Hillary Clinton – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #141 (11/6/2016): ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #141 (11/6/16): Electile Dysfunction

click above to listen (audio only)

Aired Nov. 5, 2016 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cX5zCpfhuk&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 6, 2016.

Well, my friends, this is it. In three days, we drag ourselves to the local junior high school, sign our names in a guest book, hold our collective noses, and pull the lever to choose which nightmare we wish to endure for the next four years.

On one side, we have Hillary Clinton: experienced, resilient, hardworking, honest as the day is long. At the South Pole. If you ask this woman, “what color is the sky?”, her answer’s gonna be, “Well, depending on the time of day and the light refracting away from various planets, we could be somewhere in the azure-like spectrum. But until I’ve done more research, I have to reserve comment on that.” Hillary Clinton gets a memo with a giant “C” on it for “Classified,” and she thinks the “C” stands for, “Come, put this on your home computer — where you haven’t updated Norton Utilities in three years.”

And two-faced? This woman has more faces than Mount Rushmore in a hall of mirrors. She tells rich fatcats she’s for open borders, but then she tells middle-class Democrats she’s for protecting trade. She bashes her opponent as a sexist pig but persecutes any woman who humped her husband. Which is a full-time job, by the way. Hillary promises to get tough on America’s enemies, but when was Secretary of State, the Middle East turned into Terrorist Disneyland. Heck, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t even be the nominee if Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her party apparatchiks didn’t treat Bernie Sanders like a naughty puppy who was soiling the carpet by lifting his leg to the far left.

For all his faults, people still love Hillary’s husband, Bill. He’s got the twinkle, he’s got the polish; he’s got another box of cigars at the ready. But that popular love just doesn’t transfer to Mrs. Clinton, who’s been in the political game too long to ever be a real person again. Even people who don’t dislike her understand that if she’s elected, the country will stay the same. The economy will still grow at a pace that makes photosynthesis look like the Indy 500. ObamaCare will put more people in hospitals . . . with heart attacks after they see their premiums. And America will still lag behind the rest of the world in everything except obesity and unwatchable cable TV channels.

And yet, of the two candidates running for the two major political parties, Hillary Clinton is the better choice. I know that’s like saying a bowl of chocolate-covered horse radish is preferable to a dish of month-old sheep vomit, but if you had to pick, you go with the maror over the moron. No question, Donald Trump is a wildly successful businessman. He’s successful, and he’s wild. I like that he has balls, but then again, what else do you shoot with a loose cannon?

Now, I don’t hold against Donald Trump that he’s gone bankrupt a couple of times. It takes a savvy entrepreneur to pick yourself up, dust yourself up, pay your creditors two cents on the dollar, and start all over again. And I don’t mind that he hasn’t paid any taxes since the Hoover administration. If I could find a legal way not to pay sales tax every time I bought a pastrami sandwich, I’d be owning Trump Hotel. Which would be especially ironic since neither of us owns it. For all his building development, Donald Trump does not own most of the buildings he has his name on. But I don’t hold that against him, either. After all, if my last name were Parkinson, would I want my name on a disease?

What I do begrudge The Donald are his deals with the devil. When The Orange One first announced his candidacy, his whole shpiel was about being an outsider. He wasn’t a lifelong politician and therefore took no money and owed no favors. That’s tremendously appealing, especially when you’re also plain-speaking, pro-Israel, and promising to play by your own rules. Had Mr. Trump gone with a third party or created his own party—and I don’t mean the kind of party where he offers a supermodel $10,000 to polish his cornerstone—I mean Ross Perot-ing it. Saying “shtup you” to the Pelosis and the Paul Ryans, because he could. Between his bank account and grass-roots support among the kind of white people who think Canadians are as exotic as foreigners should be allowed to get, Donald Trump could have funded a truly “outside” campaign.

Instead, he gets in bed with the elephants. The same people who gave us eight years of George W. Bush, not to mention Fox News, Richard Nixon, Sarah Palin, Strom Thurmond, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. So the Republicans think they can corral Trump, Trump thinks he can streamroll the G.O.P., and I think they should both go down in flames. Trump wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans? Who’s gonna pick my etrogs for Sukkos? He’s gonna give tax credits to the ultra-wealthy so their money will trickle down? Wanna bet it trickles down into their yachts, their jewelry, their private islands . . . Trump wants to pick Supreme Court justices who will protect the Constitution. The Constitution doesn’t need protecting; it just needs an annotated edition with color pictures, a worksheet, and an interactive website. Actually, the Torah could use that, too. I’ll have to tell that to God next time we talk.

Anyhoo, Donald Trump says, “What have you got to lose?” Everything stinks; maybe I’ll stink less. Of course, the last guy who said that was Ralph Nader, and we all saw how well that turned out. So for what it’s worth, I endorse Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. It is not a ringing endorsement. In fact, it’s more of a thudding endorsement. But look at the alternatives: the Trumpster fire? The Libertarian guy who thinks Aleppo is a tiger with spots? The independent party run by a dude named “Joe Exotic?” Look him up. He’s got eight rings in his ear, a Fu Manchu moustache, and a mustard-yellow leisure suit that should be kept 1,000 feet from any building and detonated. Or the guy from the Legal Marijuana Now Party — because, of course, the most urgent problem facing our nation today is finding a place to get your mellow on with some sweet bud? Or the guy from the Nutrition Party, whose sole claim to fame is inventing the Muscle Maker Grill? I mean, I like George Foreman, but I wouldn’t want him negotiating with North Korea. Except about barbecue, and even then, kimchi would be a dealbreaker because who the hell wants to eat that? Seriously.

So we come to the long-awaited end of this contentious, obnoxious, unfathomable election cycle in America. A cycle that had one candidate call a war hero a coward and another whose every private email makes the New York Times bestseller list. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, the bridges are crumbling, the schools are stupid, the terrorists are multiplying, and Steven Tyler is making country music. We’re in big trouble. But vote anyway because if we’ve gotta choose between an egotist with a messiah complex or a liar who understands complexity, I’ll take the one who isn’t relentlessly battling crucifixion. Let’s face it…what Rabbi wouldn’t?

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Vote early, vote often, try the veal.

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #134 (12/31/2015): Farewell 2015

click above to listen (audio file)

click above to listen (audio only)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #134: Farewell 2015

aired Dec. 31, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L8JvYAnkF4

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the new year! January 1st, 2016.

It has been an interesting year, this 2015. Not terrible. Not miserable. Not even a dull headache like most years. 2015 had its ups, it had its downs—kind of like Liza Minnelli’s medicine chest.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. This was the year when terrorism said, “I’m baaack.” Not that it ever went away. Not that jihadists haven’t been wreaking mayhem all over the world since 9/11. Since before 9/11. But this was the year it hit home again: the year animals shot up a Paris cafe because they didn’t like Charlie Hebdo magazine’s cartoons. I mean, Gasoline Alley, I understand. Marmaduke, Rhymes with Orange—never funny. Even Hagar the Horrible is looking a little long in the tooth, but you’re gonna go psycho over French cartoons? Put down the Koran and eat a brioche.

But poor France; one attack wasn’t enough. The religion of peace struck again in November, when 130 people were killed in coordinated attacks and bombings. The murderers, of course, had ties to Isis. But whether it was chocolate isis or lemon ices, I don’t know. The good news is that Paris pushed back and killed the ringleader of the carnage, just weeks after three American friends on vacation in Amsterdam jumped on a knife-wielding turbanista and foiled his plot on a train. I guess he didn’t learn from New York that the best way to terrorize people on a train is to start breakdancing, yelling jokes, and then asking for money.

Wait, what? You’re not satisfied? You want more terrorism? Okay, let’s go to San Bernadino. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to kill everyone at a bad office party? But you had this couple – Sayed Farook and his charming wife, Tashfeen, being helped by a Hispanic neighbor to slaughter a group of white, Asian and African co-workers. Who said America can’t be multicultural?

And of course, not all murder is Mohammedan. Yes, you’ve got a civil war in Syria, where the Arabs are killing each other—so who cares? But this autumn also saw Robert Dear enter a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and kill three people in the name of Jesus. “I’m a warrior for the babies,” he said. No, asshole, you’re a warrior for little blobs with heartbeats that no one wants to take care of. I just think the guy’s pissed because he looks like Nick Nolte on a bad hair day. Well, even-worse hair day.

Moving away from religious nuts with guns, this was also the year of authorities with guns—specifically policemen shooting first and suppressing evidence later. I’m not saying all the black men shot in the back by men in blue were choirboys, but if you’re not armed, and you’re running away or chained to the back seat of a car, you should be able to live long enough for an arraignment.

And speaking of dead black people, you’d think schvartzes would be safe in church, but no. Back in June, white supremacist Dylann Roof pops into a church in Charleston and kills nine in the congregation. And you thought my sermons were boring.

Well, there’s certainly nothing boring about politics this year. Though the presidential election isn’t for another ten months, we’ve already had 12 months of mind-boggling insanity, almost all of it on the Republican side. The front-runner is a businessman who’s gone bankrupt four times, a public speaker who makes fun of cripples, and a bully who thinks he can keep all Muslims from entering the USA. In other words, Donald Trump is a man after my own heart. And his competition? Right-wing Conservative Christian crazies, a brilliant heart surgeon who doesn’t believe in evolution, a Cuban novice who wants to give everybody a gun and nobody an abortion, Rand Paul . . . `nuff said, a fat guy from New Jersey who commandeers his own highway, and Jeb Bush, a man whose whole family should have a thousand-yard restraining order from coming anywhere near the White House. They shouldn’t even be allowed near regular houses that are painted white.

On the other side, you’ve got Hilary Clinton, who will do and say anything to stay in power. Any philosopher who says there’s no such thing as objective truth had to be studying Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. But hey, half of politics is knowing what to say—and what not to say—at any given moment. Or what to say when you’re actually doing the opposite. Or what to say when you’re doing nothing at all, which qualifies you for Congress. Hilary thought she’d cakewalk through the Democratic nomination, but then comes this angry brazen Jew, a cross between Jackie Mason and the math professor who terrified you in 12th grade. No, I don’t mean me, I mean Bernie Sanders. Can you imagine Americans electing a Jewish, socialist President named Bernie? It’d be wonderful but my God, the fireside chats? The man has two styles of rhetoric: yelling and louder yelling. He takes the oath of office, half the pigeons are gonna fly in a panic out of Washington DC.

Oh, and in the lighter side of politics, the biggest Broadway musical of the century so far is not about cats, it’s not about Mormons, and it’s not even about homosexuals. How the hell did it find a theater? But it did, and “Hamilton” is doing for our first Secretary of the Treasury what A Streetcar Named Desire did for streetcars. And desires. Meanwhile, “Star Wars” is back. No, I don’t mean Taylor Swift versus Katie Perry, I mean “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which is already the eighth-highest-grossing movie of all time. Somehow it beat out “Human Centipede III,” but that’s just because most people watched it on GAF viewmaster. Seriously, though, Mark Kermode, film critic for the UK Guardian wrote, and I quote, “this satire of grotesque American culture is as appealing as being force-fed warm diarrhea.” Unquote. Which begs the question, is that better or worse than being force-fed ice-cold diarrhea?

It’s a question they’re asking at Chipotle, where the food looks the same going out as it does coming in. And speaking of sickening, eight people were killed in Philadelphia when an Amtrak train going 100 miles an hour jumped a curve and turned over. On the positive side for Amtrak, it was their first on-time arrival all year.

The shock of the unexpected also hit sports, where the New York Mets made it to the World Series, the New York Jets lost a quarterback to a broken jaw from a fist fight, and Caitlyn Jenner killed a guy. Well, two guys, if you count Bruce. But it was a great year for gays, as the Supreme Court voted to make same-sex marriage as legal and binding as regular marriage. And no doubt as dreary and boring and sexless. Welcome to equality, guys.

And welcome 2016, you couldn’t come soon enough. There’ll be more tragedy, absurdity, beauty, stupidity, hilarity, vulgarity, disparity and, if the economy stays good, a bissel charity. Three weeks ago, nice Jewish boy Mark Zuckerberg, announced that he is donating 99 percent of his Facebook shares to worthy causes. What a mensch! What an example for the world! Oh, did I mention that I’m starting a non-profit organization to help Rabbis with rage issues? I’m kind of a test case, and I need a lot of start-up funding so Markele, if you’re listening, make the check out to Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Shana Tovah, everybody! See you in the New Year.

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #134 (1/1/16): FAREWELL 2015

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #134 (1/1/2016): FAREWELL 2015

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (4/19/2015): Campaign 2016

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (4/19/2015): Campaign 2016

(aired April 18, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/h-wdAa7RXFM)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 19, 2015.)

Well, the Presidential race for 2016 officially began this week when Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Her decision to run came as a shock to an order of Trappist Monks in Burkina Faso, but pretty much everyone else in the universe was expecting this, oh, seven-and-a-half years ago.

And why not? For all the negative publicity and setbacks, the past six years of Obama-America has been moderately successful—spectacularly successful if you compare them to the previous eight years under Shrub. The economy slowly turned around, real-estate is up, gas prices are down, we managed the wars that Dubya started, gay marriage and legal pot became the norm (and, astonishingly, the empire did not collapse), people who couldn’t afford healthcare . . . still can’t afford healthcare but now they have to have it, we’re making nice-nice with Cuba, and we turned bin Laden into fish food. Not perfect but not bad, considering Obama inherited a country that was so rotten, it could have been a Renny Harlin movie.

Through it all, Hillary Clinton took her lumps in 2000 and bided her time visiting a million countries between then and now in order to keep us out of new wars and, let’s face it, to avoid spending quality home time with her husband. The GOP is gonna hammer Hillary over Benghazi and ISIS and her seeming inability to answer a direct question, but half the Republican candidates won’t answer a direct question, either–`cause they can barely speak English.

I kid, I kid, but look at what the Red States are throwing at the next election: Jeb Bush. Do we really want to hear that last name connected with the White House ever, ever again? Sure, comparing Jeb to his brother George W. is like comparing Steven Spielberg to the guy who directed “Gummo.” But Jeb’s intelligence is a danger in itself. Let’s not forget who was governor when Florida hijacked the presidency from Al Gore 15 years ago. (In case you forgot, it was Jeb Bush.) And while he’s pro-education and more sensible than most in his party about immigration, he would decimate social services and be so right-wing on abortion, he’d make jacking off illegal because you’re killing a bajillion potential human beings in spermatozoic form.

Then you’ve got Ted Cruz. He looks like Joseph McCarthy, sounds like Rick Santorum, and comes off like a Sunday preacher on acid. Gotta love him for being pro-Israel, but no Federal money for Hurricane Sandy? No leeway on gun control? No compassion for unwed mothers? No comprehension of global warming? No remorse for shutting down the government in 2012? No admitting that he can’t even run for president because he was born in Canada? (Actually, he can `cause his mom’s American, but why isn’t he up north shooting moose and ordering Terrence and Philip to get a haircut?)

Then you’ve got Marco Rubio, who makes one crowd-pleasing speech, and suddenly he thinks he can run the free world. (Remember how that hot-speech thing worked out for Sarah Palin?) Anyway, he’s Latino, and he’s got charisma. Good for him. I liked Desi Arnaz, but I wouldn’t’ve voted for him. Rubio is anti-same-sex marriage and has so little experience in foreign policy, he makes pre-2008 Barak Obama look like Henry Kissinger. Including the glasses. Worst of all, Marco was mentored by none other than Jeb Bush — the guy he’ll run against in the primaries. Who says there’s no loyalty in politics? I do; I say there’s no loyalty in politics.

Also in the hunt: Rand Paul. He’s so right wing, he makes the Koch Brothers look like Emma Goldman. Paul is another of those religious fundamentalists who thinks conception begins in the nut sack, and he is the epitome of the Republican who believes the way to govern is to block anything and everything the Democrats wanna do. If Obama says walruses have tusks, Rand Paul will filibuster to make sure they’re called “long teeth” instead.

Other rambunctious Republicans who might give Jeb a jolt include Chris Christie, who was desperate enough to accept a Democratic handout but arrogant enough to clog up the George Washington Bridge. Rick Perry, who is currently under indictment, hates gays, hates abortion, and worst of all, comes from Texas. Scott Walker comes from Wisconsin, for which he deserves sympathy. And I hear he’s very much an advocate of two-year colleges – by which I mean that he’s cut so much funding from state universities, they won’t be able to afford four years of teachers.

And did I mention Donald Trump was running again? Just take a moment to process that. Donald Trump, who went bankrupt three times and yet brands himself as a financial genius. He does have a magnificent knack for self-promotion, but he spends money he doesn’t have like it’s going out of style—so why isn’t he running as a Democrat?

Oy. It’s gonna be an interesting year and a half. Night after night of Rachel Maddow shilling for Hill and Sean Hannity sugarcoating anything the Republican party scrapes off its shoe and smears on a ballot. My parishioners tell me, “Rabbi, you bitch and bitch and bitch but don’t offer an alternative. Why don’t you run for President, you’re so smart?” The answer is, I’m smart enough to know my limitations. If I were President, the first thing I’d do is declare war on every country threatening Israel. The second is to make it illegal to use the New Testament as anything more than literature or a doorstop. And the third would be to make pastrami a mandatory part of all school lunches. As for immigration: look, my wife and I have 21 ½ children. Where the hell are we supposed to get nannies for less than six bucks an hour if we send back all the illegals?

Global Warming? Half my relatives live in Florida, and their skins are like komodo dragons from the sunshine. For the sake of the Jews, let’s at least get some umbrellas down there and maybe a few icemakers. Quality of life crime, like graffiti or noise pollution? A simple and effective plan. First offense, 25 hours of community service. Second offense? Death penalty.

As you can see, I am not meant to be the leader of the free world. `Cause I’m a schmuck. I’m saving you the trouble; I’m telling you, I’m a schmuck. The hard part is keeping some other schmuck from becoming president. For 227 years, we have failed at this almost uninterruptedly. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the next four.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

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