Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings • The Register

In a world where Tech Bros fall over each other to out bigot each other, it is refreshing to see the Python Foundation telling the National Science Foundation telling the NSF to put their $1,500,000.00 where the moon don't shine, because the grant demands that the organization cease all anti-discrimination activities.

I looked at recent data on executive compensation at the Foundation, and no one there got more than $200,000/year in 2023, yet more evidence that Dan Ariely,'s research on compensation, which shows that excessive pay reduces performance, is true.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) has walked away from a $1.5 million government grant and you can blame the Trump administration's war on woke for effectively weakening some open source security.

The programming non-profit's deputy executive director Loren Crary said in a blog post today that the National Science Foundation (NSF) had offered $1.5 million to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and the Python Package Index (PyPI), but the Foundation quickly became dispirited with the terms of the grant it would have to follow.

"These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'" Crary noted. "This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole."

To make matters worse, the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have violated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds, Crary explained.

By way of perspective, that $1.5 million is about ⅓ of their annual operating budget.

The Python Foundation is a  501(c)(3) not-for profit, and donations are tax deductible, and they manage thousands of volunteers working on development of the eponymous cross-platform FOSS programming language.

I have no opinion as to its merits as a programming language, but it is very widely used. (I'm not a programmer)

Ecch (Tweet) of the Day

where can i get a Lina Khan yard sign? https://t.co/bnW9eeCdzB

— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) August 17, 2024

Seriously. I can see no greater endorsement of Lina Khan than her enemies, who are uniformly bankster parasites.

To paraphrase FDR, "They are unanimous in their hate for her — and she should welcome their hatred."

A Superhero I Can Get Behind

I am referring, of course to Captain Maryland, defender of ……… Hell, I don't know.

He's a cosplayer, and it's schtick, he does not take himself seriously at all.

Fishing offshore the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant changed Clark Rogers’ life forever.

After eating radioactive crabs spiced with Old Bay, Rogers suddenly could run sideways at supersonic speeds. Swim faster than Michael Phelps. His hands grew so strong he now had a “super pinch grip.”

He became a hero that, of course, Maryland would have: Captain Maryland — Champion of the Chesapeake, Protector of the Potomac, Defender of Deep Creek.

But before there was Captain Maryland, or even Clark Rogers — a nom de guerre that’s “a little Clark Kent, a little Steve Rogers” — there was just the man behind the costume: Clark Oliver, a Star Wars-obsessed Maryland native and cosplaying community fixture.

………

Oliver says he can’t take too much credit for the costume design. He just did what any other Marylander would do “instinctively.”

“Marylanders will slap that flag on anything,” Oliver said. “We love our flag, but we have no reverence for it at all.”

………

The costume was supposed to be a one-time gag, but it was such a hit in D.C., he couldn’t resist wearing it to Baltimore Comic-Con.

A TikToker called ShimmerWali posted a video interviewing Oliver at the event. It received hundreds of thousands of views.

”Best superhero,” ShimmerWali said in the video. “That’s my state right there.”

Then country singer and Maryland native Jimmy Charles reached out, asking him to make an appearance in his music video “It’s a Maryland Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand.” Before he knew it, Oliver found himself singing alongside Natty Boh and Francis Scott Key in a Maryland flag-covered Jeep.

This is all kind of awesome.

Maybe it's a Maryland thing, though.

Lost a True Patriot Today

Danial Ellsberg has died at the age of 92.

He risked life in prison to reveal the lies that the authorities made to promulgate the Vietnam War, and thereafter dedicated his life to whistleblower protections:

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the voluminous, top-secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, a disclosure that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on press freedoms and enraged the Nixon administration — serving as the catalyst for a series of White House-directed burglaries and “dirty tricks” that snowballed into the Watergate scandal — died June 16 at his home in Kensington, Calif. He was 92.

………

Mr. Ellsberg, a Harvard-educated Midwesterner with a PhD in economics, was in some respects an unlikely peace activist. He had served in the Marine Corps after college, wanting to prove his mettle, and emerged as a fervent cold warrior while working as an official at the Defense Department, a military analyst at the Rand Corp. and a consultant for the State Department, which dispatched him to Saigon in 1965 to assess counterinsurgency efforts.

Crisscrossing the Vietnamese countryside, where he joined American and South Vietnamese troops on patrol, he became increasingly disillusioned by the war effort, concluding that there was no chance of success.

He went on to embrace a life of advocacy, which extended from his 1971 leak of the Pentagon Papers — a disclosure that led Henry Kissinger, President Richard M. Nixon’s national security adviser, to privately brand him “the most dangerous man in America” — to decades of work advocating for press freedoms and the anti-nuclear movement.

………

Commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in June 1967, the Pentagon Papers comprised 7,000 pages of historical analysis and supporting documents, revealing how the U.S. government had secretly expanded its role in Vietnam across four presidential administrations.

The papers showed that government leaders had concealed doubts about the war’s progress and had misled the public about a troop buildup that eventually took half a million Americans to Vietnam at the peak of U.S. involvement. The conflict cost the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. service members and millions of Vietnamese.

………

Hoping to hasten the end of the war, Mr. Ellsberg contacted several U.S. senators and tried to share the documents through official channels. When he found no takers, he contacted New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan, leading to the publication of the first story about the files on June 13, 1971, above the fold on the front page of the Times.

………

When The Post, too, was ordered to stop publishing, it partnered with the Times in court. The newspapers won a landmark decision on June 30, with the Supreme Court ruling 6-3 in favor of allowing publication to continue.

I do not think that the Supreme Court would support the publication today, and today, he would not have gotten bail, and he would have been in solitary confinement for years before the trial even started.

………

Among other revelations, Byrne had learned of a White House-directed burglary of Mr. Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office and had seen evidence of illegal wiretapping against Mr. Ellsberg. The judge also reported that in the midst of the trial, he had been offered a job as FBI director by one of Nixon’s top lieutenants, John D. Ehrlichman.

Oval Office tapes revealed that Nixon and his top aides had coordinated to destroy Mr. Ellsberg’s reputation. “He must be stopped at all costs. We’ve got to get him,” Kissinger said during a meeting with the president, shortly after the Supreme Court ruled on the Pentagon Papers. Nixon agreed. “These fellows have all put themselves above the law,” he said, “and, by God, we’re going to go after them.”

And Kissinger was feted at his 100th birthday.  Lovely.

The president ordered the creation of a special unit, jokingly nicknamed the Plumbers because of its clandestine efforts to find and fix leaks of classified information. The group broke into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, touching off a scandal that culminated with Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

………

Mr. Ellsberg later marveled at what he considered the unintended consequences of the Pentagon Papers. The documents themselves “didn’t shorten the war by a day,” he said, with U.S. bombing in Southeast Asia escalating in the year after their release and American combat troops remaining in Vietnam until 1973.

And yet, he told the New Yorker in 2021, “the criminal actions that the White House took against me … led to this absolutely unforeseeable downfall of a President, which made the war endable.”

“In the end,” he added, “things couldn’t have worked out better.”

It is people like him who make an open and free society possible.

Damn.

Daniel Ellsberg has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is entering hospice care.

He is saying 3 months.

A brave man, a patriot, and an American hero.

Tweet of the Day

Alex stopped to help save a gunshot victim from bleeding out, he was then given Saint Paul Police Chiefs Award for Valor. He then gave this small speech.

(video from @/onsitepublicmedia ig) pic.twitter.com/1ZiyXxnA0f

— Griffin (@GriffinMalone6) October 15, 2022

My son, Charlie, called this,"Unfathomably Based." 

This is remarkable.

I Am Shocked, in a Good Way

In response to discovering that their entire police force was full of racist dirt-bags, the town of Vincent, Alabama has disbanded its entire police force.

Obviously there are cases where this not possible, I'm thinking of Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, Minnesota, but this is a remarkably sane and constructive response to this situation.

Normally, there would just be statements of outrage, followed by throwing a few thousand dollars at some consultant to provide useless training.

This particularly surprising given the demographic makeup of the town, it's about 75% white:

The small city of Vincent in Alabama has voted to disband its police force after the revelation of racist text messages exchanged between two of its officers.

………

The messages were first reported by AL.com on Tuesday, the same day the Vincent city council met to decide on the issue.

Earlier on Tuesday, the police chief, James Srygley, had said the department had “conducted an internal investigation” and that they had taken “appropriate disciplinary action”.

But on Thursday, Srygley himself was identified as one of the officers who was terminated. Assistant chief John L Goss was also terminated, and the city council then voted to disband the whole department.

My guess is that the either chief, or the assistant chief, was the sender of the text, and the other one was the recipient of the texts.

It doesn't matter though.  What does matter is that the city council looked at the racist corrupt dirt bags, and defunded the police. 

This should be an obvious response to this sort of rot in the police force, but it's actually politically quote risky.  The electorate is typically both racist and mindlessly pro law enforcement.

The Greatest Quarterback of All Time

Patrick Mahomes asked the Chiefs to turn Arrowhead Stadium into an Election Day voting site, but the election board said no due to a lack of voting machines.

Instead of giving up, Mahomes bought new machines — splitting the "six-figure investment" with the Chiefs.

He gets it. pic.twitter.com/IfbUJ6zp0l

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) November 4, 2020

I am not a Kansas City Chefs fan, but I am a fan of their quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Signs of the Apocalypse

I cannot believe that I am writing this, but Delta Airlines has done the right thing.

John Mulaney on Delta

Delta took the side of a Black passenger after a Karen in the seat next to her picked a fight with her, and Delta upgraded her seat on the return flight.

Delta did the right thing, and I still cannot believe that I wrote that:

A Black woman harassed by a white passenger on her Delta flight to Washington, D.C., last week is singing the airline’s praises after it upgraded her flight in response.

Demetria Poe, 25, was flying from Minneapolis to D.C. on Thursday to attend the Commitment March, held last Friday on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Poe, who spoke to USA Today after her Facebook post detailing the experience went viral, says she was already seated when a white passenger, who realized her seat assignment was next to Poe, swapped out the American flag face mask she had been wearing for a Blue Lives Matter one.

“That woman was trying to entice me into an argument because there was no need for her to flip that mask in my presence,” Poe told the news outlet. “She didn’t do it for anyone else. It was as if she was making a statement and wanted me to know.”

Poe did not react to the mask, but after takeoff, the white woman began to goad Poe into conversation, telling her, “I support blue lives because I support our officers.”

………

Poe noted to USA Today that she remained “very calm” throughout the conversation because she suspected her seat mate wanted to provoke her. White passengers around her also intervened and “snapped on this lady” in Poe’s defense. Delta flight attendants also checked on her and offered to move Blue Lives Karen. Once the plane landed in D.C., Delta attendants relayed to her that the white woman would no longer be flying with the airline because they do not “personally or as a company stand for racism and discrimination,” Poe wrote on her Facebook.

“I felt the genuine and sincere concern the flight attendants had for me and the people around me,” Poe told USA Today. “I was shocked. I was happy, but I was still fearful. Living in Minnesota, I have seen how things get blown up. I just really wanted to get off the flight.”

But the story didn’t end there for Poe. On her return flight to Minneapolis, her seat was upgraded, and she received a small bag full of gifts, including a “Black Lives Matter” Delta pin. Poe was moved to tears by the gift and was heartened by the airline choosing to stand in solidarity with her.

“This is a major corporation saying that Black lives matter,” Poe said, adding that she “will only fly Delta” from now on.

After Poe’s Facebook post detailing the incident went viral, the airline dropped a response to her: “When we say Black lives matter, we mean it. You matter to us, Demetria.”

We are living in strange times.

Heroism: Someone Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

Amazon VP Tim Bray, just quit citing what he calls the "chickensh%$" behavior of the company toward whistle-blowers, who they had aggressively harassed and fired.

This guy probably made 7 figures a year over this, and he walked away over the toxic company culture promulgated by Jeff Bezos.

If more people did this, and did this as LOUDLY the world would be a far better place:

Amazon VP Tim Bray, who had been with the company for more than five years, has resigned in protest of Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers and the firing of other employees who spoke out.

The company fired multiple warehouse and office workers in recent weeks amid organizing efforts to improve conditions in the company's distribution centers, where individuals have contracted COVID-19. Firing the whistleblowers is "evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture," Bray said in a blog post explaining his departure. "I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison."

The alpha and omega of the particularly nasty nature of Amazon is its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

It is literally a part of its DNA.

Responsible Performers, How Do They F%$#Ing Work

There are performers out there live for their live shows, and whose fans also live for their live shows.

If you were to ask someone to name a band that fits this criteria, the first band most people would list would be The Grateful Dead.

The second band that comes to mind is Insane Clown Possee, and they just canceled this year's ICP gathering to protect their health.

Good for them. Lord knows that this cannot be cheap for them:

It's a bummer to have to report on all the stuff that's getting postponed, which is why it brings us no joy to add this to the sadness pile:

Stale News Break... pic.twitter.com/IeYQwOMjr9

— Insane Clown Posse (@icp) April 22, 2020

The annual Gathering of the Juggalos is canceled until 2021 due to the coronavirus. While that shouldn't surprise anyone at this point, it's worth talking about what this does to the Juggalos. For the unfamiliar, the Juggalos are a group of people united in their love for the band Insane Clown Posse and discount soda. Over the years, and in response to the FBI's unfair gang designation, they've taken a Fast & Furious "It's all about family" approach in describing their group.

………

This festival is quite a big deal to the Juggalo community. They don't waste time trying to bring it to New York or Los Angeles, instead choosing the Midwest as its hosting grounds like a trailer park Coachella (Not an insult BTW). That makes it even more impressive that The Gathering has been able to land some of the performers it has over the years (Ice Cube ain't cheap.).

………

What's of note here is that Juggalos tend to be blue-collar (or no collar) workers. The same type of people you may have noticed getting crapped on extra hard by current events. So while we really couldn't give a shit about some rich silicon valley douche missing out on this year's Burning Man, this kind of hits a little different.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is an independent event -- they don't have corporate sponsors telling them that they have to cancel anything. It seems like they're genuinely doing this out of love for their Juggalo family. The tweet from ICP leaves us with a final uplifting message from Fred Fury, "You can't replace what you mean to our team. Without you, tell me where the f%$# we'd be?"

(%$# mine)

This is f%$# load more concern for these people than their employers would ever show.

Tweet of the Day

This was Captain Brett Crozier washing dishes last Thanksgiving in the scullery while @TheRealCVN71 was underway in Pacific so junior crew members could get time for holiday meal. (This is how its done) . US Navy photo Airman DJ Schwartz. pic.twitter.com/mL5A4TuBKN

— Barbara Starr (@barbarastarrcnn) April 7, 2020

This is a man considered to be too honest and competent for the Trump administration, so they fired him.

Truck Fump.

They Make a Desert and Call It Peace

Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier just issued a scathing indictment of Western tactics in Syria.

By extension, it is an indictment of how the various colonial wars that the US has engaged in over the past 30 or so years.

Undoubtedly, the punishment for telling the truth will be swift and severe:

A senior French officer involved in the fight against Islamic State in Syria faces punishment after launching a scathing attack on the U.S.-led coalition’s methods to defeat the group in its remaining stronghold of Hajin, the army said on Saturday.

Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier, who has been in charge of directing French artillery supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria since October, said the coalition’s focus had been on limiting its own risks and this had greatly increased the death toll among civilians and the levels of destruction.

“Yes, the Battle of Hajin was won, at least on the ground but by refusing ground engagement, we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of casualties in the population,” Legrier wrote in an article in the National Defence Review.

“We have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a Western-style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of a new adversary,” he said, in rare public criticism by a serving officer.

The coalition could have got rid of just 2,000 militant fighters - who lacked air support or modern technological equipment - much more quickly and effectively by sending in just 1,000 troops, he argued.

………

Legrier’s article has embarrassed French authorities just hours before the coalition is expected to announce the defeat of the hardline Islamist group.

“A punishment is being considered,” French army spokesman Patrick Steiger said in a text message.

The article was removed from the review’s website on Saturday.

I wholeheartedly agree with Colonel Legrier, and I expect that his career is over.

Walking the Walk

Not only does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocate for a living wage, she pays her staff a living wage:

Claudia Pagon Marchena, like so many Hill staffers, moonlighted at a Washington, D.C., eatery to pay her rent until she took a job with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She celebrated her last day at her coffee shop job that same week.

That’s because Ocasio-Cortez, who has called on fellow lawmakers to pay their staffs a “living wage,” is making an example out of her own office. The New York Democrat has introduced an unusual policy that no one on her staff will make less than $52,000 a year — an almost unheard of amount for many of the 20-somethings whose long hours make House and Senate offices run.

For Pagon Marchena, 22, the pay bump meant an end to a grueling, seven-day-a-week work schedule that was wearing down her resolve to stay in Washington, where rents average more than $2,000 a month.

“It was unsustainable,” she said. “I needed an office that was going to pay me a fair wage.”

The policy, which has not been previously reported, is the latest sign that Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats intend to buck a long-established trend of ostentatious austerity in congressional offices. Government watchdog groups say deep cuts to office and committee budgets have contributed to a lack of diversity in Hill offices, high turnover and congressional brain drain.

………

Ocasio-Cortez is trying to force the conversation. She made national headlines in December by announcing that all interns in her office would make $15 an hour plus benefits — a rarity for Capitol Hill offices in which interns are often unpaid. She has also highlighted the high number of Hill staff members who work side jobs to make up for median salaries as low as $35,000 for staff assistants, the lowest paid positions in congressional offices, according to a Legistorm analysis last year.

“We think that if a person is working, they should make enough to live,” said Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director.

I am counting down the days until she can run for President.

Hope for Humanity

Two Muslim groups have raised over $60,000.00 for Pittsburgh shooting victims, and Pittsburgh Jewish leaders have told Donald Trump that they do not want him showing up unless he denounces his white nationalism.

A crowdfunding campaign formed by two Muslim groups has raised more than $60,000 for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, which killed 11, the Independent reported.

Muslim-American non-profits Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change were behind the campaign, “Muslims Unite For Pittsburgh Synagogue.” It is also in partnership with the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.

The campaign reached its initial goal of $25,000 goal in six hours. As of press time, it raised $62,500 of its new $75,000 goal. The proceeds will help with funeral expenses and medical bills.

And

A group of Jewish leaders told President Trump that he is no longer welcome in Pittsburgh until he denounces white nationalism following the shooting at a synagogue there over the weekend.

Eleven members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice penned a letter to Trump following the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

“Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted,” the group wrote. “You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.”

Hopefully the rest of the community in Pittsburgh take a similar position.

Yes, We All Need to Apologize to Sinead O'Connor

I actually saw this live, and was completely clueless

When she tore up a picture of John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in protest of church abuse, some of which she was the personal target of, she got a LOT of grief.

Now, people are recognizing that she was right and justified, Even in her native Ireland:

Her declaration back in 1992 that the Catholic Church was rotten to its core and pedophile priests and their enablers were the real enemy was true.

It caused a massive worldwide reaction when she tore up a picture of the then Pope on Saturday Night Live in October 1992 and declared, “Fight the real enemy.”

We now know that the pedophile scandals were rampant during the era of Pope John Paul, who chose to turn a blind eye. O’Connor was calling out the right person.

Before Spotlight, before the worst of the American and Irish church scandals, O'Connor called it right and only got abuse in return.

The enemy has become very obvious since then. The revelation that a Pennsylvania grand jury found that more than 1,000 children in six dioceses there had been molested by 300 Catholic priests over the past 70 years while successive church officials covered it up is truly shocking.

The scandal, which has been going on for decades, and the coverup, which was particularly ferocious under John Paul II, has proven her right.

Standing Up to Bullies

Recently there was a video of a police officer brutalizing a nurse at the University of Utah for notifying him of hospital policies.

The hospital has now banned police from their wards and forbidden them from having contact with nurses:

The University of Utah Hospital, where a nurse was manhandled and arrested by police as she protected the legal rights of a patient, has imposed new restrictions on law enforcement, including barring officers from patient-care areas and from direct contact with nurses.

Gordon Crabtree, interim chief executive of the hospital, said at a Monday news conference that he was “deeply troubled” by the arrest and manhandling of burn unit nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26. In accord with hospital policy and the law, she had refused to allow a Salt Lake City police officer to take a blood sample from an unconscious patient. Wubbels obtained a copy of the body cam video of the confrontation and, after consulting her lawyer, the hospital and police officials, released it last week.

“This will not happen again,” Crabtree said, praising Wubbels for “putting her own safety at risk” to “protect the rights of patients.”

Margaret Pearce, chief nursing officer for the University of Utah hospital system, said she was “appalled” by the officer’s actions and has already implemented changes in hospital protocol to avoid any repetition.

She said police will no longer be permitted in patient-care areas, such as the burn unit where Wubbels was the charge nurse on the day of the incident and from emergency rooms.

In addition, officers will have to deal with “house supervisors” instead of nurses when they have a request.

Seriously, today's law enforcement seems to attract more than their share of bullies.

I'm  friend of mine who was a counselor was rather more charitable about such behavior, he believed that that the overwhelming majority of cops had serious PTSD issues after 5 years on the force.

In either case, this guy should not be a peace officer.

The Term Here is Mensch

Alexander Rapaport is an Orthodox Jew who runs a soup kitchens in and around Borough Park.

He expressed support for the plight of immigrants shut out by Trump's now enjoined immigrant ban, and what followed was an exodus of donors who turned out to be bigots:

Alexander Rapaport, a Brooklyn Hasid, says his experience being the victim of anti-Semitism forces him to call out hatred against others. So Rapaport, who runs a network of kosher soup kitchens, helped organize a communal show of support last week for a local Yemeni-owned bodega in reaction to President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Not everyone was happy about the gesture.

“I received your solicitation letter in the mail along with this phone number,” read a text message he received Wednesday. “After seeing, though, that you protested President Trump’s executive order, and thus shamefully sided with those who are putting American lives in danger, I am no longer able to donate to your organization.”

………

Rapaport, who lives in the strongly Hasidic Borough Park neighborhood, said that other donors approached him in the street to complain about his stance on immigration following his show of support for the shop. Last week, after Yemeni-American bodega owners organized a strike to protest the president’s temporary travel ban, Rapaport showed his support by going to a local store with other community members and pasting Post-it notes with “messages of love and solidarity” on its storefront.

………

The 38-year-old father of seven has gotten complaints after he spoke up for immigrants previously and lost funders who were unhappy that the strictly kosher soup kitchen serves anyone who wants a meal, regardless of religious background.

In December 2015, Rapaport attended a protest at New York City Hall following a call by Trump, then a presidential candidate, for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

While Rapaport has considered being less outspoken, he said hiding his views wouldn’t be honest.

“I don’t want to take anyone’s money under false pretense. Yes, I am personally very pro-immigrant, and if that makes me unqualified for your donation, please don’t give it to me,” he told JTA.

Rapaport has received support from many parts of the Orthodox community, but I have a message for those parts of the community who seem determined to allow their personal bigotries rule their actions:

The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as a native from among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God.

:כְּאֶזְרָח מִכֶּם יִהְיֶה לָכֶם הַגֵּר | הַגָּר אִתְּכֶם וְאָהַבְתָּ לוֹ כָּמוֹךָ כִּי גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

Drops mic.

Hero of the Day

The Boss:

Bruce Springsteen announced earlier today via Twitter that he is canceling his performance in North Carolina this weekend because of the organized assault by the state legislature against human rights.

Hero of the Day

And the accursed flag comes down

Brittany ‘Bree’ Newsome:

A woman scaled the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Statehouse Saturday morning and temporarily removed the Confederate flag that flew there. The woman was arrested by State Capitol police along with a man who had entered the grounds with her, the Associated Press reported. The flag was replaced and raised a short time later.

The woman, who was not identified by authorities, was named on social media as Brittany “Bree” Newsome, an activist from North Carolina. Her actions inspired the hashtag #KeepItDown, which was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in the U.S. Saturday. Later in the day, the hashtag #FreeBree was also trending in the U.S.

According to BreeNewsome.com, a site linked to a Twitter account belonging to a user with the name Bree Newsome and mentioned by numerous users in conjunction with the #KeepItDown hashtag, Newsome is an activist and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

 Here is hoping that this happens regularly until it comes down forever.