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A Pilgrimage to Pulse on Tisha B’Av, the Jewish Day of Mourning

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A day of sadness and memory, hope and resilience.

The sky was an extraordinary shade of blue in the early morning hours outside of Pulse yesterday. To be honest, it surprised me just how blue and perfect it looked. The crisp sunlight reflected off of the glass candle holders and glittered memorial signs, as though it were trying to amplify the messages of resilience and hope, sadness and memory. A few other people walked by, but mostly, it was just me and the early morning traffic. 

I had come down to Orlando to visit friends and escape Atlanta for a bit. It wasn’t a trip I had been planning for a long time; these are the kinds of friends you can call on Wednesday and show up on their doorstep on Friday with just a six and a half hour drive standing in the way.

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This particular trip coincides with Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, also known as the Jewish Day of Mourning. Because the ninth of Av fell on Saturday, or, Shabbat, its observance, which includes fasting and abstaining from many other activities, is pushed back to Sunday (today). In reality, though, the entire weekend has tones of sadness and mourning. 

Tisha B’Av commemorates all of the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. Tradition teaches that this is the day when the great Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Inquisition in Spain began, and many other horrific dates in Jewish history. It’s uncanny how many historical events are tied to this day. 

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There are many who say that the Jewish Day of Mourning should commemorate only Jewish historical events, and in theory, I agree. In reality, though, I can’t separate one part of my identity from another. The Pulse massacre happened on another Jewish holiday, Shavuot. In the days after I turned to my tradition for answers and found myself relying on its instructions for mourning and reconciliation. I can’t not approach the world as a Jew and I can’t not approach it as a gay man. So here I am, on the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, mourning the worst tragedies to happen to my people. All of my people. 

When Jews visit a cemetery we don’t bring flowers. Flowers are temporary, and while pretty, they don’t serve as lasting memorial. Instead, we bring rocks and stones and place them on top of the grave. Even after we ourselves are long gone, stone remains. 

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The memorial at Pulse is filled with stones. They’re made of fabric and glass and paper and wood, but they’re stones. According to signs, each of these objects is periodically collected, archived, and stored to be incorporated into a permanent memorial.  

Both of my communities have also found ways not just to memorialize, but to become living memorials. We share stories, tell legends, and pass down traditions. We incorporate them, no matter how sad, even into our happiest moments. In Judaism, we take a moment in nearly every celebration to remember tragic moments in our past. In the LGBT community we’ve learned to do the same. We’ve been forced to.

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As Tisha B’Av ends we mark the transition from mourning to hope via our liturgy and ritual. We allow ourselves time to feel pain and let it wash over us, until the process of returning to daily life begins again. 

Jewish tradition teaches that the Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred. Our world was turned upside down because we had lost the ability to be compassionate with each other. We’re also taught that true redemption will come only when we can all embrace its opposite, limitless love. And so, each year, as the observance of Tisha B’Av turns from mourning to hope, Jews around the world pray for the ability to embrace limitless love.  

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This year, my prayer is that we all – each and every one of us of every background and every belief – are blessed with the ability to embrace limitless love, no matter where it comes from or how we find it.

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All images ©Robbie Medwed 2016 

Robbie Medwed is an Atlanta-based LGBT educator and activist. His column appears here weekly. Follow him on Twitter: @rjmedwed.

 

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News

Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

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May 13, 2024

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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.

“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”

READ MORE: ‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”

Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”

Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.

Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.

“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

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News

‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

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16 hours ago

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May 13, 2024

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Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.

Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.

Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”

“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”

READ MORE: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”

Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.

“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.

“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”

The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

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OPINION

‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

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18 hours ago

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May 13, 2024

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Well-known conservative journalist Amanda Carpenter, a former aide to two Republican Senators, is warning of the “raw display of political power” Donald Trump is using to attack the court during his trial.

During the early days of the Trump New York criminal trial many noted the ex-president was alone. He was sitting, and at times, snoozing, alone in court, unsupported by family members or friends.

Multiple reports had described Trump as “glowering.”

MSNBC’s Joy Reid commented “how alone Donald Trump looked,” with “no family there, no supporters there.”

“He looked smaller,” she observed.

Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, had told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that “more than anything else,” what’s important is “the extent to which he’s had no control over the situation.” She explained “he needs control in order to project the image that he’s been able to project for so long. Without that control it all falls apart.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

“I mean, we know that Donald is a very weak person, or at least some of us know that, and that his ego is a very fragile thing that needs to be bolstered in every moment. He needs the rallies. He needs the applause in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago because he knows deep down he’s nothing of what he claims to be,” she added.

Trump spent days first urging his supporters to rally on the courthouse steps, then to protest at courthouses across the county and “rally behind MAGA,” he demanded.

When they didn’t, he falsely claimed they were being blocked in New York by law enforcement. He described the Criminal Courts Building as locked up like “Fort Knox.”

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! ” Trump wrote falsely, with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins quickly disputing his claim.

The optics have changed.

Trump had “complained that ‘no one is defending me,'” NBC News reported on May 1. “He grumbled outside the courtroom that there were no protesters supporting him outside.”

READ MORE: ‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

Then his son, Eric Trump, showed up, along with “his strategist and de facto campaign chief Susie Wiles and longtime adviser Dan Scavino. Trump’s legal strategist Boris Epshteyn was by his side two days last week. And Natalie Harp, a communications aide, has been present.”

Now, top Republican lawmakers are taking turns showing up in court to demonstrate party loyalty, becoming de-facto surrogates.

A Fox News “BREAKING NEWS” alert late Monday morning read: “Watch Live: GOP Senators, other trump defenders speak outside the NY v Trump trial.”

Indeed, Republican Senators and Trump allies are now flocking to the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building.

Last week, U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro were at the courthouse during Stormy Daniels testimony.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and JD Vance (R-OH) were in the courthouse, standing next to Eric Trump behind the ex-president during his mid-day news conference.

Tuberville, a far-right conspiracy theorist and white nationalist, also held a separate press conference outside the courthouse Monday, decrying the “depressing” courtroom, claiming Trump is being forced to experience “mental anguish,” attacking District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and promoting a false, anti-immigrant narrative suggesting perhaps the jurors aren’t American citizens.

“We discussed what I predicted would be a growing trend of GOP officials, including VP hopefuls, appearing courtside,” Carpenter wrote Monday morning.

“Trump is under order a gag order,” she noted. “If he directs anyone to make statements that his [sic] prohibited from making that is a direct violation of the gag order and the judge must be monitoring these surrogate statements.”

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman

She adds, “previous surrogates have not opted to defend Trump on the merits. They [are] following the Trump playbook of attacking family members of the court, which Trump’s former lawyer Ty Cobb described as a ‘strategic’ act of intimidation, ‘designed around his traditional approach to delegitimizing the proceedings.’ That’s a real threat afoot here,” she observes.

“It’s really worth reflecting on that,” Carpenter stresses. “Republican officials are scurrying up to NYC to launch awful, slimy attacks on the court.”

She warns, “assembling members of the GOP to defend Trump courtside is a raw display of political power. And again, this has to be emphasized, they are not defending Trump on the merits. They are attacking the court.”

“Trump has successfully co-opted the GOP to shield himself from political accountability and now he is using the GOP to shield himself from criminal accountability. That’s the difference between 2016/2020 and 2024. This is a very grave danger.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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