Opinion

The 2020 Presidential race is underway, with two dozen Democrats throwing their hats in the ring to oust President Trump. These contenders have hit the trail hard, with varying degrees of success attempting to separate themselves from the pack. To do so, they are taking policy positions on many issues. The media coverage, however, has been the never-ending rehashing of the 2016 election. This is because the media knows that balanced coverage of some of the key issues facing our nation is bad for 2020 hopefuls, as their proposals would either make the problems worse, or are nationally unpopular.

Some of the Democratic candidates are accepting reparations for black slavery as a plank on their platform. The idea was written about extensively in an Atlantic article by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2014, saying that it’s time that America apologized for 250 years of black enslavement and 90 years of Jim Crow and discrimination thereafter – presumably even until the present. U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas introduced a bill in January of this years called HR40 to study the effects of slavery and the subsequent oppression of blacks on the wealth gap between whites and blacks: how and in what amounts reparations would compensate the descendants of slaves and financial oppression.

After a stunning and resounding defeat in the US Senate with a 0-57 vote against the Green New Deal (with 43 Democrats voting “present”), a variation of that economic monstrosity supposedly designed to reduce carbon emissions has found a home in New York City. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, trying to out-left Bernie Sanders, is following in the footsteps of freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and apparently Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong), providing more evidence that she is the policy leader in the Democratic Party.

When “Sleaze” Is Misdirected

Dear Editor:

Just when I thought the author of the Queens Jewish Link’s “For What It’s Worth” column (not the paper it’s written in) couldn’t get any lower on the ingrate scale, he’s amazed me by breaking new barriers in the realm of k’fui tov. In the same week that President Trump issued his historic declaration recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, emphasizing its strategic importance to the security of the Jews (and Muslims) in Israel, said columnist – an Orthodox Jew who should place the security of Israel and its millions of Jews as a major priority as in the heartfelt cry of Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi’s “Libi baMizrach” – instead denigrates, yet again, the President of the United States and best friend Israel ever had in the Oval Office, disrespectfully referring to the President as a “sleaze” (a term usually reserved for ambulance chasers).

It has become fashionable among many of us to poke fun at Pesach getaways. Of course, the outer space Seder is non-gebrokts; all the food is powder. The Disney Seder includes costumed actors depicting Mickey and Goofy. Snorkel in the coral reefs to find the afikoman. How does one hide the Pesach getaway from the scholarship committee?

Bringing Messages of Awareness and Education

It was on a recent visit to Denver that A TIME founder and director of member services Brany Rosen found herself approached in a span of just 20 minutes by six women who wanted to show her pictures of their babies, all born with the organization’s assistance. Despite having had similar experiences in various cities, Rosen found herself elated to see A TIME’s efforts bearing fruit nationwide, bringing the ultimate joy to couples who struggled with infertility. As she shared the heartwarming story of the six local A TIME babies with a group of teachers just before speaking at a school the next day, a teacher who was clearly in the later stages of her pregnancy smiled at her and said, “Please count me as your seventh.”