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Newly elected Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has been dogged by her association with right-wing extremists since entering politics, but the gun-toting restaurateur-turned-lawmaker's associations are raising new concerns after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Colorado Republican has denied suggestions that she led reconnaissance tours in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, but there's plenty of evidence that she pals around with militia members and other extremists, reported The Daily Beast.
<p>Members of the Three Percenters gun militia provided security last summer for Boebert during a congressional campaign event in Pueblo, and a since-deleted Facebook post claims they'd been invited by the campaign, and militia member Robert Gieswein -- who was <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/baseball-bat-wielding-militiaman-robert-gieswein-charged-over-capitol-riot" target="_blank">arrested</a> for his role in the insurrection -- posed for a 2018 photo of himself and three other armed men outside Boebert's bar Shooter's Grill.</p><p>Boebert <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJD_JvdQj6w" target="_blank">told</a> <em>Gunpowder Magazine</em> that Edwards Wilks, who's been identified as a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, had been her mentor on gun-rights theories, although he has denied an association with the loosely organized anti-government group.</p><p>Although Wilks wasn't involved in the Capitol siege, several Oath Keeper members have been charged in the insurrection or are wanted by the FBI for their roles in the attack.</p><p>Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes published open letters demanding Trump use military force to overturn his election loss ahead of the insurrection.</p><p>There's been no evidence so far that Boebert assisted the insurrectionists, as has been claimed on social media, but there's ample evidence that she promoted the idea that Trump supporters could take action to overturn an election she claimed had been stolen.</p><p>Boebert <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1330172444016074752" target="_blank">posted</a> debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines and was aligned with "Stop The Steal" groups that encouraged Trump supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., to prevent the congressional certification of Biden's win.</p><p>The GOP lawmaker was among 147 Republicans who objected to the election results, and she warned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the certification that her constituents were gathered outside shortly before the rioters burst into the building.</p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Today is 1776.<br/>— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1346811381878845442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 6, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
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'Shut up, you are not special': Morning Joe rips GOP lawmakers whining they can't carry guns into Capitol
January 22, 2021
On Friday morning, "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough dropped the hammer on Republican lawmakers who have been attempting to carry firearms onto the floor of the House just weeks after far-right extremists stormed the Capitol at Donald Trump's urging, with the MSNBC host exclaiming, "Who the hell do they think they are?"
Reacting to a report that Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) was stopped by Capitol police after he was spotted with a gun on his hip as he tried to access the House floor to cast a vote, Scarborough noted the number of GOP lawmakers who are balking at walking through metal detectors -- a common occurrence for anyone who wants to fly.
<p>"Really, the stupidity is just extraordinary," the MSNBC host began. "By the way, I'm speaking as somebody who has done this, somebody who made thousands and thousands of votes. I've been there and I voted. As long as Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump aren't trying to get Americans to kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence and commit insurrection against the United States of America."</p><p>"For this guy and for others to think they're going to be able to carry a gun onto the House floor when we have Republican members of Congress that have had fund-raising letters that show pictures of AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other Democrats while the Republican is holding an AR-15, saying I'm coming to target these women or they better watch out, or something along those lines -- who the hell would be comfortable with anybody having a gun on the house floor?" he exclaimed.</p><p>"There are Democrats who can say that they have had their life threatened or they have reason to believe that they are being targeted by somebody carrying an AR-15 and sending it around saying I'm coming to get these members of Congress," he later added. "So please, please stop your whining, start getting wanded, and go in and just vote and shut up, you're not special!"</p><p>Watch below:</p><p><br/></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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Sen. Ossoff was sworn in on pioneering Atlanta rabbi’s Bible – a nod to historic role of American Jews in civil rights struggle
January 22, 2021
The first Jewish senator in Georgia history, Jon Ossoff, was sworn in on Jan. 20, on what his office described in a tweet as a “Hebrew scripture that belonged to historic Atlanta Rabbi Jacob Rothschild."
It left many wondering what exactly the Hebrew scripture meant, and what the relevance was of using this particular copy.
<p>The term “Hebrew scripture" usually refers to the 24 books that Christians denominate as the Old Testament. These biblical books, originally written in Hebrew, are ordered differently in Judaism and Christianity.</p><p>In Ossoff's case, the volume selected was a well-thumbed copy of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, which Jews known as the Torah, edited with commentary by the American-educated former <a href="https://www.jewishideas.org/article/bridge-across-tigris-chief-rabbi-joseph-herman-hertz">Chief Rabbi of Britain Joseph H. Hertz</a>. That, for many years, <a href="https://jewishaction.com/jewish-world/history/the-story-of-the-synagogue-chumash/">was the edition</a> of the Torah found in most American synagogues and temples. </p><p>As a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/near-eastern-judaic/people/faculty/sarna.html">scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I recognize that in emphasizing the book's tie to Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild, Ossoff appeared to be making a statement about Black-Jewish relations – <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/01/04/georgia-black-jewish-campaign-is-the-latest-chapter-in-an-old-story-warnock-ossoff/">a central theme in his campaign</a> and a signal of his ties to Congressman John R. Lewis, his mentor, as well as Rev. Raphael Warnock, his fellow incoming Georgia senator. </p><h2>A Jewish translation of Scripture</h2><p>First, the selection of the Bible upon which Jon Ossoff was sworn deserves attention. This Hebrew-English text employs the <a href="https://biblehub.com/jps/">1917 translation</a> produced by the Jewish Publication Society, then located in Philadelphia. </p><p>It is a distinctive Jewish translation of scripture. Though modeled on the majestic language and cadence of the famous <a href="https://time.com/4821911/king-james-bible-history/">King James Bible</a>, authorized by the Church of England and first published in 1611, it nevertheless introduced many new translations from the original Hebrew based on updated scholarship and longstanding Jewish interpretive traditions. </p><p> <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The King James Bible" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380045/original/file-20210121-15-1xypp4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w"/></a></p><p> The first King James Bible.</p><p> <a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1612_First_Quarto_of_King_James_Bible.jpg">Jeremylinvip/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></p><p>“It was a Bible translation to which American Jews could point with pride as the creation of the Jewish consciousness on a par with similar products of the Catholic and Protestant churches," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/21/archives/dr-abraham-a-neuman-jewish-historian-dies.html">historian Abraham Neuman</a> <a href="http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1940_1941_3_SpecialArticles.pdf">observed</a> in 1940. “To the Jews it presented a Bible which combined the spirit of Jewish tradition with the results of biblical scholarship, ancient, medieval and modern. To the non-Jews it opened the gateway of Jewish tradition in the interpretation of the Word of God," he noted. </p><p>Thanks to the 1917 translation, American Jews <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-bible-with-and-without-jesus-amy-jill-levinemarc-zvi-brettler?variant=32117339717666">no longer had to depend on other</a> translations to understand “their Bible" – they now had a Bible translation of their own.</p><p>Ossoff was making a profoundly Jewish statement in selecting the volume on which he was sworn in. Earlier, President Biden made a similar Catholic statement by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/us/politics/bible-inauguration-biden.html">being sworn in on a Celtic Bible</a> featuring the Catholic <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/rhe/">Douay-Rheims</a> translation, published in the 17th century to <a href="http://www.tcseagles.org/faculty/nchilds/editoruploads/files/Timeline_of_Bible_Translation_History.pdf">uphold Catholic tradition</a> in the face of the Protestant Reformation. </p><h2>Atlanta's rabbi</h2><p>The book itself belonged to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild</a>, who served from 1946 until his death in 1973 as the rabbi of Atlanta's oldest and most prominent Reform congregation, Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, known as “<a href="https://www.atlantaga.gov/government/departments/city-planning/office-of-design/urban-design-commission/the-temple-hebrew-benevolent-congregation">The Temple</a>." </p><p>As an outspoken proponent of civil rights, he supported school desegregation; invited Black clergy like <a href="https://www.mmuf.org/about/dr-benjamin-e-mays">Benjamin E. Mays</a>, president of Morehouse College, to speak to his congregants; and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0">wrote</a> that Jews bore a special responsibility “to erase inequality." </p><p>To punish Rothschild and as a warning to others, white supremacist members of The Confederate Underground, a collective name for various right-wing extremist organizations in the 1950s, on Oct. 12, 1958, bombed The Temple, <a href="http://melissafaygreene.com/book/the-temple-bombing/">in a blast that was reportedly felt for miles around</a>. </p><p>Until the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html">mass shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue</a> almost exactly 60 years later, on Oct. 27, 2018, the temple bombing was the most devastating attack in history on an American synagogue. Rothschild refused to be frightened off and remained at The Temple's helm.</p><p> <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rabbi Jacob Rothschild and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380039/original/file-20210121-13-dwvqqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w"/></a></p><p> Rabbi Jacob Rothschild with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta on Jan. 28, 1965.</p><p> <a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MLK/b6c8bdddf486441da3ce8079c7dc7d12/photo?Query=Rabbi%20Jacob%20Rothschild&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo</a></p><p>In the 1960s, Rabbi Rothschild met Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who had <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/ebenezer-baptist-church-atlanta-georgia">joined his father as co-pastor</a> of Ebenezer Baptist Church. The Rothschilds and the Kings became friends, and, in 1963, Rothschild introduced King when he spoke before a packed audience of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, known today as the <a href="https://urj.org/">Union for Reform Judaism</a>, at its biennial gathering. </p><p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation's email newsletter</a>.]</p><p>Later, he played a central role in organizing a large Atlanta dinner honoring King for winning the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. When King was assassinated in 1968, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">Rabbi Rothschild delivered the eulogy</a> at the city-wide service in Atlanta in his memory. </p><h2>Rothschild's message and Ossoff's</h2><p>Citing the same biblical passages heard at President Biden's inauguration, Rothschild <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">called for America to become</a> “a land where a man does not lift up sword against his neighbor, but where each sits under his own vine and under his own fig tree and there is none to make him afraid."</p><p>In deciding to be sworn in on the “Hebrew scripture" that belonged to Rabbi Rothschild, Senator Ossoff gestures back to this relationship that once brought Black and Jewish Americans together in a common quest. </p><p>In this gesture, he is delivering the same message as King's widow, Coretta Scott King, did in 1984, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Voice.html?id=a4-8rmTtzO0C">when she wrote</a> that the story of Rabbi Rothschild serves as “an inspiring story of commitment and brotherhood during an exciting, creative period of American history."<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153757/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1"/></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonathan-d-sarna-934797">Jonathan D. Sarna</a>, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308">Brandeis University</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sen-ossoff-was-sworn-in-on-pioneering-atlanta-rabbis-bible-a-nod-to-historic-role-of-american-jews-in-civil-rights-struggle-153757">original article</a>.</p>
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