The Yellow Brick Road

How things work is...exactly what you think

Feb 10, 2026

“Where the dogs of society howl” is one of the most brilliant lines ever penned or sung. My dad always thought there’s a racket behind most things in this world. That’s why I named this site “The Racket News” (you thought it was tennis?). You see, there’s two kinds of people on the earth: those who know you and respect you as a person, and those who want to use you. That’s it, but the who’s who isn’t static, or painted with one brush.

And sometimes people change sides. One more famous example is Madeleine Albright, who learned in 1996 that her Czech Catholic background was actually to protect her since both of her parents were Jews who converted after first fleeing the Nazis and then the Stalinists after the war. Albright did not convert to Judaism, but she did spent the rest of her life honoring her heritage. It’s one thing to look at a group from the outside, but far different to experience it as part of the group.

Within groups, there are more divisions, smaller and smaller into an ever-tightening spiral, until it comes down to yourself and those immediately around you. Even within yourself, there’s battles raging for your will, and your mind, and your beliefs. You’ve heard of cognitive dissonance? That’s your brain working out its own differences.

Now an example I can relate to: Let’s take the Jews. There’s Israeli Jews, and diaspora Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Orthodox Jews, in the U.S. there are Conservative Jews and Reform Jews (think 2 percent milk and almond milk versus whole milk).

Without a doubt, Israeli Jews think differently than U.S. Jews on practically every political and social issue, but there are other ways to break the matzoh. There’s law-abiding Jews and outlaw Jews, for example. The trope is that all Jews play loose with the rules when it comes to money, but that’s not true at all. There are many rich Jews who play in extremely sketchy crowds, and some Jews who want to be rich and will do practically anything to achieve it. There’s also poor Jews and those who work very hard and act with complete integrity. From the outside, when Jews are threatened, these groups all generally look very similar, and act in response to threats in similar manner. To the non-Jew world, it’s hard to make the distinction.

My dad had plenty of experience with the families that controlled the numbers racket (gambling), loan sharking, and all manner of criminal activities in the city where he grew up. These same thugs and mobsters would then come to the synagogue and make a generous donation. They’d be treated like royalty, with respect and honor. That’s one reason my dad would always drop me off at the shul for religious school and services, but almost never come inside. He had a particular distaste for hypocrisy. I bet you knew there’s a Jewish mafia, but too many people think all Jews are part of it.

You know who’s in that crowd? Well for starters, the oligarchs who enable Vladimir Putin to hidey hole hundreds of billions in money that was never frozen or subject to sanctions. Some of them enjoy dual citizenship, having purchased their Israeli passports by dint of their Jewish blood and their great wealth. There’s also a number of very wealthy real estate and other investors, not to mention tech and Wall Street hedge fund managers. And there’s a subclass of wannabes and enablers.

It’s dangerous to speak of anyone in Putin’s orbit, so I will simply leave that one alone. In the second class, there’s people like Steve Witkoff, who has managed to hawk his World Liberty Financial crypto fund while jetting around the world meeting with foreign leaders, brokering “deals” for President Trump. How else would Witkoff, and his “broligarchy” partner Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, find themselves at the Kremlin, greeted by Putin himself? They also had Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA head of the Federal Acquisition Service, along with them. I have no idea if Gruenbaum is in the first category or the subclass, or perhaps he is a legitimate straight-shooter, and the other two are using him to gain access to his Orthodox Jewish community.

Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, was sentenced to a federal prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and illegal campaign finance donations. He was originally prosecuted by onetime New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Trump spent several years abusing and abasing Christie in retaliation. (Why Christie didn’t see this coming is beyond me. Some people have true blind spots.) And then, as president in his first term, Trump pardoned the elder Kushner, and this summer got him confirmed by the Senate as Ambassador to France, a position first held by Benjamin Franklin, then Thomas Jefferson.

Who can claim Donald Trump is an anti-semite? He’s practically a Jew himself, enough so to be able to discern the difference between the ones who will play by his rules and the ones who play things according to Hoyle. And it’s not just Jews who play that game.

The Saudi royal family, along with the leaders of Oman, the UAE, and other Arab nations are learning the value of plying the sea of broligarchy, instead of playing the traditional geopolitical games of conflict between communists and the west. All those distinctions are lost in an ocean of using others for personal gain, a game the leaders of the Palestinian “cause” have long played. Ask Bill Clinton what happened when everything the PLO ever asked for (short of Israel’s non-existence) was put on the table for Yassir Arafat to approve. Arafat would rather walk away and remain a terrorist than be forced to govern a nation. This is how it’s been before and since, from Mahmoud Abbas to Hamas. There’s more money, power, and respect as a first class terrorist leader fighting the “colonizer” Israelis than being a statesman.

The terrorists also have their own subclass of wannabes and enablers. Look at Ahmed al-Sharaa, who originally cut his teeth as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, member of al-Qaeda. He turned on his former jihadist brothers, forming his own Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham organization, playing both sides (including secret deals with the CIA). Now he’s president of Syria, honored guest at the White House, sitting in the Oval Office with President Trump. Nothing but the finest for those who know how to work inside the system.

Who says Trump hates Arabs and Muslims? He threw out the red carpet for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn in with his hand on the Quran. If you’re seeing things using racist glasses, you’re not looking at it right. It’s never been about racism, it’s about who is running those “sh**hole” countries and who is willing to move over from the enemies-at-a-distance category to be one of the players. The regular folks who are deported, or consigned to their deaths by U.S. policy, they’re just collateral damage on the yellow brick road.

To Trump and the others who plow his road, there’s just two kinds of people in the world, those who look you in the eye and know the score, so there’s some respect as a person happening, and those who can be used. There’s no middle ground. Either you’re playing, or you’re going to get used, and sometimes people move back and forth between those two categories with metronomic regularity.

Take Jeffrey Epstein. He was a classic example of a wannabe, an enabler, and a world-class user of people—a schmuck, a mamser, a gonif. Trump spotted him for what he was early on, and whatever went on between them, Epstein was the one obsessed with Trump, not the other way around. Hence the thousands of mentions. It’s tough to catch Trump in any kind of discourse, because the man never uses email, calls from various devices, and is known to alter his identity or include random other people on sensitive calls.

Trump himself is a wannabe and an enabler of a sort, if you look at the full spectrum of how the yellow brick road is paved. People like Xi Jinping, a “princeling” of the modern totalitarian communist state in China, don’t have to worry about piddly things like elections or paying court judgements. Xi rules by decree, and enforces by disappearing his enemies or rivals. So does Putin, Kim Jong-un, and until recently, Nicolás Maduro. Putin has enough “F-U” money to get Trump to invite him to Alaska, make an appearance on the red carpet, then continue pummeling Ukraine. The lords and old money that rule many parts of Europe, who don’t have to play by the EU rules and quaint politics, also can flout Trump, as do the exclusive club of NFL club owners. Do you really think NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell picked Bad Bunny only because of his artistry? Even Trump friend Robert Kraft wouldn’t vote to let Trump into the rarified world of team owners. All players have their limits.

And there’s a particular brand of users and enablers who belong in their own hellish category. There’s Epstein, of course, and then there’s people who could buy and sell Epstein. There’s all kinds of theories and speculation about Peter Thiel’s former boyfriend, and his untimely death. There’s all kinds of whispers, but not a lot of direct evidence, of his cadre of young men who end up running tech startups, in exchange for certain acts or privileges taken. If this is true, there’s a lot more than private island jaunts going on. There’s a reason the “pee tape” allegation about Donald Trump got some legs in a certain group. These people have been on the yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl, and nothing they can read or see would surprise them.

True power is found on the yellow brick road, where people are just tools for getting things. It’s true power, only from a certain point of view, of course. The people who play life straight, keeping a moral compass, choosing not to get on that road, or leaving it after having been trapped, know that there’s truer truth to be found, and more powerful power to be experienced. If there is not an omniscient God, then there’s only the yellow brick road—but as Elton John sang, there’s a life beyond the yellow brick road.

The kind of people who take the time to know you and appreciate you as a person rather than trying to move you to a position or extract something from you, those are the ones who know there’s a higher obligation, and that there’s a watching, recording, and future judgement waiting. It’s easy to separate these from the others. They won’t negotiate with corruption. They won’t cover up evil or excuse it. They won’t resort to threats or personal insults, or “SWATting” people, or spreading libels. They play it straight, with kindness when possible. I’ll stick with those people. You know them because the users and yellow brick road warriors hate them passionately.

There’s a reason Trump, Witkoff, Kushner, and many of the members of Congress and the Senate have been so successful at negotiating things to benefit the Trump agenda, and of course themselves (sometimes the world benefits, as a side effect). Not that there’s no graft on the other side of the political aisle—there’s plenty of corruption, abuse, and graft there—I don’t play both-sideism games. But it takes one user, enabler, to know another. They size each other up, take measure, vie for power, and make their moves. You can see the rackets going on in real time.

Trump is not a racist, or an anti-semite, or a hater of people from other countries. He loves everyone, as long as they get on the yellow brick road, on his side of it.

People who play straight get crushed on the yellow brick road. People like Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, Fulton County election workers, who won $148 million in a libel lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s non compos mentis disbarred lawyer, which they will never collect in full or even near it. Now MAGA political gadfly Kevin Moncla has given the Trump DOJ enough bogus “evidence” for them to raid a Fulton Election Board warehouse and seize ballots. More people will be crushed. Perhaps Trump’s law-doers will “find” something, some small corruption from their adversaries who play the same game, for them to justify a giant overreaction and spoil the 2026 midterms.

Is that Trump’s goal, to show Xi, Putin, and the like he can play with that same class of maximum leader? To have an election and declare it null, while decreeing the result in his own name? It would be a bold play, even for a player.

If it comes to pass, we’d all end up crushed, used, and robbed blind. We’d all find ourselves on the yellow brick road.

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?