Larry Yudelson

Worth remembering that a few months earlier Bibi launched his campaign by promising that a fence around Gaza would solve the Palestinian problem without need of the Palestinian Authority or the Oslo process.

"This court hold with those who favor FIRE."

Trump’s 15% tariffs on imports from Israel take effect as part of sweeping global regime Finance Ministry seeks to downplay move, noting rate is at lowest level among countries that have a trade deficit with the US

Trump’s 15% tariffs on imports from Israel take effect as part of sweeping global regime https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-15-tariffs-on-imports-from-israel-take-effect-as-part-of-sweeping-global-regime/

What does it say about the place of religion in American life that Ross Douthat would rather pontificate on UFOs than pay attention to people being kidnapped off the street? (Compare Jewish scholars who are fascinated by theology but can't bring themselves to condemn genocide.)

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PragerU's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad History The outfit that's making historical content for Trump's White House and America's youth has a history of doing history that has a fairly loose relationship with the truth

Some thoughts on PragerU's use of history to provide white identity politics fan service to the MAGA base. sethcotlar.substack.com/p/pragerus-t...

@booker.senate.gov, @corybooker.com, you’re frustrated at other Dems, here’s an easy thing you can do:

Stand on the senate floor and say what is obvious to everyone: Trump is a liar and the Republican Party is built on lying.

Were you ever called upon to sub again?

sure trump will probably trash the economy but the marginal utility to a "top banker" of a few extra dollars is quite small, while the marginal utility to many "top bankers" of being able to use racial slurs and sexist stereotypes with impunity is quite high

“As elders, like Moses, we not only recount our personal stories, but also are able to reconstruct and promulgate the communal past.” —Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman, Devarim, “The Journal of the Journeys”

Midrash Hazak: Torah Wisdom by 70 Over 70 (But Who's Counting?) is a collection of commentaries on the weekly Torah portion, written by our elders with all of their wisdom, grace, and power. Here's an excerpt for the commentary on this week's Torah portion, Devarim.

Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death A city traffic engineer credits the success to lower speed limits and smarter design.

*In the capital of Finland, an entire year passed and cars & trucks didn't kill anybody

yle.fi/a/74-20174831

FWIW, the architect who designed the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago in the late 1920s, Joseph Urban, referred to it as "the Mussolini Room" because it was modeled on Rome’s Chigi Palace that was then occupied by Il Duce.

What? The sun isn't always shining?! Having recently learned that the sun isn't always shining & the wind isn't always blowing, I turned to Princeton professor Jesse Jenkins to help explain how we can build a robust energy system around ...

By the way, since Trumpian morons are raising the "sun doesn't shine at night" thing again, I once have to tap the sign:

Tablet Magazine @tabletmag The Perelman Performing Arts Center was unveiled in September 2023, steps from the footprint of the Twin Towers. Critics called it “glamorous” and “a retort to terrorism.” But no one mentioned something almost too strange to believe: It’s a ringer for the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine. The cube-shaped building is even veiled in marble that recalls the Kaaba’s black kiswa, and one corner points directly toward Mecca. This is not an internet conspiracy theory. It’s a thing anyone could see. But not a single one of the dozens of distinguished art and architecture critics and urban planners who commented on the site for dozens of high-level newspapers and magazines ever so much as noted the similarity to the Kaaba, even in passing. Standing on a site visible to hundreds of thousands of people, the building has somehow rendered itself invisible. [Underneath is a still shot from a video, showing the white cube of the Perelman Art Center, with "American Kaaba" written above it by the edits. The only comparison to the actual Kaaba is that they are both cubes.]

Somehow this came across my feed on X and this is genuinely hilarious. Tablet Mag is arguing that a performing arts center in New York is actually a secret Kaaba, because... uh... it's a cube? And the Kaaba is a cube? And they both have some marble on the outside, so check-mate libs.

Luke Farritor must go to jail, for breaking the law and killing people.

These assholes must be punished if we want to rebuild an American democracy. He broke the law. Prosecute him and imprison him. What liberal leader will call for that?

"Rooster in the Cradle" is my new class on the Evil Eye in Ashkenazi (and world) culture. When I ran it the first time in May, I had people saying things like, "My life is being explained by this class!"
I can't explain everything, but I promise there will be at least a few great "a-HA" moments 🧿

Next week: lead in drinking water is actually just fine and in fact uhh good for your bones

A Note on the Closing of the Path to Future U.S. Hegemony—Economic, Political, Geostrategic, Cultural From hegemon to has-been, remarkably quickly too. But think, post American hegemony, not Chinese hegemony but rather (hopefully peaceful) balance-of-power, and of influence, global politics...

A Note on the Closing of the Path to Future U.S. Hegemony—Economic, Political, Geostrategic, Cultural
From hegemon to has-been, remarkably quickly too. But think, post American hegemony, not Chinese hegemony but rather (hopefully peaceful) balance-of-power…
braddelong.substack.com/p/a-note-on-...

Tech elites are turning AI into ChatGPTrump The administration's new AI plan gives Silicon Valley everything it wants — for a price.

"AI companies are already doing what Trump wants. Meta notes that after removing 'bias,' its 'Llama' LLM is now 'comparable to Grok.' Yes, Grok — Musk’s AI chatbot, which was recently in the news for having a full-on pro-Nazi meltdown, including copious praise of Hitler." — @paulwaldman.bsky.social

Trump is trying to drive me and my family out of the middle class. He really is. I blame everyone who voted for him. And too many liberal pundits are too secure in their class status to be raising enough hell about the decimation of the middle class.

what about the concerns of parents with trans kids who are worried about them being ostracized, bullied, targeted, denied healthcare, and denied the opportunity to participate in school activities like everyone else?

I guess Buttigieg doesn't give a shit about us or our kids.

Torah isn’t neutral.

It expands when the margins speak - when autistic, disabled, and queer people bring our full selves to the text and tradition.

And it contracts when it’s hoarded - when bigotry, fear, and gatekeeping freeze it in place.

Revelation doesn’t end.

But it can be silenced.

44. A subway for Jersey City and the Palisades on Bergenline, from Journal Square or environs north to Fort Lee. This line would not go into Manhattan but serve high demand along the corridor and connect to stations that would get people to Manhattan.

“Look who thinks she’s worthless!”

Federal employees have been encouraged to talk about religion at work. What to know: Guidance released today by the Office of Personnel Management expressed that the federal workforce should be a “welcoming place” for religious activity. What’s allowed: In-office prayer, displaying religious items and attempting to convert co-workers “provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature,” among other things.

This will be the Church of Satan's finest hour.

18) Elevated extension of the New York subway via the George Washington Bridge and NJ route 4 to Paterson.

In America we value our freedoms, including the foundational freedom to practice our own beliefs and raise our own kids according to those beliefs. This regime of the bullies, by the bribes, for the billionaires wants to control our lives.

This book felt *so* Jewish to me when I was a little kid and I just looked up the author’s bio and now I know why.

The silence of legacy Jewish groups on this case is breathtaking.

“The Israelites never made it to the Promised Land, but their children did. And yet what they did in the desert, and what they learned and how they lived, shaped their lives and the lives of their descendants.” —Rabbi Ron Isaacs, Masei, “The Journal of the Journeys”

Midrash Hazak: Torah Wisdom by 70 Over 70 (But Who's Counting?) is a collection of commentaries on the weekly Torah portion, written by our elders with all of their wisdom, grace, and power. Here's an excerpt for the commentary on this week's Torah portion.