I grew up listening to my mother and my aunts speaking Yiddish, which was their native tongue (mama-loschen). My mother and father were very Old Left, and almost idealized blacks (Negroes then), but my aunts had a very common racism of the time (the 40's) and when they talked about the "schvartzen" it was not a neutral term. Jackie Mason and I are about the same age, so I doubt very much that he is unaware of the connotations of the word, especially among us, the older generation. How much of a racist he is I don't think we can really know, but he is certainly lying when he denies using the word that way.

His problem, besides being a mediocre comedian, is that his target audience, people with a knowledge of Yiddish expressions and Yiddish folkways, which was always rather small, is disappearing due to aging and the work of "malach ha'movess", the Angel of Death. A generation of great Jewish comedian-entertainers (e. g. Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, George Burns, Jerry Lewis, Buddy Hackett, the Marxist Brothers etc.) managed to expand their Yiddish original take on the world...ironic, skeptical of the status quo, used to losing, from the outside looking in, basically accepting of the human condition, but spirited for all that...to a universal perspective which Mason has never achieved. What is called "conservative" now displays very little of the above: they appear to be immune to irony, authoritarian, very much insiders (or wanting or pretending to be) and above all seething with resentment and rage. No wonder Mason claims that position --- that's where he lives.

As for Yiddish put-downs, there are many, but none that are anywhere close to "douchebag", seeing as a douche was very hard to come by in the world of the "Jewish Pale" i.e. Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania in the Russian Empire, where Yiddish was the main language among Jews. Some are "shmuck" and "putz" for the male member (i. e. "prick" etc.). Another is "mamzer" roughly, "dirty SOB"; if you want to find a lot more (there are of course dozens) get a copy of "The Joys of Yiddish" by Leo Rosten" or "Born to Kvetch" by I-don't-recall-who-but- Google-does. They are full of treasures, alas, being lost to the world by the same dwindling of the Yiddish-speaking population that is killing (in both senses) Jackie Mason's audience.

From here it looks like the names you mention are the same people who are trying their damnedest to hanper or obstruct anyone fixing the economy for which they have a large responsibility. So in pushing back against the likes of Limbaugh (which BTW BHO did just once, for a few seconds...most of the foofaraw since has been fueled by Republicans) is part of "fixing" the economy.

Of course if that's all he was doing, they would be screaming about that too. Just politics as usual, of a particularly puerile brand. They ought to look up Reagan's actual policy history while they are at it. I seem to remember my own taxes going up during his tenure.

But that is reality. Too bad, I don't live in the GOP alternate universe.

From here it looks like the names you mention are the same people who are trying their damnedest to hanper or obstruct anyone fixing the economy for which they have a large responsibility. So in pushing back against the likes of Limbaugh (which BTW BHO did just once, for a few seconds...most of the foofaraw since has been fueled by Republicans) is part of "fixing" the economy.

Of course if that's all he was doing, they would be screaming about that too. Just politics as usual, of a particularly puerile brand. They ought to look up Reagan's actual policy history while they are at it. I seem to remember my own taxes going up during his tenure.

But that is reality. Too bad, I don't live in the GOP alternate universe.

is that to be "saved" all you have to do is say a few words. It is a get-out-of-hell-free card that can be played over and over again. Accept that you are a sinner and it's easier to sin again. You can then repent, moan and groan, and accept Jesus (for the umptynth time)again, and you are set to repeat. What seems to be missing in this ritual is ATONEMENT. It's not enough to repent and accept...you have to do something to make things right, or the whole thing is just pious jive. Talk is cheap, but as a wise man once said, by their fruits (i. e. by their ACTIONS) ye shall know them.

If these people were really secure in faith as they claim, they wouldn't have such a voracious need to sell it to everybody else.

I can never forget a drive a made a few years ago across central Missouri. All I could get on the radio were Bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone screamers. And about every 7 miles on I-70, I saw an enormous billboard advertising "adult" shops...videos, books, toys...

In my then home state of Massachusetts (BTW with the lowest divorce rate in the country) I can't recall ever seeing one.

Maybe those folks really need the fear of hell to keep them in line. I don't. I don't even cheat on my income taxes, and I'm an atheist. Go figure.