RANT: YCMTSU! AGAIN

 

IN RECENT DAYS, America’s nutbar, geriatric president, Donald Trump, has proposed building a massive Arch monument overlooking Arlington Cemetery at the Western end of the Arlington National Bridge. Many say this is just a vanity project of President Trump, calling the it the “Arch de Trump”, referencing France’s 1836 Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Of course, the American president ensured his Arch would be taller than the famous Paris Arch by slapping on top a sixty-foot golden statue of Lady Liberty flanked by two golden eagles. As I understand it, they have broken ground for the project earlier this year.

NATURALLY, Trump’s bid to remake Washington in his image—be it the renaming of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the “Trump/Kennedy Centre, etc.*.  Or his demolishing the East Wing of the White House to put in a ballroom, or his “big, beautiful” Arch—have met with some push back. For example, Trump’s Arch is criticized for being out of scale with respect to other nearby national monuments. And it's tacky, with more gold paint than Louis the Fourteenth's Palace of Versailles, built in the mid 18^th Century.

 

    AI RENDERING OF BALLROOM ROOFTOP PUBLISHED BY THE WHITE HOUSE

A final wrinkle to Donald’s attempt to immortalize his name and presidency is his revelation that his new ballroom is going to have a rooftop filled with drones and bristling with other weapons. There is some rationale in defending the White House with such weapons now that we’ve entered the Drone Age. But his declaration that the Triumphal Arch, when it’s completed, will also serve as a sniper and drone facility. Commentators suggest that the yet-to-be completed monument would more likely be sanctioned by Congress if it came with a (supposed) military component. Other commentators suggest a darker possibility--that the snipers and drones were, in fact, to be used against U.S. citizens. Why else would the Arch have snipers? Is Trump militarizing Washington D.C. because he fears an attack by foreign insurgents or by his fellow citizens?  Stay tuned!

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________ 

 

* Last year Trump added his to name to the building, but a lawsuit claiming any changes made to a designated national memorial like the Kennedy Center required authorization from the U.S. congress. Subsequently, Trump’s name was removed but like the vindictive child-man he is, he has threatened to declare the building in disrepair and should be demolished.  What's next, carving his face on Mount Rushmore? (Trump mused one time about the possibility he could become the fifth president on the national monument, so who knows where his vanity will take him next.) 

The four presidents on the  mountain side represent four stages of the American polity: George Washington represents the birth of the country, Thomas Jefferson represents the growth of the country, Theodore represents the development of the nation, and Abraham Lincoln represents the preservation of the union. Trump's mug carved into the mountain's granite beside the four might well represent the dissolution of the nation. Just sayin'.

 

 

RANT: SNAKE EYES

   

Itamar Ben-Givir Minister of National Security. Israel 2022-2026

THESE DAYS, while more and more of us struggle to balance our busy work lives with our families, friends and community engagements, it’s good to know there’s at least one country that can boast “Mission Accomplished!” in walking that thin line between the personal and the public. And that’s Israel, of course.

There has been much in the news lately about genocide, ethnic cleansing, and  apartheid levels of social injustice within the state of Israel. Well, when you’re calling people names, a tried-and-true nursery rhyme comes to mind: “Sticks and stones may break bones, but names will never hurt me.” I think Israel, throughout its short history as a nation, has had to bear the brunt of cowardly name callers, ne’er-do-wells and peanut gallery claptrap bloviators. Its recent interventions in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria are done to finally reallocate lands that have always belonged to Israel, with claims going back to before the birth of Christ (and that’s quite the slam-dunk of a land claim if you ask me!)

STILL, Israel—ever a sticker for legalities—has long held its claim to all the territory “from the river and sea” in abeyance while Palestinians made up their minds to which countries they will emigrate, solving a host of problems for everyone concerned. Thus Israel’s nudging the Gazan population (and increasingly in the West Bank’s and East Jerusalem’s) to move on, and after seventy-eight years, it’s time enough, hence the Jewish state’s interventions into Hamas-controlled Gaza, and in the West Bank its support of Israeli settlers who encourage entrenched Palestinian farmers and herders and village enclaves to begin their exodus into nearby Jordon.

Under the brilliant leadership of PM Benjimin Netanyahu, dastardly Hezbollah in Lebanon is being methodically pushed back away from Israel’s borders. And southern Syria is becoming a bulwark against any aggressions from Türkiye. Finally, Israel, with its stalwart ally the United States, is succeeding to tamp down on the far side of the Persian Gulf perhaps its greatest foe, Iran. Stay tuned for further announcements from that arena.

But, while all these big movements and foundational changes are occurring in the Levant, it behooves us to also take note of those smaller actions and activities occurring within the future Israeli state.

A GOOD EXAMPLE of individual actions and an exemplar par excellence of true Israeli patriotism is someone we’ve met before, Israel’s Minister of Security (and ‘godfather of the West Bank’), Itamar Ben-Givir. Whether it’s arming Zionism’s brave warrior-settlers who daily act to reclaim the lands of Judea and Samaria (formally the West Bank); or in his role of overseer of Israeli prisons, seeing to it that there’s no more mollycoddling Palestinian detainees who, as everyone knows, are enemies of the state and deserving of the treatment they receive while in prison; or in his proposals for Egyptian crocodiles to man moats around prisons, especially those prisons that are filled with Palestinians dissidents, putting the kibosh on any escape plans* such dangerous radicals might cook up; or else his timely legislation (yet to be taken up by the Knesset) that mandates Palestinians found guilty of terrorism  will automatically face a death sentence by hanging with no chance for parole or reprieve. Heck, why should Israel use taxpayer money to feed and house squatters and mooches, and potential terrorists who would otherwise work towards the destruction of Greater Israel?

 

I THINK IT’S FAIR TO SAY that Ben-Givir and his policies and practical reforms will gain more support from the Israeli public. In Israel’s Knesset, his party Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power) currently has 6 seats in the 120-seat parliament. It is slated to win eight in next month’s elections, though it remains to be seen how the rest of Israel’s parliament shakes out and whether or not Ben-Givir can maintain his power base in forthcoming coalitions. Let us hope so. Minister Ben-Givir is an excellent example of modern Israel’s leadership class, as well as representing a growing swath of Israeli citizenry, and we would do well to watch his influence on Israeli politics going forward.¹  

 

 

CHEERS, JAKE _____________________________________

* PLEASE NOTE that such a regime, with moats and such, are also a low cost “Green” tech proposal. It’s a virtuous circle, whereby Palestinian terrorists who attempt to break out of prison and swim the moats to their imagined freedom, will be captured and eaten by the reptiles whose scat becomes nourishment for the aquatic vegetation growing around the prison. It’s a natural, ‘nature’s own’ recycling system. And Ben-Givir’s proposal has garnered for the minister the prestigious Our Green Land’s “Environmentalist of the Year (2026) Award”. Cudeos to Minister Ben-Givir!

1. OVER 74% Of ISRAELI JEWS favour PM Netanyahu’s foreign policy even if his personal approval rating is in the mid-thirties. 54% are in favour of expelling Palestinians from Gaza and 56% percent are in favour of expelling Arab citizens of Israel.

 

“Other studies showed similar overall trends. In a poll for Channel 13 in early February, almost immediately after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his plan for Gaza, 72 percent of Israelis supported the plan "to exile Palestinians" – the wording used in the announcer's description of the poll. That's a national average; among Jews, it would be close to Sorek's 82 percent (since very low support from Arab citizens on all related questions drives down the total average). A Channel 12 survey found 69 percent supported the plan, with similar wording about removing Gazans. Once again, although not published, the Jewish portion of those samples would likely have been around the 80 percent mark.” (Haaretz, 8 June 2025)

 

    EVOLUTION