Friday, May 31, 2024
Top Down Messaging
The way things can work is that that president and other "respectables" can stay out of the fray while some noisier members of Congress along with media surrogates go a bit more wild (on any issue). That's never how things work with Dems because instead of complementing their noisier surrogates, they often distance themselves, which then just leads to intra-party tension.
This is also why donors don't fund media. Even Think Progress was too spicy for them and had to be terminated.
This is also why donors don't fund media. Even Think Progress was too spicy for them and had to be terminated.
"Misleading"
My favorite journalist thing is when people object to headlines - or, in this case, just PRESENT THE HEADLINE WITHOUT COMMENTARY - and they complain it is being misrepresented.
Talk to whoever is writing your fucking headlines! Headlines matter!!!
Also the headline isn't even misleading here. It's the same piece that gets written 50 times every time Trump face mild consequences. It's precisely the coverage Pitchbot makes fun of regularly!
Bonus to MagHabs for breaking down that news/opinion wall by getting in on this! Trump voters love Trump has been the consistent reporting theme for 8 years now.
Twitter still serves the purpose of letting them tell on themselves.
Do You Do Disgusting, Crass, Nasty Politics About The Fact That Your Opponent Is A Convicted Felon?
Dems are telling themselves not to make too much of Trump's convictions, and then they'll be complaining about how journalists aren't doing it for them.
If you want the press to refer to "convicted felon Donald Trump" then you have to do it yourself!!!
This has been a general thing over the last few years, especially. Sure media coverage is unbalanced, but you gotta hold the press conference, run to the CNN cameras, tweet some memes about the orange man wearing orange, whatever! You can't just tweet "imagine the press coverage if..."Guidance from the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee advised partisans to stress that “our justice system worked as it is supposed to” and shows that Republicans will “bend the knee to former President Trump,” but included no specific attacks around the facts of the case.It does not look likely to be much of an issue going forward as well — especially if they’re not getting a signal from the top of the ticket to drive the point home.“I don’t think [Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries or leadership will use leadership capital to talk about Trump,” one senior Democratic aide said.
If you want the press to refer to "convicted felon Donald Trump" then you have to do it yourself!!!
You can make arguments (maybe even correct ones) that the president himself needs to stand back a bit, but the idea that the rest of them should too...
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Don't See How...
Justice Merchan:
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) May 30, 2024
"We, the jury, have a verdict."
... GUILTY COUNT 1
GUILTY COUNT 2
... GUILTY 34 COUNTS
Apologize To The Patriotic Troops For Your Vile Slander
They took my advice: this is some Ari Fleischer-level shit!
Pentagon spokesperson plays the patriotism card when asked about the failure of the Gaza aid pier, saying: "You have men and women out there separated from their families who are putting others first."
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 30, 2024
"If you want to characterize that as a failure, I leave it to you." pic.twitter.com/ThLMW5C3ZZ
A Problem From Hell
Once it was genocide, now it's disobedient employees.
Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said he was given a choice between resignation and dismissal after preparing a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, which was cancelled at the last minute by USAID leadership last week.You can get mad at the people who are doing this, or get mad at the people who annoy you on the internet for pointing it out.
...
Smith, a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health, and nutrition chose to resign on Monday after four years at USAID. In his resignation letter to the head of the agency, Samantha Power, he complained about the inconsistencies in USAID’s approach to different countries and humanitarian crises, and the general treatment of Palestinians.
“I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race,” he wrote.
Sure Why Not
I suspsect this is not a good idea, something everyone has agreed with for a couple of years and then...
From Allies and Advisers, Pressure Grows on Biden to Allow Attacks on Russian TerritoryLots of things are above my pay grade and Putin is the baddie here, but the Suck On This foreign policy doctrine always chooses escalation over de-escalation. I'm not saying there are good options for the latter here, just that too many people in positions of influence don't think much about the consequences of the former. How has it been working out?
President Biden is weighing fears of escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary as he considers whether to let Ukraine shoot American weapons into Russia.
Happy (One Day Late) Suck On This Day!
Tom Friedman, 21 years+one day ago, defining the Foreign Policy doctrine of the 21st century.
I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
...
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.
...
What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"
You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna let it grow?
Well Suck. On. This.
Okay.
That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Sounds Bad
Have to do something about this practice.
NEW: Yesterday, Michael Fanone — the former police officer who was nearly killed by Trump rioters who actually believed the former president's lies about the 2020 election — called Donald Trump an "authoritarian" with "a violence fetish."
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) May 29, 2024
Hours later, his mom was swatted.
It's Almost June
It's pretty clear to me that Biden's people thought they'd figured out a way to push Netanyahu out in February and then that didn't happen and then...
Forgetting the moral dimension, a lot of Savvy people gambled on the fact that this would all be over and we could move on and start talking about The Bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act or whatever. Now they are, essentially, "tweeting through it" as if that plan worked out even though it obviously didn't.
Maybe a few more people with actual influence should've tried to use it several months ago. I'm just a dumb guy with a blog.
Forgetting the moral dimension, a lot of Savvy people gambled on the fact that this would all be over and we could move on and start talking about The Bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act or whatever. Now they are, essentially, "tweeting through it" as if that plan worked out even though it obviously didn't.
Maybe a few more people with actual influence should've tried to use it several months ago. I'm just a dumb guy with a blog.
The High Priests
Society has a big of a problem when it's most powerful people are utter shitheads, and the people tasked with covering them have an extreme bias towards maintaining the myth of their brilliance and superiority.
The police in Fairfax County, Va., received an unusual phone call on Feb. 15, 2021. A young couple claimed they were being harassed by the wife of a Supreme Court justice.
“Somebody in a position of authority needs to talk to her and make her stop,” said the 36-year-old man making the complaint, according to a recording of the call reviewed by The New York Times. The officer on the line responded that there was little the police could do: Yelling was not a crime.
...
Mrs. Alito happened to be standing outside. According to interviews with Ms. Baden and her husband, as well as messages they sent to friends at the time, Mrs. Alito ran toward their car and yelled something they did not understand. The couple continued driving, they said, and as they passed the Alito home again to exit the cul-de-sac, Mrs. Alito appeared to spit toward the vehicle.
All Kayfabe
And when I say it corrupts everyone, I mean everyone. Every single person person - paid, or unpaid - who goes out and defends this bullshit every day.
I know, bad orange man bad, blah blah.
Everything Is Bullshit
Hard to do a job like that.
A career State Department official involved in the Biden administration’s contentious debates over Israel’s conduct in Gaza resigned this week, citing disagreements with a recently published U.S. government report that claimed that Israel was not impeding humanitarian assistance to Gaza, two officials told The Washington Post.The thing about a corrupt system is that it corrupts everyone involved.
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Whoopsie Doodle
Ah well, there was no other choice.
The temporary pier constructed by the US military to transport aid into Gaza broke apart in heavy seas on Sunday in a major blow to the American-led effort to create a maritime corridor for humanitarian supplies into the war-torn enclave, according to four US officials
Special Relationships
The UK is our ally, whatever that means, but I would like to think that if they had dropped a nuke on Buenos Aires (not even clear they are capable of this, but if they were) in 1982, we might have rethought that at least a little bit. Actually, I'm pretty sure that even Saint Ronnie, bff of Maggie, would have!
Things change.
Things change.
Red Lines
All this talk about whether Israel's latest action had crossed a "red line" really is war-on-terror era childish nonsense, and everyone pretending it is real is just lying to you.
There is no "red line." The issue is not whether Israel finally broke the rules. This has been going on since October. Everybody knows what is happening. Either they support it or they don't. Support 😃 is more honest than support 😔.
Sounds Bad
The kind of story the people in charge ignore and everyone else pretends to forget about by the following day.
The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
...
The Mossad also took a keen interest in Bensouda’s family members and obtained transcripts of secret recordings of her husband, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Israeli officials then attempted to use the material to discredit the prosecutor.
Monday, May 27, 2024
Everyone Who Is Anyone Will Pretend To Believe This
Ah, yes, it was a precision strike, oopsie.
As I said, just bring back Ari Fleischer if this is what we're doing (I know this is not coming from Biden's people, but they will almost certainly echo it). I want competent mendacity!
(what he means is they didn't expect there to be so many videos)BREAKING: The IDF opens an investigation into the air strike in Rafah on Sunday night. The IDF says its operational assessment ahead of the strike was that no civilians were going to be harmed
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 27, 2024
As I said, just bring back Ari Fleischer if this is what we're doing (I know this is not coming from Biden's people, but they will almost certainly echo it). I want competent mendacity!
Lunch
Shop while you eat! (Ad, I get a commission).
Must be some Memorial Day sales, as is the tradition.
Well If He Says So
Still just printing up whatever he farts out.
May 25 (Reuters) - U.S. businessman Elon Musk recently told investors that his artificial intelligence startup xAI is planning to build a supercomputer to power the next version of its AI chatbot Grok, The Information reported on Saturday citing a presentation to investors.
Musk said he wants to get the proposed supercomputer running by the fall of 2025, as per the report, adding that xAI could partner with Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab to develop the massive computer.
Thousands Of Words
Precisely.
The first point I’d like to make about this is: Duh. Biden’s policies are better than Trump’s and if Biden loses and Trump wins politics would get worse. Do progressive activists, who are as a group deeply engaged in the issues, need thousands of words to understand this? To put a finer point on it: Who is this for? Setting aside the small number of accelerationists, who as I mentioned above are foolish, where exactly is this enormous group of left wing activists who are unable to understand that Trump is worse than Biden? For one thing, I am on the left and I know a lot of people on the left who go out in the streets and protest Israel, and in November, most of those people who are politically engaged will vote for Biden, because he is not as bad as Trump. Some portion of them will refuse to vote for Biden out of sheer disgust at the direct role he has played in the murder of thousands of civilians. In the context of 150 million voters across America, the number of those people is small. To the extent that there are places like Michigan where there are significant pockets of people who, you know, have had direct relatives blown up in Gaza and who therefore might not be able to bring themselves to pull the lever for the guy who sent the bombs, any electoral damage is 100% the fault of the Biden administration itself. Look in the mirror.
Why can’t progressives be more enthusiastic? Beutler writes as though there is some enormous group of highly engaged left wing activists who personally command large numbers of votes and who are making a tactical choice to boycott the election in order to try to exert leverage on Biden administration policy. In reality, this is just not true. Yes, there are some left wing activists who will not vote for Biden. Is this group going to throw the election to Trump? No. What Biden needs to worry about is not highly engaged activists making some considered calculation not to vote for him, but instead millions of regular ass people who will not vote for him because they don’t feel excited about him. They will stay home because he has not given them an inspiring thing to vote for. That is approximately one thousand times more likely as a scenario for Biden to lose than “left wing activists marshal millions to stay home as negotiating leverage.” Obama excited people. So they turned out to vote. In 2020, people hated Trump so much that they were excited to turn out to vote. Now, Biden is the incumbent and he owns what the government is doing and he has achieved the nifty trick of actively supporting a crime against humanity and isolating himself on the world stage and thereby causing deep moral revulsion within the left wing of his party at the exact same time that he needs them to rally to support him during election season. This is not a problem of miscalculation of leverage; it is a problem of doing something horrible and turning off his political allies right when he is supposed to be pulling them into his coalition. I think that most of the left, including me, will end up voting for Biden, because he is better than Trump. (Polls show Biden winning overwhelmingly among Democratic-leaning swing state voters who pay attention to the news, a group that includes left wing activists. This is not the group that will lose him the election.) But they will not be excited about it, because Biden himself has made that impossible. And that lack of excitement in the Democratic Party’s base will sap the Biden campaign of the energy it needs to turn out voters more broadly.
Is that the fault of the left wing activists? Should those who vote for Biden grudgingly be lectured because they didn’t pretend to be jazzed about the guy who shipped 2000 pound bombs over to be dropped on residential areas? No. Again, if the Biden administration is looking for the culprit who has put its prospects in danger: look in the mirror.
Sunday, May 26, 2024
They Know Even More Than What They Say
A problem with journalists/editors not reporting things - or, similarly, having off the record conversations that contradict what is public - is that going forward those reporters end up talking around it. That is, they report on subjects pretending they don't know a key piece of information.
The whole information stream becomes corrupted.
It is like all the reporters in the 90s quoting Republicans bashing the evil immoral Clinton while knowing full well half of them had secret side families.
Do readers really understand what is happening? If not then what are they doing?
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Biden Needs To Be Better/Communicate Better On Abortion
That is pretty standard campaign advice. People might disagree with the main point, or disagree with what is possible, but nobody responds with "yes but the bad orange man is WORSE so lol suck it."
I don't know why Gaza is somehow on a different plane. I mean, I do know, but people should just be honest about it.
I don't know why Gaza is somehow on a different plane. I mean, I do know, but people should just be honest about it.
It Ate All The Shitposts
Frequently you realize that people working in tech companies can't possibly use their own products. Or, at least, the bosses don't.
High Priests
Amazing stuff.
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a Washington Post reporter in January 2021 that an upside-down American flag recently flown on their flagpole was “an international signal of distress” and indicated that it had been raised in response to a neighborhood dispute.Democracy dies in darkness or, like, whatever, man.
Martha-Ann Alito made the comments when the reporter went to the couple’s Fairfax County, Va., home to follow up on a tip about the flag, which was no longer flying when he arrived.
...
The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.
What Can Biden DOOOO
I wish some good faith people (many people are not) would UPDATE THEIR PRIORS, as the kids say, a bit about Biden and recognize that they spent months running interference for him on this while his critics, who they attacked, were completely correct about how Biden's every fake criticism of Israel was indeed fake!
I don't like what is happening and I also don't like being lied to by people who can barely pretend that their lies even have to be convincing. Bring back Ari Fleischer if that's the governing style you are embracing! He was at least good at this shit!
The US and the UK will reject the international court of justice order directing Israel to end its offensive on Rafah after slowly blurring their red lines that once stated that they could not support a military offensive in Rafah.The next step is to understand there is no "day after" coming before the November election and recognize the consequences of that (You can say it doesn't matter for the election if that's what you think, but then you don't get to yell at the people it matters to. They don't matter! You just said it!)
I don't like what is happening and I also don't like being lied to by people who can barely pretend that their lies even have to be convincing. Bring back Ari Fleischer if that's the governing style you are embracing! He was at least good at this shit!
Friday, May 24, 2024
Infrared Lines
🔴 UPDATE #Israel #Palestine #ICJ
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 24, 2024
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz told US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Israel has no intention of following a ruling by the UN’s top court, and will continue fighting in Rafah.
More here ⤵️https://t.co/tRs6ONBSEu
Siri, Why Is There Pork Lard On Ensaïmadas
Leaving aside the "turned up to 11" bigotry from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it's quite an interesting view of life in Spain historically, especially for Jews, who did not fare very well subsequently!
Going To Be Another Great Day For The International Rules-Based Order
Jake Sullivan's soul shrivels a bit more.
The International Court of Justice ordered Israel on Friday to “immediately halt” its offensive in Rafah, in a high-profile rebuke that adds to global pressure on Israel over its war Gaza. The court cited “exceptionally grave” developments for the “extremely vulnerable” population in Rafah, and said it was “not convinced that the evacuation efforts” Israel put in place for Palestinian civilians in Gaza are sufficient to “alleviate the immense risk.”Well he'll spend the rest of his long life at some noshow thinktank job, so who is to say if it is good or bad?
One
Oopsie:Here's our @CNN investigation. Others are named in this story & our digital write. They have not shown up in jail records. https://t.co/wuXoSx5gGy
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) May 24, 2024
The young man sporting the white mask and a white hoodie in widely shared video clips is Edan On, a local 18-year-old high school senior, his mother confirmed to CNN, though she later said he denies being at UCLA. Video shows On joining the counterprotesters while waving a long white pole. At one point, he strikes a pro-Palestinian protester with the pole, and appears to continue to strike him even when he was down, as fellow counterprotesters piled on.Mom has bad OPSEC.
“Edan went to bully the Palestinian students in the tents at UCLA and played the song that they played to the Nukhba terrorists in prison!” his mother boasted in Hebrew on Facebook, referencing Hamas. She circled an image of him that had been broadcast on the local news.
Thursday, May 23, 2024
It's Groundhog Day, Again
I recommend reading this article in the BBC, and then realizing it's dated Dec. 12, 2023.
Is That The Good Auschwitz Or The Bad One
I keep saying this, but I don't think it's generally appreciated how (some) conservatives see Nazis as both the worst thing ever and something to aspire to depending on who they imagine is wearing the swastika cap.
Is It Any Wonder The Monkey's Confused
"Republicans are going to vote against the bipartisan border bill..."
"bipartisan border security bill" which one party supports and the other doesn't.
Can you learn to speak human please? I follow this stuff and I don't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Chasing Haley Voters
There was zero chance Haley would endorse Biden, but successfully chasing her voters seems to require, at a minimum, her doing a coy "I'm going to write in Ronald Reagan" kind of nonsense.
A useful exercise - one I do myself occasionally - is to ask yourself just how bad the Democratic nominee would have to be before you would actually go pull the lever for the Republican? House, Senate, Governor, President? What would make you say "wow, that Dem is a piece of shit, time to hand it to the Republicans instead?"
I might stay home. I might not bother to jump through the minor hoops to get an absentee ballot or similar if I needed to. But actually go vote for, I dunno, Mitt Romney for president? Don't think I can!
Why do people think Republicans are different? Sure there are swingy voters, but the ones who vote in primaries?
Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump in 2024 electionNothing is that straightforward, but the idea that dedicated Republican voters - the kind who actually show up to vote in primaries - are itching to vote for a Democrat is not a solid idea.
A useful exercise - one I do myself occasionally - is to ask yourself just how bad the Democratic nominee would have to be before you would actually go pull the lever for the Republican? House, Senate, Governor, President? What would make you say "wow, that Dem is a piece of shit, time to hand it to the Republicans instead?"
I might stay home. I might not bother to jump through the minor hoops to get an absentee ballot or similar if I needed to. But actually go vote for, I dunno, Mitt Romney for president? Don't think I can!
Why do people think Republicans are different? Sure there are swingy voters, but the ones who vote in primaries?
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Nobody Could Have Predicted
The kind of revelation that they should have had last October.
The Biden administration fears Israel is disastrously squandering its opportunity for victory against Hamas, losing its best chance to eliminate the group’s hold on Gaza and threat to the Israeli people.Of course if they really believed this was genuinely an effort by Israel to get rid of Hamas, instead of murdering or expelling as many Palestinians as they could get away with before the US stopped them, then Biden's people are dumber than I imagine!
Top officials are publicly calling Israel’s strategy in Gaza self-defeating and likely to open the door to Hamas’ return — a level of criticism of the Middle East ally not seen since the war began in October.
The officials say Israel’s government has failed to hold parts of Gaza after clearing them, has turned the civilian population and the rest of the world against it with widespread bombing and inadequate humanitarian aid, and enabled Hamas to recruit more fighters.
America's Worst University
Yale University.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Prominent Atlantic Writer Is Very Concerned About The Atlantic
The primary conduit for this stuff in the US is her own magazine!Everyone should read Project Over Zero's report on LGBTQ scapegoating - it's an analysis of how this tactic has been used in authoritarian campaigns around the worldhttps://t.co/pSnCY8IHAW
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) May 21, 2024
Vibes
From an electoral perspective, "the president appearing to have his wallet stolen regularly by a country smaller (population) than Sweden" isn't a great look.
I mean, even if you approve of what's going on there, our guy getting pantsed daily isn't how it's supposed to be for The United States Of Fucking America.
Big loser energy.
I mean, even if you approve of what's going on there, our guy getting pantsed daily isn't how it's supposed to be for The United States Of Fucking America.
Big loser energy.
My rule: Never listen to what Bibi tells you in private in English. Only watch what he says in public in Hebrew. For months, the Biden team has beseeched Netanyahu to articulate a post-Gaza vision that would involve Palestinian and Arab control over Gaza and a long-term pathway to demilitarized Palestinian statehood — so that the United States is not facilitating an Israeli occupation of Gaza, along with the West Bank — and to pave the way for a U.S.-Saudi security pact that could also produce normalized relations between Israel and the Saudis.
Netanyahu has said no to all of it. He did, though, show his gratitude to Biden by having his parliamentary majority give Elise Stefanik, a hack Republican congresswoman with no foreign policy standing whatsoever — and a person groveling to become Donald Trump’s vice president — the extraordinary honor of giving an address Sunday in the Knesset, where she slammed the U.S. president and praised Trump.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
So Unexpected
Much like Blinken pretending that peace and justice are coming in Gaza, I was fake believing that Trump was going to testify this time for sure. Oh well.
Off Ramps
Almost every day there's a new one and yet...
Jerusalem — Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, accusing the news organization of violating the country's new ban on Al Jazeera. The Qatari satellite channel is among thousands of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP and other news organizations. The AP denounced the move.
The International Rules-Based Order
There it is.
Now, of course, this situation, unfortunately lies on the San Andreas fault of international politics and strategic interests. And, of course, I've had some elected leaders speak to me and very -- you know, be very blunt. This court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin, was what one senior leader told me.
"Equivalence"
Biden's people and nutbags like Lindsey Graham are in agreement that it was WRONG WRONG WRONG for the ICC to establish an "equivalence" between Hamas and Israel.
Of course if they had requested to charge Netanyahu and not Hamas that would have been worse.
The only solution was, of course, not to charge Netanyahu!
A good reminder of The Discourse from the old days.
Of course if they had requested to charge Netanyahu and not Hamas that would have been worse.
The only solution was, of course, not to charge Netanyahu!
A good reminder of The Discourse from the old days.
It's A Trap
Just data harvesting honeypots, now.
"Please enter all your corporate secrets into our chatbot."
And our overlords are fake worried about TikTok privacy issues.
But We Had Almost Solved It
I bet there is some truth to the belief of of the evil clowns in the Biden administration that they had been working towards some solution involving easing Netanyahu out, and the ICC has made that more difficult. I mean true that they believed it, not true that they actually were doing it.
On their 37th round of 3 card monte, and still convinced they're going to win it!
These are not smart people, nor are they good people. It is very easy to con people who believe they are supergeniuses. Sullivan and Blinken are obviously dumbasses. It's depressing!
We're now getting Ari Fleischer/Bush era level bullshit about "equivalence." Is this nice? Is this helpful?
On their 37th round of 3 card monte, and still convinced they're going to win it!
These are not smart people, nor are they good people. It is very easy to con people who believe they are supergeniuses. Sullivan and Blinken are obviously dumbasses. It's depressing!
We're now getting Ari Fleischer/Bush era level bullshit about "equivalence." Is this nice? Is this helpful?
Monday, May 20, 2024
Their Guy
Oh well.
UK’s Karim Khan elected next ICC prosecutor, will replace controversial Bensouda
Said to be Israel’s preferred candidate, British lawyer will likely decide whether to move ahead with planned probe of alleged Israeli, Hamas war crimes; Bensouda leaves in June
By AGENCIES and TOI STAFF
13 February 2021, 12:30 am
...
Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Israeli officials supported Khan’s candidacy behind the scenes, and consider him a pragmatist who shies away from politicization.
The Israeli Legal System
They were about to arrest all the baddies but then the ICC ruined it, and now more innocent people in Gaza have to be killed.
How does this make any sense?Biden calls the ICC moves "outrageous." Blinken says the US "fundamentally rejects the announcement" and accuses prosecutor @KarimKhanQC of a "rush to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed." https://t.co/JZwnaKNiUd
— Alex Marquardt (@MarquardtA) May 20, 2024
narrator: it does not make senseKhan's decision to seek arrest warrants against Israeli leaders undermined quiet negotiations the prosecutor himself had held with Israel and the U.S. in recent weeks to discuss the investigation, U.S. and Israeli officials told me. My story on @axioshttps://t.co/u5UPnhq0jr
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 20, 2024
ICC
Bad timing, really.
July 26, 2023...
President Biden has quietly ordered the U.S. government to begin sharing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to officials familiar with the matter, signaling a major shift in American policy.
Since the International Criminal Court was created by a 1998 treaty to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, administrations of both parties have viewed it with wariness and sometimes hostility. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has helped thaw those relations.
In The Now
I am the age that Maureen Dowd was in 2004. Say what you want about the Maureen Dowd of 2004 (and I said plenty!), her references then were, like, Sex and the City, something contemporary at the time. The issue here isn't that people who get older should be pushed off the stage, it's that we should understand that they perhaps don't have much to say about The Kids Today and similar.
Andy Rooney, what ever his merits, understood that he was a cranky old fart. It was his schtick! He didn't spend half his "act" getting mad at college students for not thinking he was cool and fun.
Imagine thinking Bill Maher cares about anything except Bill Maher:
Ah, the center, in charge of everything all the time and yet still the endlessly besieged source of sanity:
Andy Rooney, what ever his merits, understood that he was a cranky old fart. It was his schtick! He didn't spend half his "act" getting mad at college students for not thinking he was cool and fun.
Aside from the rather unfortunate suggestion here, obviously neither of these people know what's on the history channel these days:
His range may be explained by something Maher, a Cornell history major, writes in his book: “I watch the History Channel like most guys watch Pornhub.”
Maher evokes the twin archetypes of the wisecracking kid who sat behind you in school and the grumpy uncle who sits next to you at Thanksgiving. He’s a rebel with a cause: He actually cares about the things he complains about, so there’s heart behind the cynicism.
Ah, the center, in charge of everything all the time and yet still the endlessly besieged source of sanity:
“Why can’t everybody live in my world, in the middle, where we’re not nuts?” he wondered, ordering a shot of tequila to go with his margherita pizza. The dedicated health freak, opponent of treating obesity as body positivity, and Ozempic skeptic has a small bottle with a dropper, dripping into his sparkling water a product called Jing, a bubbly water enhancer with no aspartame, gluten or carbs.
Time Keeps On Ticking
Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but the geniuses who thought Gaza would be "wrapped up" by the end of January and that Biden would go on a victory tour, arm in arm with Bibi, celebrating their deal with the Saudis, were not making bad predictions but wishcasting an impossible future.
It's almost June.
It's almost June.
The IDF assesses the fighting in Gaza will last at least another six months, in order to completely stop Hamas from operating as a militant governing body in the Gaza Strip.
The Rules-Based International Order
Which Biden flunky gets to go out and shit on the ICC today?
The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Monday.It's an opportunity for the US to let Netanyahu and Gallant be the sineaters for Israel, which in some sense they want (at least Natanyahu), but, I suspect, NOT LIKE THAT.
Khan said the ICC is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades and better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
And What Does That Say About Them
Obviously it isn't the most important thing about it, but the events in Gaza have also revealed that the top level of the Biden administration is filled with Bush administration-level evil clowns and do we think this is good? Do we think we can trust them on other important issues?
Aside from the good/bad issue, people on the D side have too much misplaced belief in the idea that "we" are, at worst, Team Competence despite the frequent evidence.
Anyway, it isn't demanding a purity pony to expect that these people have any idea what they are doing.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
This Is Just How Journalism Works, You Fool, You Imbecile, You Moron
Any time journalists get caught trading access for PR, that is how the rest of them respond. Trump trial transcript with Michael Cohen (pdf):
Q. So, talking for a few minutes about Ms. Haberman, who does she work for?
A. She is with the New York Times.
Q. And over the years well, let me ask you this: When did you first meet Ms. Haberman ?
A. Over 20 years ago.
Q. So you met before so early 2000?A. Yes.
Q. Over the years, you have a very strong would you describe your relationship with her very strong?
A. I would .
Q. You asked her to write positive stories about you correct ?
A. Correct.
Q. As a matter of fact, when you started in your official role in 2017 as President Trump's Personal Attorney, you asked her to write a story and say what a great idea it was?
A. I asked her if she would write a story.
Q. That was my question saying how good it was that you had that role for President Trump; right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And , in exchange for that, you would give tips to Ms. Haberman ; correct ?
A. Not in exchange, I would use Ms. Haberman if the story was something that I believed the New York Times would run, and if it wasn't the New York Times style story, I would go to a different newspaper.
Q. But there were a number of times when you gave Ms. Haberman a scoop, as you testified about, on Tuesday?
A. Yes, sir.
...
Q. My question is, the reason why one of the reasons why you want relationships with reporters is to give you an opportunity to respond before an article is written right?
A. Correct .
Q. To give you an opportunity to push information to the reporter if you think an article should be written ; correct?
A. Correct .
Q. Also to shape an article --so, maybe that's not the word you would use, you can pick the word , but to make the article come out in a way as favorable to you or at the time President Trump as possible; right?
A. That is correct .
Q. So the example I just went through with Ms. Haberman, you had several reporters where you had the same relationship?
A. Yes, sir.
Happy Birthday, Rudy
Rudy Giuliani’s 80th birthday bash in Palm Beach was stormed “like it was Normandy” as the former New York City mayor was served with notice of his Arizona indictment, sources told The Post.Noun, verb, 9/11, one last time...
In front of nearly 75 guests, two officials with Arizona’s attorney general’s office arrived at the shindig around 11 p.m. to hand Giuliani the papers in the case alleging he and 17 others were involved in a plot to overturn the 2020 election, the sources said.
Some partygoers started screaming and one woman even cried as Giuliani was served.
“It’s unfortunate that they chose to barge up and startle guests during a celebration of this man’s 80th birthday,” Goodman told The Post.I'm no smart law-talking dude, but I do not think that if you manage to hide for 90 days you win. Not how it worked in The Fugitive!
Rudy Giuliani’s bizarre 80th birthday Amazon gift registry includes Armani cologne, an electric razor and ceiling paint “They could’ve shown a little more respect for the man who comforted the nation following September 11th and who stands up for law enforcement and the men and women in blue.”
Friday, May 17, 2024
American Dreaming
Haven't checked in for awhile - maybe there's still some hope for the place!
The country’s largest international supermarket chain will open a food court at American Dream in the next few weeks, the mega mall announced Wednesday.Or not
H Mart will occupy 16,860-square-feet inside the shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands, making it the largest H Mart food hall in the Northeast.
Triple Five Group, the mall’s owner, borrowed about $1.1 billion in the municipal bond market to help finance the $5 billion project. About $300 million of the securities, backed by New Jersey economic development grants sold to investors to fund the development, didn’t make their February interest payment, according to a filing that same month, the fourth straight time that the semi-annual interest payment was missed.Absolutely amazing:
Gross sales for the mall’s retail, attractions, entertainment, dining and parking rose 27% to just under $148 million in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, according to a municipal bond filing."Off the pace."
...
While sales are picking up, they remain off the pace of the nearly $2 billion that a 2017 study projected the mall would bring in during its first year of operations.
I Blame Bad Parenting
FLASH: Brent Bozell IV, seen here leaving court with Brent Bozell III, sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in federal prison for his role in the Capitol attack.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) May 17, 2024
I asked him if he still thinks the 2020 election was stolen, he declined comment.
Reporting with @JulesJester. pic.twitter.com/TlC78aGqN8
Lifestyle Choices
This is not a fringe belief.
It is true that some people choose the streets rather than the options available to them, but that tells us about the options (sometimes) offered.
The Problem From Hell
Imagine making a career by giving yourself the most absurdly low bar brand in history - "I dislike genocide" - and presiding over one.
Inside USAID, career civil servants with extensive experience were horrified by the lack of urgency from their politically appointed leaders.
Internal USAID documents seen by The Independent showed that staff were passing their concerns about the lack of action up the chain to USAID administrator Samantha Power and other senior leaders in the form of letters and internal dissent memos, often to no avail.
“What was surprising to me, and deeply disappointing, was the fact that we were hearing nothing about imminent famine in Gaza,” said a USAID staffer, who asked to remain anonymous because they are still employed by the agency.
What Did We Think Was Going To Happen
Don't let anyone claim "the obvious consequences of our policies were a surprise."
Starving children and adults in Gaza are dying after being reduced to the "size of a skeleton", according to the World Food Programme boss.It is illegal to question the words of a McCain, according to the rules of DC.
Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN agency, said her staff describe it as "a complete disaster" and there are serious problems getting trucks in safely and in sufficient numbers.
Outside Agitators
I suspect this play was not limited to Columbia. The full story of the sources of presure on universities (including governors leaning on even private universities) will make a fascinating book.
A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.Sure why not:
Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.
Asked about the Zoom meeting with chat group members, the mayor’s office did not address it directly, instead sharing a statement from deputy mayor Fabien Levy noting that New York police entered Columbia’s campus twice in response to “specific written requests” from university leadership. “Any suggestion that other considerations were involved in the decision-making process is completely false,” Levy said. He added, “The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that the Washington Post should be ashamed to ask about, let alone normalize in print.”
Thursday, May 16, 2024
One Decision At A Time
It's been a long time since I thought there was any kind of good faith reasoning coming from the conservatives on the Supreme Court, but they did tend to maintain at least a little consistency. Enough to fool Nina, anyway.
I think it's all Calvinball now, so I barely pay attention to the reasoning, but occasionally they make the right call for whatever reason.
So you could, if you were so inclined, use the reasoning from one decision to predict how they would rule on a similar case.
I think it's all Calvinball now, so I barely pay attention to the reasoning, but occasionally they make the right call for whatever reason.
The Future Of The Democratic Party
This is the future that centrist dipshits want.
An NYPD officer who was guarding Mayor Eric Adams’ home in Brooklyn in 2022 unjustifiably shot a man who was entering his own apartment building, according to a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday.Yes this is a bit unfair, but there was a period of a few months when every major Dem leader and dipshit pundit thought sending Adams around the country on behalf of the Dems was Smart Politics.
...
A half-hour later, Shahid Woodstock was walking around the corner from where the shooting took place when he said he saw two men, one brandishing a gun, get out of an unmarked van and run toward him, the lawsuit says. One of the officers, David Barker, shot Woodstock, who was then 22, from behind, according to the suit.
Inconvenient Truths
The reason mainstream publications obscure the reality abortion issue, and not just with Trump, is because the people who run those outlets are generally anti-abortion, or at least they never met a "compromise" they didn't support.
Who remembers when an Ohio journalist reported on a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion? The Washington Post's fact chucker, Glenn Kessler, swung into action and published a long piece which was, essentially, 'NUH UH.' He was wrong, of course. And then the Post did a follow up barely mentioning Kessler's role!!!
Kessler doesn't run the paper, of course, but he's one of those guys given license to do "opinion" presented as "fact" (hilariously, for him it's "fact checking") and all those guys (usually guys) who are free to do that are basically expressing the institutional viewpoint, whether they know it or not. They tend to confuse fact and opinion (their opinions are fact) so they might not know!
Who remembers when an Ohio journalist reported on a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion? The Washington Post's fact chucker, Glenn Kessler, swung into action and published a long piece which was, essentially, 'NUH UH.' He was wrong, of course. And then the Post did a follow up barely mentioning Kessler's role!!!
Kessler doesn't run the paper, of course, but he's one of those guys given license to do "opinion" presented as "fact" (hilariously, for him it's "fact checking") and all those guys (usually guys) who are free to do that are basically expressing the institutional viewpoint, whether they know it or not. They tend to confuse fact and opinion (their opinions are fact) so they might not know!
It Was The Wife Wot Did It
Great stuff.
Originally scheduled to be tried with her husband, Nadine Menendez's trial is now expected to take place later this summer because of a "serious medical condition" that requires surgery and weeks of recovery.
The senator's lawyers have indicated in court filings that he could defend himself in part by claiming his wife "withheld information" from him about her dealings with three New Jersey businessmen and "led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place."
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Politics
I am, of course, too sophisticated to fall for these tricks as I am an Advanced Politics Knower who floats above the landscape in my Hovercraft Of Objective Ominiscience, but for the rest of the stupid voters, a reminder that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (especially the latter) were extremely good at communicating the basic message of "I feel and understand your concerns" even when they did not actually agree with those concerns.
"Fuck you, bad orange man is bad and will put you into camps, lol," is not the only option.
"Fuck you, bad orange man is bad and will put you into camps, lol," is not the only option.
WHAT CAN BIDEN DO????
I suppose that's mostly stopped, but we had several months of that. Anything excuse to keep things going.
The Biden administration on Tuesday began the early stages of a process to move ahead with a new $1 billion arms deal for Israel, according to two congressional sources.
Masterful Gambit, Sir
Amazing stuff.
The day before Elon Musk fired virtually all of Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging division last month, they had high hopes as charging chief Rebecca Tinucci went to meet with Musk about the network’s future, four former charging-network staffers told Reuters.What choice did he have when faced with such an uppity bitch?
After Tinucci had cut between 15% and 20% of staffers two weeks earlier, part of much wider layoffs, they believed Musk would affirm plans for a massive charging-network expansion.
The meeting could not have gone worse. Musk, the employees said, was not pleased with Tinucci’s presentation and wanted more layoffs. When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team.
Criminal Prosecution
So that means people could go to jail, right?
May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday that Boeing Co (BA.N), opens new tab had breached its obligations in a 2021 agreement that shielded the planemaker from criminal prosecution over fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.So that means people could go to jail, right?
The Justice Department said in a court filing in Texas that the U.S. planemaker had failed to "design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations."
The determination exposes Boeing to a potential criminal prosecution over the 2018 and 2019 crashes that could carry steep financial penalties and tougher oversight, deepening a corporate crisis and reputational damage stemming from the January blowout.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Maybe If They Say It Louder
It's so complicated.
Almost everyone failing the simplest test and convincing themselves they're the good guys. Amazing stuff.
'We must settle Gaza now': Netanyahu ministers join Israelis marching to Gaza, demand Palestinians' transfer"Voluntary."
Thousands of Israelis joined an Independence Day march on Tuesday in southern Israel, led by far-right Jewish activists advocating for resettling the Gaza Strip and facilitating the emigration of Palestinians from Gaza.
Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi, of Netanyahu's Likud party, said: "In order to preserve the security achievements that our soldiers lost their lives for, we must resettle Gaza with security forces and settlers that will embrace the land with love." He added that "this is the only true way, to make the Hamas Nazis pay a price and to defend our nation and country."
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also spoke at the march, and said that what the protesters are calling for is the "true solution."
"First," he said, "we must return to Gaza now! We are coming home! To the holy land! And second," he continued, "we must encourage emigration. Encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza. It is moral!"
Almost everyone failing the simplest test and convincing themselves they're the good guys. Amazing stuff.
Savvy War Generals
There are lots of commenters trying to (or pretending to) make sense of Israel's "strategy" and fretting they might not successfully "beat Hamas" with "acceptable civilian casualties" or whatever. Israel's strategy is to level Gaza, destroy all infrastructure, and to kill/expel as many Palestinians as they can before the US stops them. They haven't made this a secret! This has been the case all along!
Maybe one day our intelligence agencies will be able to read the tweets of top Israeli officials, perhaps after they find the nukes.
Maybe one day our intelligence agencies will be able to read the tweets of top Israeli officials, perhaps after they find the nukes.
What Do We Spend All That Money For
Maybe if we give a few more trillion to the intelligence agencies they'll get on this!
Many have mocked the recent US report which was unable to determine if Israel used US weapons in its violations of international law. But when you consider the US has yet to discover Israel's nuclear arsenal it actually makes sense.
— Mouin Rabbani (@MouinRabbani) May 14, 2024
The Masterful Gambit
Tesla betting on autonomous cars as their one true future isn't just a bet that they will "work" as advertised, it's a bet that Tesla has discovered the unique secret sauce that is evading others. This is... not likely.
Alarmed
Her entire career has been branding herself as the only person in the world who thinks genocide is bad, and here we are.
Amazing stuff:
"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (2002) is a book by American Samantha Power, at that time Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, which explores the United States's understanding of, response to, and inaction on genocides in the 20th century, from the Armenian genocide to the "ethnic cleansings" of the Kosovo War. It won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2003.
Power observes that American policymakers have been consistently reluctant to condemn mass atrocities as genocide or to take responsibility for leading an international military intervention. She argues that without significant pressure from the American public, policymakers have avoided the term "genocide" altogether, which came into more widespread use after the Holocaust of World War II. Instead, they appeal to the priority of national interests or argue that a U.S. response would be futile and accelerate violence, as a justification for inaction. She thinks such justifications are usually ill-founded.
None of us have infinite power, but what's the point of developing that brand if you don't try to use it?
Haha I know the point, I keed.
Monday, May 13, 2024
Masterful Gambit, Sir
As always.
Two weeks ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk enacted widespread layoffs throughout the company, including the 500-strong team responsible for the brand's Supercharger. Now, Tesla is looking to hire some of them back, Bloomberg reports, as Musk promises to spend $500 million expanding the network.
And Then What
We've forgotten that wars tend to end with peace treaties, not with one side vanquished, and there will likely come a moment when that happens with Russia and UKraine.
Kyiv’s larger problem is global attention. Trenchant statements from European ministers, and even visits from senior Biden administration officials, cannot cut through the fatigue or the notion that helping Ukraine win is something governments see they strategically must do, rather than something their publics actively demand. It is becoming a war the world wishes would go away – side-lined by the horrors of the Middle East – exactly when its outcome is most perilous and vital for European security.
JK
It is a bit weird that various TERF-adjacent people are expressing some anxiety about the billionaire queen of the TERFs. This isn't just gossip; the TERF movement is the Trojan Horse to smuggle in a lot of other horrors, and some pushback against the authority of the very litigious, very rich, very famous person is unexpected!
Heartwarming
Gotta admit I was on Team Chait for this, but his follow up pushes me to team Joanne.
(joke as they are both monsters)
Michael Cohen Day At The Trump Trial
I admit I can't be bothered to follow all the ins and outs because, as with every other Trump legal issue, the real question is whether there are corrupt refs on the field (MAGA juror, appeals court judge, etc...), so most of the show is just for show.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Team Lindsey
Congrats to everyone who is on it.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered a baffling comparison of Israel’s war on Gaza to the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, telling Israel to “do whatever you have to do” to finish the military campaign.The man is good at turning subtext into text! Though it hasn't really been subtext.
Speaking to NBC’s Kristin Welker on Meet the Press Sunday morning, Graham made the argument that Israel would be justified in slaughtering civilians in Gaza by likening the situation to the U.S.’s war with Japan eight decades ago. He suggested Israel would be right to flatten the Gaza strip—home to 2.2 million Palestinians, half of whom are children—simply because the U.S. did it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1940s.
What's It All About Then
Arielle Angel.
Liberals, particularly older ones, have long scolded college students for their illiberalism, their “safe spaces”, and their low tolerance for discomfort and disagreement. But to watch the full-throated support for the violent repression of student activism resounding in the media, in university administrations, and at every level of government these past several weeks is to witness an astounding repudiation of our civil liberties on account of their discomfort. It’s worth remembering that the Vietnam anti-war protests were also unpopular at the time – three-quarters of the American public opposed them, and the country elected a racist, criminal president, Richard Nixon, in part to restore “law and order”.Angel said this piece was in editing at the NYT and then was mysteriously, uh, CANCELLED. They did find space for a piece from the mendacious cretin Mark Penn about how Biden needs to ignore the disgusting Muslims voters and reach out to Haley voters.
Liberals know there is an autocratic strain spreading across this country – they identify it in Trump’s efforts to steal the election, or DeSantis’s attacks on history. Come November, Trump could return to office, and the erosions in our civil liberties we have written into law and practice in these months will be there for his use. But it’s worth remembering that the crackdowns on our first amendment rights over the last several weeks have happened under a Democratic president, in defense of a US-funded war that enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, if not among a changing Democratic party base.
As the White House repeatedly accuses the students of antisemitism, in a tacit endorsement of the police swarming university campuses, it’s worth taking the students’ word for why they’re there in the first place: Biden’s disastrous foreign policy, in which every opportunity for Israeli accountability has been spurned, has turned Gaza into a mass grave – off the charts compared with any other contemporary conflict by every metric – and brought the entire Middle East to the brink of all-out regional war.
Privately Threatened To Rethink Support
Ah well.
Not doing much to rebut the joke that liberals support everything conservatives do, just with a frowny face appended.
Peach
The New York Times when you say trans people should be exterminated.
Protesting the world’s wrongs has been a rite of passage for generations of American youth, buoyed by our strong laws protecting free speech and free assembly. Yet the students and other demonstrators disrupting college campuses this spring are being taught the wrong lesson — for as admirable as it can be to stand up for your beliefs, there are no guarantees that doing so will be without consequence.
...
For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.
This social silencing, this depluralizing of America, has been evident for years, but dealing with it stirs yet more fear. It feels like a third rail, dangerous. For a strong nation and open society, that is dangerous.
The New York Times when you say the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is, like, bad.
Student codes of conduct and other guidelines are meant to relieve some of the tension between free speech and academic freedom, as well as to ensure that schools are in compliance with government regulations and laws. Every campus has them. But rules matter only when guardrails are consistently upheld. It’s in that enforcement that the leadership of too many universities has fallen short.
The point of protest is to break such rules, of course, and to disrupt daily routines so profoundly as to grab on to the world’s attention and sympathies. Campuses should be able to tolerate some degree of disruption, which is inherent to any protest. That makes it even more important that school administrators respond when the permissible limits for speech are violated.
During the current demonstrations, a lack of accountability has helped produce a crisis.
Amazingly it's the lefties in their heads who are the big hypocrites:
Schools ought to be teaching their students that there is as much courage in listening as there is in speaking up. It has not gone unnoticed — on campuses but also by members of Congress and by the public writ large — that many of those who are now demanding the right to protest have previously sought to curtail the speech of those whom they declared hateful [CITATION NEEDED].
Saturday, May 11, 2024
It Seems There Are Some War Crimes, HOWEVER...
Amazing stuff.
The Biden administration said Friday that it is “reasonable to assess” that US weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law but stopped short of officially saying Israel violated the law.Pretty sure my spouse has been cheating on me - I even have a video of the act in my hand - however as I have NOT LOOKED AT IT, I cannot be sure.
The report which was drafted by the State Department said that investigations into potential violations are ongoing but noted that the US does “not have complete information to verify” whether the US weapons “were specifically used” in alleged violations of international humanitarian law.
Friday, May 10, 2024
Team Stephens
Not gonna read it but you know what this is about. 
Anyway, there are a lot of people who have been on Team Stephens for the past several months who wouldn't normally find themselves there, and I do suggest they might ask themselves if they are standing on the right stage.
Anyway, there are a lot of people who have been on Team Stephens for the past several months who wouldn't normally find themselves there, and I do suggest they might ask themselves if they are standing on the right stage.
When all the worst people in the country agree with you, maybe you should have a rethink.
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