#the vast majority of Americans are against it's policies. and that includes the vast majority of republicans!

[potatoesarecheese]

Look at me actually using my education for something. I actually want to talk about this a little bit.

I am not a Republican. I think it's pretty clear that, when I have to choose, I'm choosing the Democrats. So, I can't really speak for Republicans, but this is a comment from @the-psudo (the comment was too long to screen shot) that got my brain thinking:

"I'm also a registered Republican who is voting for Harris. I think it's important to be a registered Republican so I can vote against MAGA radicals in my state's closed primaries as well as in the general election. I even got elected to be the GOP Vice Chair of my local precinct, a job where I'm expected to coordinate local Republican opinion with local party leaders and representatives. For example, I voted for Nikki Haley in the primaries, and now most of her campaign officials have endorsed Harris. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/25/nikki-haley-backers-endorse-harris-trump.html When I admitted I was going to vote for Nikki Haley in the local caucus, there was an audible gasp of surprise from the caucus-attending Republicans. They were strangely conflicted between wanting more younger people (ie, not retired yet; I'm 43) involved in local politics, but also not wanting me to have any real authority as a delegate to vote on their behalf. One attendee talked to me for a long time afterward, telling me how ashamed she was of how I was treated and how MAGA had harmed the party. #RepublicansForHarris - We're out there, and we're not alone."

--

Forgive me if some of the details are wrong, this is just based on what I can remember from a discussion in my AmGov class a couple days ago, but, the party very specifically DID NOT want him running. They did not endorse him. And the many registered Republicans didn't want him either. He was still able to run simply because the party wasn't able to stop him.

A lot of Republicans have since shifted to align with Trump and his beliefs, but they didn't START like that, and many of them STILL HAVEN'T.

Trump is not Republican, he's just using their flag to get on the ballot. I believe this was the same thing with Hillary Clinton not being a Democrat.

MAGA is not the Republican Party. And it's definitely not the original "traditional" approach to what it means to be conservative. In fact, I'd argue that it's not even about politics. It's about Trump. It's about supporting him.

They would vote for Trump, regardless of his party. They would agree with him, regardless of his policies. He got this loud group of angry people to rally behind him, and got them to do something about their anger.

He got them to vote, and that's why he won- not because he was a good politician, and not because he was a good Republican.

Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man. Trump is the weak man's idea of a strong man. Trump is a dumb mans's idea of a smart man.

And Trump has no place in politics.

My state is ruby red. Last week, I put up a Harris-Walz sign in my front yard up close to the porch. Every couple days, as I got braver, I moved it a few feet closer to the street where the visibility is better. Two days ago, my sign achieved its curbside position with maximum visibility.

Yesterday, I was out digging in my front yard (I'm rewilding my lawn) and a truck pulled over. A 62-year-old woman gets out, thanks me for my sign, and admits how scared she is to put up her own Democratic lawn sign. She's a registered Republican who hasn't voted for Republicans in more than a decade. We talked for half an hour and I just texted her about the VP Debate watch party this Tuesday.

Things learned:

Not all registered Republicans are actually Republicans.

Boomers and Gen X age voters are changing their minds.

Having a yard sign makes a difference.

Even ruby red states are more purple than you might think.

[heritageposts]

Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel for years. In 2017 she addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference and reminded attendees that the first resolution she co-sponsored as a senator was aimed at combating “anti-Israel bias” at the United Nations. “Let me be clear about what I believe. I stand with Israel because of our shared values, which are so fundamental to the founding of both our nations,” she told the crowd. In 2018 she gave an off-the-record speech to the organization, but eventually released her comments. In that speech she claimed that she raised money for the Jewish National Fund as a Girl Scout. “Having grown up in the Bay area, I fondly remember those Jewish National Fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she told the audience. “Years later, when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”

For those unfamiliar with the Jewish National Fund (JNF), they're a Zionist organization that has been instrumental in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

See Stop the JNF for more information on their history, the way they operate, and their decades-long campaign of greenwashing (i.e. destroying native plants, crops, and agriculture under the banner of 'making the desert bloom').

Continuing, the Mondoweiss article goes:

“The vast majority of people understand the importance of the State of Israel,” she added later. “Both in terms of its history and its present in terms of being a source of inspiration on so many issues, which I hope we will talk about, and also what it means in terms of the values of the United States and those values that are shared values with Israel, and the importance of fighting to make sure that we protect and respect a friend, one of the best friends we could possibly have.” While running for President in 2019, Harris was praised by the lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) for running to the right of Obama on the Iran deal. On the campaign trail Harris told Kat Wellman, a voter affiliated with DMFI, that she would reenter the agreement but “strengthen it” by “extending the sunset provisions, including ballistic missile testing, and also increasing oversight.” “I was very impressed with her. I thought she gave an excellent speech, she gave a very detailed, responsive answer to my question,” Wellman told a local paper after the exchange. “I’m pro-Israel, so I was I was very concerned and all about making sure we limit nuclear missiles in any country that could possibly destroy us all. I thought her answer was very good.” Harris has condemned the BDS movement and claimed that is “based on the mistaken assumption that Israel is solely to blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” However, she voted against an anti-BDS bill in 2019 citing First Amendment concerns.

For the full article, which includes Kamala's response to Israel post Al-Aqsa Flood, see Mondoweiss (July 22, 2024)

[reasonsforhope]

"Legislative momentum against PFAS has surged this year, as at least 11 states enacted laws to restrict the use of “forever chemicals” in everyday consumer products or professional firefighting foam.

The legislation includes bans on PFAS in apparel, cleaning products, cookware, and cosmetic and menstrual products. Meanwhile, lawmakers in some states also passed measures that require industries to pay for testing or cleanup; order companies to disclose the use of PFAS in their products; and mandate or encourage the development of PFAS alternatives, according to Safer States, an alliance of environmental health groups focused on toxic chemicals.

In total this year, at least 16 states adopted 22 PFAS-related measures, according to the group. Since 2007, 30 states have approved 155 PFAS policies, the vast majority of them in the past five years.

The thousands of chemicals categorized as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, do not naturally break down and are found in the blood of 97% of Americans. Some PFAS compounds can harm the immune system, increase cancer risks and decrease fertility...

Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released new standards limiting PFAS in drinking water. Water systems have five years to comply with the rules. Even before the EPA action, 11 states had set their own limits on PFAS in drinking water, starting with New Jersey in 2018.

Water utilities and chemical manufacturers are challenging the new EPA standards. But states also are heading to the courthouse: So far, 30 states have sued PFAS manufacturers or key users for contaminating water supplies and other natural resources, according to Safer States...

Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, said one reason states have been so successful in enacting PFAS limits is that more companies are willing to stop using the chemicals.

“When California restricted PFAS in textiles, all of a sudden you saw companies like REI saying, ‘We can, we’re going to do that. We’re going to move to alternatives,’” Doll said.

In Vermont, state lawmakers in April unanimously approved a measure banning the manufacture and sale of PFAS in cosmetics, menstrual products, incontinence products, artificial turf, textiles and cookware.

“The same as everyone else, like Democrats, we want to make sure that we remove PFAS and get it out of products as soon as we can,” said Vermont Republican state Rep. Michael Marcotte, who said his district includes cosmetics manufacturer Rozelle Cosmetics, in Westfield.

Democratic state Sen. Virginia Lyons, the chief sponsor of the Vermont bill, said it is particularly important to get PFAS out of products that are essential to consumers.

“There are some consumer products where you can say, ‘I don’t need to buy that, because I don’t want PFAS,’” Lyons said. “But it’s really tough to say that [about] a menstrual product.”

California’s latest PFAS measure, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month, specifically bans the use of PFAS in menstrual products. Democratic Assemblymember Diane Papan, the author of the bill, said it was particularly strong because it covers both intentional and unintentional uses of PFAS, so “manufacturers will have to really be careful about what comes in their supply chain.”

While more states enact laws focused on specific products, Maine is preparing to implement the world’s first PFAS ban covering all consumer goods. The Maine law, which is scheduled to take effect in 2030, will include exceptions for “essential” products for which PFAS-free alternatives do not exist. Washington state has also taken a sweeping approach by giving regulators strict timelines to ban PFAS in many product categories.

[komsomolka]

The Ukrainian state is US/Western controlled and, in its alliance and arming, is effectively NATO-like. Washington, according to coup-happy Victoria Nuland in 2014, pumped some $5 billion into Ukraine since the Western-intelligence induced “Orange” revolution in 2004; an additional $15-$18 billion in arms, loans, and grants (from the US and EU) were poured into Ukraine since the 2013-2014 CIA-backed, far-right enforced regime change of the democratically elected Ukrainian government and until before the war began.

With on-the-ground CIA direction, power in Ukraine was consolidated among a small sociopolitical base of venal Russophobes, political pluralism representing genuinely alternative visions to the essentially nationalist, ultranationalist, pro-NATO parties disbanded. The Ukraine army, neo-fascist death squads, and small, Nazi-throwback extreme right-wing parties, celebrated by the new leaders and incorporated into the Ukrainian state, went on a repression spree, a terror campaign, to crush protests and dissent against those who were unhappy with what transpired and to erase all things Russian, including an eight-year shelling and sniping war on civilians designed to create terror and ethnic cleansing in eastern Donbass. This was not a democracy but a monopoly on power to consolidate a vociferously, fanatically anti-Russian state.

Ukraine is (or now, was) merely a platform for a Western proxy war against Russia, a forward operations base, a front line state, its “foreign policy” directed by the American proconsul, its institutions “advised” by American/Western intelligence functionaries and embassy officials, whose job since 2014 was to ensure continuing aggravation and antagonism in Donbass to elicit, in fact, a Russian response justifying long-prepared sanctions, escalation and pretext for “confronting” Russia. [...]

The Russian offensive, therefore, occurred for a much more ominous reason than the Ukrainian state terrorism visited upon eastern Donbass: the US/West’s wordless wish is no less than demoralizing, weakening, bankrupting, and territorially fragmenting the Russian Federation, controlling its markets and resources, indebting its people and rendering them dependent on US-dominated financial institutions, and bringing Russia under American dependency.

A pivotal principle of American hegemony is to obstruct and destroy friendly, normal ties, much less integration, between Russia and Europe, Germany being the fulcrum.

More simply, the strategic US/CIA goal is to ensnare Russia in a protracted war, deplete it, damage it, regime-change it, install a supine leader—all as a prelude to the big fantasy: bringing down China.

The multifaceted war on Russia has been ongoing since at least the late 1990s, but really, it never stopped with the Soviet state’s disappearance. This veiled hostility and aggression certainly existed when Boris Yeltsin was in power (a good vassal according to Washington, this silly and funny man that made Bill Clinton laugh) but took off around 2005, after Washington understood that Vladimir Putin was putting Russia on an independent course, reversing the conditions overseen under the preceding, deplorable Yeltsin era, including steep economic, social, military, and developmental decline and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population, looting oligarchs, and economic “liberalization” designed in Washington. [...]

Russia has literally allowed itself to be cornered since 2014, though it needed time to achieve a conventional and nuclear deterrent. It’s not hard to see reality: Russia is given no quarter, no voice, its real concerns and grievances dismissed, its leader demonized, its marginalization doggedly pursued at every level of international and bilateral social and cultural interactions. No appeal to reason, to international law, to security, to evidence will do for the West, no amount of patient legal argument, explanation of Russian concerns, appeals, professional warnings, consummate diplomacy and transparency of Russian interests made an impression. Instead, the Western response was and is always to double down. [...]

Finance capitalism, the system of speculative bubbles, derivatives, debt, declining standards of living, and hyperinflation, is ruining Western economies, states and societies, destroying the middle classes. The US cannot tolerate Eurasian integration and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, determined to stop any alternative development model to hyper-capitalism enriching the few, cannibalizing the many; that reduces the US to one of a handful of important multipolar players.

Washington’s grave mismanagement of international relations, its self-defeating policies, has actually weakened genuine American interests and national security and the well-being and safety of the American people, a phenomenon that cannot be naively attributed to Democrats or Republicans, this or that president. Instead, the war-state is deeply embedded in the American political economy, in factions such as the “intelligence community,” the military-industrial complex, influential establishment neo-cons, and liberal interventionists, all living in a world of yesterday.

We are rushing headlong into extremely dangerous times in which facts are a threat to the state narrative and any dissent or differing opinion is treachery. Fascism does not come from below, always from the top.

[mariacallous]

A number of major centrist and liberal American Jewish groups say they oppose the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

The statements by some of the largest Jewish organizations in the country, made in response to press inquiries, come as Israel has reportedly cleared out portions of northern Gaza, and as far-right Israeli government ministers have called for resettling the Palestinian enclave. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have also repeatedly called for Israel to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza, drawing condemnation from the Biden administration.

For several American Jewish groups — including some that have vocally defended Israel’s prosecution of its war in Gaza against Hamas — the idea of Israeli settlements in Gaza is a non-starter. Groups opposed to the idea include the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. Also opposed are bodies representing the Reform and Conservative movements, which together can claim to represent the majority of American Jews. 

“The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, indigenous to both Jews and Arabs, cannot be the exclusive domain of one people, but must be shared,” Jason Isaacson, AJC’s chief policy and political affairs officer, said. “Like the vast majority of Israelis, AJC believes that the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza, or a program of displacing Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, would be contrary to Israel’s interests.” 

Israel evacuated its Gaza settlements in 2005, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled out the idea of reestablishing them after the war. But while most Israelis oppose the idea, more than a third — including 42% of Israeli Jews — support it, according to a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute. That includes nearly 60% of Israeli Jewish right-wingers, the current government’s voter base. 

“Ideas like settlement in Gaza are welcome, we need to remember that in the end that’s the biggest punishment for what they did to us on Oct. 7,” Ben-Gvir said in an interview on Israeli radio this month, referencing the Hamas attack that launched the war. 

He said he discusses encouraging Palestinian emigration from Gaza frequently in government meetings, and said, “I’m starting to see a certain openness to the topic” on Netanyahu’s part. “I hope the prime minister will understand in the end that this is the way,” he added.

Those sentiments have faced criticism in Israel, including from former officials who were once partners with Netanyahu and have since broken with him. 

Moshe Ya’alon, a former Israeli military chief who served as Netanyahu’s defense minister a decade ago, said recently, “The road they’re taking us down is one of occupation, annexation, ethnic cleansing. Look at the north of the strip — transfer, call it what you want, in order to establish Jewish settlement there. That’s the idea.”

Carole Nuriel, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Israel office, condemned proposals to permanently displace Palestinians in Gaza and reestablish Jewish settlements there. 

“We are deeply troubled by statements from Israeli government ministers and activists advocating for the emigration or ‘population thinning’ of Palestinians in Gaza,” Nuriel said in a statement. “These views reflect an inhumane approach, tarnish Israel’s reputation, and are fundamentally immoral.” 

Discussion of the issue recently attracted attention at a Jewish Federations of North America conference, where a senior executive joked in a closed-door meeting about owning property in Gaza, drawing blowback from a number of attendees. 

In response to an inquiry, a spokesperson for JFNA said the group’s position on Gaza resettlement “has not changed,” pointing to the group’s own policy page, which supports a two-state solution “where Israel lives in peace with a demilitarized Palestinian state” — an outcome that would preclude Israeli occupation and settlement of Gaza. 

Support for a two-state solution is widespread, though not universal, among centrist U.S. Jewish groups, though condemnations of Israeli West Bank settlement from their desks are rarer. Polls show that most Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, as does the Israeli government. 

In its statement on Gaza settlement, however, the Union for Reform Judaism noted that it opposes West Bank settlement expansion as well. 

“Just as we have been steadfast in our opposition to continued settlement expansion, we are adamantly opposed to the horrendous and dangerous plan by right-wing members of the current Israeli government to resettle Gaza,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, URJ’s president. He added that settlement of Gaza would make Israel “less secure” by diverting its military, and would also displace Palestinians. 

The Rabbinical Assembly, which represents clergy from the Conservative movement, also said it “opposes any plan for Jewish settlement in Gaza,” which CEO Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal said “would be a significant step backward” for other stated goals in the region, including the release of hostages still being held by Hamas, as well as any eventual Palestinian state.

AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, did not directly address settlement in Gaza in response to an inquiry about it. 

“Our focus remains on ensuring that America continues to stand with Israel as it fights a just war against aggression from Iran and the regime’s terrorist proxies on Israel’s borders and across the Middle East,” the group’s spokesman Marshall Wittmann told JTA in a statement.

By contrast, the liberal Israel lobby J Street said it was vocally opposed to any Gaza resettlement project, and voiced concern about Israel “being dragged into the abyss by extremists.”

Gaza resettlement, said J Street Vice President Adina Vogel-Ayalon, would “not only cross a red line for the majority of American Jews and for J Street, but for most Israelis and many former military and political leaders. This should be a red line for any pro-Israel group representing American Jews.”

Representatives for the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, major American Orthodox groups, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group that supports Israel and whose members span political ideologies.

Some American Jews, though, support resettling Gaza, including Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization of America, which has long supported Israeli settlements. 

“We truly support Jews who want to return to their homes in Gaza or live in Gaza. If 2 million Arabs can live in Israel, why can’t Jews live in Gaza?” Klein said. “And the Israeli government should help facilitate that.”

The statements came as some of the same groups opposed to resettling Gaza harshly criticized a new report from the human rights NGO Amnesty International this week that accuses Israel of genocide. The report also calls on the international community to “oppose any attempts by Israel to establish a permanent military presence in Gaza, alter its borders and demographic make-up or shrink its territory,” among a litany of charges against Israel.

Israel has rejected the genocide accusation, saying that it takes extensive measures to limit harm to civilians, an argument the AJC and other supporters echoed. 

“Israel’s many actions in Gaza that are clearly intended to allow it to fight Hamas while limiting incidental harm to civilians should make it clear to all that its forces act with no such intent,” the group said.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Horsey

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 7, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 08, 2024

Two big stories today that together reveal a broader landscape.

The first is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics today released another blockbuster jobs report. The country added 272,000 jobs in May, far higher than the 180,000 jobs economists predicted. A widespread range of sectors added new jobs, including health care, government, leisure and hospitality, and professional, scientific, and technical services. Wages are also up. Over the past year, average hourly earnings have grown 4.1%, higher than the rate of inflation, which was 3.4% over the same period. 

The unemployment rate ticked up from 3.9% to 4%. This is not a significant change, but it does break the 27-month streak of unemployment below that number. 

The second big story is that Justice Clarence Thomas amended a financial filing from 2019, acknowledging that he should have reported two free vacations he accepted from Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. While in the past he said he did not need to disclose such gifts, in today’s filing he claimed he had “inadvertently omitted” the trips on earlier reports. ProPublica broke the story of these and other gifts from Crow, including several more trips than Thomas has so far acknowledged. 

Fix The Court, a nonprofit advocacy group that seeks to reform the federal courts, estimates that Thomas has accepted more than $4 million in gifts over the last 20 years. As economic analyst Steven Rattner pointed out, that’s 5.6 times more than the other 16 justices on the court in those years combined.

These two news items illustrate a larger story about the United States in this moment. 

The Biden administration has quite deliberately overturned the supply-side economics that came into ascendancy in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan took office and that remained dominant until 2021, when Biden entered the White House. Adherents of that ideology rejected the idea that the government should invest in the “demand side” of the economy—workers and other ordinary Americans—to develop the economy, as it had done since 1933. 

Instead, they maintained that the best way to nurture the economy was to support the “supply side”: those at the top. Cutting business regulations and slashing taxes would create prosperity, they said, by concentrating wealth in the hands of individuals who would invest in the economy more efficiently than they could if the government interfered in their choices. That smart investment would dramatically expand the economy, supporters argued, and everyone would do better. 

But supply-side economics never produced the results its supporters promised. What it did do was move money out of the hands of ordinary Americans into the hands of the very wealthy. Economists estimate that between 1981 and 2021, more than $50 trillion dollars moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.

In order to keep that system in place, Republicans worked to make it extraordinarily difficult for Congress to pass laws making the government do anything, even when the vast majority of Americans wanted it to. With the rise of Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the position of Senate majority leader in 2007, they weaponized the filibuster so any measure that went against their policies would need 60 votes in order to get through the Senate, and in 2010 they worked to take over state legislatures so that they could gerrymander state congressional districts so severely that Republicans would hold far more seats than they had earned from voters. 

With Congress increasingly neutered, the power to make law shifted to the courts, which Republicans since the Reagan administration had been packing with appointees who adhered to their small-government principles. 

Clarence Thomas was a key vote on the Supreme Court. But as ProPublica reported in December 2023, Thomas complained in 2000 to a Republican member of Congress about the low salaries of Supreme Court justices (equivalent to about $300,000 today) and suggested he might resign. The congressman and his friends were desperate to keep Thomas, with his staunchly Republican vote, on the court. In the years after 2000, friends and acquaintances provided Thomas with a steady stream of gifts that supplemented his income, and he stayed in his seat.

But what amounts to bribes has compromised the court. After the news broke that Thomas has now disclosed some of the trips Crow gave him, conservative lawyer George Conway wrote: “It’s long past time for there to be a comprehensive criminal investigation, and congressional investigation, of Justice Thomas and his finances and his taxes. What he has taken, and what he has failed to disclose, is beyond belief, and has been so for quite some time.” A bit less formally, over a chart of the monetary value of the gifts Thomas has accepted, Conway added: “I mean. This. Is. Just. Nuts.”

As the Republican system comes under increasing scrutiny, Biden’s renewal of traditional economic policies is showing those policies to be more successful than the Republicans’ system ever was. If Americans turn against the Republican formula of slashing taxes and deregulating business, those at the top of the economy stand to lose both wealth and control of the nation’s economic system. 

Trump has promised more tax cuts and deregulation if he is reelected, although the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently projected that his plan to extend the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire in 2025 will add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. In April, at a meeting with 20 oil executives, Trump promised to cut regulations on the fossil fuel industry in exchange for $1 billion in donations, assuring them that the tax breaks he would give them once he was in office would pay for the donation many times over (indeed, an analysis quoted in The Guardian showed his proposed tax cuts would save them $110 billion). On May 23, he joined fossil fuel executives for a fundraiser in Houston.

In the same weeks, Biden’s policies have emphasized using the government to help ordinary people rather than to move wealth upward. 

On May 31 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that it will make its experimental free electronic filing system permanent. It asked all 50 states and the District of Columbia to sign on to the program and to help taxpayers use it. The program’s pilot this year was wildly successful, with more than 140,000 people filing that way. Private tax preparers, whose industry makes billions of dollars a year, oppose the new system. 

The Inflation Reduction Act provided funding for this program and for beefing up the ability of the IRS to audit the wealthiest taxpayers. As Fatima Hussein wrote for the Associated Press, Republicans cut $1.4 billion from these funds last summer and will shift an additional $20 billion from the IRS to other programs over the next two years. 

Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued five new reports showing that thanks in part to the administration's outreach efforts about the Affordable Care Act, the rate of Black Americans without health insurance dropped from 20.9% in 2010 to 10.8% in 2022. The same rate among Latinos dropped from 32.7% to 18%. For Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, the rate of uninsured dropped from 16.6% to 6.2%. And for American Indians and Alaska Natives, the rate dropped from 32.4% to 19.9%. More than 45 million people in total are enrolled in coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

President Biden noted the strength of today’s jobs report in a statement, adding: “I will keep fighting to lower costs for families like the ones I grew up with in Scranton.” Republicans “have a different vision,” he said, “one that puts billionaires and special interests first.” He promised: “I will never stop fighting for Scranton—not Park Avenue.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

JAN 30

Friends,

Trump blamed last night’s tragic crash on former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama seeking to include Blacks and Latinos in the federal workforce. 

“They actually came out with a directive — ‘too white’,” Trump charged today in remarks about last night’s air crash that killed 67 people. But “we want the people that are competent.”

Asked why he believed DEI (policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion) had anything to do with the crash, Trump said: “Because I have common sense. OK. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

Trump’s new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, was on hand to add his own bigoted view. “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department,” he said, “and we need the best and brightest — whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals or whether it’s throughout government.” 

Not to be outdone in the bigot department, Vice President JD Vance piped up: “When you don't have the best standards in who you're hiring, it means on the one hand you're not getting the best people in government. But on the other hand, it puts stress on the people who are already there.”

What is America to make of this? That the underlying cause of last night’s tragedy was that not enough white people were in charge? That “competent” people — the “best and the brightest” — “the best people” — are not Black or Latino? 

Is it now open season on such racist bullshit? 

No. We will not allow neo-fascists to scapegoat people of color. 

We know what they’re doing, and why.

They want to divide us. They want white people to blame Black and Latino people for every tragedy, every problem, every harm. And they want Black and Latino people to react not only with hurt but with justifiable anger.

It’s part of Trump strategy of divide and conquer: Get us so riled up against one another that we don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone. 

I don’t know the cause of last night’s tragedy but I do know that the air-traffic control system has been hampered for years by inadequate funding, like so much else the public depends on. 

I also know that a big reason for inadequate funding is that the average working family can’t afford to pay more in taxes because their pay has been stagnant for forty years, while the wealthy — who have a record percentage of the nation’s total wealth — have lobbied for and got huge tax cuts (the latest being from Trump himself in his first term of office). 

I’m not blaming the rich. I’m blaming a system that continues to underfund what the vast majority of Americans need. 

Again, I don’t know what caused last night’s crash. But shame on Trump and Vance and Hegseth for blaming it on people of color.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

President Joe Biden is expected to permanently ban future offshore oil and gas development in parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a way that could be especially difficult for the incoming Trump administration to undo.

Biden’s planned executive order will invoke the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a law that gives presidents broad authority to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing and development, according to an administration source familiar with the plans.

The law does not give presidents explicit authority to revoke the action and place federal waters back into development, meaning President-elect Donald Trump would have to get Congress to change it before he could reverse Biden’s move.

As Biden’s presidency draws to a close, environmental and climate groups have advocated for him to withdraw areas off the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as other parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – giving the areas permanent protections from future drilling. The move would guard against future oil spills and adding more planet-warming pollution from fossil fuels to the atmosphere.

“We hope it will be part of a very vast area,” Oceana campaign director Joseph Gordon told CNN, adding Biden’s actions “would extend and make permanent those protections.”

Despite a friendly posture towards the oil and gas industry, Trump also moved to ban offshore drilling while president. After proposing a major expansion in offshore drilling early in his first term, Trump in 2020 extended a ban on future oil drilling in the Eastern Gulf and expanded it to include the Atlantic coasts of three states: Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

“Every president this century has recognized that some areas of the ocean are just too risky or too sensitive to drill,” Earthjustice vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans Drew Caputo said in a statement.

The White House declined to comment. Biden’s move was first reported by Bloomberg.

Energy analysts told CNN the move won’t make much of a difference in US oil production, which has set new records under Biden.

It’s “not particularly consequential for US exploration and production going forward,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. Kloza noted there’s plenty of existing offshore rigs pumping oil in the Gulf of Mexico and added that offshore projects typically take 6-8 years to come online.

“I don’t see it as having any real impact on US supply, exports, imports,” Kloza said.

Still, the American Petroleum Institute blasted Biden’s decision, calling it a “misguided approach.”

“We look forward to working with the incoming administration to bring the benefits offshore oil and natural gas production provides to the United States through jobs, investment and domestic energy security,” API senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs Dustin Meyer said in a statement.

In a separate coming announcement, the Biden administration is also expected to declare two new national monuments in California in the coming week, a source familiar with the planning told CNN.

Biden will establish the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sáttítla National Monument in Northern California, the source said. Native tribes have been actively pushing the administration to protect the land from energy development.

This ban has now gone ahead

[vomitdodger]

Why is Juneteenth celebrated as the “end of slavery”? Of all the dates to choose, why Juneteenth? Consider the following dates and choices:

Emancipation proclamation:

End of Civil War dates, and the much debated “it was about slavery”:

13th amendment dates:

That’s a lot of dates to choose from. Again…why Juneteenth?

Note that June 19, 1865 falls basically right in the middle of all the above significant dates. So why Juneteenth?

You know why. Same as always. Complete pandering. The worst of which is of course BLM:

Odd that BLM didn’t mention the people who actually did the fighting. People of ALL colors but let’s be honest…the vast VAST majority of the lives lost in the civil war were white.

Washington DC has a proclamation day. Why didn’t it become a national/federal holiday:

The answer as already stated is complete racial pandering. Who made it official? Of course it was Joe “you ain’t black” Bribing Biden in 2021 as a way to wrestle even more political racial control in the wake of the BLM riots:

Do you really think Joe Bribing Biden who has lied about civil rights matches and openly used the dreaded N word throughout his career actually cares about Juneteenth or blacks…or even America? A sampling of his openly racist remarks:

And don’t forget Bribing Biden openly and with great glee eulogized the death of KKK Senator Byrd.

I’m not necessarily against a date in which we collectively celebrate the end of slavery in the US…Chinese, Irish Blacks etc., a day in which we celebrate overcoming the dark nature of humanity. A dark nature that is not unique to America…or whites…or Americans or Europeans, etc.

We as a country, despite all our imperfections, have done more, and faster, than any other country to end slavery.

The problem is such a day would be corrupted by the Marxists into “minimizing the black experience” and resultant BLM outrage. Examples of historical inaccuracies not talked about in all that:

And in the setting of todays open borders…and all the evil repercussions and domino effects of the Joe Bribing Biden policies that intentional adversely affect all Americans including blacks of course, human trafficking, a form of modern day slavery, is at an all time high in the US. Odd the guy who signed off on the Juneteenth Holiday is responsible for such modern day slavery.

Great article:

[posttexasstressdisorder]

The arc of justice finally bends against Big Oil

Sabrina Haake

April 14, 2024 6:15AM ET

An oil refinery blow off stack is seen, Sept. 16, 2008, in Texas City, Texas. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

In an historic ruling that could change the trajectory of a rapidly heating planet, a court of law with binding jurisdiction over most of Europe has ruled that governments can be held liable for inadequate responses to climate change.

The European Court of Human Rights determined that rising temperatures in Switzerland caused direct and tangible health consequences among Swiss citizens, and that governments failing to take adequate steps to mitigate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions could owe damages to people hurt by their inaction.

So what, in practical terms, does this mean for a planet that is literally burning in an increasing number of locations?

Europe could take climate cases in a new direction

The ECHR ruling is unprecedented in several respects, beginning with its reliance on principles of human rights.

The Court ruled that governments failing to do enough to address climate change were violating the European Convention on Human Rights, which holds as its first tenet that, “Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.” By failing to meet its own climate goals, the court held, the Swiss government impaired citizens’ fundamental rights to life.

The plaintiffs themselves were also unique. In climate cases pending around the world, including in the United States, the vast majority of plaintiffs are young people worried about how they will survive on a sweltering planet with rapidly disappearing habitats and resources.

ALSO READ: 15 worthless things Trump will give you for your money

The ECHR case, in contrast, was brought by elderly plaintiffs, most of whom were women in their 70s who proved that their age and gender make them particularly vulnerable to health risks linked to climate change. Heatwaves, in particular, can be deadly for the elderly as excessive heat triggers a strained cardiovascular response. Cognizant of their own time limitations, these women sued to benefit the next generation. One plaintiff told the BBC, “We know statistically that in 10 years we will be gone. So whatever we do now, we are not doing for ourselves, but for the sake of our children and our children's children.”

Because there is no avenue for appeal, the ECHR ruling will directly influence energy policy throughout the industrialized economies of Europe. Although it falls to Switzerland to comply with the ruling, its precedent is legally binding on all 46 member states, including Germany, the U.K., France and Italy — all fuel-burning heavy hitters.

Climate challenges in the U.S.

The European Court ruled that Switzerland’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions had been “woefully inadequate.” Although the ruling isn’t binding on U.S. courts, the domestic fossil fuel industry will be directly affected by it, since the U.S. has recently become the biggest supplier of crude oil to the European Union.

ALSO READ: Revealed: What government officials privately shared about Trump not disclosing finances

Climate litigants in the U.S. follow a different strategy. State and local governments are now suing fossil fuel companies and the American Petroleum Institute for damages caused by climate change — astronomical damages that inevitably fall to states, cities and towns that can’t afford to pay for them.

These climate cases name private fossil fuel companies as defendants, seeking to hold responsible various for-profit companies, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell, for increasing carbon dioxide and methane emissions caused by their products.

Big Oil’s campaign of deception

Legal claims and allegations pending in the U.S. focus largely on Big Oil’s deceptive practices. Like the tobacco disinformation cases from the 1990s, these cases allege fraud, nuisance, conspiracy and negligence arising from the industry’s long-standing public disinformation campaigns.

Congress has conducted numerous investigations into Big Oil’s pattern of deception. Despite conclusive evidence that oil executives have long known the causal connection between fossil fuels and climate change, industry executives have consistently lied about it to protect their profits.

Nearly 10 years ago, Democratic members of Congress addressed a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluding that “there was a coordinated campaign of deception” on climate science by ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Peabody Energy and other members of the fossil fuel industry.

Tanker drivers working for Shell in Grangemouth, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Big Oil’s targeted acts of deception over a decades-long campaign included “forged letters to Congress,” secret funding of allegedly independent but industry-controlled scientists, creating “fake grassroots organizations” to influence policy, and multiple, ongoing, and in-depth “efforts to deliberately manufacture uncertainty about climate science.”

Evidence of the industry’s deceptive practices could be pivotal in cases brought by state and local governments paying a staggering tab for intensifying storms, flooding, crop-destroying droughts, extreme heat events and, for states and towns on major bodies of water, coastal erosion.

In the meantime, the fossil fuel industry continues to profit outrageously from extracting, distributing and marketing dangerous products known to increase Earth’s already feverish temperature: March was the 10th month in a row to set a new monthly global heat record, both on land and in the oceans, as global reliance on coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel of all — continues to climb.

Landmark climate cases in Montana, Hawaii

The ECHR decision was the first to rule that governments are obligated under human rights laws to address climate change, but it won’t be the last. Cases pending in Montana and Hawaii also allege damages from unmet climate obligations by their respective state governments.

Last August, 16 young plaintiffs scored an unprecedented victory in Montana. They argued that the state violated a state constitutional provision that guarantees Montana citizens a healthy environment, and Judge Kathy Seeley agreed. She ruled that permitting coal, oil and gas production worsened the climate crisis, in violation of the “healthy environment” guarantees found in the Montana constitution.

In result, state regulators issuing permits for fossil fuel developments must now consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions as part of their overall analysis of whether to grant or deny the permit. After the state appealed the maverick ruling, Montana’s Supreme Court, in a 5-2 decision, denied the governor’s request to block the ruling pending appeal.

In Hawaii, another pending climate case involves 14 youths. Plaintiffs in Hawaii allege that the state’s transportation department, by funding highway projects that increase fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, violated a constitutional duty to protect the environment.

A protestor holds a 'Polluters Pay Up' sign outside the Phillips 66 Los Angeles Refinery Wilmington Plant on Nov. 28, 2022, in Wilmington, Calif. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

After the state challenged plaintiffs’ standing, claiming they could not show particularized harm because climate damages are already “baked in,” the judge ruled that climate damages to plaintiffs “are not hypothetical,” and allowed the case to proceed.

When the state asked Hawaii’s legislators for more than $2 million to hire outside counsel to fight the case, one state legislator told Hawaii Public Radio that instead of “spending the millions of dollars we’re spending on some hotshot law firm,” Hawaii should apply that money toward emissions reductions instead.

The case was scheduled for trial this summer, but in February, the fossil fuel defendants petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that federal law precludes damages claims against them.

Take heart, then take action

Climate activists should be uplifted and encouraged by the ECHR decision, particularly as its effects begin to ripple through the fossil fuel industry, industrialized economies and reluctant courts.

It won’t change the prognosis or the immediate future — today’s youth throughout the world will still live through the worst effects of climate destruction, even though they had nothing to do with the policies that caused it.

It’s the same lament heard from emerging economies in Asia and Africa. Struggling countries and coastal populations who had nothing to do with industrialization over the past 150 years are now paying the steepest price through their own rapidly disappearing habitats.

Thousands of school students join protesters in a Climate strike rally on September 20, 2019, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

But one major, outcome-determinative difference between these two rightfully aggrieved populations remains: the right to vote.

As enraging as it is for young Americans to hear oil-financed politicians deny climate change (“Drill baby, drill!”), we could fund the transition to clean energy — including an upgraded, nationwide grid of sufficient capacity — if every young adult simply voted.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Follow her on Substack.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Molly Redden at HuffPost:

A group at the center of conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo’s network funneled $750,000 to an influential new lobbying operation that pushes anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the country, new tax records show. Do No Harm presents itself as a grassroots association of doctors against gender-affirming care and diversity efforts in the medical profession. The group, which was founded in 2022, does not disclose its donors. But newly disclosed tax filings provided to HuffPost by Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog, show that the Concord Fund, the funding arm of Leo’s network, donated $750,000 in 2022 to Do No Harm Action, the group’s official lobbying effort. Do No Harm also received more than $1.4 million from a nonprofit, the Project on Fair Representation, run by conservative activist Edward Blum, new records show. Blum, a conservative activist who helped engineer two Supreme Court cases that struck down affirmative action and major sections of the Voting Rights Act, is now a Do No Harm board member.

HuffPost previously revealed that Do No Harm received $1 million in seed funding from Joseph Edelman, a billionaire hedge fund CEO, and his wife, Suzy Edelman, who has said she considers “transgenderism” “a fiction designed to destroy.” Leo is best known as the kingpin of a decades-long effort to pack the federal judiciary with conservative judges. As the leader of the Federalist Society, Leo assembled a vast and secretive network of wealthy donors and nonprofits to amplify the power of the conservative legal movement, culminating in Leo handpicking the list of former President Donald Trump’s potential nominees to the Supreme Court. While some of his efforts are highly public, others, like the funding of Do No Harm, occur with little fanfare. The medley of conservative groups channeling money to Do No Harm underscores the growing belief on the right that attacking trans rights is “a political winner.”

[...] After Trump left office, Leo vastly expanded his efforts to target a wide spectrum of conservative policy goals and hobby horses. Powered in part by the largest known political donation in U.S. history — a $1.6 billion gift from a reclusive electronics mogul named Barre Seid — Leo’s network is now fueling political attacks on issues including abortion access, voting rights and critical race theory. Since 2022, the Concord Fund has received at least $55 million from the nonprofit that houses Seid’s gift, the Marble Trust. Do No Harm’s goals dovetail neatly with Leo’s expanded mission. The group has helped pay for activists and expert witnesses to travel the country, testifying in favor of bans on gender-affirming care for minors. On top of fighting to restrict transgender care, Do No Harm is suing Louisiana and Montana over modest efforts to diversify their state medical boards and trying to dismantle a Pfizer fellowship designed to put more Black, Latino and Native American medical professionals in leadership positions.

Concord Fund, the funding arm of right-wing megadonor Leonard Leo, is funding anti-trans and anti-DEI extremist group Do No Harm to push bans on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youths (and adults in some cases) and diversity initiatives in the medical profession.

[tapiancailini]

Robert Reich on recent plane crash tragedy

Friends,

Trump blamed last night’s tragic crash on former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama for seeking to include Blacks and Latinos in the federal workforce.

“They actually came out with a directive — ‘too white’,” Trump charged today in remarks about last night’s air crash that killed 67 people. But “we want the people that are competent.”

Asked why he believed DEI (policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion) had anything to do with the crash, Trump said: “Because I have common sense. OK. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

Trump’s new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was on hand to add his own bigoted view. “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department,” he said, “and we need the best and brightest — whether it’s in our air traffic control or whether it’s in our generals or whether it’s throughout government.”

Not to be outdone in the bigot department, Vice President JD Vance piped up: “When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means on the one hand you’re not getting the best people in government. But on the other hand, it puts stress on the people who are already there.”

What is America to make of this? That the underlying cause of last night’s tragedy was that not enough white people were in charge? That “competent” people — the “best and the brightest” — “the best people” — are not Black or Latino?

Is it now open season on such racist bullshit?

No. We will not allow neo-fascists to scapegoat people of color.

We know what they’re doing, and why.

They want to divide us. They want white people to blame Black and Latino people for every tragedy, every problem, every harm. And they want Black and Latino people to react not only with hurt but with justifiable anger.

It’s part of Trump’s strategy of divide and conquer: Get us so riled up against one another that we don’t look upward and see where all the wealth and power have gone.

I don’t know the cause of last night’s tragedy, but I do know that the air-traffic control system has been hampered for years by inadequate funding, like so much else the public depends on.

I also know that a big reason for inadequate funding is that the average working family can’t afford to pay more in taxes because their pay has been stagnant for 40 years, while the wealthy — who have a record percentage of the nation’s total wealth — have lobbied for and gotten huge tax cuts (the latest being from Trump himself in his first term of office).

I’m not blaming the rich. I’m blaming a system that continues to underfund what the vast majority of Americans need.

Speaking of the rich, Elon Musk — the richest person on the planet — forced Michael Whitaker to step down as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration immediately after Trump’s inauguration. That was because the FAA fined SpaceX for failing to get approval for launch changes. Whitaker’s absence left a power vacuum at the agency. Just sayin’.

Again, I don’t know what caused last night’s crash. But shame on Trump and Vance and Hegseth for blaming it on people of color.

What are your thoughts?

[dragoneyes618]

When asymmetrical warfare is discussed, the focus is usually what happens on the battlefield. So, for instance, when the Viet Cong snuck out of the jungle to attack Americans or when Hamas terrorists leave their tunnels to shoot at Israeli troops or hide their weapons while they pretend to be innocent civilians, the battlefield is the subject of unequal or asymmetric warfare. But I want to discuss some other aspects of the asymmetries – the inequalities – in the current Gaza/Hamas war against Israel. These asymmetries are essential parts of the situation and culture of each combatant and so they appear off the battlefield rather than on it.

First, there is a striking asymmetry in numbers of people aligned with each side. There are only approximately seventeen million Jews in the world today and only one Jewish majority country. There are about six-and-a-half to seven million Jews in the U.S., about seven to seven-and-a-half million in Israel, and the rest are scattered around the world, with the largest concentrations of Jews being in France, the English-speaking countries, and then in smaller pockets throughout the world, including Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere. There are, however, approximately four hundred million Arabs in the world and approximately two billion (with a B) Muslims in the world, and fifty-two Muslim majority countries.

Those numbers matter not only regarding the ability of Israel to raise the money and troops to fight in its defense, but also because Israel’s enemies do not ever have to work hard to obtain a majority in the United Nations and to vote along religious-ethnic lines. Add to the Muslim countries in the United Nations the Russian and Chinese allies and puppets like Tajikistan and Khazakstan, and the “post-colonial” sewers that fester under ideologies of hatred of Western civilization, hatred of democracy, and hatred of Israel’s ally, the U.S. – countries like Myanmar, South Africa, Nicaragua, Malawi, and Chad. When Israel-haters and Jew-haters say that the whole world hates Israel, they are partly correct because most of the world lives under nasty regimes that have no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, no free press, and no fair and free elections. The pressure of that asymmetry of numbers is always upon us.

Besides the asymmetry between Israel and much of the rest of the world because Israel is a liberal democracy, with its many freedoms, the contrast becomes even more stark with Gaza/Hamas. Even while at war, Israeli politicians are squabbling and posturing, Israeli newspapers are attacking the government’s policies and conduct of the war, reporters are exposing flaws in governmental operations, and people are “leaking” news to reporters so that there is a vast array of negative information, as well as positive information, about the Israeli leadership even during the war. In Israel even now there are public demonstrations against certain government policies. Contrast that with Gaza/Hamas which is a theocratic dictatorship run by an armed group that took power in 2006 and has never held another election. Because it is a dictatorship, there is no opposition party to challenge Hamas or to point to its flaws. Because Gaza/Hamas is a dictatorship, there are no newspapers whose editorial stance is to challenge the government’s policies or to advocate that the government take better care of its citizens. Because it is a dictatorship, there are no public discussions of policy, no demonstrations, no public admissions that mistakes have been made, no acknowledgement that the Gaza/Hamas government has ever done anything wrong.

Hamas does not have to respond or explain why they use the population of Gaza as they do because no one questions Hamas. When Israel makes a mistake or does something untoward, it is on the front page of every newspaper in the world. When Hamas shoots its own civilians, rapes, tortures, or murders a hostage in a tunnel, or steals money or other international aid intended for the population, it is a secret. While all of Israel’s imperfections are exposed, very few of Hamas’ are.

There is also an asymmetry in the conception of time that the combatants have. Because Israel is a democracy, its leaders have to respond to the public and respond to them at relatively frequent intervals. Politicians in democratic countries are usually focused on the next election in a year, or two or three. That conception of time as being related to the next election tends to make for short-range planning and pleasing the electorate now. That may be as much a problem for Israel’s most important ally, the United States, as it is for Israel. In a theocratic dictatorship with no elections, such as Hamas and such as Hamas’ major ally, Iran, which bars most opposition candidates from running for office, satisfying voters is simply not an issue. Hamas and Iran plan for the long term, free from any concern about what the citizens want.

Israel largely has to finance its own wars, although it does receive significant aid from the United States. That financing largely comes from internal taxation and some import duties. Israelis pay income taxes and a high “value-added tax” (VAT) to defend our country and provide necessary services such as schools and medical care. That is significantly different than Hamas/Gaza, which finances its war with money from Iran, Qatar, UNRWA, Syria, and Russia. Iran’s interest, like Hamas’, is in destroying Israel and killing all the Jews. Qatar largely shares that interest. Russia wants to embarrass the United States and have more influence in the Arab world. UNRWA, besides giving fake “refugee” status to third- and fourth-generation descendants of Arabs who left Israel in 1948, 1967, and at other times, teaches hatred of Jews and of Israel in its schools, gives “day jobs” to Hamas operatives and their family members so that Hamas does not have to pay their operatives a living wage, and provides schools and clinics which also sometimes double as Hamas weapons storage facilities, command centers, barracks, and entrances to the Hamas tunnels. By providing these schools and clinics, UNRWA relieves Hamas of what would ordinarily be the governmental responsibility of building and operating schools and clinics for Gazans. The “international community” thereby frees Hamas from having to pay for ordinary government services and allows Hamas to spend more on making war on Israel.

Last, and perhaps most important of all the asymmetries between the combatants, is their ideologies. Israel wants to live in peace and security inside her current borders. If Israel had that result, it would be the end of the almost constant warfare that Israel has suffered these last seventy-six years. Hamas, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Houthis, and other governments and quasi-governments want to kill all the Jews in the Middle East or, at least, expel all the Jews from the Middle East. They are not interested in peace. They will, at times, consider a truce or a ceasefire for strategic reasons, but not real, lasting peace. Different authorities in the field give different reasons for Arab and Muslim hatred of Jews and the little Jewish state (which Arabs and others try to disguise as “anti-Zionism”). One authority argues that because of their different value system, most Arabs do not believe in living together with other groups in peace and harmony but rather they believe that a group must either dominate or be dominated, oppress or be oppressed. They believe that Israel has dominated and oppressed but that they can right that wrong.

Another authority has contended that in Muslim doctrine, land has a character and that once it is conquered by Muslims, as Israel was in the seventh century, it always retains the character of Muslim land. Other thinkers in the field urge the simple religious explanation for the Arab hatred of Jews and unwillingness to live in peace with us: that Muslims believe that they have received the final word and prophecy as revealed by Mohammed and that we Jews have come to Israel, humiliated them in war, built a nation far more prosperous than any of theirs (at least until the extraction of large amounts of oil in some Arab countries), and have openly and explicitly rejected their prophet and their god. The one thing that is clear is that it is not about “Palestine,” a little corner of the world smaller than many American counties.

Despite those asymmetries between the combatants, there is one more that matters – an asymmetry that weighs very heavily in Israel’s favor. In all the polls and surveys of “happiness” by country, Israel consistently ranks as having a very happy population, much more so than any Arab or Muslim country. It is surely not because of material prosperity that Israelis feel this way. Most Israelis care about the land, about each other, about the fate of the Jewish people, and about Jewish tradition. I suspect that even many secular Israelis, deep in the recesses of their thoughts, no matter their outward protestations, believe that a benevolent G-d watches over the world and over us. What else could explain the happiness of a people constantly under threat, woefully outgunned and outnumbered in a hostile world?

So we will go on as well as we can. We have always faced asymmetries like these throughout our history. We have always been a comparatively small people, a people who had to make our way in a hostile world, a people who had to struggle to survive. We have gotten through these crises before, even if it has been painful to do so. We will get through this one also. Am Yisrael Chai.

[smolpinklady]

The women that voted for Trump are thinking it won't happen to them. They won't have the health care they need when the time comes now. Imagine voting against yourself. You have no idea how many people say, "I'll keep the baby, abortion doesn't matter to me" where I work. Education has gone downhill. I'm so tired dude

I could go on about this but because Donald Trump represents the “Christian” vote, people who are FOR him will vote for him with blinders on. They only want to see and hear what they want to see and hear.

He does not support the Constitution, he wants POWER. He does not want the 30 something counts of felony charges hovering over him, he wants to avert himself from his detrimental mistakes.

He has stated in his god awful hateful rallies that he wants to initiate MASS DEPORTATIONS.

He has said vile things about women, including his own daughter.

The House and the Senate already have Republican majority. I’m terrified that they are going to work in HIS favor.

What’s crazy is majority of America is middle to lower class families. People who support him are so delusional in the way they think, they think that Trump is going to make the “economy” great, and helping Americans with lower gas prices and groceries.

When in reality his plan is to PROPOSE TARIFF POLICIES that will ultimately RAISE PRICES FOR YOU AND I

Americans are superficial pieces of shit.

The other day I saw a clip of that fuck ass Cheeto saying, “the key to not being depressed is working your ass off.” This is coming from a MAN who has been GIVEN opportunities and a substantial amount of MONEY on a silver platter. At A YOUNG AGE.

If god forbid I experience an accidental pregnancy by a man who I’m dating, and I don’t find out until six weeks or later, in the state of Florida I would have to go through the pregnancy, unless I go out of my way to travel to another state (and I don’t have the means to do that)

I am not suggesting that I would be irresponsible about having sex, I’m only bringing up a hypothetical scenario (abortion is not a form of birth control, but it IS still a human right to decide what I want to do with my body and the pregnancy)

People don’t read. People would rather remain uneducated and believe in some sort of fantasy of a lower cost of living (WHICH KAMALA HARRIS WANTED TO HELP MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES WITH)

This outcome has began to change my perspective on people, even more so.

The vast majority of Americans would rather have a homophobic, sexist, racist, criminal, and egotistical old white man run office over an educated and qualified BLACK WOMAN.

That speaks volumes about people.

If there’s a sign to remain abstinent from sex, this is reason enough.

[printedword]

Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track. One centerpiece of that program is dozens of never-before-published videos created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy. The vast majority of these videos — 23 in all, totaling more than 14 hours of content — were provided to ProPublica and Documented by a person who had access to them. [...] Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, falsely saying that he knew nothing about it and had “no idea who is behind it.” In fact, he flew on a private jet with Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025. And in a 2022 speech at a Heritage Foundation event, Trump said, “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” A review of the training videos shows that 29 of the 36 speakers have worked for Trump in some capacity — on his 2016-17 transition team, in the administration or on his 2024 reelection campaign. The videos appear to have been recorded before the resignation two weeks ago of Paul Dans, the leader of the 2025 project, and they are referenced on the project’s website. The Heritage Foundation said in a statement at the time of Dans’ resignation that it would end Project 2025’s policy-related work, but that its “collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels — federal, state, and local — will continue.” The Heritage Foundation and most of the people who appear in the videos cited in this story did not respond to ProPublica’s repeated requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign who features in one of the videos, said, “As our campaign leadership and President Trump have repeatedly stated, Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda from our campaign.” Project 2025’s 887-page “Mandate for Leadership” document lays out a vast array of policy and governance proposals, including eliminating the Department of Education, slashing Medicaid, reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be more easily fired and replaced, giving the president greater power to control the DOJ and further restricting abortion access.

[mariacallous]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many U.S. adults are on board with the idea of beefing up security at the southern border and undertaking some targeted deportations, according to a poll. But as President Donald Trump begins his second term with a series of sweeping executive orders on immigration, the findings suggest his actions may quickly push the country beyond the limited consensus that exists on the issue.

There is a clear desire for some kind of action on U.S.-Mexico border security, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Half of U.S. adults think increasing security at the border should be a high priority for the federal government, according to the poll, and about 3 in 10 say it should be a moderate priority. Just 2 in 10, roughly, consider it a low priority.

The vast majority of U.S. adults favor deporting immigrants convicted of violent crimes, and the Trump administration’s deportation efforts may begin there. But Trump’s initial executive orders have gone far beyond that — including efforts to keep asylum-seekers in Mexico and end automatic citizenship.

And Trump, a Republican, is continuing to signal an aggressive and likely divisive approach, with promises to deport millions of people who entered the country illegally while declaring a “national emergency at our southern border.” About 4 in 10 American adults support deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and a similar share are opposed.

Most Americans think local police should cooperate with federal immigration authorities on deportations in at least some cases, but implementation could quickly become unpopular. On Tuesday, the Trump administration threw out policies limiting arrests of migrants in sensitive places like schools and churches, even though a shift to such arrests would be largely unpopular.

Some support for more immigration enforcement

Immigration was a key issue in the 2024 election, and the poll indicates that it’s still a high priority for many Americans as Trump takes office.

Illegal border crossings soared under Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, with border arrests from Mexico reaching a record-high of 250,000 in December 2023. Despite Trump’s claims of an immigrant invasion, crossings have plunged since then, amid increased Mexican enforcement and the Democratic Biden administration’s June 2024 order that dramatically limited asylum claims at the border.

But memories of those rising numbers, and the chaos that ensued when migrants were bused by Republican governors to northern cities, may have helped shape American attitudes. The survey found that about half of Americans think the government is spending “too little” on border security, and the vast majority favor deportations of people who have been convicted of violent crimes.

“I want to see more people coming here legally,” said Manuel Morales, a 60-year-old Democrat who lives near Moline, Illinois. He first came to America by crossing the border illegally from Mexico nearly 40 years ago. “But at the same time, I’m against all these caravans coming (to the border), with thousands and thousands of people at one time,” said Morales, a technician for an internet provider.

He’s deeply sympathetic to migrants who come to the U.S. to escape repression or poverty and feels that too many Americans don’t understand the yearslong efforts required to enter the U.S. legally. Yet, he also believes the number of migrants has simply become too great in the past few years.

“We cannot just receive everybody into this county,” he said.

Trump’s most sweeping plans are less popular

Trump rarely gives specifics when he calls for mass deportations, but the survey indicates many Americans are conflicted about mass roundups of people living in the U.S. illegally.

Removing immigrants who are in the country illegally and have not committed a violent crime is highly divisive, with only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in support and slightly more than 4 in 10 opposed.

And relatively few Americans, about 3 in 10, somewhat or strongly favor changing the Constitution so children born in the U.S. are not automatically granted citizenship if their parents are in the country illegally. About 2 in 10 are neutral, and about half are somewhat or strongly opposed.

Doug DeVore is a 57-year-old Republican living in southern Indiana who believes that immigration “went haywire during the Biden administration.”

But the idea of large-scale operations to check people’s immigration status makes him uncomfortable.

“I probably wouldn’t be 100% against it,” he said. “But there’s that fine line” between gathering information on people living in the U.S. illegally and automatically deporting them, added DeVore, who works in a candy factory.

Local cooperation with immigration authorities is popular — but not arrests in schools or churches

As the Trump administration prepares to attack sanctuary jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, the poll finds that the vast majority of U.S. adults think police in their community should cooperate with federal immigration authorities to deport people who are in the country illegally in at least some cases.

Only about 1 in 10 Americans say the local police should never cooperate with federal law enforcement on these deportations.

There’s a divide, though, on whether cooperation should happen across the board or if it should happen only sometimes. About two-thirds of Republicans say local police should always cooperate, a view that only about one-quarter of Democrats share. But relatively few Democrats say local police should never cooperate and most, about two-thirds, say cooperation should happen in some cases.

And a wave of arrests could quickly spark a backlash, depending on how they happen. U.S. immigration agents have long abided by guidance that deters arresting parents or students at schools and other sensitive places, but some of Trump’s rhetoric has raised questions about whether those policies will persist.

The poll finds that a shift toward arresting people in the country illegally at places like churches and schools would be highly unpopular. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults somewhat or strongly favor arresting children who are in the country illegally while they are at school, and a similar share support arresting people who are in the country illegally while they are at church. Solid majorities, about 6 in 10, oppose these kinds of arrests.

Even Republicans aren’t fully on board — less than half favor arrests of children in schools or people at church.