492 Comments

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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”.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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...

Expand full comment

Gallant is Netanyahu’s Archibald Cox and Netanyahu should meet the same end as Richard Nixon. Minus the pardon.

Expand full comment
Mar 28, 2023·edited Mar 28, 2023

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.

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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?

Expand full comment