First and foremost, I apologize to my wonderful subscribers for this long delay in posting to The Burg Bulletin.
As some of you know, my family and I currently are in the process of moving from Los Angeles -- where my wife Julie and I have lived since we were married 25 years ago, and where we've raised three terrific sons Louis (20), Daniel (18), and Elliot (16) -- to our new home in Freehold, New Jersey. We will be near Julie's home town where her large immediate and extended family still live.
On the other hand, we're moving away from my birthplace and lifelong home town -- about whose future I'm deeply concerned. L.A. seems to be in a state of virtual free-fall thanks largely to an incompetent leftist mayor and a Marxist D.A. So, although I've always loved my city, served as a City Planning Commissioner, and was an elected member of the Studio City Neighborhood Council -- and, of course, will ALWAYS be a die-hard Kings and Dodgers fan! -- I'm not sorry to leave my home town. It's in a downward spiral and I'm getting out when I can. I hope L.A. survives as a city worth admiring.
Thankfully, I truly do love Julie's family (and I think they've finally forgiven me for dragging her away long ago) and we're very excited about starting our new life in the beautiful (albeit humid and cold) Garden State.
As you probably can imagine, however, the past few weeks have been physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting -- so I had to put the blog briefly on the back burner. In fact, I'm writing these words from the road as Louis, our African Grey parrot Stanley (28), and I slowly but surely pull our 26-foot travel trailer from L.A. to N.J. We're getting our kicks on the interstate highways paralleling historic Route 66 all the way from L.A. to St. Louis -- and then will turn east to N.J.
I guess that's not too bad of an excuse for my recent absence here. The problem, however, is that so much has occurred in the intervening weeks it's difficult to know where to start.
Finally, as a reminder to subscribers, please do your best to open the email notifications of my postings. WiX automatically removes from the subscriber list anyone who does not open five straight notices.
#1: Am Yisrael Chai
Needless to say, I have much to say about the the recent renewal of the longstanding Jihadist war against the very existence of the State of Israel -- which, unfortunately, was prematurely halted upon threat of the cowardly and feckless Biden administration before Israel was able to thoroughly destroy the Hamas terror state in Gaza-- as well as the resurgent Jew hatred that has manifest in the U.S. and much of the Western world. In the interest of space and time, for the moment I'll limit my own commentary to the following:
Anyone who has difficultly supporting the democratic State of Israel in its longstanding war for survival against tyrannical Jihadist terrorists -- including large swaths of today's Democrat party and many deeply misguided American Jews -- has a severely broken moral compass.
Brief proof:
During the recent war, and as always, the overt goal of Hamas and its allies was to kill as many civilians as possible -- including Israelis (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) upon whom they indiscriminately rained as many rockets as they could launch, and their own Gazan people whom they once again used as human shields hoping to leverage their deaths into global support (which they once again succeeded in doing). On the other hand, Israel (as always) took as much precaution as possible to avoid civilian casualties -- including alerting residents before destroying buildings that (not surprisingly) housed both civilians and Hamas military infrastructure. As a result, civilian casualties were minimized but many of the Hamas terrorists escaped. (This, by the way, is why the widely bemoaned destruction of the building housing international media offices in Gaza caused no civilian casualties -- a point largely ignored by the Jew-hating international media.)
Similarly, Hamas and its Jihadist allies overtly encouraged the awful internecine violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis -- who have peacefully co-existed in Israel for many years -- while every segment of Israeli society including politicians, religious leaders, and cultural icons loudly deplored the violence and vehemently urged Jews not to retaliate against the anti-Jewish pogrom launched by a small number of Israeli Arabs in Lod.
This spot-on video commentary by Australian Rowan Dean is a cogent and lucid description of what we just witnessed:
Moreover, the rising Jew-hatred in the U.S. we're now seeing -- including anti-Jewish violence by some Arab Americans -- is largely the result of pusillanimous (and, in some cases, Jew-hating) leftist political, academic, and cultural leaders in our own country. To make the point I'll cite perhaps the most outrageous example of this sort of rampant cowardice and moral confusion:
This man must be fired. He's obviously ill-equipped to lead a large public university -- particularly one in my newly adopted home state!
#2: Fasten your seat belt for Chris Rufo's latest CRT expose
Dark times bring heroes, and one of the heroes who's emerged from these dark times is Chris Rufo of the Manhattan Institute. Rufo's brilliant and relentless reporting on Critical Race Theory has unmasked this drivel for what is: Marxism that seeks to use race instead of class to spark a violent anti-capitalist revolution. Worse, CRT threatens to provoke a race war in the least racist multi-racial society ever to have existed based entirely on false and defamatory accusations of "systemic racism." Rufo's latest piece, describing the racist indoctrination of young children within three school districts in Portland, OR, is shocking. It's a must read:
#3: Biden poisons critical STEM progress with more Marxist clap-trap
Heather Mac Donald is another hero of these times. I wholeheartedly recommend anything and everything this brilliant and courageous woman writes, including her essential book The Diversity Delusion: How Race And Gender Pandering Corrupt The University And Undermine Our Culture.
This piece, describing Biden's woefully unqualified nominee to be Secretary of Energy -- who was chosen not on merit but entirely on the basis of the woke "equity, diversity, and inclusion" mantra around which Biden is organizing the entire federal government -- demonstrates how this garbage threatens to undermine our national security and, indeed, our entire future:
#4: The age-old problem of suicidal Jews
For centuries (if not millennia) some Jews have concluded that groveling to the Jew-hating mob would bring safety. Sadly, they've invariably been wrong.
Here's a contemporary example of such moronic thinking:
I could respond point-by-point to the foolish and historically inaccurate letter these ill-informed young people wrote but it's not worth the time. Suffice to note that they object not merely to particular Israeli policies or actions but rather to Zionism itself. In other words, these so-called Jews argue that Jews -- alone among all peoples of the world -- simply are not entitled to a single Jewish state within any boundaries.
Anti-Zionism can be explained only by Jew-hatred or almost unfathomable naivete.
#5: Was Paul Ryan always this stupid?
I used to think Paul Ryan was pretty smart. Apparently was I wrong.
Contrary to Ryan's recent foolish speech at the Reagan Library, what is happening now in the Republican Party is not "the populist appeal of one personality." Rather, it is a new coalition of Republican voters and a new populist America First agenda created by Donald Trump -- irrespective of his future role.
Trump created this new Republican Party and, as our former Republican President, he is its current leader. But that does not imply slavish fealty to him or some kind of "cult of personality." Rather, it is a recognition of the opportunity Trump has given the Republican Party to preserve and reinvigorate our beloved Constitutional republic. Wise Republicans recognize and, in fact, welcome this reality.
In fact, we must fight just as hard to maintain Trump's America First Republican Party as we fight against the Marxist-dominated Democrat Party for the simple reason that the globalist values-free Wall Street dominated Republican Party of old about which Ryan waxes nostalgic would not defeat today's vicious woke Democrats -- and even if it did would not undo the existential harm these leftists are now doing to our country.
Go away Paul Ryan!
#6: The Associated Press is beyond pathetic
In one of my previous posts I demonstrated how the once-respected Associated Press has become nothing more than a leftist propaganda mill.
Here's another example. This is a short blurb from the May 21 Nation+World News Feed in the L.A. Daily News credited to the A.P. Bear in mind this ostensibly is a "news" piece, not an editorial or commentary. My responses are in all capital letters.
House narrowly approves $1.9 billion to fortify Capitol
Washington The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection [WHAT OCCURRED ON JAN. 6 WAS A POLITICAL RIOT, NOT AN "INSURRECTION"], as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history [APPARENTLY WE HAVE A PRETTY NON-VIOLENT HISTORY!].
The bill's 213-212 passage came a day after the House approved the formation of an independent commission to investigate the deadly mob siege by President Donald Trump's supporters [THE ONLY NON-MEDICIAL DEATH ON JAN. 6 WAS THE STILL UNEXPLAINED SHOOTING OF A TRUMP SUPPORTER BY A STILL UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER], who battled police to storm the building.
The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol, with Democrats growing exasperated with Republicans [GEE, WHOSE SIDE DO YOU THINK THESE SO-CALLED "NEWS" WRITERS ARE ON?] who refuse to acknowledge the severity of the insurrection [WRONG: WISE REPUBLICANS REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEMOCRATS' DISHONEST MANIPULATION OF THE EVENT USING FALSE LANGUAGE SUCH AS "INSURRECTION" AND "ARMED" AS WELL AS FALSE MEDIA REPORTS INCLUDING OF THE OSTENSIBLE MURDER OF A CAPITOL HILL POLICE OFFICER WHO, IN FACT, DIED OF A STROKE ON JAN. 7] because of what appears to be their devotion to Trump -- and fear of crossing him [WHO ARE THESE UNIDENTIFIED CLOWNS WHO STOOP TO IMPUGNING THE MOTIVES OF THEIR POLITICAL OPPONENTS RATHER THAN ADDRESSING THEIR ARGUMENTS?].
Simply put, the Associated Press is no longer a credible news source. We must not treat it as such.
#7: As usual, an excellent Prager piece about the Middle East
#8: Amazing Israel
Let's end this post on a positive note. Enjoy: