We will see. I think that Trump's rally last night hurt him and there are nearly six million Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States in key swing states that can vote against him. There are a million Puerto Ricans in Florida. Trump needs to win by the electoral college vote in the swing stats and he probably shot himself in the foot.
Are we living in the same time line because I remember that Harris generated a great deal of enthusiasm once she became the nominee. Her DNC convention was a smashing success and millions or tens of millions of Americans seemed filled with genuine enthusiasm for her. I doubt that most of them were faking it.
One of the things that Trumped learned from the last time he was in office was that he needed to have people personally loyal to him rather than the office if he wanted to do everything he wanted. Vance was selected as Vice President because of this realization. So I suspect the first order of business would be a giant purge of the federal bureaucracy and a replacement with loyal cronies. Than there would be a lot of incompetent but still very carrying out of Heritage's policy preferences along with vast amounts of corruption and Trump's desire for personal revenge against his enemies. It will be bad, very bad.
What I am saying is that I'm utterly tired of the hypocrisy of the activists and chattering classes when it comes to the Jewish people. They are attempting to have it both ways with us.
In today's not helping things, a person I know from high school who is very anti-Israel posted a picture of a bill board that claims Israel is killing three school buses of children a day. A quick google search reveals that a school bus contains seats for 90 kids. Three of them would be 270 kids. This would be over 100,000 kids killed by Israel according to this ad. That is tens of thousands of more people than even Hamas with their funny way of counting is claiming were killed. The anti-Israel forces seem to be pretty prone to lying outrageously.
The Iranians are probably the least religious country in all Muslim majority countries. I get the feeling that the political and religious divide between the Saudi masses and the princes is a lot less than it is in Iran. The problem is that there is just enough of a religious block in Iran to give the clerical regime a lot of power like there is in the United States.
People have grown really hostile to realpolitiks since World War II and the Cold War. The idea that you should form diplomatic relationships with a country you find ideologically noxious because the alternative is worse is repellant to many people. At the same time, most people are dimly aware that having the sword drawn forever is a bad idea. At the same time, there are regimes that do need diplomatic isolation but nobody knows where exactly to draw the line.
The Saudis are weird. Ostensibly, they are hardline guardians of Sunni Orthodoxy but in practice the rulers and a lot of the population tend to treat this more as a show than anything else. There is a certain cynicism about religion in Saudi Arabia from what I can tel an the princes aren't definitely going to let the clergy tell them what to do. The Iranians clerical regime and their supporters in the population seem more honestly fanatical than the Saudis do on a whole.
I once say some BBC documentary where some Saudi businessman/prince was being interviewed. His secretary was a well dressed young and very attractive young Saudi woman who wasn't wearing Islamic modesty clothing at all because it was inside the office. I don't think the Iranian clerical regime would allow put on the modesty clothing outside but in the office you can take the hijab off. The Saudis were fine with this though.
I mainly irrelevant difference.* These people can not and will not accept Jews as an identity group. Like all anti-Semites, whether they be of the traditional white right sort, them, or Islamic, they know that they have the numbers to raise their fist in defiance forever. Jews can raise whatever arguments and point out whatever facts they like but they have the numbers to say "nah, nah, it doesn't matter" and there is nothing we can do.
*For instance if Jews are being placed in the white category because it is necessary to keep the wretched of the earth coalition together, is that a strategic or tactical choice?
That is part of it but I am speaking more broadly. There seems to be a reluctance on parts of large swathes of the world to admit that Jews exist as a group rather than a bunch of individuals who happen to share the same culture but a willingness and even eagerness to acknowledge the group identities of other marginalized people.
This is true even in contexts that have nothing to do with Israel. There are people who see the hijab and burka as diversity symbols while also eagerly gobbling up stories of rebellious young women in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities even though Jewish and Muslim religious modesty clothing as the same reasoning behind them. The hijab is exotic while the mitpahat/tichel is oppressive.
It makes no sense to me that this distinction is made but it makes sense to a lot of people. I do not like this. If the hijab is a diversity symbol than so is the tichel and if the tichel is oppressive than so is the hijab. This is one of the areas where I think we should demand ideological consistency.
But people seem devoted to the French Revolutionary paradigm of "to the Jews as individuals everything and to the Jews as a nation nothing" to a pathological level. No matter what happens they can't abandon it and need to put Jews in the wypipo category. Whatever in other groups stirs the activist's heart and sends their imagination on fire, Jews lack.
This is something I don't understand and has never been adequately answered to me no matter how many times I bring it up. There are over 45 countries that are Muslim majority in the world, with majorities ranging from slightly over half to nearly 100%. In the vast majority of these countries, Islam is given a front and center position in society including blasphemy laws, apostasy laws, and Islamic symbols as official state symbols, etc. A good plurality if not a majority of the Palestinians has expressed a similar desire for a Muslim Palestine. Hamas made Islamic theocracy, their official position.
Even if you think that ethnostates are bad and Zionism is settler-colonialism, it shouldn't take that many brain cells to figure out why Jews don't want to be part of an official Muslim state and find this unacceptable. But you lots of well-meaning and maybe not so well-meaning Western activists who can explain in elaborate and great detail how bad the concept of a Jewish state is and how alienating it is for non-Jewish residents, believe that Jews should be happy living under Arab Muslim Palestine or that creating one state would result in a secular multicultural democracy because it has to. Like despite literally having every Muslim majority state put Islam at the forefront and this being popular with the majority and the Palestinians keep insisting on it, they believe the Palestinians want secular multicultural democracy.
I have no idea how they come to these conclusions or what makes them so certain that it has to end up the way they want to.
Rep. Andy Harris of the Freedom Caucus lightly suggests that North Carolina should just give it's electoral votes to Trump before counting the popular vote:
The Washington Post joins the Los Angeles Times in refusing to endorse anybody. Either they want Trump to win but don't want to cause a revolt in their readership or they are taking Trump's threats of violence literally and seriously.
This story doesn't really increase my opinion about activists and do-gooders. I am a private immigration lawyer and do well my clients. My job is to represent them, not a broader ideological cause.
"Cowan, for her part, dislikes immigration attorneys who, she says, “extort money” from their clients by “selling knowledge” that should be shared."
On “What If Trump Wins?”
Does the Further Left have any strategy for getting political power in the United States that doesn't involve putting the fascists in power first?
"
We will see. I think that Trump's rally last night hurt him and there are nearly six million Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States in key swing states that can vote against him. There are a million Puerto Ricans in Florida. Trump needs to win by the electoral college vote in the swing stats and he probably shot himself in the foot.
"
Are we living in the same time line because I remember that Harris generated a great deal of enthusiasm once she became the nominee. Her DNC convention was a smashing success and millions or tens of millions of Americans seemed filled with genuine enthusiasm for her. I doubt that most of them were faking it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
I was just going to post this.
On “What If Trump Wins?”
One of the things that Trumped learned from the last time he was in office was that he needed to have people personally loyal to him rather than the office if he wanted to do everything he wanted. Vance was selected as Vice President because of this realization. So I suspect the first order of business would be a giant purge of the federal bureaucracy and a replacement with loyal cronies. Than there would be a lot of incompetent but still very carrying out of Heritage's policy preferences along with vast amounts of corruption and Trump's desire for personal revenge against his enemies. It will be bad, very bad.
"
Most real world dictatorships are filled with incompetent chaos rather than cool and collected people working for nefarious goals like in the movies.
"
Vance is the competent fascist.
On “Ukraine and the Axis of Evil”
What I am saying is that I'm utterly tired of the hypocrisy of the activists and chattering classes when it comes to the Jewish people. They are attempting to have it both ways with us.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
In today's not helping things, a person I know from high school who is very anti-Israel posted a picture of a bill board that claims Israel is killing three school buses of children a day. A quick google search reveals that a school bus contains seats for 90 kids. Three of them would be 270 kids. This would be over 100,000 kids killed by Israel according to this ad. That is tens of thousands of more people than even Hamas with their funny way of counting is claiming were killed. The anti-Israel forces seem to be pretty prone to lying outrageously.
On “Ukraine and the Axis of Evil”
I'm pointing out the inherent absurdity and double standards being used here, not saying that the tichel is a diversity symbol.
"
The Iranians are probably the least religious country in all Muslim majority countries. I get the feeling that the political and religious divide between the Saudi masses and the princes is a lot less than it is in Iran. The problem is that there is just enough of a religious block in Iran to give the clerical regime a lot of power like there is in the United States.
"
The exception that Islam gets to the general understanding that theocracy is bad and to be prohibited at all costs is dismal.
"
People have grown really hostile to realpolitiks since World War II and the Cold War. The idea that you should form diplomatic relationships with a country you find ideologically noxious because the alternative is worse is repellant to many people. At the same time, most people are dimly aware that having the sword drawn forever is a bad idea. At the same time, there are regimes that do need diplomatic isolation but nobody knows where exactly to draw the line.
"
The Saudis are weird. Ostensibly, they are hardline guardians of Sunni Orthodoxy but in practice the rulers and a lot of the population tend to treat this more as a show than anything else. There is a certain cynicism about religion in Saudi Arabia from what I can tel an the princes aren't definitely going to let the clergy tell them what to do. The Iranians clerical regime and their supporters in the population seem more honestly fanatical than the Saudis do on a whole.
I once say some BBC documentary where some Saudi businessman/prince was being interviewed. His secretary was a well dressed young and very attractive young Saudi woman who wasn't wearing Islamic modesty clothing at all because it was inside the office. I don't think the Iranian clerical regime would allow put on the modesty clothing outside but in the office you can take the hijab off. The Saudis were fine with this though.
"
I mainly irrelevant difference.* These people can not and will not accept Jews as an identity group. Like all anti-Semites, whether they be of the traditional white right sort, them, or Islamic, they know that they have the numbers to raise their fist in defiance forever. Jews can raise whatever arguments and point out whatever facts they like but they have the numbers to say "nah, nah, it doesn't matter" and there is nothing we can do.
*For instance if Jews are being placed in the white category because it is necessary to keep the wretched of the earth coalition together, is that a strategic or tactical choice?
"
That is part of it but I am speaking more broadly. There seems to be a reluctance on parts of large swathes of the world to admit that Jews exist as a group rather than a bunch of individuals who happen to share the same culture but a willingness and even eagerness to acknowledge the group identities of other marginalized people.
This is true even in contexts that have nothing to do with Israel. There are people who see the hijab and burka as diversity symbols while also eagerly gobbling up stories of rebellious young women in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities even though Jewish and Muslim religious modesty clothing as the same reasoning behind them. The hijab is exotic while the mitpahat/tichel is oppressive.
It makes no sense to me that this distinction is made but it makes sense to a lot of people. I do not like this. If the hijab is a diversity symbol than so is the tichel and if the tichel is oppressive than so is the hijab. This is one of the areas where I think we should demand ideological consistency.
But people seem devoted to the French Revolutionary paradigm of "to the Jews as individuals everything and to the Jews as a nation nothing" to a pathological level. No matter what happens they can't abandon it and need to put Jews in the wypipo category. Whatever in other groups stirs the activist's heart and sends their imagination on fire, Jews lack.
"
This is something I don't understand and has never been adequately answered to me no matter how many times I bring it up. There are over 45 countries that are Muslim majority in the world, with majorities ranging from slightly over half to nearly 100%. In the vast majority of these countries, Islam is given a front and center position in society including blasphemy laws, apostasy laws, and Islamic symbols as official state symbols, etc. A good plurality if not a majority of the Palestinians has expressed a similar desire for a Muslim Palestine. Hamas made Islamic theocracy, their official position.
Even if you think that ethnostates are bad and Zionism is settler-colonialism, it shouldn't take that many brain cells to figure out why Jews don't want to be part of an official Muslim state and find this unacceptable. But you lots of well-meaning and maybe not so well-meaning Western activists who can explain in elaborate and great detail how bad the concept of a Jewish state is and how alienating it is for non-Jewish residents, believe that Jews should be happy living under Arab Muslim Palestine or that creating one state would result in a secular multicultural democracy because it has to. Like despite literally having every Muslim majority state put Islam at the forefront and this being popular with the majority and the Palestinians keep insisting on it, they believe the Palestinians want secular multicultural democracy.
I have no idea how they come to these conclusions or what makes them so certain that it has to end up the way they want to.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
There is a lot of Kabuki around this attack.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/21/us-news/pentagon-investigating-whether-leaked-israeli-plans-for-iran-attack-came-from-hack-or-insiders/
"
Rep. Andy Harris of the Freedom Caucus lightly suggests that North Carolina should just give it's electoral votes to Trump before counting the popular vote:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa53ebcec135304db0b95f3d126148a7c0185f7fbc4151416b27d26dd2a2d1b0.png
"
The Washington Post joins the Los Angeles Times in refusing to endorse anybody. Either they want Trump to win but don't want to cause a revolt in their readership or they are taking Trump's threats of violence literally and seriously.
"
Tucker Carlson has fantasies of Daddy Trump spanking naughty daughters...out loud and in public. Totally normal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/24/trump-tucker-carlson-daddy-spanking-georgia-rally/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzI5NzQyNDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzMxMTI4Mzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3Mjk3NDI0MDAsImp0aSI6IjdjZjE1NzlkLWMxN2EtNGM3NC04NzMzLThjNTdlN2FmOGI1YSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9wb2xpdGljcy8yMDI0LzEwLzI0L3RydW1wLXR1Y2tlci1jYXJsc29uLWRhZGR5LXNwYW5raW5nLWdlb3JnaWEtcmFsbHkvIn0.o7GdF4j08UnetI5E9jZXH4Fv9TJcRn3Jga1qmfaByMQ
"
Imagine scare quotes around "helped too many people."
On “From The Atlantic: Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’”
"Give the criminal and treasonous bastard" what he wants.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
This story doesn't really increase my opinion about activists and do-gooders. I am a private immigration lawyer and do well my clients. My job is to represent them, not a broader ideological cause.
"Cowan, for her part, dislikes immigration attorneys who, she says, “extort money” from their clients by “selling knowledge” that should be shared."
https://newrepublic.com/article/186720/immigration-lawyer-helped-many-people?fbclid=IwY2xjawGGh_dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRV3_7QepdRhwO0xF5EhMV3-LY5Q5ty7tixTwV-B3F1tGpPWZMNzWlmnbQ_aem_3i1oD-h020fWVgg5Mgm_UA
"
The crew of the Boys is laying it on thick:
https://x.com/VoughtIntl/status/1848881071016038494?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1848881071016038494%7Ctwgr%5E5eeb99cff21b1d879775143bf04977fd6323f651%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14560020https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145600t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F102Fif-adolf-hitler-flew-in-today-theyd-send-a-limousine-anywayt_e%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20theyE28099d20send20a20limousine20anywayt_d%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20they27d20send20a20limousine20anyway20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DIf20Adolf20Hitler20flew20in20today20theyE28099d20send20a20limousine20anyways_o%3Ddescversion%3Db040cc4fb9749f836fa39cae48953897
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.