Thursday, October 12, 2023

MTG the crazy nut

That horrid Marjorie Taylor Greene is back in the news.  NEWSWEEK reports:


"The Hamas Caucus led by Rashida Tlaib, AOC, and Ilhan Omar treat Hamas terrorists better than [January 6] prisoners," Greene wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday. "Why is that?"


That crazy nut is obsessed with her belief that the January 6th goons and loons are heroes.  They are not heroes.  They were deceived and I'll feel sorry for them on that.  But they were not peaceful and they were not heroes.  Courts have upheld repeatedly that their actions were criminal actions and that's why they're getting put away.

If Marjorie identifies so strongly with them, she ought to volunteer to serve the sentence for one of them.  


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Thursday, October 12, 2023.  Fire, hypocrisy and violence continue to enflame the Middle East.


Starting with hypocrisy, ALL ISRAEL NEWS notes:

 Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned Israel’s bombings of Gaza on Wednesday as “shameful,” while refusing to condemn Hamas.

“Israel should not forget that if it acts more like an organization rather than a state, it’ll finish by being treated as such,” saidErdoğan.

“Bombing civilian sites, killing civilians, blocking humanitarian aid and trying to present these as achievements are the acts of an organization and not a state,” he added.

[.  . .]

In the same speech in which Erdoğanblasted Israel, he vowed to intensify bombings of Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq. Since Thursday, Turkey has been bombing civilian and military targets in northeast Syria.

Turkey is targeting the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which has its base in northern Iraq. 


Erdogan's been a thug for years and he terrorizes the Kurdistan.  Amina Ismail and Lena Masri (ARAB WEEKLY) note:


Seventeen-year-old Samir Saado was finishing his cleaning shift at the village medical centre when an air strike hit the building.

“I didn’t see anything other than dust and smoke,” said Saado, a member of Iraq’s minority Yazidi community. “My leg was stuck under the rubble. I called for help and people were coming but the planes kept striking.”

At least four civilians were killed that day, August 17, 2021, local officials said. Among the dead was Saado’s father, who also worked at the centre in Iraq’s northern Sinjar province, about 100 kilometres from the Turkish border. Saado suffered a broken pelvis and a cracked skull.

The strike was part of escalating attacks by Turkish aircraft and drones in mainly Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria, which have since continued, a data analysis shows. Western firms have supplied critical components for the drones, which Kurdish and Iraqi officials say Turkey is deploying with increasing frequency.


Again, hypocrisy is all over.  For example, the lying trash Monica Osborn.  Gutter trash showed up to attack feminists in the US because they're not decrying the rapes being carried out against Israelis in Gaza -- the rapes that may exist in only the minds of liars and whores.  These propaganda claims surface whenever a whore wants to sell a war and already the claims Monica's promoting are in doubt.  See the first section of THE VANGUARD segment below. 




Elaine addressed liar Monica yesterday:

 
Maybe we're silent because we are feminists?  Maybe we're silent because we know Monica's work and how she's done nothing EVER to help survivors of rape?  Now suddenly she's concerned about rape?  Forgive us for not wondering if she's using war propaganda to egg on violence.

She has seen this and she has seen that?

Oh, just shut up.


There are no clean hands.  I've seen what the Israeli government did to American citizen Rachel Corrie.  I noticed you didn't write about that. (They killed Rachel March 16, 2003.)  I've seen videos and photos of babies dead in the last few days due to  Israel bombing Gaza and you don't mention that.

You make claims that may be true and may be false.  I think we'll wait to weigh in on that.  

But you're a disgusting person because you are acting as though Israeli women and children matter but Palestinians women and children don't.

I happen to believe, as a feminist, that all lives matter.  I don't take seriously women who pose as 'feminists' when they find it to be beneficial for their cause and I don't support women who turn a blind eye to the assaults on women and children.  That's what Monica's done.


They always throw the most extreme lies out at the beginning.  It's how they work to sell the war.  Intimidate people into silence, make them fear being called out.  It's how they always work.  The first to fall in line are always politicians and the media -- the most timid of the society.

Propaganda always replaces history and reality.  Stephen Zunes (THE PROGRESSIVE) notes:

Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in the past year, have bulldozed hundreds of Palestinian homes, confiscated Palestinian farming and grazing land, destroyed orchards and vineyards, engaged in arson attacks against Palestinian properties, and violated Muslim holy places. Israelis have killed scores of Palestinian civilians, including children, since 2022 and Hamas had been warning it would retaliate if they continued.


And, as Elaine pointed out, that history does include Rachel Corrie.  Jeffrey St. Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) notes Rachel this morning:


Perhaps I’ve become terminally jaded, but the blood-curdling bi-partisan calls from American politicians and pundits to obliterate Gaza–children be damned–don’t surprise me much. Some young lives matter more than others. Others don’t seem to matter at all.

My mind flashes back to Rachel Corrie, who I got to know slightly through email correspondence while she was a student at Evergreen and an environmental activist, leading protests against industrial clearcuts on near verticle slopes that threatened to bury small towns in the Washington Cascades under landslides.

What does it say about the American mentality that this courageous young woman was blamed by many here for her own murder? After being crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer, while trying to keep a Palestinian family’s house from being demolished so their land could be confiscated and auctioned off to Israeli settlers, Rachel was roundly vilified instead of mourned. Political outrage was directed at her, not the regime that killed her. She had it coming, they said. She could have just gotten out of the way. She shouldn’t have been allied with “them.” She had no business being there.

What is it in the twisted American psyche that would make her own country turn on a 23-year-old woman–smart, humane, fearless, and beautiful–who was doing nothing more than protecting what we’ve been led to believe is the most sacrosanct American “right”, the right of property, the right to be secure in your home? 

 

 Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) notes:

  Israel's retaliatory airstrikes across the Gaza Strip after Hamas' weekend attack have killed at least 1,100 people in the besieged enclave, including 326 children, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Wednesday.

Gaza-based Hamas launched a major surprise attack against Israel on Saturday, a Jewish holiday, and the Israeli death toll has now surpassed 1,200. The far-right Israeli government and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded with Operation Swords of Iron, bombing Gazan residential, medical, and educational buildings, and intensifying a 16-year blockade of the region.

Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP), which has documented cases of over 2,400 Palestinian kids killed by Israeli forces and settlers since 2000, has so far confirmed 105 of the 326 deaths.

"Intensive Israeli bombardment throughout the Gaza Strip, lack of electricity, Israeli airstrikes on telecommunications infrastructure, and the unprecedented rate of daily child fatalities has resulted in a lag between confirmed fatalities by DCIP and the overall total child fatalities published regularly by the Ministry of Health in Gaza," the group said.

Responding to the new Ministry of Health figure, Yonah Lieberman, a co-founder of the American Jewish group IfNotNow, asked on social media, "Where is the outrage we saw when Israeli children were killed?" 






The stories of ghastly attacks by Hamas being reported in news coverage are gut-wrenching to watch, and there is nothing in our understanding of our faiths and righteous pursuits for justice that justify such horror. We know that these brutal images and stories bring up deep-seated trauma for the Jewish community and worry and sadness for the many who have been killed, injured and taken captive.

Meanwhile, the carnage and blockade being imposed upon the civilian population in the Gaza Strip by an overwhelming military force is barbaric and inhumane – and yet not often condemned by the world. The attacks on and closure of Gaza will certainly lead to the deaths of innocent children.

While in Jerusalem, our multifaith group had the opportunity to connect to the Jewish traditions of Sukkot (the weeklong fall harvest festival), attend Shabbat dinner, sit through a soaring church service on the Mount of Olives and attend powerful outdoor Friday prayers along the road to Tiberias.  

We leaned into one another’s rich spiritual backgrounds and commitments to justice, mercy and peace by exploring underappreciated connections to this sacred land, and in so doing, tried to forge another path for radical empathy and connection to the stories, hopes and aspirations of those working for and dreaming of more dignified pathways for all people on this land.

Throughout our journey, we were reminded of the daily humiliation, hardship and injustice experienced by Palestinians living under military occupation in refugee camps and surrounding areas. In Jerusalem, we heard of forced evictions, home demolitions and a widescale system of harassment and abuse that make life unbearable for most Palestinian families struggling to survive.

While none of that justifies the carnage of innocent civilians, it must be understood as the ongoing context in which decades-old Palestinian grievances are being ignored or exploited. 


And no one knows how to exploit more than Lindsey Graham.  Brett Wilkins (COMMON DREAMS) explains:

 Human rights defenders on Wednesday accused U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of "incitement to genocide" after the South Carolina Republican urged Israeli forces to destroy Gaza—and he wasn't the only prominent GOP figure to make such an incendiary call.

Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday night, Graham asserted that "we are in a religious war here, I am with Israel. Whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourselves; level the place."

In a social media post, U.S. political analyst, author, and activist Josh Ruebner tagged the International Criminal Court with the caption, "ATTN... Incitement to genocide." 


Motivated by hate and egging on people with lies, that's all Lindsey and Monica and others of their ilk offer.  Julia Conley (COMMON DREAMS) notes:

As Gaza faced intensifying strain on its healthcare system due to a lack of fuel for its sole power plant and the death toll reached at least 950, Lewis was among those condemning countries including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom for "reverting to simple-minded, one-sided Israel-right-or-wrong-ism."

His comments came less than a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said the Pentagon is "surging additional military assistance" to Israel, "including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome," repeating that "we're with Israel" without urging a cessation of the airstrikes that have decimated civilian neighborhoods and healthcare facilities in Gaza.

"The dead and the rubble piling up in Gaza are the bitter fruit of this cynical, simple-minded worldview," said Lewis.

As Yumna Patel, Palestine news director for Mondoweiss, noted on Tuesday—citing The Times of Israel—policymakers including Biden are pledging support for Israel's assault on Gaza as media reports focus heavily on the human impact Hamas's attack had, but far less on the suffering unleashed by the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) retaliation. 



AMY GOODMAN: Gaza is on the verge of losing all electricity as Israel continues to bombard the territory while imposing a siege blocking the import of all fuel, food and electricity. The death toll from Israel’s massive bombing campaign has topped 1,055 Palestinians, with over 5,000 wounded. Meanwhile, the death toll in Israel has soared to 1,200 following Saturday’s shocking attack by Hamas militants. Another 2,400 Israelis have been wounded. Hamas is believed to be holding as many as 150 hostages. Israel is now preparing to launch a ground invasion of Gaza.

Tension is also growing along the Israel-Lebanon border, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have repeatedly exchanged fire.

Earlier today, a U.S. plane carrying ammunition landed in Israel, a day after President Biden gave a speech at the White House where he reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel but made no reference to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has reportedly killed at least 260 children and 230 women since Saturday. According to press freedom groups, at least seven Palestinian journalists have also been killed.

Inside Gaza, residents say there’s no safe place for civilians to go. This is Samah Abo Latifa, who lost her brother in an Israeli airstrike.

SAMAH ABO LATIFA: [translated] We had fled from Abasan, escaping from death. There were continuous airstrikes over our heads. They told us to come to Khan Younis. We came to find death. If we stayed in our houses, we die. If we go on the streets, we die. O my beloved brother, he fled from one place to another. O my beloved brother, may your soul rest in peace. I have no people left, except for two. God bless them for me. I hope to carry their children. O my beloved brother, please, God, don’t take anyone else. This is enough. I can’t handle anymore. I hope I die before them all.

AMY GOODMAN: Samah Abo Latifa went on to describe the scope of Israel’s bombing campaign. She spoke from a nursery, where her family has taken refuge.

SAMAH ABO LATIFA: [translated] I’ve never seen airstrikes like this time, not in 2014, not in 2008. No war was like this time. I’ve never seen anything like this. Every minute and every second there are airstrikes. Every minute there are martyrs, in their houses, young people, children, all. I can’t talk. I swear I’m so tired. We have never witnessed strikes like this time. We thank God when the day is done. But they say it will be worse. We wonder what else could happen to us. The coming days could be harsher. Our hearts will ache more for the loss of our loved ones.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, tension is also high in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for firing an anti-tank at an Israeli military post earlier today. Israel has been shelling towns in southern Lebanon. Residents in northern Israel say they no long feel safe.

RACHEL KANDELL: It doesn’t feel very safe, because if they came into our house and they did anything they wanted, without any way of protecting ourselves, this is a very unsettled grounds. This is not — you know, this is Israel. We are in the 21st century. We should feel secure. We should feel like we have a home to go back to. And many people in Israel, unfortunately, are not in this space. They don’t have a house anymore. They don’t have families. The lines for the funerals are endless. There is so much pain, pain that is beyond explanation in words. This is truly a nightmare.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician, activist and politician who serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. He’s been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, also a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council. He’s joining us from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Dr. Barghouti, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can give us the context for what’s happening right now, what you’re most concerned about? We’re talking to you in the occupied West Bank as hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists are moving down to Gaza.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: What concerns me most, Amy, is this process of dehumanizing Palestinians, in which Western government leaders, including President Biden, are participating, dehumanizing Palestinians to the level that the Israeli army minister called us animals. And Human Rights Watch was absolutely correct when they came out with a statement saying that this kind of description of Palestinians is nothing but a justification of war crimes on them. And that’s exactly what’s happening now.

The first two crimes that are happening is the Israeli blockade on Gaza, depriving 2.2 million people from water, food, electricity and medical supplies, depriving them from the possibility of normal life. Children are lacking water, are lacking milk. I get calls from our people there in Gaza constantly, patients who have kidney problems, in need for kidney dialysis, who could die in two, three days because they cannot get it, patients with cancer who lost treatment, and other sick people who are in very deep situation.

This is not the only situation. In addition to that, the second crime that is taking place is the bombardment of Gaza with terrible airstrikes. You have just said that it took the lives already of 1,000 innocent civilian Palestinians. It slaughtered no less than 260 children. But the worst thing is that 250,000 people already, quarter of a million people, have lost their homes. Thousands of houses have been destroyed. High-rise buildings have been smashed to earth. And the people don’t have a single space which can be safe for them. I heard an Israeli saying that she wants to be safe, and I want her to be safe, but they also should remember that also Palestinians need to live in peace and security. And that is what’s not there.

More than that, Israel turned back to using what was prohibited, which is white phosphorus. They used it, as you remember, in 2008 campaign on Gaza. Now they’re back to using it. It is a prohibited kind of weapon that is forbidden, but they use it openly and frankly.

The more important thing is that Netanyahu is saying that Palestinians should be evicted from Gaza. He’s preparing for a third war crime, which is ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza. He said that every Palestinian in Gaza should leave their homes. He didn’t say where to. Maybe to the sea. But his spokesperson of the army made it clear. He said in a statement, which became the top line in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper — he said that all Palestinians in Gaza must evict to Egypt. These people, these criminals who committed ethnic cleansing against 70% of the Palestinian people in 1948, 70% of the population of Gaza were among these people who were evicted from Palestine. Now they are subjected to the possibility of another transfer, another kind of ethnic cleansing, that would empty Gaza so that Netanyahu can annex it.

Now I understand, after all these threats with ethnic cleansing, what Netanyahu meant when he said that he will change the map and the order of the area for 50 years to come. Now I understand what Netanyahu did when he carried a map of Israel in the United Nations, in front of the whole world community, a map of Israel that includes annexing the West Bank, which is occupied territory, annexing Gaza Strip, which is also occupied territory, and annexing East Jerusalem, including also the Golan Heights. Nobody said a single criticism to that, except maybe the German government. This is the reason — this is the background of what’s happening.

But let me also say that what we see now in Gaza is only a result of a protracted problem of 56 years of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land. How many times on your show, Amy, and on other shows we said that the solution is to end the Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinians, that the solution is to stop what has become the worst system of apartheid ever, much worse apartheid than what revealed in South Africa at one point of time? How many times we said that building settlements in the Occupied Territories will destroy any prospective for two-state solution? How many times we complained about settlers’ violence and settlers’ terror against Palestinian communities?

I find that President Biden, unfortunately, practiced — excuse me for that, but I have to say it — Mr. Biden practiced racial discrimination between Americans who carry Israeli citizenship and Americans who carry Palestinian citizenship. I did not see him say that those who killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a very peaceful journalist who was Palestinian and American, and who was never held to accountability — nobody was indicted for killing her. He didn’t say a word about the American Palestinians in Turmus Ayya whose houses were burned and whose cars were attacked and whose lives were threatened by Israeli illegal settlers, some of whom also carry American citizenship.

I don’t want any Palestinian or any Israeli civilian to be killed. I am against that. I’m against killing children. But today and now Israel is preparing a huge ground operation on Gaza. If that happens, it will be a total disaster. If ethnic cleansing takes place, this will be a terrible, terrible, terrible disaster for everybody. And if the ground operations start, it will definitely lead to the explosion in the north and Hezbollah getting involved, and maybe this will lead to a whole regional war. I think what we need here is balanced, reasonable and responsible reactions, and not continuation of dehumanizing Palestinians, accusing Palestinians of responsibility even when Palestinians are killed.

I think that Netanyahu doesn’t care about his people. I think Netanyahu is the most corrupt, opportunistic politician ever. This man cares only about his position. He doesn’t even care about the 150 or 200 Israeli prisoners now in Gaza. If he cared about them, he would accept immediately a ceasefire. He would accept immediately a prisoners exchange, so that these people can come back home safe, and Palestinian prisoners would be released, some of whom have been in Israeli jails for 44 years. This is the solution, and not to escalate. But Netanyahu knows if any inquiry starts about what happened at the borders of Gaza, they will find him responsible for negligence, irresponsibility, lack of preparation, intelligence failure, military failure, political failure, and he will be sent out of the office, which means he will go to jail because of four cases of corruption against him. He knows that. And that’s why he’s ready to kill anybody to stay in his office. This man doesn’t care about lives of Palestinians or Israelis.

He didn’t care about the fact that he brought to his government fascists, like Smotrich, who doesn’t hide calling himself a fascist homophobe, and who said that “We will fill the West Bank with settlers and settlements so that Palestinians would lose any hope of a state of their own. And then they would have one of three choices: either to emigrate or accept a life of subjugation to Israeli rule or die.” That is the finance minister of Israel. And we didn’t hear any criticism to that, neither from Netanyahu nor from your foreign minister, Mr. Blinken, nor from any other Western leaders, who are now, unfortunately, participating in escalating the situation rather than calming it down.

The big question that Palestinians have — and this is my last point here — the big question that Palestinians have is: Why the double standard? Why the United States and Europe send to Ukraine $224 billion of equipment, of planes, of tanks, to fight what they say is occupation? And why in our case they are sending arsenal and money and support to the occupiers of Palestine? Why we don’t see any sanctions —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dr. Barghouti, I want — 

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: — to brutal forces and to stop the occupation?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Dr. Barghouti, I want to ask you — you’re in the West Bank. What’s been the response of the Palestinian Authority to the attacks on Gaza? And also, for our listeners and viewers, if you could talk about the escalation in attacks in the West Bank by both settlers and the Israeli army since this extreme right-wing coalition of Netanyahu came to power?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Since the attacks started in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes, there were many, many demonstrations in the West Bank, mostly peaceful — peaceful, all peaceful and nonviolent demonstrations. And the Israeli army responded with gunfire. Up ’til this moment, 23 Palestian young people, mainly, were shot and killed by the Israeli army, without them engaging in any kind of military action.

And that has been our life. You know, one of the main reasons why the attack happened in Gaza by Hamas is the fact that during the last eight months, before this whole thing started, Israeli army and Israeli settlers killed 248 Palestinians, including 40 children. And now in addition to that, most roads in the West Bank are blocked. There is 650 military checkpoints, many of which are totally closed to Palestinians. The only passage to Jordan is almost closed all the time. And Palestinians live in clusters of ghettos separated from each other. And people are extremely worried about what might happen. We’ve just heard that the Israeli army is devoting a whole division with tanks for the possibility of reinvading every corner of the West Bank, as well.

So, the most difficult thing here is not only the army attacks on Palestinians, but also the settlers’ attacks. And these settlers are completely crazy. And they are completely criminal in their attitude towards Palestinians. They’ve already burned so many houses. They’ve already attacked so many villages. They’ve already killed so many Palestinians. And that’s the kind of fear and worry that we have.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how should Egypt and other Arab countries in the region respond?

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, before I respond to your question, I have one little piece of good news, although it’s painful news. You mentioned the name of the journalist Salam Mima, who was one of the seven journalists who were killed by Israel. Luckily, but painfully, this journalist was found alive after 31 hours with her three children below the rubble of their destroyed house. Unfortunately, her husband died. She is injured, and her three children are injured. And you can imagine the horror that she went through being under the rubble for 31 hours. And only by luck, somebody heard her voice. And this raises the question: How many tens of Palestinians are now below the rubble, and nobody can try even to save them because the places are constantly bombarded?

Regarding Egypt, I would say that the Egyptians have two responsibilities. One is that they should not allow Israel to evict and ethnically cleanse Palestinians towards Egypt. This must not happen. And that, because I warn you: If Israel succeeds in evicting Palestinians from Gaza now and conducting ethnic cleansing, this would be an application of Smotrich, most extreme religious Jewish extreme position in the Israeli government. And it would mean that the next plan will be to ethnically cleanse the West Bank, as well, and throw Palestinians out of the West Bank to Jordan. These are not theoretical concepts. This is exactly what they said, what they speak about about Palestinians, especially now after all this process of dehumanization of Palestinians.

The other thing that Egypt must do is to provide support immediately to Gaza. We are ready to help ourselves, our people. We are ready to collect water, food supply, medications. My organization, in particular, militant Palestinian Medical Relief Society, is already engaging in preparing all these materials. We are ready to send them to Gaza, through Egypt even. But Israel says that they will bombard any supplies that come to Gaza. Here, I think it is the Egyptian and international responsibility to stop Israel and prevent that from taking place.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Barghouti, we have less than a minute, but I wanted to ask about the relationship between the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, well known for the tension between the two, to put it mildly.

DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI: Well, as you know, Hamas, as well as Jihad, are Palestinian political groups, militant groups that are not in the PLO. But there are problems even inside the PLO. I think now the PA feels totally marginalized, not only because of what’s happening on the ground, but also because of Israel, that did everything to humiliate the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli army invades any spot that the Palestinian Authority should be in charge of, including Ramallah. And they cut off our tax revenue. We pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority through Israel, and Israel cuts away a lot of these resources.

So, the solution to this is nothing but unifying all Palestinians without exception. And you know my stand. I said it long time ago. What we need is, after this war ends, is immediate, free, democratic elections for Palestinians. And all polls show that neither Fatah nor Hamas will get a majority. Nobody else will get majority. It will be a pluralistic democratic system, through which groups like us, who are non-Fatah, non-Hamas, can try to do their best to push in the direction of democratic transformation, but also that would allow Palestinians to coexist peacefully in a good political system. At this very moment, this sounds very distant, mainly because not only the PA did not hold elections, but Israel and the United States all the time refused that we should have democratic, free elections. And that does not fit with all these calls everywhere and in other places about democracy. It’s another type, another form of double standard.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, speaking to us from Ramallah in occupied West Bank, Palestinian physician, activist, politician who serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Next up, to Tel Aviv to speak with the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy of Haaretz. Stay with us.


Where's the video!  Where's the video!  YOUTUBE is censoring it.  First, you have to click twice to get it because of "violence" and then you can't share it because YOUTUBE won't let you due to "violence."    

Interesting because I can find all these news segments (MSNBC for one) with claims of violence and they're not censored when the violence is aimed at Israelis.  But they're censoring a discussion on DEMOCRAYC NOW!  Grasp that.


It's October 12th.  That's a significant day in the US.  Melissa Etheridge's "Scarecrow" (from her album BREAKDOWN):


Showers of your crimson blood
Seep into a nation calling up a flood
Of narrow minds who legislate
Thinly veiled intolerance
Bigotry and hate
But they tortured and burned you
They beat you and they tied you
They left you cold and breathing
For love they crucified you
I can't forget hard as I try
This silhouette against the sky
Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Angels will hold carry your soul away
This was our brother
This was our son
This shepherd young and mild
This unassuming one
We all gasp this can't happen here
We're all much too civilized
Where can these monsters hide


"I can forgive but I will not forget."  She's far more generous than I am.  Melissa wrote that song about Matthew Shepard.  It's the anniversary of his death so the great Glenneth Greenwald will probably do another of his lying Tweets where he tells you that the attack and murder of Matthew had nothing to do with Matthew being gay.  Why?  Because Glenneth is just a damn liar and the original Alex Jones.  Tracy Brown (LOS ANGELES TIMES) notes:


It’s been 25 years since Matthew Shepard was discovered brutally beaten and left for dead near a wooden fence outside Laramie, Wyo. He’d been there for 18 hours.
Within days he’d become a household name, as broadcast and print news outlets from across the country (this one included) amplified the story of an out 21-year-old college student who was seemingly attacked just for being gay. And his death on Oct. 12, 1998, would galvanize a movement to demand change.

His story and legacy are revisited in “The Matthew Shepard Story: An American Hate Crime,” a documentary that premiered this week on Investigation Discovery (ID) and is now streaming on Max.

“We wanted to celebrate Matthew's life,” said Jason Sarlanis, president of Turner Networks, ID and HLN, linear and streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery. “So much of his story has been eclipsed by the violence that was perpetrated on him.”

Sarlanis, who describes the new documentary special as “a true labor of love,” explained during a recent phone call that he immediately took action after he learned that ID, which is dedicated to airing true crime documentaries, had yet to tell Shepard’s story when he joined the team nearly three years ago. “The Matthew Shepard Story” features a mix of voices, including from his friends, media experts and advocates, as well as celebrities who were affected by Shepard’s story.

“This story needs attention as much today as it did a quarter-century ago,” said Sarlanis. “And at the end of this special, what we're really hoping to do is illuminate how this tragic moment in history really helped propel the entire LGBTQ rights movement forward.”


It is an important story and does need to be told and remembered.  Today more than ever, in fact, because of the hate merchants parading around preaching hate -- people like Tiny Man Ronald DeSantis.  LGBTQ NATION notes he went on FOX "NEWS" and the network let him lie:

“I also think this society needs to be rooted in truth,” he continued. “And so many of these fights are based on things that are just not true, and we have a responsibility to fight back the truth, and set you free.”

Contrary to DeSantis’ belief, transgender children aren’t a “lie” — all major medical and psychological associations acknowledge their existence. These kids don’t become trans because of teachers pushing “gender ideology.” However, this sort of alleged “indoctrination” formed part of DeSantis’ reasoning for his infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law. The law bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in all grades.

Bream then mentioned a woman who she overheard saying, “‘I think it’s terrible in Florida that they’re banning books…. I don’t want my [LGBTQ+] child to go somewhere like that.'”

DeSantis replied, “Well, first of all, there’s not a single book that’s been banned in the State of Florida, that is a media hoax.”

It’s not a hoax. DeSantis’ own Department of Education (DOE) has revealed that schools across the state have removed approximately 300 books during the 2022-2023 school year. The Charlotte County School District ordered all books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters to be removed from classrooms and libraries, Escambia County banned a non-sexual kid’s book on gay penguins and Manatee County banned a children’s picture book because two characters in it “seem” gay.


Fortunately cretins like Ronald DeSantis are in the minority and the world has many other people in it.  Taylor Henderson (THE MESSENGER) reports on one:


Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds is a fierce ally for the LGBTQ+ community. In an exclusive interview with The Messenger, the "Radioactive" singer shares the heartbreaking event that not only stuck with him over the years, but played a part in his founding of the LoveLoud music festival.

"When I was in high school, one of my friends who was Mormon and queer had come out and then been kind of rejected," Reynolds, who grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recalls. "He ended up going in front of the Mormon temple and taking his life. That was a real moment. That was a shifter for me, that this is really a broken system."

Reynolds already felt from a young age that the system was broken, "but seeing the reality of the loss of life," he explains, "really pushed me to feel that LoveLoud was needed."

The musician always felt that the bullying queer people face from their peers and family is wrong. "Their safe place, their church, their home was the place where they were being told that their innate sense of being was sinful. It just continually, from a young age, felt like: Man, this doesn't feel right with 'God.'"

The family-friendly music festival, which began in Utah, hopes to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community with performances from musicians like David Archuleta, Tegan and Sara and Victoria Monét while teaching people ways to support queer youth, family and friends.

Reynolds came up with the idea of LoveLoud alongside a fellow ex-Mormon musician, Neon Trees frontman Tyler Glenn, and both wanted to ignite change in their community. Utah, specifically, has a suicide rate among youths that is double the national average. "We knew these people, we knew their hearts, and we felt like we could help make a change," he says.

After hosting five events in Utah's capital, they're taking the festival on the road. Later this year, LoveLoud is making stops in Austin, Texas; and Washington, D.C.; as well as another bonus performance in Salt Lake City.



Let's turn to the hideous Robert F. Kennedy Jr.





Allies of former President Donald Trump such as Steve Bannon had encouraged Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to enter the 2024 presidential race as a means to harm the prospects of President Joe Biden.
However, Salon's Amanda Marcotte writes that this move now looks like it could backfire after RFK Jr. announced his own independent candidacy for the presidency that could siphon votes away from Trump.


I don't  have time for this but a number of e-mails came in from people fretting over the above.  

No one knows what the impact would be. 


The guess Amanda's making does not strike me as an educated guess. 

Allowing for the reality that primary voters are more passionate than general election voters, even allowing for that, I don't see how you can make any kind of educated guess at this point.  If you had to, I don't think you'd say, "He'll pull from Trump!"  Indictments haven't pulled from Donald significantly.  People turning on him and ratting him out has not resulted in the grand walk away.  

If I had to make a guess right now, gun to the head, Junior's pulling from Joe if he pulls from anybody.

There is no polling -- it's being done right now -- available yet.  Despite this idiot saying Junior's at 14.5% -- no, he's not.  He might be higher, he might be lower.  But that number was before he declared himself an independent.


You see people who want to trick and lie.  

Chris Christie.

I have not promoted him here.  If he's made a point worth noting, I've noted it here -- including his not knowing what the question was in a debate.  There are some in the center on the left who are promoting him, elevating him.  Some may be sincere.  Some are not.  They're inflating him to make it look like he's doing better than he is.  To hurt the Republican Party.


I was oblivious to this sort of trick until 1992.  That's when it was pointed out to me by a state official that Dems would carry our state (California) and if I wanted to do some real damage, I should vote in the Republican Party and vote for Pat Buchanan.  The homophobe?  No, forget it, I said.  But, I was told, it would look bad for Poppy Bush who was running for re-election if Pat Buchanan got significant numbers.  Sorry, not in the mood to play that game -- or to vote for Pat Buchanan.  But a lot of other people I knew were willing to play that game.

But, especially in state's with open primaries, these games are played all the time.

Point: Junior is not as popular as some think he is.


Or was.

Some of his popularity, when he was a candidate for the Democratic Party, was right-wingers who wanted to make Joe Biden look weak and vulnerable.  Now that he's a potential challenger to the GOP, some of his cheerleaders are going to fall away.  (Didn't Kim Iverson already?)  

He just announced this week that he was now an independent.    Polling is taking place on that right now.  We may have some results by Monday.  It will be interesting to see the results on that.  But right now, without that data, no one knows anything -- including me.  


On the topic of Junior, I'm not a fan of Seth Meyers work (this goes back to when he blamed the collapse of the housing bubble on low income African-American home owners -- he did 'jokes' about it on WEEKEND UPDATE -- and his sick crush on Rudy G) but I will applaud him for the joke below:


Seth Meyers bashed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his vaccine lies and longshot presidential bid in one fell swoop. 

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced yesterday he is dropping out of the Democratic primary and running for president as an independent,” Meyers said on “Late Night” Tuesday. “Cos’ like his vax card says, he never had a shot.”



The following sites updated:





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