in ten seconds that they belong in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon and not on the high court. Their hypothetical cases were ridiculous and embarrassing.
As far as age goes, why does it matter the age of the United States President? If he is capable of performing the job of leader of the Free World, age should play no role. When you look at the press conference this past week of President Biden with the President of Kenya, you clearly see that Joe Biden has dementia and is not capable of leading this country. Meanwhile, 8-10,000 people showed up to rally for President Trump in dark blue Bronx. If I was a Democrat, I’d be nervous. New York and New Jersey are at play for the first time since 1984.
Mr. Hecht, what crime is Donald Trump accused of committing? Whatever happens in the New York case will not make a difference. Every respected law professor in this country has come out in defense of Donald Trump in the Bragg case. The documents case is falling apart in Florida. The constitution allows for a second slate of electors, and it is up to Congress to choose which ones they will accept. That makes the Georgia case a farce, as well.
Shalom Markowitz
