Frank Zappa, may he rest in peace, once noted that there is more ignorance in the world than hydrogen, and that ignorance, not hydrogen, is the basic building block of the universe. That we must now deal with the orange turd for another four years, and that we hopefully survive his assault on our economy and common sense, is evidence enough to validate the Zappa hypothesis, at least here in the good old US of A. Thanks to over 70 million voters, we are no longer living in an era of American exceptionalism, we are living in the age of ignorance.
There is no other way to explain the unforced error that is in the process of wiping out over $30 trillion in market value, depleting our 401k’s and turning our most trusted allies into skeptics, and potentially, enemies. I have tried to find solid evidence supported by any rational economist or analyst that explains the strategy here, but have come up short. The best I could find was an essay by Yanis Varoufakis, economist and former Greek Minister of Finance, who is most notable for completely wrecking the Greek economy. Yanis tried to compare the turd’s tariff plan to the Nixon Shock, a hugely impactful set of policies that resulted in the globalization of the economy into the current model that the turd is trying his best to destroy.
While Nixon re-wrote the rules that drove the global economy for decades, the orange man’s tariff strategy is more of a vanity and vengeance play dressed up as economic populism in yet another attempt to be the global center of attention, feed his ego, and strike back at the Davos club that never would accept him as a member. While Nixon helped rewrite the rules of the game, the orange man is just knocking over the pieces, and no-one is clear on what he is thinking, but his gambit is risky and could seriously damage our people and our country.
Warning: this next stuff is a bit wonky.
History may not repeat itself, but it does echo. Richard Nixon’s 1971 economic shock upended the global financial order by taking the U.S. off the gold standard and slapping a 10% import surcharge on foreign goods. It was bold, disruptive—and, in many ways, necessary. In contrast, Donald Trump’s tariff war isn’t a strategy; it’s economic theater.
Nixon’s move addressed real systemic pressures: inflation, a weakening dollar, and an outdated monetary system. The result—while messy—ultimately pushed the world toward a more flexible currency regime. The short-term costs were real, but so were the long-term structural shifts.
Trump’s tariffs, by contrast, promise a revival of American manufacturing but will result in higher costs for U.S. businesses, strained global alliances, and trade uncertainty. The policy lacks coherence and any clear articulation of the goals and the means to get there. There are no clear metrics for success, no broader economic reforms behind it—just a belief that punishing imports would bring manufacturing jobs back.
It won’t.
Some companies, in a few countries, may capitulate to his threats and bullying, and offer up building plants here in the US. But the global economy is highly automated and supply chains are already highly optimized and offshored. Those supply chains will likely get tangled resulting in increased consumer costs, and the farm segment will be particularly hard hit by retaliatory tariffs. Consumers are already paying more. And China? It will absorb the pressure and double down on self-reliance. As John Ripley, British academic aptly put it, “All told, this will probably accelerate the transition to a post-American age, particularly as other countries are already starting to regard China as a more predictable partner. The tragic irony is that although Trump pledged to make America great again, he may end up making China great instead.”
The good news? American patriots are fighting back. I am a day late with this post due to preparing for Passover, preparing our tax return, and on Saturday, attending a protest. And fortunately, we were not protesting alone! More than 500,000 people nationwide RSVP’d to attend one of the 1,200 protests organized by Hands Off!, Indivisible, MoveOn and other organizations, many tied to progressive politics.
They took to the streets in New York, Washington, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco and Sharon Massachusetts, my home town! Here we are leading a chant in front of Sharon’s Town Hall. What we lacked in organization we more than made up for with spirit, and one bougie neighbor banging her Le Creuset dutch oven with a wooden spoon. Tons of support from passing and honking motorists kept our spirits high. Folks, we are just getting warmed up.
Don’t let the orange man stick it to us any longer. Morons Are Governing America. All our voices matter if we want to save ourselves from his age of ignorance. This is our time. Carpe diem!
Now that we have been assured by our CIA Chief that the US Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, was not drunk when he released classified Houthi attack plans to anyone that cared to listen, we can move on from the Whiskey Leaks scandal with the consoling fact that the imbecile was actually sober when he put our forces, methods and assets at risk. The leak and the idiotic reaction by the turd’s administration raise a bunch of serious questions: Who had authority on the decision to bomb? What’s being done to prevent leaks like this from recurring? Where is any accountability? How will our allies trust us with any secure information going forward?
But none of this nonsense should surprise anyone with half a brain. The Signal-Gate scandal speaks to the essence of Trump 2.0: cavalier incompetence, disrespect of government, and contempt for human life. For those outside of the United States, the systemic dishonesty and shitty attitude to information security and to our allies were the most troubling take aways of the debacle. As The Guardian columnist Marina Hyde put it, “Please enjoy European diplomats declaring that as far as the relationship between the continent and the US goes, this is ‘the writing on the wall’. If only it HAD been written on a wall – that would actually have been more secure and secretive.”
It’s even worse in Canada. Their new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, just gave a shocking speech that I completely understand and support. The orange turd’s tariff crusade is a giant unforced error which is not only rapidly depleting our 401k’s, but also destroying our relationship with our northern neighbor to the point of irreparable damage. His speech was in essence, a full divorce proceeding. He said,
“The era of deep economic, security, and military ties between Canada and the United States is over.” This is what real leadership sounds like:
As Canadian Substacker Dean Blundell wrote in his latest post:
And just like that, 150+ years of the world’s most peaceful, mutually beneficial, boring-but-beautiful border relationship… done – dismantled by one orange blowhard/rapist/felon cosplaying as a capable President when he’s just a Russian asset in a fucking diaper.
This comes after Trump allegedly tried to set up a phone call with Carney, to which Carney said “nah.”
Then this happened. And I couldn’t be more proud of my country and Prime Minister.
Fuck Trump.
Indeed. Fuck Trump.
After I finish this post, we will be joining a demonstration against DOGE and its leader, Elon Musk, at a Tesla dealership in Dedham, MA. The last protest I attended was the Women’s March after the turd’s first election, so it’s time to get active again. And should be fun! Do I think there is waste in government? Of course. Could we be more efficient in how we deliver government services. Indeed. But this a-hole’s break first then fix approach is wrong and hurting people. Government is suppose to help people, not hurt them. Here is what conservative writer Andrew Sullivan had to say about Musk in his latest post:
Then there’s the attempt to vandalize the government, particularly the parts that help Democrats. Break first, then fix is the Musk model, which is why he had to quickly rehire nuclear weapon experts and bird flu analysts after blithely removing them. Incompetence is also central here: the public accounting of DOGE’s cuts is filled with errors — claiming billions of dollars in savings which are, on inspection, millions. DOGE’s cuts to the IRS mean we could actually lose $350 billion in revenue over the next decade — about three times the claimed total savings of all the rest. Do I believe Musk’s claims of savings so far? Nope. Do I think he’ll have cut a trillion dollars in three months, as he claimed on state TV last night? Of course not. He’s a ketamine-addled sociopathic teenager who knows nothing about government.
Lot’s more bad news to report out of Israel. Nut-and-Yahoo seems to be more emboldened not only by his own amazing political skills but also by the autocratic orange turd’s flaunting of democratic norms. While Israel continues to fight battles on several fronts, Nut-and-Yahoo is back pushing the judicial reforms that so divided the country it left them vulnerable to October 7. As the government barrels ahead with its judicial overhaul, Nut-and-Yahoo has also now shown the door to both the head of Shin Bet and the attorney general, prompting yet more questions about the independence of Israel’s key institutions. Israel, much like the United States, is heading toward a constitutional crisis. Tens of thousands are in the streets protesting. Yikes.
It’s been a while since I provided my usual round up of Jew news from around the world. So, without further ajieu, here is your weekly smorgasbord of superbly selected semitic stories from sources such as The Forward, JTA, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, Nosher, Kveller, and Jewish Boston to name a few.
Protests against Hamas continued in Gaza on Thursday for the third day running, after Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups suggested harsh repercussions would await anyone taking part in the demonstrations. (Times of Israel)
Israelis protested against their government as the Knesset voted to pass a highly controversial law that would increase legislators’ control over judicial appointments. (Guardian)
Israel provided intelligence to aid the U.S. in conducting a strike on the Houthis, and Israeli authorities complained to U.S. officials after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of sensitive information about the operation in a Signal group was made public. (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. offered Hamas a new proposal to help restore a ceasefire, contingent on the group freeing American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander. In return for Alexander’s release, Trump would publicly call for calm in Gaza and for renewed ceasefire negotiations. (Times of Israel)
And on campus….
A district judge rejected Cornell University student Momodou Taal’s request to block the government from deporting him after his student visa was revoked over his participation in pro-Palestinian campus protests. (AP)
Amid pressure on campuses from President Donald Trump’s administration, the University of Michigan will end its much-heralded diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which have served as a model for schools nationwide. Jewish and Muslim students both reported harassment on the flagship Ann Arbor campus after Oct. 7. (New York Times)
A number of the 60 colleges and universities facing Trump administration investigations into antisemitism had previously been told the Department of Education had ended such investigations after they took action to improve the campus environment for Jews. (Reuters)
New York’s Yeshiva University may have announced it would grant recognition to a student LGBTQ+ club after a drawn-out battle — but its president said in a Tuesday email to the student body that the values of “Pride” are “antithetical” to the school. (JTA)
A Tel Aviv pop-up, Keith Siegel’s Pancake House, aims to honor the freed hostage and keep attention on the 59 hostages who remain in Gaza. At its opening, Siegel said that, for him, the joy in food comes from “being with the people I love.” (JTA)The opening of Keith Siegel Pancake House, honoring a former Israeli hostage, at Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, March 26, 2025
That’s all I have time for today. But, let’s be careful out there. And to my Canadian friends:
And a tip of the kippah this week to the Brazilian couple who just set a new world record in the Great Book of Guinness: As of Feb. 5, Manoel Angelim Dino, 105, and and wife Maria de Sousa Dino, 101, were verified as having been married for 84 years and 77 days, breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage of a living couple. According to LongeviQuest, it was love at first sight for Manoel — but Maria’s mother was opposed to the relationship at the start. Undeterred, a smitten Manoel patiently worked to win over his future-in-laws, even beginning to build a home for the family he hoped to start with Maria. Asked what they believe the secret is to their long and happy marriage, Maria — who celebrated her latest birthday with a butterfly-adorned cake — had a simple answer: love.
Manoel Angelim Dino and Maria de Sousa Dino hold hands
If building a home helped win Maria and her parents over and led to 80 years of marital bliss, I am hoping that by extension, the new kitchen renovation we just completed buys me another 40 years with my wonderful wife.
And that’s the extent of the good news I am sharing this week. I’m sure there must be some other good news somewhere, but the deluge of stupid shit flowing from DC and Israel has so overwhelmed and flooded the septic system in my brain, that I have become almost impervious to the good stuff. I am hoping the shit storm has peaked, but I doubt it. I am having a hard time imagining four years of this nonsense and continuing to rely on the power of the courts to keep us from falling further into some kind of dystopian democracy or oligarchy or whatever term you want to apply to the culture of revenge, deception and deceit being foisted upon the country by his turdness.
After a few months of a cease fire, Israel is back again pounding Gaza, this time with the unequivocal backing of the orange turd, and with the added bonus of reducing aid to the Gazans, aid which invariably ends up being used by Hamas to raise funds for more weapons to arm more recruits to kill more Jews. I read more and more analysts expressing the opinion, shared by a majority of Israelis, that a two state solution is dead. They are right in that we are at least a few generations away from such a solution being feasible, as it will take a few generations of Palestinian de-radicalization before Israel would ever feel secure sharing a border with them. And such a solution will not be possible until a majority of Palestinians are more interested in building a peaceful state than slaughtering innocent Jews. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case.
Today, I am offering a reprint of an essay from a guest Substacker, Dena Tauber, a New York-based attorney who discovered a passion for Israel and Zionism following October 7th. She captures my feelings and the feelings of a majority of Israelis about the two state solution. While I believe it is still the best way forward, I recognize that, in current conditions, it is not a viable option. Her essay is below.
Have a great weekend everyone. And remember, be careful out there.
Gazans cheer on Hamas, and then blame Israel when the terror group brings destruction to the Strip. (photo: Mohammed Ibrahim/Unsplash)
The Palestinians have forfeited their right to self-determination.
Their national identity is based solely on hating Jews and destroying Israel. That is their mission statement. If they accomplished their goal, they would have no other purpose.
The Book of Genesis in the Bible recounts the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose citizens were so evil that God decided to destroy them, despite Abraham’s entreaties for mercy on their behalf.
To no avail, not even 10 good men could be found in these cities, so God wiped them off the earth with “sulfur and fire.”
There was nothing they would not do, no person they were not willing to violate, and no chance to repent they wanted to take. God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah not only as punishment for their wickedness, but also to stop their evil from spreading further.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other terrorists — joined by thousands of Palestinian civilians — invaded Israel, where they proceeded to murder, torture, burn alive, behead, rape, and kidnap innocent people. They murdered upwards of 1,200 innocents and kidnapped 250 people into Gaza. Their brutality shocked the civilized world.
Hostages have been held in dungeons for more than 500 days, where Hamas rapes men and women, chains them, starves them, and tortures them. Agreement was finally reached to permit Israel to ransom hostages from Hamas, in exchange for releasing hundreds of terrorists in Israeli jails and a temporary cessation of the war.
The terror continued, as Hamas orchestrated a grotesque spectacle to accompany the handover of the hostages that gutted even the most desensitized among us. The world watched as they conducted bizarre ceremonies involving parading hostages on a podium before jeering crowds of civilians, where they were joined by representatives of the International Red Cross and handed certificates and gift bags, while being forced to smile and wave.
As the weeks passed, these displays became increasingly frightening. Hostages Gadi Moses and Arbel Yehud, as they struggled to make their way from Hamas captivity to Red Cross vehicles, were rushed by an out-of-control mob who made clear what they would do to them if they could. The following week saw another sick demonstration with the release of Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami, and Eli Sharabi looking cadaverous.
But nothing could have prepared us for the presentation of the bodies of 83-year-old Oded Lifshitz, what was purported to be Shiri Bibas, and her sons Ariel and Kfir, who were ages 4 years and 9 months, respectively, when they were kidnapped. The so-called “Palestinian people” looked on as the coffins were displayed on a podium with the pictures of the victims displayed on their coffins, including their “date of arrest” beneath a caricature of a befanged Netanyahu dripping blood.
Hamas once again accompanied the release of the hostages’ bodies with an orchestrated ceremony, including taunts and provocative slogans, which, this time, included a threat to murder the remaining hostages.
What was accomplished by holding and torturing for 10 years Avera Mengistu and Hisham al Sayed, an Israeli Bedouin, both with a history of mental health problems?
Is this what the terror supporters mean by “resistance”?
The terrorists have insisted since November of 2023 that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were killed in an Israeli airstrike. That lie was exposed on Friday after a forensic analysis determined that the children were strangled to death.
Only sociopaths kidnap and murder babies. They had already committed such horrendous crimes and accomplished their goal of utterly terrifying the people of Israel. There was nothing more to gain by killing those children anymore than there was to gain by starving and torturing their adult hostages. This was gratuitous cruelty.
There is nothing they will not do, no person they are not willing to violate, and no chance to repent they want to take.
Palestinian civilians came with their children on a family outing to cheer at the death of an old peace activist, a mother, and her babies. It was a celebration of death.
Western apologists insist, without evidence, that there is a material distinction between Hamas and ordinary Gazans (and it’s tempting to believe that despite all evidence to the contrary) because how can a society be so rotten to its core?
It took this — strangulation of babies and battering their bodies — to wake us out of our stupor brought on by our insistence that there is a bottom to the depths of Palestinian evil. We hoped that deep down they were like us. But I have never seen reality more clearly in all its ugliness.
The most recent horrors have resulted in calls to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the earth. But there is a less drastic solution available: relocation. Israeli ministers branded as “Far-Right” have suggested it before but no one took the idea seriously — until it became clear that the Palestinians, even with a barrier, pose an unacceptable risk to Israelis on their border.
U.S. President Donald Trump was the first Western leader to suggest that the Palestinians be relocated, perhaps temporarily, because the Strip is apparently uninhabitable and there is no place for them to live while the area is being rebuilt.
The idea was rejected out of hand by Arab leaders.
But Trump has not backed down and he has some leverage, mainly the withholding of U.S. aid. Even if his idea for the U.S. to turn Gaza into some kind of paradise is not practical (or desirable), he opened a door that had previously been closed. Relocation may be the best option available. If at some point the population becomes de-Nazified, we can talk about return.
It took 30 years of suicide bombings, kidnappings, stabbings, car rammings, and more that left thousands of Israelis dead and more wounded before the adults in the room acknowledged the futility of pursuing a “two-state solution,” even though it had been enshrined in global consciousness as the only path forward. Israel cannot afford to waste another 30 years pursuing fantastical solutions that fail to acknowledge the reality of Palestinian society.
Before anyone starts howling about “ethnic cleansing,” consider the following:
Thousands of Palestinian civilians joined Hamas in their invasion of Israel on October 7th to plunder the property of the Israelis as they were being killed. There is footage of them entering Israeli communities through the broken gates. I saw film of one elderly man limping in with a cane. This alone is not normative behavior; being an Arab is not an excuse for joining in a killing spree.
Palestinians celebrated the savagery of October 7th. The film of Palestinian men driving through Gaza in a pick-up truck while spitting on Israeli hostage Shani Louk’s broken body in the truck bed is now iconic. It boggles the mind that any decent human being could accept this kind of behavior. Please remember the West is funding this society. Our tax dollars paid for their terror tunnels and gave them the wherewithal to commit the atrocities on October 7th.
Surveys show that a majority of Palestinians remain committed to the so-called “right of return” and living according to shariah law.
Gazan “civilians” kept Israeli hostages in their homes and used them as slaves.
It was Palestinian civilians who kidnapped Shiri Bibas and her sons. No doubt they were paid handsomely for this prize.
Of course, not every Palestinian in Gaza is complicit in the heinous crimes of Hamas. There have to be some civilians in Gaza who really are innocent bystanders. There are even a handful of sincere Palestinian peace activists who have denounced Hamas time and again, and have begged Western supporters to see these vicious terrorists for the sadists they are.
But these people are few and far between.
The hostages who were held in civilian homes report that the Palestinians of Gaza are a society of terrorists. Hundreds of private homes contained entrances to underground tunnels, weapons, and copies of “Mein Kampf.” It is not surprising to see how they indoctrinate their children in a culture of hatred and train them to be murderers from early childhood. They have normalized violence and believe it is their God-given right to murder Jews.
The Palestinians were provided with every opportunity to create an independent state, where the people could live in dignity that Western politicians claim is their due. However, the Palestinians have utterly failed in that endeavor.
In fact, the past 16-plus months have shown that not only do they lack the skills to build an independent, self-sustaining polity capable of living in a civilized society; they don’t want these things at all. Their national identity is based solely on hating Jews and destroying Israel. That is their mission statement. If they accomplished their goal, they would have no other purpose.
After 76 years, Israel does not have to continue to tolerate the intolerable. The Palestinians have forfeited their right to self-determination. At the same time that they were engaged in their gruesome celebration of having murdered two children and their mother and an elderly peace activist, their brothers in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) planted bombs in 15 Israeli public transport buses designed to detonate together when the buses were full of passengers.
Their assault is unrelenting and their time is up.
A quick tip of the kippah to Wendy Sachs, author, documentary filmmaker and Director and Executive Producer of the newly released film, “October 8”. Over the last 17 months, we have watched in shock as Ivy League campuses became hotbeds of support for terrorists and their ideology. A powerful new documentary that the Academy Awards refused to consider illuminates how – and more importantly why – college campuses became a pivotal front in the war against Israel. I urge all JNR readers to watch “October 8” at a local AMC theater, or, wait for it to stream in a few weeks. Here is a link to an interview with Wendy Sachs by Dan Señor highlighting the challenges she had getting anyone in Jewishy Hollyweird to pay attention, represent, or distribute the film.
It’s March 15, and for those not up on their Shakespeare, this date is known as the “Ides of March”. On March 15, 44 BCE, Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators, an event that had a profound impact on Roman history. William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” popularized the phrase as a warning given to Caesar by a soothsayer, immortalizing the day’s association with foreboding and fate. Today, “the Ides of March” is often used to signify a fateful or critical day, often with a sense of impending doom, drawing from the historical context of Caesar’s assassination.
Those of you who know me personally, know that I am not a doom and gloom kind of guy. And I don’t take any pleasure in having to summarize the depressing news which keeps gushing at us like the proverbial firehose. And I also don’t take any pleasure in venting each week about how the orange turd is bent on remaking America into some kind of retro-hellscape from his love-less past. I live in the real world, and I try each week to reflect the reality around my comfortable, bougie life here in a mostly liberal, Jewishy suburb of Massachusetts, with influences cast from a broad range of writers and podcasters on the political left and right.
But, I think it’s time to hit the panic button. Beware the Ides of March! Caesar is out of control! Forget about his taking a sledge hammer to our government. Forget about the Sheriff of Tarriff-ham ruining the economy and draining our 401k’s. (We lost about $5 Trillion in one week! As Bill Maher said, at this point, Greenland could buy us!) No, what really scared the shit out of me this week was the jailing of Pro-Palestinian activist and green card holder, Mahmoud Khalil, followed by this story from the New York Times, followed by the orange turd’s presser at the DOJ on Friday:
Days after immigration officers arrested a prominent pro-Palestinian campus activist, administrators at Columbia University gathered students and faculty from the journalism school and issued a warning … “If you have a social media page, make sure it is not filled with commentary on the Middle East,” [Stuart Karle, a First Amendment lawyer] told the gathering … When a Palestinian student objected, the journalism school’s dean, Jelani Cobb, was more direct about the school’s inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. “Nobody can protect you,” Mr. Cobb said. “These are dangerous times.”
Dangerous times indeed. Along with this news story came the report from Marco “tiny” Rubio that Caesar has launched a massive AI-assisted, all-government encompassing program called “Catch and Revoke”, which is intended to scan every social media comment, or anything online, that can be used to flush out any noncitizen whose expressed views might be considered anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist or anti-Israel. Marco and the DOJ and DHS and ICE are now the Brownshirts of the 2020’s. Anyone see anything that could possibly go wrong with this program? This is not a slippery slope, more like an icy mountain looming directly over the first amendment.
Mahmoud Khalil has not been accused of a crime. And that is the scary part! A White House official explained: “The allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.” A DHS spokesman elaborated to NPR:
“We’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.”
“Pro-Palestinian activity” is the reason. The DHS document citing the law being used against Khalil — and thereby potentially every other noncitizen, including green card holders — has this legal formula:
[T]he Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
This is “the first arrest of many to come,” says Trump. DHS is already searching dorm rooms. And of course, the orange a-hole couldn’t resist getting in a nasty shot at Khalil with this bigoted troll from his X account: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD,” a glib and spiteful use of a Jewish term for “goodbye” to a Muslim. This a-hole is the President of the United States.
As you all know from previous posts, I am not a fan of the “useful idiots” on campuses across the country voicing their support for Hamas, with their ridiculously foolish upside down morality and echoing of genocidal policies and downright dumb chants. And if they break a law or intimidate Jews and/or disrupt the rights of others, they should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, booted from the country. But, I will defend their right to the death to spew stupid speech. And don’t fall for the legal mumbo jumbo around green card vs citizen rights. This is a direct attack against the first amendment, and won’t be the last. Today it’s focused on non-citizens. Tomorrow? News organizations critical of the orange turd? Even as I write this post, I am thinking that there is probably an AI algorithm flagging me and this post to some moron in DHS who will put me on a list. Paranoia? Maybe. But not so much.
There are clear echos of history in this emerging and potential first amendment crisis, and I am surprised there has not been more written about the parallels with one of the most famous First Amendment cases, the Nazi march on Skokie in 1977. In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a survivor—or was directly related to a survivor—of the Holocaust. These victims of terror had resettled in America expecting to lead peaceful lives free from persecution. But their safe haven was shattered when a neo-Nazi group announced its intention to parade there in 1977. The case ignited enormous controversy and challenged our understanding of and commitment to First Amendment values.
The debate was clear-cut: American Nazis claimed the right of free speech while their Jewish “targets” claimed the right to live without intimidation. The town, arguing that the march would assault the sensibilities of its citizens and spark violence, managed to win a court injunction against the marchers. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union took the case and successfully defended the Nazis’ right to free speech. The ACLU team was led by a Jewish lawyer.
While local authorities in Skokie sought legal means to prevent the Nazi party’s march, leading to a judicial affirmation of free speech rights, in Khalil’s case, federal authorities arrested him, citing national security, raising concerns about potential infringement on First Amendment rights. Both events elicited strong public responses. The ACLU’s defense of the Nazis was controversial, leading to over 50,000 membership resignations. Khalil’s detention has sparked protests and debates within political circles, reflecting the divisive nature of U.S. policies toward Israel and Palestine, but also risking making Khalil into some kind of martyr for his cause.
The ACLU is actively supporting Khalil. They have joined his legal team, filing an amended habeas petition challenging his detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The ACLU argues that Khalil’s arrest violates his constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, and exceeds the government’s legal authority. In addition to legal action, the ACLU has launched a public campaign advocating for Khalil’s release. They are urging supporters to contact ICE, emphasizing that detaining and attempting to deport an individual based on their political viewpoints is unconstitutional and un-American.
Furthermore, the ACLU has publicly condemned Khalil’s arrest, describing it as an unlawful action taken in retaliation for his pro-Palestinian advocacy. They highlight that Khalil, a lawful permanent resident, was detained without due process, solely based on his political beliefs. And as much as I hate to say so, I agree. It’s also clear to me that both cases highlight the complexities of balancing free speech protections with public safety and societal values. They serve as reminders of the challenges democracies face in upholding fundamental rights, especially during the reign of the orange Caesar. Only the courts can stop his assault on truth, our values and our speech.
His presser at the DOJ was equally alarming. Most Presidents have appeared in the hallowed halls of the DOJ to announce a major anti-crime initiative, or to offer plaudits for the fundamental tenet of the rule of law. Or, in the orange turd’s case, to seek revenge on his enemies. Over more than an hour, relying on a series of twisted facts and misrepresentations, the orange turd accused his adversaries both inside and outside the department of weaponizing the justice system against him. The campaign-style address suggested that Mr. Trump would not soon let go of his anger at federal prosecutors and that he intended to make good on his longstanding vows to seek retaliation against them. In offering his litany of complaints, Mr. Trump provided no proof that anyone on his list of bad guys had committed crimes or even ethical violations. Their sole offense appeared to have been trying to hold him accountable for his behavior.
Let’s begin on a positive note with a tip of the kippah to Samer Sinjlawi, a member of the Palestinian Fatah organization affiliated with the Muhammad Dahlan camp, the former leader of Gaza who was eventually overthrown by Hamas. Last week, Sinjlawi visited Yarden Bibas and during his visit, told Yarden that he is ashamed of the tragedy and horrors inflicted by Hamas on the Bibas family and asked Yarden for his forgiveness in the name of the Palestinian people. While some may view it as a simple and humane response, it is nevertheless one of tremendous courage in the Arab world to openly condemn Hamas so publicly. We need more Sinjlawis if the Palestinians and Israelis will ever have a chance at living side by side.
But courage is not what comes to mind when I think about the barrage of bullshit our nation endured for what seemed like an eternity Tuesday evening. I lacked the courage and intestinal fortitude to watch it live, but have seen and read enough about it to know it was exactly what I expected: meat to the MAGA crowd, a bombastic blizzard of bullshit, lies upon lies, vindictive and mean-spirited lib-baiting. And to make matters worse, it was all supported and amplified by a parliament of fluffers formerly known as the Republican party chanting USA, USA, USA! And despite the puke gathering in my mouth, we do need to give him his props. He commanded the iconic venue with his usual bravado, and quite effectively, according to most dispassionate viewers.
But in the midst of this bravado we have actual results. He may declare that “America is back”, but the economy and the Fed are not convinced. Markets are tanking and the economy is stumbling. GDP is contracting at the fastest rate since the COVID lockdowns. The Atlanta Fed has estimated that annualized growth has moved from 4%, which is remarkable (thanks Joe!) to NEGATIVE 2.8% in the last month! Consumer confidence has also had its greatest drop since COVID. Retail spending is down, while the price of eggs is WAY UP! The markets are not in free fall, but definitely declining. The NASDAQ has lost 9% in 10 days. All of the gains since the Trump bump have disappeared.
He has the greatest levels of disapproval of any president, except one other at this time in his presidency. And that other was Trump’s first term. A stunning 52% of Americans are saying he’s ignoring the country’s biggest problems. What did he focus on in his speech? A simple word search of the transcript revealed the following: Greenland was mentioned three times more than affordable housing, veterans, or prescription drug costs. Zero mentions of health care, zero mentions of veterans or prescription drug costs. Five mentions of tax cuts for billionaires, five mentions of illegal aliens, six mentions of the Panama Canal, 13 mentions of Joe Biden, and three mentions of annexing Greenland. So yes, I guess you could say he was very effective at being ineffective.
In the demonic world of politics, we voters get what we deserve. H.L. Mencken said it best: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Well JNR peeps, the orange Dom has whipped up quite a frenzy so far, making the first fifty days of this term feel more like fifty shades of bruises. We are getting it good and hard all right, and the orange man is pumped up, and ready to bully the country and our allies into aligning with his daily dose of chaos and kleptocracy. Meanwhile, the feckless dems are failing at any meaningful opposition while the courts are showing some signs of a spine and attempting to reign in his rule of terror, but who knows if he will even abide by any court rulings? The mere thought of that very real possibility is frightening. And the markets, and our allies don’t know what to think. His decisions change day to day, much like his adult diapers, or whatever shade of orange paint he slathers on his ugly puss. And the pimple-faced DOGE douche bags are actually hurting real people. So much winning, I can’t take it any more!
I have recently been thinking a lot more about Mencken’s quote and how we democrats and liberals of good intentions are partly to blame. Some of the nonsense coming from the orange man is actually the pendulum making a corrective rightward swing to remove the vestiges of some pretty silly positions and “progressive” policies that had become institutionalized throughout academia, arts and government. DEI, trans, and immigration are a few of the hot button items that immediately come to mind, but I’m sure my conservative friends can pile on some others. And if we clear away the dead wood and look at actual outcomes, there may be a few lucky pickups in the offing (pardon the bowling metaphor). For example, for over 50 years we have been trying to get Europe to take on more responsibility for their defense and for increasing their share of NATO support without much success. But because of our a-hole orange President, they have finally opened their wallets and started to step up. Of course they all hate us now, and we will have to disguise ourselves as Canadians when we visit any foreign countries, but hey, progress. And maybe the country needs an a-hole to actually get our budget under control. For the first time in history, we now pay more in interest on our national debt than we pay for Medicaid or Defense. That is not a sustainable formula for running the country, and our grandchildren and future generations will pay the price. It’s just our luck, I guess, that the a-hole of this time in history happens to be the orange turd.
But do not for one moment think that I am changing my feelings or position about the orange turd. Whatever the ends, they will never justify his means. He is, was, and always will be the biggest a-hole to ever walk the planet and will likely go down in history as the only President to commit treason by leading a mob to attempt to subvert our most coveted democratic process. I do not wish ill on the man, and like a good patriot will try my best to support him, but if he choked on a big mac next week and (as my brother once suggested), became disabled for life, I would not shed a single tear, but would celebrate a justice long in the making.
I have re-stacked for your reading pleasure, Andrew Sullivan’s latest post. For those not familiar with Andrew, I am a faithful subscriber and fan, although his politics are more conservative than my own. He is a great writer, leader of gay rights, former editor of The New Republic, and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, The Daily Dish, in 2000, which is now published on Substack. Here is his latest offering regarding our bully president.
Also in the stacks this week: a great interview with Yair Golan, a former IDF general and hero of October 7. While well known inside Israel, Yair is not very well known in the diaspora, but is emerging as a potential candidate to challenge Bibi as Prime Minister, and one of the only leaders still talking about a two state solution.
Trump addressing Congress on Tuesday night. (Win McNamee/AFP via Getty)
“Dennis Burnham, who lived next door, was a toddler when his mother briefly put him in a playpen in their garden. She returned a few minutes later to find the current U.S. president, then aged five or six, standing at his fence throwing rocks at the little boy. Another neighbor, Steven Nachtigall, now a 66-year-old doctor, said he never forgot Trump … once jumping off his bike and beating up another boy: ‘It was so unusual and terrifying at that age,’” – Trump Revealed.
“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same,” – Donald J Trump.
The pews at the cathedral were packed this Ash Wednesday — more than I can remember in years. Some others on social media seemed to notice the same thing. And the atmosphere was dark and intense even for the beginning of Lent — as ash was smeared on my forehead with the familiar, sobering mantra:
Remember, man, that thou are dust and unto dust thou shalt return.
Unbidden grief welled up. Grief for my mother and father, grief for a Ukrainian exile friend who killed himself last summer, impending grief for a Pope I love and revere. And yes, although I may be roundly mocked by some of you for this, grief for my country.
The night before, you see, I’d watched the president’s address to the Congress. Yes, yes, I know I recently pledged not to respond to every provocation from the troller-in-chief and focus on policies and long-term results. But to understand the moment we are in — and the policies that will follow — we simply cannot look away from what Tuesday night revealed about the state of our republic. I know I’m repeating myself, and have been since early 2016, but part of Trump’s psychological abuse is wearing down opponents so they stop repeating themselves, and give in to the lies. I will not be worn down. Truth matters.
Here it is: We have a sociopathic president in total command of a cult-like party; a Congress that, as long as the GOP controls it, is a rubber-stamp version of the Russian Duma under Putin; a court balanced precariously between a modest defense of the unitary executive and an Alito wing bent on empowering an American Caesar; and a Justice Department openly planning persecution of the president’s political opponents.
The speech itself, mind you, was masterful. He’s at the top of his game and clearly loving every second of it. If you knew nothing of history or reality apart from it, you’d have been inspired, entranced, even ebullient about the greatest comeback of any country in all of human history by far! And the poignant individual stories were pitch-perfect, with the Democrats’ cringey lameness the cherry on the cake.
Trump’s ability to invent and sustain a false narrative, however crazy and however incoherent, is preternatural. So are his profound skills in psychological abuse deployed to make it stick: gaslighting, intimidating, manipulating, and menacing you so that, in the end, you have no idea what the truth is or could be, and submit to the man if only to get out of his way.
Start with the opener, which was quite something:
The presidential election of Nov. 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades … Now, for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction … In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency — it’s our presidency — is the most successful in the history of our nation. By many. And what makes it even more impressive is that do you know who No. 2 is? George Washington.
Trump’s popular vote margin was the second smallest of any candidate’s since 1968; yes, there’s been a jump among Republicans who think the country is now on the right track, but still many more Americans believe the country is on the wrong one— and Trump’s numbers on this, far from being unique in modern history, are the same as Biden’s were at this point in his term. Oh, and absolutely no one has said that Trump’s first month is better than George Washington’s — except Donald Trump.
So here’s what I’d ask of readers who say that I have Trump Derangement Syndrome: tell me how you personally parse all these claims that were a mere warmup for the rest. When you heard him say he was better than George Washington, did you giggle? Did you just ignore it? Did you roll your eyes? Did you feel a tinge of nausea? Did you actually believe it? Or have you stopped caring altogether?
This matters because it is central to Trump’s success: no sane person with a grip on reality — unless they had just arrived from outer space — could believe vast tracts of his speech. With huge self-evident lie after huge self-evident lie, insane exaggeration after insane exaggeration, you are instantly forced to choose between walking away from the nutter or acquiescing to his madness. And since he is president, you can’t walk away. So the lies become Truth for millions; narrative replaces reality; aggressors are victims; exploding debt is fiscal prudence; weaponization of the law is anti-weaponization; and on and on.
Notice how post-modern this is. These are not the usual politicians’ lies, which pay some deference to the truth, even when eliding it. Trump, like the critical theorists, has contempt for the truth. “Truth” is entirely a myth he creates at will to justify the use of power. Critical Trump Theory, so to speak, is unfalsifiable, irrational, and seeks to replace objective reality with Trump’s lived experience so that, in the end, only his power remains. Brute power — immune to fact, argument or debate. Trump power. That’s what the Founders started this country to resist. And it’s what a majority of Americans have now given up on.
The best metaphor for Trump’s entire raison d’être is the incident cited above, when at just five years old, he was found throwing rocks at a baby: find someone weaker, first humiliate them, and then destroy them. And for Trump, this doesn’t have to lead anywhere. It is an end in itself. The bullying of others is what gives him life. He does it for those he favors as well as those he wants to destroy. Here is Trump on Truth Social in July last year, for example, on Musk. This is necessary even for Trump’s allies:
When Elon came … asking me for help on all his many subsidized projects … I could have said “drop to your knees and beg” and he would have done it.
Canada and Mexico are best understood as the baby in the playpen. Trump himself re-negotiated a trade agreement with both in his first term. Have they violated that deal? No. Have they refused to cooperate on fentanyl and illegal migrants? No. Has Mexico reduced the pressure on the Southern border to almost nothing. Dramatically. Is there anything they can or could do to please Trump? No. The pointis the abuse. And like all abusers, Trump constantly shifts what he is demanding, gaslights, threatens, charms, attacks … so that you begin to realize there is nothing you can do except wait for his mood to change. Welcome to monarchy.
And you thought he might come to Ukraine’s defense! Poor Douglas Murray. What the world saw last Friday was the same, central Trump dynamic: the leader of a smaller democracy that has withstood three years of brutal attack by a far larger dictatorship … was still publicly humiliated, because he dared air his concern of no security guarantees against Russia. “Just say thank you,” Vance harangued him. “Have you said thank you once?” I cannot recall any visiting head of state who has ever, ever been thrown out of the White House the way Zelensky was. Why? Because he did not submit.
Notice also how Tump and Vance have treated the big European democracies. Vance went to Germany to lambaste the country for curtailing extremist speech, and intervened in their domestic politics to endorse the AfD, meeting with them while blowing off the Chancellor; he described the UK and France as “random” countries that haven’t “fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” and said the UK would be the “first truly Islamist country” to have nukes. Now try and recall him saying anything comparably vicious or withering about Russia and China. Humiliate and berate Trudeau, Starmer, Merz, and Macron. Throw love-bombs at Putin, Xi, the West Bank settlers, and Kim.
The same, I think, is the real rationale behind the chaotic, often illegal, acts of DOGE. It is not about reducing the debt and never was; the savings, if any, will be trivial. The cruelty and caprice of Musk’s rampage is solely about submission. The very irrationality of the assault is designed to get the entire federal bureaucracy to surrender its will to continue as a rational enterprise.
Or take Israel and Gaza. Of course Trump sees Palestinian Arabs the way Jabotinsky did: weak, dispensable, contemptible, deserving of obliteration. And what rationale could defend the assault on Denmark over Greenland, or Panama over the canal, or what appears to be Trump’s near-pathological hatred of Canada — which we just found out is even weirder than it publicly appears? The impulse, the need, to bully.
So yes, I will wait and judge the consequences of Trump’s policies. Some — like ending DEI, mass migration, and the medical abuse of children — I support. But at the expense of reason, decency, and the rule of law?
What I saw Tuesday night was a whole new low in mass deception, delusion, and democratic collapse. What I saw was a new stage in the transition from democracy to a form of tyranny in real time. The institutional trappings remain, as they did in Rome. But the institutions no longer function as the Founders understood them; and reasoned deliberation has become utterly irrelevant. The cooling saucer of the Senate on Tuesday night was chanting “USA! USA! USA!” like a mob. If Ben Franklin witnessed the scene, his worst fears would be confirmed.
So forgive me for the grief. Things may improve; the courts are doing what they can, and Roberts and Coney Barrett seem like actual conservatives — not Trump cultists. There is a great deal of ruin in a nation, and we have a huge reserve of historical, constitutional legitimacy. Europe may yet rally. The First Amendment allows us to call out the lies — even though parts of the media have already voluntarily submitted.
The challenge for liberals of all stripes is a familiar one in dystopian democracies and rigid dictatorships: Live not by lies. Keep your grip on reality. Avoid the propaganda now washing down on you like torrential rain. Find a refuge, as I did on Wednesday — a place where eternal truths remain, or where free thinking can endure (Spinoza is a role model, which is why the Dishcast discusses him this week).
Avoid hysteria, which Trump wants and exploits. But avoid also being co-opted by a single one of his lies, to see clearly, and to speak simply. Read those you disagree with; get off most social media; choose doubt over certainty; restraint over impulse; resist this authoritarian and irrational moment by refocusing above all on the simple truth, as best as you can, and fighting all those on both extremes trying to annihilate it.
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.
Has it really only been 5 weeks since the orange turd committed the first lie of his second term by claiming he would uphold the constitution?
While most foreign leaders have figured out how to deal with the orange a-hole, apparently Zelensky missed the memo. All the Ukrainian President needed to do was to eat a little crow and follow the lead of Trudeau, Macron, the King of Jordan, and every other leader that has dealt with his bullying tactics: Begin by praising him lavishly, tell him he has completely transformed the landscape, offer him a civilian medal of honor or some such ego-gratifying reward, and tell him to come to the Ukraine and build the tallest Trump hotel in the world. Easy peasy. Deal signed. A little lithium in exchange for continuing to fuel the US military industrial complex.
But oh no. The hillbilly wildcard smelled blood. And the much beleaguered and war-weary former comedian couldn’t keep his cool amidst the boorish, bullying American hecklers. Hence, what unfolded in the formerly hallowed and now defamed oval office was, according to our former reality TV President, “great television”. Fuck you Donald. And fuck you too JD!
For all his flaws and corruption, Zelenskyy, who stayed in Kyiv under Russian bombardment, embodies the kind of wartime leadership that history will remember. Trump, meanwhile, who dodged serving in the Vietnam war by claiming bone spurs and hid in a White House bunker when protesters showed up, and Vance, who once despised Trump before groveling for his approval, will be remembered for mocking the heroics of the Ukranian people and rolling the dice on the post World War II strategy that has enabled global peace and prosperity for close to 100 years.
A picture says it all: Ukrainian Ambassador to the US can’t hide her emotions while watching Trump and Vance brow-beat her President and throwing her country under the Putin bus.
What does the average American take away from this debacle? Here is Joe Klein:
Nothing has changed. In the minds of most Americans, nothing has changed. Donald Trump had a dramatic exchange—Great Television!—with a foreign leader. People do not know about Ukraine. This is amazing but true. The film from there, the Russian atrocities, look no different from Gaza or Bosnia or…whichever. Americans used to know about Russia, but one wonders how much they know about the mafia obscenity Russia is under Putin. The threat from China is too subtle for most Americans. We’ve spent too much time on Tik-Tok and Dancing With the Stars to know the world.
It was great television, is all they know this Saturday night when American decency was massacred. And the heroic sacrifices of the Ukrainian people mocked by morally retarded politicians. But we know better. It was a total abdication of the dignity and the authority of the President of the United States. I lived through and protested Vietnam and Iraq, but I’ve never been more ashamed of our country than I was today.
Ditto that, Joe.
What happens next depends on whether it suits Trump to restore relations with Zelensky, or whether he has been cast out never to return. If Trump really craves a deal and an end to the bloodshed then Zelensky will be back. Much depends on the degree of dramatic tension that best suits the orange turd’s ego and purposes.
Lawrence Freedman put it this way:
The Trump administration is a soap opera. The president is the producer and the star, responsible for the plot lines, the script, and the cast (all of whom are chosen to look the part). If a plot line works, such as a drive for a Nobel-Prize winning peace deal, then it will be developed and might run for many episodes. Otherwise it will be quietly dropped, or may just peter out. The purpose of every episode is to demonstrate the star’s brilliance. The reason why this story has yet to run its course is the main theme of the Trump soap opera: that the star is especially brilliant when it comes to making deals.
The orange man has yet to negotiate a decent deal, never mind one that could lead to his much coveted Nobel Peace prize. Anyone with even a surface understanding of the deals he has struck over the last five weeks knows they are a sham at best. His lame ass attempt to get the King of Jordon to accept two million ethnically cleansed Palestinians resulted in the King agreeing to take in two thousand sick kids, treat them medically, then send them back home. And Trump beamed at the result! What a freaking loser!
We are leaving Palm Springs and jetting back home. I’m wrapping up this post from our current altitude of 32,837 feet. It’s been a great month in the desert oasis, escaping the cold, gray stormy weather of New England. And while it may seem like an orange cloud has permanently settled over the country, all I need to do is spend a few minutes in the company of a grand child to lift my spirits and hope for a better future ahead.
Be safe everyone. Next week I will return with a full JNR and the usual weekly roundup of news for the Jews. Until then, have a great week. And let’s hope the Academy Awards do not include any idiots brandishing red pins.
In closing, here is a letter from The Brigade, a group founded by PR, studio executives and filmmakers in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel. The Brigade has issued a strongly worded statement in response to an organized effort by Artists4Ceasefire that asks attendees of the 2025 Academy Awardsto wear red hand pins in support of Gaza.
To the Red Hand Supporters,
We turned the other cheek when you pinned a symbol of Jewish murder to your awards lapels.
We took the high road when you cried for a ceasefire that already existed before Hamas shattered it on October 7th.
But today, we will not be silent.
That pin is no symbol of peace. It is the emblem of Jewish bloodshed.
In 2000, Palestinian terrorists in Ramallah lynched two innocent Israelis, ripped them apart limb by limb, and held up their blood-soaked hands to a cheering mob. That infamous image is now your “ceasefire” badge.
And on the very day it was discovered that the Bibas babies—innocent Jewish children—were strangled to death by the terrorist’s bare hands, you asked Hollywood to wear it with pride.
Is this ignorance?
Or is this deliberate, calculated malice?
It’s not peace.
You Claim to See Humanity on Both Sides. Yet You…
❌ Ignore the facts surrounding the historic barbaric October 7 terror attack on Israel ❌ Push your anti-Israel narrative even after Israel agreed to ceasefires with Hamas AND Hezbollah. ❌ Refuse to condemn Hamas’ grotesque, sadistic ceasefire tactics.
Did you speak up when Hamas:
– Returned hostages on the brink of death, frail, bruised, and starved? – Executed Israeli captives AFTER a ceasefire was reached? – Traded mutilated corpses while laughing in the faces of grieving families?
*Actors, Actresses, Filmmakers and people of our Hollywood Community, Read This Before You Wear That Pin Again* Would you proudly wear the emblem of a lynching?
Would you parade the symbol of people who strangled babies with their bare hands?
Because that is what the red hand represents.
To those who wore it without knowing—now you know.
To those who knew and wore it anyway—we see you and we will not be silent.
Following further horrors from Hamas’ Israeli hostage release charade, I am bereft of language that can accurately and appropriately express the rage, sadness, anger and yes, revenge, I am currently feeling. Over time I suppose this may pass and in the short term we can be thankful for the return of six more living hostages. Israelis, however, must think not only of the short term, but of the long term existential threat posed by these sub-human jihadists and their death cult followers. Hence, I am re-Stacking a post from cognitive psychologist and Substacker David Mandel, who calls for Israelis to “Finish What *they* Started” – to destroy Hamas. And that it is not only a war objective to do so, but also a moral duty as well.
My only critique of Mandel’s position is that while I agree with him that “we all need this”, I would not call out Israeli’s alone for finishing the job. It should be a shared responsibility of the civilized world, to rid or “de-Natzify” the world once and for all of the jihadist death mongers and war criminals. And there should be a public display of the war criminals on trial a la Neurenberg.
There are historical precedents for such challenges. The allies were able to de-Natzify successfully in Germany, and more recently, the US and its allies were able to neuter ISIS. I’m not sure of the best way to accomplish such a task, but it must be done. Even if it takes a 10 year “whack-a-terrorist” approach, the world will be better off, and Israelis will finally get to live in peace.
Yesterday was a horrible day for Jews around the world. We learned that the Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, were brutally murdered in captivity. There was the coffin of their mother, Shiri, that arrived in Israel with another corpse inside. There were the remains of Oded Lifshitz desecrated with the message that every inch of Palestine would be reclaimed. There were the black coffins stamped with the victims’ “date of arrest”—10/7—and the macabre ceremony. There was the Gazan fervour and excitement. The large turnout and lively music.
What is the appropriate response to the Gazan death cult and their latest display of barbarism? In the short term, of course, it is emotion. Sadness, anger, rage, and revenge. The grief we experience is both personal and collective and it transcends national boundaries. It won’t pass soon.
But Israel cannot afford to wallow in emotion for too long. It must do one thing and that is to destroy the death cult that attacked it. That means in the first instance destroying Hamas, which is not only a strategic aim of the war but at this point, a moral duty. The crimes committed by Hamas and the broader Gazan death cult are crimes against man and they require that the perpetrators face total defeat. There will be no peace or justice unless this is done.
Yesterday was not the justification for that moral duty. That justification was already strong, indeed unquestionable, by 10/7. But as of yesterday, there can be no excuse; no moral confusion, except by those who are evil, cowardly, or irredeemably befuddled. A new prescription for vision correction must be filled. Israel must see clearly, not through blurry, smudged, or rose-coloured glasses. See what must be done and see to it that it is done.
This is what the Israeli people deserve. This is what the Jewish people worldwide deserve. And this—because the crimes committed by the Gazan death cult are crimes against humanity—is what humanity deserves. Those on the side of humanity don’t care what those against humanity have to say about it. We do not want to reach a compromise. We are not responsible for explaining time and again why the intentional murder of a kidnapped baby for the crime of being Jewish is not the same as the unintentional killing of children put in harm’s way by the very same depraved terrorists who started this war without just cause and to murder as many Israeli civilians as they could. What is needed to survive and heal is total victory over evil, the pure evil that the Gazan death cult displays.
Hamas must be eliminated. Palestinian Islamic Jihad must be eliminated. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine must be eliminated. Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade must also be destroyed. The Arabs of Gaza, who revel in the intense suffering of Jews, must be psychologically broken. You can call it deradicalization if it makes you feel better, or de-Nazification, if analogy is your cup of tea, but in plain terms, their will to destroy Israel and the Jews must be broken once and for all.
We all need this
This must happen not only for the sake of Israelis or even the sake of Jews worldwide but for the sake of humanity. We cannot undo the crimes against humanity that the Gazan death cult undertook on 10/7 and that it continues to undertake, but we have a moral duty to end its reign of terror and heal the world.
Israel is principally responsible for undertaking this duty. It is responsible for leveraging the goodwill of the United States. It must not fail to capitalize on opportunities flowing from that goodwill under the current administration that may not later be present. Since risk positively correlates with reward, Israel cannot afford the luxury of risk aversion, turning away from a rare window of opportunity.
Israel’s decisions not only affect Israelis; they affect Jews worldwide. Some might read this statement as a call for restraint. After all, Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas, Iran’s other proxies, and Iran itself has been met with a spike in worldwide antisemitism. Life in Israel after 10/7 has changed but so has life for Jews in London, Paris, New York and Toronto, and the list goes on.
But that reading would be wrong. The spike in antisemitism occurred swiftly after 10/7 and despite the just cause of Israel’s military actions and the IDF’s unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties in urban warfare against an enemy that uses the most vulnerable as expendable human shields. The spike in antisemitism worldwide was not released by Israel’s military actions, which were just and necessary, but by the antisemitic bloodlust that Hamas’s savagery released.
The wave of antisemitism will not be quelled by pacifism nor by diplomatic pressures that bring Israelis back to two-state negotiations with genocidal maniacs. Jews in the Diaspora will have to fight antisemitism at home, as they have been doing every day since the day after 10/7 when Jew hatred erupted. We will handle our responsibility through grassroots efforts, as we have and will continue to do, but we need Israel to undertake its moral responsibility and achieve its strategic goal.
We need Israel to defeat Hamas and win this war unambiguously. Gaza must not be allowed to continue being a breeding ground for a death cult mentality. That mentality, too, must be destroyed, repudiated, and stigmatized for the good of mankind. Only then will Jews in the Diaspora have the fighting chance they so desperately need to win the war against the Jews raging in their cities.
Only then will the antisemites who cloak themselves in fake moral virtue be seen for what they are: vile hatemongers, twenty-first-century brownshirts, and battalions of naive dupes who proudly stood for torture, murder, hostage-taking, and lies.
This is a sad day. And while fully expecting the delivery by the Hamas monsters of the Bibas’ family in body bags, the news still carries a sickening kind of shock that settles in my gut like a bad case of food poisoning.
Despite humanitarian requests from the International Red Cross for a respectful process, live footage showed crowds of Palestinians waiting near the stage, as music blared in the background. Parked nearby were white pickup trucks, some of them draped in Hamas flags, reminiscent of the ones driven into Israel by invading Hamas terrorists on October 7. A Palestinian terrorist responsible for killing dozens of Israelis who was released from prison just days ago was seen in media footage as a guest of honor at the Hamas handover. Others could be seen off to one side hosting what appeared to be a makeshift weapons show for children and teens, allowing them to hold their guns and pose for photos and videos.
Sick fucks. What kind of monsters kidnap a 9 month old, a 4 year old, their mother and an 83 year old man dedicated to peace and personally responsible for transporting sick Palestinians to Israeli hospitals? Sick fucks, that’s who.
There is no “what aboutism” here. This kind of degeneracy has no equivalence. At last year’s Oscars, a line of “pro-Palestine” stars—Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Ava DuVernay, and others—wore a pin of a red right hand meant to valorize the murderers of Jews. In a just world, all these “celebrities” would instead use their fame and time on the red carpet to do anything, anything at all, to express their sympathy for the Bibas and their plight, NOT their murdering kidnappers. And in a just world, our newspaper of record, The New York Times, would not exercise the kind of journalistic gymnastics that leads to this extremely inaccurate claim in their lead story on this horrible hostage handover:
In exchange for the bodies, Israel is expected to free women and minors from Gaza who were detained during the war, generally without formal charges.
With apologies to Dana Horn, here we are once again, writing about dead Jews. For me, for most Israelis, and for most of the Jewish community, the Bibas family became a symbol of just how nasty and inhuman are Hamas and their followers. Yet in a just world, their fate should have been a public outcry by the entire western world. In such a world, the faces of the Bibas children would be plastered everywhere at all times. But in the world in which we live, by contrast, posters with those faces get torn down from bulletin boards. In the kind of world we hope to deserve to inhabit, no children’s charity or NGO would go a day without drawing attention to Kfir and Ariel and the monsters who stole them. Instead, we get a world where our feeds are filled with more news of global anti-semitism, and Hamas apologists. If the post-Second World War international order and human rights were built on the backs of dead Jews, whom the world refused to save from being marched into death camps, it was dealt a fatal blow defending Hamas, the group that just made a celebratory spectacle of returning the bodies of dead Jews.
We are at the half way point in our snowbird February and the weather here couldn’t be any better. Some Tai Chi and a cup of coffee add to the heavenly bliss.
And despite the orange man’s ego maniacal attempt to insert himself into the middle of the Israeli hostage negotiations by demanding all hostages be released or else, the two sides kept to the original negotiated plan, and 3 more Israeli hostage/citizens were released this morning in exchange for over one hundred murderous terrorists. So, a tip of the kippah this week to Sagui Dekel-Chen, Sasha Troufanov, and Iair Horn re-united with their families after 498 days of captivity.
Freed hostages Sagui Dekel-Chen, Sasha Troufanov and Iair Horn crossed back into Israel on Saturday morning after being paraded on a stage in southern Gaza in a propaganda-filled release ceremony by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups that held them captive for 498 days.
It pains me to interrupt my morning moments of reverie in this Sunnyland shangra-la with more news of the carnival act being perpetrated on the country by the orange turd and his Nazi sidekick. Whatever sick act that was dishonoring the Oval Office with Musk, his toddler son sidekick and his grumpy orange toddler sidekick sitting at the irresolute desk the other day made me wonder what kind of parenting could produce something so abhorrent and lacking in basic human values. Well, now we know. Listen to his sick fuck of a father, Errol Musk:
We now know from biographers that Elon was bankrolled by daddy’s apartheid-based emerald fortune while he galavanted around Canada and the USA as an illegal alien, dropping out of not one, but at least two different colleges. No-one knows how he got into Penn, but while supposedly matriculating at this prestigious Ivy school, he owned two mansions, one of which doubled as a nightclub where he hired his own mother, probably illegally as well.
“With no Whites here [in South Africa], the Blacks will go back to the trees.”
—Errol Musk in a 2022 letter to his son Elon
So yes, Daddy was a very nice man that imbued his son with excellent values.
A significant amount of the Musk fortune Elon enjoyed growing up, and which his dad used to support him in Canada and America—and this will explain why Elon for years lied about his father’s support, even to the point of falsely implying he had written his father out of his life entirely—came from illegal apartheid-era mines in Zambia that exploited their Black workers but made the Musks fantastically wealthy.
According to one biographer, “The Musk Family refused to pay taxes on these mines or reveal their interest in them for a reason that makes sense if you know that the Musks comes from generations of white supremacists and some of them—e.g., Elon Musk’s grandparents—were even open Nazi sympathizers. Simply put, the Musk Family scions didn’t believe any Black-run government could be deemed legitimate or competent or worthy of basic respect (let alone admiration or fealty), whether that government was in South Africa or Zambia, so Errol Musk saw no need to acknowledge Zambia’s government and its powers of taxation when he bought a substantial share in a network of illegal emerald mines in the country by trading away one of his many private jets.”
Indeed, the douche doesn’t fall far from the bag.
This is a short post today. Enjoy the weekend everyone!
And beware of the douche bags now running the country, and as usual, let’s be careful out there.
And a tip of the kippah and big welcome home to three more Israeli hostages: Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami. They emerged from the hell tunnels of Gaza after 1.5 years of captivity looking weak, pale and emaciated. This is what famine really looks like:
Here are their captors, celebrating the orchestrated carnival show hostage release hosted by Hamas and its supporters. This is what famine does NOT look like:
Left: Hamas terrorists teaching a valuable lesson to the next generation. Right: Gazan girls coming out in their best dresses to celebrate a hostage release. No-one here looks particularly mal-nourished.
Let’s hope the momentum continues and more hostages come home, hopefully alive and well.
Meanwhile, the shit show back home continues unabated, with the courts being the only guardrail left to impede the orange King and his jesters from completely ignoring and potentially destroying democracy. I am all in favor of eliminating waste and stupid expenditures in our government, but there is a right way to do so, which includes time, effort, and hard work, all of which are anathema to the orange turd and his “break shit” entourage of racist nerds.
But, fear not America. It’s Super Bowl Sunday! To say the day is our premier cultural event would be doing capitalism and commerce a huge disservice. The actual football game is beside the point. Just like bread is merely a platform for butter, the game itself is just a weekend long delivery method for liquor conglomerates to catch your eyeballs and offer a QR code or two. In between spurts of actual action, we get to watch oversized men adjust their butt cracks, then at half time we can enjoy a little USA vs Canada action with Kendrick Lamar making fun of Drake! ( or vice versa, I actually don’t know either of them, or who comes from where). All of this amazing shit happens while we gorge ourselves on very unhealthy but delicious stuff, get covered in orange Dorito dust, and then watch Patrick Mahomes win another trophy. Honestly, my European friends will get all snooty about our addiction to this insanity, but it doesn’t get any better! God bless America!
I have no dog in this Super Bowl fight. Since I have been mathematically eliminated from winning anything in my playoff pickem pool, I am free to kick back, stuff myself, and enjoy the onslaught of crass and creative commercials that are typically more entertaining than the game itself. Here are a couple of my favorites from prior years. I couldn’t resist the Hellmann’s ad, having just watched on our plane ride to Palm Springs, the greatest RomCom ever made.
It’s been a while since I provided my usual round up of Jew news from around the world. So, without further ajieu, here is your weekly smorgasbord of superbly selected semitic stories from sources such as The Forward, JTA, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, Nosher, Kveller, and Jewish Boston to name a few.
Kanye embarks on a new antisemitic spree on X, saying, “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments” – Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, flooded the social network X with antisemitic comments early Friday morning, in a repeat of the spree that cost him his fashion deals and public esteem two years ago. In dozens of tweets to his 32 million followers, Ye praised Hitler, called himself a Nazi and said antisemitism was “just some bulls–t Jewish people made up to protect their bulls–t.” He also emphasized that he was unrepentant and in control of his faculties. “AMY JEWISH PERSON THAT DOES BUSINESS WITH ME NEEDS TO KNOW I DONT LIKE OR TRUST ANY JEWISH PERSON AMD THIS IS COMPLETELY SOBER WITH NO HENNESY,” he wrote in all caps, adding, “IM NEVER APOLOGIZING FOR MY JEWISH COMMENTS.”
Opinion | Don’t let Trump’s theatrics distract from the true horror of his plans for Gaza. The outrage machine kicked into high gear in the wake of Trump’s proposal, with quick rebukes coming from all corners of the American and Arab political environment — even as many Israelis embraced the plan. “But I hope that, when we strip away the attention-drawing theatrics of this announcement, we remember that the cruelest and most ridiculous part of it is an idea Trump floated last month to far less fanfare: forced displacement of Gaza’s entire Palestinian population,” writes our columnist Emily Tamkin. Read her essay ➤
Opinion | In Trump’s Gaza pronouncement, a disdain for humanity worthy of Caligula. To understand the psychology behind Trump’s proposal, our culture columnist Robert Zaretsky proposes turning to a play about the notorious Roman emperor Caligula by Nobel laureate Albert Camus. Camus cast Caligula, whom many historians have suggested was mad, as being a master of understanding life’s absurdity — including the absurdity of his own power, which let him set “no value on the lives of Romans or anyone else’s,” and decide that, on his whim, “there will be a catastrophe, and I will stop the catastrophe when I choose.” Read his essay ➤
And more reactions:
Egyptian officials reportedly warned the Trump administration that the president’s proposal could endanger the country’s long-standing peace treaty with Israel. (Times of Israel)
Jordanian experts warned that the plan could pose a serious threat to Jordan’s security, with one saying “Jordan could cease to exist if this displacement plan is executed.” (Times of Israel)
A coalition of American Reform Jewish organizations, including the Union for Reform Judaism and the Association of Reform Jewish Educators, issued a letter decrying Trump’s plan as “unrealistic and dangerous.” (Union for Reform Judaism)
Palestinians are rejecting Trump’s call to expel them from Gaza. “I won’t leave,” said Mustafa al-Gazzar, 80. “Put that in your brain.” (AP)
Palestinian-Americans expressed horror at the idea of expelling people from Gaza, with one leader at a D.C.-based think tank calling the plan “outrageous, criminal, harebrained.” (New York Times)
Mainstream pro-Israel groups have mostly been stunned into silence. (JTA, Religion News Service)
Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, joined other lawmakers who are skeptical of the Gaza plan. “I thought we voted for America First,” he posted on social media. (X)
Painful release – Some American Jews are grieving as Hamas terrorists convicted of murdering their friends in attacks decades ago are set free as part of the ceasefire deal. “As I’ve been trying to process it all I just keep thinking about how Jewish it all feels,” said Amanda Pogany, whose best friend, Marla Bennett, was killed in the 2002 bombing at the Hebrew University cafeteria in Jerusalem. “We are a people that is constantly navigating joy and sorrow simultaneously.” Go deeper ►The latest…
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight wounded when wind brought down a surveillance platform in Gaza. (Haaretz, Times of Israel)
Fourteen Jewish groups are urging the Supreme Court to allow American victims of Palestinian terrorists to sue in U.S. courts. (AJC)
United Airlines plans to resume flights from the U.S. to Israel in March. Deltaplans to follow in April. (Globes)
On campus…
🏫 Georgetown Law’s Students for Justice in Palestine plans to host an event next week with a convicted member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was imprisoned for withholding information about a deadly 2019 bombing that killed an Israeli teen. (Jewish Insider)
⚖️ A federal judge ordered Cooper Union, a private Manhattan college, to face a lawsuit alleging the school failed to protect Jewish students who barricaded themselves in a library amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations. (Reuters, Times of Israel)
🎒 A conference held this week at Brown University — focused on the prevalence of non-Zionist Jewish traditions — received more than 1,500 emails in protest, forcing organizers to increase security measures for the two-day event. (Brown Daily Herald)
In Australia….
🥓 Police arrested a Melbourne man for allegedly scrawling antisemitic graffiti, spitting on a passerby and throwing a packet of bacon at them. It’s the latest in a spate of anti-Jewish crimes in Australia. (JTA)
🇦🇺 Australia on Thursday passed new anti-hate crime laws, in an effort to combat the recent surge in antisemitism. Among other things, people who give a Nazi salute in public will get a minimum of 12 months in jail. (Reuters)
🤔 Australia, a haven for Jews for generations, has seen a significant increase in antisemitic attacks since October 2023 — including vandalism, arson, and threats against Jewish institutions, prompting authorities to investigate potential foreign involvement. “This is a time of national crisis,” said one local politician. (AP, Wall Street Journal)
That’s a wrap. Enjoy the Super Bowl everyone! Or not. And let’s be careful out there.
Jew News Review 