Comments on what I've read, seen, heard and watched this week.

A friend passed this Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) article on to me regarding What Jewish groups have (and haven’t) said about Donald Trump. http://www.jta.org/2015/12/15/news-opinion/politics/what-jewish-groups-have-and-havent-said-about-donald-trump

Telling that among the four groups not condemning this outrage are AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. And for Federation to stay silent is a shanda. Despite the fact that Federation says it usually stays out of the political discussion unless “the issue merited it”, make no mistake, this issue merits it.

That these organizations cannot denounce Trump, when even Netanyahu has, demonstrates their true tenor. Unbelievable!

Salon.com ran this piece about how Rubio and Cruz are spilling national security secrets out in the open at the debates and on the weekend network news talk shows.

 http://www.salon.com/2015/12/17/how_the_feud_between_rubio_cruz_has_exposed_our_national_security_secrets/

As far as I'm concerned Salon is really barking up the wrong tree. Enough about this secret stuff these esteemed senators are leaking on national TV. We need to talk about Hillary's emails.

After Tuesday's debate, Salon also posted an article about Carly Fiorina's incredible penchant for lying. 

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/17/carly_fiorina_is_a_liar_and_everyone_should_finally_just_say_it_loudly/

The real story in this article is not Fiorina’s outrageous lies or her incredibly arrogant, belligerent push back when confronted with the facts. No, the real story here is the media's inability to call her on it out of some attempt at fairness. Except, perhaps for Mother Jones who headlined: 

"Carly Fiorina Really Likes to Make Shit Up"

The Washington Post reported that Vladimir Putin, in a news conference, tacitly endorsed Donald Trump, saying he is the "absolute leader" in the U.S. presidential race. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-no-major-gaps-with-washington-over-efforts-to-end-syria-conflict/2015/12/17/a178255e-a431-11e5-8318-bd8caed8c588_story.html?postshare=441450393336549&tid=ss_fb

For most of us, this would seem like the worst endorsement possible. But with Trump, you don't know. Will be interesting to see how he deals with it.

BTW, don't know about you but it sure looks like Vladimir has had some face work done. Just saying.

MediaPost.com, a media/ad industry news source, reported that the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada's largest newspaper, has been purchased by......SHELDON ADELSON!!!

 http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/265039/adelson-bought-las-vegas-review-journal.html

Nevada is a state that went to Obama in the last two elections. I have a sneaking suspicion the Review-Journal will not be endorsing Hillary in 2016. As the article reports, media ownership is not new for Adelson. He owns three papers in Israel, one nicknamed "Bibiton" for its unencumbered support of Netanyahu. And, apparently in Israel Adelson's point of view is not limited to the editorial pages but influences news coverage as well. It's good to be מֶלֶך (or at least filthy rich)!

In the New York Times, Roger Cohen wrote about the devastating and lasting effects of Rabin's assassination in a column entitled The Assassination in Israel That Worked.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/opinion/the-assassination-in-israel-that-worked.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

I know there will be pushback from this statement, but: Any reasonable and thoughtful supporter of Israel will read this and weep for what is, but what might have been.

Flipping through the channels on the TV yesterday, I noticed that CNN was running live coverage of a Trump rally in Arizona. Through the miracle of the DVR, I was able to determine when the coverage started and ended. Appalled at what I saw, here's what I posted on Facebook.

Finally, I watched the debate on Tuesday, tweeting and commenting along the way. What I heard and saw was a stage full of misguided, pandering, lying, uninformed, disingenuous, and frankly dangerous candidates - which I summed up in the following post.