Rep. MTG predictably made a statement calling for more guns to combat the pervasive gun violence and slaughter of innocent children 😡
This is an excellent interview with Jon Stewert interviewing Nathan Dahm (OK state senator) about the “more guns make us safer” argument. Well worth your time to watch, please watch to the end.
Cathy, thanks for Jon Stewart's interview of an Oklahoma state senator. I felt embarrassed for Nathan Dahm, who apparently fails to realize his "purist" (as in "wrong") interpretation of the Second Amendment does not hold up to simple logic in any way at all. A sign of intelligence would have been for him to get up and walk out of the interview before being utterly humiliated, but he just let Stewart walk all over him. (I watched to the end, but only from morbid curiosity.)
There is no pro-gun argument that can stand up to the statistics. That our government cannot limit firearm possession after years of mindless slaughter among our civilian population is also an embarrassment. And, to the extent our country is a democracy, WE are an embarrassment.
It's not that our government CANNOT limit firearm possession; it's that Republicans won't let such limits pass because of their greed and that of firearms manufacturers. No ordinary person needs a combat weapon in daily life. If a person wants to use a combat weapon, join the military, be trained and submit to the Code of Military Justice.
Measure 114 here in Oregon which passed is still being held up by an eastern Oregon judge. The legislature is thinking about presenting some bills which do the same as the measure. Rs in the legislature will attempt to scuttle it. In the meantime KGW, the local NBC affiliate is doing a five part series on the Greater Idaho movement where people in eastern Oregon and southern Oregon want to be part of Idaho which should tell you all you need to know about these areas. In one interview a person said that western Oregon had more representation. Duh....more population than the sparsely populated eastern Oregon.
Bryan and Jenn, agree with your comments. Brainwashing is a technique of mental control.
Those accepting to live within that controlled environment feel safe and accepted and valued.
Going outside their "world" makes them vulnerabe....may lose friends....may lose their job.....neighbors may criticize....friends at church may condemn....may not win their government position the next time around....etc...etc. May even place their family in danger.....may have "secrets revealed about some misbehavior ie financial or another more personal misbehavior". Humans are vulnerabe to threats.
Where are our heroes? They are quivering wimps hiding behind the NRA with their firearms.
I write this simply due to Jon Stewart's clear and uncomplicated interview. We register most everything we buy. A weapon....and that is what a gun is....it is used to kill something alive unless you are at a shooting range where one is training to shoot something alive at a time of ones choosing.....
In my opinion there should be background checks and mental evaluations prior to purchasing a firearm. Haven't we seen enough children and adults slaughtered to come to this conclusion!!!! What are you afraid of....why are such checks opposed? This is common sense!!!!
Because it’s a tactic to keep the populous dumb (book banning, replacing principals and librarians with parents), frightened (guns) and confused with the goal to control. I know, sounds like a conspiracy theory, but who is going to reach out and help us when we no longer have a Democracy? Why do we have to follow the paths that others (Germany, Africa) have already paved and suffered, for us to learn? It’s exhausting! I was so impressed by the 99yo woman in Florida who spoke before a school board assembly.
JennSH, for 11 of the past 15 years we have had a Democratic president.
During those 15 years, Democrats have controlled the House for 6 years. Technically Democrats have also controlled the Senate for 6 years, if I am not mistaken. They could have eliminated or found a way around the filibuster if they had thought it important to do so. But apparently it is not only the GOP that has been corrupted by the gun lobby.
This failure by our government is a continuing bit of insanity that is hard to explain to people who are not Americans.
Repubs outdo Dems in the evil department by leaps and bounds. Have you forgotten the resistance to Obama’s very existence from every Repub, especially Mitch. My memory is still good…
The ability to rationalize has no limit. The 2nd Amendment taken in context in no freak'n way justifies the right of all citizens to own a single shot musket unless they are part of the militia. I have heard pro gun arguments for years and the tortured rationalizations are just that. More guns = dah. A sickness in this country of ours. The pain and suffering forced on us by a minority is evidence of a broken democracy. Can't we fix it?
In the Heller the decision,Scalia foisted the faux originalist position on us to REwrite the 2nd amendment! However, even he cautioned about the inclusion of assault weapons, but he lacked the courage to actually exclude them!
Interesting that Heller was successfully used by Massachusetts to ban AR-15s. The actual ruling is basically says that: There are military weapons, and all other weapons. Military weapons can be banned. For all other weapons, any and all kinds of regulation can be applied short of an outright ban. There are no absolute rights, not even the 2nd Amendment. Everything can be regulated.
Massachusetts successfully made the case that AR-15s are military weapons. (I agree). The Federal Judge and the Appeals Court agreed. The lasts sentence of the ruling (available on line) was: "Justice Scalia would be proud."
The same holds true in Highland Park, IL. and one other community there. The community also bans assault - type weapons which are considered military. That was a part of Scalia's opinion. The true gun nuts overlook what Scalia said to promote their own, altered, and illegitimate arguments.
Legally armed and open carrying Black Panthers protecting their children at school caused then California Governor Ronald Reagan to enact a prohibition on open carry firearms and greatly restricted the ability to obtain a concealed carry permit.
Aside: I don't think those 2A proponents could diagram a sentence.
Ally, you beat me to it…was thinking of what Reagan did as I was reading this. Heartily disliked him as CA governor due to his policies and was appalled when he was elected president and enacted many of them nationally to our continued detriment.
According to the Pew Research Center most of the guns are owned by white males. The sale of AR 15 weapons is a recent phenomenon with 2/3 of these weapons being manufactured since 2012.
This coincides with Obama being president and white males in particular feeling they need to be “protected”. Whenever discussions about banning these military weapons come up, sales go up. Meanwhile gun manufacturers are making record profits and by law are being protected from liability.
Michael Moore started his Bowling for Columbine movie with a cartoon of white men carrying guns saying “fear of a black man”.
(This was even before Obama)
I’m a broken record about how racism has fueled most of America’s dysfunction. It’s not just Black people in the crosshairs now. Allowing this weapon on our streets is beyond crazy! Our problems are deeply rooted in how we relate to each other as human beings living in a “free” society.
It’s a sad state of affairs when mass shootings are the leading cause of death for our children!
I agree, Gina. Like so many of our problems and weirdnesses, American gun craziness is likely rooted in racism. In fact, gun-love may be one way racism is passed down from one generation to the next, a kind of deadly euphemism based on a feeling and a wink, all the gun lovers on the same page.
There is nothing quite as empowering -- apparently -- as a loaded assault rifle, legally owned.
To add a light comment at the bottom of this heavy discussion of the worst of our politics: Has anyone seen the 1990’s movie with Walter Matthau and another comic of equal excellence called “The Survivors”? It precedes the Proud Boys and pokes fun at the very idea of what they stand for. Guns in the forest.
Your point is well taken Christina but, political paralysis on gun mayhem in the USA is much more than a two party division. Consider women as a voting bloc, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers & district controlling "indepedents". The end of gross gerrymandering would help as well ... alot.
I like to think that what WE can take away from the arguments Stewart raises and the way he defends his viewpoint are perfect "ammunition" to use should we find ourselves having to defend our positions. He is a lesson in how to deal with these people. THAT, to me, is what we can take away from it. Of course, the right wouldn't give Stewart the time of day, but WE can use his methods of countering their positions. We can collectively reach more people on the right than he can.
Cathy, how do you think I feel? I have to live in the same state as this POS and I do not use that term lightly. The other day I was walking through the Wally World parking lot when I accidentally met the sullen paranoid gaze of the ballcap-wearing fellow getting into his oversized truck. As he settled himself I could see the giant heater bulging on his hip. Chilled me to the bone. I wish I had a spaceship to take me out of Okahoma, maybe the whole USA.
Carolyn Paul Every day you live in fear because $$$$$- and power-grubbing repugnicant politicians care only about themselves. Meanwhile, your life becomes one of fear. Absolutely UNFORGIVABLE. I am so sorry.
You ought not feel embarrassed for Mr. Dahm, he chose his arguments himself and opted not to take any of the chances Stewart gave him to avoid making an a** of himself.
I saw that earlier and thought Jon Stewart makes an excellent interviewer because he is not held to any MSM constraints. He nailed that pipsqueak, Dahm, beautifully by calling him a hypocrite. That was so pleasurable!
What's chilling is that Dahm appears to actually believe what he's saying. That people vote for this kind of guy speaks so poorly of those voters. One part of the Republican strategy is to reduce funding for public education, toward the dumbing down of those who would support them, while they send their own kids to private schools. Those voters don't even see how they're being used and sold down the river, since it's their kids, as well, who are being slaughtered by guns.
Should add Nikki Haley and her yes to ban TikTok, but no ban on weapons, rather increase of metal detectors in schools .... the latter really helps (NOT) when someone shoots his/her way into the school rooms, or?
Thanks for this clip, Miselle. Part of it was all over CBS Mornings, but not the whole thing. I will listen to Brian T Cohen for the rest of it. Thanks, again!
On another thought, I had started donating to the DNC back when Obama first ran. A LFAA reader (who I haven't seen post in awhile) Ellie Kona, inspired me to start writing letters and postcards. I had become discouraged with the DNC not supporting some (viable, I thought) Democratic candidates and felt my time and funds were better spent this way.
Now, I am retired and do these two things which cost me only time: I read articles online at Yahoo and msn.com. People are entitled to their "opinions" but when I see outright LIES (ie "The big guy has been selling US intel for over 40 years. "And yes, I saw exactly that!) I will report the comment to the moderators.
My Hispanic son in law is a mouthy conservative, gun toting, legalistic Baptist church voter. I was astounded by the amount of HIspanic vote tfg received! The Democratic party is not utilizing the strategies to reach these voters (Frequent commentor Mike S tells us this all the time.) Brian Tyler Cohen started a HIspanic channel and is asking for people to subscribe and view a few to help it catch on. I watch his clips almost daily, and then I click on the Spanish version while I read or do other work. This costs me nothing, but it might help!
Elie Kona inspired me as well. I pretty much read every Ellie post back in my first 2 months in the Community, my silent period. Thank you Miselle & thank you very much Ellie.
Morning, Miselle!! I, too, miss seeing Ellie on LFAA. I believe she may still be active on heathersherd. I also started out donating to DNC but heard from others that it was better to donate directly to the candidate.
Thanks for the tip about reporting to the moderator. I cringe when I see blatant lies in a post!
I took note of Brian Tyler Cohen's announcement that he was starting a Hispanic channel. Hopefully, it will help with your son-in-law. Fingers crossed for you!
Leave it to the GOP to turn the conversation about limiting guns and gun violence to instead victim blame the school administrators for not being armed, oh and of course use this as a dog whistle for transphobia... They've successfully moved the goal posts and reframed the discussion, they don't care that gun violence happens, they just care that it can make them look bad so in some round about way they need to make it "The Lefts" fault. Which is why they want to blame this on "Left Wing" terrorism or trans people getting testosterone or something now. It's infuriating, and makes no logical sense. Maybe MTG should introduce legislation to ban all CIS men from owning guns if they are afraid of mass shootings, domestic violence, bomb threats, hate crimes, etc. But no, they don't actually care, they just want to drum donations, and use fear to divide people as usual. They can go decades literally ignoring right wing terrorism and celebrate it even but talk about limiting guns and they lose their minds.
You are 1,000% right about how the GQP will use this slaughter to their own "advantage" politically. It is WAY beyond nauseating to see this happen over and over and over and over again.
Thanks so much for sharing that interview. As frustrating as it was to listen to that state senator, I would like to have heard his response to Stewart's last statement, even knowing it would probably have made my head explode. On second thought... I'm good.
Why is the beginning of the 2nd amendment “well regulated militia” ALWAYS left out when citing the 2nd amendment? I know this topic has been discussed on this page before, along with pertinent Federalist papers, but I don’t understand why they get away with it.
Jon makes the perfect argument and makes the state senator squirm at the end. Doubtful Jon will make a dent on his view. The republican party is a cult of white extremists and we need to recognize it as such.
Thank you for sharing the link. Jon's laser focus excoriated Dahm. He was masterful at holding Dahm's feet to the fire and not letting him derail the interview. Particularly liked how he dismantled Dahm's argument that MORE guns are the answer: "By your logic, police going on a domestic violence call where there there are lots of guns in the house makes them safer."
Dahm was left stuttering and stammering. More interviews, Jon!
Yes, Stewart controlled the interview masterfully and did not let Dahm change the subject and ramble aimlessly likepeople of his ilk usually do, but Stewart did not convince Dahm to change his mind on any issue, major or minor. My guess is that if you could get a thousand 2nd Amendment aficionados (or a thousand magats) to watch the interview, you would find in the end that nobody’s views on gun-rights had changed. Gun-laws cannot be changed by converting magats to decent human beings. Gun-laws can only be changed by outvoting the SOBs. There are just barely enough decent Americans to do that, but all of them must cast votes, regardless of the obstacles Republicans put in their way. If you have time to invest in politics, join a good get-out-the-vote organization and do what you can to help.
... thoughts and prayers are an insensitive comment after you just gave permission to kill someone's child. thoughts and prayers - give me a break. DO SOMETHING! How many must die before something is done? A national health crisis and they want more guns. INSANE.
The more thoughts and prayers we offer, the more death and destruction we get. Especially since 1980.
I would, looking at the correlated data, recommend we punt off the "thoughts and prayers" approach to managing this increasing violence and do something else, like ban assault weapons, automatic hand guns, most handguns actually since they are only meant to kill people.
But, for some reason, people seem unaware that "thoughts and prayers" may actually be causing the death and destruction by military weapons.
At the very least, based on the data, a shout out to "thoughts and prayers" seems guaranteed to mean more death and destruction.
Mike, it occurs to me that Republicans haven’t yet figured out that uttering “thoughts and prayers” makes them appear both “incapable of thought” and “ignorant of the meaning of prayer”
Mike, I completely agree. Thoughts and prayers is the parallel comment to death and destruction. They have tagged one another for decades.
I hate hearing the thoughts and prayers from the complicit Republicans because we all know that means, where will the next one be. I nolonger think in terms of will there be a next time? It's when.
I was at my Syracuse house on Saturday morning. I heard the distinct pop, pop, pop. I knew what it was but my mind went into self defense and justified it as someone using a nail gun. Within minutes police cars came from every direction . Someone was shot in their front yard one block from me.
I'm so glad I will be gone from this house in a couple of weeks for good.
I will be moving full time about an hour from Syracuse to the house we bought a couple of years ago. I have been staying in the house I grew up in for convenience sake for where I work. Crime has gotten so bad here in Syracuse that even a few days a week is just too unnerving.
I might miss a few days here during the move, but I won't be gone for long.
Words that are worse than a waste of time. They are embarrassing. They are code for "owning my own WMDs is more important to me than the lives of children".
I wish Jon Stewart would run for high office. Someone needs to make the weapons issue a central campaign story. I really believe that a large majority of Americans would support a ban on weapons of mass destruction and the ammo that shreds human flesh.
I think they perversely believe that guns protect lives, despite the obvious contrary evidence that they conveniently ignore; hence the notion that more guns will give us more safety. It's wacko logic, but it makes sense to them.
Ashbey Beasley voiced what so many of us are feeling: “Aren’t you guys tired of covering this?…How is this still happening ?… How are our children still dying, and why are we failing them? Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens.”
Let’s see if we can turn this conversation about “thoughts and prayers” into a potentially positive result? There are approximately only 40-50 Congressional Districts (CDs) that are “competitive” in that either side has a moderate chance of winning. The only way to achieve an assault weapons ban in the House is for Democrats to win a solid majority of somewhere around 8 to 10 seats in the House whereas Rs now have a 4 seat majority.
Among this very intelligent and tuned-in readership there are folks (I mean you who are reading this) who can figure out which CDs are vulnerable in your state and make sure each R (either already in the House or running) makes it clear either she supports assault weapons ban or doesn’t! We need to identify the opposition because this is a powerful issue that we can with in 24! That’s step one!
Then contribute and/or organize young voter reg ( start now with www.turnup.US/ ) and turnout so that we flip between 15 and 20 seats! And please do not concentrate your $$ or work into trying to flip a R+15 CD I.e. Kevin McCarthy). It’s just not doable in our fractured society! Same in the Senate--Very important to elect Rueben Gallego in AZ which means a flip of 2; save Testa in MT; Sherrod in OH; etc. WE. CAN DO IT!
So that’s our task to change the narrative from T&P to Bring It On in January 2025!!
Does anyone else see the irony in the Israeli government proposing actions that seem to come directly from Hitler’s play book? Take away the independence of the judiciary, create a “civil” militia controlled by the extreme right-wing to terrorize Palestinians in the name of “peacekeeping”.
Oh Israel, are you a premonition? Will your democracy survive the Strongman? Or Will your people be subdued and cowered?
Oh America, are you watching? Or will the media cover this up? Is it already too late? Oh Merrick, your time is running out
“Americans should watch developments in Israel, in which a sitting prime minister, facing criminal charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, was returned to office, and is now attempting to pass laws that would, among other things, limit the ways in which he can be declared unfit for office.”
Hence my question regarding the average American’s perspective and whether they view Israel as a safe haven for Jews from Nazi oppression as opposed to the current reality as oppressors; iow, how informed are they really?
The trauma and truth of the Holocaust blinds them of their own role as oppressors. It’s different than our Jim Crow history. Foreign influence doesn’t help for either Israel nor Palestinians. The cycle of repression and retaliation just keeps spinning.
Identify Politics has cemented and set up, they are ideologues now, next stop is cult followership. Many are already there ready to commit political violence, and/or look the other way, cuz it’s safer and more comfortable not to think, not to care.
What I find as someplace between "ironic" and "moronic" is the Forbes' 2023 ratings of "happiest countries in the world" placing Israel as #4, above a host of nations that at least seem credible places where happiness abounds.
In my last years working, I made trips to Tel Aviv, troubleshooting computer problems. I found it to be an exciting place, wonderful food, beautiful women, pleasant climate: I think, if I had gone there in my twenties, I would have stayed there and become an Israeli citizen. But there was always a nervous undercurrent - not quite fear - that something bad would happen. I can understand the rating: I wonder if it will be as good next year.
I went to Israel in 2006–my first trip overseas. It was beautiful. Tel Aviv and Jérusalem were exciting. It was there I first realized up close the the situation of the Palestinians. I don’t think these two peoples can ever have peace.
That's so interesting! I've had a couple of Jewish friends urge me to go to Israel, saying that I would love it. All I could think of was desert and people interrupting each other constantly! I like hearing your experience of it.
It's well worth the long plane ride, which is easier if you can afford business class. I would go again, but there are so many places I haven't been, I fear I'll not make that trip. Europe, especially Italy, Greece, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark are on the list. And in the US, I haven't yet been to Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas.
I remember the food... the breakfast spread at the hotel was huge - breads, meat, fruit and cheese from all over the world, long tables that held too much to even sample. So different from Riyadh.
To me, the rating is supposed to be an indicator of a place one should want to live rather than just a place to visit. Qualities of a place to live in would seem to have qualities of governance that another country farther down the list should want to emulate.
I see the irony. It's an extension of the irony that has long been at the core of conflict in the region. The Extreme Israelis treat Palestinians as sub human. How a people who were so terrorized, murdered, tortured, and vilified for centuries could treat another group as badly as they have is beyond my understanding.
There are many in Israel who have been trying to build bridges between the Jews and Palestinians. But violence fed by desperation has led to ultra right wing dominance. It's so complicated. If I were afraid of a rocket attack from the moment I was born, I wonder how I would feel and who I would vote for. The guy who promises security, maybe? What if he turns out to be a racist, sexist, authoritarian crook?
This much is for sure. In every conflict, he with the most power, money and guns has the best opportunity to create peace.
I also notice the absence of women in the politics of Israel. I suspect they might approach the crisis differently.
Bill, the current Israeli society has the same inclinations as the Puritans escaping England for the new world. They didn’t oppose oppressors and oppression, they simply wanted to be the ones doing it to the Native Americans
Excellent analogy - sadly so. To Native Americans, for sure. But very much to any of their own who dared commit a heresy. One of the most potent and revealing books I have ever read is "The Barbarous Years" by Bernard Bailyn. It supports your accurate statement.
I can only hope that there is a silent Israeli majority that will reassert itself. I have a cousin by marriage in Israel who makes us proud. She is a leader in bridging the gap between Jewish and Arab kids. Some very creative programs that focus on empathy and attitudes of equality.
'GENEVA (13 February 2023) – The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.'
'In the month of January 2023 alone, Israeli authorities reportedly demolished 132 Palestinian structures across 38 communities in the occupied West Bank, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures. This figure represents a 135 percent increase, compared to the same period in 2022, and includes five punitive demolitions.'
'“The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.
'The experts reiterated their concern over the situation in Masafer Yatta, where over 1,100 Palestinian residents remain at imminent risk of forced eviction, arbitrary displacement and demolitions of their homes, livelihood, water and sanitation structures. In November 2022, Israeli authorities demolished a donor-funded school in Isfey al Fauqa. Four other schools in the area are under demolition orders.'
“Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.'
“Israel’s tactics of forcibly displacing and evicting the Palestinian population appear to have no limits. In occupied East Jerusalem, tens of Palestinian families also face imminent risks of forced evictions and displacement, due to discriminatory zoning and planning regimes that favour Israeli settlement expansion – the act that is illegal under international law and amounts to a war crime.”
'The experts also expressed alarm at the Israeli Government’s endorsement and escalated practice of punitive evictions and demolitions, and other punitive measures applied to alleged perpetrators of “terrorist” attacks and their family members, such as revoking identity documents, citizenship and residency rights and social security benefits.' (UnitedNations,HumanRights,OfficeofHighCommissioner) See link below
Thanks for your inciteful Post. Your observations awakened deep feeling of pain and reflection of the occurrences of the past: Holocaust. Have we learned nothing from the results of this behavior to our own people during the last rise of fascism? I see portents of a frightful rise of all these behaviors now occurring. Genocide by enforced neglect is more and more visible in these treacherous times.
Important to have the right words. " domicide" is one. What is being done to the Palestinians and, I submit, what Putin is trying to do to Ukraine. Erasing homes, homelands, and creating this ever growing, on the move, global population of the " dis-placed".
Deny citizenship, voting, education, no safety to one’s shelter and food. Force poverty. Restrict movement to economic safe zones. No hope for your children’s future. It breeds the radicalization that they use to justify and maintain the Jim Crow Apartheid policy. No end in sight to the crisis.
I would expect the Jewish people, more than any other group, to be particularly sensitive and resistant to emerging dictatorship. Maybe I only think I know the Jewish people.
It's what the Federalist Society has been trying to do here and they've had quite a bit of success. If trump became president again, the judiciary would be in his gun sights.
The taking away of rights has already started. Voting, women’s health care, trans people, more are just so subtle so we are not shocked to protest. Our Supreme Court is defacto already where Netennyu wants to take Israel. Our SCOTUS is a rubber stamp for the extremists that overtaken the QOP. The difference in America will be our willingness to protest when counter protesters are heavily armed and supported by the police.
When the time comes, will 10,000 unarmed peaceful protesters be intimidated from showing up if there are 1,000 Kyle Rittenhouses and Tim McVeighs are waiting for us? That is the danger of a Libertarian led QOP and Federalist Society Judiciary and 22 million annual unit gun sales.
Yes! But I don’t think we have to go that far back to Hitler, We have tfg and the Proud Boys, 3%ers, Attomwaffen, buggulo boys, Ammon Bundy followers etc etc. These are the new brown shirts. The unregulated militia, willing to use political violence for the strongman when the Police and Military will not. Normalizing violence is a tool of the tyrant.
Netanyahu and Fake 45 are one and the same, criminals of the highest order. They are manipulators, grifters, and just plain liars. I was very happy when the Israelis breached Bibi’s home. Must’ve been a little too close for comfort to have people break into his house. That’s how I feel about 45’s people breaking into the Capitol, our once sacred ground. Incitement is Fake 45’s speciality and look where it’s gotten us...more people dead by assault weapons that the Repubs want on deck. It is very hard to fathom why there is this “need” to hurt, to maim others. What is missing from their character that they must shoot to kill? I weep. I am afraid.
In early March, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the state to “erase” a Palestinian town, and he has called himself a “proud homophobe” and a “fascist.”
Calling for erasure of of Palestinian towns is an echo of history, yes - but it is also present-day Israel. It’s interesting that there are mass protests around the proposed judicial “reforms” - including dissent in the IDF - but nothing similar when settlers and the Army systematically rampage through Palestinian towns, kill, assault, and jail residents, destroy houses, uproot olive trees - all with impunity, and backed by billions of U.S. tax dollars.
Thanks, Ellen, for reminding us that our tax dollars help fund the systematic destruction of Palestinian towns and peoples. It made Netanyahu’s son’s tweet claiming that the U.S. State Department is behind the protests most ironic. Your reminder also highlights our hypocrisy when it comes to our nation’s historical tendency of intervening in other countries’ internal politics and supporting the wrong (autocratic/far right?) side.
Your last sentence echos the reports of China’s increased influence in many, many African nations whose citizens experienced first hand the ruthless dictators propped by US policies and money!
US policies and money have propped up many ruthless dictatorships in Latin America too. I often wonder how those nations’ democracies might have had better chances of surviving without our intervention—and whether that might have reduced the need of our neighbors south of the border to immigrate here…
From: The Washington Post, Today's WorldView by By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall
'Aviv Bushinsky, a former chief of staff to Netanyahu, told The Post: “My view is that he lost control. He didn’t perceive that there would be such objection in the streets and the world.”
'If Netanyahu has lost control, it’s because the maelstrom he has unleashed is about much more than him. To come to power, he mainstreamed extremist far-right settler factions and brought them into the heart of his coalition. He has also leaned heavily on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, which see the proposed judicial reforms as a key vehicle to push their religious project on broader Israeli society. He gave momentum to a hard right, illiberal agenda that has been gaining traction for years.'
'The mass protests in Tel Aviv and other cities, often attended by more well-heeled and secular Israelis, are in part a reflection of a profound ideological divide within the country. The government’s legislative plans are “breaking the very delicate balance between mainstream Israel and the ultra-Orthodox who understood that they depend on a liberal, prosperous society with a strong military,” Yofi Tirosh, a vice dean of law at Tel Aviv University, told my colleague Shira Rubin.'
'But some analysts on the Israeli left point to an even deeper set of forces at play. Millions of Palestinians live under de facto Israeli military control, shorn of many of the same rights afforded to their Israeli neighbors. Their mere existence casts into shadow any substantive debates over what Israeli democracy stands for, especially when you consider how Belazel Smotrich — a far-right settler leader turned leading member of Netanyahu’s cabinet with civilian administrative powers over the occupied West Bank — recently publicly declared that Palestinians as a people don’t actually exist.'
'And there is no coincidence that Palestinian lands and political aspirations are among the first things in the crosshairs of Netanyahu and his far-right allies as they unfurl their legislative plans.'
“While protesters — many of them among the most privileged in Israeli society — walk in the streets demanding the ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy,’ Israeli forces are demolishing Palestinian homes; standing alongside settlers who are terrorizing Palestinians; denying freedom of movement and assembly; holding people in prolonged detention without trial; killing unarmed protesters; carrying out torture; and deporting Palestinian activists,” wrote American Israeli journalist Mairav Zonszein. “And within Israel, Palestinian citizens face structural discrimination and inequality under an explicit policy that prioritizes Jewish rights.”
'Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, recently marched in the anti-government protests with a sign that read, “There is no democracy with occupation.”
“No honest Israeli can claim that the military control over millions of Palestinians, without the most basic civil, human and political rights, can really be called a democracy,” Baskin wrote in an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post.'
“While so many Israelis have finally awakened to the distortions of our democracy and the threats to all of us,” he added, “perhaps they will now also wake up to the need to confront the central core of our existence as a modern liberal society in which there must be full equality for all of those who live under the same regime.” (WAPO) Sorry, gifted option not available until next month.
The preemptive "pardon" of Nixon pulled out the rug from under due process of law. It at the very least foreshadowed, if not in part enabled, the explosion of corruption we are seeing now.
Netanyahu,, in his post-election initiative to degut the Israeli judiciary, has sparked the greatest civil protest since the creation of Israel in 1948.
The seeds of this crisis were planted under David Ben-Gurion’s post-independence decisions. He described to me, at a luncheon in 1954, his dream of a Jewish/secular state in which the traditions of the Ultra Orthodox (Haredim) played a role. Thus he insisted that 400 Ultra Orthodox be provided a special dispensation to be permitted to not serve in the military and to study the Torah indefinitely with a government stipend.
Three generations later, the Ultra Orthodox segment of the Israeli population has gained an oversized influence in a religiously diverse country. There is powerful opposition to the role of the Ultra Orthodox in dictating religious rules in a country in which many Jews are Reform Orthodox or secular.
In Israel’s multi-political-party system, the negotiations to form a coalition government have become increasingly dicey. Netanyahu, with a single exception, has been prime minister for well over a decade because of his political legerdemain.
(In 2011 he came to the United States and spoke before Congress in opposition to President Obama. In 2016, as described in James Bamford’s latest book, Netanyahu and his operatives worked assiduously for Donald Trump’s election.)
Last year he regained office with the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. This included Ultra Orthodox zealots who insist on strict religious rules amd are lock-step opposed to equal political and legal rights for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
This political conflict is exacerbated because Israel has no formal constitution. Instead, the Supreme Court functioned under ad how traditions. This court had a ‘left-wing’ tendency and, on various occasions, has rejected some Ultra Orthodox positions in the Knesset (Israeli congress).
For Netanyahu, the judicial matter is personal, since he is under indictment for some serious crimes. He has been pursuing delaying tactics and, with his sudden initiative to render the Supreme Court secondary to majority vote in the Knesset, sees an avenue to avoid a possible trial and conviction.
Netanyahu has made a massive political miscalculation. He thought that he could ram his castration of the judicial system through his right-wing-coalition Knesset. Instead, he has sparked a political fire bomb that has triggered the largest civilian (and military) protests in Israel’s history and sharp rebukes from President Biden.
For the moment, a shaken Netanyahu has publicly backed down, stating that the judicial issue would be tabled until after Passover and the recess of thre Knesset.
In fact, he has a political issue akin to that of Speaker McCarthy and his House renegades. Netanyahu is dependent on his right-wing zealots in his shaky political coalition. He is likely to lose their votes, if he waffles on his proposed judicial legislation. However, if he insists on barreling through with his degutting judicial legislation, he could also lose his majority in the Knesset.
Netanyahu has put himself politically between a rock and a hard place. Though he has been a successful chameleon in the past, I think it possible, even likely, that his coalition government will collapse over the judicial issue and that Netanyahu could be out once again and face an April criminal trial.
Almost 35 years ago, an academic I knew, skeptical of the Zionist enterprise and Jewish state, returned from a conference - enamored of the intellectual life in Israel. But warning that "the blacks were destroying the nation." When asked to clarify he said "the black hats, the ultra orthodox." As in America, racist right wing religious extremists have understood that capturing the courts is essential to instituting their regime. In this they are aping Leonard Leo's dark money network funding antidemocratic initiatives. I've not had time to trace explicit links between the two. But would bet they exist.
Lin There is an American-funded right wing group that has supported the Ultra Orthodox and the extreme right wing effort to castrate the rather left-of-center Israeli Supreme Court.
In a more extreme sense, they are similar to The Federalist Society in the United States.
Lin Thanks for bringing up the NYT Koehlet article. Rather frightening, as American right wing groups get insidiously involved in Israeli politics and Netanyahu has blatantly supported American Republican presidents/candidates against Democratic presidents/candidates. Oi Vey!
'Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland'
'Not long after elections gave him a new mandate for power in November, Israel’s incoming prime minister won eager praise from a foreign counterpart. “What a great victory for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel!” tweeted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “Hard times require strong leaders. Welcome back!”
'Such a reaction was hardly a surprise. The two right-wing nationalists are birds of a feather, illiberal demagogues who have for years weaponized fears over ethnic minorities and conspiracies about liberal plots in their electoral and political battles with perceived enemies to the left. Orban, the black sheep of the European Union, has arguably taken his nation further down the illiberal path than Israel. He has bent the judiciary in his favor, cowed independent media, rejiggered elections with gerrymanders that favor his ruling party and co-opted right-wing extremists to further consolidate his power. Netanyahu looked on, perhaps admiringly; his allies even appeared to recycle the campaign imagery once used by Orban’s Fidesz party in their election race last year.'
'To be sure, Israel’s de facto military control over millions of Palestinians presents a unique wrinkle — no human rights organizations have accused Budapest of implementing apartheid. But when it comes to those in Israel afforded full democratic rights, many are concerned over Netanyahu’s penchant to dip into Orban’s playbook. That was most visibly on show during the rolling crisis over the government’s attempts to overhaul the judicial system, which reached a kind of denouement Monday.'
'After weeks of protests against a proposed bill that would empower the government to handpick judges — protests that intensified over the weekend and led to a wave of strikes, as well as counter-protests by supporters of the government — Netanyahu announced that, “out of national responsibility,” his ruling coalition government would suspend the effort until after the Knesset returns from its Passover recess, a delay that allows for a few months of stalling and potential negotiation.'
'The move kicks a combustible can down the road, with both the prime minister and his coalition allies still intent on passing the legislation. It appears that in order to get far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir on side with the delay, Netanyahu granted him the authority to create a new “national guard” — a potential paramilitary force under the exclusive control of one of the most extremist and racist politicians in the country.'
'The protest movement, meanwhile, is not ready to retreat. “The coup d’etat laws must be shelved completely,” read a statement from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a nongovernmental organization. “Not paused, not halted. Shelved. The suspension of the legislation looks like a cheap political exercise designed entirely to wait for a good time to bring the blitz of anti-democratic legislation back into our lives.”
'Netanyahu’s opponents explicitly fear him achieving what illiberal nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland already have, where entrenched right-wing parties set about restructuring the judiciary much to the ire of colleagues elsewhere in the European Union. Over the weekend, a panel convened in Jerusalem by the Israel Democracy Institute gave the floor to a pair constitutional scholars from both European countries'.
'Under Orban, Hungary’s parliament enacted constitutional amendments that limited the ability of the country’s constitutional court to strike down laws and lowered the retirement age for judges, which allowed the government to appoint political allies on the bench. According to an account from the Times of Israel, Gabor Halmai, an expert of constitutional law at the European University Institute, said these moves weakened the Hungarian judiciary’s independence, “because the selection process is not only political, it lacks any kind of merit,” and the justices appointed by the Orban government “are not experts in constitutional law.”
'As a result, “we have no free and fair elections in Hungary, we have no free media, we have no free civil society organizations,” Halmai said at the event.'
“If you really want to capture your democracy, you always start with the most important guardrail, and this is judicial review,” said Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, a law professor at the University of Gdansk in Poland, at the same gathering. “The ruling majority understood that if you have an independent court in place, the constitutional capture will never work because the constitutional court would always stand in the way.”
'Tellingly, it emerged that Israeli officials had consulted with Polish counterparts as they plotted their own judicial reforms. “Of course, we are talking with Israel, and to some extent we shared our experiences in this regard,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski told a local radio station on Monday. “I’m telling the honest truth. Israel was interested in what was happening in Poland. We were interested in what was happening in Israel.”
'In recent years, Netanyahu and his allies have found increasingly common cause with a constellation of right-wing nationalist movements elsewhere. These connections have been forged in part with the aid and support of U.S.-based right-wing Jewish organizations, including the Tikvah Fund, which is closely linked to the Kohelet Policy Forum, a secretive Israeli think tank funded by a U.S. libertarian billionaire that is seen as the guiding hand behind the judicial overhaul legislation.'
'Earlier this year, Amiad Cohen, head of the Tikvah Fund’s Israel chapter, called on Orban in Budapest. “The Left is crying that we are turning into Hungary,” Cohen tweeted. “Public discussion should be deep and serious, so I went over there to see what is happening and learn.”
'The sense of solidarity between these conservative camps is, on one level, quite curious, given Israel’s historical animosity to the agendas of European ultranationalists. But it has also become par for the course in Netanyahu’s Israel, where a steady lurch to the right has seen the mainstreaming of the extremist settler movement and the codification of certain Jewish supremacist positions in a controversial “nation-state” law. Israel’s privileging of its Jewish identity over all others is now seen by some in the European far right as a model to be emulated, a muscular rejection of universalist doctrines and the high-minded liberalism that they despise.
While Netanyahu’s coalition was thwarted in its attempts to follow Hungary and Poland’s lead, it has time to return to the fray, inflamed in part by a growing, angry counterprotest movement. Those arrayed against them won’t back down either. “Israel isn’t Poland” was one of the protesters’ cries. (WAPO)By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall. See link below.
Thanks for sharing this info. Sounds a lot like what is going on in America with the Rs. The try test of our judicial system will be what they do with DJT.
If he (and his co-conspirators) are allowed to roam free as they “weaponize” government for their sinister purposes then we’ll be on track to experience what people who allow dictators to reign are experiencing.
Rachel made the connection between the protests in Georgia (the country, not the US state) and Israel, both of hundreds of thousands of people marching for democracy, against laws that would take away their freedom. And then contrasting those actions with the action of the Georgia (the US state) legislature, passing a law that gives them the power to remove prosecutors they don't like (e.g., Fani Willis): another step along the path to fascism. Can we expect the citizens of the state of Georgia to come out in protest? They need to follow the examples of Israel and the Georgian nation. I fear they have neither the courage nor the awareness of history to stop the Republicans.
Re: the good professor's reference to the Bloomberg op-ed piece where he concludes our checks and balances have kept our democracy from 'fracturing.' I submit that trump and senate have corrupted the federal judiciary to the point that the fracture lines are deep and potentially fatal. If we are to preserve democracy, we must muster close to a super majority in 2024 because the gerrymandering and voter suppression by Republicans have given the 30% the upper hand ;-(
Stacey Abrams had been at the forefront against voter suppression in Georgia up until the 2022 election. Now she has moved on to helping "electrify" the country through green energy pursuits.
She was masterful at getting out the vote, and instrumental in both Ossoff's and Warnock's elections. But I'll bet she got tired of running into that brick wall of Republican intransigence that is so prevalent in the southern U.S. And losing to Kemp was demoralizing. She needs a break.
James, I don't live in Georgia, but I would not join a protest. I have protested in Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia many times. But those protests were in the days before guns outnumbered people in our country. I'm sorry to say I fear being gunned down if I join a group of protesters who are assembled in a peaceful way to demonstrate their objection to undemocratic laws or behaviors. I don't think the people of Georgia lack courage. I think common sense tells them that their protests will come to naught at best and to death at worst.
I understand your fear: we cannot give up and allow the fascists to take over. If we all have your attitude, we've already lost. Peaceful protest is a constitutional right. And no gun-toting terrorist is going to be allowed to take it away.
James, I appreciate your sentiment. Maybe I was wrong. I'm a baby boomer, so maybe I would risk myself to a movement that would make a difference. Any ideas about where and when a vast gathering of baby boomers might actually effect a change? We are a rather large demographic. Let's gather en masse. I'm most interested in banning assault weapons. You?
Legalized de facto bribery, excessive and anti-democracy money in politics is the one ring to rule them all. Protest has scored victories, never total but sometimes pivotal, when it is focused, strategic, disciplined, and sustained. It makes injustices that are so commonplace as to be seen as "normal" and even inevitable, much harder to ignore, such as routine and often institutionalized deprivation of Civil Rights.
I looked it up last night, 0 Democrats and 170 Republicans in Congress continue to take campaign funding from the NRA, according to Open Secrets, a group that monitors contributions to political campaigns. Kudos to our Democrats, in Congress who have cleaned up their act. Republicans, thoughts and prayers won't wash away the blood on your hands. Law makers at the state level who accept NRA money, how can you face the children in your families?
In 2021, Ogles, his wife, and two of his three children held guns as they posed for a Christmas card with a caption that read: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
So what are murder rates in the US compared to other wealthy societies? And how does gun ownership differ?
Also, Ogles is TN’s George Santos…lied about his education, his past business experience, and that’s all we know so far. He beat state senator Heidi Campbell, who was interviewed by Nicole Wallace yesterday.
J L, there are lots of reports, and some show that, while the US has one of the highest numbers of guns per person, it does not have a correspondingly high rate of gun deaths. But there are different methodologies used to get the numbers. I find this one (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) to be a good precís of where we are as a nation.
Here is another link to "Your Local Epidemiologist"
I started following her at the start of the pandemic, and she has done some amazing work in that regard. It was only about a year into it that I found out that, as an epidemiologist, she was primarily focused on gun violence. Her Substack today touches a little bit on the shooting in Nashville. (She was the second author on Substack that I subscribed to, FWIW)
I read " Your Local Epidemiologist" YLE every day. I also recommed "Inside Medicine" who actually does medical data analysis live keeping Readers posted on medical theory tested, cohort particulars & milestone results.
My family benefited greatly from the direction of a real local epidemiologist back in the first week of Match 2020. I learned about airborne vectors, & one of the early & highly transmissible subvariants, DG614. The local heath officials in the Bay Area CA (who as a group were experienced health administrrators from the AIDS era) were also very capable.
No infections in my extended family in this on-going Pandemic despite two (2) immunocompromised individuals. I did see the human toll in my Life Skills group from a woman who lost two (2) to CV19 in one week.
My household's only C-19 event was from our housemate (who cannot be vaccinated due to allergies and her inability to access what her allergic reaction to a vaccine when she was 6 and in foster care on the east coast...) when she had a direct exposure. This was from someone at the senior center where she volunteered and who chose to come to work sick. She isolated within the house, we all masked, she got the paxlovid and has had no ill effects since her recovery over a year ago.
Looks like that got taken down, but thanks for it... there are a lot of other links for Jon Stewart and John Oliver - I'll have plenty of entertainment for the day.
Throughout history there are those who try to make a virtue of being a bully, and being a bully is all about misusing power. Big kids abusing smaller kids, or intimidating others in gangs, rape and domestic violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, aggressive wars, despotic governments, animal cruelty, cruelty in general. A gun does not have to be a talisman and/or tool, of the will to bully, but I think it far too often is.
Excellent portrayal of the paths of these nations. Those who close their eyes to extreme right-wing agendas almost deserve their fates, Four hundred years have barely scratched the surface of bigotry in America, and now the 75-year-old state of Israel's denial of Palestinian rights threatens to tear them apart. Time to break out the Beatitudes, or does "Blessed are the peacemakers" seem too Progressive?
Some of the same people who tell me that the creation of the universe and Noah's Flood must be taken absolutely literally have said that Jesus wasn't saying what it sounds like he is saying when he spoke of loving one's enemy. The appropriate the authoritarian themes in religion, but arrogantly ignore the calls for universal compassion. The Jesus of MLK looks nothing like the one Trump and DeSantis claim to support.
Bloomberg thinks that the US came through Trump"s insurrection attempts "without catastrophic fracture"! What country is he living in? Has NYC been enclosed under a dome?
Thank you Heather. It’s helpful to have you round out the harsh realities of Netanyahu’s efforts to undo the Israeli democracy with reminders of the documents from our forbears that keep our country focusing on democracy as the path for our very complex group of states to continue working for ALL U.S. citizens.
When I started kindergarten way back when, all I had to worry about was learning to count and making friends.
When my nephew started kindergarten he had to learn what rooms in the building werrsafe (didn't have windows and only one door) and how to hide from an active shooter.
His mom told me that every place he went to for about a month, he was checking out where the safest places were.
A five year old shouldn't have this burden place them. How can a child be a child when they have to worry about being killed?
Rep. MTG predictably made a statement calling for more guns to combat the pervasive gun violence and slaughter of innocent children 😡
This is an excellent interview with Jon Stewert interviewing Nathan Dahm (OK state senator) about the “more guns make us safer” argument. Well worth your time to watch, please watch to the end.
https://youtu.be/tCuIxIJBfCY
Cathy, thanks for Jon Stewart's interview of an Oklahoma state senator. I felt embarrassed for Nathan Dahm, who apparently fails to realize his "purist" (as in "wrong") interpretation of the Second Amendment does not hold up to simple logic in any way at all. A sign of intelligence would have been for him to get up and walk out of the interview before being utterly humiliated, but he just let Stewart walk all over him. (I watched to the end, but only from morbid curiosity.)
There is no pro-gun argument that can stand up to the statistics. That our government cannot limit firearm possession after years of mindless slaughter among our civilian population is also an embarrassment. And, to the extent our country is a democracy, WE are an embarrassment.
It's not that our government CANNOT limit firearm possession; it's that Republicans won't let such limits pass because of their greed and that of firearms manufacturers. No ordinary person needs a combat weapon in daily life. If a person wants to use a combat weapon, join the military, be trained and submit to the Code of Military Justice.
“Training? OH NO!!!! Yer infringing on my right to be … on my right to… on my right….oh up yours, yer infringing and I shall not up with it put”
Dave, you got it! Thanks for the humor on this wretched day.
Gallows humor for sure
Measure 114 here in Oregon which passed is still being held up by an eastern Oregon judge. The legislature is thinking about presenting some bills which do the same as the measure. Rs in the legislature will attempt to scuttle it. In the meantime KGW, the local NBC affiliate is doing a five part series on the Greater Idaho movement where people in eastern Oregon and southern Oregon want to be part of Idaho which should tell you all you need to know about these areas. In one interview a person said that western Oregon had more representation. Duh....more population than the sparsely populated eastern Oregon.
They will stop at nothing, hate rules the fools
Bryan and Jenn, agree with your comments. Brainwashing is a technique of mental control.
Those accepting to live within that controlled environment feel safe and accepted and valued.
Going outside their "world" makes them vulnerabe....may lose friends....may lose their job.....neighbors may criticize....friends at church may condemn....may not win their government position the next time around....etc...etc. May even place their family in danger.....may have "secrets revealed about some misbehavior ie financial or another more personal misbehavior". Humans are vulnerabe to threats.
Where are our heroes? They are quivering wimps hiding behind the NRA with their firearms.
I write this simply due to Jon Stewart's clear and uncomplicated interview. We register most everything we buy. A weapon....and that is what a gun is....it is used to kill something alive unless you are at a shooting range where one is training to shoot something alive at a time of ones choosing.....
In my opinion there should be background checks and mental evaluations prior to purchasing a firearm. Haven't we seen enough children and adults slaughtered to come to this conclusion!!!! What are you afraid of....why are such checks opposed? This is common sense!!!!
Because it’s a tactic to keep the populous dumb (book banning, replacing principals and librarians with parents), frightened (guns) and confused with the goal to control. I know, sounds like a conspiracy theory, but who is going to reach out and help us when we no longer have a Democracy? Why do we have to follow the paths that others (Germany, Africa) have already paved and suffered, for us to learn? It’s exhausting! I was so impressed by the 99yo woman in Florida who spoke before a school board assembly.
https://www.wflx.com/2023/03/23/martin-county-woman-100-creates-quilt-show-opposition-book-ban/
Indeed. Widespread ignorance and fear are features to the far right not bugs. Fear is the dung from which fascism sprouts.
She was simply marvelous!
"Those accepting to live within that controlled environment feel safe and accepted and valued." Outstanding explanation.
JennSH, for 11 of the past 15 years we have had a Democratic president.
During those 15 years, Democrats have controlled the House for 6 years. Technically Democrats have also controlled the Senate for 6 years, if I am not mistaken. They could have eliminated or found a way around the filibuster if they had thought it important to do so. But apparently it is not only the GOP that has been corrupted by the gun lobby.
This failure by our government is a continuing bit of insanity that is hard to explain to people who are not Americans.
Repubs outdo Dems in the evil department by leaps and bounds. Have you forgotten the resistance to Obama’s very existence from every Repub, especially Mitch. My memory is still good…
Or find something more useful to do.
The ability to rationalize has no limit. The 2nd Amendment taken in context in no freak'n way justifies the right of all citizens to own a single shot musket unless they are part of the militia. I have heard pro gun arguments for years and the tortured rationalizations are just that. More guns = dah. A sickness in this country of ours. The pain and suffering forced on us by a minority is evidence of a broken democracy. Can't we fix it?
In the Heller the decision,Scalia foisted the faux originalist position on us to REwrite the 2nd amendment! However, even he cautioned about the inclusion of assault weapons, but he lacked the courage to actually exclude them!
May Scalia roast in Hell...
Interesting that Heller was successfully used by Massachusetts to ban AR-15s. The actual ruling is basically says that: There are military weapons, and all other weapons. Military weapons can be banned. For all other weapons, any and all kinds of regulation can be applied short of an outright ban. There are no absolute rights, not even the 2nd Amendment. Everything can be regulated.
Massachusetts successfully made the case that AR-15s are military weapons. (I agree). The Federal Judge and the Appeals Court agreed. The lasts sentence of the ruling (available on line) was: "Justice Scalia would be proud."
https://www.universalhub.com/2019/massachusetts-ban-certain-assault-weapons-upheld
John:
The same holds true in Highland Park, IL. and one other community there. The community also bans assault - type weapons which are considered military. That was a part of Scalia's opinion. The true gun nuts overlook what Scalia said to promote their own, altered, and illegitimate arguments.
Notice how the rabid 2nd Amenders misconstrue the word "organized" in organized militia.
Patricia, notice how they also equate “militia” with “angry white mob”?
Didja ever wonder how quickly these same rabid 2nd anendment sentence diagramers would “regulate” an equivalent “angry black mob”?
And yes, I recognize my question is hypothetical conjecture, but still, huh?
Legally armed and open carrying Black Panthers protecting their children at school caused then California Governor Ronald Reagan to enact a prohibition on open carry firearms and greatly restricted the ability to obtain a concealed carry permit.
Aside: I don't think those 2A proponents could diagram a sentence.
Ally, you beat me to it…was thinking of what Reagan did as I was reading this. Heartily disliked him as CA governor due to his policies and was appalled when he was elected president and enacted many of them nationally to our continued detriment.
LOL. Ally, I agree that they couldn't diagram a sentence.
According to the Pew Research Center most of the guns are owned by white males. The sale of AR 15 weapons is a recent phenomenon with 2/3 of these weapons being manufactured since 2012.
This coincides with Obama being president and white males in particular feeling they need to be “protected”. Whenever discussions about banning these military weapons come up, sales go up. Meanwhile gun manufacturers are making record profits and by law are being protected from liability.
Michael Moore started his Bowling for Columbine movie with a cartoon of white men carrying guns saying “fear of a black man”.
(This was even before Obama)
I’m a broken record about how racism has fueled most of America’s dysfunction. It’s not just Black people in the crosshairs now. Allowing this weapon on our streets is beyond crazy! Our problems are deeply rooted in how we relate to each other as human beings living in a “free” society.
It’s a sad state of affairs when mass shootings are the leading cause of death for our children!
Guns appear to be more important to Republicans than children.
Sad too the leading cause of death in our young is due to greed.
I agree, Gina. Like so many of our problems and weirdnesses, American gun craziness is likely rooted in racism. In fact, gun-love may be one way racism is passed down from one generation to the next, a kind of deadly euphemism based on a feeling and a wink, all the gun lovers on the same page.
There is nothing quite as empowering -- apparently -- as a loaded assault rifle, legally owned.
Ironically, it’s worse when white, terrorist, paramilitaries are organized.
To add a light comment at the bottom of this heavy discussion of the worst of our politics: Has anyone seen the 1990’s movie with Walter Matthau and another comic of equal excellence called “The Survivors”? It precedes the Proud Boys and pokes fun at the very idea of what they stand for. Guns in the forest.
Dahm isn’t smart and he certainly isn’t clever or as well-read as Jon Stewart. He didn’t stand a chance, which I am glad.
FOX viewers don't watch Stewart. The only way they would see these kind of interviews if they appeared in Prime Time on FOX not news.
Your point is well taken Christina but, political paralysis on gun mayhem in the USA is much more than a two party division. Consider women as a voting bloc, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers & district controlling "indepedents". The end of gross gerrymandering would help as well ... alot.
I like to think that what WE can take away from the arguments Stewart raises and the way he defends his viewpoint are perfect "ammunition" to use should we find ourselves having to defend our positions. He is a lesson in how to deal with these people. THAT, to me, is what we can take away from it. Of course, the right wouldn't give Stewart the time of day, but WE can use his methods of countering their positions. We can collectively reach more people on the right than he can.
Spot on Bruce & I like YOUR use of caps.
Yes yes yes! Exactly!
"A sign of intelligence would have been for him to get up and walk out of the interview before being utterly humiliated"
I'd say rather that a sign of intelligence would have been to graciously admit that Stewart is right....
No Republicans are that intelligent these days.
Cathy, how do you think I feel? I have to live in the same state as this POS and I do not use that term lightly. The other day I was walking through the Wally World parking lot when I accidentally met the sullen paranoid gaze of the ballcap-wearing fellow getting into his oversized truck. As he settled himself I could see the giant heater bulging on his hip. Chilled me to the bone. I wish I had a spaceship to take me out of Okahoma, maybe the whole USA.
Carolyn Paul Every day you live in fear because $$$$$- and power-grubbing repugnicant politicians care only about themselves. Meanwhile, your life becomes one of fear. Absolutely UNFORGIVABLE. I am so sorry.
Thanks for the link. Stewart lasered through the distractions and the side issues and nailed that ideologue to the wall.
I don't think it's mindless slaughter. I think it's organized to look chaotic. There is something extremely malicious going on here
The logic of forcing women to grow and birth babies just to slaughter them is pretty hard to wrap a brain around
The arms manufacturing folks make their living off men who are willing to fight.
Well, it sure happens like clockwork.
You ought not feel embarrassed for Mr. Dahm, he chose his arguments himself and opted not to take any of the chances Stewart gave him to avoid making an a** of himself.
I saw that earlier and thought Jon Stewart makes an excellent interviewer because he is not held to any MSM constraints. He nailed that pipsqueak, Dahm, beautifully by calling him a hypocrite. That was so pleasurable!
What's chilling is that Dahm appears to actually believe what he's saying. That people vote for this kind of guy speaks so poorly of those voters. One part of the Republican strategy is to reduce funding for public education, toward the dumbing down of those who would support them, while they send their own kids to private schools. Those voters don't even see how they're being used and sold down the river, since it's their kids, as well, who are being slaughtered by guns.
Truly they are the children (rats in this case) who follow the Pied Piper.
“That’s not a subjective opinion, that’s 50,000 dead people.”
Thank you, Jon Stewart, for stating the obvious so well: more guns equals more dead people. Full stop.
Three dead nine year olds. Again. How is this even remotely acceptable?
You’re absolutely correct. It’s not even remotely acceptable. Yet, here we are.
The Onion headline put it best years ago:
“‘No Way To Prevent This’, says only country where this routinely happens.”
Hey, Sheila. Just wanted to put this link out here for all to see.
Republicans were 100% recipients from the NRA in the 2022 elections.
Jim Jordan's name is first on the list (scroll down to see the individual reps' names) https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/national-rifle-assn/recipients?id=d000000082
Wowza...all there in black and white
Or, should we say are there ARE white?
Cathy, thank you for the link. Jon Stewart really ties Dahl into knots.
More Jon Stewarts, please, ASAP! Thanks, Cathy.
Cathy, MTG is a nitwit. I'm appalled with this group of whorish GOP morons.
Should add Nikki Haley and her yes to ban TikTok, but no ban on weapons, rather increase of metal detectors in schools .... the latter really helps (NOT) when someone shoots his/her way into the school rooms, or?
I saw that clip with Jon Stewart, it is fantastic.
I've posted this already this morning but in case any might miss it, this is well worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rt-3lmG5bU
Thanks for this clip, Miselle. Part of it was all over CBS Mornings, but not the whole thing. I will listen to Brian T Cohen for the rest of it. Thanks, again!
You're welcome, Lynell!
On another thought, I had started donating to the DNC back when Obama first ran. A LFAA reader (who I haven't seen post in awhile) Ellie Kona, inspired me to start writing letters and postcards. I had become discouraged with the DNC not supporting some (viable, I thought) Democratic candidates and felt my time and funds were better spent this way.
Now, I am retired and do these two things which cost me only time: I read articles online at Yahoo and msn.com. People are entitled to their "opinions" but when I see outright LIES (ie "The big guy has been selling US intel for over 40 years. "And yes, I saw exactly that!) I will report the comment to the moderators.
My Hispanic son in law is a mouthy conservative, gun toting, legalistic Baptist church voter. I was astounded by the amount of HIspanic vote tfg received! The Democratic party is not utilizing the strategies to reach these voters (Frequent commentor Mike S tells us this all the time.) Brian Tyler Cohen started a HIspanic channel and is asking for people to subscribe and view a few to help it catch on. I watch his clips almost daily, and then I click on the Spanish version while I read or do other work. This costs me nothing, but it might help!
Elie Kona inspired me as well. I pretty much read every Ellie post back in my first 2 months in the Community, my silent period. Thank you Miselle & thank you very much Ellie.
Morning, Miselle!! I, too, miss seeing Ellie on LFAA. I believe she may still be active on heathersherd. I also started out donating to DNC but heard from others that it was better to donate directly to the candidate.
Thanks for the tip about reporting to the moderator. I cringe when I see blatant lies in a post!
I took note of Brian Tyler Cohen's announcement that he was starting a Hispanic channel. Hopefully, it will help with your son-in-law. Fingers crossed for you!
Cathy, thank you so much for this Jon Stewart clip. I wish he would run for public office.
Lauren Boebert and Margie Greene must be so proud that women are finally stepping up and asserting their second amendment rights to shoot children.
(gag)
Leave it to the GOP to turn the conversation about limiting guns and gun violence to instead victim blame the school administrators for not being armed, oh and of course use this as a dog whistle for transphobia... They've successfully moved the goal posts and reframed the discussion, they don't care that gun violence happens, they just care that it can make them look bad so in some round about way they need to make it "The Lefts" fault. Which is why they want to blame this on "Left Wing" terrorism or trans people getting testosterone or something now. It's infuriating, and makes no logical sense. Maybe MTG should introduce legislation to ban all CIS men from owning guns if they are afraid of mass shootings, domestic violence, bomb threats, hate crimes, etc. But no, they don't actually care, they just want to drum donations, and use fear to divide people as usual. They can go decades literally ignoring right wing terrorism and celebrate it even but talk about limiting guns and they lose their minds.
You are 1,000% right about how the GQP will use this slaughter to their own "advantage" politically. It is WAY beyond nauseating to see this happen over and over and over and over again.
Thanks so much for sharing that interview. As frustrating as it was to listen to that state senator, I would like to have heard his response to Stewart's last statement, even knowing it would probably have made my head explode. On second thought... I'm good.
Thanks Cathy. That's Stewart at his best, and he saved the absolute best for last.
Why is the beginning of the 2nd amendment “well regulated militia” ALWAYS left out when citing the 2nd amendment? I know this topic has been discussed on this page before, along with pertinent Federalist papers, but I don’t understand why they get away with it.
I keep wondering the very same thing!!!
Jon makes the perfect argument and makes the state senator squirm at the end. Doubtful Jon will make a dent on his view. The republican party is a cult of white extremists and we need to recognize it as such.
Cathy
Thank you for sharing the link. Jon's laser focus excoriated Dahm. He was masterful at holding Dahm's feet to the fire and not letting him derail the interview. Particularly liked how he dismantled Dahm's argument that MORE guns are the answer: "By your logic, police going on a domestic violence call where there there are lots of guns in the house makes them safer."
Dahm was left stuttering and stammering. More interviews, Jon!
Thanks, Cathy. This interview is impressive. Jon Stewart models a way forward in conversations with gun fanatics.
Yes, Stewart controlled the interview masterfully and did not let Dahm change the subject and ramble aimlessly likepeople of his ilk usually do, but Stewart did not convince Dahm to change his mind on any issue, major or minor. My guess is that if you could get a thousand 2nd Amendment aficionados (or a thousand magats) to watch the interview, you would find in the end that nobody’s views on gun-rights had changed. Gun-laws cannot be changed by converting magats to decent human beings. Gun-laws can only be changed by outvoting the SOBs. There are just barely enough decent Americans to do that, but all of them must cast votes, regardless of the obstacles Republicans put in their way. If you have time to invest in politics, join a good get-out-the-vote organization and do what you can to help.
Thank you Heather.
Will there ever come a day when lives take a priority over guns in the mind of a Republican?
No.
Spoiler alert, thoughts and prayers are a waste of time.
Be safe. Be well.
... thoughts and prayers are an insensitive comment after you just gave permission to kill someone's child. thoughts and prayers - give me a break. DO SOMETHING! How many must die before something is done? A national health crisis and they want more guns. INSANE.
Linda, agree.
Seems to me that there is a positive correlation between "thoughts and prayers" and death and destruction.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zC1kiX6MGhTETxnh8
The more thoughts and prayers we offer, the more death and destruction we get. Especially since 1980.
I would, looking at the correlated data, recommend we punt off the "thoughts and prayers" approach to managing this increasing violence and do something else, like ban assault weapons, automatic hand guns, most handguns actually since they are only meant to kill people.
But, for some reason, people seem unaware that "thoughts and prayers" may actually be causing the death and destruction by military weapons.
At the very least, based on the data, a shout out to "thoughts and prayers" seems guaranteed to mean more death and destruction.
Mike, it occurs to me that Republicans haven’t yet figured out that uttering “thoughts and prayers” makes them appear both “incapable of thought” and “ignorant of the meaning of prayer”
It defines the entirety of their transparency
Republicans haven’t figured out they make a parody of those words by uttering them
Mike, I completely agree. Thoughts and prayers is the parallel comment to death and destruction. They have tagged one another for decades.
I hate hearing the thoughts and prayers from the complicit Republicans because we all know that means, where will the next one be. I nolonger think in terms of will there be a next time? It's when.
I was at my Syracuse house on Saturday morning. I heard the distinct pop, pop, pop. I knew what it was but my mind went into self defense and justified it as someone using a nail gun. Within minutes police cars came from every direction . Someone was shot in their front yard one block from me.
I'm so glad I will be gone from this house in a couple of weeks for good.
Guess what, it wasn't a nail gun.
Thoughts and prayers = dumb and dumber.
It is a placebo for having nothing to say which may have meaning to those around them. It is an excuse for doing nothing.
Wait till they lose someone close to them. See if "thoughts and prayers" placates them for something senseless.
Wow. Linda. I am sorry you were so close. I hope all is well. Or will be.
Good luck with your move and best wishes. Hopefully we will still see your posts here.
Thanks Mike.
I will be moving full time about an hour from Syracuse to the house we bought a couple of years ago. I have been staying in the house I grew up in for convenience sake for where I work. Crime has gotten so bad here in Syracuse that even a few days a week is just too unnerving.
I might miss a few days here during the move, but I won't be gone for long.
"Thoughts and Prayers".
Words that are worse than a waste of time. They are embarrassing. They are code for "owning my own WMDs is more important to me than the lives of children".
TP. Think about it.
Certainly if your prayers are for more guns.
Touche'. Horrible, but you got it.
During tragedies like this, it is the only time that magas have any thoughts and most gop politicians alleged to say prayers!
Last Sunday, a graphic of CBS Sunday Morning stated that there were 122 multiple gun deaths to date, more than 1 per day!
I wish Jon Stewart would run for high office. Someone needs to make the weapons issue a central campaign story. I really believe that a large majority of Americans would support a ban on weapons of mass destruction and the ammo that shreds human flesh.
Imagine Congress with Jon Stewart and Al Franken!
You mean a Congress with compassion, intelligence and wit? Please!
Stewart’s been asked often to run for office—not his thing.
Beto did in Texas, the cheating trio smashed any effort at a real election. They have stacked the deck at the state level. National not far behind…
I think they perversely believe that guns protect lives, despite the obvious contrary evidence that they conveniently ignore; hence the notion that more guns will give us more safety. It's wacko logic, but it makes sense to them.
Hitler used the science of eugenics to justify exterminating those inferior others. That made sense to them also.
Ashbey Beasley voiced what so many of us are feeling: “Aren’t you guys tired of covering this?…How is this still happening ?… How are our children still dying, and why are we failing them? Gun violence is the number one killer of children and teens.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/171414/mom-interrupts-fox-news-segment-nashville-school-shooting
Mary, I heard this woman on the BBC news early this morning. I'm glad the reporter was wise enough to back down and give her air time.
I love that she stepped in and said this!
Let’s see if we can turn this conversation about “thoughts and prayers” into a potentially positive result? There are approximately only 40-50 Congressional Districts (CDs) that are “competitive” in that either side has a moderate chance of winning. The only way to achieve an assault weapons ban in the House is for Democrats to win a solid majority of somewhere around 8 to 10 seats in the House whereas Rs now have a 4 seat majority.
Among this very intelligent and tuned-in readership there are folks (I mean you who are reading this) who can figure out which CDs are vulnerable in your state and make sure each R (either already in the House or running) makes it clear either she supports assault weapons ban or doesn’t! We need to identify the opposition because this is a powerful issue that we can with in 24! That’s step one!
Then contribute and/or organize young voter reg ( start now with www.turnup.US/ ) and turnout so that we flip between 15 and 20 seats! And please do not concentrate your $$ or work into trying to flip a R+15 CD I.e. Kevin McCarthy). It’s just not doable in our fractured society! Same in the Senate--Very important to elect Rueben Gallego in AZ which means a flip of 2; save Testa in MT; Sherrod in OH; etc. WE. CAN DO IT!
So that’s our task to change the narrative from T&P to Bring It On in January 2025!!
Does anyone else see the irony in the Israeli government proposing actions that seem to come directly from Hitler’s play book? Take away the independence of the judiciary, create a “civil” militia controlled by the extreme right-wing to terrorize Palestinians in the name of “peacekeeping”.
Beware of the one party state.
AKA "Tyranny".
Nadine
Oh Israel, are you a premonition? Will your democracy survive the Strongman? Or Will your people be subdued and cowered?
Oh America, are you watching? Or will the media cover this up? Is it already too late? Oh Merrick, your time is running out
“Americans should watch developments in Israel, in which a sitting prime minister, facing criminal charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery, was returned to office, and is now attempting to pass laws that would, among other things, limit the ways in which he can be declared unfit for office.”
What I have seen in my RWNJ friends is that their support for Israel is even stronger. I just don't get it.
Some of that support for Israel is from "Christian" End Times believers.
Here are a couple of older but still relevant articles that explain this.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/evangelicals-israel-and-t_b_391351
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201712/end-times-beliefs-are-extreme-and-extremely-influential
You are correct. The Endtimers are treating it as though it were their job to bring it about.
Hence my question regarding the average American’s perspective and whether they view Israel as a safe haven for Jews from Nazi oppression as opposed to the current reality as oppressors; iow, how informed are they really?
The trauma and truth of the Holocaust blinds them of their own role as oppressors. It’s different than our Jim Crow history. Foreign influence doesn’t help for either Israel nor Palestinians. The cycle of repression and retaliation just keeps spinning.
Identify Politics has cemented and set up, they are ideologues now, next stop is cult followership. Many are already there ready to commit political violence, and/or look the other way, cuz it’s safer and more comfortable not to think, not to care.
Exactly so. Well put.
What I find as someplace between "ironic" and "moronic" is the Forbes' 2023 ratings of "happiest countries in the world" placing Israel as #4, above a host of nations that at least seem credible places where happiness abounds.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2023/03/20/ranked-the-20-happiest-countries-in-the-world-in-2023/?sh=10a4071d79c2
If anyone has an explanation for this, I'm ready to hear it.
In my last years working, I made trips to Tel Aviv, troubleshooting computer problems. I found it to be an exciting place, wonderful food, beautiful women, pleasant climate: I think, if I had gone there in my twenties, I would have stayed there and become an Israeli citizen. But there was always a nervous undercurrent - not quite fear - that something bad would happen. I can understand the rating: I wonder if it will be as good next year.
I went to Israel in 2006–my first trip overseas. It was beautiful. Tel Aviv and Jérusalem were exciting. It was there I first realized up close the the situation of the Palestinians. I don’t think these two peoples can ever have peace.
Israel shows us how inequality manifests itself.
That's so interesting! I've had a couple of Jewish friends urge me to go to Israel, saying that I would love it. All I could think of was desert and people interrupting each other constantly! I like hearing your experience of it.
It's well worth the long plane ride, which is easier if you can afford business class. I would go again, but there are so many places I haven't been, I fear I'll not make that trip. Europe, especially Italy, Greece, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark are on the list. And in the US, I haven't yet been to Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas.
Me too, in the U.S. The plane ride to Israel is very long. One of the surprises I had was the desert isn't sand--it's rock.
James, you are very well-traveled in the United States! (Don't leave Bhutan off of your Places To Go list!)
The 2023 rating actually is a move up from 2022.
I remember the food... the breakfast spread at the hotel was huge - breads, meat, fruit and cheese from all over the world, long tables that held too much to even sample. So different from Riyadh.
I'd understood Israel was the breadbasket of the Middle East. Yes, the breakfasts were awesome!
Forbes paid off by the Israeli travel bureau!
To me, the rating is supposed to be an indicator of a place one should want to live rather than just a place to visit. Qualities of a place to live in would seem to have qualities of governance that another country farther down the list should want to emulate.
Go figure. US number 15 from what I saw.
I see the irony. It's an extension of the irony that has long been at the core of conflict in the region. The Extreme Israelis treat Palestinians as sub human. How a people who were so terrorized, murdered, tortured, and vilified for centuries could treat another group as badly as they have is beyond my understanding.
There are many in Israel who have been trying to build bridges between the Jews and Palestinians. But violence fed by desperation has led to ultra right wing dominance. It's so complicated. If I were afraid of a rocket attack from the moment I was born, I wonder how I would feel and who I would vote for. The guy who promises security, maybe? What if he turns out to be a racist, sexist, authoritarian crook?
This much is for sure. In every conflict, he with the most power, money and guns has the best opportunity to create peace.
I also notice the absence of women in the politics of Israel. I suspect they might approach the crisis differently.
Bill, the current Israeli society has the same inclinations as the Puritans escaping England for the new world. They didn’t oppose oppressors and oppression, they simply wanted to be the ones doing it to the Native Americans
Excellent analogy - sadly so. To Native Americans, for sure. But very much to any of their own who dared commit a heresy. One of the most potent and revealing books I have ever read is "The Barbarous Years" by Bernard Bailyn. It supports your accurate statement.
I can only hope that there is a silent Israeli majority that will reassert itself. I have a cousin by marriage in Israel who makes us proud. She is a leader in bridging the gap between Jewish and Arab kids. Some very creative programs that focus on empathy and attitudes of equality.
The Jew becomes the Nazi and the Palestinian the Jew.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed- Palo Freire
Its interesting how that works, huh?
And Africans for more than 250 years..
Dave -- Ouch. Very good point which had never occurred to me before.
So often, the abused become abusers. I saw that as a street cop. That is one reason why the cycle of familial sexual abuse keeps on keeping on.
Golda Meir,. One of Israel’s sanest voices in the Knesset last week was a woman MK.
It’s only the Far Right coalitions that excludes them
'GENEVA (13 February 2023) – The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.'
'In the month of January 2023 alone, Israeli authorities reportedly demolished 132 Palestinian structures across 38 communities in the occupied West Bank, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures. This figure represents a 135 percent increase, compared to the same period in 2022, and includes five punitive demolitions.'
'“The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.
'The experts reiterated their concern over the situation in Masafer Yatta, where over 1,100 Palestinian residents remain at imminent risk of forced eviction, arbitrary displacement and demolitions of their homes, livelihood, water and sanitation structures. In November 2022, Israeli authorities demolished a donor-funded school in Isfey al Fauqa. Four other schools in the area are under demolition orders.'
“Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.'
“Israel’s tactics of forcibly displacing and evicting the Palestinian population appear to have no limits. In occupied East Jerusalem, tens of Palestinian families also face imminent risks of forced evictions and displacement, due to discriminatory zoning and planning regimes that favour Israeli settlement expansion – the act that is illegal under international law and amounts to a war crime.”
'The experts also expressed alarm at the Israeli Government’s endorsement and escalated practice of punitive evictions and demolitions, and other punitive measures applied to alleged perpetrators of “terrorist” attacks and their family members, such as revoking identity documents, citizenship and residency rights and social security benefits.' (UnitedNations,HumanRights,OfficeofHighCommissioner) See link below
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/02/un-experts-say-israel-should-be-held-accountable-acts-domicide
This is Israel's Jim Crow era.
Thanks for your inciteful Post. Your observations awakened deep feeling of pain and reflection of the occurrences of the past: Holocaust. Have we learned nothing from the results of this behavior to our own people during the last rise of fascism? I see portents of a frightful rise of all these behaviors now occurring. Genocide by enforced neglect is more and more visible in these treacherous times.
Amen. You need to start writing articles.
Rebekha, Your response echoes my research, observations and deep concern.
Fern. TY.
Important to have the right words. " domicide" is one. What is being done to the Palestinians and, I submit, what Putin is trying to do to Ukraine. Erasing homes, homelands, and creating this ever growing, on the move, global population of the " dis-placed".
That’s genocide without the gas chamber.
Deny citizenship, voting, education, no safety to one’s shelter and food. Force poverty. Restrict movement to economic safe zones. No hope for your children’s future. It breeds the radicalization that they use to justify and maintain the Jim Crow Apartheid policy. No end in sight to the crisis.
Thank you, this has been so disheartening. Boomerang
Israel just feels like Apartheid. Maybe worse. Hard right religious zealots in power.
Not all the people are citizens. The Palestinians suffer without the right to vote. Their repression breed’s retaliation.
Democracy critics benefit from stoking the unrest and maintaining the status quo.
Fern, I agree. Palestinians only want the land promised to them many years ago.
Conflict has been chosen. The entire region would be more prosperous without prejudice.
I would expect the Jewish people, more than any other group, to be particularly sensitive and resistant to emerging dictatorship. Maybe I only think I know the Jewish people.
I used to think that, apparently Bibi doesn’t
It's what the Federalist Society has been trying to do here and they've had quite a bit of success. If trump became president again, the judiciary would be in his gun sights.
“has done here”
The taking away of rights has already started. Voting, women’s health care, trans people, more are just so subtle so we are not shocked to protest. Our Supreme Court is defacto already where Netennyu wants to take Israel. Our SCOTUS is a rubber stamp for the extremists that overtaken the QOP. The difference in America will be our willingness to protest when counter protesters are heavily armed and supported by the police.
When the time comes, will 10,000 unarmed peaceful protesters be intimidated from showing up if there are 1,000 Kyle Rittenhouses and Tim McVeighs are waiting for us? That is the danger of a Libertarian led QOP and Federalist Society Judiciary and 22 million annual unit gun sales.
Yes! But I don’t think we have to go that far back to Hitler, We have tfg and the Proud Boys, 3%ers, Attomwaffen, buggulo boys, Ammon Bundy followers etc etc. These are the new brown shirts. The unregulated militia, willing to use political violence for the strongman when the Police and Military will not. Normalizing violence is a tool of the tyrant.
Bibi is, was and always will be vermin
Netanyahu and Fake 45 are one and the same, criminals of the highest order. They are manipulators, grifters, and just plain liars. I was very happy when the Israelis breached Bibi’s home. Must’ve been a little too close for comfort to have people break into his house. That’s how I feel about 45’s people breaking into the Capitol, our once sacred ground. Incitement is Fake 45’s speciality and look where it’s gotten us...more people dead by assault weapons that the Repubs want on deck. It is very hard to fathom why there is this “need” to hurt, to maim others. What is missing from their character that they must shoot to kill? I weep. I am afraid.
In early March, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the state to “erase” a Palestinian town, and he has called himself a “proud homophobe” and a “fascist.”
Talk about ignoring history...
Calling for erasure of of Palestinian towns is an echo of history, yes - but it is also present-day Israel. It’s interesting that there are mass protests around the proposed judicial “reforms” - including dissent in the IDF - but nothing similar when settlers and the Army systematically rampage through Palestinian towns, kill, assault, and jail residents, destroy houses, uproot olive trees - all with impunity, and backed by billions of U.S. tax dollars.
Thanks, Ellen, for reminding us that our tax dollars help fund the systematic destruction of Palestinian towns and peoples. It made Netanyahu’s son’s tweet claiming that the U.S. State Department is behind the protests most ironic. Your reminder also highlights our hypocrisy when it comes to our nation’s historical tendency of intervening in other countries’ internal politics and supporting the wrong (autocratic/far right?) side.
Your last sentence echos the reports of China’s increased influence in many, many African nations whose citizens experienced first hand the ruthless dictators propped by US policies and money!
US policies and money have propped up many ruthless dictatorships in Latin America too. I often wonder how those nations’ democracies might have had better chances of surviving without our intervention—and whether that might have reduced the need of our neighbors south of the border to immigrate here…
...and as always, the chickens come home to roost.
Chile.
From: The Washington Post, Today's WorldView by By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall
'Aviv Bushinsky, a former chief of staff to Netanyahu, told The Post: “My view is that he lost control. He didn’t perceive that there would be such objection in the streets and the world.”
'If Netanyahu has lost control, it’s because the maelstrom he has unleashed is about much more than him. To come to power, he mainstreamed extremist far-right settler factions and brought them into the heart of his coalition. He has also leaned heavily on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, which see the proposed judicial reforms as a key vehicle to push their religious project on broader Israeli society. He gave momentum to a hard right, illiberal agenda that has been gaining traction for years.'
'The mass protests in Tel Aviv and other cities, often attended by more well-heeled and secular Israelis, are in part a reflection of a profound ideological divide within the country. The government’s legislative plans are “breaking the very delicate balance between mainstream Israel and the ultra-Orthodox who understood that they depend on a liberal, prosperous society with a strong military,” Yofi Tirosh, a vice dean of law at Tel Aviv University, told my colleague Shira Rubin.'
'But some analysts on the Israeli left point to an even deeper set of forces at play. Millions of Palestinians live under de facto Israeli military control, shorn of many of the same rights afforded to their Israeli neighbors. Their mere existence casts into shadow any substantive debates over what Israeli democracy stands for, especially when you consider how Belazel Smotrich — a far-right settler leader turned leading member of Netanyahu’s cabinet with civilian administrative powers over the occupied West Bank — recently publicly declared that Palestinians as a people don’t actually exist.'
'And there is no coincidence that Palestinian lands and political aspirations are among the first things in the crosshairs of Netanyahu and his far-right allies as they unfurl their legislative plans.'
“While protesters — many of them among the most privileged in Israeli society — walk in the streets demanding the ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy,’ Israeli forces are demolishing Palestinian homes; standing alongside settlers who are terrorizing Palestinians; denying freedom of movement and assembly; holding people in prolonged detention without trial; killing unarmed protesters; carrying out torture; and deporting Palestinian activists,” wrote American Israeli journalist Mairav Zonszein. “And within Israel, Palestinian citizens face structural discrimination and inequality under an explicit policy that prioritizes Jewish rights.”
'Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist, recently marched in the anti-government protests with a sign that read, “There is no democracy with occupation.”
“No honest Israeli can claim that the military control over millions of Palestinians, without the most basic civil, human and political rights, can really be called a democracy,” Baskin wrote in an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post.'
“While so many Israelis have finally awakened to the distortions of our democracy and the threats to all of us,” he added, “perhaps they will now also wake up to the need to confront the central core of our existence as a modern liberal society in which there must be full equality for all of those who live under the same regime.” (WAPO) Sorry, gifted option not available until next month.
That is history: in Systemic Constellations there is a reoccurring pattern of perpetrators and victims switching roles after two generations.
JL, he thinks he’s “taking his place IN history”. Eminent Domain anyone?
Gallant is Netanyahu’s Archibald Cox and Netanyahu should meet the same end as Richard Nixon. Minus the pardon.
The preemptive "pardon" of Nixon pulled out the rug from under due process of law. It at the very least foreshadowed, if not in part enabled, the explosion of corruption we are seeing now.
Definitely enabled, J L. It set the precedent for allowing impunity to indicted criminal presidents.
Netanyahu,, in his post-election initiative to degut the Israeli judiciary, has sparked the greatest civil protest since the creation of Israel in 1948.
The seeds of this crisis were planted under David Ben-Gurion’s post-independence decisions. He described to me, at a luncheon in 1954, his dream of a Jewish/secular state in which the traditions of the Ultra Orthodox (Haredim) played a role. Thus he insisted that 400 Ultra Orthodox be provided a special dispensation to be permitted to not serve in the military and to study the Torah indefinitely with a government stipend.
Three generations later, the Ultra Orthodox segment of the Israeli population has gained an oversized influence in a religiously diverse country. There is powerful opposition to the role of the Ultra Orthodox in dictating religious rules in a country in which many Jews are Reform Orthodox or secular.
In Israel’s multi-political-party system, the negotiations to form a coalition government have become increasingly dicey. Netanyahu, with a single exception, has been prime minister for well over a decade because of his political legerdemain.
(In 2011 he came to the United States and spoke before Congress in opposition to President Obama. In 2016, as described in James Bamford’s latest book, Netanyahu and his operatives worked assiduously for Donald Trump’s election.)
Last year he regained office with the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. This included Ultra Orthodox zealots who insist on strict religious rules amd are lock-step opposed to equal political and legal rights for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
This political conflict is exacerbated because Israel has no formal constitution. Instead, the Supreme Court functioned under ad how traditions. This court had a ‘left-wing’ tendency and, on various occasions, has rejected some Ultra Orthodox positions in the Knesset (Israeli congress).
For Netanyahu, the judicial matter is personal, since he is under indictment for some serious crimes. He has been pursuing delaying tactics and, with his sudden initiative to render the Supreme Court secondary to majority vote in the Knesset, sees an avenue to avoid a possible trial and conviction.
Netanyahu has made a massive political miscalculation. He thought that he could ram his castration of the judicial system through his right-wing-coalition Knesset. Instead, he has sparked a political fire bomb that has triggered the largest civilian (and military) protests in Israel’s history and sharp rebukes from President Biden.
For the moment, a shaken Netanyahu has publicly backed down, stating that the judicial issue would be tabled until after Passover and the recess of thre Knesset.
In fact, he has a political issue akin to that of Speaker McCarthy and his House renegades. Netanyahu is dependent on his right-wing zealots in his shaky political coalition. He is likely to lose their votes, if he waffles on his proposed judicial legislation. However, if he insists on barreling through with his degutting judicial legislation, he could also lose his majority in the Knesset.
Netanyahu has put himself politically between a rock and a hard place. Though he has been a successful chameleon in the past, I think it possible, even likely, that his coalition government will collapse over the judicial issue and that Netanyahu could be out once again and face an April criminal trial.
Almost 35 years ago, an academic I knew, skeptical of the Zionist enterprise and Jewish state, returned from a conference - enamored of the intellectual life in Israel. But warning that "the blacks were destroying the nation." When asked to clarify he said "the black hats, the ultra orthodox." As in America, racist right wing religious extremists have understood that capturing the courts is essential to instituting their regime. In this they are aping Leonard Leo's dark money network funding antidemocratic initiatives. I've not had time to trace explicit links between the two. But would bet they exist.
Lin There is an American-funded right wing group that has supported the Ultra Orthodox and the extreme right wing effort to castrate the rather left-of-center Israeli Supreme Court.
In a more extreme sense, they are similar to The Federalist Society in the United States.
Please note that Kohelet, the right wing religious extremist think tank and other entities behind the move to overturn Israel's independent judiciary parallel Leonard Leo's Federalist Society and shell corporations funneling dark money to antidemocratic initiatives. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/israel-judges-kohelet.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/opinion/israel-netanyahu-judiciary-protests.html
Lin Thanks for bringing up the NYT Koehlet article. Rather frightening, as American right wing groups get insidiously involved in Israeli politics and Netanyahu has blatantly supported American Republican presidents/candidates against Democratic presidents/candidates. Oi Vey!
Yes-remember Cambridge Analytics operating out of Israel and Kushner/Bannon’s involvement with them for TFG’s campaign.
We truly live in a global world where forces of good and evil are at play. We shall see what the end of man’s inhumanity to man will be..
My hope is that despite our obvious flaws America will be able to show the world that it is possible to live with peace and prosperity for all.
I may be a “Pollyanna” but I’m sticking to it and believing that yes we can..
Gina As Langston Hughes phrased it, if you don’t have dreams you become a broken-winged bird. AND some dreams do come true!
'Netanyahu’s Israel finds kindred spirits in Hungary and Poland'
'Not long after elections gave him a new mandate for power in November, Israel’s incoming prime minister won eager praise from a foreign counterpart. “What a great victory for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel!” tweeted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “Hard times require strong leaders. Welcome back!”
'Such a reaction was hardly a surprise. The two right-wing nationalists are birds of a feather, illiberal demagogues who have for years weaponized fears over ethnic minorities and conspiracies about liberal plots in their electoral and political battles with perceived enemies to the left. Orban, the black sheep of the European Union, has arguably taken his nation further down the illiberal path than Israel. He has bent the judiciary in his favor, cowed independent media, rejiggered elections with gerrymanders that favor his ruling party and co-opted right-wing extremists to further consolidate his power. Netanyahu looked on, perhaps admiringly; his allies even appeared to recycle the campaign imagery once used by Orban’s Fidesz party in their election race last year.'
'To be sure, Israel’s de facto military control over millions of Palestinians presents a unique wrinkle — no human rights organizations have accused Budapest of implementing apartheid. But when it comes to those in Israel afforded full democratic rights, many are concerned over Netanyahu’s penchant to dip into Orban’s playbook. That was most visibly on show during the rolling crisis over the government’s attempts to overhaul the judicial system, which reached a kind of denouement Monday.'
'After weeks of protests against a proposed bill that would empower the government to handpick judges — protests that intensified over the weekend and led to a wave of strikes, as well as counter-protests by supporters of the government — Netanyahu announced that, “out of national responsibility,” his ruling coalition government would suspend the effort until after the Knesset returns from its Passover recess, a delay that allows for a few months of stalling and potential negotiation.'
'The move kicks a combustible can down the road, with both the prime minister and his coalition allies still intent on passing the legislation. It appears that in order to get far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir on side with the delay, Netanyahu granted him the authority to create a new “national guard” — a potential paramilitary force under the exclusive control of one of the most extremist and racist politicians in the country.'
'The protest movement, meanwhile, is not ready to retreat. “The coup d’etat laws must be shelved completely,” read a statement from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a nongovernmental organization. “Not paused, not halted. Shelved. The suspension of the legislation looks like a cheap political exercise designed entirely to wait for a good time to bring the blitz of anti-democratic legislation back into our lives.”
'Netanyahu’s opponents explicitly fear him achieving what illiberal nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland already have, where entrenched right-wing parties set about restructuring the judiciary much to the ire of colleagues elsewhere in the European Union. Over the weekend, a panel convened in Jerusalem by the Israel Democracy Institute gave the floor to a pair constitutional scholars from both European countries'.
'Under Orban, Hungary’s parliament enacted constitutional amendments that limited the ability of the country’s constitutional court to strike down laws and lowered the retirement age for judges, which allowed the government to appoint political allies on the bench. According to an account from the Times of Israel, Gabor Halmai, an expert of constitutional law at the European University Institute, said these moves weakened the Hungarian judiciary’s independence, “because the selection process is not only political, it lacks any kind of merit,” and the justices appointed by the Orban government “are not experts in constitutional law.”
'As a result, “we have no free and fair elections in Hungary, we have no free media, we have no free civil society organizations,” Halmai said at the event.'
“If you really want to capture your democracy, you always start with the most important guardrail, and this is judicial review,” said Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz, a law professor at the University of Gdansk in Poland, at the same gathering. “The ruling majority understood that if you have an independent court in place, the constitutional capture will never work because the constitutional court would always stand in the way.”
'Tellingly, it emerged that Israeli officials had consulted with Polish counterparts as they plotted their own judicial reforms. “Of course, we are talking with Israel, and to some extent we shared our experiences in this regard,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski told a local radio station on Monday. “I’m telling the honest truth. Israel was interested in what was happening in Poland. We were interested in what was happening in Israel.”
'In recent years, Netanyahu and his allies have found increasingly common cause with a constellation of right-wing nationalist movements elsewhere. These connections have been forged in part with the aid and support of U.S.-based right-wing Jewish organizations, including the Tikvah Fund, which is closely linked to the Kohelet Policy Forum, a secretive Israeli think tank funded by a U.S. libertarian billionaire that is seen as the guiding hand behind the judicial overhaul legislation.'
'Earlier this year, Amiad Cohen, head of the Tikvah Fund’s Israel chapter, called on Orban in Budapest. “The Left is crying that we are turning into Hungary,” Cohen tweeted. “Public discussion should be deep and serious, so I went over there to see what is happening and learn.”
'The sense of solidarity between these conservative camps is, on one level, quite curious, given Israel’s historical animosity to the agendas of European ultranationalists. But it has also become par for the course in Netanyahu’s Israel, where a steady lurch to the right has seen the mainstreaming of the extremist settler movement and the codification of certain Jewish supremacist positions in a controversial “nation-state” law. Israel’s privileging of its Jewish identity over all others is now seen by some in the European far right as a model to be emulated, a muscular rejection of universalist doctrines and the high-minded liberalism that they despise.
While Netanyahu’s coalition was thwarted in its attempts to follow Hungary and Poland’s lead, it has time to return to the fray, inflamed in part by a growing, angry counterprotest movement. Those arrayed against them won’t back down either. “Israel isn’t Poland” was one of the protesters’ cries. (WAPO)By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall. See link below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/28/netanyahu-israel-hungary-poland-orban-illiberal-nationalist/
Thanks for sharing this info. Sounds a lot like what is going on in America with the Rs. The try test of our judicial system will be what they do with DJT.
If he (and his co-conspirators) are allowed to roam free as they “weaponize” government for their sinister purposes then we’ll be on track to experience what people who allow dictators to reign are experiencing.
Hope your last paragraph is correct
Rachel made the connection between the protests in Georgia (the country, not the US state) and Israel, both of hundreds of thousands of people marching for democracy, against laws that would take away their freedom. And then contrasting those actions with the action of the Georgia (the US state) legislature, passing a law that gives them the power to remove prosecutors they don't like (e.g., Fani Willis): another step along the path to fascism. Can we expect the citizens of the state of Georgia to come out in protest? They need to follow the examples of Israel and the Georgian nation. I fear they have neither the courage nor the awareness of history to stop the Republicans.
Re: the good professor's reference to the Bloomberg op-ed piece where he concludes our checks and balances have kept our democracy from 'fracturing.' I submit that trump and senate have corrupted the federal judiciary to the point that the fracture lines are deep and potentially fatal. If we are to preserve democracy, we must muster close to a super majority in 2024 because the gerrymandering and voter suppression by Republicans have given the 30% the upper hand ;-(
Stacey Abrams had been at the forefront against voter suppression in Georgia up until the 2022 election. Now she has moved on to helping "electrify" the country through green energy pursuits.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/25/stacey-abrams-interview-electric-power-green-energy
She was masterful at getting out the vote, and instrumental in both Ossoff's and Warnock's elections. But I'll bet she got tired of running into that brick wall of Republican intransigence that is so prevalent in the southern U.S. And losing to Kemp was demoralizing. She needs a break.
Kemp cheats, just like repubs in Fla and Tx
James, I don't live in Georgia, but I would not join a protest. I have protested in Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia many times. But those protests were in the days before guns outnumbered people in our country. I'm sorry to say I fear being gunned down if I join a group of protesters who are assembled in a peaceful way to demonstrate their objection to undemocratic laws or behaviors. I don't think the people of Georgia lack courage. I think common sense tells them that their protests will come to naught at best and to death at worst.
I understand your fear: we cannot give up and allow the fascists to take over. If we all have your attitude, we've already lost. Peaceful protest is a constitutional right. And no gun-toting terrorist is going to be allowed to take it away.
James, I appreciate your sentiment. Maybe I was wrong. I'm a baby boomer, so maybe I would risk myself to a movement that would make a difference. Any ideas about where and when a vast gathering of baby boomers might actually effect a change? We are a rather large demographic. Let's gather en masse. I'm most interested in banning assault weapons. You?
Legalized de facto bribery, excessive and anti-democracy money in politics is the one ring to rule them all. Protest has scored victories, never total but sometimes pivotal, when it is focused, strategic, disciplined, and sustained. It makes injustices that are so commonplace as to be seen as "normal" and even inevitable, much harder to ignore, such as routine and often institutionalized deprivation of Civil Rights.
I looked it up last night, 0 Democrats and 170 Republicans in Congress continue to take campaign funding from the NRA, according to Open Secrets, a group that monitors contributions to political campaigns. Kudos to our Democrats, in Congress who have cleaned up their act. Republicans, thoughts and prayers won't wash away the blood on your hands. Law makers at the state level who accept NRA money, how can you face the children in your families?
YOu might find this interesting, Mona. I posted it elsewhere as have other readers on the forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rt-3lmG5bU
We need billboards nationwide that report this information. Thanks, Mona 👍
In 2021, Ogles, his wife, and two of his three children held guns as they posed for a Christmas card with a caption that read: “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference—they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
So what are murder rates in the US compared to other wealthy societies? And how does gun ownership differ?
That Christmas card (!) photo turned my stomach. I wonder how they'd cope if their children were next.
The picture should be reposted all over!
Yes - with the quote.
Also, Ogles is TN’s George Santos…lied about his education, his past business experience, and that’s all we know so far. He beat state senator Heidi Campbell, who was interviewed by Nicole Wallace yesterday.
Good grief! Ah well, he's working hard. As we have seen, you can get to be President that way!
J L, there are lots of reports, and some show that, while the US has one of the highest numbers of guns per person, it does not have a correspondingly high rate of gun deaths. But there are different methodologies used to get the numbers. I find this one (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) to be a good precís of where we are as a nation.
And then there's this: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=jon+stewart+guns&docid=603492258582638913&mid=F15A6C73BDC7EA099131F15A6C73BDC7EA099131&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
Here is another link to "Your Local Epidemiologist"
I started following her at the start of the pandemic, and she has done some amazing work in that regard. It was only about a year into it that I found out that, as an epidemiologist, she was primarily focused on gun violence. Her Substack today touches a little bit on the shooting in Nashville. (She was the second author on Substack that I subscribed to, FWIW)
https://open.substack.com/pub/yourlocalepidemiologist/p/yet-another-school-mass-shooting?r=3hlhv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
I read " Your Local Epidemiologist" YLE every day. I also recommed "Inside Medicine" who actually does medical data analysis live keeping Readers posted on medical theory tested, cohort particulars & milestone results.
My family benefited greatly from the direction of a real local epidemiologist back in the first week of Match 2020. I learned about airborne vectors, & one of the early & highly transmissible subvariants, DG614. The local heath officials in the Bay Area CA (who as a group were experienced health administrrators from the AIDS era) were also very capable.
No infections in my extended family in this on-going Pandemic despite two (2) immunocompromised individuals. I did see the human toll in my Life Skills group from a woman who lost two (2) to CV19 in one week.
My household's only C-19 event was from our housemate (who cannot be vaccinated due to allergies and her inability to access what her allergic reaction to a vaccine when she was 6 and in foster care on the east coast...) when she had a direct exposure. This was from someone at the senior center where she volunteered and who chose to come to work sick. She isolated within the house, we all masked, she got the paxlovid and has had no ill effects since her recovery over a year ago.
YLE writes excellent newsletters. As well, her "Resources" are very helpful. Thanks for introducing me to this Substack...morning, Ally!
Morning, Lynell! Glad you like her writing!
Thanks, Ally!
Looks like that got taken down, but thanks for it... there are a lot of other links for Jon Stewart and John Oliver - I'll have plenty of entertainment for the day.
Oh! So that's why I couldn't find it where I first saw it, i.e. posted by someone else. There's a rule about posting links?
Not sure...but there was link to the YouTube of it on the page... I had seen that Dahm interview; it was so pathetic as to be morbidly amusing.
Like the famous one Jonathan Swan/tfg. But we still didn't know how unfunny that was.
Cathy (from Michigan) posted the YouTube version of this. Hopefully, it's still available. 8+ minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY
Yes, got it. I wonder why mine disappeared? My newsfeeds are always terribly right-wing - maybe it's that? I wish I could get rid of them.
How frustrating for you Anne-Louise. But I know you won't let them stop you!
You're right, Lynell!
Thanks, James. Good article, easy to understand.
Throughout history there are those who try to make a virtue of being a bully, and being a bully is all about misusing power. Big kids abusing smaller kids, or intimidating others in gangs, rape and domestic violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, aggressive wars, despotic governments, animal cruelty, cruelty in general. A gun does not have to be a talisman and/or tool, of the will to bully, but I think it far too often is.
Yes-the guns make them feel more powerful than they are-most of these shooters leave “manifestos” that reveal their insecurities and fears.
Excellent portrayal of the paths of these nations. Those who close their eyes to extreme right-wing agendas almost deserve their fates, Four hundred years have barely scratched the surface of bigotry in America, and now the 75-year-old state of Israel's denial of Palestinian rights threatens to tear them apart. Time to break out the Beatitudes, or does "Blessed are the peacemakers" seem too Progressive?
Some of the same people who tell me that the creation of the universe and Noah's Flood must be taken absolutely literally have said that Jesus wasn't saying what it sounds like he is saying when he spoke of loving one's enemy. The appropriate the authoritarian themes in religion, but arrogantly ignore the calls for universal compassion. The Jesus of MLK looks nothing like the one Trump and DeSantis claim to support.
Bloomberg thinks that the US came through Trump"s insurrection attempts "without catastrophic fracture"! What country is he living in? Has NYC been enclosed under a dome?
Looks like his prism needs an adjustment...morning, Stuart!
Morning, Lynell.
He thinks it can get worse, and it will
Thank you Heather. It’s helpful to have you round out the harsh realities of Netanyahu’s efforts to undo the Israeli democracy with reminders of the documents from our forbears that keep our country focusing on democracy as the path for our very complex group of states to continue working for ALL U.S. citizens.
"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people."
- John Adams
Excellent historical quote. What was happening at the time of this ‘maxim’ and is this John Quincy Adams or a younger generation?
John Quincy was John and Abigail's son, who was also US president.
When I started kindergarten way back when, all I had to worry about was learning to count and making friends.
When my nephew started kindergarten he had to learn what rooms in the building werrsafe (didn't have windows and only one door) and how to hide from an active shooter.
His mom told me that every place he went to for about a month, he was checking out where the safest places were.
A five year old shouldn't have this burden place them. How can a child be a child when they have to worry about being killed?
Why should our kids live in fear?
Very well said.