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#ResistMarch to replace L.A. Pride Parade 8am Sunday, June 11 at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles and more... #ResistMarch to replace L.A. Pride Parade 8am Sunday, June 11 at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles  “This year the LGBTQ+ community is lending its iconic rainbow flag to anyone who feels their rights are at risk and to everyone who believes that America's strength is its diversity.” said Brian Pendleton, Founder of #ResistMarch. “When they come for one of us, they come for all of us. Which is why we our diverse intersectional community must unite as one.”This intersectional diversity is reflected in the wide array of over 100 partner organizations that have committed their support to the #ResistMarch, including GLAAD, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matters, ACLU, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the Human Rights Campaign, APLA, Bienestar, the City of West Hollywood, among others. #ResistMarch organizers have prepared a brief opening ceremony with speakers in Hollywood and at the end of the march route, marchers will rally with speaker program and entertainment.  Speakers include: U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff, U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu, California, LosAngeles Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, Los Angeles Councilman David Ryu, West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman, Trans-Activist Bamby Salcedo, AIDS Activist Phil Wilson, #ResistMarch Founder Brian Pendleton, HRC President Chad Griffin, Haim, Margaret Cho, RuPaul, Adam Lambert, Jussie Smollett, Cheyenne Jackson, The Gay Men’s Chorus Of Los Angeles, The Trans-Chorus of Los Angeles, America Ferrera, Black Lives Matter’s Dr. Melina Abdullah, NALEO National Chairman John Duran,Planned Parenthood’s Sue Dunlap, Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Lorri Jean, Women’s March L.A. Founder Emi Guereca and others. Transgender jazz bassist, Jennifer Leitham offers DemoCast her opinion on why the ResistMarch has garnered support within the LGBT community.  Resist March will begin in Hollywood with a brief opening ceremony speaker program including a tribute to the one-year anniversary of the Orlando massacre and will finish in West Hollywood with a rally featuring speakers, including the U.S. Congressional Delegation.       Portrait honors discriminated war-hero, Ted Rubin, at Long Beach V.A. Medical Center renaming
Greg Lee, California commander of the Jewish War Veterans, initiated an effort for Holocaust-survivor-turned Korean War Veteran, Tibor ("Ted") Rubin. Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA-47) championed the initiative to obtain government ratification and enactment.
Excerpted from "Long Beach VA hospital renamed after Holocaust survivor, war hero. Local artist-veteran honors Tibor Rubin with portrait for new facility" bwritten by Cory Bilicko, Managing Editor, Signal Tribune May 11, 2017  55-years after the Korean War, Tibor Rubin finally received his Medal-of-Honor  It literally took an act of Congress, but the hospital at the Long Beach Veterans Administration is now the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center, in honor of the late Holocaust survivor and Medal of Honor recipient.
The local VA hosted a renaming ceremony Wednesday morning to honor the Jewish– and previously unsung– foreign-born hero who would eventually step up to serve in the US Army. Born in Hungary in 1929, Rubin, as a teenager, would endure 14 months in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria during World War II. His parents and younger sister were killed, but he was among those whom the US Army eventually liberated on May 5, 1945. That rescue inspired Rubin to enlist in the US Army, and he was eventually deployed in 1950 as a member of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division as a rifleman during the Korean War.  Despite facing religious discrimination from a sergeant who sent him on the most dangerous assignments and then withheld his commendation, Rubin fought “valiantly in several notable engagements,” according to the office of Congressmember Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), who introduced legislation last year to rename the VA center in Rubin’s name.
Among Rubin’s engagements that eventually earned him posthumous recognition was his enabling the complete withdrawal of his fellow soldiers by alone defending a hill under an assault by North Korean troops. While his regiment retreated to the Pusan Perimeter, Rubin stood alone and protected the Taegu-Pusan road from attacking forces and maintained his position for 24 hours, slowing enemy advance and allowing for the regiment’s successful withdrawal. “One night near the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin had been assigned to hold a hill that was essential to the 3rd Battalion safe withdrawal,” Bush said in his speech. “For 24 hours, this lone rifleman would defend the hill against an overwhelming number of North Korean forces. By his actions, Corporal Rubin inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, saved the lives of countless soldiers, and gave the unit time to withdraw.” Bush continued with another of Rubin’s heroic acts. “When Corporal Rubin’s battalion found itself ambushed by thousands of Chinese troops, the Americans’ firepower soon dwindled to a single machine gun,” Bush said. “The weapon was in an exposed position and three soldiers had already died manning it. That was when Corporal Rubin stepped forward. He fought until his ammunition was gone… He risked his life that day to protect his fellow American soldiers, and his heroism helped many of them escape.” On another assignment, after being seriously injured and captured, Rubin was held in a prisoner-of-war camp, where he risked personal safety to sneak out at night in search of food for his fellow prisoners. He would later be credited for saving the lives of as many as 40 of his comrades. Rubin’s army service ended in July 1953, and he became a US citizen about a year later. Watch an original video of the Long Beach VA Medical Center's renaming and portrait unveiling ceremony attended by many hospital and community lauders of Corporal Rubin. 
Rabbi Moishe Engel also spoke at the event, saying Rubin’s self-sacrifice proved him worthy of the great honor that came much later in his life. “His comrades recommended he receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery and his dedication to his comrades in arms,” Rabbi Engel said. “The sergeant’s response was, ‘No Jew will ever receive this honor under my watch.’ His risking his life again and again for his fellow soldiers went unrecognized. Many of the soldiers whose lives he had saved, as well as the Jewish war veterans, were on a campaign for America to recognize this hero. And, so, in 2005, 55 years after the Korean War, he received his due– the Congressional Medal of Honor. President Bush acknowledged at his presentation that it was due to prejudice that he received this honor 55 years late.”
At the culmination of the ceremony, a portrait created by artist Stewart Wavell-Smith was unveiled. The painting shows Rubin wearing his Medal of Honor, in front of the VA Medical Center that will now bear his name.In an email to the Signal Tribune this week, Wavell-Smith explained the connection he felt to Rubin. He said that, at 19, he had visited the concentration camp where Rubin was interred, and that experience has stayed with him through the years. Also, like Rubin, Wavell-Smith himself had received treatment at the Long Beach VA.
“In researching Tibor, and him surviving that death camp, I was moved to thank him by painting him and the place of healing that saved my life in 2015,” the artist said. “This small token of my appreciation to Long Beach VA and being able to honor Tibor has been a blessing. Since 1965, I have had the honor to serve my country through my God-given gift.” Wavell-Smith’s portrait– a two-foot-by-three-foot acrylic painting titled “Shalom Tibor”– will reside in the restored lobby of the medical center upon completion of a construction project to seismically retrofit and upgrade the building.
The artist-veteran also has the distinction of having his work on display in one of the nation’s most important buildings. Artist, Stewart Wavell-Smith shared his feelings on his patriotic portraiture before he left the event.  “I also have had the honor to recognize young Americans in a mural that resides on the fifth floor on ‘A’ ring between corridors 1 and 10 in the Pentagon in Washington DC, that is called ‘Operation Enduring Freedom,’” Wavell-Smith said. “A reproduction of the mural resides near the emergency entrance of the [Long Beach VA] medical center. I feel very fortunate that I can thank Tibor and the VA Medical Center at the same time.”
In early December of last year, Lowenthal’s bill, H.R. 6323, garnered the support and backing of the entire 53-member California House delegation. California’s two senators, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, also supported the renaming effort, along with numerous veterans groups in California, including the American Legion, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Jewish War Veterans of the USA and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. On Dec. 16, 2016, President Barack Obama signed the legislation into law. At Wednesday’s renaming ceremony at the Long Beach VA, Lowenthal spoke, not only about Rubin’s achievements, but also about his personality.  “He brought so much joy to so many people,” Lowenthal said. “He had a great sense of humor. A man that moved through life with a strength and character that everyone around him recognized, despite the adversities and the horrors that he lived through, he did not let that darkness dim his character. That’s not who he was. He refused to let it define him.”
“In researching Tibor, and him surviving that death camp, I was moved to thank him by painting him and the place of healing that saved my life in 2015,” the artist said. “This small token of my appreciation to Long Beach VA and being able to honor Tibor has been a blessing. Since 1965, I have had the honor to serve my country through my God-given gift.” Wavell-Smith’s portrait– a two-foot-by-three-foot acrylic painting titled “Shalom Tibor”– will reside in the restored lobby of the medical center upon completion of a construction project to seismically retrofit and upgrade the building. The artist-veteran also has the distinction of having his work on display in one of the nation’s most important buildings. “I also have had the honor to recognize young Americans in a mural that resides on the fifth floor on ‘A’ ring between corridors 1 and 10 in the Pentagon in Washington DC, that is called ‘Operation Enduring Freedom,’” Wavell-Smith said. “A reproduction of the mural resides near the emergency entrance of the [Long Beach VA] medical center. I feel very fortunate that I can thank Tibor and the VA Medical Center at the same time.” Only two other V.A. Hospitals bear the names of Jewish-Americans, but Long Beach is the first to recognize one of the many Holocaust survivors who served in the American military. Of the estimated 100,000 Holocaust survivors in the U.S., a reported one-third of them live beneath the poverty level.
 Mr. Ashman is also organizing a Screen Actors Guild tribute to veterans at Hollywood's Palace Theater, on the 17th of June. Invited celebrities include Gary Sinese and Jon Voight.   Fascism's victims testify- and sound caution on pacifism toward Islamofascism- on Victory in Europe ("V-E") Day at Russian headquarters in Berlin on May 8, 1945. (Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) D-Day to V-E Day World War II continued for almost 11 months after the successful Normandy landings in France on June 6, 1944, commonly known as D-Day. Here are some of the key moments that led to Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945. Czech Republic Consul General Pavel Sepelak spoke at a Holocaust Remembrance event last May at the Museum of Tolerance.  Bill Harvey, the late, Hollywood stylist and Czech Holocaust survivor (92 years of age when he recorded this) recounts his experience in Auschwitz.  Belgian-born gentile, John P. Verbeke recounts his life under Nazi German occupation beginning in May 1940, through Allied liberation beginning V-E Day, 8 May 1945. He explains what life was like for Christians and Jews and the conditions Belgian inhabitants were placed under by the Germans and their collaborators.      "ELECTIONS FRANCAISES: INQUIETUDE POUR LA FRANCE" - Guy Milliere  ELECTIONS FRANCAISES: INQUIETUDE POUR LA FRANCE    Pourquoi je ne voterai ni pour Marine Le Pen ni pour Emmanuel Macron, et ce qui risqué de survenir quand Emmanuel Macron sera elu.    'France may elect it's final Christian president, in Macron'- writer Guy Milliere
Anti-West, anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish diatribes were delivered to enthusiastic crowds of bearded men and veiled women. One hundred and fifty thousand people attended. Emmanuel Macron promised to facilitate the construction of mosques in France. He declared that "French culture does not exist" and that he has "never seen" French art. The risk is high that Macron will disappoint the French even faster than Hollande did.
Nothing Macron proposes can reverse the decline of the French economy and French society. Terror attacks will undoubtedly occur. Jews and others will undoubtedly be killed. Riots and discontent will undoubtedly take place. On the evening of the second round of elections, people will party in the chic neighborhoods of Paris and in ministries. In districts where poor people live, cars will be set on fire. For more than a decade, whenever there is a festive evening in France, cars are set on fire in districts where poor people live. Unassimilated migrants have their own traditions. Macron now has the support of the entire Socialist party, and the support of virtually all other politicians. He also has the support of all French Muslim organizations. The rector of the Great Mosque of Paris said that Muslims must "massively vote" for him. The Jewish community leaders also rallied on behalf of Macron. On May 7, he will likely get more than 60% of the vote. Most will not be based on the support for a project; the risk is high that Macron will disappoint the French even faster than Hollande did. The French may quickly discover that he is just a man chosen by the French left to preserve an unsustainable status quo a little longer, and a member of the self-appointed élites who do not care about ordinary people's problems, who consider that terrorist acts are "imponderable events", and who believe that national identities can melt in a no-border globalized world. When the French discover who Macron is, there will be nothing they can do to change what they voted in.French Elections: Concern for France- Guy Milliere interview Self-exiled French writer, Milliere, predicts that under Emmanuel Macron, France's socialists will overwhelm the system with Muslim & African (Jew-hating) immigrant voters to promote totalitarian Islam. Anyone dissenting from the leftist multiculturalist ideal (particularly over its antisemitism) will face the same dilemma as he - and fascistic bigotry from leftists and Muslims will pressure them to leave their French lives, where financially possible. It's better to emigrate than to flee, Milliere quotes.  French papers react to presidential debate: More like a boxing match! FRANCE 24 English  Marine Le Pen against Macron: "A salafist association supports Emmanuel Macron!""- FRANCE 24 English  FRENCH presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has pulled ahead of right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen after a furious war of words in the last TV debate ahead of Sunday’s vote, a snap poll has claimed. - The Daily Express Marine Le Pen debates Emmanuel Macron before French election from Paris, France May 3rd, 2017    More Recent Articles
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