Of course they did.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a group of point six to seven teens on my BART ride home. They were sharing what can best described as a marijuana cigar and behaving badly. They confronted people who looked annoyed at their antics and pushed one guy off the BART station when he was getting off.

These types of incidents aren't common and this was unusually bad but they are common enough that people are fed up.

Saudi Arabia awarded 2034 World Cup by FIFA. I am generally not as outraged at this as other liberals might be. International cooperation and diplomacy requires dealing with some unsavory countries on the democracy index a lot. Having them participate in the general global economy and society is much better than having a lot of Taliban Afghanistans.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/dec/11/saudi-arabia-confirmed-as-2034-world-cup-host-despite-human-rights-concerns

I generally agree with this point. There is a big decorum problem on public transit in the areas where it is used. BART has similar issues if not to the extent of somebody like Jordan Neely. BART has been installing tall fare gates to dissuade fare gate jumping. Since the faregate jumpers tend to be the types that like acting obnoxiously on transit, it has the side benefit of creating a more well behaved ridership.

That doesn't mean that Penny didn't use excessive force.

The facts fit with the general pattern in academia and activism in recent years towards the Jews. Other media might not be covering it because it is not a major story to them and they see it as unimportant. Your attitude that this story can be dismissed because it is only found in enemy media.

The 1990s were an optimistic time despite some geopolitical problems because the Cold War was over, Aparheid ended, and the I/P and Northern Ireland conflicts seemed resolved. North Korea and South Korea were talking to each other and the global economy was booming. Society seemed to be going globally in the proper direction. There were some sore parts like the Yugoslav Wars. Rwanda, and the Talinban ruling over Afghanistan but nothing that seemed unsolvable. The big liberal spectrum won and they won big. Then 9/11 happened and everything seemed to go to hell fast and hard.

The Cultural Affairs Commission of UCLA seems to be in trouble because they had a policy of not hiring Jews, I mean Zionists, and had the stupidity and courage to put this in writing.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-831990

In which Phil H praises Big Pharma.

The guy's twitter/X feed seems to show that he leaned pretty far to the right. He was a fan of Musk, Thiel, failing fertility, social media corrupting society, and concerned about young men like him.

He seems to come from a rather privileged background.

The rebel forces are making the right noises, so I'm cautiously optimistic. No talk about God and Islam but a lot about forging a new Syria. There has been recognition that women have rights and they vowed not to tell women how to dress.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-rebels-tap-transitional-pm-vow-not-to-tell-women-how-to-dress/

The Syrian Intelligence services were apparently organized with the help of Eichmann's right-handed man. That might explain the brutality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Brunner#Postwar_flight_and_escape_to_Syria

There was a big protest against anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom this weekend with 32,000 people participating and some interesting demographics. Besides Jews and Christians, you also had Hindus, Sikhs, and non-Jewish Iranians participate. Another way to put it is that groups who can charitably called not overly enamored with Islam and see at least some parts of Islam as causing many issues joined forces. The Hindus and Sikhs in India and even outside of India do not get along. That they joined forces for this march is actually pretty significant.

https://www.thejc.com/community/over-30-000-march-through-london-against-antisemitism-t6ne9zk0

Hegseth is going down:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trumps-pick-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth-peril-senate-republicans-rcna182738

This might be why a lot of very non-Christian customs like the Romanian bear dance survived in Orthodox lands more than Catholic and Protestant lands.

President Yoon's senior staff tenders their resignation:

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-12-04/national/politics/Presidential-aides-tender-resignations-after-martial-law-fiasco-Yoon-cancels-public-schedule/2192426

More young men are converting to Eastern Orthodoxy because it is manly Christianity. Protestantism is becoming the domain of women:

https://www.rawstory.com/orthodox-church/

Trump's DEI Beria has an enemy list:

https://newrepublic.com/article/188946/kash-patel-fbi-enemies-list

Everybody's favorite Representative from Michigan had a very unhelpful tweet over Thanksgiving that was basically a woe on us real true indigenous Palestinians like the Native Americans. Well, it was unhelpful in forms of doing something to resolve the I/P conflict but it was helpful in demonstrating their cosmology.

The Palestinians basically see themselves as the real true inhabitants of the land. Some of them might reluctantly admit that Jews lived there as well but they were the political nation and had the total right of self-determination. The Jews had no political rights at all and certainly did not need to be including in the Palestinian nation. They still believe this and many of them see true justice as being the complete destruction of Israel no matter what. Their allies indulge them in this.

Sarcasm on.

"A return to the Lochner era will just lead to a heightening of the contradictions and cause the workers of the world to regain class consciousness and start a world revolution."

Sarcasm off.

What happened on 10/7/23? Why did Hezbollah have to join the fray? The Palestinian leadership has made mistake after mistake in dealing with the Jews and later the Israelis since before any of us were born. It was always "one more glorious push and all the Jews will go away." Meanwhile, they rejected the offers of both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert without a serious counter offer and can't/won't control their dead enders. They then go wailing to the entire world after each and every "one last glorious push" fails and that their actions basically discredited the entire peace camp in Israel politically.

Meanwhile, 79% of American Jews voted for Harris because we recognize Trump is bad news. We did this despite the fact that most of us have no patience for the people wailing about Gaza after another "one more glorious push" failed and how the protestors harassed and menaced American Jews. American Muslims decided to play stupid political games and won stupid political prizes. The protestors found another reason not to vote Democratic this year.

We aren't going to norm our way out of this.

I think the classic term for this is kleptocracy, government of thieves. That being said, I think that contemporary liberalism has a communications problem and a consistency problem. Defining a broad universal liberalism that defends the choose your own adventure path to life has not been easy. Many liberals have adopted a "we must fight for the wretched of the earth" worldview that makes it easy for the global right to present liberalism as being more concerned with small subaltern groups than humanity or the citizenry in general.

Too many liberals are also addicted to the jargon that has come polluting in from academia and activism. It's why you get people who insist on using the word Latinx despite Latinos hating it. They learned this term in college damn it and it is right.

Trump's current choices do not seem that competent but supremely loyal. That being said, you really don't need that much competency to do a lot of damage.