When Do I Get My MedBed Card?

I worked really hard to find the fake medbed video, but the closest I came was finding a screen shot. Honestly, I don't know why people are so surprised/shocked/upset that he posted a fake video with him in it. I mean, folks, the guy has a well established penchant for medical quackery. Just look at his appointees: Ben Carson (who walks with Jesus,) RFK,jr, who has worms in his head and puts dead whales atop his car while claiming vaccines are responsible for what's wrong with us. (As a polio survivor, I definitely have an opinion about that and it's not one shared with that whack job Kennedy.) And let's not forget Dr. Mehmet Snakeoil Oz who now sends me emails as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services full of nonsense. I have a headache; please pass the Tylenol.

Let's not discuss how President Felon is losing his grip on reality. Just listen to his speech to the General Assembly at the UN and that, alone, should give you a pretty good idea of how bad it really is. The guy lives in fantasyland. 

First...no one sabotaged the escalator. Second...no one sabotaged the teleprompter. From Reuters:

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said a readout of the escalator's central processing unit indicated it "had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator."

He said Trump's videographer had been traveling backwards up the escalator to capture his arrival with First Lady Melania Trump.

 "The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function," Dujarric said in a statement. "The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. findings.

On the teleprompter, Trump told the General Assembly on Tuesday: "I can only say that whoever's operating this teleprompter is in big trouble."

However, a U.N. official said the White House had operated its own teleprompter.

After Trump finished speaking, U.N. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said: "The U.N. teleprompters are working perfectly."

Bianca Otero/ZUMA Press Wire

And for the record, he wasn't speaking from his heart; he was reading his speech....until he wasn't. As he wandered all over the map with his misstatements, preposterous opinions, and delusional attributes for his Nobel Peace Prize campaign, I was stunned the audience was not rolling in the aisles at this obscene comedy performance. How could they keep straight faces listening to him? Granted, his attack on the UN as a toothless joke wasn't too far off the mark, but he more than made up for that with the part about mahogany walls and marble floors. 

Moving on, the world got a glimpse of the tastelessly gilded Oval Office. I kept thinking about Napoleon and his grandiose coronation for some reason. The ormolu reliefs and friezes are just plain gauche:  tacky, cheesy, and cheap-looking. The august simplicity of the office once reflected the idea of democracy, a republic, and of-the-people. This looked like a whale vomited a gold leaf on the walls. Gilding the lily, as it were. But this isn't an accidental juxtaposition; President Tasteless's diatribe about refurbishing the UN is interesting since he's bringing that same over-the-top tasteless gilding to the White House. Has he never heard the expression Less Is More? Obviously not. 

His ravenous appetite for gaudy expression extends to this new dining hall carbuncle he's attaching to the White House. Today, it was announced he has settled his lawsuit with YouTube. From the Washington Post:

                               YouTube to pay $24.5 million to settle Trump lawsuit                 over post-Jan. 6 suspension

The agreement says $22 million will go toward construction of a new White House ballroom. The settlement follows similar multimillion-dollar agreements with Meta and X.

So just like this airplane from Qatar, President Emoluments is profiteering from the office but at least he's spending the money on the White House for which I am certain he will take one giant tax deduction. Nothing this troll does is without personal financial gain for him. Since the airplane is destined for his presidential library in downtown Miami (that'll be a good trick,) where's he gonna stash the dismantled balls room after he's out of office? 

Oh, wait. He's not planning to leave office. Ever. 

Oh, you don't believe that? Well, it's like this: if someone tells you who they are, you might want to believe them. President Felon keeps on ordering troops, National Guard or otherwise, into cities that clearly don't need help preserving public safety. Despite what the governors, the mayors, and even the state AGs say, he's sending troops where troops are not wanted. Ziggy woulda called this serious dick-waving. I would've agreed with him,

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Portland, Oregon, a city that usually defies description by us regular folks, is preparing for the invasion in a most Portlandian kinda way. I imagine Bette Midler will be leading a cadre of women ready to throw their PBS tote bags at them. I can almost imagine the denizens of the area trying to put daisies in gun barrels. Maybe they're gonna mobilize the backyard chicken populations? 

I've never been to Portland, but it's a place I would like to visit. I hear they do serious composting there, and, like Minnesota, pay close attention to the environment. They have a progressive tax in the city, and enforceable  laws and goals for emissions. Frankly, it sounds like my kinda town. There's a Masorti shul with a morning minyan! I would fit right in! If the country breaks apart and the West Coast becomes the place to go for now, Portland would be on my list.

And I'm still waiting for my medbed card. With insurance rates rising significantly, We, the People, have to be prepared for a catastrophic number of people to be without health insurance. As vaccinations become unavailable, we must be prepared for the surge in measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, and other preventable diseases we once thought to be eradicated. The fact is, the only disease believed to be completely eradicated is smallpox, but even that could come back. The reality is that right now, the US is taking massive steps backwards in terms of population health.

Maybe that shouldn't surprise us. A country that refuses to pass reasonable gun control laws as mass shootings increase across the nation while discouraging parents from vaccinating their kids is NOT a country that believes in the sanctity of life. Another church, this one Mormon,  was shot up and set on fire up this past weekend, in Grand Blanc, Michigan, leaving 8 injured, and 4 dead, including a 6 year old. 

But then again, this is a country carrying on about Gaza while ignoring the famine in Yemen, genocide in the Sudan, China, Syria, and Cambodia. No Jews, no news? Isn't that how it goes?

If you're not taking to the streets to protest Yemen, Sudan, China, Syria, and Cambodia, but you want to reward and encourage terrorism by supporting Hamas, that is your right. And it will be your right to be slaughtered just like the kids at Nova when the intifada comes here. The guys in the keffiyehs and the headbands will not spare you. They will simply put a bullet in your back after they rape you. They already have told us who they are. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

!‏צום קל וגמר חתימה טוב

Going Up Early Because Rosh HaShanah Begins Monday Night.

Local apples & honey,     matzah ball soup,                   squash,               8 Lbs of brisket       table set by grandkids
                                  

The very last thing I wanna be doing right now is writing this week's episode. As you can see from the illustration above, I have more pressing things to do at the moment. But this was one helluva a week and there are things to be said. 

Back in January 2014, I wrote an episode about the fight for net neutrality. Several readers sent it back to me asking if I really did see the canary in the coal mine. Kinda....but I really believed the FCC and Congress would do the right thing. This issue is more clearly defined in an article appearing in the January 8th, 2025 issue of Scientific American:

The sun has set—again—on U.S. net neutrality, the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Last week a federal appeals court panel ruled that the Federal Communications Commission cannot classify Internet service providers, or ISPs, in a way that would prevent them from favoring certain content over others. Without net neutrality, providers would be able to slow down, or throttle, traffic to competitors’ websites. Or ISPs could demand payment for speedy connections to specific Internet destinations……

The FCC now says net neutrality’s fate ultimately lies with Congress. “Consumers across the country have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open, and fair,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a news release. “With this decision it is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take up the charge for net neutrality, and put open internet principles in federal law.”

Why bring this up now? Well, the internet ain't what it used to be, and because our crack congress never declared it a public utility, it's already up for sale. As the authoritarian government takes over, cancelling free speech, threatening broadcasters with license revocation if they don't like the criticism, instructing the attorney general to go after his foes are all canaries in this very bleak coal mine. 

Stick with me on this. I promise, it's sane.

On his way back from the UK on Air Force One, President Felon told reporters:

I have read someplace that the networks were 97 percent against me, I get 97 percent negative, and yet I won and easily. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.

He wasn't done. As reported in the New York Times:

Mr. Trump on Thursday indicated that Mr. Carr should go even further and scrutinize the broadcast licenses of local television stations that run programming from the major networks, suggesting that both their news coverage and late-night comedy shows were unfairly tilted against him. “They give me only bad publicity,” he said. 

“It will be up to Brendan Carr,” the president said, calling him “a patriot” and “a tough guy.”

President Felon is not the first powerful American politician to challenge the very existence of the Bill of Rights? How many of you, dear readers, remember Senator Joseph McCarthy? Or have even heard of him? Indulge me for a moment.

In 1940, Congress passed The Smith Act which forbade any attempts to “advocate, abet, advise, or teach” the violent destruction of the U.S. government. The Smith Act, an outgrowth of the red scare in Europe, is often credited as the underlayment beneath Senator McCarthy. Although ultimately repealed, it serves as a model of how to undermine free speech. His witch hunts were notorious. People were expected to turn each other in. What it did to the arts community in this country was unspeakable. 

And we are watching history repeat itself. 

Robert Redford, a man I knew, even if just a little bit, passed away this past week. I was a college kid on the set of THE WAY WE WERE and Bob was the kindest man you could imagine. I read the whole script when I was on set in Ballston Spa, and I was anxious to see how it would all be filmed. One of the most important scenes was in LA, at Union Station, when Hubbell (Redford) confronts his wife, Katie, (Streisand) about  her activism protesting McCarthy's HUAC in support of the HOLLYWOOD TEN. The following is taken from the brilliant script written by the great Arthur Laurents:

KATIE

I'm not telling off the world. I'm just standing up for something I believe in. You're not angry when Bissinger ridicules those men? Calling them martyrs because they have guts to fight for their Bill of Rights, his Bill of Rights and yours!

HUBBELL

We don't have any Bill of Rights. We'll never have free speech.

KATIE

We never will if people won't take a stand. We never will have because people are scared.

HUBBELL

This isn't college. This is grown-up politics, Katie. And it's stupid and dangerous.

KATIE

You're telling me to shut up because it's dangerous?

HUBBELL

I'm telling you it's a waste. And that those men are only gonna get hurt. And that nothing is gonna change. And after jail, after years of bad blood, when it's practical for a fascist producer to hire a communist writer because his movie's in trouble, he'll do it. They'll make movies, have dinner, they'll play tennis, make passes at each other's wives. What did anybody go to jail for? For what? A political spat?

KATIE

You're telling me to close my eyes and watch people being destroyed so you can work in a town that doesn't have spine enough to stand up for anything but a buck. I'm telling you that people are more important than a goddamn witch hunt. You and me. Not causes. Not principles.

KATIE

Hubbell, people are their principles.

Anything sound familiar? Yes, it's a movie and some of the most powerful scenes dealing with the blacklist ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, it was a cautionary tale. 

If you want to learn more, visit the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee University. I wouldn't put it off...it's bound to be noticed and shut down. 

The cancelling of Colbert, the removal of Jimmy Kimmel from ABC, the blatant takeover of the Kennedy Center, the executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," the targeting of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Museum of American History are all attempts to remove and revise history to meet Feckless President's delusion of grandeur. Similar directives aimed at the National Park Service to remove information about slavery and Indigenous Americans is a deliberate attempt to erase them. 

This is not a new tactic; it's one the Nazis used. The Greeks used it. The Ottomans used it. The Borg used it....you know the phrase: Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

And from the truth is ever so much stranger than fiction department:

On Saturday night, President Felon posted what appeared to be a DM to Attorney General Pam "What Constitution?" Bondi:

This tweet, clearly meant for Bondi's eyes only, was quickly deleted, but not before the immediate world saw it. An hour later, the Orangeman replaced it with a post praising Ms. Bondi. 

"Pam Bondi is doing a GREAT job as Attorney General of the United States

Sure she is. I guess she was absent from law school when they taught Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. Or, a more likely scenario, she got her law degree in a box of Cracker Jack. 

 

And not to be left to his own devices, President Felon was asked how he was holding up after the death of Charlie Kirk. His response was....was....was........stunning in it's hubris:

I think very good. And by the way right there you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about for 150 years and it’s gonna be a beauty.

Excuse me? Did I just have a cosmic event? He was being asked about the guy he's busy canonizing and he responds with that? Can you spell N-A-R-C-I-S-S-I-S-T, boys and girls?

Meanwhile, back at the UN:

Funny thing about a Palestinian State. Everytime the Palestinians have been offered a state of their own, they've turned it down because it did not include the annihilation of Israel and the removal of all Jews from the region. 

This week, in incredibly ridiculous news, the UK, Canada, and Australia just recognized Palestine as a state. I don't know how that works since they refuse to have a state. Or are we just seeing the setting sun of the British Empire endorsing terrorism? Seems to me, that's gonna come back and bite them all in their collective arse. 

Interesting that this all comes on the heels of President Felon's visit to the UK. Is this part of a deal he cut with the king? I would love to know how the conversations went. Did he threaten the king, or did Chuck just go belly up at the sight of the Great Tangerine? I wonder if he told the Princess of Wales he'd date her because he's almost a king. Gag me.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

L'Shana Tova!

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life

for a happy, healthy, and sweet New Year. 

Happy 5786!

If you've ever wondered where that number came from...follow the link.

Thank you, Elon Gilad!

I have come to bury Charlie Kirk, not to praise him.

In the days since the murder of Charlie Kirk, I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading about this guy. I knew the name, but not much about him other than he was an ally of President Felon. To understand the divergent outcry, I started digging deeper into his statements, his declarations, and his positions on a whole lotta topics. What I came away with was a strange portrait of a guy who was intent on playing to whatever audience was in the house. 

He professed to be observant of Shabbat in the "Jewish way," but I have no idea what that even means. I've been doing it every week for about 73 years and I'm not sure what that means. Last January, he told an even audience he observed a "tech free sabbath" because as pastor friend told him it would reduce anxiety.

Every Friday night, I keep a Jewish Sabbath; I turn off my phone, Friday night to Saturday night. The world cannot reach me, and I get nothing from the world. It will bless you infinitely."

Of course, he also made it very clear that "Jewish" biblical commandments did not apply to Christians. Okay. I get that. Still, his periodic philojudaic statements do not necessarily reflect an acceptance for Jews to live their own lives. As a Christian Nationalist, Kirk believe that the United States should be inwardly AND outwardly Christian, reflecting and observing Christian biblical interpretations. 

As reported in the NY TImes:

Mr. Kirk also accused Jewish philanthropists of fomenting anti-whiteness by supporting liberal antiracism causes like the Black Lives Matter movement.

“The philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country,” he said on his show in 2023.

Not long after, he accused Jews of controlling “not just the colleges — it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it."

One can love Israel because it's necessary for the rapture to occur without loving Jews. As a Christian Nationalist, it's pretty evident that there is a dichotomy between the two and Charlie Kirk was clearly in the evangelical rapture camp. What he needs from us is not Shabbat halacha or even Torah for that matter. He needs us to be in Israel so the second coming can happen. That's it, folks. We are expendable after that. He no more loves Jews than he loves Black pilots....and he's made his opinion of Black pilots pretty clear. 

I may not have agreed with Charlie Kirk on a whole raft of issues, but exercising his right to free speech in the public forum is not something with which I can take issue. His dialogue with the attendees at his rally was, apparently, open and an excellent exchange of ideas. But even if he had been shouting, which he was not, he did not deserve to be gunned down. He had every right to be heard, and the kid that shot him must face prosecution and punishment accordingly. Justice must be served.

But that justice cannot and must not be usurped by pathological partisanship. Within hours after the shooting, President Felon declared he would punish Kirk's critics. An article in the Washington Post reported:

President Donald Trump, following the death of GOP activist and close friend Charlie Kirk, vowed to unleash the weight of his administration onto those he said contributed to an environment of “radical left political violence.”

 

How that might translate into policy has remained unclear, as the president and his aides have spent part of the last two days grieving while strategizing their next steps.

 

Trump invoked Kirk’s memory to urge supporters to refrain from retaliatory violence. But he also indicated a desire to not just punish the killer, but also to tackle what the president and his staff described as a movement bent on the destruction of the American way of life. 

 

“The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy,” Trump said Friday morning on Fox News.

According to NBC News, other high ranking government officials are being dragged into the net of retribution:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told his staff to identify any members of the military who have mocked or condoned the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk so that they can be punished, two defense officials told NBC News. 

Several service members have been relieved from their jobs because of such posts, the officials said, adding that Hegseth’s directive also pertains to others associated with the Defense Department. It’s unclear exactly how many people have been disciplined.

Hegseth and other senior Pentagon leaders posted messages on X this week calling on the public to report any posts that could be interpreted as negative about Kirk or unsympathetic about his murder.

I think this is worth noting.

The White House ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff for Charlie Kirk, something was was not done when Melissa Hortman, Minnesota Speaker of the House, was assassinated with her husband and their dog at the front door of their home. According to FOX News, he was too busy that playing golf with GOP leaders in preparation for his budget bill. And he posted on his Truth Social page:

********

UPDATE: THE PRESIDENT DENIES BEING FAMILIAR WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF MELISSA HORTMAN:

Trump at first says he is ‘not familiar’ with Minnesota Democrat’s assassination

********

The differences in President Felon's response to the murders is terrifying. It demonstrates not simply an unwillingness to recognize all lawmakers as contributors to our government on many levels, instead, he reaffirms the creeping obsession he has with obtaining authoritarian control. Ever the opportunist, President Felon and his staff are using the death of Kirk as a opening to undermine the first amendment. This is yet another attempt to remove a plank from the platform of American democracy. Individuals across the country are being fired for comments made about the death of someone not even elected to office, someone whose opinions differ in fundamental ways from Kirk's. Why are his opinions to be held up as sacrosanct?

No, no one should be celebrating. But nowhere in our Constitution is there a clause for the existence of thought police. Just like nowhere in the Constitution is the president given the power to deploy armed forces at will. 

And no, I do not believe for a single moment that Charlie Kirk should be given the hero treatment by our government. Feckless President Felon and J.D. Bedbug can like him all they want. But he was not an elected official. Not even Martin Luther King had a state funeral because Lester Maddox refused to allow it: 

A state funeral or lying in state was refused to King by then-governor of Georgia Lester Maddox, who had considered King an "enemy of the country" and had stationed 64 riot-helmeted state troopers at the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta to protect state property.               Wikipedia

Flown home to Arizona on Air Force Two with the Vice President Bedbug, the memorial service is scheduled to be held at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals. President Felon and his associates plan to be in attendance. 

Just bury the guy with  all the pomp and circumstance his church allows. Since he was a religious figure, bury him that way. He doesn't need civil beatification to meet his God. And we don't need to spend any more tax money on it, either. 

Somehow, still, this all feels like a desecration of our Constitution. Not that I care, but it still feels weird. Like our government has been taken over by aliens. 

Maybe that's the part we're not yet seeing clearly.

Meanwhile, back at the gold-flocked White House, The administration has ordered the removal of exhibits, including photographs from National Park sites. This removal, according to officials 

is in line with President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing the Interior Department to eliminate information that reflects a “corrosive ideology” that disparages historic Americans. National Park Service officials are broadly interpreting that directive to apply to information on racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights or persecution of Indigenous people. 

Following Trump’s order, Interior Department officials issued policies ordering agency employees to report any information, including signage and gift shop items, that might be out of compliance. Trump officials also launched an effort asking park visitors to report offending material, but they mostly received criticisms of the administration and praise for the parks.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Removing the documentation 

does not make the truth go away.

It simply reminds the world

of your cowardice.

Slated to be removed:
“The Scourged Back”
escaped slave Peter Gordon, Louisiana, 1863.
National Gallery of Art 

Oh, for G-d's Sake....Stop Drinking Hamas Kool-Aid

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Pash, Sarah Mendelson,
Yaakov Pinto, Rabbi Israel Matzner
Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, Rabbi Yosef David

I lost my editor today. She is very ill, and I knew this day would come. But that's not the whole reason I lost her. She is angry with me because I don't simply condemn Israel to its core over Gaza.  Today. When 6 people were gunned down at a bus stop in Jerusalem. When 6 people were minding their own business when terrorists fired into the crowd

Of course, the NYT headline read "Gunmen Attack Bus Stop in Jerusalem, Killing at Least 6;" G-d forbid they should call them terrorists because, after all, it happened in Israel. If a bunch of guys shot up a bus stop in Peoria, you damn well better believe they would've immediately been labelled terrorists, domestic or otherwise. But wait! There's more. The NYT goes on to say:

The Israeli police described the shooting as a terrorist attack and said that the perpetrators had been killed at the scene.

Excuse me??????? Described ???????? What? Did they think it was some unruly teenagers?

This is the double standard in the media. Had this happened ANYWHERE in the world except Israel, it would've immediately been labelled terrorist. 

The civilian deaths in Gaza are tragic. The death of children is hard to fathom. Yet, it really isn't. Their deaths underscore the arc of the human shield. They are meant to die, and their deaths are meant to cause outrage and anger. Hamas had more than enough room in the hundreds of miles of tunnels to protect most of their civilians, but the chose to put them directly in harm's way. And when their own bombs fell on their own civilians, they made sure to take no responsibility for those deaths....remember Al-Ahli Arab Hospital? 

When your charter calls for the dismantling of an entire country and executing the population of said country, why would you think said country would go, "Okay. We'll just march into the sea for you." ?

If only Israel had Hamas's PR machine.

If you drink the Kool-Aid, you do more damage to Palestinians than Israelis. If you insist on chanting FREE PALESTINE!, do the Palestinians a favor and add the real, second part of that sentiment: FREE PALESTINE FROM HAMAS. Give those people a fighting change to actually have a state. Unless you rid them of the yoke, the oxen will never be free. 

In today's, MORNING MUSINGS, Peter Himmelman puts today's terrorist attack into harsh perspective:

This “oppressor versus oppressed” binary makes Israel automatically the villain. The narrative requires it: Israel strong, Hamas weak. Once you’ve accepted that framing, the facts no longer matter. And here is where the human cost comes in. I have seen the images from Gaza—children torn apart, families buried. The kind of horror no parent, no human being, should ever have to witness. Anyone who claims those lives don’t matter has cut away their own humanity. 

Yet, to see those deaths and leap to the word “genocide” is to compound the tragedy with a lie. When you declare that Zionists are Nazis, you are saying my mother, my late father and sister, my other siblings, my wife, my children, my grandchildren—you are calling nearly everyone I know and love a Nazi. You may revel in the irony of calling Jews Nazis. To you it feels clever. To me, it is sickening. It shows your ignorance, your gullibility, and your malice. 

Because I’ve seen the other images too; the ones you never mention. October 7th. Hamas slaughtering, raping, burning people alive. Hostages dragged into tunnels, some barely alive, others fully murdered. And still, marches in Western capitals waving Hamas flags, demanding ceasefire before a single hostage was freed. Hamas is not a liberation movement. It is a death cult steeped in radical Islamist ideology that seeks not peace, but the eradication of Israel and the murder of Jews. That day, as today, showed us exactly what we are up against. 

And here is the brutal irony: supporting Hamas does not “save” Gaza—it destroys it. Every rocket fired from a schoolyard, every tunnel dug beneath a hospital, every hostage still held prevents any chance of rebuilding. Gaza cannot be restored so long as Hamas remains, because Hamas thrives on ruin. It needs suffering as its currency. Those who excuse or endorse it are not allies of the Palestinian people. They are accomplices in ensuring that the rubble remains rubble.

When you boycott Israel, Israeli products, Israeli artists, scientists, engineers, and medical research, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. None of that helps the world, much less the Gazans who live beneath the thumb of a regime that sees them only as cannon fodder.  It doesn't get them food or jobs or housing or clean water. You are simply enabling the leaders to take the money and run...usually to Dubai where they live is opulence while Gazan children starve. It's nothing more than performative activism that is all show and absolutely no action. All those celebrities and musicians who preach this non-active performative activism are doing nothing to help the people of Gaza. If anything, you are supporting the very regime that continues to enslave them. 

Look, when Europe was done trying to kill us, they sent us to a barren strip of sand no one wanted to settle. But like Br'er Rabbit in the briar patch, this is exactly where we wanted to go. It's our home. Before you know it, the desert is green, industry is booming, and Israel, that little strip of land, is thriving. So instead of saying, "Hey! How did you do that?" our neighbors attacked with the intent to destroy. It didn't work in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, two intifadas, 2008, 2012, 2014, or on October 7th, 2023. Offered a state 5 times since 1948, they have never accepted the offer of statehood. Why do you think that is? Because it meant Israel would continue to exist. 

I've said it often enough in this space: the government of Israel is not perfect and Israelis are as unhappy with the prosecution of this war as everyone else. They want the hostages, alive or dead, to be returned. They want the missiles to stop. Everyone is tired of racing to shelters. Israelis are no more interested in war than anyone else, but it's tough to stand down when you are constantly under attack. 

Just like all Americans in this melting pot of a country, everyone has a vested interest in American democracy...or so we all hope.. Same in Israel, a smaller but no less diverse democracy. Most of all, Israelis, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Baháʼí, Buddhist, Rastafarian, or pastafarian...they all want one thing: to be left in peace to live their lives. 

Photo by Sharon Waxman

In a few weeks, I will be in Israel. One of the things we are planning is a trip to the Nova site. It's not that I want to go; I feel that I must go. Just like the World Trade Center site, I never want to go, but I do because it's my cousins' grave site. I may not have known anyone who died there or in the kibbutzim, but they are also my family. Each one has had a profound impact on my life, my psyche. I will go and I will grieve for the lives mowed down by terrorists. 

If anyone is to blame for all the deaths...Israeli or Palestinians....it's Hamas. They attacked. They raped. The executed children in front of parents and grandparents. They used their own children as shields. They stole humanitarian aid to feed their fighters and left the civilians without sustenance. The Palestinian people are caught in the middle of a war they probably don't want either....but what choice do they have? Just remember, all those dead bodies would probably be alive had Hamas not attacked on October 7th. 

If you really wanna free Palestine.....Free Palestine from Hamas. That is the only chance those people have. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

It's getting to be cemetery visit time again.

Jewish tradition tells us people die twice:

once when they leave their body

and again when people no longer say their name.

Talk about your family...the live ones and the ones who are gone.

From generation to generation, pass on that which makes you unique.

Oh, What A Tangled Web

Tough week for Chief O'Hara

Like most Americans, I have a lotta rocks rattling around my head these days. The murder of children in prayer in the church of Annunciation School has rocked the Twin Cities in new and horrible ways. That Robin Westman was in transition only shifted blame calling to a new low, implying that all trans people are mentally ill. Really? How about the guy who shot in a crowd standing on a sidewalk the night before? From ABC NEWS:

A gunman opened fire with a high-velocity rifle at a group standing on a sidewalk in Minneapolis on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring six others, police said.

At least one of the seven victims appears to have been the target of the shooting, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, who called the incident "deeply troubling."

That shoot has all but disappeared into the mists, and I don't even think he's been apprehended. It took a whole lotta hunting around to even find this from KARE-11

A man and woman are accused of being accomplices in a deadly south Minneapolis shooting last week, in which the gunman has not been arrested. 

Ryan Timothy Quinn, 33, and Tiffany Lynn Marie Martindale, 30, have both been charged with the felony of aiding an offender to avoid arrest in connection with the shooting that left one person dead and six more injured.

Funny thing about all this. Minneapolis, the city of George Floyd, Philando Castile, and Annunciation School is not even on the list of most violent cities in the US. Stay with me here. 

On August 11th, Newsweek published a list of the 30 most violent cities in the US. Thankfully, both Minneapolis and Saint Paul are absent from the list. But the list is worth mentioning. Notice that of the 30 cities, 9 are in blue states, and one is in a purple state. Washington, D.C. is not on that list. All the other cities are in deeply red states, yet President Felon has not ordered National Guard troops to any of those cities, but he has fingered #16-Chicago and #26-Baltimore as his next targets. Why is that?

Maybe it's because he doesn't want to risk upsetting his devotees? Or is he worried about managing the midterm elections in states he's less likely to win?

Defending our cities from crime,
weeds, and trash.

Or maybe, he just needs really, really expensive groundskeepers and trash collectors he doesn't have to pay? Maybe he'll be sending them over to his golf courses next. It doesn't much matter, but using the National Guard as groundskeepers and trash collectors is obscene. Who the hell do you think is paying for this? While government programs are slashed, burned, and ripped away from locations that are desperate for help, this is another colossal waste of capital. 

Is it possible the deployment of troops, Guard or federal, is a slow move toward manipulating the midterms?  But wait! There are other ways to undermine a nation. No matter how you dice up the optics, this is a power grab.

But it's not just the deployment of troops that undercut the sense of security and safety. It's financial and it hits the middle class directly. Cuts in renewable energy and transportation projects that are already underway and headed toward completion ultimately cost the government more than it saves. Thousands of workers are laid off. They lose that great golden egg of health insurance. Food security becomes an issue when you cannot buy groceries. In her Substack, Letters From An American, Heather Cox Richardson writes:

Another cut last week sums up the repercussions of the administration’s attack on renewable energy. On August 22 the Interior Department suddenly and without explanation stopped construction of a wind farm off the coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island that was 80% complete and was set to be finished early next year. As Matthew Daly of the Associated Press noted yesterday, Revolution Wind was the region’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. It was designed to power more than 350,000 homes, provide jobs in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and enable Rhode Island to meet its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2033.

The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut expressed their dismay at the decision, noting that Revolution Wind employed more than 1,000 local union workers and is part of a $20 billion investment in “American energy generation, port infrastructure, supply chain, and domestic shipbuilding and manufacturing across over 40 states” by Ørsted, a Danish multinational company.

“Stopping this fully permitted, important project without a clear stated reason not only seriously undermines the state’s efforts to work towards a carbon neutral energy supply but equally important it sends a message to investors from all over the world that they may want to rethink investing in America. The message resulting from the President’s action is a lack of trust, uncertainty, and lack of predictability,” they wrote.

Connecticut governor Ned Lamont and Rhode Island governor Dan McKee, both Democrats, are working together to save the project. In a statement, Lamont said: “We are working closely with Rhode Island to save this project because it represents exactly the kind of investment that reduces energy costs, strengthens regional production, and builds a more secure energy future—the very goals President Trump claims to support but undermines with this decision.”

“It’s an attack on our jobs,” McKee said. “It’s an attack on our energy. It’s an attack on our families and their ability to pay the bills.”

Taking a page from Hitler's playbook, deny your population a way to earn a living and they will become desperate to feed their families and keep them sheltered. Denying Jews the ability to work made it infinitely easier to herd them into ghettos and concentration camps. Deny an entire political population the ability to earn a living and over time, they, too, will cave. 

Vote for me, and I will employ you.

This is one of the oldest ploys in the book, right up there with free ice cream at lunch; when you put families at risk, people will do whatever is needed to protect their own.

Sounds a bit draconian? Sure. But look around you. It's already happening. Although North Carolina is technically a red state, their AG is bright blue.  He's suing FEMA on behalf of his state:

I’m suing FEMA.

Why?

Because they illegally cancelled more than $200 million that was headed to North Carolina for water and sewer upgrades.

It was basically a flood preparation fund. Congress created it, funded it, and told FEMA to run it.

Before FEMA pulled the plug, they had approved over 60 projects across our state - mostly moving pump stations and sewer lines to higher ground.

A few examples:

• $22.5m for Salisbury to move a pump station. The city already spent $3m of its own funds getting started.
• $5.9m for Gastonia to move sewer lines out of the floodplain.
• $4m for Mt. Pleasant to improve drainage in the town center, which regularly floods and damages businesses.

And then there’s the Hillsborough pump station, where I spoke yesterday. It was set to receive $6m to move to higher ground. Also cancelled by FEMA.

But here’s the thing:

Three weeks ago, a tropical storm hit. The nearby river rose 24 feet and submerged the entire station. Millions of gallons of untreated sewage poured into the river.

I spotlighted this pump station because it’s a perfect example of why this funding matters - and what happens when it’s taken away.

Most people agree that keeping drinking water flowing and sewage contained is a legitimate use of public dollars. I appreciate that Sen. Tillis and Rep. Edwards have also urged FEMA to reverse course.

Heck, President Trump signed this program into law in his first term. He wanted it.

So we’re going to court, along with a number of AGs, and I’ll report back.

There is no way in hell that I do NOT believe this is scheduled manipulation. This is an attempt to restrict potable water for a large portion of North Carolina. There's a pattern of municipal control being established. It's easy to roll in troops with trucks of clean water and then call yourself a savior. Nothing happens unless there is something in it for Feckless President Felon. 

Without FEMA and other government agency assistance, come hurricane season, people will become violently desperate for aid and relief. What better way to cement your image as hero than to provide it...with strings. There are always strings. 

I used to think he was simply blind to the needs of the poorest states in the Union. Now, I think he knows exactly what he's doing. Voter suppression and disenfranchisement are useful tools with this administration. The push for paper ballots only, cessation of early voting, understaffed and undersupplied voter sites are all methods of stopping voters from casting ballots. The MAGA corps operates under the idea that they can control the outcome of any election if they can prevent voters from exercising their right to vote, and to some degree this is true. The attempts to overthrow the last two presidential elections point to that very issue. And if you think the MAGA GOP is not learning how to master electoral manipulation from those last two events, guess again. 

Scare enough people and they will elect the status quo. Feckless President Felon and his cabal are counting on that. 

Meanwhile, back at the Himalayas....

Someone is upset because President Felon claims to have negotiated the India/Pakistan ceasefire. That someone, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had a terse call with the former Nobel Peace Prize Would-be Candidate. From the New York Times:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India was losing patience with President Trump.

Mr. Trump had been saying — repeatedly, publicly, exuberantly — that he had “solved” the military conflict between India and Pakistan, a dispute that dates back more than 75 years and is far deeper and more complicated than Mr. Trump was making it out to be.

During a phone call on June 17, Mr. Trump brought it up again, saying how proud he was of ending the military escalation. He mentioned that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor for which he had been openly campaigning. The not-so-subtle implication, according to people familiar with the call, was that Mr. Modi should do the same.

The Indian leader bristled. He told Mr. Trump that U.S. involvement had nothing to do with the recent cease-fire. It had been settled directly between India and Pakistan.

Mr. Trump largely brushed off Mr. Modi’s comments, but the disagreement — and Mr. Modi’s refusal to engage on the Nobel — has played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders, whose once-close ties go back to Mr. Trump’s first term.

Now, I guess plan B is to bring peace by removing all of the Palestinians from Gaza to make it into the Riviera of the Middle East. 

The leaked image from the Great Trust proposal 

The plan even has a name: GREAT TRUST- Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust. And who, exactly, do you think benefits the most from this scheme? It ain't the US and it sure as hell ain't the Israelis. Just think of it as a bigger golf course and enterprise destined to bankruptcy.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you had a lovely holiday weekend, thank all those pesky labor unions. 

No, they're not perfect, but they did a helluva a good job protecting We, the People.