The Anxiety Filter

What a brilliant picture of “Anxiety” by a child in Montgomery County, Maryland. 

Notice the great big letters–and all in caps–for what ANXIETY feels like. 

Anxiety is black–it’s when we are in a dark foreboding place and we can’t find our way out–it holds us back from doing what we need and like to do. 

Anxiety feels so all-enveloping and ginormous–it dwarfs us in the “I”–and we feel so small and are paralyzed, incapable of freeing ourselves from it. 

Anxiety is a cognitive and emotional bias where we see things in black and white–everything is to the extreme–and there are no greys; we tend to talk in all or nothing and our actions may mimic our extreme feelings. 

Around the anxiety, we are bordering in blood red–we are in a dangerous place–where our feelings of fear, inadequacy, and being incapable of overcoming it can lead us to do something desperate and final. 

When we are drowning in anxiety, it is like a lens or filter that clouds our vision and thinking, so we can make bad decisions, not make any decisions, or just procrastinate in order to avoid the issue and thing we are afraid of. 

We have to fight off the octopus grip of anxiety.

We have to find our courage within and from G-d.

We have to conquer our demons so we can meet our destiny head-on. 

We have a mission to fulfill in our life, and we can’t let anything get in the way. 

Fate is waiting for us to make our important contribution, so then we can be gathered to our fathers and rest in final peace. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Dear SAR Academy

To help the children… Religion is not just “teaching” Torah; it is also doing the right thing!

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

A few references:

Letter from SAR (January 2018)

Investigation Launches 40 Years Late(r) (January 2018)

Enabler/Facilitator Believed to be Still at the School (April 2018)

The Rabbi In The Bath House and More (June 2015)

Parole Violation Hearing (July 2009)

His Preferred Prey was Adolescent Boys (May 2006)

Case of Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld (August 2000)

(Source Video: Andy and Dossy Blumenthal)

Rivers Of Blood

So after years of brutal war in Syria and use of chemical weapons of mass destruction…

Obama and Kerry did nothing!

And the result has literally been rivers of blood in Syria. 

Obama and Kerry could have fired the warning shots–as President Trump just did 79 days into his new administration–but Obama and Kerry choose weakness and inaction.

The result of the Obama administration’s inaction is that Russia has now comfortably moved and settled into Syria and that 500,000 Syrians are dead, 13.5 million require humanitarian assistance, 6 million are internally displaced, and 4.8 million refugees have fled across the borders.

Contrary to all who have accused President Trump of being complicit with Russia, instead we now see in him a leader who in fact stands up for what is right to Russia and despots like Syria’s Assad.

Perhaps the real person complicit with the Russians and Iranians was Obama who let them ride roughshod over human rights and over America.

In complicity was not President Trump, but Obama secretly whispering to the Russians and caught on an open mic: “After the election, I will have more flexibility”–to do what Americans obviously wouldn’t want me to do.

With regards to Syria’s chemical weapons, Kerry falsely stated to the American people:

“We got 100% of chemical weapons out of Syria.“

However, the slaughter continued for years and we continue to see chemical weapons used again this week with horrific pictures of men, women, and children brutally murdered in the streets of Syria.

But the weakness, disengagement, and leadership from behind from Obama and Kerry is hopefully behind us now. 

Stay tuned…next up is the phony deal that Obama and Kerry made with “Axis of Evil” Iran and the do-nothing with North Korea that has continued to lead them to a nuclear ICBM that can reach America!

So as we will soon start the holidays of Passover and Easter, we know that only G-d can make rivers of white water or of red blood flow mercifully or justly, but Obama and Kerry are the ones complicit in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Syria that they could’ve stopped, but didn’t. 

Just Cut It Out

What a way to handle global leadership…all you have to say is,  just “Cut it out!” and your job is done. 

– Cyber attacking the U.S. democratic election, invasion of Crimea, and encroaching on NATO with nuclear capable missiles…just cut it out! 

– Vast destruction of Aleppo including hospitals, schools, and markets, killings, refugees, and humanitarian crisis, and the dangerous use of chemical weapons on civilians…just cut it out!

– China stealing our drone and militarizing the South China Sea…just cut it out!

– North Korea testing advanced nukes and ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe and America and threatening to use them…just cut it out!

– Iran taking our sailors captive, humiliating them, buzzing our warships, and violating the nuclear arms deal…just cut it out!

– Abandoning our friends and allies and befriending our enemies sworn to kill us and not even being able to say the words, “Radical Islamist”…just cut it out!

– Spiraling divisiveness, rioting in our inner cities, and cycles of racial and police violence…just cut it out!

– An unsustainable Obamacare with double digit rising rates and decreasing insurance choices (many localities with only 1)…just cut it out!

– Doubling of the U.S. national debt by another $10 trillion and enacting regulations that are strangling business…just cut it out!

– Endless ISIS and other terrorist attacks (yesterday on Berlin, Zurich, Turkey and more) and calls it “workplace violence” or a traffic accident…just cut it out!

Anyone who says that now “We’re feeling what not having hope feels like,” truly must be referring to where we come from and not where we are going.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Where Did I Put That Action Memo?

Lots of people desks seem to look like this.

(Not me though…compulsive neat freak and learned from IBM’s “clean desk policy” early on in my career.)

In analyzing our fight against Islamic jihadists and terrorists, Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal writes:

“In all the photos published of al Qaeda, Islamic State or any other terror groups, have you ever seen them sitting at desks?”

Henninger points out the root of “Bureaucracy” is the French word “Bureau,” which mean desk.

Hence, we in the West are stuck behind desks, while the terrorists are actively working to destroy our freedom and way of life–smashing down doors and wielding AK47s and suicide vests!

We’ve got to stop hiding behind our piled-high desks, analysis-paralysis position papers, endless meetings, and political bickering, and actually do something concrete, meaningful, and strong–to not only deter, but destroy the enemy!

Fear of making a decision or nonsense claims that your still searching for that action memo is something that should get you uprooted from your messy desk with a boot up your a*s!

Wake up, wake up, wake up–enough ho hum, we need some leadership that is bold, patriotic, and heroic to protect what we value so dear.

Don’t you think it’s time to win this war for real?

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Shawn de Raaf)

Upside Down in D.C.

So coming downtown this week in D.C., I see this quite unhelpful posted sign. 

If you can read upside down, while rushing down a busy street with a million and one things on your mind for the day, it says, “Sidewalk Closed. Use Other Side.”

Of course, the people flowing speedily down the streets in the morning, were still walking on this sidewalk, despite the construction and potential dangers. 

But in a way this reminds me of a bigger question here–is this really a sign of the times?

Today, I read in the Wall Street Journal about continued problems with Healthcare.gov–no, not related to the crashing websites, exemptions and delays, parts being overturned (such as with the contraception mandate), low enrollment (particularly after accounting for over 5 million people that lost their coverage with the new law and in effect had to sign up), but now in terms of thousands of people who signed up not getting their benefits due to continued problems with the enrollment system.

This is not just an issue for this party or that, but rather matters of government that we as a unified nation must tackle togther to grow our capabilities and competitiveness econically, militarily, and socially. 

Are the signs pointing us in the right direction and what streets should we be going down as a nation in order to succeed? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)