Chutzpah

If you are from New York, if you like New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Miami, or Philadelphia, if you live in a city with more than a handful of Jews, you probably know what "chutzpah" means.  In case you don't know the word, here is a perfect example of it: Ted Cruz panhandling folks he has just maligned!  And, by the by, if you are wondering what "New York values" really means, it's code for Jewish values.  Like chutzpah!  Way to go, Ted!

What is the Debt?

At a Town Hall meeting in New Hampshire on Monday, December 21st, an audience member asked Republican Presidential candidate Governor Chris Christie about the National Debt, claiming that Barack Obama had tripled the Debt in his seven years in office.  Governor Christie, without attempting to correct the man’s exaggerated figure, claimed that Obama had added to the debt more than every other President combined; in other words, he had doubled – not tripled – the Debt, still a potent charge.   But here is the truth: Presidents Reagan and Bush I more than quadrupled the Debt, from $998 billion to $4,411 billion, President Bush II more than doubled the Debt, from $5,807 billion to $11,910 billion.  President Obama took over a Debt at $11,910 billion and the Debt stood at $18,151 billion at the end of the last fiscal year, September 30th, 2015, an explosion of 52%, not 200%, not 100% (but he has only been responsible for 6 years of budgets so far).  And while President Bush II only had surpluses as far as the eye could see to overcome, President Obama had a deep recession to fight (and additional government spending is every serious economist’s response to a recession).

Politicians lie, even with numbers that are easily verified.  But politicians don’t expect you to care enough to hunt down the truth.  So, I am happy to do that for you. 

And, by the way, here is the SOURCE of my numbers.  I wonder what the governor’s source was.

And Governor Christie knows he told a whopper.  The alternative is: he is ignorant and he doesn’t care.  Which is worse?

For what it's worth, this is not an anti-Christie post, it is a post aimed at setting the record straight re: taxes and the National Debt.  All Republicans have put these untrue facts out there.  Democrats lie too, but Republicans – the party of fiscal responsibility – like to emphasize the fiscal irresponsibility of President Obama, and they don’t seem to care that it is just not true.

Big Deal Dates in Recent US History

This blog post is just an exercise in historical silliness.  There is no way you could come up with this personal list of big deal dates if you asked Google or Bing.  It is just MY list, 13 events.

November 4^th & 5^th, 2008

Barack Obama wins the American Presidency.  The world went crazy, the world celebrated, America had elected a black man President, America had grown up!  Even in the USA, Obama had a 76% approval rating following his inauguration, so even conservative Republicans were glad for America (for a short while).  It was quite an event, you could feel it!

A Jewish friend of mine …

A Jewish friend of mine wrote this and I thought it deserved being seen.

Someone in the <deleted for the sake of anonymity> group argued that we are a Christian Nation.  As a Jew, I would say that makes me just a bit uncomfortable.  Not to mention that historically, it made Irish and Italian Catholics uncomfortable, too.  If we are a Christian Nation, we are a Nation of Salem Witch trials, of Pilgrims who fled religious intolerance only to practice it themselves, of Christians who justified killing the red (native-born) savages for not converting to Christianity, and of Christians who dressed in white robes to go on lynching rampages.

Allah Revisited

In a piece that I called Katy Perry & Allah, I probably sounded like an enemy of Muslims.  I suggested that American Muslims needed to get used to being discriminated against, at least individually and personally (rather than officially by the government).  But my whole drift was that they could not expect to have their prophet Mohammad respected, not as they wanted him to be, not by the American people.  Because individual freedom of expression is America’s creed (not just YOUR freedom, but everyone’s); what makes us American more than anything else, is our RIGHT to offend, to blaspheme, to insult, to disparage.  And I was suggesting that this lack of “respect” was part of a period of indoctrination that might last a hundred years or more; ask a black man how long it will last that they won’t respect you, and he will say with some justice: “it never ends, white Americans are all alike, bigoted as hell.”  Seen the movie The Gangs of New York yet?  I recommend it, it will give a real face to American intolerance.  But it will allow you to breathe easier about it.  Really!

So what am I here for this time?  To associate myself with President Obama’s sentiments, and not with Donald Trump’s.  And to honor the New York tabloid Daily News (NOT a liberal rag) for its graphic eloquence!

The ACLU & Citizens United

I have spent a lifetime walking in near lock-step with the ACLU and its unwavering support of our fragile Bill of Rights, particularly the 1^st amendment, and its laser-beam concentration on that amendment’s “freedom of speech, or of the press” clause.  God knows I could write a short book glorifying dozens of unpopular cases that the ACLU took on, and won.  But here I would like to register my dismay at their narrow reading of the issues in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court case of 2008 – 2011.  In this case, the ACLU submitted an Amicus brief for the film maker, and it was right to do so: Citizens United had every right to have its movie broadcast.  But the ACLU erred in siding with the Court in its expanded consideration of the place of money in politics.  Here is what they wrote for public consumption in defense of their position.

Paris

I can recall from long, long ago an older relative calling World War II "the recent unpleasantness."  It had a clever ironic ring to it that made you wake up to how really awful it was.  Indeed, if you don't know how really awful it was, you have no sense of history.  If you are not old enough to remember the war, an over-exposure to images and facts and figures may do the trick; so put a day aside and immerse yourself in a bit of "recent" history.

The "recent unpleasantness" in Paris is a European capital's 9/11.  A wake-up call, not that any European capital needed one.  And it is having all sorts of unintended consequences here, too.  The governors of many (23 as of this morning) American states have decided to close their borders to Syrian refugees who are trying to escape the self-same bastards that are now targeting Europe.  They don't want to be next, "not on my watch."  And who can blame them?  Because of a few evil bastards, hundreds of thousands of innocents will see their cries for help turned aside.

The Four Freedoms

       

The following is stolen verbatim from the Norman Rockwell Museum's website.

Democratic Socialism

As independent senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders has a real chance to become the Democratic candidate for President in 2016, it is time for the American people to understand what he stands for.  Sanders’ party is the Democratic Socialist party.  So, what is a Democratic Socialist?

Snowden and the NSA

Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis

After the homilies he immortalized in Poor Richard’s Almanac (“A penny saved is a penny earned,” “Early to bed and early to rise …,” “Old too soon and wise too late”), Benjamin Franklin is best known for two more mature aphorisms: “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it” and “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

In other words, alongside of the wise Mr. Franklin, I am squarely on Edward Snowden’s side in this contest between the forces of civil liberties vs national security.  If we can’t protect ourselves without resorting to undermining the very freedoms that make us proud to be Americans in the first place, well then, God help us.

Having said that, this is a tough one.