Things That Pissed Me Off This Week

Let me just start with a strong suggestion that if you've not seen the season premiere of South Park, I urge you to stream it any way you can. Right now, Season 27 Episode 1 is available to view on Comedy Central.  I don't have to say anything about it...just watch it and make your own decision. For the record, I am not not a South Park fan, but I will make an exception for this.

If you've never heard of the British think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, you might want to check them out. Especially Andrew Fox who writes on the Middle East. His paper with Salo Aizenberg, Hamas's Human Shield Strategy in Gaza is a superb analysis on the use of civilian populations and tunnels as a defensive strategy. Fox has spent significant time in Gaza and has seen the reality up close. 

He is worth listening to. Recently, Fox delivered a lecture on the rules of war which is, quite frankly, a must hear. The speech was delivered at the Nordic Israel Congress in Oslo last May and although the intro in Norwegian, the speech is in English. It is, to say the least, enlightening. Mr. Fox is a former office in the British Army and is neither Israeli nor Jewish. Go grab a cuppa something and listening to him talk about war. He talks about responsibility, something no one wants to talk about in regards to Hamas....and that pisses me off BIG TIME. 

How the world has managed to accept Hamas as the victims in this war is beyond me. I keep coming back to the expression that the only good Jew is a dead Jew. We, the Jewish People, are blamed, excoriated, persecuted, and massacred until the only way to survive is to fight back....and then we are blamed for fighting back. 

And the hostages are still hostages.

You gotta hand it to Hamas; they have the best PR machine ever assembled. They have deceived the entire world. But then again, they're fighting Jews so the only way they can win is with controlling the PR narrative. At that, they are champs. 

Meanwhile, back in the states, between the weather and the mass shootings, it's been a really shitty week. And it's only Monday night. Three today alone, including a guy who walked into a midtown Manhattan skyscraper with a rifle and started shooting.

So far in July, there have been 65 mass shootings. 

Here are the stats: 

Total shootings: 296 – 

Shootings per day: 1.42 – 

Killed: 334 – 

Wounded: 1228 

Go. Look for yourself. Oh, and most are Shooter Unknown. 

These are devastating statistics. But wanna know what really pisses me off? 

No one is talking about gun violence. It's as though it has been shoved to the side.

And all those pro-life people? They're basically full of merde because if they were really pro-LIFE and not simply pro-birth, this would be a totally hot button issue for them. Yet, they remain silent. Maybe because their mouths are continually full of shit.

And the big story about Feckless President Felon is that he was caught cheating on his own golf course. Just watch the caddie on the right.

[Note: Since I posted this video, there has been speculation that it is fake. It very well may be, but on the other hand there are a lot of reasonable news sources that used it. If it proves to be fake, I will report accordingly.]

Of course, just as he cheats at golf, he cheats We, the Taxpayers by charging us for his use of his club for presidential meetings. As per The Washington Post:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Monday morning with the president near the fairway to hash out a trade deal and discuss the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. On Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the contours of a trade deal at the private club.

The meetings provide the latest example of how Trump uses his presidential power not only to govern, but also to help his family businesses. The engagements provide publicity for the courses and funnel taxpayer funds to the Trump Organization, as the U.S. government pays to lodge staff and security details at the properties.

Can you say emoluments clause, boys and girls? It's worth a moment to read the Brennan Center for Justice's explanation of the emoluments clause. Even if President Cheater is skirting the letter of the law, this is what We, the Jewish People would call Marit Ayin: 

the concept in Jewish law which prohibits certain actions which might appear to be in violation of Jewish law, even if they are actually permissible, in order to prevent onlookers from drawing false conclusions.

Appearances do matter. Even if a significant portion of this country refuses to recognize that. On the other hand, it could be that he believes the law no longer applies to him personally since SCOTUS saw fit to expand his powers.  And that pisses me off. 

I would continue my screed, but the thunder-bumpers are now overhead and the lights have flickered. I wanna get this out the door now.

The weather-dweebs promise the violent weather siege will end tomorrow. I can only hope.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

When the weather-dweebs are using words like golf-ball hail

and straight line winds,

it's okay to bring your fancy-shmancy pots 

into the house as a protective measure.

I did. 

We have comedians in Russia...

Yakov Smirnoff has long been a favorite comedian in this household. His signature line might be What  a country! ....my dad's favorite...but mine is:

Many people are surprised to hear that we have comedians in Russia, but they are there. They are dead, but they are there.

All week my thoughts have drifted back to the Soviet entertainers like Smirnoff or movies like Moscow on the Hudson and White Nights. Comedy in today's Russia isn't much safer than it was under the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Dolgopolov had to flee Moscow after he said, along with a few other pointed remarks,

Our population has split into two camps. On one hand there are those who support Putin; on the other, there are those who can read, write, and reach logical conclusions.

Last Monday, July 15th, Stephen Colbert referred to President Felon's settlement with CBS/Paramount thusly:

As someone who has alway been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help.  

Paramount knows they could have easily fought it because in their own words 'the lawsuit was completely without merit.' And keep in mind, Paramount produced Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, they know 'completely without merit.' 

You may take our money, but you will never take our dignity. You may, however, purchase our dignity for the low, low price of $16m. We need the cash."I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe because this all comes as Paramount's owners are trying to get Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.

Two days later,  on July 17th, CSB announced the cancellation of Late Night with Stephen Colbert at the end of May, 2026....but only for financial reasons. 

Sure. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. 

Of course, President Felon celebrated this turn of events with a post on NoTruth Social:

This week public broadcasting took major hits on both the radio and television side. 

What objections could the White House possibly have to classical music on the radio or in depth science programs and British dramas on tv? I mean, how can you not like Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer? And who takes the biggest hit here?

The smallest, least funded radio and tv stations will be hit the hardest. Blue Ridge Public Radio continued to broadcast after power, internet, and cell service was out for a week in North Carolina, becoming the only source of news and weather for a large part of that state during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. KSUT in Colorado services remote communities where internet and cell service is unreliable. In parts of Alaska, public radio is the only source of weather reporting in places where weather can kill. Those stations, and stations like that will be hard pressed to continue operations. Minnesota Public Radio's classical station provides classical programs to stations across America and the globe. Someone has to pay for those programs and with MPR losing millions of dollars in federal support funds, those programs will disappear with no one to buy them.

According to MPR News 16 Minnesota public broadcasting outlets stand to lose more than $17 million in funding:

This includes funding for MPR News, the Current, YourClassical, regional PBS stations, north Minneapolis’ KMOJ, Jazz 88, KFAI and small radio stations transmitting from across the state. 

American Public Media President Chandra Kavati said between the federal and state cuts APMG, MPR’s parent company, is facing a $6 million deficit for this fiscal year. 

This administration has also cut funds for Voice of America, with Kari Lake declaring it ideologically biased. White House VOA bureau chief said:

It would be comical if it weren't so tragic. My colleagues and I are not just losing our jobs and journalism, we are abandoning the 360 million people around the world who depend on us weekly for independent news and abdicating the United States' voice and influence in the world.

As kids we used to joke about state run media and how that could never happen here because of freedoms guaranteed in the constitution. Like most Americans, we know Colbert won't be the last to be disappeared. Jimmy Kimmel will probably be next, or Jon Stewart will.  I imagine someone in the bowels of the White House is already working on how to revoke John Oliver's newly minted citizenship papers. A new form of blacklisting,eh?

Back in the 1950s, McCarthyism lacked the technology we have today; it relied on rats, informers, and stoolies to put together their blacklist. In hindsight, no one thinks what McCarthy and his cronies did was good, right, or just. We still talk about it as a nightmare of political censorship. Are we heading down that same path now? The current administration is doing a great job of whitewashing American history as it erases Blacks and Latinos from libraries, museums, and other institutions. Joe McCarthy would be proud. 

The deal cut by CBS/Paramount to merge with Skydance is nothing  but a harbinger of what's to come. They paid off President Felon and have attempted to silence one of the most influential voices in the United States. Sure. he's a comedic actor, but so was Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Will going after Kimmel, Oliver, and Seth Meyers be enough to make We, the People, understand that this is real time? And speaking of Real Time, despite his wishy-washy stand with MAGA, he won't escape unscathed. When all news programs are clones of FOX News, will that be enough?

Interestingly, the Jeffrey Epstein debacle has shown MAGA has an unhappy underside. If President Felon is not on the client list...if there even is one....who is being protected? Is it even remotely possible that parts of the base are glancing behind the curtain?  Or are these unhappy few looking to establish an even more conservative regime?

Everyone is writing about the late night talk hosts, but what's got me up at night is looking beyond that. Purges at other networks and news organs are not far behind. In 1976, NETWORK hit the big screen and Paddy Chayefsky's character, Howard Beale, brilliantly excoriated his audience:

Peter Finch as Howard Beale

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job, the dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter, punks are running wild in the streets, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air's unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit and watch our tee-vees while some local newscaster tells us today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We all know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like every thing's going crazy. So we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we live in gets smaller, and all we ask is please, at least leave us alone in our own living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my tee-vee and my hair-dryer and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything, just leave us alone. Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad.  

I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to write your congressmen. Because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the defense budget and the Russians and crime in the street. All I know is first you got to get mad. You've got to say: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more. I'm a human being, goddammit. My life has value." So I want you to get up now. I want you to get out of your chairs and go to the window. Right now. I want you to go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell. I want you to yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" became an anthem for the ages. You still hear it referenced, applied to a whole lotta stuff. But that was not the most important thing Howard Beale said. That honor goes to:

The world is a business; it has been since man crawled out of the slime."

That's the excuse they are using on Stephen Colbert. It's the same excuse this regime is using to kill scientific studies in medicine, the environment, agriculture, and food safety. The human has no place in this equation. It's about profit, not people. It's not about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or even the Emancipation Proclamation. It's budget cuts to maximize profit and if people die along the way, well, everyone's gotta go sometime. 

What's happening in America is the harvesting of hope, of dreams, of the belief that one generation can do better than the next...and tossing it all into a trash compactor. RIght now, America is about creating an underclass that cannot afford food, shelter, or health care while servicing the rich. 

Money buys manipulation of the media. Just ask the Emir of Qatar how much he spent to make Hamas look like heros to the west. Lester Holt is missing from NBC Nightly News, Norah O'Donnell has been replaced at CBS. This is not coincidental. Just keep your eye on 60 Minutes; President Felon already has a hard on for that group. 

And when all of your news spins right, and anyone who doesn't fall into line is disappeared, ask yourself why. Ask yourself why you didn't notice while it was happening. 

Go ahead; close your curtains then tell yourself you just didn't know. That's what the good Germans did.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

On July 19th, The Wifely Person Speaks

turned 15 years old. 

That's 786 episodes, about 420,000 page hits.

Whaddya think?

We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident....Sorta

David Corenswet

Sitting in a movie house, munching popcorn, and wearing 3-D glasses is a perfectly acceptable way to spend an afternoon. The weather was hot and muggy with lousy air quality due to wildfires in Canada so sub-zero temp air conditioning was a plus. SUPERMAN was okay. I really do think Christopher Reeve was the best Superman ever, although Henry Cavill is fun to look at. This new guy who everyone is so happy is Jewish, David Corenswet, may have a Jewish father, but his own admission, does not necessarily track as Jewish having stated:

If I had any religious upbringing, it was probably a Buddhist upbringing.... Not in a religious sense at all, basically just mindfulness meditation. My family went to a mindfulness retreat center every summer for a week.

Not that it matters. But his "Jewishness," like that of Spielberg's Fievel the Christmas Mouse, should only be regarded as a tangential curiosity, not as some claim to Jewish presence in a film, especially one that is somewhat regarded as anti-Israel, despite the refugee origins of the superhero. Never mind Shuster and Siegel gave Superman the Kryptonian name Kal El...which happens to mean Voice of G-d in Hebrew... let's all dump him in the spin-cycle and make him into whatever. He's fiction, people. 

Still, cultural appropriation is cultural appropriation.

As for the movie, the first half was painfully slow, but the second half moved like gangbusters and was pretty exciting. The absolute best line in the entire movie was about the garage door. I won't tell you what it is, but I'm still laughing at the thought. I had the exact same response in my head before the actor said it. 

So, in the twisted way my mind works, I thought a lot about the messages sent in Superman comics, tv shows, and films over the years. There were the anti-racism posters from the 50's, reissued multiple times with visual adjustments to keep it fresh. Superman himself was a refugee, in fact, an undocumented alien who arrived in a spaceship. Would the government at the time deport him? This one would. As American as Superman is, he is not. Does anyone take that into account? I'm guessing not.

And that got me thinking about national origins. There is a logical leap somewhere in there. Stick with me. I'll get to it. 

I was listening to a podcast about British colonialism and whether or not Israel was a colonial entity as a result of the partition. Unlike the Europeans who came to the "New World," we have tons of documentation tying us to Israel and the land itself. That fracture, in turn, got me thinking about the Declaration of Independence. I hadn't read it in a while, so I pulled it up. After the breath was sucked from my body, I realized what I was reading was not an updated version of public grievances against our government, it was the list submitted to King George III. Written by the "Committee of Five, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, it is commonly believed Jefferson wrote the first draft. There are no surviving notes or documents that describe the actual process. 

Everyone knows how it starts:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

But when was the last time you read the list of grievances that led to the separation of the 13 Colonies from the Crown? Do that now.

He [King George III] has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.  

 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

I had to double check that I wasn't reading some kind of revised version. I was not. Too many statements on that list just sounded too familiar. How do we break away from that which has become abhorrent ? Perhaps not now,  but when health care fails,  when crops rot in the fields, when classrooms no longer teach science and history but replace them with creationism and revisionism will the vox populi demand action? A change? A revolution?

As we all watch the dominos fall, and they are falling right now especially in agriculture, what action is the wisest course? Will the have-nots settle on a scapegoat like Jews or Mexicans to vent their collective spleen? Or will they finally demand the government respond to the needs of all the people? 

We, the People, broke away from England because the needs of the citizens were simply unmet, they were ignored and denied. Right now, we have a government that is actively working to deny food and healthcare to the lower strata of the population. Insurance companies, medical institutions, and universities all put profit ahead of outcome. I'm not suggesting socialism or, G-d forbid communism, I'm thinking the profit margins are much too deep. Yes, reinvest in research et al, but when is too much profit too much?

The fundamental issues of the 18th century have not changed. The economic pillage of our America now is no different from what King George III and Parliament did to us then. The only difference now is that the enemy is not across the sea....it is us...and it's not a good thing.

Meanwhile, back at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson made the most interesting observation about a paragraph that spoke ill of the English people and was subsequently removed.

The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offense. 

That's a class act. As repugnant as the idea that we had any friends at all, the committee still chose not to piss them off unnecessarily. Our current leaders could learn from this. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Keep your eye on the availability 

of fresh produce in the coming weeks. 

It's likely to become scarcer and increasingly expensive.

There are no adequate words.

photo:Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP

I wrote a complete episode on the bull-hockey email I received from the Social Security Administration. It's no longer relevant. I cannot stop seeing the Camp Mystic signs in my head. I cannot wrap my head around what happened in Texas. Mostly I want to throw up. 

I spent a summer as a sleepaway camp counselor. I had a cabin full of Debs...the youngest campers. We had a week of torrential rains that summer, and even moved the kids to the dining hall one night because our roof was leaky, but never did a wall of water crash down on us. I cannot help but think of the counselors trying to save their kids. I want to retch thinking of the kids trying to save each other. 

And my heart stops when I think about my granddaughter who will leave for camp on Monday.

Did the National Weather Service fail to issue appropriate warnings to the area that floods were imminent? Were recent cuts responsible for their inefficiency? Over 600 NWS workers were removed from their posts, including senior meteorologists, and, as a result, field offices were closed, many were no longer operating 24 hours a day, and concerns about forecasting and dissemination of information were already at the forefront as the US heads into hurricane season. 

There will be lots of finger pointing. President Felon intimated his predecessor was responsible for the National Weather Service's shortcomings

I’ll tell you: You look at that water situation, that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either; I would just say this is a hundred-year catastrophe, and it’s just so horrible to watch.

But the truth is sadder than that. There were no sirens on the ground in Kerr County. Cell service was spotty. Unless you had a weather radio, you probably did not recognize the danger you were in. 

The NWS did issue warnings in a timely and detailed manner. But it was in the middle of the night with no human follow up as there might have been in a more populated area.

The first warning was sent on July 3rd to Bandera County only at 11:53 p.m. Kerr County, the location of Camp Mystic, was not included in that initial bulletin.

JULY 4Th

• 1:15 a.m: the first warnings issued for Kerr and Bandera Counties 
• 3:35 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to the two counties, but in the warning language it adds: "It is important to know where you are relative to streams, rivers, or creeks which can become killers in heavy rains. Campers and hikers should avoid streams or creeks."  
• 4:03 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties - This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!" and "Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.

• 5:34 a.m., Kerr County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County, which includes Camp Mystic. "This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for the Guadalupe River from Hunt through Kerrvile and Center Point. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!" and "Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation." 

• 6:06 a.m., Bandera and Kerr Counties — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to both counties. It reads in part: "Local law enforcement reported numerous low water crossings flooded and major flooding occurring along the Guadalupe River with rescues taking place. Between 5 and 10 inches of rain have fallen. Additional rainfall amounts up to 2 inches are possible in the warned area. Flash flooding is already occurring. This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for South-central Kerr County, including Hunt. This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!"  

• 6:27 a.m., Kerr County — NWS sends a repeat of its earlier warning to Kerr County, saying "This is a FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY" and "SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!" 

All those notices are functionally in the middle of the night. If there are no sirens, no warning system, no modern way to get the information out, how is anyone going to respond to an emergency? WTF did they think was gonna happen? 

Obviously the NWS was ill prepared to think. You'd think they would've been trained about middle of the night emergencies with tornados. Apparently not. 

According to PBS News, there is no county flood warning system:

Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because of the expense.

“We’ve looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,” Kelly said.

He said he didn’t know what kind of safety and evacuation plans the camp may have had.

“What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don’t know where the kids were,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.”

The public reeled at the cost? Are we now to accept child sacrifice on the altar of public hubris? Are weather alert systems to go the way of vaccines? If you die, you die? Well, I guess it's okay since Senator Joni Ernst said, "We're all gonna die."

What kind of country has the technology to get the word  out, but doesn't do it? President Biden and others before him have consistently urged Congress to allocate funds for weather warning systems and other safety infrastructure programs. But does congress respond? No. They are too busy denying other attempts at repairing and restoring our infrastructure. Oh, yeah, wanna talk about Air Traffic Control? How about highway bridge safety? The list is endless.

Don't even get me started on the derailment of FEMA and how it's been turned into a political reward and punishment football in the last  6 months. Just ask anyone in Arkansas, North Carolina, West Virginia, or Washington State.

It's not enough to force people out of health care, food programs, and other safety nets one might think is the reasoning behind having governments in the first place. There are dozens of dead people in Texas because We, the People, do not insist our government serve We, the People who elected them in the first place. 

This should be but will not be a wake up call. That Muskrat wants a third party? Maybe he should find out what people expect from their government first, because his tenure at DOGE certainly didn't serve the people at all. Maybe someone, ANYONE, could think about what We, the People need, not what oligarchs and billionaires want. There is a bit of a disconnect between the two.

My cousins and their toddler went to Austin to the Hill Country last week for a bit of vacation fun. They left for home in Austin earlier than planned to get ahead of the storms. I can only think Baruch Ha'Shem ...thank G-d. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

For G-d's sake, hug someone you love.

You may never know when they'll be ripped from your arms.

Optics and Perception

Not vice presidential
enough

Back in high school, like a gazillion years ago, my friend Billy told me "perception is 9/10 of the law." He was, at the time, consoling me over an election loss (mine) while trying to explain that girls hadn't caught up yet, that it didn't matter that my opponent was an idiot because he was a babe-magnet and I was just everyone's reliable, discreet, best friend. I might be the smarts on the board, but that didn't matter; I didn't look like a vice-president. To his defense, he drilled into me that this really sucked because I was totally qualified for the job. He was right and I knew it....so I did what I already knew how to do: I flew under the radar, instituted a massive change to how our organization prepared programming, and watched some asshole take credit for my work. Billy told me it didn't matter that the asshole took credit because the asshole would eventually fail when trying to make it function the way it should. And that they would call me to fix it. They did. And everyone knew who was behind the project's ultimate success. (50+ years later, it lives on in its own strange, inimitable way. (IYKYK) 

I learned a lot from Billy that year: how to be an existentialist (still am,) how to ignore stupid people (still working on that one,) and, obviously, the power of optics and perception. He had a great, innate understanding of how to manipulate all sorts of stuff. He was great at getting people to do things, he was an expert at shifting time frames to his advantage. But I always thought he was best at making me feel like I could control me. There were days I didn't quite live up to the tasks set before me, but Billy would always push back on my self-doubts to force me to confront the obvious: we are only victims of our failures if we allow ourselves to be victims. And our personal optics were a reflection of the stand that we should take. Our image, at least back in them olden days, should be carefully cultivate and maintained. 

We are what comes out of our mouths.

We live in a much different time now. The 60-second news cycle reduces everything to a sound byte. Between fake news, AI news, and just plain ol' bullshit, it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't. The ability to discern what is real from what isn't is becoming a lost art. My friends can all tell you I play internet police daily and call them out on bull-hockey posts. I provide links, information, and spend way too much time vetting this crap. I hate having to do it. But when I see garbage info on friends' sites, I can't NOT respond. And I constantly say, "DO YOUR OWN DAMN HOMEWORK!" 

So when Zohran Mamdani came on the scene with his non-statements about his earlier statements, I kept waiting for someone to ask the most important question of all. No one did. Instead, they kept hounding him on a statement he made in several places, including on FOX-News NY morning show.

On June 5th, Zohran Mamdani appeared on Fox's Good Day, New York and was asked whether or not he supported Israel's right to exist as Jewish state. He answered:I'm not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else…. Equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That's my belief.

If you are so inclined (as I am) to hear it for yourself, here's the link to the YouTube recording of the segment. The fun begins at minute 5:35. 

I thought that was possibly the most interesting statement he could have made regarding Israel. On the surface, it's a really cogent statement crafted to convince people he's for equal rights for all people in every country. He is subtly excoriating Israel for using Torah and Talmud as a basis for the legal system while stating that all citizens in Israel are not equal under the law. One might think that a guy born to Indian expats in Uganda might know a thing or two about religious freedom in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

Apparently, Mr. Mamdani is not uncomfortable with the 50 or so Muslim countries in the world that have varying realities regarding non-Muslims. His statement can be absolutely perceived that this is okay and those countries do not not need some kind of adjustment. 

Which makes me think about optics. 

How are people gonna interpret his statement? Will they examine it more closely, or will they draw the most simple of conclusions?  Mr. Mamdani refuses to address the issue of Hamas as a terrorist organization, and in the past, he has founded and supported pro-Palestinian groups that subscribe to the globalization of the intifada, one might easily draw the conclusion that, based on his speeches and recorded rhetoric, he is okay with attacks on college campuses that target Jews. At the same time, he rails against antisemitism and insists there is no place for it in New York City. 

On the other hand, he has been an ardent supporter of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) who support BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) against the selling of all Israeli products in America. Both movements are not, as they claim to be, simply anti-zionist, they are against Israel's right to exist as Israel

So, which is the real Zohran Mamdani? What do his optics tell you about who he is?

Therein lies the real question no one is asking so far: as mayor of New York, would he tacitly give the shrug and a wink to the encampments and the vitriol? Would he tell them it's okay to take a stand without telling them they cannot exclude Jewish students from any campus? Will the the pro-Palestinian front take this as a license-to-behave-badly victory? 

Or will he actually take a stand against hate crimes directed against Jews? 

 

Do let me know if you know that answer to that.

Meanwhile, back at the capitol.....

As long as we're on the topic of optics, President Felon's response to the assassinations in Minnesota are the great optics of all. They just reinforce what We, the People, already know: he is a classless piece of human excrement. President Biden's presence at the Rotunda was low key, welcome, and appropriate to the moment. His presence at the funeral with Vice-President Harris was lovely.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

I'm afraid optics matter in our insta-world 

more than perception.

Wishful Thinking

Y'know, I'm not a big fan of snake oil hawkers, grifters, and tent revival holy rollers. I view all those folks with a jaundiced eye and a healthy measure of total disbelief in anything and everything they say. Their idea of truth is largely their idea only, and their sole intent it to separate fools from their money. And if President Felon's earning statement for 2024 is any indication, he had a very lucrative year. And now that his company is starting a new mobile phone service the sky's the limit. Of course, claims that the phone is totally American made are absurd. Currently, the only phone assembled in the US is the $1,999 Liberty phone  by Purism...and even that has parts from China and India. It is not $499 like the Sons of Swindle have promised. I cannot imagine the FCC going along with this...oh wait. Maybe I can, 

What it comes down to is yet another scam, another pile of streaming bullhockey issuing forth from President Felon's Fraud Central Factory. There is nothing that comes outta his mouth, outta the mouths of his henchfolk, or outta the mouths of his family members that can be trusted. Nothing can ever be fully vetted with these people. His hyperbole aside, he just plain lies about everything...from the size of his winkie to the size of the parade crowd. Art Of The Deal ...my ass; more that the Art of The Scam. 

Which should make you wonder about the ceasefire he claims Israel and Iran have signed onto. ...especially when Iran is continuing to lob missiles at Israel as of a few minutes ago. 

He posted this on Truth Social. And you know what we all say about believing everything you see on the internet....

But then, again, he posted something similar about India and Pakistan on May 10th:

According to Chatham House, a respected British think tank:

The ceasefire also does not address any of the underlying grievances in the bilateral relationship. In a social media post, Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that both sides have agreed to ‘start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site’. Talks between both countries’ military personnel took place on 12 May, but it remains to be seen if this paves the way for meaningful political dialogue.

India has stated that talks can only discuss the issues of terrorism and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, while Pakistan will want to focus on the resumption of the IWT and the status of Indian-administered Kashmir. The last time both countries engaged in substantive peace talks was the Composite Dialogue process that came to a halt following the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008.  

In the absence of political dialogue, it is not a question of if but when hostilities resume. New Delhi has stated that it will consider another attack like Pahalgam an act of war, while Islamabad has said the same with respect to any violation of the IWT.

The phrase that pays here is: In the absence of political dialogue. The highlight is mine. Sending tweets about ceasefires you think you've secured is a lovely thought, but In the absence of political dialogue, it's not a real ceasefire. It's wishful thinking. 

Back to Israel and Iran. AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME: I have yet to see any news bulletin from either Israel or Iran stating they have accepted a ceasefire agreement from President Felon. That statement may be forthcoming, but right now, at this moment, it sounds like a con. He’s hoping he can bully them into some kind of discussion via social media. 

I just checked again. As of  8:58 PM E.T., no confirmation has been received from either government. 

Never mind the congressional or constitutional issues here. I already heard one Democrat congressman say that the US sortie into Iran was the fault of AIPC....loosely translated: it's the Jews' fault. Like a said a few episodes ago, all he is doing is putting a bigger target on our backs as he pretends to be our friend. And he is still vying for the Nobel Peace Prize. President Felon is nothing more than an oversized playground bully compensating for his lack of...well, you know...playground equipment by manipulating the games, the systems, and ultimately the players.  Enough about this troll of a human...for the moment anyway.

Meanwhile, whilst doing my research about the attacks and reprisals, I kept hearing the phrase surgical strike. It reminded me of a similar line my favorite movie, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. After an incident with Libya that requires a military response, President Shepard says:

Someday someone's going to have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response.

That line reminded me of surgical strike, so I looked it up and found it's actually from a piece of satire by Richard Barnet, published in HARPER'S Magazine back in November of 1971  which happens to be during the Vietnam War. Lo and behold, Niall Ferguson and I clearly operate on the same check-it-out school of writing, because he wrote about that phrase just today in a piece for Free Press called What Comes After Trump's 'Surgical Strikes'?

Ironically, as Richard Nixon’s former speechwriter William Safire pointed out nearly 40 years ago, the term surgical strike originated as left-wing satire. The first use of the phrase, according to Safire, was in an article by Richard Barnet in Harper’s Magazine in November 1971. “Even [in] the language of the bureaucracy,” Barnet wrote, “the ‘surgical strike’ for chasing and mowing down peasants from the air by spraying them with 8,000 bullets a minute—takes the mystery, awe, and pain out of violence.”

Safire

You can read the whole article from the NY Times here: Safire on Language: Surgical Strike. I think it's worth reading. BTW, Safire's On Language was one of my favorite columns in the Times, and one I almost always talked about with my dad. I loved their love of language; it was simply grand.

Meanwhile, back on the tundra....

This assassin Vance Boelter guy was really prepared for the apocalypse, The cops picked up his wife with the kids, a sack of cash, passports, and other accouterments for blowing this pop stand. They called him a prepper: he was preparing for this for a long time. According to Minnesota Public Radio,  they found the following stuff on or near his Green Isle property:

•        4 dozen guns
•         5 body bags
•         Another Ford Explorer made to look like a police vehicle
•          3 AK-47 rifles
•         Dozens of boxes of ammunition
•         $17,940 in cash
•        Lots of spent cartridges and casings

And just for good measure: Investigators recovered a Beretta handgun from the backyard of a home on the west side of the golf course. In the woods between an adjacent home and the Shingle Creek Regional Trail, police found a partially-loaded magazine, the flesh-colored silicone mask that Boelter was allegedly seen wearing in surveillance video, as well as a wig. 

The feds are now running the show on the trial et al. I understand how that's gonna go down. But honestly, I am worried that if it's a federal conviction, President Felon will issue a pardon because Hortman and Hoffman are Democratic legislators. He's already called our governor vile names, and some of his cronies have intimated that Governor Walz set up the hit to "send a message." Really? . If you love conspiracies, you'll love this in the Minnesota Reformer. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Hydrate. 

I'm not kidding. 

That's a very serious tip.