Take a close look at the people in this photograph. Clearly this is a family. One can surmise that it's a mom, kids, and grandparents. One would be correct. The older folks are Yossi and Margit Silberman. They were murdered on October 7th, 2023 at their kibbutz, Nir Oz. The mom is Shiri Silberman Bibas. The children are Kfir and Ariel Bibas. Their father was fighting off the terrorists trying to keep them away from his family, but he was captured. The terrorists broke into the family's safe-room and kidnapped Shiri and the children, taking them to Gaza as hostages.
Everyone in this picture is dead.
Yarden Bibas, the father, was returned to Israel on February 1st, 2025, only to learn his family was still being held. The children came back in small coffins on February 20th, 2025.
The coffin that was supposed to hold Shiri contained the body of a woman who was matched to a hostage. Hamas cares so little for its own people that they used a corpse as a prop.
Shiri Bibas was finally returned to Israel on February 22nd, 2025.
Hamas claimed they died as the result of Israeli bombings. Forensic evidence, however, indicates that the children were murdered by bare hands
"We can confirm that baby Kfir Bibas, just 10 months old, and his older brother Ariel, aged four, were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza no later than November 2023. These two innocent children were taken hostage alive, along with their mother, Shiri, from their home on October 7, 2023,” IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari
As the coffins containing these tiny bodies were then paraded through the crowds, Palestinians who had gathered in Khan Younis in Gaza cheered. It bears repeating: they cheered at the sight of caskets with dead children in. The videos, which Israelis have been advised not to watch on television and Israeli state media did not broadcast, show hundreds of people celebrating the fact that two children have been killed alongside their mother. There is whistling. Some even try to break through to the front of the crowds to get a better photo of the coffins. Perhaps most grotesque is that in video clips of the macabre ceremony, children can be heard playing. Some men are clearly seen with babies strapped to their chests. Too young to walk, perhaps, but old enough apparently to attend this parade of the dead.
Mislabeled coffins
The coffins were then given to the International Red Cross because it looked good to do that, not that ICRC even bothered with Jewish hostages ever, and certainly not this time. They transported the locked coffins, mislabeled, and paired with random keys that did not work, and littered with Hamas propaganda inside.
It wasn't enough to torture and murder this four; they had to desecrate the bodies as well.
Yet the world remains largely silent about this. Had Israel done the same to Palestinian bodies, the outcry would've reached Jupiter, once again confirming that the only good Jew is a dead Jew.
I've seen this observation in several formats and while I cannot associate it to a single source, it bears repeating....especially for those who choose to support the notion that they are revolutionaries for a peaceful resolution. They are not.
People liken Hamas terrorists to animals, but that’s an insult to animals. Animals hunt and kill for survival, while Hamas terrorists just massacred for fun, to feed their hate.They do not protect their young, nor do they protect the den, nest, or burrow, instead, they hide behind their most vulnerable
See, the word for animals is חיה (chaya)whose root is the wordחי(chai) which a lotta people recognize as meaning LIFE. In other words, animals are a form of life and it is an insult to animals to equate them with Hamas, a death cult. Its rituals and expectations are passed from one generation to the next.
No, Hamas are not animals; they are monsters.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
ICYF - Zelensky is a Jew.
ICYMI - President Felon blamed Zelensky for the war in Ukraine.
If I felt I could do it without feeling terribly guilty, I would take a few weeks off at this point. I am so tired of doom overload, I feel like my motherly alter-ego, Screech.
Yeah, my dad bestowed that little moniker upon me when he used me as a character in one of the books he wrote for his grandsons. Dad was magically creative and, using coloring books, box covers, and his own ability to draw, he combined Fraggles, Star Wars, He-Man, Muppets, and newly designed characters into these bizarre adventures for Gobo Fraggle and his friends. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork had prominent roles. Screeech [with 3 e's] is Skeletor's falcon. He was a fun-killer. Apparently, that was my job: to prevent anyone from having any fun whatsoever. Or so Zayde told my sons.
This is a page from the actual book. Junior Gorg and Dr. Strangepork are sitting on a deck that looks remarkably like the one at my folks' house, Screech (that's me) swooping in, and some Fraggles are peering out from under the deck. And if that was not enough, my folks read each of the books on tape so the kids could have bedtime stories when we went home to Minnesota. You haven't heard anything until you've heard my mother snorting while not laughing every time my dad yelled, "Screech! Screech!"
And that's what I feel like right now. Only there's no snorting and no laughing.
ALL THE KING'S MEN happens to be on while I'm writing this. It's all so terribly familiar for all the wrong reasons.
Jack Burden, the journalist/aide to Governor Stark and narrator of the film, says this as articles of impeachment are being gathered:
The chips were down and Willie knew it. He was fighting for his life. He roared across the state making speech after speech and all of them adding up to the same thing. It's not me they're after, it's you. Willie hollered FOUL. Willie knew if you hollered long enough, hard enough, and loud enough, people begin to believe you. Just in case they didn't, he organized spontaneous demonstrations....In case anyone hollered back, he organized spontaneous slugging. Willie pulled every trick he ever knew - and added a few more...And always the trail led to one place, to Burden's Landing and the Judge.
But here's the thing, that movie is absolutely prescient. Not to mention scary. Scary because this politics of narcissism is not new; in fact it's as old as politics.
Right now, lots of people are filing suits attempting to prevent President Screeech from allowing the shadow president, Elon Musk, to gut the government while bypassing laws, the rules of law, settled law, and, shits and giggles, congress to make it happen. Enough federal judges are putting the brakes on, but will it be enough to save thousands of jobs and projects? Yes, the government needs slimming, but not at the expense of medical research, the environment, and human dignity.
There's an interesting concept. The Preamble to the Constitution actually recognizes the need for dignity. I'm not going to talk about slavery or indigenous people in this paragraph, just the idea that the writers recognized, in their own, rudimentary way, the need for human dignity. Here's what it says:
The Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The general welfare: if you ask me, that's the phrase that pays. No matter how you feel about bloat, research, education, or food inspections, this Constitution recognizes that a government is about people first. A government is there to insure the people living within its borders are safe. Abraham Lincoln takes it a step further when he delivers the Gettysburg Address, saying:
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I don't think he had oligarchs and narcissists in mind when he wrote that. Quite the opposite, frankly; he was stating that the health and well-being of this nation rests in the hands of its population as a whole. When Elon Muskrat met with India's Prime Minister, the reason for the meeting...populated by the entire Muskrat family including small children (we'll talk about that in a moment)...was unclear. A reporter asked if the president knew why they were meeting, and his response was very problematic. He says, "They met. I assume he wants to do business in India."
This was a problem in the first term, but clearly, no one has bothered to look at the Emoluments Clause which applies to all federal employees from the president down. Wanna know what it says, in case you forgot? From the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
If you're unsure about that very old-fashioned word emolument, it refers to a payment or stipend given to an individual. Basically, the clause is meant to prevent foreign influence applied to a member of the government which, in turn, might cause favorable treatment of the presenter. In short, it's there to keep government employees from taking bribes in various forms...like government contracts to their own firms, or favorable trading deals with foreign nations that are not available to other manufacturers, thereby giving a government worker an unfair advantage. In short, according to the Constitution you are not supposed to be lining your own pockets from governmental sources.
I did want to talk for a moment about that meeting with Modi, Mrs. Muskrat and the little Muskrats. Who brings their children to a meeting like this?
In case you don't know, or haven't read much about eastern hemisphere traditions, this was your basic attempt at dick-waving. Remember the king in The King and I telling Anna he had 67 children? See all these kids? See how fertile I am? I have 12 kids...twins and triplets, too! I am a great man because I have impregnated many women!
Really?
Okay. That's enough. I know some of this is really petty nonsense, but like a snowball rolling down a hill, it accumulates more snow, picks up speed, and runs roughshod over anything in its way. Right now, that's our government. For me, the really scary part is that the men and women we elected to protect and defend the Constitution are not doing that part of their job. Thousands of workers will be entering the jobless market if the White House can carry out their plans. The dominos of food, shelter, and available medical care will fall. Inevitably, people will go hungry. Medication will be unavailable. Families will be unable to afford fuel and people will freeze, especially the older citizens who are on a fixed income. The draconian actions will have repercussions and no one seems to be planning for that.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Whenever I hear either of those two charming 40+ year old children muttering,
Let's take a
quick look at some of this past week's insane statements made by President
Felon. It started during the visit of Bibi Netanyahu, a similarly crazy world
leader. The guy is finally making progress getting hostages released, yet he's
jumping right up onto the lunatic bandwagon. One would think he would've told
President Felon not to announce until the hostages are back. But, y'know,
diarrhea of the mouth is a terrible thing to waste. From press conference on February 4th transcript:
Well, I think Jordan and Egypt will. I know they’ve spoken about it with you, and they say they’re not going to accept them. I say they will, but I think other countries will accept also. I think that Gaza maybe is a demolition site right now. If you look at Gaza, it’s all, I mean, it’s hardly a building standing, and the ones that are, are going to collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now, and I think we need another location. I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.
You look over the decades — it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years. It’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes, and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza. And right now, you have in Gaza a very dangerous situation in terms of explosives all over the place, in terms of tunnels that nobody knows who’s in the tunnel. The whole thing is a mess.
And I think that if we can resettle — and I believe we can do it — in areas where the leaders currently say no. I mean, I’ve been saying that with Mexico, having to do with the border and all the things, and you saw what happened: 10,000 soldiers, and they’re going to do a good job. I really believe that. And I believe Canada is going to do a good job also. They said the same thing, and then they did something much different than what you were hearing.
This is a very, very difficult situation, but we’re going to get it solved. I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell. They live like, you’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back — and I believe this strongly — is because they have no alternative. What’s the alternative? Go where? There’s no other alternative. If they had an alternative, they’d much rather not go back to Gaza, and live in a beautiful alternative that’s safe.
The circus train continues down that track on February 10th as reported by CBS News:
"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different.
"Just can't go back. If you go back, it's gonna end up the same way it has for a hundred years. I'm hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. With the same goal in mind, my administration has been moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild American strength throughout the region and we've really done that.
Trump also said he isn’t ruling out deploying U.S. troops to support reconstruction of Gaza. He envisions “long-term” U.S. ownership of a redevelopment of the territory.
Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it in “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier that was set to air on Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland.
“We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”
Needless to say, Hamas has called a halt to the ceases-fire and hostage release. They claim Israel broke the cease-fire, but anyone with half a functioning brain knows they are not going to deal with anyone planning ethnic cleansing in their own territory and a permanent ban on returning to their homeland.
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID ANYONE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?????? Did anyone NOT see this coming?
And if that was not enough unmitigated joy for one blog, President Felon had to add this invitation to a bigger war:
Forgive me for being a total pessimist here, but Feckless Tangerine just threw down a gauntlet that put Israel smack dab in the crosshairs of Iran. Is he trying to start a nuclear war with Iran? Telling Hamas he's gonna release the kraken on them if they don't pony up the hostages? Oh, yeah, Hamas will respond real well to that.
As for the Mideast Riviera, anyone been to Atlantic City lately? He doesn't have a good track record with high end anything, much less resorts, casinos, or country clubs. And that line about "No big money spent?" Can you say Mexican border wall, boys and girls?
The really scary part is that no one in Congress seems to be noticing that our duly elected president is completely unhinged. And I hear Putin is waiting for details before passing judgment on this grand plan. I mean he is, after all, involved with a similar situation with Ukraine, right? Birds of a feather.....
For the record, none of this is funny.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Since Jordan and Egypt's are unwilling...with good reason....
to entertain the idea of resettling Palestinians with them,
how about we ship 'em all to Greenland and the new 51st state, Canadia?
Plenty o'room out on the tundra to resettle an entire population.
May as well make some money on rents and income taxes, eh?
One would think it's a pretty safe bet to say President Felon doesn't actually want to be president. Oh, he does like dressing up, making speeches, gyrating spastically on stage while appearing to be jerking off a couple of goats, and playing at attending bigly meetings as president, but he has no interest whatsoever in doing the actual work of being the president.
Sure, there have been some real dandies in the Oval Office, but to date, the only "secret" president was Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow who stroked out while in office. She controlled his calendar, his visitors, the documents he viewed, the news he heard, and most importantly, keeping his diminishing condition secret until after he finished his second term in 1921.But their circumstance is nothing akin to what we are facing now.
President Felon loves the spotlight. He loves the sound of his own voice especially when it's making grandiose speeches lacking any resemblance to the truth. His speeches are ridiculous at best, and totally indefensible. Since he is lacking the ability to think cogently, in this second term, he has surrounded himself with a confederacy of dunces.
Unlike Jonathan Swift's proposition, that when a genius appears, a confederacy of dunces will set out to conspire to destroy him, in the case, the dunce recognizes he is inept and incapable of fulfilling the role to which he was elected, so to bolster his madness, he has surrounded himself with uninformed, uneducated, and unkind pols who view this as a rich opportunity to enrich their own pockets. Drunks, sexual predators, and unbelievably unqualified cronies are occupying strategic positions in the administration without a clue as to what these positions do or how to manage a team of that size. Regardless, they are not given their marching orders by President Felon anyway, they're getting them from the real president, the secret one, Elon Muskrat.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reddit/BestDelegate/X/Instagram
He is dismantling whole sections of government with nothing in its place. Today he announced he's ready to get rid of the education department. He's suing a bunch of corporations because they're not buying ad space on his media conglomerate. He demanded and has gotten access to the Department of the Treasury's payment system. This is basically the government's checkbook and the team he has assembled, The DOGE Disruptors, to work on this are college kids, some graduated, all under 26 years old, with no government experience or, for that matter, ANY experience. Take a look for yourself.
WIRED Magazine identified the undergrads as Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, a senior at Harvard. The graduates are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley
I wanna know if their parents have even given them control of their checkbooks,
Let me make this perfectly clear: ELON MUSK IS NOT AN ELECTED OFFICIAL OF THE UNITED STATES. I'll repeat that in case you missed it the first time:
ELON MUSK IS NOT AN ELECTED OFFICIAL OF THE UNITED STATES
We have not so much as voted for this guy for dog catcher. He is not elected to any office at any level of either the state or federal, yet he is running the presidency right now.
Go google "Statements by Elon Musk" and read how they are usually framed.....Musk gives the order and President Felon writes the executive order. Face it, President Felon is not cogent enough, just based on his speeches and off-prompter remarks...to think this shit up.
Musk, with the backing of the bro-tocracy, is pulling the strings. And none of these guys are thinking ahead with anything other than their own wallets. They are not considering the dominos that will fall as a result of the slash-n-burn governance. Here are a few examples looking down the road:
All those people being furloughed or outright fired? Will they all get the packages promised, or will that blow up the national debt? Will they get unemployment as well, or when the package abruptly ends? These now unemployed government workers will certainly impact the jobless numbers.
Where are all these newly unemployed people gonna get health care? President Felon never had a plan...only an idea that he was gonna tell us about next week....or the week after that....or maybe next month.
If there is no negotiation on drug prices, how are people gonna afford their most common meds...or is the bro-tocracy investing in funeral homes for long term financial security?
Fire all the inspectors and how are food safety alerts gonna be issued if there are no inspectors or offices to handle those issues?
They initially told the air traffic controllers to take the buyouts, but it seems they figure out we can't afford to lose anyone more air traffic controls. That was a plus.
Elon convinced the executive branch to kill USAID, and with it, millions of people who depend on US foreign aid to survive, opening the door to Russia, Iran, China, and others to fill that void and gain access to places they never had.
Clinical cancer trials and the NIH? We don' need no stinkin' clinical trials. Besides, only rich people who can pay for trials should get them. The side benefit is if lots of people die, they don't get social security, right?
And let's not forget the announced dismantling of the Department of Education. We, the People will become our very own third world country.
Look, I'm not suggesting there is no room for slimming down some departments or morphing them into something more useful for the 21st century. But these guys offer no remedies, no plans, no substitutions.
Did anyone else notice there are almost no women in Muskrat's minions?
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: We the People elected these clowns and have gotten the government we deserve. Maybe this is a grand WAKEUP in call propitiously times. Maybe our fragile democracy has to rupture before it can repair itself.
Right now, my focus is on the midterms...assuming we have them. If we don't, that's a whole 'nother bag o'hammers.
ADDENDDUM:
I would urge all my readers to read today's Heather Cox Richardson's LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN . Her analysis of what is happening to the Constitution is spot on.
