Today is Saturday, November 19, 2022. Even though it would be obvious to a fool even, that people who identify themselves as Republicans should abandon the albatross around its collective neck, in the name of Donald J. (Jerk) Trump, this was not wholly the case in Las Vegas today when a crowd of boobs gave the disgraced, twice-impeached, COVID denier liar-in-chief a standing ovation! Maybe this was possible because these jerks had been prodded with an electrical jolt in their seats. The scene of this ridiculous scene was the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership meeting that was held in the land of glitz and gambling. The only moment of clarity occurred when several possible White House rivals lashed out at his election denialism and finally, finally, insisted it was time to move on from the rotten former president.

This appearance was Dumpf’s first since announcing his truly ghastly intention to run for president in 2024. Lying as always, the former insurrectionist told the Republican Jewish Coalition in Vegas that the party had grown under his “leadership.” He should have said how the party has failed since Election Day and that he was solely to blame for it. Instead, he asserted falsely that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and now rejected any responsibility for the GOP’s poor performance in the November midterms.

There is no need to repeat what the pathological liar said about the election, except to say that those in the crowd still accepted his version of reality without question. Poor, deluded fools!

But when he was asked about how he could improve the party’s appeal to suburban voters, among whom it did badly in this month’s midterms, Dumpf insisted he had a record of picking winners.

Before Dumpf was warmly welcomed – via livestream – by the reality-deficient crowd, several party figures who spoke and are often mentioned as possibly 2024 presidential contenders dabbled in hues of reality when they hit out at Dumpf’s grievance-laden style of politicking, which repugnican party operatives have said was to blame for their flaccid showing on November 8.

One such ray of light was New Jersey’s former governor and one-time Dumpf lackey, Chris Christie, who rightly said that the main issue of the GOP’s poor performance was candidate quality.

Christie said, “Donald Trump picked candidates with one criteria [sic]. Not electability, not experience, not wisdom, not charisma, not the ability to govern, but ‘do you believe the 2020 election was stolen or not? If you do, I endorse you. If you don’t, I reject you.'” This is the truth, but who wants to hear it among this crowd?

The former New Jersey governor talked about how he was the first candidate to leave the presidential campaign in 2016 and endorse Dumpf, and he worked hard to make the inchoate presidency as successful as possible. But he stopped supporting Dumpf in 2020, he said, receiving much applause from the audience.

When Dumpf insisted to the American people that the election was stolen with no credible evidence, “That’s where it ended for me,” Christie stated. For every moment since then, “our party has been diminished by that lack of leadership.”

Trump stupidly has asserted that the party will keep winning so much that it will get tired of winning, Christie said, but “since that night in 2016, politically as a party, we’ve done nothing but lose.”

Christie then urged the audience to choose a leader who will make the Republican Party the “party of we” instead of the “party of me.”

“We keep losing and losing and losing. And the fact of the matter is, the reason we’re losing is because Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else,” Christie indicated.

No matter what you think of this conservative former governor, you have to admit that he spoke truth to power at this assembled gathering of Jewish folk. In concluding remarks, Christie projected what the current dismal repugnican party should eventually stand for: “I choose a party steeped in conservatism,” with principles of “strength, faith, decency, integrity, freedom, liberty and to make sure that we have a country that we bring together, not a country that we tear apart around those principles.” Well said, Mr. Christie.

One other speaker, Texas Senator Ted “Ooze,” said that his out-of-touch-with-reality party should take a move from the Democrats’ playbook in energizing its base while attracting new voters. Speaking in rather hyperbolic terms as usual, Ooze said, “They went hard left, they energized their base, they govern as left-wing lunatics [what a stupid comment!] and their voters rewarded them by showing up in big numbers.” He acknowledged his floundering party’s record of attracting a more diverse set of voters, even though the repugnican party is primarily the party of white, disaffected voters, by saying the party needs to stop “preaching to the choir” and attract young, Hispanic and Black voters, which is very true.

What about attracting Jewish voters in this context, given the far-right’s reliance on anti-Semitism to motivate its dim-witted voters. It’s pretty strange that, given this phenomenon, that there is even a Jewish Republican Coalition. I had never heard of it, even. That’s my naiveté showing here, sorry. According to Pew Research, about a third of Jewish adults do vote Republican [my belief is that more orthodox members of the tribe do this], with seven out of 10 identifying or leaning toward the Democratic Party.

Concerning the alarming rate of anti-Semitic incidents in this country since the coming of Dumpf, I draw your attention to an online CNN article by John Miller, Brynn Gingras, Samantha Beech, and Alaa Elassar that describes a foiled attempt to possibly attack a New York synagogue by two men entitled “2 men arrested, 1 with Nazi armband, accused of making threats to attack New York synagogue, NYPD says.”

Thus two men have been arrested and charged with connection with online threats to attack a New York synagogue, multiple law enforcement sources have informed CNN.

New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced the arrests in a statement today. Investigators from the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force and the NYPD Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau, in collaboration with law enforcement partners, uncovered what she called “a developing threat to the Jewish community” on Friday.

One of those two men is Christopher Brown, 21, from Aquebogue, New York, who is being charged with making a terroristic threat, aggravated harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon. The other man is Matthew Mahrer, 22, of Manhattan, who is facing a single charge of criminal possession of a weapon, a NYPD spokeswoman said. Do you see a pattern here, even though there is not sufficient information to describe these men as information is still not available. But look at the age of these two men; this youthful age appears to characterize those on the far right fringe. I’m not even going to ascertain the ethnicity of these two men without more information provided.

The two men were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) as they were entering Penn Station in Manhattan early Saturday, according to Sewell. The officers also seized “a large hunting knife, an illegal Glock 17 firearm and 30-round magazine, and several other items,” the commissioner said.

What alerted authorities to these two men were threats posted on a Twitter account on November 12 that were traced late Friday to a computer at a veterinary clinic where one of the suspects worked.

The threats allegedly included references to attacking a synagogue: “Gonna ask a priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die,” one post purportedly read.

Sources said one of the messages contained a reference to “big moves being made on Friday.” That message cited a time of 11:30 p.m., but gave no specific target.

Thus an imminent attack may have been prevented by law enforcement stepping in and arresting these two suspects. To justify their suspicions about these two men’s intentions, one of the suspects wore a Nazi armband, a semiautomatic weapon, a large knife, and a black ski mask.

This latest threat of violence against temples of worship comes more than a week after a New Jersey man was arrested after being accused of making threats to attack a synagogue and Jewish people.

Surprisingly enough, New York State leads the nation in anti-Semitic incidents, with at least 416 reported in 2021, including at least 51 assaults – the highest number ever recorded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York. There were 12 assaults reported in 2020, the ADL said in its audit last week.

Across the nation, a total of 2,717 anti-Semitic incidents were reported last year – a 34% increase compared to 2,026 in 2020, according to the ADL.

The ADL has been tracking such instances since 1979 – and its previous reports have found that anti-Semitism in America has been on the rise for years.

One of those incidents in New York included an assault on a Jewish man in New York who was beaten and kicked while anti-Semitic slurs were hurled at him. He was on his way to a pro-Israel demonstration in Times Square when he was attacked.

And the former election denier-in-chief constantly says how he was good for the Jewish people, but never mentions how he opened the Pandora’s box of anti-Semitism when he coddled white supremacist groups all throughout his one miserable term in office. That is when all of these incidents ratcheted up – the explanation for that is fucking apparent.

This is just in: “genius” Elon Musk just allowed the Great Divider back on Twitter! What a shitty action; people should rebel by leaving the platform as a form of protest pronto. Who needs him again here?

Have a good Sunday.

Stay safe and be well.