Health care. Climate. Guns. National Security. All these issues and more are on the ballot.
But something else is on the ballot. Something even more important. Character is on the ballot. America’s character.
I don’t believe we’re the dark, angry nation we see in Donald Trump’s tweets.

I don’t believe we’re a nation that rips babies out of their mothers’ arms.
I don’t believe we’re a nation that builds walls and whips up hysteria over immigrant invasions...…..

ou probably remember when Donald Trump promised as a candidate that he wouldn’t cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Mercurial Trump has changed his mind now that he’s sent the deficit running toward the $1 trillion dollar mark. Now is the time to cut Medicaid and really stick it to the poor to pay for his $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that mainly help the rich.....


A few days ago while at Davos, Trump again signaled a willingness to cut Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, or as the media and Republicans call them, “entitlements.”
Because Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth, what he puts down on paper is indisputable and his last several budgets also made cuts to the social safety net, with 2020 cutting $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, $845 billion from Medicare and $25 billion from Social Security. Of course the money is there, it’s just going to defense spending, with an $861 billion increase.

The 20th century Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “There are three ways in which we respond to sorrow. On the first level, we cry; on the second level, we are silent; on the highest level, we take sorrow and turn it into song.”

These responses to tragedy mirror how Jews have responded to the Holocaust over the past seven decades, from overwhelming grief to numbed silence. Now, as we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (Jan. 27), the time has come to turn the sorrow into song — in a sense, to embrace Auschwitz.

Let me be clear: There was nothing good about the Holocaust. What happened during the period of Nazi hegemony over Europe was the nadir of human history. No other event is remotely comparable. It is difficult to conceive of an atrocity so maliciously designed and meticulously carried out on so vast a scale.....

When Jews invoke Auschwitz, the world listens — because we were there. Many hate us for that, especially if they fetishize fascism. Others admire us. But everyone listens. Let us sing.

It has all the ingredients of a faith-based blockbuster: an astronaut who finds God after she’s pushed to her limits.
And space monsters.
But you won’t find “A Prayer in Space” in theaters soon.
The fictional Christian film plays a central role in “Faith Based,” a new satirical film about the Christian film industry that premiered this past weekend at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.