The Man Spotted Cleaning Up Desecrated Jewish Cemetery Shows His True

 

By Tribunist Staff
Antisemitism in America is on the rise since the election of Donald Trump. The desecration of a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis this week is just the latest example.


Late Sunday evening, or early Monday, vandals toppled or broke more than 100 headstones at a historic Jewish cemetery in St. Louis.

Those opposed to the President’s harsh tone toward immigrants consider the hateful actions to be part of an unwritten agenda being enacted by the new administration. Yet there’s one positive sign that would suggest this isn’t the case.


On Wednesday, Vice President Pence condemned the vandalism of the Jewish cemetery. While he could of done this from Washington, he traveled to St. Louis. And not just to make a speech. The Vice President rolled up his sleeves and helped with the clean-up efforts.

“On Monday morning, America awoke to discover that nearly 200 tombstones were toppled in a nearby Jewish graveyard,” Pence said later.

“Speaking just yesterday, President Trump called this a horrible and painful act. And so it was. 

That along with other recent threats to Jewish community centers around the country, he declared it all a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” he continued.


“We condemn this vile act of vandalism and those who perpetrate it in the strongest possible terms.”

While the vandalism is offensive, there’s been a more pervasive undertone of violence building.

In 2017 alone, 54 Jewish community centers have had bomb threats. The threats span 27 states.


Donald Trump continues to protest at accusations that he is in any way hostile toward Jews. At a press conference last week, Trump exploded on Jake Turx from Ami Magazine (an Orthodox Jewish weekly based in Brooklyn).

“Despite what some of my colleagues may have been reporting,” Turx said, “I haven’t seen anybody in my community accuse either yourself or anyone on your staff of being anti-Semitic. We understand that you have Jewish grandchildren. You are their zayde,”

“Thank you,” Trump responded.

“However,” Mr. Turx added, “what we are concerned about and what we haven’t really heard being addressed is an uptick in anti-Semitism and how the government is planning to take care of it. There’s been a report out that 48 bomb threats have been made against Jewish centers all across the country in the last couple of weeks. There are people committing anti-Semitic acts or threatening to——”

That’s “not a fair question,” Trump interjected. When Turx continued, Trump cut him off.

“Sit down,” he said. “I understand the rest of your question.”

“So here’s the story, folks. No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. No. 2, racism, the least racist person.”

Turx again tried to clarify.

“Quiet, quiet, quiet,” Trump said over him. “I find it repulsive. I hate even the question because people that know me. …”

This week, the President has focused his rhetoric on the issue. “Anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s going to stop and it has to stop,” Trump told MSNBC on Tuesday during his tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.


Those critical of Trump’s recent denouncements claim he should have spoken on the matter sooner. Words are one thing. Pence’s actions, though, speak volumes.

Trump trumps the Press!

Apple valued at $700bn as shares close at record high

Optimism on new iPhone and hopes on cash repatriation propel group past its 2015 level

by: Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco

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Apple stock hit a new all-time high on Monday, driven by investor optimism that the launch of a new iPhone later this year will spark a sales “supercycle” and hopes that the company’s $230bn in overseas cash might soon be put to greater use.

It has taken two years for Apple to surpass its record closing price of $133 in February 2015, despite briefly breaking above that level during intraday trading at $134.54 in April of that year. The shares closed at $133.29 on Monday, valuing the company at $700bn. Apple shares have risen by more than 15 per cent so far in 2017 and by more than 40 per cent in the past year. The iPhone maker overtook arch-rival Samsung to become the top-selling smartphone maker in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to several researchers. 

Apple’s valuation has increased by more than 1,000 per cent in a decade. After the stock’s four-year surge following the release of the second-generation iPhone in 2008, Apple investors have had a more turbulent ride under chief executive Tim Cook since 2012, amid recurring doubts about his ability to maintain the series of innovations and growth seen under co-founder Steve Jobs. Now, after briefly losing its crown as the world’s most valuable company to Silicon Valley rival Alphabet a year ago, investors are turning back to Apple as a high-yielding, slower-growing bet on the smartphone’s continuing domination of the technology industry. 

Quarterly earnings at the end of January beat Wall Street’s expectations, prompting several analysts to raise their estimates for how much higher the stock could go. Many on Wall Street are pinning their hopes on a “supercycle” of consumers upgrading their iPhones when the next model arrives in September. Goldman Sachs’ price-target rise to $150 on Monday helped propel the stock to its new high, as it predicted a “significant step-up in innovation” with the next iPhone. That smartphone is expected to be a more radical departure from its predecessors than the past two updates, with a brand new design featuring an edge-to-edge organic light-emitting diode screen, and wireless charging, as well as new “augmented reality” features. 

This month, Apple joined the Wireless Charging Consortium, signalling its wider commitment to a technology that it first used in its Apple Watch. Mr Cook told The Independent newspaper in an interview last week that he sees AR — that allows digital images to be intermingled with the real world, either through a handset’s camera or a headset — as a “big idea like the smartphone” that could appeal to “everyone”. “I think AR is that big, it’s huge,” Mr Cook said. Goldman analysts said in Monday’s note: “Augmented reality could be the new killer app to reinvigorate upgrade demand for premium smartphones and in particular the iPhone.” 

After Apple reported better than expected earnings last month, Morgan Stanley also raised its price target to $150, in part because of strength in Apple’s services business, which could lift overall profit margins in the coming years. Around the same time, Citi lifted its target to $140, given stronger-than-expected iPhone sales and pricing for the holiday quarter. “In our view, Apple remains one of the most under-appreciated stocks in the world,” said Brian White at Drexel Hamilton in a recent note. Apple’s quarterly regulatory filing revealed that advanced purchase commitments with suppliers rose 16 per cent year on year, which some analysts took as a signal of stronger revenue growth ahead.

UBS said it was the largest increase since September 2015, coming after four quarters of declines, and “somewhat surprising” given expectations of “flat-to-down” hardware sales for the March quarter. Further boosting the share price is that many investors are hoping a tax holiday under the Trump administration would allow the iPhone maker to repatriate some of its $230bn offshore cash pile. Those funds could then be used to increase its capital return programme, which has already pledged to return $250bn to shareholders by March 2018. Of that, more than $200bn has been paid out to date, Apple said last week, including $15bn in dividends and share buybacks in the last quarter. 

Apple pays out about 22 per cent of its free cash flow, according to a recent note by RBC Capital Markets, a figure its analysts say could be increased to more than 50 per cent, attracting a “host of new investors”. 

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