For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

Donald Trump could not help himself from being the Ugly American. He decided to call Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, to have the organization rescind the red card, which gets a player ejected from that game and the next game in the World Cup, so that Folarin Balogun, one of the top American soccer players, could play the next game against Belgium.

Early voting for the primary has already started. You can vote at designated locations on Wednesday, June 17, from 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.; Thursday, June 18, from 8:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.; Friday, June 19, from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; and Sunday, June 21, from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. There is no voting on Monday, June 22. Tuesday, June 23, is from 6:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m. at your regular location.

Since the U.S. and Iran signed the MOU, or memorandum of understanding, many Jewish Trumpians have put the blame on one person who they say is running the country: Vice President J.D. Vance. Of course, this is absurd, since Donald Trump is the president and is fully in control. Vance does what he is told.

In Texas, the Republican primary voters overwhelmingly voted for Ken Paxton over the current longtime Senator John Cornyn to be the party’s candidate for senator in the November 2026 election. By the time this column is published, Democratic primary voters will choose Graham Platner over the sitting Governor Janet Mills to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for senator. I can spend a good portion of the article mentioning the slimy and possibly illegal things that both Paxton and Platner have done. As a Jew, I find Platner having a Nazi SS Totenkopf tattoo, which he claims he did not know the symbolism of, especially hard to take. Now Platner has gone from extreme right-wing to extreme progressive.

One way you can tell the views of a newspaper is by how they cover a story or by the columns they run. Last week, three Jewish papers had the same column by Jonathan Tobin, titled “Trump’s Chaos and Incoherence Have Led to Failure on Iran.”

This past Shabbos, when I decided to mention the parade at the end of davening although it was not listed on the announcements, I said that the choice was standing with Mamdani (by not going) or with Israel (by going). Some people were taken aback by my comment. I was happy to note that many people looked at it the way I framed it and showed up. The antisemitism and the anti-Zionism in this country, not to mention globally, plus Mamdani not showing up, spurred people to come out. It was reported that this may have been the largest crowd ever. I do not have any firsthand knowledge about that, but I noticed many more people watching the parade than in many previous years. The crowd stood even a few blocks past where the parade was to end.