I Couldn't Sleep at all Last Night (Tossing and Turning)

 ב"ה

I'm often asleep by 10 these days. Last night, I finally fell asleep about 11:30. Not too terribly late; it happens. But right now it's 2:45 in the morning. Usually I'm fast asleep this time of night. But the Georgia runoff election was last night and the results were not pleasant. Of all the elections this past November 8 (the official election day), this was one of the elections that I really wanted the republican candidate to win. The Democrat candidate (the "barely" incumbent senator) was a man who personified all the worst traits of the worst members of the Democratic party. He's a race baiter -- he's a black man who hates white people and seems to hate us Jews more than he hates anyone else. He supports abortion up to the last day of pregnancy. He's a minister (so he says) who acts as though religion and G-d don't exist. And he also seems angry all the time.

His opponent, the Republican, is a "country boy", religious, refers to G-d often in his speeches, is against abortion unless the mother's life is in danger, doesn't seem to hate any group. He's a former college and professional football player who started out poor and made a name for himself. He always seems to be smiling. 

Now, I know some of those things are just my "3 o'clock in the morning -- haven't gotten enough sleep" voice but that's how I see things. I also see them as a death knell for conservatism in our quickly dying republic. The  time for cautionary tales such as "Animal Farm", "Brave New World", "1984" and "Logan's Run" is gone -- these books are coming true and describing our current situation. 

We have always been the "flip side" of communism in this country, always been the antidote to totalitarianism. We always felt secure in living in a country where our constitution would always protect us. 

But the constitution isn't protecting us anymore. Our justice system has been weaponized by our weak and ineffective president. People, who have had to endure eclipsing of our G-d given civil and human rights for two years as a precaution that didn't even work in limiting the spread of a relatively minor disease made worse by a potentially lethal vaccine, are being targeted for their beliefs. The former president of the United States has endured harassment from the moment he became a candidate. He and his family have also braved libel and slander from the supposedly free press and "Jean Valjean" type chasing by the governmental "Javert". Their voices are being silenced, the words they do manage to say are being twisted at every turn. And the current "president" instead of standing up for him is the one leading the persecution so as to prop himself up.

The people who are supposed to have been elected by the citizens have been playing fast and loose with the rules, turning elections into suspicious events and leading the Democrats to accuse the Republicans of disenfranchising their voters all the while restricting polling access to Republicans. Three consecutive elections have been marred by "monkey business" and "hanky panky". And when the cheated candidates try to sue or try to call for a recount they are called "election deniers" by a party who has denied the elections were fair whenever in this century one of their candidates magically lost. 

I'm losing my hope. I'm losing my security. I'm losing my country. We're losing our grip on the best, finest, richest, freest country that ever existed on the face of this earth. Crime is on the upsurge;  spending power is slumping . Suicide is skyrocketing, confidence in ourselves and our government is plummeting. Our enemies are attacking our allies and disrespecting our place in the world. Our Constitutional Democratic Republic is eroding right along with our rights. People who belong in jail are roaming the streets, stealing and killing with impunity, while peaceful protesters are rotting in jail for almost 2 years with no trials, no sentencing, in some cases prohibited from seeing their families or talking to their lawyers. 

The world is upside down and our "president" and other "western" world leaders are lauding and lionizing the totalitarian regime of our most vicious and credible enemies. Pronouns are more important than military readiness. Children are being abused and used as weapons. Each step the Democrats take against us, we fight legally, but they have already turned the legal system against us. 

Each day I see examples of this legal system. They call it "two-tiered" but I think of it as a marketplace where the value of my eye is not equal to the value of "the other guy's" eye. The inequality in our judiciary is obvious but ignored. And those of us who see this, who see the disparities are mocked and becoming more and more dejected. 

I don't know about you, but all I keep wanting to know is what can I do. What can I do to make things better, for myself and for my country. John F. Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," keep ringing in my ears. But all I see are people who say, "What's in it for me?" The few who aren't in that category, my former president, some states' governors (but not my state), some senators and representatives (but very few and their numbers are shrinking). I'm lost in a world where I and people who agree with me are the moles in a whack-a-mole game. I can turn to G-d but G-d helps those who help themselves. 

So where does that leave me. Still awake and still concerned and still wanting to help in some way. And that's where I sit. 

I know one thing, the answer is NOT to stop voting. The answer is not to stop fighting. It's our nation, we need to take it back -- legally, peacefully. Never stoop to the level of criminals. Never use coercion. Convince people by being a good citizen. Be strong, be American, be patriotic. And don't allow the direness of the circumstances dishearten you. They can only defeat us if we let them. Let's not let them. 

No One Should be Playing the Left’s Game

 ב"ה

No One Should be Playing the Left’s Game

I can only say that I hope Donald Trump has a plan. I hope his plan is not to destroy Ron DeSantis. As “America First” Conservatives, we need to have the strongest team we can.

I was listening to the Trump Rally on Saturday night on Newsmax and I was getting into the good feeling I always have listening to Trump’s speeches at these rallies when something passed quickly by my ears and jolted my brain. It was what I thought was Trump calling DeSantis “DeSanctimonious”. I hoped it was good-natured jabbing, the teasing of a teammate or a dear friend.

But in the ensuing days, I am finding the reactions from pundits and media concerning.

I really like Donald Trump – he’s a large reason I’m a Republican these days. I would like to see him as another Grover Cleveland (for those of you who don’t know, Cleveland was, so far, the only president who served two non-consecutive terms). If he had been inaugurated as president last January I might at this point be looking to who might take over. But, being that officially he has only served one term as president, he can (and should, in my humble opinion) run for another term.

I look at it this way: Donald Trump needs to run in 2024 because after that it might be too late (not for the dynamo of Mar-A-Lago but for the voters). But in 2028 (the next presidential election year after 2024) Ron DeSantis will be 50 – a very nice age for a president (in my book) and, since Florida has term limits anyway, we need to prepare an adequate (at least!) replacement.

I am quite saddened by the serving of the first volley in this match. I want so much for these two strong leaders to lead together. For now, I think we need Ron DeSantis as a governor. I’d like to see other governors and potential governors use his “system” of governing as a template for successfully running a state in the way the people of the state want and need. Without DaSantis to lead in this regard for the next 4 years this may be an unfulfilled mission.

On the other hand, I would like Ron DeSantis to be president some day – perhaps 2028, as I mentioned before, when he turns 50 (there have only been 9 presidents who served in their 40s and two of them were assassinated). I’m glad Ron DeSantis is young enough that he’ll be around, G-d willing, for many years to come.

Be good to each other – support each other. Let’s be strong together. Let’s make our country strong again, wealthy again, great again. Together. Forever. Not divided into camps.

#DJT #Trump2024 #DeSantis #RonDeSantis #DonaldJTrump #AmericaFirst

Old Speak, New Speak, 9 days old Speak

ב"ה

I was listening to a Bil Maher YouTube video about 8 words that have changed meanings (for the worse). I just found this and I've already listened to it twice. It reminded me of the book 1984 (a novel with a cautionary tale, not a "how-to" manual) by George Orwell. I remembered in that book (which I read probably 30 years ago and only read once, so I have forgotten a lot of the details) they tried to reduce the number of words in the English language by using "not" and "double" (as in double not good instead of terrible). They called the language, if I recall correctly, NewSpeak.

Over the past several years (like the 21st century and, perhaps a bit before) I've been complaining (though my concerns are falling on deaf ears) that the "younger generation" is doing this by reducing descriptions of feelings, objects, people, animals, etc. to emojis. This is not something I'm crazy about.

I have always loved words -- English words, Hebrew words, Spanish words, French words. Lately, I'm addicted to Duolingo (which I found after it was a "question" to an "answer" on Jeopardy! -- anyone who has been following me for a while knows I'm addicted to Jeopardy! also -- I was a contestant in 2009 and have watched since I was about 9 or 10 years old) and I'm officially learning 33 languages (yes, at the same time, more or less) but I don't learn each of them every day. Lately, I've been concentrating on Norwegian and Ukrainian. Learning so many languages (even in a shallow manner, though some I'm learning more deeply) helps me to notice certain cadences, certain rhythms, certain melodies of conversation. And it helps me to notice certain words are related between languages -- for example, Kitab I first ran in to in Hindi (still struggling with), then I ran into it in Turkish (also still struggling with) and most recently I ran into it in Arabic (still struggling with the letters). I means "book" and it's related, a friend of mine pointed out, to the Hebrew word "LiKhtov" to write.

But if all these languages didn't have a word for "book" because books were burned as in Fahrenheit 451, this relationship of words within the different tongues would not show up. And these days books aren't just paper and type. There are Kindle books and ebooks, both of which exist only in the ether (unless you print them up). If a book exists only as an electronic file, does it truly exist?

Star Trek fans out there (I call myself a Trekkie, but others use what I consider the more pretentious "Trekker") might remember the original series episode where Captain Kirk goes on trial for causing someone's death (an old friend who wasn't really dead) and ends up with an older gentleman as a lawyer -- the lawyer has books all over this office and Jim (Captain Kirk) asks him why he doesn't just have them on his computer. He says that he likes the feel of "real" books. I have a different reason -- I do most of my reading on Shabbat (the Sabbath) on which day we are not permitted to use our computers. So "real" books it has to be.

But language, any language, written or spoken, has a richness to it that no emoji can capture. Can you imagine Joyce Kilmer's "Trees", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Evangeline", Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", or Lewis Carol's "Jabberwacky" in emojis? I can't even imagine an Ogden Nash couplet (Like "Candy is Dandy/But liquor is quicker") as a collection of emojis. To me this is a step towards isolating people from each other.

Words are necessary for communicating our thoughts and feelings, our opinions and mores, our beliefs and passions. How do you do that with emojis only? No, I think the richness of language and the written and spoken word is more than emojis can handle. A picture may be worth a thousand words but sometimes the words say more.

I also think it is important to keep the written, grammatical, speech of languages (granted, with some languages I have trouble with grammar) as part of our spoken and written heritage so we can connect with other people. Freedom of speech means we are free to express our opinions about anything -- but it also means we have the freedom (and the knowledge) to pluck just the right word for the situation.

Help keep the words (all languages) alive for the next generations.

Your Immune System -- Use it or Lose it

When I was a young, I used to get "sick" (have a fever, get the flu, etc.). I had the measles, I had the mumps, I had something called "Echo Virus". When I was seven, I kissed my best friend Ellen because she had the chicken pox and I wanted to get them (I didn't get them until almost 30 years later and then I had such a mild case -- I had a milder case than the children who gave it to me!)

Back then, getting sick was part of life -- we would get sick and stay home from school for a few days and Mom would coddle us and cuddle us and spoil us with, in my case, pineapple-grapefruit juice that I loved. I got to watch the quiz shows on TV and, during baseball season I got to watch my Mets.

So being "sick" was nothing to be upset about (unless it came in the summer or any other "off" day). We didn't have a ton of shots (aka vaccines) -- I had a smallpox vaccine that I only know about because I had a "vaccination mark" on the outer side of my upper left arm (which I could see). I was told I had a polio vaccine (and when I was about 8 or so I had another "immunization" polio sugar cube) and the first shot I remember was the DPT (what I think is now called DTaP)

Now we are in a generation where vaccines and medication are rampant -- where people are afraid of measles and mumps and chicken pox (yes, even mild but uncomfortable chicken pox!) which set the stage for the morbid fear of CoVid -- a fear so deep that people acted as though exposure to someone who MIGHT have CoVid was an instant death warrant. This is a disease that over 99% of the people who had it survived and most were safe from getting it again (unless they got a toxic vaccine, but I digress). The only person I was worried about was my 90 year old father (with good reason -- this "virus" was used as an excuse to ignore him, not treat him after they exposed him to it in his nursing home). At the time, I was trying to find out how to get him out of the nursing home but everything was happening so fast that within a month after the nursing homes shut us out of visiting he was gone.

Why is there such a fear of germs? Why don't people understand that G-d created the human body brilliantly, with G-d level intelligence and wisdom, G-d built our bodies to repair themselves. Some viruses and bacteria strengthen the body while vaccinations weaken the body and bypass the strengthening process. It is as though a person ignores lifting weights or aerobic exercise and then doesn't understand why their muscles atrophy.

And the left, Democrats, the Sleepy Joes, Kommunist Harrises, Fancy Nancy Pantsys, "Chuck it all" Schumers, use a normal, natural mild childhood type illness as a means to press compliance, the type of compliance that Communist leaders like Stalin and Mao, Castro and Chavez and more recently Putin and Xi force on their people (I almost said "followers" but these "leaders" have no followers -- they have mental slaves, people who do what they need to survive).

On this Memorial Day, I think the most important thing we can do is fight for the things that our soldiers fought for (and, in many cases, died for). We need to protect our G-d given rights (including Medical Freedom). We can't be complacent and think The Constitution will protect us if we don't protect the Constitution (and our rules of law). Let us bow our heads in silent prayer and ask G-d to protect us from those who would take our freedom. And while we're at it, let us do what we can do to be a part of that process. Stand up and defend our rights and our Constitution.

Have a meaningful Memorial Day.

Roe, roe, roe your wade....

ב"ה

1973 was the year the Mets made it to their second world series, the year of the Yom Kippur war and my year at Livingston College. 1973 was also the year Roe vs Wade became the law of the land, and was the first year I could vote. I remember being excited over the prospect of voting, but I don't recall whom I voted for.

At the time, I had fallen for the lines about saving women's lives by making abortion clean, surgical, and relatively safe compared to back alley abortions or wire hangers. I never gave much thought to the unborn children.

Fast forward a few years. My Mom worked for the Department of Social Services (Welfare) and as part of her job, she chauffeured clients to Planned Parenthood. She wasn't allowed (even if she hadn't supported abortion on demand) to give the young mothers any other advise on what to do to deal with their pregnancy besides abortion (one of her co-workers tried and was reprimanded).

Fast Forward again to 2016. Donald Trump had just won the election (I, like the good liberal that I was, had voted for Hillary, despite misgivings about her position on Israel and the Middle East in general). I was talking with my Mom about how upset I was over Trump's victory. She gave me the same advice she gave me when Obama won (and I was unhappy) "You're stuck with him for 4 years anyway. Why not give him a chance?" So I did and he won me over.

So now I'm in an unusual position. I've gone conservative (or was I already there without knowing it?) because for the most part the conservatives seem to hold the same values as I do (albeit with a different religion, though they, as I, put G-d, fear of G-d and a G-dly life at the center of our world.) And, as an Orthodox Jew, I know that the Jewish view of abortion is not the same as, say, the Catholic view. So I want to make certain that Jewish law would be honored in a case where Jewish law and Catholic law diverge.

But by the same token, I do not consider the "pro-choice" position a viable option (especially since they don't give mothers a choice. How can you call yourself "pro-choice" if you don't give a choice?)

The Party of "Depopulation" is choosing the planet, a piece of rock with water, over the people who live here. Nature's goal is to keep the species alive. Democrats are interested in saving the planet (and their fiefdoms) while sacrificing the serfs (and the next generation). As long as Roe vs. Wade represents that way of looking at Earth and the people thereof, I am glad to see it go. Abortion won't be outlawed. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade only kicks the issue back to the states, as it should be based on the 10th Amendment of the constitution. Many states will remain unchanged on this issue (probably NY and California, for example). But others might do what Texas did -- outlaw late term "abortions". Abortion is such a nice clean term for violently murdering an unborn baby.

Don't make this your only issue. Make your decision based on truth, not rumors.

My Take on January 6th Revisited

 ב״ה

I wrote this last year and never posted it. So some of the stuff is a bit dated, but I hope you all get the idea:

Is it just me, or does pundits saying "They'll never impeach Donald Trump a second time" not fill you full of warms and fuzzies? So far, all the bad things that "they" have said will never happen because of the constitution or the law or the good things that would happen (like the election being overturned) because of the law or the constitution are all turning out badly. I don't trust anything or anyone anymore. I'm worried about Ted Cruz and other brave congressmen who stood up for the constitution will be punished somehow -- hurt in ways we can't even imagine now.

The way the left has taken over, by controlling the press and other modes of communication with the Mainscream media and Mainscream social media acting like little tin dictators, brazenly stealing the election, knowing that, while we know what their sources are saying about events, the people who are not part of Trump supporters don't hear the truth. They believe that the riots this summer were racially motivated by the "murder" (not the drug induced death that we now know it to be) of a criminal. They believe that Trump told his "followers" to attack congress. We, who have actually listened to what he said, know this is not true. So the way it all has been reported is that the true riots that burned cities and went on for months this summer were "peaceful protests" and "the summer of love" and the unfortunate overreaction (which led to deadly violence last Wednesday) was "Trump inciting violence" (which we know was not).

If Ted Cruz and all the other congress-people who stood up for Trump and for us "We the people" as Sean Hannity is fond of saying, ever see this, I want them to know at least one person out here in the ether appreciates their bravery to stand up to the swamp creatures who are stealing not only the election but our country (and possibly even our world) -- stealing from us and handing it over to the Chinese -- they began by handing out our jobs during the Obama administration (at least) to handing over the reins of power (and leadership) right now. We are becoming a satellite of one of the biggest (if not the biggest) violator of human rights, all for a few bucks to the powers that be, the elitists who call us "deplorable", who control our ability to speak, to get a job, to live a meaningful life even to have families and children. I'm worried that our lives are being taken away, that the next step is labor camps and then death camps. And, since my people were the main target (not, by any means, the only target) of a previous such governmental overthrow, which left 6 million of my co-religionists dead in the course of 6 years, I've always known that saying "it can't happen here" is a fool's belief.

My only hope is that enough people wake up to get us our president back, to get us our senators back, our lovers of America, our believers in MAGA/KAG, our patriots. All I want is my life back. Without "mockdown" and a fake pandemic that is all political, all suppressive, all oppressive, all repressive. And all hiding, like Biden, from a huge percentage of our electorate, right below the surface.

Give me Liberty or Give me Patrick Henry

 ב"ה

When I was in school (back in the dark days of actual instruction, not leftist inculcation) we learned about Patrick Henry saying, to the Virginia Burgesses, "Give me liberty or give me death." I didn't quite understand that statement when I was young.

But since the beginning of 2020, when our rights began seriously eroding, slowly at first, but quickly when the Left started their plan to get the government under their thumbs, with the help of the cancel culture and the phony plandemic and mockdown after mockdown, to put their country-people in a state of fear (fear of dying from corona, fear of police, for example) I've started to understand what Mr. Henry meant. 

I've been trying to do what I can to save my beloved country. I started writing this blog this year. I have several blogs with themes from Israel and Judaism, to my vegan cooking blog. But this year, I needed a pressure valve to express my frustration with the leftist views being espoused at every turn. 

So one of my friends and I were talking about what we could do to help bring our freedom and liberty back to levels we need to feel safe in this country, to feel that we will have our rights to our opinions, we will have our rights to defend our homes, our families and ourselves, that we will have our rights to worship as we please, to use words we have used all our lives. 

And I said that I think I'm beginning to understand Patrick Henry. I've stopped being afraid that someone will call me a racist (I've been called one so often by people who don't even know what the word means, they just use it as a cudgel to beat their "enemies" (another word they don't understand). I am no longer afraid because I've realized that if I don't get to live under the system I was born under, the system that all my European born grandparents came here for, life isn't worth living. And as the Georgia Senatorial election is still razor thin and if the Republican candidates both lose we will lose much of what makes this country so great and what makes millions of non-Americans want to move here I am worried that this will be a whole new country at the end of January 2021, that as Biden is phased out and Harris moves into the White House, the gains we have made against racism (true racism, not cudgel racism) will be lost, the gains woman have made will evaporate, the gains in gay rights we have made will vanish in the breeze of hot air from the left, that our small businesses and strong economy will never come back, thanks to mockdowns destroying small businesses and  arresting and fining people who only want their jobs or businesses back. 

So a comment made about 245 years ago is resounding in my ears, resonating with my heart and mind, reverberating through my soul and hoping, nay, praying that G-d will help us maintain our democracy and G-d will lead us to do what needs to be done. Keep America Great. Remember, G-d keeps his eyes on us all. And G-d never forgets.