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

What if there was a genocide and nobody cared?

In recent days, there has been an increase in the news coming out of Darfur. You remember Darfur, dontcha? Sudan? Civil war? Warring factions? Mass murder? That sort of thing. 

In recent weeks, the civil war in Sudan and Darfur has heated up again. It's important to understand who the combatants are. The New York Times explained some of this, along with a comparative photo of El Geneina, the area currently under siege. 

Longstanding ethnic tensions have underpinned the violence in Darfur for decades. Just as the Arab-dominated Janjaweed carried out a genocidal campaign against ethnic Africans in the 2000s, the Rapid Support Forces [RSF] are targeting them now, with international warnings that a genocide could happen again

The Janjaweed have their own agenda. The RSF is pretty much the new and improved version of the original:

...an Arab nomad militia group from the Sahel region^[6] that operates in Sudan, particularly in Darfur, and eastern Chad.^[7] They have also been speculated to be active in Yemen.^[8] According to the United Nations definition, Janjaweed membership consists of Arab nomad tribes from the Sahel, the core of whom are from the Abbala Arabs, traditionally employed in camel herding, with significant recruitment from the Baggara.

Janjaweed nomads were initially at odds with Darfur's sedentary population due to competition over natural grazing grounds and farmland, a conflict exacerbated by dwindling rainfall and drought. The Janjaweed were a major player in the Darfur conflict between 2003 and 2020, in opposition to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement rebels.^[9][10] In 2013, the Rapid Support Forces grew out of the Janjaweed.^[11]

[I'm leaving the Wiki links in to make it easier for you, gentle reader.]

On September 9th, the Secretary of State Colin Powell advised the Senate a genocide occurring in Sudan. That position was rejected by the Sudanese government, and that rejection of genocide was echoed by the UN, The African Union and the European Union.

The conflict in Darfur is not new; in fact, it's been going on since about 2003. It's important to note that both sides of the conflict are primarily Sunni Muslim. NOT all, but most.  According to Wikipedia:

The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the War in Darfur and the ongoing War in Sudan (2023–present) in Darfur.^[2][3] The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.^[4]

As it is being observed, some have likened the new attacks as a Rwanda-like genocide of 1994. From History.com:

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, also known as 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genocide spread throughout the country with shocking speed and brutality, as ordinary citizens were incited by local officials and the Hutu Power government to take up arms against their neighbors. By the time the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front gained control of the country through a military offensive in early July, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were dead and 2 million refugees (mainly Hutus) fled Rwanda, exacerbating what had already become a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

You remember Rwanda, dontcha? You know....The 100-Day genocide? Estimated 800,000 dead? Mass murder by machete? The film HOTEL RWANDA ? These days, it appears the Hutus and the Tutsis live side by side in peace. Who'da thunk?

The kidnapped girls

Not exactly genocide, but important to notice how most of the world was silent about the kidnapping and sexual slavery of the 276 Chibok girls of Nigeria who were taken from their Christian school in April, 2014 by Boko Haram. 57 escaped, but it's thought that 130 of the girls, ranging in age from 16-18, were sold to men as wives. Many bore children and when  some managed to return, they were rejected by their families. Where is the outrage for them?

So, two things come to mind as I read and re-read these articles. 

1: IF a gang comes into your territory with the intent to kill anyone and everyone encountered, does that mean you get to fight back? Or, even though they came to kill, are you still obliged to provide them with food, water, and utilities when they return to their base with hostages? How about safe passage in and out of your country while releasing their comrades-in-arms from your jails? Maybe we should return their guns?

2) Since the genocides in Africa have been going on for decades and certainly are not news, where are the protests, encampments, demands for cease-fire, and threats of violence against one side or the other on college campuses and city centers? Doesn't anyone care about the children of Darfur? Where is all that righteous anger? The passion? the requirement to remove all Sudanese from the United States? Where were the college demonstrations on behalf of the Nigerian school girls? 

The demonstrations we see in the US are pro-terrorist, anti-Jewish attempts to finish what Europe started. Antisemitism in Europe did not begin with Germany. Jews have been singled out as enemies of the state in damn near every European country because we have the temerity to BE Jews. Now, we are attacked in the streets because we refuse to cower before our attackers. 

Watch the video below, released today in Israel, and tell me why we don't get to defend ourselves from this brutality? What other nation, after being attacked, is expected to supply their attacker with food, water, and electricity, as if we were responsible for this war?

The families of HershGoldberg-Polin, Or Levy, and Eliya Cohen have authorised the release ofpreviously unseen video showing the moments their loved ones were abducted by Hamas on 7.10. 

The three Israelis fled from the Nova music festival and hid in a field shelter with other partygoers when terrorists threw grenades and fired inside. Hersh, Or, and Eliya survived and were abducted to Gaza where they’re still held to this day.

There is a war going on. No one disputes that. No one disputes that what is happening in Gaza is a humanitarian tragedy. But the world seems perfectly fine with ignoring the genesis of that tragedy. Calling Israel the aggressor and Gaza the victim is really spin. Israel was minding its own business on that day. Most people in Gaza claim they were, too,  but when the marauders return with their hostage victims, somehow they managed to pour into the streets to celebrate the brutalization of civilians. Somehow, they managed to take the hostages into their homes and their dungeons where they were tortured and the women raped. 

And somehow, all those protesters and campus chanters think that is okay. Well, it's not.

We have already established that I am not a big fan of Netanyahu or the Israeli government at the moment, but I believe the State of Israel has the right...nay, the DUTY... to defend its citizens from further terrorist attacks. When Hamas announces they plan to repeat and repeat and repeat October 7th until every Jew is dead, there is no reason not to believe them.  

Oh, no...they never said that. Guess again. And listen for yourself:

Hamas Official Ghazi Hamad: We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Again Until Israel Is Annihilated

Y'know what? People are gonna believe what they want to believe; truth has nothing to do with it these days. Everyone needs someone to hate, someone to blame. It's so much easier than taking responsibility for one's own actions. So much easier to hate than to feel for people who have lived under constant missile barrages for 20 years. So much easier to shout slogans you don't understand than to recognize base hatred of the other you claim to love when you're the one screaming how you are the other and need to been recognized as such in and out of your safe space.

Neither Israelis of all kinds nor Jews of any kind have safe spaces any more. We are all out in the open; we refuse to bow down to your cowardice, and we will not abandon being Jews because you're envious of our tenacity. 

Look, our entire history consists of they tried to kill, they didn't, let's eat. 

Remind yourself of that the next time you have a bagel.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week 

Ever wonder why bagels are "Jewish?"

They were created in 17th century Poland 

because Polish law prevented Jews from baking bread. 

The bakers circumvented this by boiling the dough before baking.

Photo by Ryan DaRin on Unsplash

Bonus: US Question of the Week

Did you know a felon can neither enlist nor serve in the military?

Ergo, how can the Commander-In-Chief be a convicted felon?

Just thought I'd mention that.

What They Really, Really Want

I've gotten into the habit of ringing in the New Year on my own. That's not to say I wouldn't accept an invitation to go out, but to date, I've not gotten a better offer than me making something I like to eat, drinking something I like to drink, and reading. I've rarely noticed the ball drop since I left the retail world of china, crystal, and silver when I would watch the Waterford ball drop over Times Square...but that was because I knew the designer of all those crystals triangles and counted Jim O'Leary (z"l) as a good friend. And yes, I do think of him on New Year's Eve as I drink my beverage of choice from a Waterford stem. It's a fine tradition and unless something really enticing comes along, I'm gonna stick with it. 

This year, however, came with a whole lotta thinking about the state of the world, and the State of Israel, and not much celebrating. It's pretty well known that I detest Bibi, that I think he's the harbinger of the destruction of the State of Israel, at least in the court of public opinion....not that it matters much... and he has reduced the moral imperative to a mere shadow of its former self.  I am not so naive as to deny there is a certain mythology within the creation of the State of Israel...from both sides. People will construct their own truth based on what they want that truth to be, whether or not it's fact-based.

As revisionist as Israeli history can be, it doesn't hold a candle to the unmitigated fantasy the Palestinian propaganda machine is pumping out. I'm not going to rehash that here,  but let's succinctly say Palestine was NEVER its own country, Jesus was NOT a Palestinian...he was a Jew from the Kingdom of Judea, and the Temple Mount is called that because that's where the original Temple stood in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Kingdom 600 years BEFORE the creation of Islam. This is not opinion; this is historically accurate. Not that facts ever get in the way of good propaganda. 

So, here's how I ended the year in thought:

All those people shouting From the river to the sea and Free Palestine, may not fully understand that Palestine would be Judenrein...Jew Free. IF it's supposed to be Jew Free, what happens to the Israelis that already live there? Do they 

1. move to Brooklyn? 
2. Move to the middle of Australia? 
3. Move to Africa?
4. Or, as Hamas and the other radical jihadists propose, driven into the sea to die?

If option 4 is on the table, isn't that the same kind of genocide all those protesters are railing about? Or is it GOIIAJ.....genocide's okay if it's a Jew?

I've also been listening carefully to the pro-Palestinian pundits on the talk shows. I read what they say in the media. I hear their podcasts....but I never hear an endgame for what happens to the Israeli population....Jews, Arabs, Christians, Druze, Bedouins, or Bahá’ís...after Palestine is free from the river to the sea. 

Approximately 9 million people live in Israel. Where do they go?

And what's worse, NO ONE seems to be asking that question on the chat shows or even in the press. I do think that they are:

1. Scared of the question
2. Scared of the answer
3. Scared to ask the question
4. Scared to admit their interviewee really is advocating genocide

I don't think:

1. Hamas, nor Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or Iran have a viable endgame in place
2. no part of their endgame includes Jews remaining alive
3. Hamas wants this war to end at all lest they no longer be thought of as victims. 
4. this war is going to end any time soon, so long as Bibi is in power.

As long as the war does go on, it's increasingly difficult to fire Bibi as PM. But that also plays into the Gazans-as-victims playbook, relieving them of any and all responsibility for the massive death toll. The blame falls squarely on Bibi with no other factor in consideration. Never mind that human shields are procured, designated, and deployed rather successfully by Hamas. Instead of bemoaning the result of human shielding, they are called martyrs. Who doesn't want to be a martyr and go straight to heaven?

The next time you watch a chat show or read an "in-depth" article or listen to a podcast, ask yourself, What do they really want? If you're being honest with yourself, the answer can be terrifying. 

Just sayin'.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the New Year

Confronted by pro-Palestine activists?

Engage in conversation if at all possible.

The question to sneak in is:

If Palestine is free from the river to the sea, 

where do the Israelis go?

Then, either leave a comment here or

 send an email with their response.

Inquiring minds want to know.