Quick Personal Update—and a Few #ThrowbackThursday Pictures of Reilly

For two much-better-looking subjects, meanwhile…

 

And one of whom is the spotlight-ambivalent-yet-attention-wanting pup with the ever-curious mind…

The Fruit Won’t Change Until the Root Does (Commentary For “Business Announcer”)

 

As you might remember if you followed the coverage of “United States v. Maxwell”, the four U.S.-politics-involved people are Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, the late senator John Glenn (D-OH), and RFK, Jr.. All four of these men and other men willingly raped young women and girls—whom are, like other women and girls, known to be the primary targets and victims of sexual abusers. That sexual abuse and other abuse are gendered crimes is all too well known, and the prevalence and severity of sexual abuse will not decrease until women and girls begin to be viewed as human beings and not (at best) subhuman or humanoid objects for men’s pleasures or (at worst) not human at all.

Conversely, violence with guns will not decrease in prevalence, or severity until guns are viewed as tools for provision (e.g., the hunting of turkeys and deer) and the defense of self and others. Especially courageously in the faces of those whom worship guns and exploit the Non-White communities to do so, a Black sheriff in Florida stated the following after the murders in Jacksonville:

As others and I have said over the years, guns are not gods that have wills of their own, let alone gods that demand sacrifice known as “gun-control laws”. In contrast, God has commanded us to not hate our fellow human beings in our hearts and to not murder. Besides, God created the human beings whom He gave the ability to create objects such as guns. Yet, as reflected in sins like sexual abuse and hate crimes, humanity has objectified humans and humanized objects. Therefore, until we acknowledge the humanity of fellow human beings and responsibly use the objects that God gave us the ability to create, we will continue to see commissions of sexual abuse, racism-based murder, and other sins that stem from objectification of humans and humanization of objects. 

The only way to change the fruit, so to speak and as it were, is to change the root. A hateful tree bears hate-born fruits such as misogyny and racism, and trees such as the American electorate continue to bear fruit such as the election of misogynists and racists to office. No investigation into human trafficking or strengthening of hate-crime laws (let alone instead of cover ups for sexually-abusive politicians or weakening of the Second Amendment) will occur. 

Change the root. Be a tree of life, not a tree of death. Bear good fruits such as acknowledgement of fellow humans’ humanity and responsible use of objects, and don’t bear poisonous fruits such as objectification of humans and humanizing of objects. Then you will get even a fruitful American government that blames the human criminal for crimes against humanity instead of blames the object that human criminals misuse.

Commentary: Not a Monarchy, And Nonetheless In Need of a Head of State Like the Following (For “Business Announcer”)

 (Author’s note: I always keep the original form of my commentary here in case what I write gets lost in editorial or SEO translation.)

If only more candidates for POTUS were like the following queen of the United Kingdom, whom left her throne to behold God on His throne almost a year ago: 

Even though I find myself glad that the United States is a constitutional federal republic, I cannot help but note that few of its heads of state (whom have also been its heads of government) have ever been this humble. I also cannot help but note that few of them have deliberately been cognizant of the fact that “public servant” means “one who serves the public”. I additionally cannot help but note that most of them have deliberately attempted to redefine “public servant” as “one whom the public serves”.

I see the “one whom the public serves” description all too happily self applied by the current POTUS (albe that he at least was legitimately—and nonetheless embarrassingly—elected. I also see it applied all too happily self applied by aspiring successors of his—including Trump (and God forbid if he is legitimately elected this time). Of course, I see it applied to the majority of self-declared Republican candidates, and many of those candidates have either worked for Trump (e.g., with Nikki Haley being his UN ambassador and Mike Pence being his VP), aspired to work for Trump (e.g., with Chris Christie having vied to be his VP), or defended Trump against just prosecution (among them being Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott). 

I have noted that the (openly-)Democratic equivalents include RFK Jr. (whom is, none too surprisingly, riding on the name of his equally-Antisemitic grandfather, uncle, and father) and, as aforementioned, the current POTUS (whom, in one of the presidential debates of the 2019-2020 election season, proudly proclaimed, “I am the Democratic Party for right now…I approved the Democratic Party platform.”

(Meanwhile, I ascertain that RFK Jr.’s uncle—along with  his father, whom eagerly worked as JFK’s attorney general—would vilely tout Biden as a “stuff of legends”. Not much has changed from Kennedy to Biden to Kennedy, after all.)

Only God, then, can help the U.S. elect a head of state that is an American equivalent of the late Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, a head of government (and a head of state) that is a modern equivalent of George Washington (including—unlike Trump, Biden, and the Kennedys—a friend of Israel), and a true conservative (unlike, e.g., pseudo-conservative populists Trump and Ramaswamy). Only God, therefore, can help the U.S. elect a true public servant and not a Machiavellian whom the public serves.

PS Of the current Republican candidates, Will Hurd and Asa Hutchinson (both of whom have consistently disavowed and refuted Trumpism) are whom I would like to see God bring to the top of the GOP candidate tier. If God doesn’t bring either Will Hurd or Asa Hutchinson to be the GOP nominee, I will exercise my right to vote and vote my conscience as I did in the last two elections—I will write in John Kasich. Even if my vote doesn’t count in the eyes of fellow Americans, it does count in the eyes of God.

Commentary: Censorship, Personal Responsibility, and Freedom (For Business Announcer)

 Most of the times in which one requires censorship come on an individual basis. As Tanakh (the Old Testament) states, even a fool can be considered as wise and perceptive when he or she hold his tongue and keeps his or her lips together. Tanakh also states that only the fool denies the existence of God. 

Meanwhile, the First and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States allow (among other freedoms) the freedoms of religion, speech, and protection from Constitutional abuse of human rights (including the rights to religious and expressive freedom). Therefore, the conservative views (or at least should view) censorship as exercisable by the government on only a necessary-evil and case-by-case basis. In other words, the conservative views (or at least should view) censorship as firstly and foremostly an exercise of wisdom-born personal responsibility.

Conversely, of course, hold the leftists (whom practice the political religion of Leftism and give bad names to well-meaningly-misguided liberals). The leftists believe in at-will censorship by leftist leaders so long as the leftists leaders uphold even pseudorights—including the pseudoright for especially female-identifying men to invade female spaces (e.g., women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, and women’s sports divisions and academic tiers). By believing as they believe and imposing such beliefs on others (including their liberal counterparts, whom are often caught in the left-of-center’s middle), they abuse the Constitution under the guise of upholding the First and Ninth Amendments. 

Also conversely to the conservative uphold the libertine kind of libertarians. They believe in say-and-do-anything libertarianism, even at the expenses of themselves and others. They therefore don’t care how they destroy their own reputations in how foolishly they speak of themselves and speak to others, and they don’t mind destroying the spiritopsychological health of others in speaking foolishly. 

At least some of them end up doing the work that many conservatives paradoxically try too painstakingly to do. By not even remotely censoring themselves, let alone considering the impact of their words on others, they end up making themselves case studies in the value of “Nature’s God” and the wisdom of  “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” After all, they demonstrate the contrasts between death and life, oppression and liberty, and hedonism (the pursuit of happiness at the expense of others) and genuine happiness (the pursuit of one’s own and others’ happiness). 

Case in point: “Jewish atheist” Vanessa Zoltan denies the very God whom brought her grandparents out of the German part of the Holocaust (even though, by her own account, she also “grew up around” survivors of the Russian and Middle Eastern parts of the Holocaust). She even admits that Atheism is in fact a religion that predicates itself on denying the God Whom delivered Jews from Germany (and Russia as well as the Arab & Arabized Middle East). She goes even further by denying the Jewish roots of Christianity at best, and she self-hatingly blames Jews (including Jewish Christians) for the past seven centuries of global problems.

In doing so, and with pride in proselytizing spiritopsychological distress, she exposes the God-defying and abusive nature of Atheism about which conservatives have warned for decades. The following only touches on how she does so—and obviously without being censored by either herself and anyone else: 

“ I'm a chaplain and so I see myself as one of the things that religion has to offer. I would like to be one of the positive things that religion has on offer. I think religion has a lot of great things, and I think atheist chaplains are a necessary part of that tapestry. 

“Someone who is going to say, "It just sucks that your mom died. She isn't in a better place. It just sucks. She's just gone. You're just not gonna talk to her again." And sit with someone in that. I think I have a role and a call on this planet to be that person.”

If Vanessa Zoltan does not demonstrate the need to reserve governmental censorship for when the greater good makes it unavoidably necessary, I don’t know who does. After all, libertines like Vanessa Zoltan eschew personal responsibility and teach the wise why self censorship should in fact be valued by Constitution-upholding Americans. Besides, Constitution-perverting leftists utilize censorship to oppress others under the God-defying hedonism that Vanessa Zoltan espouses. Conservatives ought to therefore focus primarily on wisdom-born self control (which includes self censorship), and the fools will hyperfocus themselves into exemplifying the folly of Constitutional abuse (which includes using the Constitution to create pseudorights on the other hand and eschew personal responsibility on the other hand).

Originally on Reddit: Casual Sex and Spiritual Damage, With a Hypothetical Example

(“How do studies measure ‘spiritual damage’?”

(A hypothetical case study might give one an idea as to “how”.)

 In most religions and denominations/movement/sects thereof, casual sex is at least discouraged and at most condemned. Even in, e.g., Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, premarital cohabitation is discussed as not ideal in a CCAR resolution. The impact that casual sex can have on one’s individual relationship with his or her professed deity (e.g., God), his or her individual and communal relationships within his or her congregation (e.g., at his or her local Reform temple or Liberal/Progressive synagogue), and his or her religious standing—both within and outside of his or her local congregation (e.g., within his or her local Reform temple and across the URJ)—can be impacted.

For example (hypothetical names, etc.), if supposedly-God-fearing Reform rabbi Pesah Minkowicz is known to be polyamorous and living with his equally-polyamorous fiancée, congregants at Qehjla Qadosz Reformi in Krakow are going to question whether they can trust him to lead the congregation and help them if they should ever deal with unfaithful spouses. If Rabbi Minkowicz understands how the congregation has a difficult time viewing him as a God-fearing and trustworthy rabbi, he might begin to understand how both his relationships with his congregation (not to mention the entire Reform community in Krakow and perhaps even across Poland) and his relationship with God might be damaged.

Rabbi Minkowicz might consider, “If my congregants view me as, quite candidly, a man-whore and a hypocrite, then the God that my ancestors may not view me in a favorable way, either. My congregants must also be wondering how I can be esteemed as a man whom helps one lead the self to God. I therefore imagine that God must view me as a rabbi whom is not shomer Torah [observant of Torah], no matter how much of it He gave at Sinai.”

Rabbi Minkowicz, based on reports that he receives on a frequent basis from trustworthy congregants, may conclude that God will eventually allow that Poland’s URJ equivalent revoke his semikha (rabbinical ordination) and permit QQR to put him under kherem (censure or excommunication) for (among other desecrations of God’s Name) playing the male harlot. If he were simply a congregant and perhaps only a layman’s capacity at most, the consequences of his actions might be less severe. Nonetheless, especially because he is a rabbi, his Torah- and God-defying behavior may well incur for him spiritual damage that might cause him to either:

1. ⁠do teszuwah (repent) and even be part of a monogamous couple with a fiancée-turned-rebicin (rabbi’s wife)

2. ⁠resign his rabbinical position and congregational membership, and even dissociate himself from Reform Judaism altogether.

(PS: Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism tends to be less secular in Eastern Europe, Canada, etc. than, e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom. Also, “w” in Polish is pronounced “v”; “c” as “ts” and “cz” as “ch” or “tsh”; “sz” as “sh”, and “j” as “i” or “y”. That’s why when Rabbi Minkowicz receives a letter that warns of “cherem” unless he does “teshuvah”, he needs to consult an English-speaking colleague as to what exactly a URJ representative in Warszawa meant.)

Commentary [Original Form; For Business Announcer]: AI and Technological Responsibility

 When I sat in on my first BA meeting, I found myself reminded of that which I know that I (and others) need to remind (still) others in the current AI panic. As you may have guessed, I (and others) need to remind (still) others to what you put into AI is exactly what AI gives you back (including with, per the example with the meeting attendees received, AI-generated images). I, after all, once used an AI generator for images on Twitter. 

As I recounted in the meeting, I found myself responsible for putting accurately into the AI generator what limited information I have about my paternal grandfather’s paternal grandmother. After all, I could not depend on AI to give me an estimate of what she may have looked like if I did not dependably give AI the information that I had. I needed to describe her as I knew her to have been: 

1) a frum Crypto Jew.

2) a 5’3” Sefardi-Ashkenazi daughter of a kohen whom was born in Bosse, Russia-occupied Poland, and died in Sugar Notch, Pennsylvania at the age of 51.

3) a woman whom was born on June 26, 1882 and died after a difficult life (which included rape and the loss of four children as well as a husband) on April 6, 1936. 

4) a grey-eyed brunette.  

Based on the information that I gave* and based on my knowledge of (as I explained in the meeting) what her son Anthony and grandson Jack looked like (as well as what, for example, other relatives of hers looked and look like), I chose this AI-generated image and (when I used it on my family tree and otherwise) explain at the image portrays what she may have looked like based on what process are utilized to come up with it.

Interestingly, if the AI generator did not generate a possible image of her with makeup, it could have well generated an image of her with nephritis-induced flushing (and you would have to know that she died of nephritis to speculate on that).

I would have to go back and find the original tweet thread, although – as Ancestry allows limited captions — I may have given more of a description than what is shown here. 

Conversely and for the same reasons—i.e., information input and discernment—I could not conclusively discern what my great-great-grandfather may have looked like.

Meanwhile, I hope that anyone that has an actual picture of her comes forward with it – partly, so that I can see if I correctly had an AI image generated and carefully chosen. Besides, mainly, I want to see what Great-Great-Grandma actually looked like.

*At the time of this writing, I did not have the original Twitter thread in front of me, as I generated the images with an AI Twitter bot.

Commentary [For Business Announcer] “United States v. Trump” and Lessons from “United States v. Maxwell”

 (Originally a Twitter thread. Edited slightly here.)

As Trump finally faces justice for—among other offenses—attempting to establish himself as a populist dictator and destroy conservatives in the process, I sincerely hope that “Georgia v. Trump” & “United States v. Trump” are closed-to-the-public trials. Of course, in the United States, to deliberately misrepresent one’s self as a conservative when he or she is a populist (or otherwise misrepresent one’s self politically) cannot be prosecuted. Nonetheless, Trump thankfully is finally facing justice for that offense as well. As someone else on Twitter put and as everybody else now knows (if anyone somehow didn’t know it before), one is willingly joining Trump in that offense if he or she as a supposed conservative votes for him.

As equally as I don’t want anyone holding up populist Trump as a pinnacle of conservatism, I don’t want Trump getting any attention, whether positive or negative. Any vote for Trump gives him undeserved positive attention, and opening “United States v. Trump” to the public and the media would give him negative attention. He is a narcissist, and narcissists like him thrive on especially undeserved attention which they try to turn in their victim-playing favors. 

Acutely aware of of how they can try to use undeserved attention, narcissists like him especially try to play the victim when they face prosecution. I therefore don’t want sensationalism getting that foothold for Trump and jeopardizing Georgia’s or the U.S.’ chances of securing convictions against Trump (Trump can be prosecuted twice: once at a state level, and once at a federal level. Georgia would therefore not be committing double jeopardy in any “Georgia v. Trump” trial.).

In a similarly-high-profile trial, “United States v. Maxwell”, the judge understood the need to limit the public as well as the media from being able to sit in on and cover the trial—and was probably well aware that one of Maxwell’s co-conspirators (clients) would try to jeopardize it. Of course, that client was Donald “I wish her well” Trump—and he was one of the six “Lolita Express” passengers whom Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s pilot implicated.

Learn from history, then, and follow the historical pattern to see the current pattern. You will see that as a certain client would have tried to (and, with his “wish”, did try to) jeopardize the U.S.’ chances of securing a conviction against his late friend’s (Epstein’s) accomplice (Maxwell), he as a main defendant is already trying to jeopardize Georgia’s and the U.S.’ chances of securing convictions against him. 

You will then see the judges’ need to close “United States v. Trump” and “Georgia v. Trump”. You will thus conclude that any judge whom learned from “Maxwell” saw how the judge protected the United States (and especially Maxwell’s et. al.’s American cities) from letting Ghislaine Maxwell slip through the fingers of justice’s hands. You will thus hope that the judge in each “Trump” case will protect the prosecution from being unable to convict the attention-ravenous and injustice-pursuing defendant Donald John Trump.

Commentary [For “Business Announcer”]: What If the U.S. Had Given Israel the Most-Favored Nation Status Which It (Tried To Have) Bestowed On China?

 “ 1 Now the LORD said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee. 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing. 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.” (From Genesis 12, JPS 1917)

This comes directly from the Bible¹ on which many throughout U.S. history have, at least to some extent, claimed that the foundational documents of the U.S. find their bases. Beginning with, for instance, George Washington in his letter to Sefardi Congregation Yeshuat Yisra’el (Jeshuat Israel) in Newport 

“It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

Go: Washington”

President Washington had a full cognizance of the fact that a nation that was one of “Nature and Nature’s God” could not and cannot prosper without acknowledging the favor that “Nature’s God” already bestowed upon Israel. Even if Washington himself was not a Christian (as what exactly his own religion was remains a matter of debate for some), he recognized what gentile pagan leaders before him recognized: i.e., that “Nature’s God” is the very God of Israel, Whom even hinges the destiny of all countries based on the destiny of Israel (as the following, among other, verses show):

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the portion of the LORD is His people, Jacob the lot of His inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9)

And

“ And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say: 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2:2-3)

Professing himself to a modern-day Cyrus (despite that even the pagan Cyrus would come to recognize the God of Israel), President Harry S. Truman claimed to believe such. This means that he obviously implied professed agreement with President Washington before him, as he purported to agree with the Cyrus with whom Washington agreed: 

“ 1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying: 2'Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whosoever there is among you of all His people--his God be with him--let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, He is the God who is in Jerusalem. 4 And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill-offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.” (From Ezra 1)

Of course, we now know that (and being a relative of victims and survivors of the Holocaust in Russia, I have mentioned several times that) Truman was no Cyrus or fellow Philosemitic POTUS of Washington. In fact, he disfavored Israel by (among committing other Antisemitic acts) lauding the main perpetrator of the Soviet-named “Doctor’s Plot” as “America’s Uncle Joe”, and doing nothing to help wrest the Temple Mount out of the hands of the Arabs (in which it still remains, and into which it first fell when the Dome of the Rock was first built). 

Conversely, per Ezra 4, Cyrus did not immediately tolerate or encourage that “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin”—among whom were descendants of Edom and Ishmael—would even stop the Temple Mount from being back in Jewish hands. While “the adversaries…weakened the hands of the people of Judah…” in those days, they certainly did not have Cyrus’ tolerance or encouragement to do so. They also would not have had Washington’s tolerance or encouragement for— had Zionism as we know it occurred in his days—Anti-Zionist acts. 

For such a nation of “Nature and Nature’s God” as well as a Judeo-Christian nation, the United States and its presidents from Nixon (and officially on February 1, 1980 under Carter) to Clinton (with Congress’ approval) took its Antisemitism a step even further. It bestowed onto China what belongs to Israel, and thus tried to rob even from God by giving China what has belonged to Israel since ancient days: most-favored nation status. 

(Not only, then, was Carter the worst POTUS at that point: he was also the most Antisemitic. As if approving of Truman’s hypocrisy was not enough, Carter went as far as to try to steal from the people of Jesus of Nazareth what God the Father Himself gave Jesus’ people—including my mixed-blooded-Jewish self.) 

By now, one should conclude that the economic and other troubles that the United States has endured due to its relationship with China may as a direct result of it. In other words, one should begin to see that the U.S.’ defiance of God and favor of China may well be its cause for being cursed economically and otherwise over the past 53 years. He or she should also see as a miracle that Israel in the U.S. continues to do what we (yes, we) did for the U.S. in Washington’s day (which Washington as a gentile took to heart, and which I as a Jew born almost 300 years later take to heart): 

“ Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply ye there, and be not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the LORD for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” (Jeremiah 29:5-7)

In His mercy, God would fully understand if we even stopped praying for a nation that is much like the Babylon which carried us into what eventually became the first global diaspora. Nonetheless, as we did for Assyria and did for the cities to which Babylon carried us, we seek the peace (and blessing) instead of the cursing of (and judgement against) Israel’s not-so-strongest ally. If only the United States of today would reciprocate like the United States of George Washington did, and if even one president in the future would be a true American Cyrus! If only a true American Cyrus (and the U.S. Congress with him or her) would also take back from China and return to Israel what God gave Israel in the first place: most-favored nation status!

¹ Here, the JPS 1917 translation via MechonMamre.org, as with all other quotations.