Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Agreeing with Doo-Doo DeSantis?

Who is thinking about voting for Donald Trump?  Have they read this from MEDIAITE:


Mike Davis, a prominent MAGA lawyer and pundit, threatened online Monday to jail and deport MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan if former President Donald Trump is reelected and gives him a top job in his administration – as he is widely expected to do.

Davis made the shocking threat in reply to a segment from Hasan’s weekend show in which the cable news host listed some of the people tipped to be under consideration for roles in another Trump administration.

“For weeks, we’ve been warning you on this show about the dangers of a second Trump term. The former president, after all, has promised retribution, pledged to round up protesters with the military, and suggested using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. These are plans that should terrify each and every single one of us. But tonight, I want to pull back the curtain and take a look at who could be tasked with carrying out Trump’s radical agenda come 2025,” Hasan said on his show before diving into the likes of Tucker Carlson, Michael Flynn, and Davis.

“Now let’s move on to a man a lot of people may not have heard of yet, Mike Davis,” Hasan said, adding:


Davis shared the clip and wrote on Twitter, “Trump’s Dream Team. @mehdirhasan is now on my Lists 2 (indict), 4 (detain), 6 (denaturalize), and 3 (deport). I already have his spot picked out in the DC gulag. But I’ll put him in the women’s cell block, with @Timodc. So these whiny leftists don’t get beat up as often.”




John F. Kelly, the longest-serving chief of staff in President Donald Trump’s White House, watches Trump dominate the GOP primary with increasing despair.

“What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly said in a recent interview. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.”

Kelly, a retired four-star general, said he didn’t know what to do — or what he could do — to help people see it his way.

“I came out and told people the awful things he said about wounded soldiers, and it didn’t have half a day’s bounce. You had his attorney general Bill Barr come out, and not a half a day’s bounce. If anything, his numbers go up. It might even move the needle in the wrong direction. I think we’re in a dangerous zone in our country,” he said.

No president has ever attracted more public detractors who were formerly in his inner circle. They are closely watching his rise — cruising in the GOP nomination contest and, in most polls, tying or even leading President Biden in a general election matchup — with alarm. Among them are his former vice president, top military advisers, lawyers, some members of his Cabinet, economic advisers, press officials and campaign aides, some of whom are working for other candidates.

Among their reasons for opposing a second Trump term, they cite the 91 criminal charges against him, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his false claims of election fraud, his incendiary rhetoric in office, his desire to weaponize the Justice Department, his chaotic management style, his likely personnel choices in a second term, and his affinity for dictators.

Interviews with 16 former Trump advisers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their former boss — show they are grappling with how they can puncture Trump’s candidacy in 2024, whether they can or should coordinate with one another and whether their voices will even matter.

Additionally, more than a dozen people once in his employ could end up taking the stand and providing testimony as part of multiple criminal trials, according to people with knowledge of the cases and court documents.


I really don't see how he gets re-elected.  Maybe he does.  But Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis is saying he can't be elected.  I hate Doo-Doo and want him to drop out.  But I'm not going to lie and say, "Doo-Doo is wrong!"  On this he may not be.  


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Monday, November 20, 2023.  Bri-Bri pretends to want to 'help' the Green Party (only a fool trusts her) -- just like the Israeli government wants to 'help' Gaza, right?


What do we do with the stupid?  

In a RISING video THE HILL posted 21 hours ago ("Dr. Jill Stein: Americans Are Sick of 'Empire and Oligarchy'") co-host Robbie Soave declared, "Jill Stein is running for president once again announcing last Thursday that she would seek the Green Party nomination for the second time."  RISING now exists just to sport stupidity.  Jill Stein is not running for the nomination a second time, it's a third time.  She was the failed nominee of 2012 and of 2016.  She is not the nominee for 2024; however, she may become that -- the Party's nominee will be decided next summer at the Green Party's convention.  

Bri-Bri and Robbie are all about defeating the Democratic Party.  Bri-Bri has made that clear in her ridiculous exchange with Kyle and Krystal.  All she wants for 2024 is to see the Democratic Party punished.  Ava and I covered this two months ago in "Media: Hypocrisy, thy name is THE VANGUARD."

Here's the video.



She wants to break "the corporate duopoly" and would rather see even the right-wing Constitutional Party.


She's not smart -- not politically smart -- and she's not aware.  She thinks she's smart but she's an idiot -- Ava and I compared to Diane Chambers -- some people think Diane is smart but she's one of the dumbest characters CHEERS had.  She's pompous and she thinks she's smart -- like Bri Brie.

She says that we don't need to worry about immigrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, etc losing their rights in 2024.  She's an idiot.

Ava and I noted back then:

We can't afford YOUTUBERS lying.  If someone wants to vote Green, fine.  If they want to vote however fine.  But we need to know what our vote means.  We're not voting Green because there is a plan by the Republican Party to strip people of their rights.  That's dreamers -- and that's even the children of immigrants -- children born in this country -- that the Republican Party thinks they can strip of citizenship.  'B-b-b-but the Constitution!'  Doesn't matter.  Nothing does with an illegal and corrupt Supreme Court.  We saw it with ROE.  We saw it when it rewarded the hate merchant Lorie Smith out of Colorado.  'It would deny her religion if she had to design a website for a same-sex marriage but this Court opinion is not to be expanded upon, honest, pinky promise.'  It's already being used to deny the rights of gays and lesbians. And the GOP extremist goal is to overturn marriage equality.  Why?  Because they believe it is the first time the government has recognized legal rights for gays and lesbians. They think if they overturn this, they can overturn anything.  They have also defined same-sex relationships -- living together, marriage, dating, what have you -- as pornography.  They don't do that for straight relationships.  But they do it for same-sex relationships and their plan is to further attack LGBTQ+ rights by doing that and arguing that free speech does not apply to pornography.  They want to now move on to outlawing birth control.  They think they have the perfect Court to do this with.  They think they can achieve all their dreams and rebuke every advance this country has made in the last 70 or so years on race, gender and equality.  


That's why we're not voting Green.  If you are, we ask that you make demands of your party's eventual nominee.  Building a political party is reason enough to vote for the Green Party.  And we're not going to hiss at your or fault you for it. 


This is not some mythical threat.  As we also wrote in September:


So much didn't get addressed last week.  Take Project 2025.  Various extreme right think tanks got together and came up with this 'project' (planned assassination of checks and balances and of rights and liberties).  Few outlets have bothered to discuss it.  Kyle Kulinski didn't avoid the topic.




Project 2025 is the action plan for the hate merchants of the fright-wing to put into play immediately upon election of a Republican president.  It would decimate the federal government by turning jobs over to patronage and making them exist -- or not exist -- on the whim of the president.  It would launch attacks on the rights of immigrants, people of color, all women and the LGBTQ+ community. 


The illegitimate Supreme Court would most likely back everyone of the items on this agenda.  They're an illegitimate Court with filled with corrupt justices (most infamously Crooked Clarence Thomas) and they're not just bought off by the wealthy, they also have no respect for precdent -- for the very thing our laws are built upon.  The demonstrated that with DOBBS and Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion on DOBBS included a wish list of other laws he'd like to see overturned.  Guess what?  Project 2024 checks off Clarence's wish list.

 

This should be huge but people don't want to discuss it.  In the few times that it is discussed, it's just the elimination of federal jobs that gets discussed.  


Project 2025 should scare everyone -- even mentally competent Republicans should be scared by it -- if there are any left.


Democrats should be bringing up Project 2025 on every media appearance they make because we doubt nothing would turn out more voters in the fall of 2024 than the knowledge of what an extreme group of Republicans are planning.  


Bri-Bri's an idiot.  She'll always be an idiot.  She was manufactured by a certain segment of White people to be a token -- like a pop crossover artist who couldn't hit the R&B charts -- and that's where her support comes from but she loses support a little more each year.

But she's damn determined to lie and inflict as much harm as she can before she completely falls out of favor.

Jill Stein is a do-nothing.  Well, she did leave the Green Party in debt from her 2016 run -- as Renee Johnston has reported, still in debt to this day.  Then there's the fact that Americans are wanting a retirement age for Congress and the Supreme Court.  How old -- Excuse me, how young is Jill Stein?

She's 73 years young.  That's too damn old in the current climate before you grasp that she has already run two failed campaign -- 2012 and 2016.  That's before we get to how Jill made herself part of the war machine in 2012.  At the end of September 2012, before any presidential debate took place,  Tim Arango (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:


 
 Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.


Barack ran on his 'success' of getting US troops out of Iraq.  But he never got everyone out (that would be a withdrawal), he only took removed some (a drawdown) and now, ahead of the 2012 election, he was sending more back in and plotting to send even more back in.

Where was Jill?  Oh, that's right, defending Barack from Mitt Romney's attacks.

So, no, we're not impressed with The Attention Whore Stein.  

The Greens deserve a real candidate.  Jill Stein is not one as she has proven over and over.  She is an ego maniac.  And her last bit of ego trippin' -- trying to force the party to break the rules and declare Cornel West the nominee this summer -- has only pissed Green voters off more.

Bri-Bti can't tell you that.  Maybe because she doesn't have her call-ins anymore?  Possibly but more to the point, she doesn't talk to actual people.  And why should she when she already believes every answer is in her own head.

The Green Party needs a real candidate.  She is not it.  Pretending she is?  Just being a liar and the world's got more than enough of those already.  Bri-Bri can't see straight because she's motivated by destroying the Democratic Party.  She can work her grudge all she wants but she needs to stop lying and trying to saddle the Green Party with a has-been, failed candidate.



Turning to Gaza, NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."  AFP notes, "At least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, 30,000 injured, says Gaza's Health Ministry."  The world watches as the US government is exposed as just another part of the killing machine.  And the see those who stand up and those who just go along.  Lauren Sforza (THE HILL) reported Sunday:

WHO said it sent a joint team with the U.N. to the hospital Saturday to “assess the situation on the ground, conduct a rapid situational analysis, assess medical priorities and establish logistics options for further missions.” The team, who spent one hour inside the hospital, described the hospital as a “death zone” and the situation as “desperate.”

The U.N.-WHO team said they saw a mass grave with more than 80 people buried there at the hospital. 

“Lack of clean water, fuel, medicines, food and other essential aid over the last 6 weeks have caused Al-Shifa Hospital — once the largest, most advanced and best equipped referral hospital in Gaza — to essentially stop functioning as a medical facility,” WHO stated in a press release. “The team observed that due to the security situation, it has been impossible for the staff to carry out effective waste management in the hospital.”


That's what the Israeli government did to a hospital.  We have to add that sentence since THE HILL can't and appears to want readers to think the hospital did that to itself.

Recapping some of Saturday's events, THE GUARDIAN notes:

  • More than 80 people were killed on Saturday by double Israeli strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza’s health ministry said. “At least 50 people” were killed in an Israeli strike on early Saturday morning at the UNRWA-run al-Fakhouri school in the Jabalia refugee camp a Gaza health ministry official said. Another strike on a separate building in the camp killed 32 people of the same family, 19 of them children, according to the official.

  • Médecins Sans Frontières strongly condemned a “deliberate attack” on a convoy evacuating its staff members and their families, which it said had resulted in one death and one injury. The convoy was attacked on Saturday, as it was trying to evacuate 137 people, from MSF premises located near Al-Shifa hospital.

  • Thousands of demonstrators, including family members of hostages kidnapped by Hamas, marched into Jerusalem on Saturday in angry calls for the Israeli government to do more to bring their relatives home. The march capped a five-day trek from Tel Aviv and represented the largest protest on behalf of the hostages since they were dragged into Gaza by Hamas on 7 October.



    • Twelve people have been killed after Israeli tank fire hit the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza on Monday, according to the health ministry in the territory, which is controlled by Hamas.

    Among the dead are patients who were being treated at the hospital and a member of medical staff, the ministry said.

    Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif, who is inside the hospital, told CNN that Israeli tanks were outside the main hospital gates, as well as other locations near the hospital.


    ALJAZEERA notes this morning:

    The UK-based rights group says it has determined that two Israeli strikes last month that killed 46 people in Gaza “were indiscriminate attacks or direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, which must be investigated as war crimes”.

    The incidents probed by Amnesty were an attack on Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City on October 19 and another on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp the following day.

    “These deadly, unlawful attacks are part of a documented pattern of disregard for Palestinian civilians and demonstrate the devastating impact of the Israeli military’s unprecedented onslaught has left nowhere safe in Gaza, regardless of where civilians live or seek shelter,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty director of global research, advocacy and policy.

    “We urge the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to take immediate concrete action to expedite the investigation into war crimes and other crimes under international law opened in 2021,” Guevara Rosas added.

    During its investigation, Amnesty said it spoke to more than a dozen people, including survivors, and reviewed satellite imagery and open-source audio-visual material.


    Over the weekend, a column with Joe Biden's name attached to it (no, he did not write it himself) appeared in THE WASHINGTON POST.  Andre Damon (WSWS) notes:

    Biden’s op-ed should put to rest any claim that the US’s failure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza is a mistake or misunderstanding. Rather, the United States sees crushing the resistance of the Palestinian people as critical to the US’s global strategy. He writes:

    As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace. To Hamas’s members, every cease-fire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again. An outcome that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would once more perpetuate its hate.

    In Biden’s worldview, the precondition for “peace” is a total surrender by the Palestinians. While he refers to Hamas, what he really means is that so long as the Palestinians believe it is possible to resist an occupying force that has dispossessed them of their land and illegally occupies it, American imperialism will continue its efforts to arm Israel and bomb the Palestinians into submission.

    Having bluntly declared the US’s total support for Israel, Biden goes on to add, with consummate imperialist hypocrisy, “There must be no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, and no reduction in territory.”

    This, as everyone knows, is precisely what the Israeli government is doing. Israeli officials have made clear that their aim is, in the words of Israel’s agriculture minister, “Nakba 2023,” or as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said, to expel the Palestinian population to “tent cities” in the Sinai desert. As for a “siege or blockade,” that is already happening, with the support of the Biden administration.

    The entire population of Gaza has been subjected to mass hunger, dehydration and the total collapse of medical care. The people of northern Gaza, instructed to flee or face death, are being told to once again relocate further south. And after every atrocity by Israel, the United States declares, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

     

    This morning, FRANCE 24 notes:



    People are refusing to be silent.   At ZNET, Dan Sheehan writes:


    Then, earlier this morning, the news broke that Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, essayist, and poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine, Anne Boyer, has resigned from her post, writing in her resignation letter that “the Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone” and that she “won’t write about poetry amid the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering.”

    Here is Boyer’s extraordinary resignation letter—in which she takes direct aim at the language used by her (now former) employer in its coverage of the war on Gaza—in full:

    I have resigned as poetry editor of the New York Times Magazine.

    The Israeli state’s U.S-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone. There is no safety in it or from it, not for Israel, not for the United States or Europe, and especially not for the many Jewish people slandered by those who claim falsely to fight in their names. Its only profit is the deadly profit of oil interests and weapon manufacturers.

    The world, the future, our hearts—everything grows smaller and harder from this war. It is not only a war of missiles and land invasions. It is an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted throughout decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.

    Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes the most effective mode of protest for artists is to refuse.

    I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.

    If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present.

    —Anne Boyer


    Sandy English (WSWS) explains:


    Boyer is a poet and essayist, the author of 10 books, and the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Her resignation and letter have struck a blow against the pretensions of the New York Times—which has supported the slaughter in Gaza in its editorial policy and reporting—to be evenhanded and “objective,” instead of what it is, an organ of CIA-Pentagon-White House propaganda that invariably sides with oppressor against the oppressed, essentially pro-imperialist yellow journalism.

    As the World Socialist Web Site noted on the resignation—almost certainly coerced—of another New York Times writer, Jazmine Hughes, earlier this month for signing a writers’ petition calling for a ceasefire in Gaza:

    “The Times is itself complicit in this world-historic crime. The protest letter [signed by Hughes] cited an October 14 op-ed by the paper’s Editorial Board entitled ‘Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values’ which, while weakly calling upon the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to attempt to ‘minimize’ civilian casualties, declared that the Israeli regime deserved the unequivocal support of the United States and its allies in prosecuting its war against the people of Gaza.

    “At the same time,” the WSWS pointed out, “the Times systematically downplays the war atrocities of the Israeli military. While it cannot avoid reporting on the massive scale of death and suffering being inflicted on Gaza, it employs a crude sleight of hand in its coverage.”

    Boyer’s phrases, “sanitized hellscapes” and “warmongering lies” are precise and excoriating. They rip the veil off the official lying and chloroforming of public opinion by the Times, the country’s flagship liberal publication.


     

    Kat's "Kat's Korner: Seasoned entertainers (Dolly Parton, Ann-Margaret and Cher)" went up Sunday.   The following sites updated:





    Posted by at

    Saturday, November 18, 2023

    Idiot of the week

    Before we get to the good news, let's do idiot of the week.

    It's obvious.  Michael Rappaport.  He's the failed actor.  He's also known for beating women.  This week, he joined other abusers onstage in DC to beg for more killing of innocents in Gaza.  Now the faded nobody is insisting that he will vote for Donald Trump in 2024 if Joe Biden doesn't do more to combat 'antisemitism' by which he means criticism of the Israeli government.

    He's a dumb ass, the Ike Turner of the failed actor set.

     I do love it when Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis gets mocked publicly:


    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was ruthlessly mocked on Friday by former Republican strategist turned Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, for latching onto culture war issues that voters moved on from years ago.

    "I am going to bring a reckoning to these agencies for what they did to this country during COVID," wrote DeSantis on X. "Why? Because if we don’t hold them accountable, they are going to try to do it again — and we can never let this happen in our country again."

    "The horse is dead, Ron. Stop beating it," wrote Wilson in a reply. "You’ve already lost, you know it, and this is one last desperate, sweaty, and pathetic attempt to stoke the antivax loons."


    Another story I like?  Marc Caputo (THE MESSENGER):

    Ron DeSantis has made the endorsement of Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds so central to his presidential campaign that he’s featuring her in his only TV ad and touring the first-in-the-nation state with her.

    But a new Iowa State University poll, as well as a survey from a super PAC backing Donald Trump, show that the high-profile endorsement did nothing to change the primary’s dynamics in favor of the Florida governor.

    “Non-existent,” Dave Peterson, who coordinated the Iowa State Poll, told The Messenger when asked to describe Reynolds’ effect on the race.


    Little Doo-Doo, swirling around the toilet bowl, could be flushed for good at any moment.  This is David Jackson (USA TODAY):


    A new poll shows Nikki Haley is rising in New Hampshire, leaving Ron DeSantis trailing in the 2024 GOP primary field that continues to be dominated by Donald Trump.

    While Trump stands at 46% in a Washington Post/Monmouth University poll released Friday, Haley is in a solid second at 18% - and DeSantis is in fifth.

    The Florida governor is at 7%, behind former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (11%) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (8%).


    Fifth place in New Hamshire!  I love it.  


    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


    Friday, November 17, 2023.  The assault on Gaza continues, where's Joe?

    CNN's Lauren Kent in London and Abeer Salman report this morning:


    Communications services remained down in Gaza on Friday, with the UN saying the blackout was due to a lack of fuel to run generators.

    CNN has been unable to reach its stringers and other contacts on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

    Telecommunications services shut down on Thursday afternoon due to the fuel used to operate generators running out, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on Thursday night. 



    The repeating Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza are beyond my own comprehension.  For at least 10 of the last 40 days, missiles have rained down on the most densely populated refugee camp in all of Gaza.

    And it is not just the days; it is also the nights. The bombing is done in the dark, when the power is off and the only light is from the fires that burn. It is done when the internet is cut, when the journalists are shot dead, to hide their crimes, the burning of children.

    I have a long history and strong connection to the people in this camp. My friends, former coworkers, patients, and people I have known for decades through my work as a doctor at Gaza’s Al-Awda hospital are living in this camp. There are the children who grew up coming to the library I founded in Jabalia, who are now young men and women, who have their own children, their own families. There are my beautiful neighbors and friends and patients, who are not my relatives but are my family. They are generation after generation of refugee families living in one of the most crowded places on earth.

    After the latest massacre, I cannot reach any of them.

    I see these same families in the video sent to me of my neighbors pulling children from the rubble.  I see them in my memories as we lived and struggled under dual occupations, and Israeli bombings and apartheid.  I hear what it sounds like in the aftermath when women and children, the overwhelming majority of those living in, injured, and killed in Jabalia, scream and mourn in anguish and wake up to do it again. I can taste the chemicals, the poisons that linger in the air for hours and days after these indiscriminate explosions. I can smell the acrid odor of white phosphorus, used by Israel in Gaza and caked on the walls of burning buildings and bodies.  I can feel the collective hunger: for food and for justice and for all of it to stop.



    Those in Gaza risk starvation given the lack of food and water, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

    “Supplies of food and water are practically non-existent in Gaza and only a fraction of what is needed is arriving through the borders. With winter fast approaching, unsafe and overcrowded shelters, and the lack of clean water, civilians are facing the immediate possibility of starvation,” the program's Executive Director Cindy McCain said in a statement.

    The organization said the amount of food supplies that have entered Gaza since the beginning of the war only accounts for 10% of what's needed. The only passage into and out of Gaza at Rafah isn't enough and McCain pushed for the opening of another way to get supplies into Gaza. 


    ALJAEERA notes, "The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency has warned of a 'deliberate attempt to strangle' its operations in the Gaza Strip and said it risks shutting down all its humanitarian work because of a lack of fuel."  As the assault continues, the world watches.  And they're not watching in silence.  Protests are taking place around the world, leaders in other countries are calling this assault out. Lili Bayer (GUARDIAN) notes:

    Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is travelling to Germany today, amid tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas.

    Earlier this week, Erdoğan called Israel a “terror state”. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, has repeatedly defended Israel’s right to defend itself, saying “the charges being brought against Israel are absurd”.

    The Turkish leader will meet with Scholz and the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.




    When the Israeli defence minister declared on 9 October a “complete siege” in which “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into blockaded Gaza, and called its 2.3 million inhabitants “human animals”, there was not a single protest from an official in a western capital. It is easy to see Palestinians as standing alone against Israel’s military onslaught. Egypt and Israel, at peace since 1980, jointly blockade Gaza. In recent years, the region’s US-backed authoritarian governments such as the United Arab Emirates have been signing a series of accords to normalise relations with Israel without any gains for the Palestinians. The widespread support that Palestinians received from Arab governments five decades ago has virtually evaporated.

    Yet looked at on a global scale, there is overwhelming support for Palestinian self-determination, and condemnation of Israel’s latest attack on Palestinians in Gaza. Currently, 139 out of 192, or 72%, of UN member states recognise Palestine, against the express wishes of the US and Israel. This constitutes almost the entirety of Asia, Latin America and Africa, along with several European countries such as Sweden. Recent additions include Mexico, which broke with decades of fealty to the US by recognising Palestine in June.

    [. . .]

    Israel’s current war on Gaza has become another example of the stark gap that has emerged between the G7 and the rest of the world. Israel is unlikely to benefit from its longstanding association with former imperial powers. If the current crisis has driven Israel and the G7 even closer together, it has also increased the sense of alienation that the vast majority of the world’s population feels towards the small elite that claims for itself the power to rule the world. The untrammelled support of powerful states for Israel as it commits what a former UN official called “a textbook case of genocide” in Gaza has contributed to a growing sense that the current international order lacks legitimacy. At the UN last Tuesday, the Indonesian representative said that the world was heading towards an “international law abyss”.


    Where is US President Joe Biden?  Where is his leadership?  Andrew Solender (AXIOS) reports, "Dozens of House Democrats led by their Jewish colleagues are calling for the Biden administration to press Israel to allow fuel shipments to Gaza, Axios has learned. [. . .]  The letter's 48 signers range from leading progressives like Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Progressive Caucus, to more moderate members like Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Susie Lee (D-Nev.)."

    Where is Joe?


    This is not an Onion headline, apparently, but an apt description of Biden’s entire political strategy on everything from Gaza, Ukraine, climate change, health care, the border wall and student loan forgiveness …

     

    "Democratic Staffers Told To Let Constant Calls For Cease-Fire 'Got To Voicemail'."



    Since Israel’s complete siege on Gaza began, Hazem Saeed Al-Naizi, the director of an orphanage in Gaza City, had been gripped with fear, worried about when food, water and other basic necessities might run out for the dozens of children and young people in his care, most of whom are living with disabilities.

    When a strike hit a mosque near the Mabarat Al-Rahma orphanage on October 27, blowing out windows, scattering the building with debris, igniting a fire and filling the air with smoke, Al-Naizi said he was confronted with the agonizing decision of whether to evacuate the children and young people.

    “There was chaos in the place, children crying, and smoke and fire spread,” Al-Naizi told CNN, sharing videos of the aftermath. “We quickly moved the children to a safe place and extinguished the fire to get rid of the smoke that almost killed us all.”

    For Palestinians trying to escape the fighting in Gaza, living with a disability can be its own effective death sentence.

    People who are deaf or blind are less likely to know about evacuation orders and cannot hear or see the strikes, disability advocates and aid organizations told CNN.

    Others with intellectual disabilities may be unable to communicate their whereabouts to relatives or rescue workers, while people with physical disabilities who rely on wheelchairs and other assistive devices are unable to navigate rubble, let alone walk miles south.


    Where's Joe?


    Progressives in Congress and Jewish advocates for Palestinian rights were among those applauding Thursday as U.S. Rep. Becca Balint became the first Jewish federal lawmaker—and the first representing Vermont—to support a cease-fire in Gaza.

    Balint (D-Vt.) reversed her earlier position, writing in the VTDigger that the anguish she has felt since Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 people "has only grown" in the past month as Israel's "ensuing siege has killed thousands of civilians in Gaza who were already struggling under Hamas rule and Israeli blockade."

    Echoing 31 other members of Congress who have demanded the Biden administration call for a cease-fire—an action that would likely put a swift end to the deadly bombing of hospitals, refugee shelters, and homes in Gaza—Balint strongly condemned Hamas and said stopping the bombardment could facilitate the return of hostages.


    Where's Joe?


     A group of Palestinian Americans on Thursday urged a federal court to issue a preliminary injunction barring the Biden administration from providing any additional weaponry or diplomatic support to the Israeli military as it carries out mass atrocities in Gaza.

    The "urgent motion" comes days after the group, represented by the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), sued President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a federal court in California, arguing that the top officials are "failing to prevent an unfolding genocide where they have influence over the state of Israel to do so, and directly abetting its development with weapons, funds, and diplomatic cover" in violation of international law.


    Where's Joe? 



    Yesterday, DEMOCRACY NOW! spoke with a Middle East expert, Ruth Ben-Artzi who teaches political science at Providence College and who is the niece of the prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.
     

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

    We spend the rest of the hour with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s niece, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s the niece of Netanyahu’s wife, Sara Netanyahu. This month she was one of the signatories to a letter from Jewish and Israeli residents of Rhode Island that asks the state’s federal delegation to support ceasefire in Gaza.

    In March, Ruth Ben-Artzi spoke out about distancing herself from all contact with the prime minister’s family. When asked by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz why she chose to speak out, she said, quote, “The answer is that I am ashamed, sad and angry. Ashamed that my relatives have no shame. That they are in a position of power that promotes and encourages violence, racism, nationalism and fascism. These are not the Jewish values I absorbed and to which I feel connected. Israel could remain a country in which Jews find a safe and free haven of equality and partnership with all the population groups within the state’s borders.”

    Well, professor Ruth Ben-Artzi joins us now, again, a Providence College political science professor and Middle East expert. She’s an Israeli and U.S. citizen.

    We welcome you to Democracy Now! Thank you so much for being with us. Your voice has so much power because you are the prime minister’s niece. Can you speak directly to him, to the people of Palestine and Israel and the world about what you want to see happen right now, Ruth Ben-Artzi?

    RUTH BEN-ARTZI: So, I, first of all, speak as an Israeli citizen, as an American citizen, as a person who is observing everything that is happening, with my experience having grown up in Israel, and also as a political scientist who studies and researches these issues for many, many years now. From all of those different perspectives, I come to this realization, or that we came to this decision that a ceasefire is really the only way that any solution can ever be achieved.

    I think that any — the continued violence that begets violence that begets violence is only going to bring us further away from a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And, you know, it’s really important to remember that we’ve been hearing also from policymakers, from American policymakers and even from Israeli policymakers, military experts, that there’s no military solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And if there’s no military solution to the conflict, there is no military way to eradicate Hamas, as well. The more harm that we’re inflicting, the more violence that is occurring, whatever anybody wants to — as a backdrop to either justify it or to explain it, does not make sense for the future. It only brings us further away from finding that solution, from being able to move toward that political solution.

    And it’s clear that the day that this war is over is going to be the day that a political solution is going to have to start to be implemented. The occupation in the West Bank, the siege in Gaza that happened until October 7th, all of these kind of — what we typically call status quo, what we traditionally call status quo, but it’s not really status quo because things are changing. People are — the population is changing. The demographics are changing. The infrastructure is changing over all of these years of occupation. That can’t continue. The management of the conflict that has been the policy of the Israeli government at least since 2009 isn’t — it was never going to work. And it has no long-term prospects. The ceasefire is the only — we’re seeing the number of innocent civilians who are caught in the crossfires, the number of those who are victims of this war grow every single minute. And that is in addition to the humanitarian — to all the humanitarian concerns that — and the experts that you had on the show before me, the legal concerns, in addition to that, that also bring us further away from being able to implement the kinds of policies that we need to implement the day after the war.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Professor Ben-Artzi, you’ve also, like many, of course, expressed concern about the well-being of the hostages who are in Gaza still, about 240 of them. If you could talk about how you think a ceasefire might make it possible for their safe return? I mean, it was just reported that Israel and Hamas appear close to an agreement whereby 50 women and children, Israeli civilians, would be released in return for 50 Palestinian women and children prisoners being freed. So, if you could talk about the impact a ceasefire may have on the release of the Israeli civilian hostages in Gaza?

    RUTH BEN-ARTZI: Right. So, in Jewish tradition, we have a tradition that is called pidyon shvuyim, which means that the release of the hostages comes first and at all costs. And that is to save lives. The bombing of Gaza — those hostages are in Gaza. When Gaza is being bombed, when we are — when we don’t know where those hostages are, it puts them in danger, too. There is going to be a day, or already, there’s a judgment for Hamas and for those who have inflicted the horrible violence on Israel on October 7th. But right now the focus has to be the release of those hostages. And the bombing, that is clearly not very specifically targeted and is putting those hostages in harm’s way, is only exacerbating the situation and putting the — I think, is putting the — and not just myself, but including the Rhode Islanders who signed this letter. I’ve also joined hundreds of political scientists who signed a letter to demand immediate ceasefire, for some of those same strategic reasons, humanitarian reasons, and also for what is for me in the front of my mind, the release of the hostages.

    We buried today a peace activist who was murdered on October 7th, who was — who had spent decades in activism trying to help to bring a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis who are continuing that tradition. There’s Israelis in Israel now and abroad. There’s organizations, both Palestinian and Jewish organizations, that are working towards that solution, to find a peaceful solution.

    And to bring the hostages back, we have to have those negotiations. And if the negotiations have to — they have to happen with the group, with the terrorist group, that is holding those hostages. There is no other way. There is no other — there’s no other solution for this. Get the hostages out. This is what the families of the hostages are demanding. And then we can continue the political work of rehabilitating Gaza, removing Hamas from power, and finding a political solution, which is really the only way that the roughly 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians who live between the river and the sea will ever be able to find peace.

    AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ben-Artzi, we just have 30 seconds, but as the niece of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have the two senators from Rhode Island spoken to you, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, or Seth Magaziner and Gabe Amo, the congressmembers?

    RUTH BEN-ARTZI: As Rhode Islanders, we speak to our delegation all the time. Our group that signed this letter and that sent them this letter spoke to our delegation. We’re in contact all the time. We have various connections in our small state. And I think that we have a listening ear to all the different voices —

    AMY GOODMAN: Well —

    RUTH BEN-ARTZI: — that are part —

    AMY GOODMAN: — we have to leave it there. We thank you so much, Providence College political science professor Ruth Ben-Artzi, niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.



    Bigotry and hate can be found around the world.  But Moms For Bigotry are a unique homegrown threat to democracy.  Fortunately, Americans are fighting back -- wise people like the man in the video below.





    During an MSNBC "Morning Joe" panel discussion on recent pivotal losses at the polls by Republicans and conservatives, co-host Joe Scarborough and guest Molly Jong-Fast pointed the finger at the extremist Moms for Liberty as the main culprit when it comes to saddling Republicans with the "crazy ideas" contributing to defeat.

    Noting setbacks in recent elections that have Republicans worried about the 2024 November general election, the Jong-Fast claimed the GOP is at the mercy of their base which is demanding more and more extreme policies.

    "I mean, the book bans, Moms for Liberty had a really bad night. All of this stuff is because Republicans cannot control their base. Their base runs the show, and so you have these crazy ideas being shopped, and Republicans are losing on these ideas and, quite frankly, they should."

    "They're morally reprehensible," she added. "You know, it's overreach. people don't want the government in their bedroom and in their schools and in — I mean, they want them in the schools but ..."

    "Yet, and yet, there's actually an outfit called Moms for Liberty who support freedom being taken away from their daughters," Scarborough interrupted.

     

    We're all sick of Moms For Bigotry.  Paige Skinner (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:


    LeVar Burton hosted the 74th National Book Awards on Wednesday and during his opening speech, he took a jab at the right-wing group Moms for Liberty.

    “Before we get going, are there any Moms for Liberty in the house?” Burton asked, while the New York audience laughed. “Moms for Liberty? No? Good. Then hands will not need to be thrown tonight.”

    Burton, who hosted the children’s show “Reading Rainbow” for over two decades, has been outspoken about his disgust for Moms for Liberty. The extremist group has described itself as defending “parental rights” in government while also seeking to have books removed from libraries. During last week’s U.S. elections, Moms for Liberty set out to take over various school boards but ultimately wasn’t successful.

    In an Esquire interview published Wednesday, Burton said he was “thrilled” that “hardly any candidates backed by Moms for Liberty won their races.” 

    “These are people who would rather children not know the truth,” Burton told Esquire. “Those kids will never know what they’re missing, but it’s our job to stand up for them, to be their voices and their advocates. That’s what being an elder in this society means to me.”

    During a 2022 appearance on “The View,” Burton said it’s “embarrassing” that people are trying to ban books in America.


    Moms For Bigotry are Ronald DeSantis in drag.  Scary, isn't it?  They don't want American children to know about African-Americans or LGBTQ+ or women's rights.  Strange, isn't it?  How these 'submissive' women are everywhere but in their homes cooking and cleaning all day.  Pink's not standing for it:


    Pink has partnered with PEN America to advocate for LGBTQ+ and free speech rights in Florida.

    Earlier this week, during Pink’s TRUSTFALL Tour in Miami and Sunrise, Florida, she gave her first 1,000 fans new copies of the frequently banned books, courtesy of the partnership with PEN America.

    Pink has selected books addressing racial and sexual identity themes for the giveaway, including titles like Todd Parr’s picture book “The Family Book,” a Girls Who Code series book for middle-aged readers, Toni Morrison’s novel “Beloved,” and Amanda Gorman’s poetry book “The Hill We Climb.”

    The Pop star’s partnership coincides with Florida’s recent laws limiting free speech in education.  The Individual Freedom Act, passed in July 2022, restricts teaching about systemic racism, while Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill last year, aiming to limit LGBTQ+ topic discussions in schools.



     


    The hate Moms For Bigotry keeps spreading poisons our entire culture.  And those who enable Moms For Bigotry like Naomi Wolf who is also now co-signing with Libs of Tick-Tock.  The hate you spread is impacting our country and we can't afford your nonsense.  Brooke Migdon (THE HILL) reports:

    More than 700 incidents of violence and threats targeting LGBTQ people have occurred over the past year, including murder, harassment, assault and vandalism, according to an updated tally released Thursday by GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy organization, and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

    At least 26 transgender people since November 2022 have been killed in crimes motivated by an anti-transgender bias, according to Thursday’s count, released three days before the one-year anniversary of a mass shooting carried out at Club Q, a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs.

    Five people — including two transgender people — were killed and 18 were injured in the Nov. 19 attack, which came on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, recognized each year on Nov. 20 to honor the lives of transgender people killed in acts of anti-transgender violence.

    The shooter, 23-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in June after pleading guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder. 

    “It’s been one year, one heartbreaking year since Daniel, Kelly, Ashley, Derrick, and Raymond were killed, and more than a dozen were injured, in the unthinkable attack in Colorado Springs,” GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said Thursday, using the victims’ first names. “When GLAAD spoke out in the hours after the devastating violence last November, we had one plea for elected, media and corporate leaders: stop the spread of anti-LGBTQ disinformation, which incites violence.” 




    Politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Ronald DeSantis and Mike Johnson must have misheard the plea and thought GLAAD asked for everyone to 'spread anti-LGBTQ disinformation and incite violence.'  That's the only excu -- Wait.  There is no excuse.  None at all.  These are people's lives. Rachel Levine is a woman doing her job.  Does Marjorie Taylor Greene have a problem with Dr Levine's job performance?  Because calling her crazy and lying that she's a "groomer" and all the rest?  There's no excuse for any of it.  And shame on the Republican Party and everyone who enables them.  This is not the behavior of elected officials.  Their peers in Congress should be holding them accountable.  Rachel is a doctor, a sixty-six year old woman.  There's no excuse for lying and calling her a "groomer." 

    Is there anything worse than Marjorie?  Her equal is Mike Johnson who has 'gay face' and rumors of past male lovers.  Is that why he attacks LGBTQ+ people?  I have no idea.  I do know he's coming off like Tallulah Bankhead in DIE! DIE! MY DARLING!  Tim Dickinson (ROLLING STONE) reports:


    In an October prayer call hosted by a Christian-nationalist MAGA pastor, Rep. Mike Johnson was troubled that America's wickedness was inviting God's wrath.

    Talking to pastor Jim Garlow on a broadcast of the World Prayer Network, Johnson spoke ominously of America facing a "civilizational moment." He said, "The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins? … Or is he going to give us one more chance to restore the foundations and return to Him?"


    The segment was filmed Oct. 3, just weeks before Johnson's unexpected rise to become speaker of the House. Garlow pressed the clean-cut Louisiana congressman to say "more about this ‘time of judgment' for America." Johnson replied: "The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable." He cited, as supposed evidence, the decline of national church attendance and the rise of LGBTQ youth - the fact, Johnson lamented, that "one-in-four high school students identifies as something other than straight." 


    He sounds like a raving closet queen.  And that's probably what he is.  People like that refuse to come out of the closet and hate those who have. 


    The Supreme Court on Thursday denied a request by Florida officials that would have allowed the state to enforce prohibitions on drag shows for now.

    The case deals with a law aimed at restricting drag shows where children are present. An Orlando bar called Hamburger Mary’s sued over the law, asserting it violated the First Amendment.  



    The following sites updated:



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