Police actions during a mass protest called “Block Cop City” that drew people from across the US to Atlanta this week have been condemned as heavy handed after they included flash-bang grenades, tear-gas canisters, tanks and a press conference full of demonstrably false or misleading descriptions of the event.
The Guardian also spoke with a protester who was detained, repeatedly called a “terrorist”, handcuffed and threatened with arrest in a supermarket parking lot near the march – only to be released with no charges.
The actions are the latest hardline display against opposition to Cop City, a sign that Atlanta authorities are determined to combat dissent on the project.
…………………………..
The event drew nearly 500 people from dozens of cities and included nonviolent direct action training and planning and a commitment to no property damage or weapons. Nonetheless, multiple jurisdictions deployed police to the project’s construction site and streets in the surrounding area and Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum characterized the event as a threat to public safety, citing evidence such as gas masks.
“It’s absurdly hypocritical of the police”, said Jamie Peck, an organizer who came from New York. “They’re claiming we were the violent ones, when nonviolence was in the DNA of the action from the beginning. Trying to say we’re violent when we brought protective gear is sort of Orwellian”.
At this point I can’t help thinking these protests aren’t more about the violence of the police than they are about Cop City, and the authoritarian police just can’t stop themselves from feeding that theme.
My first reaction is that some ducking display of autocorrect.
Past that, it’s unusual to see a gastronomical listing of Mexico City that includes some non-Mexican food places.
I can tell you I’d never heard about most of the restaurants listed, and I’m sure I’ve never been to any. I pretty much stopped eating out when I took up cooking.
Least surprising story of the day:
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X, the social media site he owns, that attacked members of the Jewish community for pushing “dialectical hatred” against white people.
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk said in his reply to the post.
Xlon Xuxk is making a really argument for an xtraordinary tax on wealth.
Speaking of which, United Launch alliance, a joint venture space launch company of Boeing and Lockheed, is close to being sold.
I admit I’d missed the fact it was for sale. Anyway, of the 2.1 candidates in the piece, I’d have to favor Lex Bezos. He won’t flip it and resell it, and he might focus on reliable launches at lower cost.
What I wonder is what’s being sold and what the terms are. I don’t suppose either Lockheed or Boeing is divesting their space related manufacturing plants and know how. So it must be the launch inventory, management, expertise, and contracts with NASA and DOD. As for terms, does the buyer commit themselves to acquire more Atlases, Vulcans, Deltas, etc.?
Antitrust concerns if Lex buys it, I’ve none. Blue Origin is a wannabe space launch company, not a real launch company.
Of course, the much delayed ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket uses Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines (which are at the heart of the many delays).
Past that, it’s unusual to see a gastronomical listing of Mexico City that includes some non-Mexican food places.
That’s kind of a thing with the NYT “25 Essential Dishes” pieces…the one for Paris included plenty of non-French places: pizza, fried chicken, Turkish street food, etc.
@MarkedMan: Interesting. I just got back from a trip to Mexico City, and I didn’t happen to try anything on that list. My wife tends to be happy with tacos from the stand on the corner or in a mercado, and I tend to just be looking for a good beer (which I did have some success at).
@SenyorDave: A very real danger in condemning Israel’s actions in current war or, as I do, their land grab policies in the occupied land, is that people with weak minds and inherent bigotry who already equate “Israel” with “Jews” will take it as agreement with their prejudice and encouragement to double down. It makes about as much sense as equating “Sweden” with “White People”, but, of course, the consequences are so very much more dangerous. For reasons of demographics and history, Jews almost perfectly fill the niche for weak minded people looking for someone to kick down on.
@MarkedMan: One of the most baffling things about contemporary anti-Semites is that about half of them claim Jews are out to destroy the white race, the other half claim Jews are the ultimate white oppressors.
My health is ok all things considered. Last week I saw my oncologist and he says I’m stable.
However I finally got my sleep study results. I have severe sleep apnea. A pulmonogist wants me to have another sleep study done. I rather watch Barnaby Jones than have to endure one of those things again.
The main reason I haven’t been around Otb, besides me losing my mind as indicated above, is because I’m working on my 30th ebook and probably the last one I will self publish I’ll be going mainstream by spring next year. Over the last eight days I’ve written almost 105 pages in MS Word at font size 14 or a little over 30,000 words written. So I am pre-occupied most of the time unless I give my kitty lap time, play strat-o-matic baseball, or drive my wife nuts by talking about my ebook. In it a Hong Kong* triad tries to catch up with his pregnant girlfriend before she can get of the city. Another character’s adventures include somebody asking them to be their mistress/concubine and therefore I get the chance to quote Oscar Wilde. Does this all sound crazy? Not if you compare it to Dung beetle fiction….
Back to work. Five pages written today and at least five more to go. 10 or more pages is a productive day for me.
*- I’ve been to HK and are using those memories plus internet searches to help write my tale.
If Elon Musk were an ordinary CEO I am betting by now he would have been warned about his social media comments, and fired if he kept it up. But the cult of Elon is very important to Tesla, and it certainly helps their stock price. There are many people who are banking on the “Tesla will change the landscape of…”. Doesn’t matter that many of these changes do not have a large upside in terms of monetization, or that they often fall flat (the Tesla truck does not seem like it will change the landscape of trucks anytime soon). They need the cult of Elon, so unless he goes completely nuts they’ll put up with it. Plus a lot of his fanboys (and to a lesser degree fangirls) love it when he “sticks it to the man”. Because nothing says stick it it the man more than overt anti semitism.
Plus a lot of his fanboys (and to a lesser degree fangirls) love it when he “sticks it to the man”. Because nothing says stick it it the man more than overt anti semitism.
He’s using it as an excuse for why his platform is failing. That’s why he attacked only the ADL and totally ignored the many other organizations that noted a rise in anti-Semitism and other hate speech on his platform since he took over. It’s the age-old tactic of blaming one’s own problems on the Jews.
@Kylopod: I can’t help but feel “anti-semitism” or “anti-Zionism” described as anti-semitic, or anti-Likud/Netanyahu described as anti-semitism, are getting so much play because it’s perceived as no longer just a right wing thing and the habits of bothsides in the press run deep.
A philosophical digression: NYT this morning has a piece by Pamela Paul, Progressives Aren’t Liberal. Not a piece I recommend reading, but an example of widely expressed views, including by some here. My take from it is that Ms. Paul spends too much time online and doesn’t recognize how marginal the influence of “progressives” is in the real world. But I can’t prove it. Maybe I’m the one out of touch. In the Hamas/Israel situation both sides are propagandizing furiously and it’s impossible to be sure of much of anything. Last night an IDF spokesman was asked if they’ve found Hamas tunnels under the Al-Shifa hospital. He replied they’d found hundreds of tunnel entrances, but seemed to be artfully avoiding saying, “at the hospital”. Is there a tunnel network? Maybe. At this point I have no idea. Ukraine/Russia isn’t all that much better. I’m a news junkie and I feel I’m losing touch with reality. It’s making me more sympathetic. No, let’s say “understanding”, of the ignorance of the average voter.
@Bill Jempty:
Thanks for the update. I hope you can resolve the sleep stuff! And more importantly, good luck with the effort to transition from self-publishing to contract publishing. Do you have an agent?
A pulmonogist wants me to have another sleep study done. I rather watch Barnaby Jones than have to endure one of those things again.
Is a home sleep study an option for you? Have they offered this? Basically, they provide the monitors and equipment, it records your patterns at home, then you drop off the equipment the next day.
@Kylopod: I can’t help but feel “anti-semitism” or “anti-Zionism” described as anti-semitic, or anti-Likud/Netanyahu described as anti-semitism, are getting so much play because it’s perceived as no longer just a right wing thing and the habits of bothsides in the press run deep.
That may be part of it. However, at least on online forums and other places, I have seen a number of people on the left go well past “anti-Zionism” or “anti-Likud/Netanyahu” on the continuum towards “anti-all-things-Isreal” if not outright “anti-Jews.”
Some of this may be the restriction of trying to comment on complex things in a medium designed for brevity. Or just the excess of activists. Or the nature of platforms that tend to elevate/celebrate controversial content. Or it is just human nature to try and simplify complex moralities into easy binaries (usually whose lives matter more and whose ok to kill when push comes to shove).
Still, it’s out there. This has been a real challenge for many Jewish progressives who I follow who are trying to preserve some form of compassion for all sides in this awful case.
Yes I do and I have three publishers who want to work with me. To make a long story short, I am mulling the advantages and disadvantages of each. They have been all advised of my heart issues and I have been given till April 1st at least to make up mind. I think I know whom I’ll be choosing but won’t tell my agent till after the holidays. I can therefore complete this year operating still as a S corp.
@Matt Bernius: In 2023 being anti-Zionist in the sense most of these people are using it displays a dangerous misunderstanding of the world. Israel exists, it has happened, it’s multiple generations old. That can’t be put back in the bottle, just like all the thousands of other forcible takings in a thousand other locations throughout human history. To fixate on that is to focus on something that can’t be changed and ignore things that can make the situation better. Whatever the rights and wrongs committed 75 years ago a baby born in Tel Aviv today has as much right to that homeland as any other kid born anywhere else. To imagine there is a “pure” way to be born into a homeland is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and history.
Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Israeli Settlers, religious extremists and bat-shit right wingers use “Zionism” to mean the taking of the entirety of Judea and Samaria, and the driving of all others from the land. So we have one meaning of Zionism as “something that happened and is a fact on the ground”, another as “a spiritual journey or relocation to the country of Israel” and a third as “a grand conquest of which the current state of Israel and the occupied territories are just the start.”
Side question (can there be a side question in the open thread?): More and more I click on a link and it is free to those who register. In the past two days it’s been The Daily Beast at least twice and USA Today once. Is there a general way around this? I hate to register since you give a lot of permissions along with your information
@Jen: I had the best falafel I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant in the Itaewon district in Seoul. To some degree though, that makes sense given that the restaurant was at the bottom of the hill from the largest mosque in Seoul, too.
@just nutha: The best falafel I ever had was in Paris, at the Ace of Falafel. Not to be confused with the King of Falafel which is right down the block (in fairness we did not try the King of Falafel).
@Bill Jempty: I had two sleep studies done relatively back to back early in my diagnosis. The second was looking for signs of restless leg syndrome. Sadly, I don’t sleep long enough during a sleep study to detect restless leg, so it was all for naught.
Why the pulmonologist needs a second study is beyond me other than that it seems that a lot of pulmonologists are going into sleep medicine these days. Maybe you need to ask him what he’s looking for? (And why the first results don’t satisfy him.)
@MarkedMan:
Zionism is identity politics. Israel is a Jewish state, not a mini-America, an explicitly Jewish state, just as Saudi Arabia is a Muslim state. Single-faith nation states, like single race nation states, are not something pluralistic Americans can approve of. I don’t approve of it, but then I don’t approve of identity politics generally. I am consistent in my dislike of tribalism because tribalism often begins as a defensive approach and then morphs into an aggressive approach. We must band together to defend ourselves . . . by wiping out those other bastards before they come for us. Tribalism weakens a country. It weakens civilization.
In general I believe the world is a better place when we emphasize what we have in common rather than what divides us. Kumbaya. But as you rightly point out – and as I’ve harped on several times – we don’t have a time machine, we cannot repair the past, we live in the present, and are propelled into the future, and while the past informs us, it cannot be used to morally justify every sort of behavior. Israelis point to the historical connection between the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and I’ve never bought that rationale – almost every square meter of planet earth at one point belonged to someone other than whoever has it today. You’d think Americans would grasp this given our own history.
But if I dismiss Israel’s Zionist claims to ownership I have to dismiss Palestinian claims as well. Both are appeals to past injustices. Neither set of injustices can be magicked away. The tribalist/identitarian arguments from both sides are the same bullshit. My great-grandfather blah blah blah. Come to think of it, my great grandparents had land in Ukraine before the pogrom – can I go get it?
I take a pragmatic approach: we’re not giving Manhattan back to the Indians. We’re not even giving Hawaii back to the Hawaiians. Israel is not giving Tel Aviv back to the Arabs. Given the professed American preference for peace and democracy and human rights, what future for the Levant best accomplishes that end?
I don’t have an answer, but I think that’s the right question. I’m open to practical, real-world suggestions that afford the largest number of people the greatest degree of freedom. The extermination of Jews in Israel is not an answer. Nor is the permanent subjugation and second-class citizenship Israel offers – when they aren’t busy suggesting ethnic cleansing.
As a practical matter Israel would only contemplate a two state solution if the countries that have tried three times to exterminate Israel, were themselves to become pluralistic democracies whose word could be relied on. If they could be relied on to enforce democratic norms and human rights in a theoretical Palestinian client state. Israel is convinced – and I think they are dead right – that a Palestinian state would be getting weapons from Iran and/or the Arab states, and would promptly begin firing missiles into Israel. But if you posited an Egypt turned Canada, and a KSA turned Mexico, and for fun let’s make Iran into something obnoxious but not toxic, say, Venezuela, the argument for a two state solution would be irresistible.
Personally, I’ve observed anti-Semitism on the left to know that some people are not just against Israel. The thing is, most people are clever enough to conceal it with anti-Israel evidence, I think, and so it’s often a vibe about the way people seem to think there’s a metaphysical truth behind the occupation or whatever, like there’s an order of the world beyond the visible.
To me, this vibe slices like a knife straight into the word ‘Jew’. I have heard Jewish people say Jew and I have heard people like my WASP grandfather say the word Jew and it’s an entirely different word. The former is broad and open, about a tribe of people spread out across the world none of whom have the either/or logic of Christianity. Whereas the latter means only there goes another one. But it’s not something you can prove. For example, my grandfather never said that anything that was not nice about Jewish people. He would just identify someone as Jewish as if it mattered in a specific way and then go on assuming that case was closed: a Jew.
. He replied they’d found hundreds of tunnel entrances, but seemed to be artfully avoiding saying, “at the hospital”. Is there a tunnel network? Maybe. At this point I have no idea. Ukraine/Russia isn’t all that much better. I’m a news junkie and I feel I’m losing touch with reality.
Thus, the adage that truth is the first casualty in any war. 🙁
Whatever the rights and wrongs committed 75 years ago a baby born in Tel Aviv today has as much right to that homeland as any other kid born anywhere else
My first thought when I read this was “how does this idea connect to the idea of reparations for Black Americans?” I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about the topic to go further than noting the apparent parallel though, so take it for what it’s worth
So we have one meaning of Zionism as “something that happened and is a fact on the ground”, another as “a spiritual journey or relocation to the country of Israel” and a third as “a grand conquest of which the current state of Israel and the occupied territories are just the start.”
@Matt Bernius: Antisemitism is the last, great, bipartisan experience in America. There’s more plausible deniability on the left (“we support the Palestinian people!”), so it is harder to identify and root out.
QAnon has routed a bit of the Loony Left antisemites off to the right (the “globalist” fearing crowd, for instance), but there’s a lot left.
For years the BDS crowd has been chock full of antisemites and people who actively flirt with the antisemites. I basically assume that anyone who has been speaking out against Israel years and has made it one of their top concerns for years is either directly impacted or probably an antisemite.
Normal people let it fade into the background when it isn’t the top of the news cycle. It’s a big world, there are lots of other injustices.
@Kathy: There’s a scene in Jackie Brown where Robert De Niro’s character informs Sam Jackson that his girlfriend Melanie is secretly trying to double-cross him, and Jackson takes this news surprisingly nonchalantly. De Niro then asks him why he trusts her, and Jackson replies “I trust Melanie to be Melanie.”
I trust Santos to be Santos. He lies as easily as he breathes, but there’s always a reason behind his lies. He comes straight from the never-back-down, never-apologize MAGA wing of the Republicans, and falsely claiming to be retiring from Congress is doesn’t fit that pattern, as it is at bottom an admission of failure and relenting in the face of his opposition.
I’m not saying I’m 100% sure he won’t run for reelection in the end–hell, even normal politicians go back on promises like this all the time. I’m sure he’s keeping an eye out for signs of his situation changing in a way that gives him newfound confidence he can survive politically if not legally. But I think he wouldn’t be saying this now if he didn’t see the writing on the wall.
I think the worst thing about this round of covid might by the Paxlovid. Turns out I’m lucky and have a chronic case of “Paxlovid Mouth”. It’s bad. My mouth constantly tastes like I’ve got a bunch of old nickels rolling round in it.
I’m starting to feel better, but not on a happy timeline. Tonight was supposed to be night one of a three day bender. Tonight is already cancelled. Tomorrow isn’t looking good and I’m holding out hope for Saturday night.
The high point of the bender was/is supposed to be seeing Sara Landry. An amazing up and coming hard techno artist.
Friends, dear friends, I encourage you to click on that link and maybe play a little bit of it. If only to satiate your curiosity as to what would drive me from my convalescent bed with such ferocity. I MUST make this show. I will boil my own blood in my body to be there. However, I highly doubt you will feel the same way.
As part of our boring cutesy-ness on Friday and Saturday nights, when we don’t go out, my partner and I will take our edibles and watch some tv. After some shows I’ll put on dj sets, either on Twitch or Youtube. She has told me that she hates my music. Which is entirely fair, her much is awful. So, the other night I put that Sara set on. It’s amazing. Friends, we made it 15 minutes before my partner turned to me and said, “I HATE THIS SO MUCH! you need to turn it off. It is making me so angry. This is what it’s like to be stuck in a German prison.”
@Michael Reynolds: While we are all rambling about Israel-Palestine, I have two beliefs that are in complete opposition.
1. You cannot have an ethnostate without ethnic cleansing and/or apartheid.
2. An enthostate provides the greatest protection for a traditionally persecuted people.
It’s hard to square those, and we definitely have seen that the Jewish peoples need that level of protection, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Any two state solution will require some ethnic cleansing*. You can draw borders around people as much as possible, but there will inevitably be people on the wrong sides of borders, and carrots and sticks will be required. Make sure both states are viable and semi-secure, pay reparations for past atrocities and present atrocities, and you might be able to get it done with less human suffering than maintaining the status quo forever.
(The IDF has killed about 0.5% of the Palestinian population since October 7th, and there are no signs of it stopping, so “less human suffering” should be balanced against that)
A single state solution either requires giving up on Israel as a Jewish state (bad idea for millions of Jews) or apartheid or real, honest-to-goodness large scale genocide. Those all seem worse.
It’s all bad choices. But I don’t see Israel’s current course of action (or the previous few decades of actions) as useful in getting to a stable two state solution, so all the atrocities are a waste even from the most cold-hearted “the ends justify the means” perspective.
Israel is consistently pursuing worse choices. We shouldn’t be supporting them.
——
*: Even my “Spare Dakota” plan would require ethnic cleansing. I don’t think we can ever get it down to “eminent domain of large chunks of Brooklyn to build Barclays Center” level of moving people about**, but that should be a goal.
**: They destroyed my favorite bar, and displaced thousands of people. It was a tragedy. But compared to Gaza, it was nothing.
I understand that’s hard to pull off in court, but I wonder if he could have cut a deal with prosecutors for a lengthy stay at a psychiatric facility and minimal/no jail time.
Or plain any kind of deal. It’s not as though he had any kind of reasonable defense.
@Modulo Myself: I’ve always been weirded out a little when people describe someone to me and mention that they are black or gay or trans. Asshats I can understand, because they are usually talking about someone who did something bad and they think they are making a point, but a fair number of times it comes from truly good people and it’s usually something like, “This really nice black man did x”. It seems very odd to me and makes me uncomfortable. But I’ve never heard anyone who felt the need to point out that someone is Jewish , except for very specific things – weddings, funeral services, etc. I guess I just don’t travel in those circles, even tangentially.
@Kathy:..I understand that’s hard to pull off in court,..
For Some:
Murder in Lafayette Square
On a peaceful Sunday in 1859 in the nation’s capital, Congressman Daniel E. Sickles shot and killed U.S. District Attorney Philip Barton Key in broad daylight in Lafayette Square. The murder and subsequent trial captivated antebellum America and sparked nationwide debates about male honor, female virtue, insanity, and the rule of law.
……
“Don’t murder me! Murder!” Key yelled as he staggered back, imploring his assailant not to kill him. But the congressman was undeterred and lunged at his wife’s lover and shot him two more times at close range. Key lay dead on the sidewalk.
……
The trial began on April 4, 1859. The defense presented their client as a man wronged, arguing that the congressman was temporarily insane at the time of the murder. While the insanity defense had long been used as a legal argument, the notion of someone being only temporarily insane had not been raised before.
But I’ve never heard anyone who felt the need to point out that someone is Jewish , except for very specific things – weddings, funeral services, etc.
I think that’s mostly an effect of Jewish assimilation in the modern age. Unless someone has a visible sign such as a yarmulke or the distinct garb of Hasidim, most people can’t tell whether a person is Jewish just by looking. The concept of a “Jewish look” was always iffy and shrouded in stereotypes that were never altogether accurate (few Jews have ever had “hook noses”), but any ethnic features they may have once had have become diluted by intermarriage, conversion, adoption, and so on. Distinct Jewish accents and dialects are also a lot less common than they once were. The Alter Kockers who are still around are, well, Alt.
It’s all bad choices. But I don’t see Israel’s current course of action (or the previous few decades of actions) as useful in getting to a stable two state solution, so all the atrocities are a waste even from the most cold-hearted “the ends justify the means” perspective.
Bibi is not all of Israel, he is, hopefully, on his way out. If we go forward with Bibi, no, there’s no hope at least near-term. But if a mod/left coalition comes in, that may change. My goal is peace, obviously. When I analyze it I’m not assuming a perpetual Likud, I’m trying to step back from current governments – something we’ll also have to do with Palestinian leadership – and look at the power dynamics of the countries and people involved, not just the current governments.
Looked at from that POV the peace imperative is more complicated than ‘ceasefire now,’ because ceasefire now is one-sided Israeli surrender. Hamas, speaking of current governments, will never keep to a deal, they’ll be firing missiles at Israel within 48 hours. If Israel responds, the world will blame Israel. Any ceasefire is inevitably one-sided and given that, is a surrender to Hamas. We’re telling the Red Army to hang back and let Hitler out of his bunker to avoid the loss of civilian life. Short term sounds great. Long term: more war, more death and no peace.
Lots of things would be possible if the ME were the EU, if Israel were surrounded by something other than brutal dictatorships, countries that have tried repeatedly to annihilate them. Then Israel wouldn’t need strategic depth that requires them to hold the heights. Then a two state solution would be possible because it’d be no more threatening to Israel than Belgium splitting off a Flemish state would threaten France.
Israel is paranoid and has good reason to be. If they had less reason, and thus less paranoia, we’d have a path. But given the world’s predictable reaction, Israel will come out of this more paranoid and with even better reason. I hope a better Israeli government will rein that in.
@Michael Reynolds: Probably right about that, the 40 weeks of protest prior to 10/7 has freed the Israeli press to go apeshit on Bibi. The long support of HAMAS, the stripping of forces away from Gaza to support the settlers. Haaretz and now even J-Po are working him over daily. Unlikely he will survive.
However Likud is not just Bibi, and their 20 years of reign has allowed them to set Israel on an all but impossible to reverse course of ethnic cleansing for the West Bank. The two-state solution died with Rabin, it is but a cynically dishonest talking point today. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1211987812/israel-hamas-west-bank-gaza-war-conflict-idf
..if Israel were surrounded by something other than brutal dictatorships, countries that have tried repeatedly to annihilate them.
Right now, that would be Syria and Iran. There has been formal peace with Egypt since 1979 or so, and normalization with Jordan followed at some very much latter point. More recently relations were normalized with the UAE and Oman. The Saudis don’t seem to give much of a damn anymore, and they’re far more worried about Iran.
This leaves Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon. If any of them can threaten Israel, then the latter has worse problems than Bibi and Hamas.
Syria is still a mess, and Iran can’t project power that far, nor has it deployed or even tested a nuke.
So Israel ins’t facing an existential threat, at least not militarily from neighboring countries.
2. An enthostate provides the greatest protection for a traditionally persecuted people.
Ethnostate or not, people are more safe where the nation’s majority is nominally committed to (or forced to be committed to) the rule of law, justice, liberty, equality, and prosperity for all. These are the commitments that create the conditions for peace and domestic tranquility.
Unfortunately, Israelis and Palestinians are currently lead by corruptocrats committed to zealotry and extremism. They have deliberately undermined democracy, enabled Hamas terrorism and Israeli settler terrorism/colonialism, and stoked hostilities.
Of course their chosen has not made Palestinians and Israelis safe. Just like electing Trump and those who want to send troops into Mexico will not make Americans safe, but lead to unrest, disorder, and death.
I’d rather watch Barnaby Jones than have to endure one of those things again.
I am ashamed to say that my family watched Barnaby Jones religiously every week. It came on right after Cannon* — the one-two punch of William Conrad’s spherical toughness and Buddy Ebsen’s gerontological shrewdness was unbeatable.
*Apparently Douglas Adams got the idea for the unfortunate whale in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — the one who gets created by the infinite improbability drive just long enough to muse about existential issues before going splat — from watching an episode of Cannon in which random people were dying left and right for no reason.
It’s late in the day to note it, but I was tickled no end to see “out of pocket” as the answer to a Celebrity Jeopardy! question this week. They even poked at the two inconsistent meanings!
Let me just say, once again, that I do not freakin care about Hunter Biden, unless the same level of scrutiny is applied to the Trump kids in ALLLLLLLL of their business dealings, before their Dad was in office, WHILE he was in office, and what happened afterwards.
It’s crazy how when something bad about Republicans comes out, the Free Beacon and the Washington Examiner are first past the post with a new Hunter Biden’s dick pics story.
I’m headed out of town shortly, sans laptop, and won’t be posting until Monday morning.
@James Joyner: Travel safe and enjoy the weekend!
@James Joyner:
We’ll try to behave.
Utopia about Kathy’s reaction to this: The 25 Essential Dishes to Eat in Mexico City (no subscription required)
@James Joyner: When the cat’s away, the mice will play!
@MarkedMan: “Utopia”?! Curse you, autocorrect! That should be “I’m curious”!
At this point I can’t help thinking these protests aren’t more about the violence of the police than they are about Cop City, and the authoritarian police just can’t stop themselves from feeding that theme.
@MarkedMan: Heh. I was wondering about that, but at least they sound alike, right?
@MarkedMan: Dangit, now I am hungry and really want homemade corn tortillas and grilled meats.
@CSK:
“We’ll try to behave.”
Speak for yourself.
@CSK:
@Moosebreath:
You are aware that bad behavior is still behavior.
@MarkedMan:
My first reaction is that some ducking display of autocorrect.
Past that, it’s unusual to see a gastronomical listing of Mexico City that includes some non-Mexican food places.
I can tell you I’d never heard about most of the restaurants listed, and I’m sure I’ve never been to any. I pretty much stopped eating out when I took up cooking.
Sometimes I am just taken aback at how odd Donald Trump is.
He’s really, really creepy and strange.
Least surprising story of the day:
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X, the social media site he owns, that attacked members of the Jewish community for pushing “dialectical hatred” against white people.
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk said in his reply to the post.
@SenyorDave:
Xlon Xuxk is making a really argument for an xtraordinary tax on wealth.
Speaking of which, United Launch alliance, a joint venture space launch company of Boeing and Lockheed, is close to being sold.
I admit I’d missed the fact it was for sale. Anyway, of the 2.1 candidates in the piece, I’d have to favor Lex Bezos. He won’t flip it and resell it, and he might focus on reliable launches at lower cost.
What I wonder is what’s being sold and what the terms are. I don’t suppose either Lockheed or Boeing is divesting their space related manufacturing plants and know how. So it must be the launch inventory, management, expertise, and contracts with NASA and DOD. As for terms, does the buyer commit themselves to acquire more Atlases, Vulcans, Deltas, etc.?
Antitrust concerns if Lex buys it, I’ve none. Blue Origin is a wannabe space launch company, not a real launch company.
Of course, the much delayed ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket uses Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines (which are at the heart of the many delays).
@Kathy:
As are Chuckles Koch, Peter Theil, the Uileins, Barry Seid, the Mercers, the DeVos/Princes, Harlan Crow, ….
@James Joyner: “I’m headed out of town shortly, sans laptop, and won’t be posting until Monday morning.”
Have a great disconnect!
@Kathy:
That’s kind of a thing with the NYT “25 Essential Dishes” pieces…the one for Paris included plenty of non-French places: pizza, fried chicken, Turkish street food, etc.
@MarkedMan: Interesting. I just got back from a trip to Mexico City, and I didn’t happen to try anything on that list. My wife tends to be happy with tacos from the stand on the corner or in a mercado, and I tend to just be looking for a good beer (which I did have some success at).
@gVOR10:
Oh, indeed.
But Xt. Xlon is the one ruining a data mining company faster, thus pissing more people off.
@OzarkHillbilly:
My wife has a saying about her boss. It goes “When the mouse is away the cats will play.”
@SenyorDave: A very real danger in condemning Israel’s actions in current war or, as I do, their land grab policies in the occupied land, is that people with weak minds and inherent bigotry who already equate “Israel” with “Jews” will take it as agreement with their prejudice and encouragement to double down. It makes about as much sense as equating “Sweden” with “White People”, but, of course, the consequences are so very much more dangerous. For reasons of demographics and history, Jews almost perfectly fill the niche for weak minded people looking for someone to kick down on.
@MarkedMan: One of the most baffling things about contemporary anti-Semites is that about half of them claim Jews are out to destroy the white race, the other half claim Jews are the ultimate white oppressors.
I haven’t posted here in a while.
My health is ok all things considered. Last week I saw my oncologist and he says I’m stable.
However I finally got my sleep study results. I have severe sleep apnea. A pulmonogist wants me to have another sleep study done. I rather watch Barnaby Jones than have to endure one of those things again.
The main reason I haven’t been around Otb, besides me losing my mind as indicated above, is because I’m working on my 30th ebook and probably the last one I will self publish I’ll be going mainstream by spring next year. Over the last eight days I’ve written almost 105 pages in MS Word at font size 14 or a little over 30,000 words written. So I am pre-occupied most of the time unless I give my kitty lap time, play strat-o-matic baseball, or drive my wife nuts by talking about my ebook. In it a Hong Kong* triad tries to catch up with his pregnant girlfriend before she can get of the city. Another character’s adventures include somebody asking them to be their mistress/concubine and therefore I get the chance to quote Oscar Wilde. Does this all sound crazy? Not if you compare it to Dung beetle fiction….
Back to work. Five pages written today and at least five more to go. 10 or more pages is a productive day for me.
*- I’ve been to HK and are using those memories plus internet searches to help write my tale.
@CSK:
“Try” being the operative word.
If Elon Musk were an ordinary CEO I am betting by now he would have been warned about his social media comments, and fired if he kept it up. But the cult of Elon is very important to Tesla, and it certainly helps their stock price. There are many people who are banking on the “Tesla will change the landscape of…”. Doesn’t matter that many of these changes do not have a large upside in terms of monetization, or that they often fall flat (the Tesla truck does not seem like it will change the landscape of trucks anytime soon). They need the cult of Elon, so unless he goes completely nuts they’ll put up with it. Plus a lot of his fanboys (and to a lesser degree fangirls) love it when he “sticks it to the man”. Because nothing says stick it it the man more than overt anti semitism.
@SenyorDave:
He’s using it as an excuse for why his platform is failing. That’s why he attacked only the ADL and totally ignored the many other organizations that noted a rise in anti-Semitism and other hate speech on his platform since he took over. It’s the age-old tactic of blaming one’s own problems on the Jews.
@CSK:
What do you mean “we” masked rider?
@Kylopod: I can’t help but feel “anti-semitism” or “anti-Zionism” described as anti-semitic, or anti-Likud/Netanyahu described as anti-semitism, are getting so much play because it’s perceived as no longer just a right wing thing and the habits of bothsides in the press run deep.
A philosophical digression: NYT this morning has a piece by Pamela Paul, Progressives Aren’t Liberal. Not a piece I recommend reading, but an example of widely expressed views, including by some here. My take from it is that Ms. Paul spends too much time online and doesn’t recognize how marginal the influence of “progressives” is in the real world. But I can’t prove it. Maybe I’m the one out of touch. In the Hamas/Israel situation both sides are propagandizing furiously and it’s impossible to be sure of much of anything. Last night an IDF spokesman was asked if they’ve found Hamas tunnels under the Al-Shifa hospital. He replied they’d found hundreds of tunnel entrances, but seemed to be artfully avoiding saying, “at the hospital”. Is there a tunnel network? Maybe. At this point I have no idea. Ukraine/Russia isn’t all that much better. I’m a news junkie and I feel I’m losing touch with reality. It’s making me more sympathetic. No, let’s say “understanding”, of the ignorance of the average voter.
@Bill Jempty:
Thanks for the update. I hope you can resolve the sleep stuff! And more importantly, good luck with the effort to transition from self-publishing to contract publishing. Do you have an agent?
@Bill Jempty:
Is a home sleep study an option for you? Have they offered this? Basically, they provide the monitors and equipment, it records your patterns at home, then you drop off the equipment the next day.
@gVOR10:
That may be part of it. However, at least on online forums and other places, I have seen a number of people on the left go well past “anti-Zionism” or “anti-Likud/Netanyahu” on the continuum towards “anti-all-things-Isreal” if not outright “anti-Jews.”
Some of this may be the restriction of trying to comment on complex things in a medium designed for brevity. Or just the excess of activists. Or the nature of platforms that tend to elevate/celebrate controversial content. Or it is just human nature to try and simplify complex moralities into easy binaries (usually whose lives matter more and whose ok to kill when push comes to shove).
Still, it’s out there. This has been a real challenge for many Jewish progressives who I follow who are trying to preserve some form of compassion for all sides in this awful case.
@Matt Bernius:
Yes I do and I have three publishers who want to work with me. To make a long story short, I am mulling the advantages and disadvantages of each. They have been all advised of my heart issues and I have been given till April 1st at least to make up mind. I think I know whom I’ll be choosing but won’t tell my agent till after the holidays. I can therefore complete this year operating still as a S corp.
@Jen: I’m waiting to hear back from the Sleep Center again.
@Matt Bernius: In 2023 being anti-Zionist in the sense most of these people are using it displays a dangerous misunderstanding of the world. Israel exists, it has happened, it’s multiple generations old. That can’t be put back in the bottle, just like all the thousands of other forcible takings in a thousand other locations throughout human history. To fixate on that is to focus on something that can’t be changed and ignore things that can make the situation better. Whatever the rights and wrongs committed 75 years ago a baby born in Tel Aviv today has as much right to that homeland as any other kid born anywhere else. To imagine there is a “pure” way to be born into a homeland is to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and history.
Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Israeli Settlers, religious extremists and bat-shit right wingers use “Zionism” to mean the taking of the entirety of Judea and Samaria, and the driving of all others from the land. So we have one meaning of Zionism as “something that happened and is a fact on the ground”, another as “a spiritual journey or relocation to the country of Israel” and a third as “a grand conquest of which the current state of Israel and the occupied territories are just the start.”
Side question (can there be a side question in the open thread?): More and more I click on a link and it is free to those who register. In the past two days it’s been The Daily Beast at least twice and USA Today once. Is there a general way around this? I hate to register since you give a lot of permissions along with your information
@MarkedMan: WA! Shabu shabu and mapo dubu! It’s would be like if I went back to Daejeon. Massi seh yo!
@Tony W:
the old Ogden Edsel song “kinko the clown ” comes to mind.
https://youtu.be/sJNV4FMpGh8?feature=shared
@Jen: I had the best falafel I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant in the Itaewon district in Seoul. To some degree though, that makes sense given that the restaurant was at the bottom of the hill from the largest mosque in Seoul, too.
@just nutha: The best falafel I ever had was in Paris, at the Ace of Falafel. Not to be confused with the King of Falafel which is right down the block (in fairness we did not try the King of Falafel).
@Bill Jempty: I had two sleep studies done relatively back to back early in my diagnosis. The second was looking for signs of restless leg syndrome. Sadly, I don’t sleep long enough during a sleep study to detect restless leg, so it was all for naught.
Why the pulmonologist needs a second study is beyond me other than that it seems that a lot of pulmonologists are going into sleep medicine these days. Maybe you need to ask him what he’s looking for? (And why the first results don’t satisfy him.)
@MarkedMan:
Zionism is identity politics. Israel is a Jewish state, not a mini-America, an explicitly Jewish state, just as Saudi Arabia is a Muslim state. Single-faith nation states, like single race nation states, are not something pluralistic Americans can approve of. I don’t approve of it, but then I don’t approve of identity politics generally. I am consistent in my dislike of tribalism because tribalism often begins as a defensive approach and then morphs into an aggressive approach. We must band together to defend ourselves . . . by wiping out those other bastards before they come for us. Tribalism weakens a country. It weakens civilization.
In general I believe the world is a better place when we emphasize what we have in common rather than what divides us. Kumbaya. But as you rightly point out – and as I’ve harped on several times – we don’t have a time machine, we cannot repair the past, we live in the present, and are propelled into the future, and while the past informs us, it cannot be used to morally justify every sort of behavior. Israelis point to the historical connection between the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and I’ve never bought that rationale – almost every square meter of planet earth at one point belonged to someone other than whoever has it today. You’d think Americans would grasp this given our own history.
But if I dismiss Israel’s Zionist claims to ownership I have to dismiss Palestinian claims as well. Both are appeals to past injustices. Neither set of injustices can be magicked away. The tribalist/identitarian arguments from both sides are the same bullshit. My great-grandfather blah blah blah. Come to think of it, my great grandparents had land in Ukraine before the pogrom – can I go get it?
I take a pragmatic approach: we’re not giving Manhattan back to the Indians. We’re not even giving Hawaii back to the Hawaiians. Israel is not giving Tel Aviv back to the Arabs. Given the professed American preference for peace and democracy and human rights, what future for the Levant best accomplishes that end?
I don’t have an answer, but I think that’s the right question. I’m open to practical, real-world suggestions that afford the largest number of people the greatest degree of freedom. The extermination of Jews in Israel is not an answer. Nor is the permanent subjugation and second-class citizenship Israel offers – when they aren’t busy suggesting ethnic cleansing.
As a practical matter Israel would only contemplate a two state solution if the countries that have tried three times to exterminate Israel, were themselves to become pluralistic democracies whose word could be relied on. If they could be relied on to enforce democratic norms and human rights in a theoretical Palestinian client state. Israel is convinced – and I think they are dead right – that a Palestinian state would be getting weapons from Iran and/or the Arab states, and would promptly begin firing missiles into Israel. But if you posited an Egypt turned Canada, and a KSA turned Mexico, and for fun let’s make Iran into something obnoxious but not toxic, say, Venezuela, the argument for a two state solution would be irresistible.
George Santos has announced he isn’t running for reelection.
Our short, morbidly hilarious local nightmare is over.
@Matt Bernius:
Personally, I’ve observed anti-Semitism on the left to know that some people are not just against Israel. The thing is, most people are clever enough to conceal it with anti-Israel evidence, I think, and so it’s often a vibe about the way people seem to think there’s a metaphysical truth behind the occupation or whatever, like there’s an order of the world beyond the visible.
To me, this vibe slices like a knife straight into the word ‘Jew’. I have heard Jewish people say Jew and I have heard people like my WASP grandfather say the word Jew and it’s an entirely different word. The former is broad and open, about a tribe of people spread out across the world none of whom have the either/or logic of Christianity. Whereas the latter means only there goes another one. But it’s not something you can prove. For example, my grandfather never said that anything that was not nice about Jewish people. He would just identify someone as Jewish as if it mattered in a specific way and then go on assuming that case was closed: a Jew.
@Kylopod:
And you believed him?
@gVOR10:
Thus, the adage that truth is the first casualty in any war. 🙁
@MarkedMan:
My first thought when I read this was “how does this idea connect to the idea of reparations for Black Americans?” I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about the topic to go further than noting the apparent parallel though, so take it for what it’s worth
@MarkedMan:
I think this is entirely correct.
@Matt Bernius: Antisemitism is the last, great, bipartisan experience in America. There’s more plausible deniability on the left (“we support the Palestinian people!”), so it is harder to identify and root out.
QAnon has routed a bit of the Loony Left antisemites off to the right (the “globalist” fearing crowd, for instance), but there’s a lot left.
For years the BDS crowd has been chock full of antisemites and people who actively flirt with the antisemites. I basically assume that anyone who has been speaking out against Israel years and has made it one of their top concerns for years is either directly impacted or probably an antisemite.
Normal people let it fade into the background when it isn’t the top of the news cycle. It’s a big world, there are lots of other injustices.
@Kathy: There’s a scene in Jackie Brown where Robert De Niro’s character informs Sam Jackson that his girlfriend Melanie is secretly trying to double-cross him, and Jackson takes this news surprisingly nonchalantly. De Niro then asks him why he trusts her, and Jackson replies “I trust Melanie to be Melanie.”
I trust Santos to be Santos. He lies as easily as he breathes, but there’s always a reason behind his lies. He comes straight from the never-back-down, never-apologize MAGA wing of the Republicans, and falsely claiming to be retiring from Congress is doesn’t fit that pattern, as it is at bottom an admission of failure and relenting in the face of his opposition.
I’m not saying I’m 100% sure he won’t run for reelection in the end–hell, even normal politicians go back on promises like this all the time. I’m sure he’s keeping an eye out for signs of his situation changing in a way that gives him newfound confidence he can survive politically if not legally. But I think he wouldn’t be saying this now if he didn’t see the writing on the wall.
@Kylopod:
He doesn’t need to have reason, merely to think he does.
I think the worst thing about this round of covid might by the Paxlovid. Turns out I’m lucky and have a chronic case of “Paxlovid Mouth”. It’s bad. My mouth constantly tastes like I’ve got a bunch of old nickels rolling round in it.
I’m starting to feel better, but not on a happy timeline. Tonight was supposed to be night one of a three day bender. Tonight is already cancelled. Tomorrow isn’t looking good and I’m holding out hope for Saturday night.
The high point of the bender was/is supposed to be seeing Sara Landry. An amazing up and coming hard techno artist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUdq1G8FrHo
Friends, dear friends, I encourage you to click on that link and maybe play a little bit of it. If only to satiate your curiosity as to what would drive me from my convalescent bed with such ferocity. I MUST make this show. I will boil my own blood in my body to be there. However, I highly doubt you will feel the same way.
As part of our boring cutesy-ness on Friday and Saturday nights, when we don’t go out, my partner and I will take our edibles and watch some tv. After some shows I’ll put on dj sets, either on Twitch or Youtube. She has told me that she hates my music. Which is entirely fair, her much is awful. So, the other night I put that Sara set on. It’s amazing. Friends, we made it 15 minutes before my partner turned to me and said, “I HATE THIS SO MUCH! you need to turn it off. It is making me so angry. This is what it’s like to be stuck in a German prison.”
I laughed for 20 minutes straight.
@Michael Reynolds: While we are all rambling about Israel-Palestine, I have two beliefs that are in complete opposition.
1. You cannot have an ethnostate without ethnic cleansing and/or apartheid.
2. An enthostate provides the greatest protection for a traditionally persecuted people.
It’s hard to square those, and we definitely have seen that the Jewish peoples need that level of protection, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Any two state solution will require some ethnic cleansing*. You can draw borders around people as much as possible, but there will inevitably be people on the wrong sides of borders, and carrots and sticks will be required. Make sure both states are viable and semi-secure, pay reparations for past atrocities and present atrocities, and you might be able to get it done with less human suffering than maintaining the status quo forever.
(The IDF has killed about 0.5% of the Palestinian population since October 7th, and there are no signs of it stopping, so “less human suffering” should be balanced against that)
A single state solution either requires giving up on Israel as a Jewish state (bad idea for millions of Jews) or apartheid or real, honest-to-goodness large scale genocide. Those all seem worse.
It’s all bad choices. But I don’t see Israel’s current course of action (or the previous few decades of actions) as useful in getting to a stable two state solution, so all the atrocities are a waste even from the most cold-hearted “the ends justify the means” perspective.
Israel is consistently pursuing worse choices. We shouldn’t be supporting them.
——
*: Even my “Spare Dakota” plan would require ethnic cleansing. I don’t think we can ever get it down to “eminent domain of large chunks of Brooklyn to build Barclays Center” level of moving people about**, but that should be a goal.
**: They destroyed my favorite bar, and displaced thousands of people. It was a tragedy. But compared to Gaza, it was nothing.
I still think DePape should have pleaded insanity.
I understand that’s hard to pull off in court, but I wonder if he could have cut a deal with prosecutors for a lengthy stay at a psychiatric facility and minimal/no jail time.
Or plain any kind of deal. It’s not as though he had any kind of reasonable defense.
@Modulo Myself: I’ve always been weirded out a little when people describe someone to me and mention that they are black or gay or trans. Asshats I can understand, because they are usually talking about someone who did something bad and they think they are making a point, but a fair number of times it comes from truly good people and it’s usually something like, “This really nice black man did x”. It seems very odd to me and makes me uncomfortable. But I’ve never heard anyone who felt the need to point out that someone is Jewish , except for very specific things – weddings, funeral services, etc. I guess I just don’t travel in those circles, even tangentially.
@Michael Reynolds:
Half of Israel might, but not the Likud. The Likud is running the show and has not and will not allow a two-state solution.
@Kathy:..I understand that’s hard to pull off in court,..
For Some:
@MarkedMan:
I think that’s mostly an effect of Jewish assimilation in the modern age. Unless someone has a visible sign such as a yarmulke or the distinct garb of Hasidim, most people can’t tell whether a person is Jewish just by looking. The concept of a “Jewish look” was always iffy and shrouded in stereotypes that were never altogether accurate (few Jews have ever had “hook noses”), but any ethnic features they may have once had have become diluted by intermarriage, conversion, adoption, and so on. Distinct Jewish accents and dialects are also a lot less common than they once were. The Alter Kockers who are still around are, well, Alt.
@dazedandconfused:
Likud is not the permanent government of Israel. We hope.
Bibi is burned with a lot of Israelis and a hell of a lot of Americans and Europeans.
@Gustopher:
Bibi is not all of Israel, he is, hopefully, on his way out. If we go forward with Bibi, no, there’s no hope at least near-term. But if a mod/left coalition comes in, that may change. My goal is peace, obviously. When I analyze it I’m not assuming a perpetual Likud, I’m trying to step back from current governments – something we’ll also have to do with Palestinian leadership – and look at the power dynamics of the countries and people involved, not just the current governments.
Looked at from that POV the peace imperative is more complicated than ‘ceasefire now,’ because ceasefire now is one-sided Israeli surrender. Hamas, speaking of current governments, will never keep to a deal, they’ll be firing missiles at Israel within 48 hours. If Israel responds, the world will blame Israel. Any ceasefire is inevitably one-sided and given that, is a surrender to Hamas. We’re telling the Red Army to hang back and let Hitler out of his bunker to avoid the loss of civilian life. Short term sounds great. Long term: more war, more death and no peace.
Lots of things would be possible if the ME were the EU, if Israel were surrounded by something other than brutal dictatorships, countries that have tried repeatedly to annihilate them. Then Israel wouldn’t need strategic depth that requires them to hold the heights. Then a two state solution would be possible because it’d be no more threatening to Israel than Belgium splitting off a Flemish state would threaten France.
Israel is paranoid and has good reason to be. If they had less reason, and thus less paranoia, we’d have a path. But given the world’s predictable reaction, Israel will come out of this more paranoid and with even better reason. I hope a better Israeli government will rein that in.
@Michael Reynolds: Probably right about that, the 40 weeks of protest prior to 10/7 has freed the Israeli press to go apeshit on Bibi. The long support of HAMAS, the stripping of forces away from Gaza to support the settlers. Haaretz and now even J-Po are working him over daily. Unlikely he will survive.
However Likud is not just Bibi, and their 20 years of reign has allowed them to set Israel on an all but impossible to reverse course of ethnic cleansing for the West Bank. The two-state solution died with Rabin, it is but a cynically dishonest talking point today.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1211987812/israel-hamas-west-bank-gaza-war-conflict-idf
@Michael Reynolds:
Right now, that would be Syria and Iran. There has been formal peace with Egypt since 1979 or so, and normalization with Jordan followed at some very much latter point. More recently relations were normalized with the UAE and Oman. The Saudis don’t seem to give much of a damn anymore, and they’re far more worried about Iran.
This leaves Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon. If any of them can threaten Israel, then the latter has worse problems than Bibi and Hamas.
Syria is still a mess, and Iran can’t project power that far, nor has it deployed or even tested a nuke.
So Israel ins’t facing an existential threat, at least not militarily from neighboring countries.
@Gustopher:
Ethnostate or not, people are more safe where the nation’s majority is nominally committed to (or forced to be committed to) the rule of law, justice, liberty, equality, and prosperity for all. These are the commitments that create the conditions for peace and domestic tranquility.
Unfortunately, Israelis and Palestinians are currently lead by corruptocrats committed to zealotry and extremism. They have deliberately undermined democracy, enabled Hamas terrorism and Israeli settler terrorism/colonialism, and stoked hostilities.
Of course their chosen has not made Palestinians and Israelis safe. Just like electing Trump and those who want to send troops into Mexico will not make Americans safe, but lead to unrest, disorder, and death.
BTW should anyone care, the Senate passed the CR by a vote of 87-11 (who knew there were so many RINOs?)
@Bill Jempty:
I am ashamed to say that my family watched Barnaby Jones religiously every week. It came on right after Cannon* — the one-two punch of William Conrad’s spherical toughness and Buddy Ebsen’s gerontological shrewdness was unbeatable.
*Apparently Douglas Adams got the idea for the unfortunate whale in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — the one who gets created by the infinite improbability drive just long enough to muse about existential issues before going splat — from watching an episode of Cannon in which random people were dying left and right for no reason.
It’s late in the day to note it, but I was tickled no end to see “out of pocket” as the answer to a Celebrity Jeopardy! question this week. They even poked at the two inconsistent meanings!
Let me just say, once again, that I do not freakin care about Hunter Biden, unless the same level of scrutiny is applied to the Trump kids in ALLLLLLLL of their business dealings, before their Dad was in office, WHILE he was in office, and what happened afterwards.
It’s crazy how when something bad about Republicans comes out, the Free Beacon and the Washington Examiner are first past the post with a new Hunter Biden’s dick pics story.