There is so much bullshit spread about the Israel-Gaza….mostly from the MSM….there is so much more to this situation than a warranted attack in October.

This video has some humorous parts but does try to explain as best anyone that does not live there can do.

It is a long watch and you must go to Youtube, as you can see, to watch it…..but if you think you know it all then I suggest you digest this.

John Oliver’s show “Last Week Tonight” is a good way to learn and with a small amount of humor and sarcasm.

A superb attempt to help people understand….but sadly it may be a fart in the wind.

It will not change many minds for most have there ‘beliefs’ set in stone and no amount of facts will change that.

Sadly this will not change many minds (I know redundant) because most do NOT to understand because to them Israel is always in the right….and that is a very stupid way to make the decision on this conflict and with lives.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The term has been batted around for several years now….but the question should be is this American fascism?

An excellent question and the New Republic has covered it very well….

After all it is 2024 and a very important election (according to some) is in the works….maybe now is a good time to look at the whole thing a little closer.

“No, no,” some admonish: “Don’t get carried away. Sure, Donald Trump is dangerous, perhaps uniquely so. But … fascist? The need to label him a fascist says more about the labeler than about Trump.” This argument has sprung from certain quarters of the right, which was to be expected, but it has also sprouted from the left, where a point of view has arisen that the “hysterical” invocation of the f-word is as much a danger as Trump.

We have trouble seeing the hysteria. We chose the cover image, based on a well-known 1932 Hitler campaign poster, for a precise reason: that anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard. After all, he spent 1932 campaigning, negotiating, doing interviews—being a mostly normal politician. But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.

Today, we at The New Republic think we can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, “He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.”

We unreservedly choose the latter course. And so we have assembled herein some of our leading intellectual historians of fascism; a member of the fourth estate who learned firsthand what the Trump lash feels like; a leading expert on civil-military relations; a great Guatemalan American novelist with a deep understanding of immigrants’ lives; one of our most incisive cultural critics; and a man with all-too-real experience in living under a notorious authoritarian regime. The scenarios they describe are certainly grim. We dare you to say, after reading these pieces, that they are impossible.

(newrepublic.com)

Trump’s rhetoric smacks of fascism….now he just chest thumping or does he really want the authoritarian rule to become fact?

To speculate on what the future of American culture might look like in a second Trump presidency, we must consider the past: the formative New York and educational years of Donald Trump himself. By a curious turn of fate, the young Donald and I share a birthplace and, generally speaking, an education at the same institutions of higher learning. I can’t pretend to know the influence our common background has on his attitude toward the arts, but I can make some informed guesses by contrasting Trump’s journey to my own. To understand Trump and the cues his base takes from him, we need to see him as the anti–New York New Yorker: intellectually incurious and leery of the crowded streets of the crown city of cosmopolitan difference in a nation that mythologizes rural communities of sameness.

Then there is Project 2025….a master plan….

The fascists believed that you have to destroy to create, and this is what a second Trump administration would do. Project 2025 is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States that goes by a deceptively neutral name. It preserves Trumpism’s original radical intent in its goals to “[d]ismantle the administrative state” and “decentralize and privatize as much as possible,” allowing the American people to “live freely.” “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Heritage Foundation head Kevin Roberts told The New York Times in January. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.” The solution to this “slow start”—code for the restraints imposed by operating in a democracy—is counterrevolution.

The plan promises the abolition of the Department of Education and other federal agencies. The intent here is to destroy the legal and governance cultures of liberal democracy and create new bureaucratic structures, staffed by new politically vetted cadres, to support autocratic rule. So new agencies could appear to manage parents’ and family rights, Christian affairs, and other pillars of the new order. The Department of Health and Human Services is poised to have a central role in governance, given the priorities Trumpism places on policing sexuality, weaponizing motherhood, persecuting transgender people and LGBTQ

https://newrepublic.com/article/181265/permanent-counterrevolution

What is the old saying?  “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck?”

Personally I think the time to fight this cancer is now……

January 2025 will be too late.

I Read, I Write, You Know

‘cognito ergo me agitare’

I normally try to write a post that is at least 350 words, I try to give as much information as possible and I ask questions hoping for a few answers.

So far my questions, which have been in just about every post, have gone unanswered…..lots of platitudes and babble but no direct answers.

I decided to write a post to ask the questions with no flowery stuff….just a straight forward question…..in search of straightforward answers.

1–What does the US expect in return for its massive investment in Ukraine?

2–What is it that makes Americans such die hard supporters 0f Israel?

A couple of easy straightforward questions that I think deserve some easy straightforward answers (if known).

I look forward to the answers.

‘Lego ergo scribo”

Recently a couple more nations recognized the state of Palestine and as you would imagine it sent Israel and the West into apoplectic shock….

Another three countries say they will officially recognize a Palestinian state amid outrage over Israel’s war in Gaza. Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced Wednesday that they would formally recognize the Palestinian state on May 28. Israel immediately recalled its ambassadors to Oslo and Dublin in response to what it called a “distorted step,” and said it would also recall its ambassador to Madrid, per NBC News. The outlet notes the step may be echoed by other European countries “as outrage over Israel’s actions in Gaza bolsters the Palestinian cause on the global stage.”

“There cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, per Al Jazeera. He said the recognition helps “keep alive the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike”—”two states, living side by side, in peace and security.” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said Israel “loses nothing” from the designation, which he hoped would “offer hope and encouragement to the people of Palestine at one of their darkest hours.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the move was “an act in favor of peace, justice and moral consistency” and “not against the Israeli people.”

Yet Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the message was that “terrorism pays.” He said the recognition could hurt efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza by “rewarding the jihadists of Hamas and Iran.” Hamas, meanwhile, applauded the move, saying it was “an important step on the path to establishing our right to our land,” and encouraged other countries to follow suit. According to the Palestinian Authority, 142 of 193 United Nations member nations now recognize the state of Palestine, per RTE News. Among those not included: the US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

Now for the ‘severe consequences’ thing…..a threat issued out of Israel after the recognition vote…..

Israel’s foreign minister issued a blunt threat of “severe consequences” for the countries of Norway, Ireland, and Spain—and presumably other nations that may follow—after the trio announced their decision Wednesday to formally recognize a Palestinian state.

In their joint move, inspired in large measure by the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, the governments of Norway, Ireland, and Spain said they would make the formal recognition next week on May 28. In response, Israel recalled its ambassadors from Oslo and Dublin as an initial sign of displeasure and protest.

Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said in a public statement that the move to recognize Palestine was a “distorted step” by the countries which he claimed was “an injustice to the memory of the victims of 7/10, a blow to efforts to return the 128 hostages, and a boost to Hamas and Iran’s jihadists, which undermines the chance for peace and questions Israel’s right to self-defense.”

Katz warned that “Israel will not remain silent” in the face of what it perceives as a betrayal by its European allies and that “further severe consequences” would follow for those making such a decision. Israel recalled its ambassador to Spain last year after comments made about violations of humanitarian law in Gaza.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/norway-ireland-spain-palestinian-state

“Severe consequences”? What are they going to do attack Norway or Spain or Ireland? That seems to be the only action these people know….they could claim self-defense since that is their answer for all the destruction they carry out.

Of course the USA vetoed the UN vote …..

The resolution would have recommended that the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, approve Palestine becoming the 194th member of the United Nations. Some 140 countries have already recognized Palestine, so its admission would have been approved, likely by a much higher number of countries.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.”

The United States has “been very clear consistently that premature actions in New York — even with the best intentions — will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said.

https://apnews.com/article/un-vote-palestinian-membership-us-veto-8d8ad60d8576b5ab9e70d2f8bf7e2881#

Premature actions?

Get real fucking real!

When the British mandate expire in 1949 Israel declared itself a state and the US immediately recognized the claim. Israel did n0t have to jump through hoops that they put the Palestinians through.

Then there is the dodge that the US stands behind the two state solution.

What crap!

They have been using that old tired dodge for 50 years and still nothing is any closer to being resolved….so when you hear Biden or any of his thugs use the term then know they are lying.

Without some sort of enforcement there will be NO two state solution….

Israeli support for two states, a strong majority in the heady days of the 1990s Oslo process, has eroded for years. The national trauma of the slaughter of 1,200 Israeli innocents—some beheaded, burned alive and raped—on October 7th and the ensuing war further hardened public opinion. In January, 59% of Jewish Israelis rejected a two-state solution as part of a package of US guarantees, normalization with Arab states, and long-term military peace. Support for two states is tied to perceptions of its feasibility, and Israelis have grown increasingly skeptical: a month before October 7, only 32% of Israeli Jews thought Israel and a Palestinian state could coexist peacefully, down 14% from 2013. 

The core reason for this opposition is more practical than ideological. Many Israelis support the idea of a compromise for peace but are wary of abandoning the status quo without an agreement with a partner they trust—in their view, the only way to provide real security and actually end the conflict. While a dedicated minority view the West Bank as biblical patrimony which cannot be ceded, in January 2023 over 60% of Israelis were willing to accept mutual Israeli-Palestinian recognition of the other’s legitimate claims, an end to the conflict and the end of future claims under a two-state solution. If Israelis thought a deal would work, a majority would support it. They understand that, if successful, a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. 

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/without-enforcement-talk-two-states-hollow

That is also a pipe dream….the US no more wants a solution to this problem than it wants AIPAC money to dry up.

If you would like to read a great work of fiction then the US explanation of the veto from the US mission to the UN….

https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-vote-at-a-un-security-council-meeting-on-palestinian-membership/

Every word crap!

cognito ergo me agitare

What year is this?

Sometimes I think it maybe 1950 but when I consult a calendar I see it is the 21st century, 2024 to be exact and not the dull days of the 1950s.

It amazes me that in this day and time that there are still dinosaurs like that football player Butker.

His commencement speech was pure misogynist bullshit.

It is safe to say that over the years, I have gained quite the reputation for speaking my mind,” said Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker near the top of his commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend. The three-time Super Bowl champion railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, and abortion during his roughly 20-minute address Saturday at the Catholic private liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas. Butker, who has made his conservative Catholic beliefs well known, began his address by attacking what he called “dangerous gender ideologies” in an apparent reference to Pride month, reports the AP. More:

On COVID: The 28-year-old Butker took aim at Biden’s policies, including his response to COVID-19. “While COVID might have played a large role throughout your formative years, it is not unique,” he said. “The bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues. Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for the degenerate cultural values and media all stem from pervasiveness of disorder.” His advice for women: Butker later addressed the women in the audience, arguing one of the “most important titles of all” is that of “homemaker.” As he put it, “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now, about to cross the stage, and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

• His advice for men. People quotes Butker as telling the male grads to “be unapologetic in your masculinity,” and to “fight against the cultural emasculation of men. … To the gentlemen here today, part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation.”

The Chiefs declined to comment on Butker’s commencement address. The 2017 seventh-round pick out of Georgia Tech has become one of the NFL’s best kickers, breaking the Chiefs’ franchise record with a 62-yard field goal in 2022. Butker helped them win their first Super Bowl in 50 years in 2020, added a second Lombardi Trophy in 2023, and he kicked the field goal that forced overtime in a Super Bowl win over San Francisco in February.I bet his parents are so proud of his antiquated views.

But this is not the half of the story….it seems that his views are really popular with men these days……why?

Harrison Butker jerseys are in greater demand since the Kansas City Chiefs kicker addressed the role of women, COVID policies, and much more in a commencement speech last weekend—and there’s no indication that consumers intend to wear them ironically. In NFL.com sales, Butker was trailing only Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, running ahead of star quarterback Patrick Mahomes. A Rally House store in Kansas City was sold out of Butker shirts, KCTV reports. Aaron Lewis, the store’s manager, said the demand was driven by Butker’s speech to Benedictine College graduates.

“My first two phone calls were about jerseys, T-shirts, jerseys, anything we had Butker-wise,” Lewis said, adding that “it’s been men and women—it’s been both calling to get his jersey.” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is among those who have made supportive comments about Butker, per the Guardian. “We need a different generation of kids that are willing to say no that’s not right, there is such a thing as right and wrong,” he said. The NFL and the Benedictine order that founded the college have said his positions do not reflect their values.

But how could kids learn anything different for there are many states that are passing laws that reinforce these types of dinosaur thinking?

So sad that there is a well paid mouthpiece that echoes the draconian views from 100 years ago.

We do not need garden slugs like But-lik we need real men that treat women with respect and equality.

I weep.

“cognito ergo csis”

Who will lead the faithful in 2012?  So far, all the GOP has is a pack of jokes and a tired mantra of tax cuts.  Not many on the stage for the next election have too many new ideas, unfortunately for them, that is what will return the GOP to power….New Ideas.

Some thoughts from Reihan Salam:

The possible GOP field begins with the vice presidential also-rans, the men who John McCain passed over in favor of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Mitt Romney has emerged as a favorite of diehard conservatives, including the young activists at CPAC who late last month made him the winner of their presidential straw poll for the third year in a row. Romney has also invested considerable resources in his Free and Strong America PAC, and he’s made it clear that he intends to campaign aggressively for Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. Yet there are indications that Romney intends to sit out the 2012 presidential race. Right now, Romney is working on a wide-ranging book – not a conventional campaign memoir – that traces the rise and fall of various empires throughout history, with the intention of divining lessons for America’s future. Romney could be positioning himself as a kind of Churchill figure, a wise elder statesman who will wait for the Obama era to end before he makes another bid for the presidency.

Bobby Jindal, often described as the Republican Obama, faces a rather more prosaic barrier to running for president. Having served less than half of his first term, Jindal is committed to running for reelection as governor of Louisiana in 2011. To win that race and then pivot to campaigning for president in Iowa just weeks later would be unseemly to say the least. Though Jindal hasn’t ruled himself out of the 2012 race in Shermanesque fashion, he’s come close.
Jindal does, however, have some strengths that could lead Republicans to come to him. Though widely seen as a flop, his recent response to President Obama’s economic address to Congress has endeared him to conservative activists, most notably Rush Limbaugh, who condemned Jindal’s Republican critics on-air. Moreover, Jindal has shrewder political instincts than you might expect from an aw-shucks Rhodes Scholar, as demonstrated when he asked not to be vetted for a McCain vice presidential slot – a no-win proposition that would have made him look disloyal to his home state. Assuming Jindal has a successful first term, he could run at the last minute as the conservative candidate and as the competence candidate. But this “strategy,” if you can call it that, demands that Jindal lay low.

Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, seems genuinely torn over whether to focus on running for reelection in 2010 or to run for president in 2012. He has already built a small, informal network of advisors who could aid him in a national race, and he has critiqued President Obama’s stimulus package with an eye towards impressing the GOP’s national activist base. With his unpretentious style and blue-collar background, Pawlenty was seen as a formidable 2008 vice presidential prospect – indeed, in the days before Sarah Palin’s candidacy was announced, Pawlenty was considered the odds-on favorite. It didn’t hurt that Republican strategists were increasingly focused on the Upper Midwest, where pro-life Democrats seemed to tilt in a Republican direction this past November. Yet there remains a nagging sense among leading Minnesota Republicans that Pawlenty is not ready for prime-time, and that he’d be better served by burnishing his credentials with another gubernatorial term in St. Paul before running for president in 2016.

Sarah Palin has emerged as a polarizing figure in Republican circles. As a rule, conservatives remain enthusiastic about a Palin presidential run, while moderates are opposed. But so far, there is little indication that Palin is preparing the groundwork for a national campaign, with the exception of making campaign appearances in key races, including Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss’s reelection run-off.

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who ran an unconventional and surprisingly successful campaign in 2008, has, like Mitt Romney, formed a PAC to aid Republican congressional candidates. As the host of a variety show on Fox News, Huckabee has offered consistent, biting critiques of the Wall Street bailout, the auto industry bailout, and other measures he derides, in his trademark populist language, as little more than socialism for the rich. Of all the potential Republican candidates in 2012, Huckabee is by far the most interesting.

Then, of course, there is a wide array of conservative Southerners for Republicans to choose from. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison might be positioning herself for a presidential run by challenging current Texas Governor Rick Perry. The danger is that her moderately pro-choice position – she favors a number of abortion restrictions, including parental notification laws, but she is also in favor of Roe v. Wade – will undermine her candidacy. Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, is deeply familiar with the inner workings of the party and the fundraising demands of a presidential run. He has also positioned himself on the right of the party by adamantly opposing President Obama’s stimulus package, and he gained a reputation for competence with his relatively successful handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Yet Barbour has also said that Republicans have an obligation to “squelch” their presidential ambitions until after 2010, and that gag order presumably applies to him as well.

Clearly Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, hasn’t gotten the message. As a foot-solder in Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolution, Sanford made his reputation as a committed porkbuster and skinflint, going so far as to sleep in his congressional office. During his contentious first term as governor, Sanford waged war against Republicans in the legislature over what he saw as their excessive spending. He also unsuccessfully backed a voucher-like program that garnered considerable enthusiasm among libertarian activists, many of whom consider Sanford one of their own. Interestingly enough, Sanford is the only mainstream Republican to have attracted the attention of Ron Paul’s loyal grassroots army. And by forcefully opposing the stimulus package, on television and op-ed pages, Sanford has raised his national profile considerably. Like Bill Clinton, another wonky Southern governor, Sanford might wind up as a come-from-behind nominee.

Who will it be?  Who will be the next great hope for the GOP?  I do not see too many in this group that could rejuvenate the base or appeal to more centrists.

The GOP is a rudderless ship heading for the political rocks of obscurity….too many captains shouting orders at the “crew”.