gulliver
gulliver's JournalWAPO: Six months of the Israel-Gaza war: A timeline of key moments
Six months into the war in Gaza, the human cost has been devastating.
Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 256 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.
More than 33,000 people have been killed and 75,000 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and says the majority of the dead are women and children.
The dead include more than 170 U.N. workers and seven World Central Kitchen employees, according to those organizations, and more than 90 journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/07/israel-hamas-gaza-war-timeline-anniversary/
This is an outstanding article shared by the Washington Post, imo. Timeline organized, lots of background and context, lots of links, lots of responsible "according to so-and-so" and "so-and-so says" qualifications on statements.
What do we do to reduce the votes "against Biden" that go to Trump (directly or indirectly)?
We should do those things. Do things that get people to not vote against Biden.
There are other things that we should not do, I believe. My position on things that shouldn't be done is that it is best to not do them.
It probably doesn't lose us any net votes to express it that way I guess
Folks who like to use charged fifty-cent words (thanks Google) will enjoy seeing "patriarchal" and "theocracy" used in a sentence with a sciencey DNA allusion. Sophistication, accusation, and a toot of the social justice trumpet.
Folks who think it's counterproductive will point to the obvious idea that reproductive freedom is best expressed positively using the phrase, well, "reproductive freedom." Easy to agree on that. Those who usually ignore the counterproductive (and therefore indirectly and unintentionally immoral) social justice noisemaking will still want to vote Dem to get reproductive freedom.
Former President Pennywise
We laugh at the orange man, the clown. I'm not sure we understand, though, that it works. Trump's clown costume changes the entire mode in which he is understood. It's Kabuki. It's WWE. It's Jim Baker and Tammy Faye. Only stupider.
Resentment meets fun meets R-rated hypnotist. Sick joke. Dumb.
America's waking up.
Could someone explain the Trump fraud "victimless crime" excuse?
The Trumps, in committing the fraud for which they now have to pay $364 million, inflated the value of their properties to get loans, but they paid the loans back with interest. So abracadabra. No victim. Where's the victim? The banks were paid. Nothing to see here.
Wait. Weren't there other businesses trying to get loans when the Trumps were lying to get that loan money? How many legitimate businesspeople couldn't get loans they needed, because they didn't lie? The creditors lent money to the Trumps that should rightfully have gone to honest businesses. Those businesses, their shareholders, and their employees are the victims.
Not unlike the poor guy who went to Vietnam in Donald Trump's place, honest businesses paid the price for Trump family lies. Shareholders in those businesses might have gotten lower dividends or retirement account gains. Employees might have gotten lower pay. The honest businesses in fact might have gone under for lack of the loan money they deserved that the Trumps wrongfully took.
Okay, so the Trumps victimized some people by inflating the value of their properties when trying to get loans. But understating the value of their properties to unfairly reduce their taxes didn't hurt anybody. Right?
Wait. Taxpayers pay taxes. Pretty sure that's true (or we would call them something besides taxpayers). Couldn't the governments the Trumps cheated out of tax money have taken some of the money the Trumps were supposed to pay and refunded it to taxpayers? Seems like taxpayers got robbed by the Trumps. The Trumps, in other words, victimized taxpayers.
Now what were the Republicans saying about victimless crimes again?
Does Biden need to feed Trump to the media on the age issue?
One of the few places Trump won't go when it comes to Biden is Biden's age. He has even gone so far as to say it's not an issue. Reacting to this latest media frenzy of ineptitude over the Hur report, Trump didn't say the report was about age. Trump lied and said the report was about mental incompetence.
Trump doesn't want to push the button on age. Why?
I think it's pretty obvious. Trump doesn't want to be part of that media and pollster "paycheck-providing news narrative." He steers clear of the jackal pack.
The media and pollsters, for their part, think they are onto some good gravy train stuff with the Biden-only age issue. They know that if they start to take bites out of Trump over his age and obvious mental deficiency, the narrative will become moot. Interest will disappear. Paychecks might dry up even more than they already are.
It's a lot like the old Upton Sinclair idea that it is hard to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on their not understanding it. The media convinces itself that "the people" they poll have a "concern," and, luckily for the media, it generates a paycheck. No need to think about balance this time. No need to complicate the issue that is giving me something to say in the two minutes, forty-five seconds I have to fill on CNN to stay in my job. The people have spoken (through the pollsters who get bucks for giving me stuff to say, so I can get bucks too). Nothing to see here. When will Friday get here?
So maybe Biden or Harris should push the age button on Trump? Someone should. Trump would have to respond or "respond by not responding." Haley's been trying to push the button on both, but it hasn't gotten much traction so far.
I haven't seen any serious mistakes by Garland
There's a lot of mistaken criticism of him. That I've seen a whole lot of. From both sides.
The criticism from folks who think of themselves as being on the left is basically that Garland should have self-designed an Attorney General uniform, stuck on some epaulets and medals, and arrested Trump pronto.
The criticism from Trump and folks who think of themselves as being on the right is that what Garland has been doing is essentially what the left wishes he were doing. (See above.)
Great straightness seems bent. I think that's from the Tao Te Ching. Garland is essentially correct in a world where folks have adopted silly, erroneous, superficial, feel-good evaluation criteria concerning correctness.
"Gender-affirming care" is a likely mistake that parents should have the right to make
Thus far, I think of GAC in the same way I think of the opioid crisis and some types of mass population mental health drugging. The medical and pharma industry is a complete mess in this country, but there are so few GAC candidates that the harm is lower than these other "iatrogenic" harms. I would say that parents, as always, have the right to make decisions about their children, for good or ill.
I think a better bill would have extended any statute of limitations for lawsuits for GAC patients and detransitioner patients to the lifetime of the patient. That would allow parents to save the life of their child (to the extent they believe that is what they are doing). In the event that fraud, malpractice, or negligence are later uncovered, parents could then sue caregivers and child patients could sue parents and caregivers.
To me, that protects both children and the adults they will become while respecting parental rights in (as DeWine says) making gut-wrenching decisions.
Putin: "Nice place you got here Benny! Too bad what happened!"
"Maybe I can help with that. Everyone knows I'm a peacemaker, right Benny? (Can I call you Benny?)"
"Yes, Godfather. You know I love my Godfather!"
"Now, I know you're going to help me with my Ukraine problem too. As my friend. Let's say the Iranians decide to talk to the Gazan military leaders to get them to let go of some of their 'insurance.' What can you do for me?"
"I can be grateful for your peacemaking, your pragmatism Godfather. I can be grateful for your talking to Hamas and getting them to release some of the hostages they took when you gave them the Ok. I mean, the 'insurance' that the 'Gazan military leaders' took...without you or Iran having to say anything, of course."
"Yes, that's right. I appreciate your gratitude, Benny. That's good. Good, Benny! Very, very good! I didn't attack Ukraine and Israel. They're separate issues...separate funding issues with the Americans. Right? It's simple. Ukraine attacked me. Then the Gazan military leaders independently decided to attack Israel and take insurance. And here I am, your friend, stepping in to help Israel. A friend. A friend to you. A friend to our mutual friends in America."
Inspired by: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218560241
If many Gazan Palestinians are afraid of Hamas, is that true in the Palestinian diaspora too?
There's the psychological concept of "displacement." Your boss yells at you, so you yell at the dog. You're afraid of one, so you pick on the other. You pick on the easy target. Happens all the time. Very easy to not notice you're doing it.
Are a lot of these protesters out there "making a show of Palestinian loyalty" out of fear of crazies in their midst? Do Canadian Palestinian marchers not show the Canadian flag because they know there about three or four Hamas "Islamist Charles Mansons" in the crowd and they don't want trouble? Do Palestinians and their TikTok likers "stand up" to Australian Opera Houses, London business districts, and even Jews because righting the Islamist house (fumigating for Columbine-profile, incel-like nuts) is too scary?
Protesting people and countries that won't do anything to you is, frankly, pretty easy and safe.
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