Saturday 26 October 2019

Recipes - MEATBALLS IN TOMATO SAUCE

MEATBALLS IN TOMATO SAUCE

BY , the jerusalem post ,  
 OCTOBER 23, 2019 
photo credit: PASCALE PEREZ-RUBIN)

Makes 35-40 meatballs.

Ingredients 

½ kg. ground beef
2 large potatoes, grated coarsely
4 medium onions, grated coarsely
15 sprigs of parsley, chopped
3 medium eggs
½ Tbsp. chicken powder
½ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. baharat spice mix
½ tsp. salt
¼-½ cup matzah meal (or 1 slice of bread soaked in water and then squeezed well)
Oil for frying

Tomato sauce:
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped finely
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tomato, chopped finely
3 Tbsp. tomato paste
½ tsp. harissa (hot chili paste) or pilpelchuma (pepper garlic sauce)
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. spicy paprika
1 tsp. sweet paprika
½ tsp. sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon
2 ½ - 3 cups water

Directions 
In a large bowl, mix the ground beef with the potato, onion and parsley. Add the eggs, soup powder, pepper, baharat, salt and matzah meal. Mix well. If the mixture is too watery, you can add some more matza meal.

Heat the oil in a large pot. Form meatballs with a diameter of 5 cm. and fry them on both sides until they just change color. If you don’t want to fry them, you can bake them in the oven.

To prepare the sauce, heat a large pot and fry the onion and garlic for 1-2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, harissa and spices. Stir and then add the water and bring to a boil. Add the meatballs and shake the pot so that the sauce covers all of them. Cook over a low flame for 15-20 minutes or until the sauce becomes nice and thick. Serve over white rice.


Level of difficulty: Medium.
Time: 50-60 minutes.
Status: Meat.

Tipascale for cooking with ground beef:
• ½ cup of matzah meal can be swapped with 1 slice of bread soaked in water and then squeezed out, or cooked quinoa or millet.
• You can mix ground beef with ground turkey or chicken. These meatballs usually come out a little more airy.
• When you’re making tomato sauce for children, you can add a few tablespoons of ketchup and a little extra oregano, too.

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How Do the New Plant-Based Burgers Stack Up? We Taste-Tested Them

How Do the New Plant-Based Burgers Stack Up? We Taste-Tested Them

The new generation of veggie burgers aims to replace the beefy original with fake meat or fresher vegetables. To find out how well they do, we ran a blind tasting of six top contenders.



  • In just two years, food technology has moved consumers from browsing for wan “veggie patties” in the frozen aisle to selecting fresh “plant-based burgers” sold next to the ground beef.
    Behind the scenes at the supermarket, giant battles are being waged: Meat producers are suing to have the words “meat” and “burger” restricted to their own products. Makers of meat alternatives like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are vying to capture the global fast-food market, as big players like Tyson and Perdue join the fray. Environmental and food scientists are insisting that we eat more plants and less processed food. Many vegetarians and vegans say the goal is to break the habit of eating meat, not feed it with surrogates.

    “I would still prefer to eat something that’s not lab-grown,” said Isa Chandra Moskowitz, the chef at the vegan restaurant Modern Lovein Omaha, where her own burger is the most popular dish on the menu. “But it’s better for people and for the planet to eat one of those burgers instead of meat every day, if that’s what they are going to do anyway.”
    The new refrigerator-case “meat” products already comprise one of the fastest-growing segments of the food industry.


    Some are proudly high-tech, assembled from an array of starches, fats, salts, sweeteners and synthetic umami-rich proteins. They are made possible by new technologies that, for example, whip coconut oil and cocoa butter into tiny globules of white fat that give the Beyond Burger the marbled appearance of ground beef.

    Others are resolutely simple, based on whole grains and vegetables, and reverse-engineered with ingredients like yeast extract and barley malt to be crustier, browner and juicier than their frozen veggie-burger predecessors. (Some consumers are turning away from those familiar products, not only because of the taste, but because they are most often made with highly processed ingredients.)

    But how do all the newcomers perform at the table?
    The Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, our cooking columnist Melissa Clark and I lined up both kinds of new vegan burgers for a blind tasting of six national brands. Though many people have already tasted these burgers in restaurants, we wanted to replicate the experience of a home cook. (To that end, Melissa and I roped in our daughters: my 12-year-old vegetarian and her 11-year-old burger aficionado.)

    Each burger was seared with a teaspoon of canola oil in a hot skillet, and served in a potato bun. We first tasted them plain, then loaded with our favorites among the classic toppings: ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles and American cheese. Here are the results, on a rating scale of one to five stars. 

    1. Impossible Burger
    ★★★★½
    Maker Impossible Foods, Redwood City, Calif.
    Slogan “Made From Plants For People Who Love Meat”
    Selling points Vegan, gluten-free.
    Price $8.99 for a 12-ounce package.

    Tasting notes “The most like a beef burger by far,” was my first scribbled note. Everyone liked its crisp edges, and Pete noted its “brawny flavor.” My daughter was convinced it was a real ground beef patty, slipped in to confuse us. The only one of the six contenders that includes genetically modified ingredients, the Impossible Burger contains a compound (soy leghemoglobin) created and manufactured by the company from plant hemoglobins; it quite successfully replicates the “bloody” look and taste of a rare burger. Melissa deemed it “charred in a good way,” but, like most plant-based burgers, it became rather dried out before we finished eating.

    Ingredients Water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, natural flavors, 2 percent or less of: potato protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract, cultured dextrose, food starch-modified, soy leghemoglobin, salt, soy protein isolate, mixed tocopherols (vitamin E), zinc gluconate, thiamine hydrochloride (vitamin B1), sodium ascorbate (vitamin C), niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B12.


    2. Beyond Burger
    ★★★★
    Maker Beyond Meat, El Segundo, Calif.
    Slogan “Go Beyond”
    Selling points Vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, non-G.M.O.
    Price $5.99 for two four-ounce patties.

    Tasting notes The Beyond Burger was “juicy with a convincing texture,” per Melissa, who also commended its “roundness, with lots of umami.” Her daughter identified a faint but pleasing smoky flavor, reminiscent of barbecue-flavored potato chips. I liked its texture: crumbly but not dry, as a burger should be. This burger was the most visually similar to one made of ground beef, evenly marbled with white fat (made from coconut oil and cocoa butter) and oozing a bit of red juice, from beets. Over all, Pete said, a “real beefy” experience.

    Ingredients Water, pea protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, cocoa butter, mung bean protein, methylcellulose, potato starch, apple extract, salt, potassium chloride, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, sunflower lecithin, pomegranate fruit powder, beet juice extract (for color).

    3. Lightlife Burger
    ★★★
    Slogan “Food That Shines”
    Selling points Vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, non-G.M.O.
    Price $5.99 for two four-ounce patties.

    Tasting notes “Warm and spicy” with a “crisp exterior” according to Melissa, the Lightlife burger is a new offering from a company that has been making burgers and other meat substitutes from tempeh (a fermented soy product with a sturdier texture than tofu) for decades. That’s probably why it nailed the “firm and chewy texture” that I found a little bready, but “not worse than most fast-food burgers.” “Pretty good when loaded up” was Pete’s final verdict.

    Ingredients Water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, modified cornstarch, modified cellulose, yeast extract, virgin coconut oil, sea salt, natural flavor, beet powder (for color), ascorbic acid (to promote color retention), onion extract, onion powder, garlic powder.


    4. Uncut Burger
    ★★★
    Maker Before the Butcher, San Diego
    Slogan “Meaty but Meatless”
    Selling points Vegan, gluten-free, non-G.M.O.
    Price $5.49 for two four-ounce patties, available later this year.

    Tasting notes The Uncut Burger, so named by the manufacturer to imply the opposite of a cut of meat, actually rated among the meatiest of the bunch. I was impressed by its slightly chunky texture, “like good coarse-ground beef,” but Melissa felt it made the burger fall apart “like wet cardboard.” The taste seemed “bacony” to Pete, perhaps because of the “grill flavor” and “smoke flavor” listed in the formula. (To food manufacturers, they are not quite the same thing: one is intended to taste of charring, the other of wood smoke.)

    Ingredients Water, soy protein concentrate, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, isolated soy protein, methylcellulose, yeast extract (yeast extract, salt, natural flavor), caramel color, natural flavor (yeast extract, maltodextrin, salt, natural flavors, medium chain triglycerides, acetic acid, grill flavor [from sunflower oil], smoke flavor), beet juice powder (maltodextrin, beet juice extract, citric acid), natural red color (glycerin, beet juice, annatto), citric acid.


    5. FieldBurger
    ★★½
    Maker Field Roast, Seattle
    Slogan “Plant-Based Artisanal Meats”
    Selling points Vegan, soy-free, non-G.M.O.
    Price About $6 for four 3.25-ounce patties.

    Tasting notes Not much like meat, but still “much better than the classic” frozen vegetarian patties, to my mind, and the consensus choice for a good vegetable burger (rather than a meat replica). Tasters liked its “vegetal” notes, a reflection of the onions, celery and three different forms of mushroom — fresh, dried and powdered — on the ingredients list. There was some crispness to like in the crust, according to Pete, but the bready interior (it contains gluten) was not popular. “Maybe this burger would do better without a bun?” he asked.

    Ingredients Vital wheat gluten, filtered water, organic expeller-pressed palm fruit oil, barley, garlic, expeller-pressed safflower oil, onions, tomato paste, celery, carrots, naturally flavored yeast extract, onion powder, mushrooms, barley malt, sea salt, spices, carrageenan (Irish moss sea vegetable extract), celery seed, balsamic vinegar, black pepper, shiitake mushrooms, porcini mushroom powder, yellow pea flour.

    6. Sweet Earth Fresh Veggie Burger
    ★★½
    Maker Sweet Earth Foods, Moss Landing, Calif.
    Slogan “Exotic by Nature, Conscious by Choice”
    Selling points Vegan, soy-free, non-G.M.O.
    Price About $4.25 for two four-ounce patties.

    Tasting notes This burger is sold only in flavors; I chose Mediterranean as the most neutral. Tasters liked the familiar profile of what Melissa declared “the burger for people who love falafel,” made mostly from chickpeas and bulked out with mushrooms and gluten. (Called “vital wheat gluten” on ingredient lists, it is a concentrated formulation of wheat gluten, commonly added to bread to make it lighter and chewier, and the main ingredient in seitan.) The burger wasn’t meaty, but had “nutty, toasted grain” notes that I liked from brown rice, and whiffs of spices like cumin and ginger. This burger is a longtime market leader, and Sweet Earth was recently acquired by Nestlé USA on the strength of it; the company is now introducing a new plant-meat contender called the Awesome Burger.

    Ingredients Garbanzo beans, mushroom, vital wheat gluten, green peas, kale, water, bulgur wheat, barley, bell peppers, carrot, quinoa, extra-virgin olive oil, red onion, celery, flax seed, cilantro, garlic, nutritional yeast, granulated garlic, sea salt, ginger, granulated onion, lime juice concentrate, cumin, canola oil, oregano.

Virtual spaces mirror income inequality

OCTOBER 25, 2019, by Matthew Hardcastle, New England Complex Systems Institute

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Income inequality drives social segregation and polarization not just in urban neighborhoods, but in online communities as well. That is the conclusion of a new paper by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) published in Royal Society Open Science. Importantly, this societal fragmentation is more than just the top one percent versus the bottom 99: it exists between every economic class.

The Internet democratized the exchange of information, but the evolution of online social networks has mirrored the segregation of urban neighborhoods in real cities, according to NECSI's analysis of millions of tweets. Social media users have organized themselves into economically segregated echo-chambers. This breakup of information reinforces the fragmentation and polarization of communities.

By examining where people tweet and with whom they chat, NECSI researchers were able to map the networks of social mobility and communication in Istanbul, New York City, and several other U.S. cities. The networks of tweets were then compared to census data on neighborhood income.

The results show that people primarily interact with their own socio-economic group. Different income groups are distant both in the physical space and online. They are neither found in the same places, nor discussing similar issues. This divide exists not just between the wealthy and the poor, but more granularly between socio-economic classes.

Many U.S. cities have a history of racial segregation tied to economic class, but social fragmentation can arise autonomously in any community. Individuals share information and imitate the social norms of the people most familiar to them, self-reinforcing group identities.

Analysis of hashtags reveals the divergent topics being discussed in rich and poor neighborhoods. In American cities, lifestyle hashtags abound in richer areas, while sports, zodiac signs and horoscopes seem to be more popular in poorer areas.

For most cities, social segregation and polarization is driven more by the lack of mobility between neighborhoods, than the geographic distances between them. This means that urban planning policies can influence the culture of neighborhoods. Desegregating the places where people live, work and shop may foster more interactions and communication, reducing polarization and conflict.



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Escape from Egypt - Man drives unsupervised to own driving test, then fails it and is arrested

Man drives unsupervised to own driving test, then fails it and is arrested

West Midlands Police say it is the 10th time the motorist failed his test and drove to the examiners' centre in a stolen car.

Sky News, Wednesday 23 October 2019

West Midlands Police posted a picture of the white Mitsubishi vehicle on Twitter

A motorist has been arrested after travelling unsupervised to his own driving test in a stolen car.
Then the man failed his test for the 10th time, police said.
West Midlands Police posted a picture of the white Mitsubishi vehicle the driver had turned up in in before officers attended the scene.
The driver was arrested on suspicion of taking a vehicle without the owner's consent (TWOC) at the test centre in Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, at around 11am.
The Force Response unit posted on Twitter to describe the motorist as "stupid".
The post said: "Welcome to the world of stupid. Male turns up at the driving test centre for his driving test. Having driven himself there unsupervised.
"Then fails his test for the 10th time - male arrested by D unit Newtown for TWOC offence."

This has been an Escape from Egypt moment on the Coconut Whisperer 

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Friday 25 October 2019

US Politics - Hillary Running?

Hillary Running?


Will a failed politician offer salvation to the Democratic Party?
 
Ari Lieberman,  Front Page Magazine 

In 2016, we thought we had heard the last of Hillary Clinton. We thought wrong. Instead of engaging in humble introspection, the twice failed presidential candidate went on a whirlwind tour giving interviews and lectures, blaming everyone from former FBI director James Comey to the Macedonians for her 2016 rout. But Clinton hasn’t stopped with book tours. According to multiple reliable sources, she is considering a third run, lured by both the thirst for power and the prospect of defeating her arch nemeses, Donald Trump. 
Recently on Fox’s Tucker Carlson show, a close advisor to Hillary Clinton indicated that the architect of the Benghazi fiasco may yet have another go at proclaiming herself leader of the free world. Philippe Reines, who has been a close Clinton confidant since 2009 and prepped Hillary for debates with Trump in 2016, tellingly noted that Clinton has not foreclosed the possibility of joining the race.
Democrats are in serious trouble. Joe Biden, the supposed savior of the Democratic Party and the man who was expected to easily secure the nomination is lagging in both the polls and fundraising. According to the latest reports, Biden only has $8.9 million on hand. But anemic fundraising is only half the problem for Biden. He is now being eclipsed by Elizabeth Warren in the polls. That ominous development spells trouble not only for Biden but also for Democratic prospects for victory in 2020.
Despite being pulled to the left by his challengers, Biden is viewed by many as a centrist Democrat capable of securing Independents as well as causing defections among moderate Republicans. Crucially, his carefully crafted blue collar image and Pennsylvania origins gave him an advantage in the nation’s Rust Belt, an area secured by Trump in 2016. And his past association with Barack Obama gave him an advantage with African American voters.
But the conventional wisdom, logical as it was, failed to take into account Biden’s advanced age, failing mind, somewhat bizarre behavior and penchant for forgetfulness. His performance during the debates was dreadful. Worse yet, despite his desperate attempt to ride Obama’s coattails, his former boss’s much sought after endorsement was not forthcoming. Finally, Trump has successfully managed to transform the contrived Ukraine quid pro quo incident into a referendum on Joe Biden’s corruption, shedding the spotlight on both Joe and Hunter Biden’s indiscretions.
While his dad was formulating U.S. policy vis-à-vis Ukraine and China, Hunter hitched a ride with pops on Air Force Two and landed cushy deals with a Ukrainian energy company (Burisma Holdings Ltd) and a Chinese bank, securing $1.5 billion in funding from the latter and being appointed board member on the former. Nothing in Hunter’s background suggests that he speaks Ukrainian or possesses any technical training or acumen on energy. When a Ukrainian prosecutor investigated Burisma for corruption and got too close for comfort to Hunter, Joe bragged about how he strong-armed the Ukrainian government into firing the prosecutor, using economic aid as leverage. Moreover, Joe Biden’s claims that he knew nothing of his son’s business dealings with Burisma were shattered when a photo of Hunter, Joe and a Burisma official emerged, with the trio leisurely posing at the golf course.
Biden’s brief foray and return to politics is ending in disaster and that is disastrous for Democrats. The polls suggest that Elizabeth Warren is now the top Democratic contender. She is also the Democrats’ weakest and most vulnerable candidate. Of all the Democratic candidates, only Bernie Sanders exceeds her leftist extremism. With her views on single payer healthcare, open borders, free healthcare for illegals, and higher taxes on the middleclass, it would not be inaccurate to characterize her as a hard core socialist.
And she has other vulnerabilities. She continues to be dogged by credible accusations that she falsely classified herself as Native American to advance her academic career. Most recently, she was caught lying about being fired from a teaching position because of her pregnancy. In addition, she lags with African American voters, a crucial Democratic constituency. Finally, traditional big-money Democratic donors and fundraisers have indicated that they would either back Trump or sit out the 2020 elections if Warren became the Party’s nominee.
Enter Hillary Clinton. Sensing Warren’s weakness and Biden’s downward spiral, Hillary, the elitist, establishment Democrat wants to have a third go. She actually believes that she can defeat Trump, claiming in one interview this month that “there does need to be a rematch, I mean obviously I can beat him again,” (emphasis added). The statement garnered many raised eyebrows in political circles but is delusional on two levels. First and most obvious, Hillary lost in 2016 but the poor soul seems to have created a fantastical alternate reality, one in which she emerged the victor. Second, Hillary would lose again for the same reasons she lost in 2016. She is viewed as an out of touch elitist, and is despised by the vast majority of Middle America. She can at best carry the bi-coastal bubble but that’s about it.
As for Warren, she is a Hillary clone, just far more to the left and that makes her doubly unpalatable for Americans. Finally, aside from deeply flawed Democratic candidates, the GOP has even more reason to be upbeat about 2020. According to a historically accurate Moody’s projection, if the economy continues to remain strong, Trump will win 2020 by a landslide. So my advice to Democrats is this; bring lots of tissue boxes to your Party’s convention center, you’re gonna need it.  

Recipes - Grilled chicken and corn salad with avocado-za’atar green goddess dressing

Grilled chicken and corn salad with avocado-za’atar green goddess dressing


Adeena Sussman, author of 'Sababa,' shares an original recipe that celebrates the flavors of Israel.
  • TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR, 30 MINUTES
  • YIELD: SERVES 6
This recipe is excerpted from "Sababa," a new Israeli cookbook by Adeena Sussman.
Not a dressing Israelis are familiar with, green goddess is a great foil for a basket’s worth of herbs and avocado, which I use in place of buttermilk to keep it dairy-free. I throw in a little za’atar for intrigue before hitting “blend," and behold – a tangy dressing even the most skeptical Israelis have been unable to resist. I serve pieces of bread, rubbed generously with garlic and oil and grilled, to dip into an extra bowl of the creamy, thick dressing.

INGREDIENTS

    Dressing

  • 1/3 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 large ripe avocado, peeld and pitted
  • 1/2 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves
  • 1/4 cup minced chives
  • 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, or 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
  • 1 teaspoon fresh za’atar or oregano leaves
  • 1 large garlic clove, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • Chicken, corn salad, and bread

  • 2 chickens or 1 regular whole chicken (about 3 pounds total)
  • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • Peeled strips of zest and juice of 1 lemon
  • 4 cloves fresh garlic, smashed, plus 1 clove, halved
  • 4 thyme sprigs
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 6 1-inch-thick slices country bread or French bread
  • 2 ears corn, shucked
  • 1 small bunch kale, spines removed and thinly sliced
  • 1 head romaine lettuce hearts, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

DIRECTIONS

Make the dressing: Combine all the dressing ingredients in a blender or the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth, thick, but still just barely pourable, 15 to 20 seconds, stopping and scraping down the sides of the blender and adding water by the tablespoonful to achieve your desired consistency.
Make the chicken, corn salad, and bread: To flatten the chickens, use kitchen shears to cut out the backs of the chickens, then turn the chickens over so the breasts are facing up. Use your hand to press down in the center of the chickens until they collapse slightly. Combine ¼ cup olive oil, lemon zest and juice, 4 cloves smashed garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper in a glass dish or large resealable plastic bag, then add the chicken and move it around to coat in the marinade. Seal the bag. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours. Preheat a grill over medium-high heat. Grill the chickens until an instant-read thermometer reads 165°F or a leg comes loose easily when pulled, 7 to 8 minutes per side if using baby chickens, and 12 to 13 minutes per side if using a regular chicken.
Rub both sides of the bread with the halved clove of garlic, brush the bread with the remaining ¼ cup olive oil, and season generously with salt and pepper. During the last 6 minutes of grilling the chicken, place the corn and bread on the grill. Grill, turning occasionally and flipping the bread once, until the corn is slightly charred, and the bread is toasty and has developed grill marks, 5 to 6 minutes total for the corn, and 2 to 3 minutes per side for the bread. Transfer the chicken, corn, and bread to a tray. Stand the corn on one end and use a sharp knife to cut the kernels from the cobs; discard the cobs. Combine the kale, romaine, corn, tomatoes, and onions in a salad bowl. Cut the chicken into pieces, drizzle the salad with the dressing, and serve with the chicken. Serve the grilled bread alongside with extra dressing.
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Thursday 24 October 2019

Every Media Trump Conspiracy Becomes a..

Frontpage Magazine

Every Media Trump Conspiracy Becomes a Jewish Conspiracy Theory

The vast Russia-Ukraine-Huckabee-Jewish-Alabama conspiracy.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

In 2017, Politico claimed that Chabad, a Jewish Chassidic group, was the nexus between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. The bizarre article was illustrated with a photo of shadowy Jewish men in black hats.

Politico's The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin traced "some of the shortest routes between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin" to a synagogue on Manhasset Bay "across from a Shell gas station and a strip mall". Strip malls and gas stations are notorious conspiracy hubs.

Obviously.

How did this synagogue across from a Shell gas station become the hub of the Trump-Putin conspiracy? Trump had once done business with some Russian Jewish real estate people who had donated money to a Chassidic Jewish charity. Also Jared Kushner's brother had dated a woman who is friends with the wife of a Russian oligarch.

Do you really need any more proof?

This was the heyday of Russia conspiracy theories in which any media hack with the ability to Wikipedia their way through a list of Russian oligarchs, and find some pathway to someone Trump knew or had done business with, or to the wife of a friend of his son-in-law’s girlfriend’s brother, could roll their own expose.

The Politico article was deservedly torn to shreds even by the lefties at JTA and the ADL. It was the sort of vulgar anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense that Neo-Nazis specialized in. And the vulgar nonsense was leaking into the media.

The Russia conspiracy theory died when Mueller couldn’t figure out how to chew gum and testify at the same time. It’s been replaced by the Ukraine conspiracy theory. And the Jewish conspiracy theories are back.

The latest version in the New York Daily News tries to connect Chabad, Young Israel, Pro-Israel activists, Giuliani, Trump, Netanyahu, Huckabee, Ukraine, and some sort of point. It never comes close to doing any of these things. The article is full of basic errors that you don’t need to be an expert on Jews or Israel to spot. Take its claim that Sweet Home Alabama is a “a tribute to Dixie segregationists.”

The Daily News turns out to know as much about Israel and Jews as it does about Lynyrd Skynyrd.

It claims that Yair Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s son, is a “a powerful figure on the extreme right wing”. Last time I checked, Yair is a twenty-something guy who handles social media for Shurat HaDin, a group that uses legal tactics to go after terrorist financing. He’s not running the country.

It conflates Chabad and Young Israel, two very different groups from very different branches of Orthodox Judaism. It states that Young Israel is a “group of more than 100 Orthodox synagogues”. The actual number is 175. More importantly, the article struggles to smear a variety of Orthodox and Pro-Israel groups by associating them with the latest Ukraine conspiracy theory entirely by association.

Why does every conspiracy theory about President Trump eventually turn into a Jewish conspiracy?

Part of the answer is convenience. Chabad has been the target of several such media conspiracy theories because it’s international, and its Jewish movement has a large number of institutions in America and Russia. Its plethora of locations and openness attract a spectrum of attendees.

But the larger answer is that Jewish conspiracy theories provide a traditional framework on which contemporary conspiracy theories can be based. It’s inevitable that at least some of these conspiracy theories will return to their origins and that the media will gleefully run them. (Almost as inevitable as the outsourcing of the writeups to reporters with Jewish last names to deflect the inevitable criticism.)

The decline of journalism into conspiracy theories, drawing up charts of first, second and third degree associations, lends itself naturally to the traditions of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in which associations themselves are proof of guilt. Or, as the New York Daily News admits, “Parnas and Fruman may not have broken any laws with their outreach to far-right wing supporters of Israel.”

What laws could they have broken? The article never provides an answer. And then what’s the point?

The association is the entire point of a conspiracy theory. Whether laws are broken is entirely secondary. Conspiracy theories never actually prove anything or establish illegality. What they do is argue that their targets are operating a vast conspiracy and that any means, including, eventually, violence, may be used against them because they represent an extraordinary violation of the norms.

The decline of Trump media conspiracy theories into conspiracy theories about Jews doesn’t necessarily mean that Trump conspiracy theories are anti-Semitic, though some examples obviously are, but that they originate in the same rotten place and share the same intellectual flaws.

When the two are crossed, the end result only highlights the absurdity of both.

The crossover conspiracy theories of Trump and the Jews assume that any association, no matter how casual, is causal, that all interactions are about influence, and that therefore the wider the sphere of association, the vaster the underlying corruption must be. Trump’s international business interests have become proof that he is involved in foreign conspiracies around the world. The presence of foreign guests in his hotels is routinely put forward by mainstream media outlets as implicit proof of bribery.

It’s never clarified though exactly how exactly this system of hotel bribery works.

Do Trump hotels immediately inform the White House when foreign diplomats stay at one of their properties? Questions like that aren’t asked, details like these aren’t nailed down, because they would reveal the silliness of the conspiracy theory and of the unserious organizations that promote them.

But the essence of any conspiracy theory is the supernatural intelligence of its villains.

President Trump is immediately aware of any foreigner staying at one of his hotels. There are no casual meetings. Every association is part of a sophisticated plot whose actual implementation would baffle Machiavelli and defy the talents of 007. Coincidences and accidents don’t exist. Everything is planned.

Assume this and proof becomes unnecessary. That’s lucky because the theorists aren’t good at proof.

Their last conspiracy theory was thrown together more haphazardly than a season of 24. The only good thing to be said about their transition from Russian conspiracy theories to Ukrainian conspiracy theories is that they’ve simplified the plot, eliminating the endless lists of oligarchs, urinating prostitutes, and Facebook ads which tied together about as well as Young Israel, Sweet Home Alabama and the Ukraine.

And yet, as the media’s latest foray into Jewish conspiracy theories reveals, they can’t resist complexity.

The pleasure of a good conspiracy theory is its runaway complexity. Invent a conspiracy theory and there will always be new theorists looking to add layers of pointless complexity to the simplest alliance between Trump, space aliens, the Bank of England, and Burger King. The difference between a crime and a conspiracy theory is that the latter has no proof and no endpoint. Proofs narrow an accusation. Guilt by association infinitely expands it until it encompasses anything, everything, and everyone.

That’s why the Mueller investigation worked wonderfully as an open-ended, stream-of-consciousness series of raids, leaks and random interviews, but failed miserably as a counterintelligence investigation or whatever it was pretending to be. It’s why the House won’t actually vote on impeachment.

Trying to actually wrap up a conspiracy theory is like having a butterfly in your hand and making a fist.

A conspiracy theory is meant to be a never-ending story, a holographic extrapolation of infinite possibilities whose greatest significance lies in what is implied and unknown, not in what is known.

That’s why every time the media invents another Trump conspiracy theory, it spins out of control.  

And then, before you know it, your modern, sophisticated progressive journalistic conspiracy theory takes a detour into classic anti-Semitism. And then it’s just a matter of connecting Chabad to Dixie to Ukraine to the friend of somebody’s girlfriend, to Russia, to Netanyahu’s son, and to the space aliens.

Photo:  Reuters