There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
(Featured image is one of Wayne Brady’s publicity photos.)
Al Jazeera English reports that Greta Thunberg is going to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The Omnicause Absorbs All.
Turns out that octopus was load-bearing after all.
She has been hyper-focused on Gaza since soon after October 7, so I’m not sure how this fits the Omnicause concept. I mean, people can be interested in two causes.
Sure, I suppose. Is whether humans can live on earth in 100 years related to Global Climate Change?
Absolutely. I understand that we are 10 years away from all of the glaciers melting.
Is whether humans can live on earth in 100 years related to Israel/Palestine?
To be quite honest, I think that the only thing that Israel/Palestine does to threaten humanity a century from now is the whole “likely to lead to nuclear war” thing. Keeping it at a low-level genocide for another hundred years, while morally bad and all that, is not existential to anywhere *NEAR* the same point that Global Climate Change threatens us all.
Assuming Global Climate Change, of course. I mean, personally, I think that GCC is bad, but not bad enough to support nuclear power plants or electric vehicles or anything like that. I’m more into trying to get people to vacation less and pay more in taxes.
While I think climate change is going to be disastrous on a world-historic scale, I don’t think anyone who continues to feel any connection to their fellow humans can look away in the face of genocide, and in particular one that our own governments license and materially support. I think Greta is such a person, and I have the utmost respect for what she is doing, even if it is a deviation from her original motivating cause.
People — at least some of them — can walk and chew gum at the same time. Or at least divide up their time between walking and chewing.
Some people have donned the “omnicause”-tinted glasses, and now they see it everywhere, which is kinda funny when you think about it.
The Gaza Blockade is a very serious matter. Gretta Thunberg driving her boat their and announcing to the media that she will attempt to end it somehow, through magic is a profoundly unserious event. There is a lot of “look at me” energy combined with things going to end badly.
Social media, influencer culture, and the Pro-Palestinian movement being stuck in a rut intellectual make things dumb.
This is ridiculous. History is full of protests like this, where you force the offending party’s hand. Think about, e.g., sit-ins during the American Civil Rights movement. Are the stakes a bit higher here, since Israel enforces the blockade with really big guns, but it’s still the same principle.
Will it end the blockade? Probably not. Will it bring attention to the blockade, and the starvation it is causing? Probably.
Eh, part of the problem is that there is a lot of, shall we say, overly enthusiastic support for Palestine that manifests in less than healthy ways.
For example, there was the alleged massacre incident that allegedly took place in Rafah where alleged IDF soldiers allegedly fired upon alleged Palestinian aid workers.
And 24 hours later, the story gets retracted because, technically, it allegedly didn’t happen at all.
Remember the hospital bombing last year? When Israel destroyed, John Oliver-style, a Palestinian hospital and the New York Times showed a picture of a different destroyed building as proof and then, technically, it ended up being a Palestinian missfire that, technically, ended up in a parking lot next to a hospital?
You have enough of these Big Important Human Rights Violation stories get retracted and, next thing you know, you have to get Greta Thunberg on a boat to get people to pay attention.
And then you have to wonder what happens when even *THAT* stops working.
Enthusiasm that results in crying wolf is bad enthusiasm.
Even if wolves are bad. Perhaps especially if wolves are bad.
Remember the hospital bombing last year? When Israel destroyed, John Oliver-style, a Palestinian hospital and the New York Times showed a picture of a different destroyed building as proof and then, technically, it ended up being a Palestinian missfire that, technically, ended up in a parking lot next to a hospital?
You’re remembering since disproven facts. Also, every hospital in Gaza has been damaged, and many destroyed, by Israel since.
For example, there was the alleged massacre incident that allegedly took place in Rafah where alleged IDF soldiers allegedly fired upon alleged Palestinian aid workers.
Which aid workers were these? I wonder if it’s related to the time the IDF shot and killed a whole team of Palestinian first responders who were driving in marked vehicles with their flashing lights on, then buried the vehicles and the first responders, and then when discovered, said they didn’t have identifying marks or flashing lights, then when video showed they did, basically said, “That’s war.”
You’re remembering since disproven facts. Also, every hospital in Gaza has been damaged, and many destroyed, by Israel since.
I just have what wikipedia says about it.
You say “disproven” where I would say, at best, “contested”.
And the fact that it may have been overstated when it happened (including the awful behavior by the New York Times, among others), did a good job of creating a callous on the public resulting in further muted responses when Israel *DID* blow up hospitals.
Which aid workers are these?”
The ones in the stories that got retracted over the weekend.
For example, there was the alleged massacre incident that allegedly took place in Rafah where alleged IDF soldiers allegedly fired upon alleged Palestinian aid workers.
And 24 hours later, the story gets retracted because, technically, it allegedly didn’t happen at all.
Story doesn’t seem to be retracted:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/02/world/video/gaza-aid-hub-people-shot-digvid
It was the BBC that retracted.
Looks like the WaPo retracted too.
The BBC retracted only _a video_. Meanwhile, WaPo retracted literally _their tweet_, because it didn’t assert that health ministry was operated by Hamas, and because the facts were in dispute by Israel and the _tweet_ did not make that clear. (Which is an absurd thing to retract, and it’s pretty clear there was some pressure there by Israel.) No one has retracted _the story_.
And the actual original claim is not anything about air workers, it was: The Palestinian health ministry, hospital officials and multiple eyewitnesses say deadly gunfire killed dozens of Palestinians near an aid distribution site in Gaza on Sunday, with Israel’s military denying that its troops fired “within or near” the aid site.
Not upon health workers, as you claimed that they claim, but that gunfire killed dozes of people near an aid station. Which they did:
On each of the past four days, Israeli spokespeople have told The Washington Post that IDF soldiers fired warning shots that day at what they said were suspicious individuals moving near GHF’s aid distribution sites. The group’s operations were criticized even before their launch — including within the Israeli military and security establishment — as potentially dangerous, in part because they require large crowds of civilians to gather in close proximity with armed mercenaries and IDF soldiers.”
Now, Israel is claiming it only fired warning shots. That’s where this story is at…Israel is freely admitting it fired warning shots at ‘suspicious individuals’. In fact, it admitted it shot them over a distance of half a kilometer, raising obvious questions of how it can tell who is suspicious at that distance.
However, Israel claims it didn’t kill anyone. I guess the 148 bodies the International Red Cross found were just…coincidence.
Or to put it another way, this story is pretty much entirely true, and is in fact STILL HAPPENING, Israel shot YET MORE PEOPLE TODAY in the exact same place, but Israel has managed to very slightly cloud the issue by issuing bald statements that the people it was shooting at, again, near the aid station, were not civilians, which it magically knows. Or possibly they were civilians, but don’t count as ‘near’, or possibly they wandered out of the poorly-marked corridor they were allowed in.
Let’s also ignore the fact that ‘Israel’s military denying that its troops fired “within or near” the aid site’, and then literally the next day admitting, yeah, ‘We did that, but they were, like suspicious-looking. Also half a mile away isn’t ‘near’ and it’s not like people are coming from dozens of miles away to get food. Oh, they are?’.
Something something something handwave vague statements, now it officially NEVER HAPPENED and the entire fact they are shooting at people attempting to access aid has been transmuted, as if by magic, into one of those myths that pro-Palestinian forced invented with no evidence at all. It now DIDN’T HAPPEN so hard you’re using it as an _example_ of things that didn’t happen.
Again, this LITERALLY STILL HAPPENING: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/03/world/video/gaza-aid-distribution-shooting-hospital-ldn-digvid
Yeah. That’s the power of the overstated opening, ain’t it?
I’ll repeat myself:
You have enough of these Big Important Human Rights Violation stories get retracted and, next thing you know, you have to get Greta Thunberg on a boat to get people to pay attention.
And then you have to wonder what happens when even *THAT* stops working.
Eh, it strikes me as fundamentally a chasing of the fashionable cause and, as such, fundamentally unserious and will be seen as somewhere around as embarrassing as wearing Kente cloth scarves and taking a knee during the mostly peaceful protests.
Defenders will be stuck pointing out the *INTENTIONS* of those following fashion at full speed rather than any actual results.
“At least they cared!”
This is a person who’s dedicated her life to causes she believes in. Being cynical about her motivation is a sign you’ve crossed some sort of line from cynicism to outright misanthropy.
Being cynical about the motivation of teenagers is one of those things, man.
Well this is going to end badly.
1. Greta can do as she wants but this sounds like something that will end very badly and there is something fundamentally unserious about how she announces she will head to Gaza, the media covers it, and then the media covers who retorts or not to the announcement in tweets or PR pieces.
2. If you want serious, at least six elderly Jews were burnt yesterday in Boulder by a man with Molotov Cocktails. The elderly Jews were holding a peaceful demonstration/meeting on remembering those still in Gaza. Democratic candidate and Palestinian-American Kat Abughazaleh pointed out that the attack on elderly Jewish-Americans helps no one. It doesn’t help Israelis, it doesn’t help Palestinians, it is just needlessly violence. Also the alleged attacker apparently overstayed a tourist visa so you know Miller and co are going to be smacking their lips at that.
Ms. Abughazaleh is a serious person.
Also the alleged attacker apparently overstayed a tourist visa so you know Miller and co are going to be smacking their lips at that.
I’ve seen this factoid be used as a reason to compare the alleged incident with the Reichstag Fire.
I think the poster on LGM had it correct when he or she points out that the Pro-Palestinian movement makes more sense when you see it as anti-Israel rather than the Pro-Palestinian. It would explain their ideological rut and how they can’t get beyond the settler-colonial framework and accept Israel in a fate accomplished way.
That may not, in fact, be how they see themselves.
I saw this today and laughed and then realized “oh, wait… they’re serious.”
The number of people who actually think like this is very small and you are still the only person trying to make very online omnicause a thing
Shouldn’t that make you feel better after Holocaust Survivors are burned with molotovs?
“The number of people who actually agree with him is very small.”
Hey, you don’t need to worry about the guy who shot the Israeli Embassy workers, Saul. The number of people who agree with him are very small.
If it were up to me, I’d make the Omnicause *NOT* a thing. In the past, I’ve argued that the Democrats should have Montana Democrats who were appropriate for Montana, Louisiana Democrats who were appropriate for Louisiana, and San Francisco Democrats who were appropriate for San Francisco and THEY WOULDN’T HAVE TO AGREE and the counter-arguments came of the form “which members of the coalition do you think should be thrown under the bus?”
Which, in practice, means that everybody agrees with San Francisco Democrats.
And so when a Democrat like Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whom I’ve praised before, shows up, the criticisms from *REAL* Democrats take the form that it’s okay to disagree about this or that in theory but she is practically a Republican.
Because she’s a Democrat who can thrive in a red area. As if it’d be better to have a Pelosi protégée lose elections in the district than an insufficiently omnicausal one win in it.
Democrats should have Montana Democrats who were appropriate for Montana, Louisiana Democrats who were appropriate for Louisiana, and San Francisco Democrats who were appropriate for San Francisco
Yeah, running Jon Tester in Montana (or Steve Bullock) kinda sorta fits that model. Is there someone else you have in mind?
You mean something like going for a National version of the Howard Dean 50-State model?
Yeah, I’m specifically talking about going for a National version of the Howard Dean 50-State model.
Which was abandoned in 2008 and manifested in, among other things, a loss of 1000 democrat local politicians over the next few elections (with the lion’s share of those happening in 2010).
I asked if you had someone else in mind. As far as I can see, Montana Democrats ran Montana-style Democrats, well after 2008, or don’t Tester and Bullock count? I don’t recall any raving lefties or coastal metrosexuals running on the Democratic ticket in Louisiana either.
I guess that the dems didn’t lose seats then.
No problem. Status quo.
Names.
Where did the Dems run AOC clones in Iowa or Nebraska or Ohio or Arkansas? True, they lost seats, but in order to lose a seat you have to have won it first. And if they won it, they were locally-acceptable.
Maybe the voters who turned them out objected not to AOC clones in their districts, but to the very existence of AOC, et al. That’s a very different problem.
The biggest examples that spring to mind are Beto O’Rourke and that chick in Kentucky that they kept throwing against the rock that was Cocaine Mitch.
And, yeah, the whole “using Dean’s 50-State Strategy got those seats in the first place” is kind of my point.
Are those sufficient or do I have to find you examples of Republican politicians running unopposed in areas where the Blue candidate won the national election?
We’re talking past each other. I like the 50-state strategy and would like to see real resources put into it instead of giving up on the tough seats. But that’s not the same thing as running locally-inappropriate candidates, which is generally not something actual working politicians do, whether there is something called a 50-state strategy or not. There’s simply no local incentive to run an AOC clone in Mississippi, though if you’ve given up on the seat there may occasionally be nobody else willing to run.
There are more than a few people who think that the Democrats should run AOC clones in every district and state and just sees what happens. To some extent I get it. Having a big tent party means that you never get your pure progressivism. At the same time this means we are going to lose in a lot of places.
No, an AOC clone wouldn’t work here; though I’d volunteer for such a campaign. Neither have the black democrats that keep being run against the white conservatives. Our last statewide Democrat was the white moderate pro guns anti abortion attorney general who lost his bid for governor almost 7 years ago. No one in our state party has seen fit to learn from that.
I’m going to have to correct you on this. I’ve seen omnicause show up elsewhere including on LGM. Another example is how Dr. Rupa Marya linked inflamation to colonialism.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/omnicause
The number of people who think like this are very small but like with the right, the internet and social media can amplify bad thought among people.
They definitely see themselves as Pro-Palestinian even though none of their actions ever helped real actual Palestinians. The above venn diagram along with a good dosage of white saviourism is how they see themselves. They live in an alternative world where Hamas supports second wave terrorism and veganism.
For the record, I do not believe that Palestine succeeding against Israel (whatever that means) will result in significant advancements for a good number of those issues. Or marginal advancements, for that matter.
From the River to the Sea will not jiggle the needle on Patriarchy.
You may see it as anti-Israel… but that ain’t how they see it. And to argue against the position that makes you feel better instead of something in the ballpark of the position that they believe that they hold is to set yourself up for failure before you even leave the parking lot.
Seems kinda mean to call the Palestinians Misogynistic Colonizing Patriarchal Environmental Racist Terrorists… but I suppose one could make the case.
I’m pretty sure that they are incapable of racism.
Anyone tying all causes together is engaging in the omnicause, but if you aren’t in favor of the continued ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians, because of Islam’s tendency towards misogyny, and rampant anti-semitism among non-Jewish people in the Middle East, as well as their carbon footprint(?), you’re being a hypocrite?
I’m against the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians, but I’m also against terrorism against the Israelis.
I’m also against killing Zionists on American soil but I’m also opposed to stuff like that Jewish guy in Florida shooting at other Jewish guys in Florida because he thought they were Palestinian.
And, to be honest, the whole “hypocrisy” thing doesn’t really sting the way it did when I still had hair.
Some things I care about at a 3. Some things I care about at a 5. Some things I care about at a 7.
“Oh, you claim to care about issues X *AND* Y but you rank one as more important to you? THAT’S HYPOCRISY!!!!” and, like, yeah. I guess I’m a hypocrite.
I contain multitudes.
It’s the retconning of the Omni-cause such that people are supposed to pick a side based on a tendentious set of claims that one-side is on the right side of these unrelated things rather then focusing on the primary thing, the war and how to navigate a path to sustainable peace.
The joke is that if you’re not already steeped in the narrative, it looks like everyone should be backing Israel for bending the arc of history towards justice.
Hilariously, this is basically what a certain person here keeps being upset by. The previous Liberal view was Israel bending the arc towards Democracy and tolerance in the middle east, a position that the Israel sorta did manage to squeeze itself into for the longest time in the left. That was how people Understood the Middle-East.
And that’s why certain people are so outraged by the colonial claim, which flips what side Israel is on from the right side to the wrong side. That’s sorta the entire point of pointing out how Zionism fundamentally is colonialism, and has always been, to change that script. (And, no I don’t really want to argue that, it’s true, but it’s also literally pointless, that’s the point of the post.)
All discussion about Israel is this way, in fact. Trying to use a historical interpretation and emphasis to make one side in the right or in the wrong.
—
In practice, of course, how someone understands a conflict and the actions someone took during it doesn’t magically make anyone in the present correct, and certainly does not override the actual actions they take and the harm they currently do. Right now. In the literal present.
History can explain people’s actions, it can’t justify them except in the narrowest immediate way. The situation we are in is the situation we are in, it doesn’t matter what happened a decade ago, much less 100. People have demands and grievances about those event, and _those_ have to be resolved, but the actual things or what lens we view them through do not matter for the resolution.
And, to be blunt, a major problem is, in this particular circumstances, how much people seem to know about Israeli grievances (thanks to decades of the media repeating them) and how little they know about Palestinian grievances. Which the media has as a tried-and-true method of making people come off as professional lunatics…just don’t explain any of the things they are, fairly reasonably, upset about.
(Meanwhile, the media bends over backwards to make sure we understand the _hallucinatory_ grievances of quite a lot of people in politics.)
Excellent points all: Israeli grievances are pretty well documented and Palestinian grievances are only really brought to the forefront when there is a massacre of some kind or the local college students pull some sort of massive stunt (or both).
The “professional lunatics” thing is a good point.
The problem is that there are a handful of lunatics out there that exceed amateur lunacy by a damn sight.
Here is some professional lunacy. Check out this headline:
Boulder fire attack suspect planned to kill group, but appeared to have second thoughts
Oh! He appeared to have second thoughts!
Let’s go to the story…
Oh, that poor guy! Let’s keep reading…
What, exactly, were the second thoughts?
See? That’s a level of crazy that requires passing some amount of certification first. You don’t get that level of nuts without training.
Do we not want to know how people who do horrible things like this think? Hell, in a case like this in particular, where it doesn’t appear that he was suffering from a full mental breakdown, and he actually had feelings about hurting people, it seems a more disturbing than the usual person who commits mass violence. If people who have never hurt anyone and, at least on some level, don’t want to hurt people, start carrying out mass attacks, we might be in for a huge increase in the number of such attacks.
Oh, I’m not talking about the *GUY*.
I totally understand where the guy was coming from. “You kill my people; I kill you!” was one of the things he was reportedly yelling.
That’s downright simple to understand!
I was talking about the story.
I don’t think it’s at all simple to understand, which is why I appreciate stories like this.
Really? If someone killed someone close to you, you wouldn’t want to kill them back?
To the point where you wouldn’t understand even wanting to kill them back?
Because I can *TOTALLY* understand that. It’s, like, so easily understandable that it makes me understand why we need stuff like laws and civil society and police forces and stuff.
No, I wouldn’t. I mean, maybe for a moment, when I was at my most angry, but even then, it wouldn’t be a real desire.
But this guy’s family wasn’t killed, and most people who see what’s happening in Gaza, even those from Gaza, don’t go around setting people on fire.
This is an interesting take. To me the most obvious framing of what is fueling the conflict is land and/or sovereignty in theory, blood feud in practice.
Palestinian grievances are only really brought to the forefront when there is a massacre of some kind or the local college students pull some sort of massive stunt (or both).
And even there it turns into a history argument. And it’s a history argument where people _don’t_ know huge chunks of it, so get bogged down in re-litigating everything.
For example, we end up arguing if Arafat perhaps, possible, passed up a peace settlement decades ago because of no right to return, or maybe he rejected it because it didn’t grant Palestine actual sovereignty, and let’s argue over it more! Cause the actions of a dead person decades are more important that this, somehow: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-authorizes-more-settlements-in-occupied-west-bank-strikes-on-gaza-kill-13-officials-say
Hey, maybe we should care that, in the present moment, the Defense Minister of Israel is explicitly saying that settlements exist to stop Palestine from existing. Maybe we should, you know, start operating with that knowledge, about what Israel is doing right now in general. And, if we did care about history, we could maybe update our priors a bit about their behavior in the past?
No? We’re not going to do any of that? Cool cool cool.
See? That’d be a great thing to talk about in any discussion of “okay… what should happen?”
The hippies who just want Israel and Palestine to stop fighting and go back to the old way should be asked about borders and sovereignty and all that and they can legitimately be shocked by Israeli officials aren’t interested in a peace deal either.
Maybe a boomer evangelical will explain the promise made by God to the Israelis in Exodus.
But if the topic is a guy who throws molotovs at old people in Boulder, Colorado and you want to start talking about Israel, you need to realize that you sound like the guy who wants to talk about Israel when we’re talking about a guy throwing molotovs at old people in Boulder, Colorado.
Hamas lies. Hamas lies a lot.
To be fair, so does Israel. At this point, it’s best to just assume they are doing so.
It’s also always rich when Israel tells western journalists they can’t believe Hamas, and should independently verify the claims, but then won’t let western journalists into Gaza.
Hamas lies. Hamas lies a lot.
Weird how you think I’m talking about Hamas, when I said ‘Palestinian grievances’.
The grievances I happened to be thinking about as I wrote that are the sociopathic Israeli settlers in the West Bank who, at this point, have launched an average of four attacks a day against Palestinians, burning cars, buildings, trees, farms, people sometimes, killing what is likely over a thousand of Palestinians so far (I can’t even find numbers since January, where it was 900.), a thing that the IDF has no problem with and likes to join in on.
You know, operating out of the illegal settlements that Israel has decided to expand yet again.
That’s the thing I happened to be thinking about at that exact moment when I wrote ‘Palestinian grievances’, but I could mention quite a few. But honestly, I’m a little tired of having to literally explain things _exist_ to people here, because any knowledge of what they actually want is essentially just ‘stereotypes about Muslims fed to Americans by Israel’.
I imagine that, from the center looking left, pretty much everyone beyond a certain point on the political spectrum (collapsing it for the moment into a line down from the multi-dimensional space that political discourse occupies), the left all looks the same, but it’s worth noting, I think, that the parts of the left where anti-Zionism and criticism resides when Israel is being less genocidal, and more ethnic cleansing with less frequent (but still pretty frequent) war crimes, which is to say, the default state of the Occupation pre-October 7, is probably the least “woke,” or at least, the least focused on identity, and are unlikely to even think about LGBT relations in Israel, or the status of Israel’s democratic system, such as it is, and much more likely to view it through the lens of colonialism. I realize, of course, that people here tend to think the “settler colonialism” narrative is false for a bunch of Europeans who settled in a region and then took it over by force, then installing a brutal ethnic/racial regime very similar in many important ways to South African Apartheid, but the keepers of the anti-Zionist flame, let’s call them, are not your typical woke liberals.
I think this is particularly important because increasingly my encounters with young people who are upset about the ongoing genocide seem to be increasingly, let’s say post-woke (which does not, to be clear, mean anti-woke). I think the left, more than liberals who are increasingly appalled by the genocide (now that Trump is in office, at least), are influencing the way they see the world and the politics of it.
They are freaking out about the climate, though, especially here in Austin, where we just had our third once-in-a-century storm in a little over 4 years. At a recent political event, the two types of conversations I had with Gen Z/older Alpha people were about Israel and about climate change.
My strong expectation is over the next few decades we will see other “genocides” (i.e. wars) and the world will continue to be fine whenever the war doesn’t involve Jews. We will probably even see actual genocides and still be pretty fine with them.
This is in Dutch, but in today’s magical world, you can easily translate it.
That article air-bushes Hamas out of the picture. So they conclude that Israel bombs the hospital to abuse the civilians. Similarly we’re supposed to pretend that Hamas doesn’t use “emergency vehicles” as troop carriers.
That air-brush beclowns those so called “experts”.
In other wars, we won’t air-brush the other side out of existence so we won’t have a problem with civilian deaths.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5414345/american-doctors-look-to-relocate-to-canada-to-avoid-the-trump-administration
In 2024, 71 Americans applied to be doctors in Canada. This year it is 750. Good job everyone!!!
I mean, Canada could definitely use the doctors. Here’s hoping the provinces (the Canadian healthcare system is largely managed at the provincial level) pull their thumbs out of their posteriors enough to take advantage.
We have more than a million doctors, many of them immigrants. This is less than 0.1%
This is what heroism looks like: https://www.tiktok.com/@jaydee9748/video/7511139319231401246?_r=1&_t=ZT-8wsjiVZkePS
Alsos arresteing people at their marriage interviews for a visa overstay when the policy in the past was too look the other way.
Asian-American parents in San Francisco angry because San Francisco United School District’s ethnic studies course decides to present the Chinese Cultural Revolution and Mao’s Red Guard positively:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-ethic-studies-school-20353723.php
You’d think that they’d be on board.
They’d probably be in China if they were.
Leave it to people that have actually experienced other cultures and systems of government to come to the defense of ours.
Well they have more than the Nirvana Fallacy as a basis for comparison.
Meanwhile, Trump and Co are apparently trying to get Columbia University’s accreditation revoked because of “antisemitism” and their bulldozing approach to total destruction of any institution deemed not-MAGA enough continues.
The whole open mic this week is indicative of the fact that the anti-Trump forces and/or Democrats are too prone to fracture and disagreement and still stuck in “Democrats are the real social fascists” to do anything. JB will stir the pot with his omniclause BS, Chris will go along because he would rather be carted off in a boxcar to a camp somewhere than vote for a Democrat who only makes some critiques of capitalism, doesn’t mention settler-colonialism, and takes national security seriously.
Everyone else would just rather tone police other Democrats and say “you are part of the problem/reason, Trump won for being too progressive/too timid/too conservative, your job is to shut up, vote, and donate money, and take what we give you.”
If the reporting on the SFUSD ethnic studies program is correct, it is problematic but the main group raising the alarm is based in Virginia and funded by the Koch Brothers, and too many Democrats feel like they need to prove they are serious by bashing San Francisco because it is fun to do.
Meanwhile, the bulldozers have collapsed the auditorium which was by the front door.
because of “antisemitism” and their bulldozing approach to total destruction of any institution deemed not-MAGA enough continues.
Now, I am not a lawyer but I read the official press release from the Department of Edumacation and my eyes are drawn to this part:
If Columbia University is in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws, doesn’t that put it outside of compliance with all applicable government laws and regulations?
Why are you taking this on good faith? Oh yeah, you like being an agent provocateur and a troll and too many people give you a free pass for your knee-jerk contrarianism. The administration that provided a pardon to a guy who wears a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt and admits Afrikanners with opinions on Jews and the economy is not one that should be taken at face value.
You didn’t answer my question. Is this one of the areas that you don’t lawyer in?
If Columbia University is in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws, doesn’t that put it outside of compliance with all applicable government laws and regulations?
I mean, if they’re not in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws, you could just say “they’re obviously *NOT* in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws!” and that would shut that down a hell of a lot tighter than bringing up Trump’s pardons.
OH YEAH? WHAT ABOUT JEREMIAH WRIGHT?!?!?
See? That’s not even a response.
I just want to know if Columbia University is arguably in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws.
Speaking as an anti-Trumper, it’s real easy to believe Columbia (and other U-s) have been antisemitic and breaking various standards banning racism. Various U-Presidents giving cringeworthy testimony in front of Congress underlined that.
Trump is a blunt instrument and often reaches for unconstitutional means, but that reality doesn’t change that the Universities have been allowing serious antisemitism because it’s where their ideology goes.
That is not why he is doing it. He and the GOP want to destroy anything that is not in complete agreement with their views and totally subservient to Trump.
They don’t actually care about antisemitism. This is a bad faith authoritarian attack on anything they perceive as a threat to their desire to rule forever.
I see no reason to accord them anything.
Saul: That is not why he is doing it.
Even if you’re right, so what? Trump being vile doesn’t change that the U’s are tolerating, creating, & encouraging racism.
Is the U actually guilty and are the gov’s actions legal? If the answer to both of those questions is “yes”, then you have no case.
We’ve been told for decades that racism is the ultimate evil and we have Universities which are openly allowing and encouraging racism.
Given the cringeworthy behavior by the U’s administration, they aren’t going to clean up their act until the gov makes them.
The US government is not actually in charge of college accreditation anyway, so this is all nonsense:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation_in_the_United_States
The U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) (a non-governmental organization) both recognize reputable accrediting bodies for institutions of higher education and provide guidelines as well as resources and relevant data regarding these accreditors. Neither the U.S. Department of Education nor CHEA accredit individual institutions.[2] With the creation of the U.S. Department of Education and under the terms of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, the U.S. Secretary of Education is required by law to publish a list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies that the secretary has determined to be reliable authorities on the quality of education or training provided by the institutions of higher education and the higher education programs they accredit.[3]
Speaking of people like Chris:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/boulder-city-council-member-refuses-to-sign-statement-condemning-firebombing-since-it-doesnt-say-anti-zionist/
The further left really believes that this is their moment to shine and after the Democrats are gone, they will rise up and fight off the Republicans in their sweat sweat pants.
I’m just catching strays in here, it seems.
While I have, on one of these pages, called Colorado attack horrible, I find it interesting that people who oppose genocide are repeatedly called on to condemn antisemitic violence by people who refuse to criticize pretty much anything Israel does.
I think that it’s the eternal problem of “whataboutery” versus the desire to give more details.
A guy set some old people on fire in Boulder.
That’s bad.
But he wanted Israel to stop killing Palestinians.
Well… that’s complicated. Let’s talk about Genocide.
The issue here is simpler: only certain people are seen as fully human; certain people’s lives are seen as inherently more valuable than others. While this does not make what happened in Colorado any less abhorrent, it does severely undermine the moral authority of those whose sense of what is and isn’t condemnable is based on race or ethnicity or nationality.
It’s impossible to discuss what happened in Boulder without discussing what is happening in Gaza.
Ah, but it’s impossible to talk about what is happening in Gaza without talking about the Holocaust!
CHECK AND MATE
If only we lived in a world without contexts.
Open and close the window until it’s exactly where you want the line drawn. Then accuse someone who wants to open/close it to a different place of changing the subject.
Look, it’s not even difficult to figure out the context in which I’ve written these comments: it started with Lee using my name in reference to some Boulder city council member who, presumably, has similar views on Gaza to mine, and his failure to sign a letter condemning the attack. I pointed out the lack of moral standing I think someone like Lee has to call out that city councilmember, or anyone who opposes the Occupation or ongoing genocide frankly.
If you want to act like these replies are made in a vacuum, feel free. I will move on to the next conversation.
For the record, I am opposed to using “moral standing” as a necessary requirement to condemn something bad.
If something is bad, I reserve the right to condemn it despite me having precious little moral standing at all.
And that’s without getting into how I kinda fail to recognize the moral superiority of the folks who try to deny me moral standing to condemn stuff in the first place.
Listen buster: You do not have the moral authority to pick and choose who criticizes stuff. The criticism is good or it is bad.
Even if *I* am the one who makes it.
Now, with that behind us, on the whole “antisemitism” thing, I’d ask you if you think of yourself as one and if you have comported yourself as one.
If, I assume, you find the accusation ludicrous, do you trust others to reach similar conclusions? I mean, do you think that *I* think that you’re an antisemite?
If your best guess is that, no, you don’t think that I think that, then maybe you can wonder if others do. If there is a general consensus among the nameless and faceless readers who show up but are nowhere near deranged enough to comment.
Because I imagine that the whole “antisemite” accusation has been made loudly enough about critics of Israel who are then immediately denied the moral standing to criticize often enough to completely cheapen the accusation in the first place. That whole “crying wolf” thing that shows up from time to time.
For my part, I think that it’s 100% okay to criticize the Boulder official for refusing to sign a piece of paper condemning the attack. I honestly think that it was downright stupid of her to do.
I also think that insisting that we look at the context of attacks is a good way to get more of them. I do not want more of them.
But I also think that we will get more of them. And we’ll get more of them by people who would have been appropriately called “antisemites” back when the term meant something.
And that’s going to suck because the conversation will switch to talking about Gaza and then October 7th and then the River and the Sea and then the 1970s and then the 1960s and then the 1940s and then the 1930s instead of stuff like undocumented migrants attacking old people protesting.
And that’s bad.
In one case, the district’s curriculum encourages students to write to Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther sentenced to death in 1981 for murdering a Philadelphia police officer. Abu-Jamal became a best-selling author and commentator, and the subject of a “free Mumia” movement, before he was spared execution.
The curriculum, however, doesn’t reference the killing. It only includes Abu-Jamal’s connection to the MOVE Nine, a group of nine members of a Black nationalist organization who were convicted of a separate police killing. The Unit 2 content calls Abu-Jamal a “political prisoner” in prison “fighting for his life and humanity.”
Another unit that asks students to do a project on a social movement that has “pushed for change and justice” includes the Chinese Red Guards, along with the civil rights and farmworker rights movements and suffragettes. The Red Guards often used violence — including torture and execution — to suppress dissent against Mao Zedong’s communist revolution.
“Free Mumia” is still a thing? What is this, Nineties Retro Social Justice?
Remember hearing about Woodstock all through the 80s and 90s?
The teachers are remembering their youth.
See my comment to North
This week I learned Willow from Buffy is on the American version of Whose Line Is it Anyway. They are also still apparently making episodes of Whose Line Is it Anyway
She was just one of the special guests that week.
Trump appoints 22 year old to be head of terrorist prevention at DHS:
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-dhs-thomas-fugate-cp3-terrorism-prevention
In which we are again reminded that onshoring isn’t a thing and never will be but tariffs do goose bottom lines:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/the-great-american-tariff-scam-starring-458?r=v677&utm_medium=ios
Welp, Elon and Trump’s divorce has begun and, yep, it’s acrimonious.
Here’s Trump on Fox… the money quote: “I’m very disappointed with Elon. I’ve helped him a lot. He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem & he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to cut EV mandate.”
Here’s Elon’s response: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
Does Team Grey need Team Red more than Team Red needs Team Grey? Stay tuned!
Welp, Elon Musk just tweeted out:
Now, I admit to being skeptical that Musk has seen the Epstein files.
That said, there is a really good way to clear the issue up!
The twitter account for TheDemocrats agrees with Elon:
KILL THE BILL AND RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!
This tweet has been deleted.
Trump apparently posted on TruthSocial that Biden was executed in 2020 and was replaced by a robot. We could of had the nice lady.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/us/politics/trump-biden-conspiracy-theory.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Mk8.eZMH.lVlzbUFROyTO&smid=url-share
We should have had the nice (how nice is she, really, she was a prosecutor at one point after all) lady. But that’s water under the bridge now.
Today’s problem is the dude we do have might not be all the way there and even if he is, the brain that is all the way there operates devoid of the kind of thought and focus that meet any sane expectation of what any President ought to be doing with his brain.
It says at least as much about us as a people and in particular our institutions of the media and Congress that we simply let stuff like this drop on the ground like just another rhetorical dog turd.
The problem is that the GOP is largely united by their hate and also cocooned by a right-wing media bubble that shields them from the worst of worse of Trump’s ramblings. Even the MSM continuously sane-washes his ramblings or does so enough to create plausible deniability.
You can see this in all the Leopards Eating Faces stories. The good people of Kennett, MO voted for Trump overwhelmingly. They are now shocked, shocked, shocked that their beloved Carol is being deported back to Hong Kong. They say that they did not vote to deport moms.
The problem is that they did. Trump and Miller’s deportation plans were crystal clear to anyone who half paid attention. The residents of Kennett, MO either decided to hear what they wanted or they were completely cocooned in a way that shielded them from the actual plans. Now their beloved Carrol is sitting in a deportation center waiting to be sent back to Hong Kong/China.
We have a media and political system that is completely devoted to denying large parts of this country agency for too many reasons often they amount to cowardice. Though I admit for politicians, you are bad and should feel bad is not really a vote getter. I can already here the contrarians here who are going to complain about me stating the Leopards Eat Faces and defending the good citizens of Kennett, MO.
The internet rule for this is Murc’s Law. Only Democrats have agency. I have seen people basically admit to adhering to Murc’s law here. Things won’t get better until agency is given to non-Democrats and people have to respond to things with “I did not vote for this. I did not vote to deport moms”
Or the burghers of Kennett, MO new what Trump was going to do but believed that Carol was safe as one of the good ones. Carol doesn’t count.
That may explain BIden. What explains Trump?
Oh, that one’s easy. Trump got his hands on Nikola Tesla’s papers that gave him windows into alternate timelines.
Um, Trump was in charge of the government in 2020. Is he confessing to executing a former VP and future president? (Well, I guess, not a future president, technically.)
Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services was decided 9-0.
Apparently, having it set up so that majority members have a higher evidentiary standard than minority members when it comes to making claims of discrimination is, itself, illegal according to Title VII.
So it looks like there will be one standard for discrimination going forward.
This was a good example of bad facts make bad law. Bone-headed decision to demote her and give her a massive pay cut after denying her promotion
I think it corrected self evidently bad doctrine that departed from the clear language of the statue without any basis in the law. Good riddance to it.
Without getting too deep into the weeds, the question was whether a claim that an X discriminated against another X needed more evidence for a case to go forward because it was antecedently unlikely. Common sense says it is somewhat unlikely, but some Circuits (not the one where I practice) elevated this notion into something more or less like a rule, and applied it to the question of whether the plaintiff had brought forward enough of a case to require the defendant to respond. (Once past that hurdle, the defendant has to put forward an explanation. That can include evidence that it is an X allegedly discriminating against another X. After that, the plaintiff can put forward evidence that the explanation is a pretext. Then the judge decides whether, all things considered, there is enough of a case to let a jury decide. If so, then the jury decides.) That, I agree, was wrong. Maybe I agree with it only because I am used to practicing in a Circuit where it wasn’t the rule, but so be it. Ames clears things up in the way that makes the most sense.
That said, I am skeptical that this makes much of a practical difference in the actual outcomes of cases. A jury considering all the evidence would be well within its rights to take into consideration the common-sense view that it is unlikely that an X would discriminate against another X. (I have a case now where a woman accuses other women of gender discrimination.) It’s not a slam-dunk argument, but it has some weight and can legitimately be considered. Even at the stage when the judge is deciding whether the case should go to a jury, the judge can consider it — though he or she rarely gives much weight to it. You just can’t use it as an early screening device. The number of cases this affects is probably small, but better to get it right anyway.
A jury considering all the evidence would be well within its rights to take into consideration the common-sense view that it is unlikely that an X would discriminate against another X. (I have a case now where a woman accuses other women of gender discrimination.
The common-sense view that women would never discriminate against other women strikes me as far more likely to be held among people who have never worked with them.
As a juror, you would be well within your rights to try to persuade your fellow jurors of this. Good luck.
With this 9-0 ruling, it is now marginally more likely that I will have the opportunity to do so.
I’m not expecting any sort of major change. Like Saul said below, totally possible she goes on to lose on the merits, but case law behind this strikes me as really bad.
Yeah, this is how I feel.
Just because there are types of discrimination that are unlikely doesn’t mean we should have different legal standards for them. That’s self-evidently stupid.
And most cases alleging this sort of thing are going to fail because, rather obviously, a majority of the employees are going to be members of the majority, so it’s sorta obvious they aren’t discriminated against.
Also, as I’ve pointed out, it’s extremely hard to prove this sort of discrimination _anyway_ unless you can point to actual documentation.
I’m not sure whether the Plaintiff has an actual case on the merits of her claim and I am sympathetic to people who are deeply suspicious to a conservative legal fund bringing a case by a white woman for being discriminated against by the promotion of two gay people. For all I know, there are tons of performance reviews noting her lack of vision and leadership skills. Perhaps this case is a very unwise one for her to litigate.
It was still a bone-headed decision for the Defendant to demote her and gave her a huge paycut right after she was denied a promotion.
Can I point how this is actually a _good_ ruling? And I find myself, incredibly, agreeing partially with _Justice Thomas_, which much mean we have actually reached the end of days. (It’s okay, he’s still very wrong.)
Go ahead, read his dissent on that. At least the first part, the rest is stupid. But in the first part, he does notice the problem in trying to define who exactly a ‘majority group’ is.
Defining the “majority” is even more difficult in the context of race, as racial categories tend to be “overbroad” and “imprecise in many ways.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U. S. 181, 216 (2023). 2 “American families have become increasingly multicultural,” and “attempts to divide us all up into a handful of groups have become only more incoherent with time.” Id., at 293 (G ORSUCH , J., concurring). And, even if courts could identify all the relevant racial groups and their boundaries, courts would still struggle to determine which racial groups make up a majority.
And then he points out how religion is even more confusing. So he’s like a fraction of the way to a logical outcome, but for some reason thinks it applies only to race and religion. Hasn’t quite noticed it applies to sex and national origin and basically protected class, but whatever. All classes are, inherently, blurry, and trying to say what percentage of the population is what is rather more difficult than it seems, at least if you’re trying to hinge legal procedure off them.
Anyway, he also applies that to people and how they identify, and how hard it is for the court to know that, and he’s actually wrong there, fundamentally, at a very base level. (Because he’s a hack.) Anti-discrimination law doesn’t require the courts to figure out what class someone is, because the law doesn’t care. It cares about the _perceived_ class someone is, and if that influenced employment (Or whatever) decisions.
—
Anyway, now for the problem with the prior setup: It was actually dangerous, because it echoed an idiotic assumption that can harm people. It absurdly required ‘evidence that a member of the relevant minority group (here, gay people) made the employment decision at issue, or with statistical evidence showing a pattern of discrimination . . . against members of the majority group’
In other words, it assumed that members of a minority group are the only people who would discriminate against a member of a majority group. (Or set some crazy high bar that would be extremely hard to hit at the start of a case without discovery.)
Can I point out how members of a minority groups are actually _extremely unlikely_ to discriminate against a majority group? In fact, there is a long history of member of minority groups discriminating _against other or even their own_ minority groups, in attempt to ‘score points’ with the majority. (I.e., pulling the ladder up after themselves.) Like you pointed out, sometimes the most harmful behavior towards women in the workplace _comes from_ women. Minorities are well aware that in order to be One of the Good Ones, sometimes other people have to be thrown under the bus.
Can I also point out that if anyone is discriminating against members of majority groups, it is _majority groups_? Usually for some sort of failure to conform in some way. Granted, discrimination law doesn’t particularly help there, because ‘Did not hire that man because his chin was weak’ is not covered under that. But just because the law doesn’t cover that doesn’t mean we need to hallucinate some other thing that could be (but isn’t) happening.
The last thing we needed is the absurd concept of ‘if members of the majority are discriminated against, we should assume it will be by members of the minority’ enshrined in court decisions making, a thing that has literally no foundation in history.
It’s rare that I see a unanimous ruling that I think is stupid.
Other than Wickard, of course.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thoughts-on-the-centrist-hoedown
Apparently there is a new attempt at the DLC or Moderate Democrats taking charge called WelcomePAC. Marshall has thoughts:
“I take a kind of middle position on the meta-issues swirling through this debate. On the general issue of left-wing/groups litmus tests I’m at least half with these folks. I don’t think they’re “why” Democrats lost the 2024 election. But I do think the Democrats focus on a number of these litmus test or language discourses were a real contributor to making a slice of voters see Democrats as focused on issues distant from their lives and not concerned with issues that mattered to them a lot – inflation, cost of living, etc. That’s not the same as saying Democrats lost because of trans rights or immigration. But the way you talk can make your politics seem insular and distant or indifferent to other concerns that are more salient to voters. Saying this leads to very reflexive claims that this means betraying or abandoning various marginalized groups. And I understand that reflex. But I think I think it’s part of Democrats’ current problem and it is mainly a question of emphasis, language and focus.
Here is where I should restate an obligatory and important point. If you read the inside DC press these days you see this overpowering and overwhelming consensus that is basically totally unchallenged that Democrats are basically destroyed and the public has utterly rejected their “woke” politics and focus on language policing and that whole bill of particulars. It’s really necessary to come back, just momentarily, to the real world where the Democrats lost the 2024 president election by exactly 1.5% percentage points. That’s simply not a party destruction result, not even close frankly. So while there are important lessons to learn, important pitfalls to avoid and repositionings to be done, we shouldn’t lose sight of this reality of the situation….
I’ve mentioned a number of times that I think the most important dividing line for Democrats right now is not ideology but fight vs complacency. Another way to describe that is the willingness and ability to wield power and build power to achieve political aims. There’s a lot of polling evidence that failure on this front is the biggest sources of Democrats electoral problems. Ideological disagreements are real too. They’re not misunderstandings. And you can’t simply sweep them under the rug. But the importance of those disagreements can also be exaggerated or intensified in these intramural contests. I’m more enthused by advocates and candidates and party idea-makers who make a case with the full package, an alternative vision to Trumpism, which really is no different from an opposition (you’re for taking away people’s health care; we’re for protecting it) to it and then being willing to make that case clearly and aggressively and to fight to make it a reality.”
I am probably more or less where Marshall is but I think the complacency crowd is using it as an excuse for fights that they don’t want to spend time on like Hegseth renaiming the USS Harvey Milk. I am generally supportive of the abundance agenda but don’t see why supporting it means you have to also go on the down low to the Republican assault on social liberty
The Musk v. Trump war has begun.
I’m rooting for injuries
I’m rooting for Musk to win. Trump is currently the person with power, taking him down removes him from power.
Taking down Musk does nothing except make people happy. But, and here’s the key: Musk has already burned all of his bridges, and at this point I mean _all_ of them.
And there’s no reason why Democrats have to be nice to him later. In fact, we need to remember to investigate him for that whole ‘Repeatedly trying to pay people to vote’ thing.
And, considering the Trump Administration keeps saying _in court_ Muskwas not in charge of DOGE, and has never been in charge of DOGE or had any connection to it, we’ll need to hold some hearings to see if he ever had access to data collected by DOGE, or if he ever, illegally, gave directions to DOGE. No, that’s not the sort of ‘attacking political opponents’ that Trump did…both he and the President repeatedly said things about Musk’s time in government while lawyers said other things, and it is entirely reasonably for Congress to figure out what the hell actually happened within, you know, the _government_.
Taking down Musk does nothing except make people happy. But, and here’s the key: Musk has already burned all of his bridges, and at this point I mean _all_ of them.
Musk’s lackeys are still in the Treasury and other government departments. I’m not sure I want either to win.
Musk’s lackeys are still in the Treasury and other government departments. I’m not sure I want either to win.
Yeah, but the most Musk hurts Trump, the less likely they are to be allowed to stay. Also, it seems like they were taking their orders directly from Musk anyway, which they will not be doing anymore. (And if they are, it’s even more likely Trump will remove them.)
Plus, hurting Trump means higher odds of taking back at least one chamber of Congress, which means actual subpoena power against all the DOGE nonsense.
And I’m not suggesting Musk ‘win’, I’m suggesting that he win _this_ fight, which will remove Trump, and then…who the hell is protecting Musk? There’s a reason he paid to get Trump elected, and it was to protect his interests…he was under multiple investigations. And his little stunt of electing Trump turned half the country against him, and his turn against Trump resulted in a huge chunk of his remaining supporters turning against him.
I’m not sure what taking down Musk means, but as the richest man in the world, who employs more than 100,000 workers, with companies that have a huge global impact in multiple ways, he seems like someone the taking down of whom would be a big deal, beyond people’s feelings about it.
When they’ve lost CNN…
I’d say that Israel has been overplaying its hand for months now, but it keeps working.
I do wonder at how long Israel can keep this up and if we’re close to a “very slowly then all at once” situation.
“We didn’t shoot them literally _at_ the aid site. We only shot the Palestinians who choose to occupy space between where they live and the aid site. We hope you’re too stupid to understand how basic physics works.”
The horrifying thing here is there’s no justification given at the shooting. Literally none. Okay, now that its been cleared up who Israel did and didn’t shoot. (Didn’t shoot: People at aid station. Did shoot: People moving around nearby, which would likely include people who were going or coming to that aid station.), why did Israel shoot who they _did_ shoot? What was the reason?
*shrugs* They were Palestinians, and Israel decided they…didn’t get to walk down the street they had walked down, I guess. Israel claims, vaguely, that they were ‘suspicious’, whatever that means.
I watched an Israeli government spokesperson the other day talking about this event, and he said they were shot because they were approaching the IDF in a threatening manner. Unarmed, and with women and children, but in a threatening manner. Israel also presented released video that they said was of Hamas shooting at the aid-seekers, though pretty much everyone seems to think that’s not what it shows. So, in sum, the Israeli position is: we shot them, because even the children were threatening, but actually we didn’t shoot them, Hamas did.
The horrifying thing here is there’s no justification given at the shooting.
The justification will be Chaos in a war zone.
It’s not a great idea to mix hair-trigger combat troops with civilians who might be disguised combatants. Someone will shoot at something and then his crew will back him up.
You do know that Israel itself authorized this aid station, right?
DavidTC: You do know that Israel itself authorized this aid station, right?
Yes, I know. Which doesn’t change that mixing hair trigger troops with civilians who might be disguised combatants has potential problems.
In theory they’d give the aid to some neutral 3rd body, but apparently that’s not a thing. Israeli troops giving out aid and supplying security may be the least terrible option out there.
The thing to keep in mind is Hamas has agency here. They don’t have to use their own civilians as shields or continue keeping hostages and so on.
That’s why these various reviews need to airbrush Hamas out of the picture to reach the desired outcome. If Hamas is part of the picture then Israel gets to follow the normal rules of war which end up with us where we’re at.
They’ve lost Sully too which is pretty remarkable.
Good news:
*brushes hands together* Well that should resolve things. Case closed.
Oh. That’s going to be well-accepted on all points along the political spectrum as a reasonable and innocent, if unfortunate, turn of events and this will surely lead us to just accept reality as it is and move on.
What does it even mean that ‘some Epstein tapes may have never even existed’?
Doesn’t he actually mean is ‘The right wing apparently invented some tapes that don’t exist.’
Maybe Epstein didn’t exist.
What does it mean to “be”, anyway? Are we even awake right now? Perhaps we’re dreaming.
The Right Wing invented anti-Trump Epstein tapes?
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back into the United States but seems to be facing some rather “convenient” charges that he trafficked thousands of migrants.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mistakenly-deported-kilmar-abrego-garcia-back-us-face/story?id=121333122
It’s an interesting legal theory where ‘giving undocumented people rides’ or even ‘being paid to give undocumented people rides’, in ways that are entirely legal, is now ‘trafficking’. One wonders if it applies to _everyone_. Do Uber drivers and taxi drivers have to demand to see someone’s immigration papers?
What’s really funny is that the _victims_ of trafficking have protection under the law, so anyone who was given a ride by him should apply for U nonimmigrant status: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/victims-of-human-trafficking-and-other-crimes
They have to do it in return for ‘cooperating’ with this case, though, so they need to queue up before the judge immediately throws the case out of court. Feel free to write a deposition about the actual events that happened, literally none of them are unlawful.
And we are still doing the ‘prosecutor resigned instead of pursuing charges he is ordered to pursue’ thing, apparently. Why any prosecutor still worked for these sociopathic liars is beyond me.
Oh, and BTW: There’s probably no actual evidence that he was doing even what they’re saying he did. Which, to be clear again, was not a crime, but they can’t even prove _it_.
Hey, remember back when we were talking about police reform and I said that ‘The police should have to get a signoff from a judge to arrest someone at all?’ Anyone remember that?
If enough AUSAs are pushed to resign rather than follow unethical instructions at the rate they’ve been going, DOJ is just plain going to run out of attorneys soon enough.
This will give them an opportunity to hire the lickspittles they want.
There are always hacks somewhere
Bringing it in Tennessee as opposed to Maryland is also a tell
Remember the Gunblade in Final Fantasy VIII?
Well, 2 found dead inside Colorado home after deputies shoot suspect with knife.
Welp, riots in California. Lord knows we can’t have headlines talking about the same thing two days in a row anymore.
Riots? Are you actually watching any video from there? Because what’s being shown across multiple media platforms is no rioting. It’s local citizens responding to what looks like an armed invasion of their neighborhoods. What is being shown are unarmed journalists being pepper sprayed and having flashings being tossed at them for covering protests. What is being shown is a teenager with a skateboard being shot multiple times with less then lethal rounds from across the street while carrying a skateboard.
Much like Portland in 2020 the agresssion is coming from one side and it’s not the locals.
I did see the video of the false flag actor, probably, throwing rocks at vehicles.
Did you see that one?
That was after multiple rounds of flash bangs and tear gas canisters being tossed into crowds that were chanting.
But sure keep in whatabouting as our nation teeters on the brink of destruction. It may amuse you but it won’t save us.
We’re on the B.O.D.? We’re conceding arguments at levels heretofore unseen.
Phil: That was after multiple rounds of flash bangs and tear gas canisters being tossed into crowds that were chanting.
Let me guess, “chanting” and shutting down ICE or maybe just the city?
What they actually were doing was surrounding ICE at a home depot, at least that’s what started things yesterday.
According to an attorney with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, some protestors were throwing bricks and others looked injured
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2025_Los_Angeles_protests
local citizens responding to what looks like an armed invasion of their neighborhoods.
We have passed laws that target large groups of people who aren’t willing to follow. Law enforcement then has to enforce this, which creates problems.
Law enforcement then has to enforce this which creates problems?
And what problems does it create that US Marines are now on ready to deploy orders in 29 palms?
We’re in prohibition territory where we have unrealistic policy creating unrealistic law.
Ergo we have the choice between undermining the rule of law or enforcing it, both of which are bad options.
There are many ways to enforce the law, some of them marginally good in this instance. None of them demand that Marines be prepared to deploy in US soil.
Police riots: https://www.newsweek.com/la-protestor-stomped-police-horseback-violence-video-2082637
Excessive one sided violence and punishment.
I don’t know how the New York Times does it: Is It OK to Earn Rental Income From an ICE Holding Facility?
I mean, it’s kind of an interesting question and it’s possible to have a really strong take on this one way or the other but not when you have a very particular audience which, may I point out, the NYT does.
An audience which includes people who would want absolution for being the types of folks who earn rental income from ICE.
It isn’t that weird when you understand that the NYT is afraid to state what its actual institutional position on immigration is. The effect is of course to concede the argument to the worst actors possible i.e. Trump and MAGA but that’s unfortunately the place we find ourselves in.
The actual institutional positions have been a wreck ever since the whole Cotton op-ed blew up the newsroom.
I kinda wish they understood that they were allowed to change the world because they told us what was happening. Trying to tell us what’s happening in an effort to change the world won’t work.
As a matter of fact, it might even concede arguments to the worst actors possible.
The NYT is a cheerleader for the Dems and Team Blue hasn’t figured out what they can say on immigration that doesn’t cost them elections.
They have wings which want open borders. They have wings which are anti-immigration. They have wings which want sensible immigration reform. They need all three wings to win elections.
Maybe. I think NYT favors open borders, as does a small but highly influential cadre of intelligentsia within the party. However they also know there’s no popular constituency for that, which is why you get all the haraumphing about ICE and its tactics but no dealing with how or why it is that millions of foreign nationals are in the country illegally or what principles ought to govern the immigration system, to say nothing of basic questions like ‘should duly enacted laws be enforced at all?’
Point being if they actually cared about winning elections the path would be quite easy, the problem is that those stances would be in direct conflict with the policies they want but dare not speak.
For no real reason, I remembered Kristin’s It’s Just Property essay today.
It was a good one.