Disposable Friendship

 I wasn't going to write about this, I had told myself very early on after it happened that I shouldn't waste any thoughts or energy on a dude who was crazy and who had decided to blow up a 15 year friendship over politics.

But really, I need to write it down here, because I know I'm going to forget most of the details of what happened.

There was no actual face to face confrontation - this all happened on Facebook.

For months, my long time acquaintance (who I genuinely thought was my friend) Jeff Sherid had been taken to the woodshed by yours truly over politics, specifically the presidential race and my refusal to indulge Sherid's fever dreams over the character of Donald Trump.

I would not engage about Trump or his character - simply put, it didn't interest me as there have been these discussions and pontifications from both sides for going on almost a decade at this point.  I get it, Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.  I don't really care.  Arguing about this doesn't interest me.

In general I don't argue over dead horses, I've learned this - being the token conservative in a group of 8 great friends from Berkeley California - it is pointless to dwell on points that are at an impasse.

So Sherid, his frustration building at my refusal to engage or accept his premises about DJT, all while during this I was calmly dismantling him on other issues, in my usual brusque and efficient manner - decided one day out of the blue that he'd had enough.

He posted a long and rambling manifesto about DJT and then explicitly tied all of Trump's worst traits, mostly his worst trait (according to Sherid) of being a racist - to me.

This in and of itself is kind of whatever, it's happened to me before, albeit from people who knew me much less than Sherid, but when it comes to people coming after me because of my politics - I wouldn't say I'm used to it, but I would say that I could take it or leave it.  I'm never happy to hear nasty insults, but I am a grown ass man who is 54 years old.  It really doesn't phase me that much.

However, the big fuck up on Sherid's part was that he posted this in public on Facebook and tagged me (so that every one of my FB friends would see it - including coworkers, professional contacts, and my extended family members) and then tagged everyone we both were friends with, so this went deep into the roster of my poker game and beyond.

The final straw for me was how upset my wife was at reading Sherid's garbled craziness.  As readers of this blog know, she's been through a lot lately - and that Sherid felt justified in making the love of my life cry (or even worse was unaware that his vicious words would have this effect) got me pretty well pissed off.

I was at a rather low point about an hour into this mess, with my wife in tears and a couple of fellow poker players, who clearly had decided to not be my friend, obliviously chiming in the comments about politics - completely seemingly unconcerned or unphazed at the unhinged nastiness of Sherid's insults to me personally - when a beam of light appeared in the comments in the form of my dear friend and neighbor who also plays poker with me.  She also, incidentally, believes that Trump is LITERALLY HITLER, but she didn't bring that up.  Instead she defended me, my honor, my character, and made it plain that she strongly disagreed with Sherid's assessment of me and his attacks.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me - I was not alone, and someone who actually mattered to me was putting on armor and fighting for me.  

A few minutes later another dear friend, came to my defense.

And after that, it was like an avalanche - friend after friend after friend, heaping praise on me and sometimes calling out Sherid for being an asshole.  It was rather glorious, and my faith came back.  My faith in my poker game, my faith in my friends, my faith in decency.

And almost all of my defenders likely still think Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.  And it doesn't matter.

The mob is scary, and no one wants to be outed as someone who would defend a Hitler lover; but probably upwards of two dozen of my liberal poker buddies took that chance.  A handful of closeted DJT supporters also weighed in, but honestly, they were more reluctant - as no doubt they have gone through what I was going through and knew all too well what the mob was capable of.

In the end, these was my parting texts to Sherid.  Shockingly, he did not respond at all.

---

I just can't believe that you would do that Jeff, I don't really care what you think about me, your feelings are your feelings and that's fine. 

But what really makes me angry is that you have tagged a bunch of people that I love so that they can read your garbled manifesto about what a racist piece of shit I am.

It really breaks my heart. You may find it hard to believe, but I valued our friendship, and I valued our differences, and our ability to remain civil when talking about them.

And you've thrown it all away, which is your right, of course, but to try to drag others into this grievance of yours, it's just unconscionable.

I really do wish you well, that you can somehow find your way out of the anger that you have built around you, but I'm not going to waste any time or energy on you going forward.

---

And after a bunch of my friends had chimed in -

---

And this will be my last text to you, but I hope you are now seeing the slowly growing wall of liberals who are also my dear friends, who are defending me and calling you out for being wrong here.

You fucked up.  You alienated one friend in me, and then quite a few others it seems.

Enjoy Las Vegas by yourself.

---

And so that was it - well, that and this post I put in the comments of his post and tagged him with -

---

Hi Jeff - I've removed my tag from this post so people who come to my page will no longer see it.  I would ask you to untag all the people here who care about me and who have come to my defense, but I know that will likely never happen.

You have decided to torch a 15+ year friendship over politics, apparently because you don't like losing a political argument over and over and your views don't hold up to scrutiny.  I'm sad for you in your anger and loneliness.

But I'm also angry that you thought you could drag our friends into this fray, instead of calling me or even texting me like a man, you went out like a little bitch.  And now you've found out that almost none of them agree with you - and with what you've done, you've lost them as well as me.

I will indeed be blocking you permanently on Facebook.  I never want to think of this whole mess you decided to create EVER AGAIN.

I don't want to waste any more of my energy on you at all - I've already spent too much time upset at your pathetic attempt to shame me in front of my friends.

You also made my wife cry late last night when she finally read your craziness, so that really is the final straw.  I can forgive what you've done to me, but what you did to my wife - and you know what she's gone through - just makes me furious.  You can sincerely GO FUCK YOURSELF for that.

I will be archiving all the great comments of my friends sticking up for me here and keeping them in the private Pepper Street Poker group where you are now and forever more banned.  I will never again read your garbled mess of a manifesto, it can wither and die here on your page, a monument to your anger and desperation.

---

Felt pretty good after posting that.  Not gonna lie.

But after all was said and done, I will admit, that was a saddening experience - and it made me reflect on all the other friends and family in my life who have cut me off in various ways over politics.

True, none of them were done as psychotically as this, but I have had more than one cousin and more than one long time friend, not just unfollow but permanently block me on social media and then actively avoid me IRL.  

****

And now, it's the morning after - the day after election day in America in 2024, and we all know who won and it wasn't even close, and I told you this was going to happen a week ago.

Donald J. Trump was the 45th POTUS and now he will be the 47th as of January 6 next year, when Kamala Harris herself will have to certify the election results.

Am I happy?  Sure.  And I'm not surprised at all.  I follow politics very closely and anyone paying half attention and not only watching MSNBC would know that this was by far the most likely outcome.

My team won.  Go Dodgers.  Yay.

That's about the extent of my happiness on DJT's win.

What I am struggling with, is to not be happy at the "suffering" of my dear liberal friends (misguided on politics as they may be) who are "gutted" and "stunned" (actual posts on FB this morning) at these results.

I'm trying to not be happy over their anguish, and I'm also trying - and failing - to not be thinking "What the fuck did you expect?"

Seriously, what the fuck did you expect?

I have written here and posted elsewhere, for months, that the unprecedented lawfare was just handing Trump the presidency.  Americans hate a rigged system, they hate things that are unfair.  They don't want a fixed game in any way shape or form.

Biden's DOJ directly targeting 45, and directly influencing local prosecutors in other cases to go after him as well - was the ultimate example of a stacked deck and the absolute height of stupidity in terms of strategy against a political opponent.

You want your enemy to win?  Try to demonize him and arrest him.  You did this to yourself.

---

I'm also shaking my head at California, and the cognitive dissonance of it's voters.

Overwhelmingly, we approved Prop 36, a great piece of bipartisan legislation that summarily overturns the awful Prop 47 that saw thousands of criminals unleashed on our streets and crime exploding across the state.  Prop 36 makes a second shoplifting offense a felony, and reinstates most of the harsher sentencing guidelines.

In LA County we also kicked our horrific District Attorney to the curb.  George Gascon had made it his mission to coddle and release criminals at an unprecedented rate.  He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Angelinos, not to mention the destruction of their families.  He is now gone and a "moderate" prosecutor will be taking over.  Hochman is his name and he has ruffled feathers by making the crazy promise to put criminals in jail.

And then, with sanity seemingly returning, these same voters turn around and vote more than 2 to 1 for Kamala Harris.  

Literally she was responsible in large part for Prop 47.  

She also advocated for organizations who raised funds to bail out rioters.

And on and on and on - radical policy after radical policy she helped put into place.

Of course when she ran for president in 2024 she wouldn't even address all the terrible policies she advocated for in 2019 in the primary that she briefly ran in.  She wouldn't even comment, when asked point blank, if she voted for Prop 36!   A proposition that won by over 70% in California!  How desperately sad and out of touch do you have to be?

Terrible candidate, terrible policies and terrible ideas.  $20,000 loans that didn't need to be paid back and weed for black people.  Communist style price controls. Raising corporate taxes to the highest level in the developed world. And these are the ideas she was promoting - never mind all the terrible ideas from her past that she wanted to implement.

Ban fracking.  Decriminalize illegal border crossings. Mandatory gun by backs.  Just awful.

---

And so today, my facebook wall is replete with blacked out profile pictures, anguished pleas and cries, proclamations of our country's racism and misogyny. 

Sigh.

Many don't get it and never will.  But clearly, the majority of the country does.  That's right - MORE than 47%, which was the ceiling many said Trump would never breach. That ceiling has been shattered and the message is clear.

This is a popular vote victory, a mandate from the masses.  And I can't help be inspired and excited by OUR DEMOCRACY in action.

LITERLLY HITLER is our president, and it's morning in America.

Digging Deep into Déjà Vu

 To my dear liberal friends, as of writing this - it's less than a week until election day, and yet 55 million people have already voted.

While the outcome is certainly not certain, my instinct right now mirrors my instinct in 2016 - I truly believe Trump has this one locked up.

****

Assuming my instinct is correct, as it was 8 years ago (I was much less certain in 2020, though I did believe DJT would hold on) - my left of center friends and family will have to reconcile that DJT has pulled a Grover Cleveland.  

Defeated in his bid for reelection after serving his first term, Cleveland departed the presidency in 1889 (his 21 year old first lady famously saying "Don't change the furniture, we'll be back in 4 years" - paraphrasing obviously) only to indeed return in 1894 and do his thing for a second term.

Until this Tuesday, Mr. Cleveland was the only POTUS to pull this off.  I do believe 45 will become 47 this election day, and when that happens I'll be praying for a bunch of things.

First and foremost - I pray for our country to remain peaceful, for the civil unrest to be minor.  Sadly, I fear this will absolutely not come to past.

Second - I pray that I can restrain myself from laughing and pointing in people's faces.  Truly, all jokes aside, I am going to be so happy that I truly do hope I am able to restrain myself from gloating, too much.

On the flip side of that - if somehow all the numbers are wrong and Kamala ends up as the president, I will indeed be disappointed, but I pray that I will be able to quickly get over it and get on with the day to day that is my life.  I do not want to be screaming to the sky, devastated and distraught as so many on the left were in 2016 when their candidate lost.  I never want to be like that, I never want to have politics matter so much that I'm thinking about election day for more than a few days at most.

I see it akin to rooting for the Dodgers in the World Series.  I'm a big fan - and thankfully they won last night, I was super happy and today it's business as usual.  I'm working, I'm taking care of the wife, I'm looking forward to seeing kids trick-or-treating tonight and a quiet birthday tomorrow.  Oh yeah, and that was a great game last night.  It's nice to reflect on it, but a little sad that baseball is over until next year.

If the Dodgers had lost, that would've sucked.  But guess what, my day today, and tomorrow and this weekend, would be absolutely indistinguishable whether the Dodgers had won or lost.  True if they had lost the game, that means I would be watching another game on Friday and maybe Saturday too - but that wouldn't really change anything.  

It wouldn't change my mood, my outlook, my disposition or my entire approach to the next week or the rest of my year or the next several years.

Win or lose, the Dodgers don't live in my head at all - even though I love them as a big fan.

Trump is the same.  Although I don't love him, I'm a fan alright.  And Kamala, same thing - she's like the Yankees.  Yucky but who cares.   Win or lose, my life won't change.

And the reason I can be so certain about this - is that this has all happened before, and not just with DJT.  

Mitt Romney was a woman beating bully who tied his dog to the roof of his car.  He was absolutely a threat to democracy.

George W. Bush was literally Hitler - they burned him in effigy, tiny mustache and all.

His dad was the devil.  Ronald Reagan was straight up evil.

I've heard it all and seen it all before.  Victory and defeat, it all blurs together.  I remember when the Oakland A's won the World Series in 89 after the earthquake.  I remember the following year when they got swept by the Cincinnati Reds.  The former was happy, the latter was sad - neither changed a damn thing about how I went about my day.

So all this anguish, all this hand wringing - all of this NEVER BEFORE SEEN THREAT TO DEMOCRACY nonsense - it can all simply fuck right off.  Don't care about any of it.

Yes, it's going to be sweet for an evening and through the next day when democrats have to shut the fuck up and suck it when Trump wins, but really - after that, it's just going to be more of the same.  Yankees suck.  Kamala sucks.  LOL.

Back to Politics - this time with permission granted.

 Wow what an incredible week or so in politics.

An attempted assassination of a former (and likely future) President, followed by the most unifying Republican National Convention of my lifetime, capped off by the long expected but still stunning withdrawal from the 2024 campaign by Joe Biden.

All of these events were remarkable and worthy of discussion, but I want to talk about something more elusive, something that you may or may have not noticed in the past few months.   

We have been granted permission to vote for the orange devil.

From the suits in silicon valley, to Hulk Hogan, to Mark Zuckerberg to of course the mighty Elon Musk, it is now no longer anywhere near an anathema to actually say the truth out loud in polite company that not only are you not voting for Joe (er, Kamala or someone) but you actively are voting for the Trump.

Why is this?

What happened to the shaming, the threat of exile, the broad statements of condemnation that would inevitably bubble to the surface if you even hinted at supporting the Donald?  

I think it's a culmination of a lot of things - but the biggest factor I see is that Donald Trump is now a known quantity.  Not one single thing he says or does is going to be a surprise to us at this point.  We've all been shocked and surprised for the past 8 years - there really is nothing left now that should catch us off guard.

This only thing that remains a little bit surprising is the softer and more moderate side of him, which has emerged gradually during this last campaign.  No one bats an eye when he talks about the "stolen election" but the other day when he called his own hair "a combover" - now that was surprising.  So too were his concessions on abortion, he is for all purposes pro-choice with his statements that it is up to the states and also that if there is a federal restriction it will be more akin to Europe which almost universally restricts abortion after 12-15 weeks.  He has no interest in a nationwide ban, so he has diffused that matter - the strongest issue the dems have going for themselves in this cycle.

For the past six months, nothing Trump has said has been beyond the pale of what he has done before, whereas Joe Biden's increasingly erratic and distressingly decrepit words and actions have been jarring to say the least.   This whole campaign has not been a referendum on Trump, but rather a referendum on Biden, and his ability to remain upright, let alone lead the country.

And to Trump's credit, he has not gone after Joe at his most vulnerable - other than sticking to the terrible policies (runaway inflation, skyrocketing crime and open borders) that we've endured under democrat rule.  By taking a more humane approach to his opponent, and also by moderating his views on the GOP's weakest issue (abortion) Trump has successfully shifted all attention onto Joe.  The debate was just a final nail in the coffin, no pun intended or wanted.

And so now we have to endure the insincere lionization of Joe Biden, who no doubt will be hailed a hero for putting the country first - obviously something that Trump would never do (insert eye roll here).

Never mind that Biden is a selfish, bitter, conniving and cruel career politician who is as corrupt as Trump is rude.  We must pay homage to the great man he is and all bow to the coronation of Kamala, who the less is said about the better.

But this "new direction" from the democrats, which has been in the works for several months at this point, still doesn't really do much to put Trump in the light that he was in in 2016 and 2020.  He is still an entirely known quantity, except for his occasional unexpected softening in temperament.

This election is and will remain a referendum on the democrat candidate and the terrible policies that have seen the great diminishment of our nation.

Donald Trump, after all the strum und drang dredged up by breathless progressives over the past near decade, is actually fairly moderate and even boring by comparison to the increasingly unhinged democrats.

And that's why I have no problem saying publicly at this point - yes, I'm voting for Donald Trump.

No, he's not my favorite guy, but I am old enough to remember the four years we had under him and the nearly four years we had under the guy who replaced him.

Perhaps the biggest aspect that makes Trump a known quantity, is that we had him as president for four years, and most of it was great.  The worst thing that happened during his tenure was that we endured a worldwide pandemic that he had little to do with.

Yes, he did botch his handling of it a bit - but I can't imagine how much worse it would've been with a president who bought into 100% of the governmental overreach, especially at the beginning of the pandemic.

Trump did the best he could, and did near the end push back on the restrictions and allowed governors to take the reins.  

When he lost to Biden, he kicked and screamed a bit - but he did leave, on time and without any shenanigans beyond a few frantic phone calls and a bit of bad posturing at the behest of some shitty attorneys.  Nothing worse than Hilary Clinton, who never has publicly conceded meaningfully or been in any way gracious about it - calling Trump an "illegitimate president" over and over. 

And to tell the truth, we've been down this road so many times - it's the one point that Bill Maher (who is otherwise a committed truth teller) just can't seem to get over - it hardly seems worth it and above all, it's a known quantity.   We KNOW, Trump refused and refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election.  Frankly, this is a known quantity, and Trump still left on the day he was supposed to leave and no one who supports him cares at this point.

It's all in the past, and it's all entirely known.  We can argue back and forth til we're blue in the face about Jan 6 and criminal charges against Trump for various things - no one cares.  We know Trump, we know what we are going to get, and it ain't the end of democracy (lol) or a tyrant who won't leave, or any one of many lefty fever dreams.

But it's fair to say - from me to you, my deal liberal friends - go ahead and keep hating Trump all you want.  It's your God given right and what makes our country great - for you to be free to say what you want.

But I do ask you, while you're hating Trump and all that, if you could please consider not lumping the rest of us, that is roughly half of the country who supports Trump, into your olympic sized swimming pool of bile.

We are supporting Trump because we know what we are getting, and we will take a convicted felon who occasionally tweets mean things WAY over an incompetent geriatric or a cackling dummy any day.

You can say Trump is a piece of shit - that's fine.  But you have to concede at this point that the rest of us are allowed to say we're voting for that piece of shit openly and without shame.  You cannot continue with your proclamations of us being in a "cult."  Besides it not being true, it's also very hostile to the point of damaging our country.

You're never going to convince me that Trump isn't the right choice, and I know I won't convince you that Kamala Harris is deeply unqualified and not very smart.  You can call Trump the devil, and I can call Kamala a jackass.  But I'm not going to call you a cultist, or stupid, or sheep or any number of things that you've been very comfortable calling the MAGA crowd.  First of all because the majority of my family and friends are left of center and I love them, but secondly because I understand that it is futile and will only serve to divide our country even further.

We are not a cult, we are your family and your friends, your co-workers, your service workers and your first responders.  We are people you interact with every day with a smile on our faces.  Happy, largely working class people who have studied the issues and made up our minds.  We are increasingly able to answer the question directly when you ask - who are you voting for?  Donald Trump.  That's it.  That's all.

No amount of nasty name calling about the EXTREME MAGA CROWD can diminish this.  

Ticket in Hand

 I have neglected this blog for a long time - and I'm fine with it.

Much of my political venting I can get out in my private Facebook group. Pop culture is less interesting to me these days, so I feel less of a need to express my thoughts here on that as well.  Family, work and poker dominate my life - and they have all been (until recently) just great.

And as for personal stuff, well this venue has never really been much about that.   I think that might have to change, at least for one post.  I really need an outlet to express my thoughts about what has happened to me and my family in the last month.

On February 15 2024, one year exactly since my father-in-law passed away in our home from colon cancer, my wife of 21 years Beverly, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

It has been a complete shock to the system in the most devastating of ways.  She has been in great pain since last October, and misdiagnosed repeatedly.  Kicked out of the ER more than once, sent home with Tylenol, put off by her doctor and referrals, told to come back in a month or two for another scan.

They thought it was an ulcer.  Then they thought it was a cyst. 

Then on the night of the Super Bowl we went to the ER because Bev was in agony.  This time they admitted her, based on ominous bloodwork.

An MRI, a Cat-Scan and an Endoscopy Biopsy later - it was confirmed.  The big C.  Of the Pancreas.   Stage 1, but still not good.

I'm not writing this out to get into much more detail than that, or to describe what life has been like since this diagnosis or even to talk about the battle ahead.   We are going to absolutely fight, and we have a better chance than most do with this cancer variation.  But I'm not really compelled to get too nitty gritty on all of that.

I'm here to talk about the big picture.

It doesn't do good to race ahead to all the worst case scenarios, I'm not here to do that at all, but I do feel like I have to express what this horrific disease means to me.

Mark Twain's famous two certainties in life - Death and Taxes.  Let's talk about the first one.

We are all getting on that train at some point.  One comforting thing about being human, about being mortal - is that no one gets out of it.  No one can escape.  We will all be boarding the express train to the beyond.

If we were on that heavenly platform, and we could look up at the electronic signs (like the ones they have at BART stations in the Bay Area) you might see when the train is arriving.   For me, or my wife it should say something like - "Train Arriving in 2055-2065"

Well imagine stepping on the platform, looking up and seeing - "Beverly - Train Arriving in 2024-2026"

That is the heart stopping, stomach clenching, mind numbing power of a cancer diagnosis.

I stare at this sign in disbelief, and then the sign changes and briefly flashes "Times and Dates Subject to Change"

What the fuck?  So not all is lost?  The arrival time could change?  It could be 2065 after all?

So there is a ticket in hand, with a date and time of departure, and then the bottom also says - TIMES AND DATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Fuck. Me.

Lots of times people get on the train and it's totally unexpected.  There's no date on the sign or the ticket.  They walk out and get hit by a bus, or have a heart attack or who knows what else - and then they are stepping on the train.

Cancer hands you a ticket.  

A shocking, knee-buckling ticket.   With a desperate and heart wrenching disclaimer - TIMES AND DATES SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

There is always some hope.  Sometimes it feels like a false hope - sometimes, as in our case with a stage 1 diagnosis, the hope feels VERY real.

It's just a complete soul-sucking doom spiral at times, and at other times it makes me deeply appreciative for the love of my life and the amazing marriage that we have.

In short, I am all fucked up.  And I can't even imagine how my wife feels.  Or my daughter for that matter.

I will post more if I feel I have to.

Evil is Evil is Evil

 I guess I tempted fate by posting recently that the Islamic extremists in the world are greatly diminished.  This may or may not be the actual case, but as we all know now - there was a horrific assault on Israel from hamas last weekend, on a scale not seen since the last Arab-Israeli wars.  It was spearheaded with the terrorizing of civilians on a level of horror not seen since the Holocaust itself.

Innocent men, women and children slaughtered.  Their bodies defiled, mutilated.  Women raped mercilessly in front of their pleading or already dead families.  Children and infants, killed, tortured, abducted - terrorized relentlessly.

Abject Evil.  Captured on camera and broadcast to the world by the perpetrators themselves.

Over a thousand civilians dead and still rising.  Just as many if not more missing and likely kidnapped.  The entire country on edge and ready to fight back.

It was truly Israel's 9-11.

And yet, as purely evil as this all was and is - my heart is heaviest not because of these heinous acts.

I know hamas and their contemporaries are evil.  I've known this all of my adult life.  Although I was hopeful that the days of terror on this scale were in the past, I've always known that they could return.  Evil will always exist and evil will always exercise it's worst impulses.   This savage incursion was a bit of a shock and surprise, as there was a massive intelligence failure that didn't foresee it happening - but that it did happen is in the end, not a surprise at all.

It was, in hindsight, inevitable, and really if anything is surprising it's that this kind of thing took so long.

So what I am saddest about, in fact, relates to my last post.  My heart of course breaks for those actually attacked and suffering - but my heart is also hurting because of the indifference of good people in the United States, and also because of the open hostility of not so good people among us as well.'

First, the indifferent.

In a way, these folks are the worst of all.  People who hate Jews, or people who are so brainwashed that they believe that the crime of Israel existing justifies decapitating babies - those people, like the terrorists themselves, are too far gone and not really worth spending energy on.

The indifferent, the silent and the shoulder shruggers - those hurt the most.  Especially the Jewish ones.  I have several life long Jewish friends who will post every leftist idiocy, from a sanctimonious black square in their profile picture to praise the grift that is BLM to the smarmiest mask/vaccine shaming meme you can imagine.  And yet, when their spiritual homeland is brutalized, they go radio silent.

It's bizarre.  It's baffling to me.  

This goy is proud to change his profile to the Star of David.  I am morally compelled to speak out and raise my voice in support of the Jewish people and the country of Israel in light of what has happened.  I repeat myself - the deadliest day in the history of the Jewish people since the holocaust itself.   

It just makes me sad and makes me doubt the faith and hope that has long burned brightly in my heart.  Hopefully the deafening silence that I am getting is more of a product of social media fatigue than anything else.  But it's tough to believe that sometimes, when I still see other very recent posts about frivolities or worse, leftist causes.  If you're going to be part of the online community, you need to say something when your community of faith is in the cross hairs. 

Second, the hostile.

I really have no time or patience for my fellow Americans who, at the first sight of dead Israelis on the news proceed to lecture me about historical context.  They can all to a one, fuck right off.

I don't care if Israel hasn't always been the best to the Palestinians.  I don't care what perceived injustices are being used to justify the brutality of last Saturday's incursion.  I really don't want to hear it.

Decapitated babies.  Fuck right off.

Still, it does hurt that people who I have grown up with in the United States, seemingly have no intellectual capacity to understand what it's like to live surrounded by enemies who frequently say out loud that they hate you and want you exterminated.   I for one grasp this, and I also understand that often the Israelis hate the Palestinians right back.

But Israelis don't do what the Palestinians did last weekend.  They just don't.

That's enough for me.

I don't need a history lesson, I don't need "historical context".  I need you to get on the side that doesn't butcher babies, rape women and mutilate corpses.  Full stop.

If you're going to wave a Palestinian flag and set off fireworks to celebrate depravity, you are not my friend.  You are my enemy and you need to stay away from me.

That's all I need to say about that.

But if you're torn, on the fence, unsure - then you need to get with it and get correct pretty quickly.  I'm not here to try and convince you, I'm not here to hold your hand and have dialogue or discussion.  That time has passed.  

The time for talk ended when your side decided to systematically rape women and then parade them around, bleeding from the front and back.

It ended when your side killed an older sister in front of her two siblings and then put their reactions on social media.

It ended when your side decided to slaughter hundreds of teenagers at a music festival.

It ended when your side kidnapped women and children and then dragged them back to Gaza to use them as human shields.

I'm finished trying to convince and explain.  The time to pick a side is now.  I am standing with the side of liberty and compassion, opposite the side of tyranny and brutality.  I hope you will stand with me and Israel.

And I hope if you are indifferent, you will drop that apathy and embrace empathy and also realize that what hamas is delivering to Israel is precisely what many on the radical left want to deliver to the United States.  You can bury your head in the sand, but that won't stop the demon that's on it's way. 

The time to speak up and speak out is now, if we wait in silence for too long - it will be way too late.

Melancholy Memories - And a Prayer

 Another 9/11 has come and gone - 22 years and counting beyond the biggest terrorist attack on American soil and by far the biggest loss of civilian life our nation has endured at the hands of a foreign enemy.

As usual, I changed my facebook cover and profile pictures to the appropriate images, see below, and pondered posting a passive aggressive statement about the evils of radicals but never got around to it.

I find myself, as each one of these anniversaries pass, feeling less and less angry about external enemies and more and more anxious (and yes, also angry) about internal ones.  

Increasingly, I'm oddly nostalgic for a time when it was clear who the bad guys were, even though there were still plenty of Americans who waffled on this plain truth.  A solid majoirty of us knew absolutely that the USA is the beacon of freedom to the world and stands in stark contrast to zealots who would eagerly cut our throats if given half a chance.

Yes, those were the good old days.  Bad was bad, and we were good.  Criminals could be dastardly, but criminals went to jail.  The odd weirdo at work might grumble at George W. Bush, but it was comforting to know that he could do that because he knew he was safe and protected by the greatest forces for good on the planet.

In hindsight, I myself was wrong in supporting the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, not because those missions were incorrect but because we faltered in our plan and in our execution and ended up spending an obscene amount of blood and treasure for no reason.

But I, and hundreds of millions of Americans and westerners were correct and righteous in our opposition to al-qaeda, hamas, isis, take your pick of the barbaric savages.  A twisted religion that extols the subjugation of women and children is as in your face evil as it gets.

Today - isis is in ruins, the Islamic jihads still linger, but the regimes are in tatters and it's been over two decades without any attacks remotely resembling what we endured on that Tuesday morning barely a year into the new millenium. 

Knowing this, I confess, "The War on Terror" is now far from my mind.  I do get reminded on 9/11 that it still exists and we should be vigilant of course - but far greater concerns weigh on my mind about another enemy that now is growing in our midst.

Exhibit A -

Reading this just makes my stomach hurt.

It was posted on Facebook by the Burbank Police Department.  It has to do with how the prosecutorial offices of LA County are going to enforce the law.  Long story short, they are basically not going to, at all, in any meaningful manner.

It's this kind of document that makes me long for days like September 12, 2001 - when we were united as a country and could see plainly what evil looked like.

Today the water is muddy and people talk in doublespeak.  

Law and Order has been replaced with "fairness and equity" - meaning depending on where you are in the intersectional hierarchy of race, sexual preference or gender spectrum, you will be treated differently under the law.  If you rank high, you likely won't serve any jail time for anything up to and beyond gun crimes, sexual assault, crimes against children and the elderly.

If you rank low, you are expected to fall in line and comply with any and all capricious mandates handed down.  From masks, to jabs, to surrendering your appliances and gas powered vehicles.

You will also obey language mandates and compelled speech.  You will be censored if you get out of line, you will be civilly and criminally charged if you "misgender" or commit "hate speech" - a double standard that is murkily defined and used only against American citizens who don't fall into step with the woke mind virus.

It is truly an upsetting time, I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be facing enemies in my own country.  

I couldn't have conceived that my beloved FBI, an organization I wanted to join all through my teenage and college years, would become as corrupt and infested with marxism as any leftist college organization.  

I would never thought it possible that the Department of Justice would be weaponized at the behest of the president against political opponents.  

And most of all, my younger self would've been completely heartbroken that the greatest heroes of all, the US Military, would also fall victim to a bizarre cult of racialist nonsense and radical gender ideology.  

All branches of the military today are falling drastically short of their recruitment goals.  Three, four and even five generation military families are telling their youngest members to not follow in their ancestors footsteps.  These God fearing brave men and women wouldn't be caught dead joining todays service.  It's full of mentally ill sycophants who are more concerned with pronouns than they are with keeping their country safe and free.

So yes, the memories I have of 9/11 and what followed are indeed melancholy.  But not at the thought of the attack itself and our response.

A great evil arose, and though our response was imperfect (and in the end deeply flawed) - it was unified.  We all stepped up to the challenge and faced down our enemies.  We were joined together, heart and soul, as Americans - first and foremost.

Today, we have not just lost September 12 and all that it meant - we have lost our grasp on reality.  

We have professors shaming white students and humiliating black students.  

We have employees being fired for not apologizing or accepting their victimhood.  

We have schools who want to keep secrets with kids away from the parents.  

We have government officials in California who want to pay reparations to random black people in a state that was never under slavery. 

We have women's prisons full of men who are convicted rapists.  

We have porn in elementary school libraries, and people opposed to this are called nazi book banners.

And now, in LA County we have decided to return to cashless bail - because that has worked out so well for New York City, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

It's a bleak situation.

But I still hold out hope.  Already, things have been turning with a lot of my liberal friends.  Not all of them, but many of them, are slowly waking up to the truth that they have been duped.

It may not be enough in the end, but I am grateful for those of my friends who - even if they won't admit it out loud, understand that they were wrong about a lot.

Look, I've been wrong about stuff too. I supported W. Bush and his awful war.   I wore my mask outside when the pandemic first hit.   I was excited to get the covid vaccine.  I thought Disney was a great company for a long time after they had already been putting out woke garbage.

But I admit I was wrong on all of that, and probably more.

Will I ever hear from my friends that the covid lockdowns were incredibly damaging and a total scam and that the highest inflation in half a century along with a record setting surge in crime around this country is a direct result of democrat policies?  Probably not.

But I don't need an apology, or even contrition.  I just need to hold on to faith that things are going to get better.  And I need to pray every day, as I have been for a long time now, that my fellow Americans will extricate themselves from this poisonous ideology that has them enabling and allowing all of these catastrophes.

I would ask that you pray with me in this as well.

Pray for a return to seeing a color-blind society as an ideal to aim for.

Pray for the return of a true meritocracy to our land, where the best and the brightest are rewarded and the lazy and selfish are incentivized against these impulses.

Pray for our military, that they will find leaders with the courage to stand against intersectional pablum and be worthy of leading the next generation.

Pray for sanity in our local leaders and a return to anti-crime policies that worked.  Stop and frisk, broken window enforcement and mandatory long sentences for criminal behavior.

Pray for the courage of our local leaders to have zero tolerance for camping on the street, the garbage that results as well as open air drug use, defacation/urination and fornication.

Pray for all of that and more - and a return to the mentality of September 12, 2001.  

Bring moral clarity to the confused and bring God into the lives of the people who need Him most.

In His name I pray.  God bless all of us in our struggle.

Amen.

Response to a brain damaged John Stewart meme

Once again - I respond here so I don't have to deal with the drama.  I'm still pondering putting this in the comments, the dude who posted this is not really a friend but rather an old colleague from work.  We always got along, but I picked up that he was nutty early on.  Meh, I'll have to mull it over.  For now, my response stays here...

Skin color is incidental, not essential, to who someone is. It is superficial and immutable. The soft bigotry of low expectations, as pushed by white affluent leftists like John Stewart - where pigment is held up as what defines a person's worth, is both condescending, and in itself racist.

I myself don't worry too much about childish pablum like this. I'm 52 years old, and am successful light years beyond my working class upbringing. I have lived the American dream and earned every dollar I've made through hard work and treating people how I want to be treated. I know who I am, and I don't lose one wink of sleep over the sins of my ancestors or my own occasional lapses in being the best I can be. I do my best, but I'm only human. At the end of the day I sleep like a baby and when I wake up I genuinely don't care what rich leftist dummies like John Stewart, Ibram X Kendi or Robin DeAngelo think. They are infantile imbeciles and they have zero sway with me.

But when I see inflammatory posts like this, I can't help but feel sad for the young gullible people who buy into this decadent self-loathing and patronization of people of color. My first question is always - what is the solution being proposed here? I understand the directions - hate yourself, look down on others, black people are helpless, white people are oppressors, etc. But what is the desired outcome and if it's a good outcome (presumably better understanding and harmony between races) how do we ever expect to get there with this insufferable anti-merit anti-American ideology?

And of course there's also part of me that also gets angry when I hear influential people shit all over their lessers. John Stewart despises white and black people equally - he wants the former to feel guilty for things they didn't do, he wants the latter to forever remain victims. I'm disinclined to indulge his nonsense, and rather inclined to extend a big middle finger in response. John Stewart and his ilk can fuck right off.

And understand this - I will never submit to this madness. I will never bend a knee to marxists. I will never cower under threat of censorship, social ostracization or loss of livelihood. And I will never apologize for standing firm in my beliefs and values.  

I am never backing down, I am never going away, I am not giving ONE INCH of my liberty to marxists like Stewart and other elites.  I will speak my mind, I will have my say, I will not flinch, I will not hesitate, I will NEVER surrender.