As an aside, I consider Def Leppard to be the greatest rock band in history.
As a further aside, I've noticed a lot of youngs wearing Def Leppard shirts these days but my excitement was utterly crushed when, on questioning, the youngs revealed that said shirts were simply "cool looking retro t's" from target.
I've seen some crowing in certain partisan left wing sources and some kvetching in certain partisan right wing sources that the GOP's intended sequence of expirations of the CR have been inverted to the detriment of the GOP's strategy. But, as these are coming from wingers on both sides, I'm uncertain as to the veracity of those complaints.
I am not certain this was a coup or a fish up which is why I was soliciting opinions on the matter. Certainly as a Dem I'm pretty chuffed at the outcome. Three more months of budget policy cribbed from the last Dem trifecta is aces in my books.
As far as I've been able to tell the Dems got generally what they want. More than they asked for in a round about way. I'm certainly not complaining. Johnson might even get some Dem support if the wingers try and bounce him- who knows?
That tracks with my own priors which is why I'm interrogating them. My problem is I haven't been able to find confirmation that the base story; the GOP transposed the split CR and basically fished themselves; outside of Maga or left partisan sources.
I have read in several sources that something went wrong with the GOP's staffers and they got their priorities reversed on the deal. To wit, the DoD, border security, Agricultural pork etc ended up expiring sooner than the rest of the priorities and this represents a huge fish up because that puts the advantage squarely in the Dems court.
I'm very puzzled how it happened and if it's a huge self own. Inexperience? Ineptitude? Did Jeffries pull some sly switcheroo? Of is this just spin?
Let’s try a metaphor, Lee. You are Israel within its’ generally non-controversial borders (to the wider world) and the territories with their Palestinian residents are a ticking radioactive bomb which you have, yourself, attached to your chest. You initially did this for relatively reasons- at the time you acquired this bomb you were smaller and weaker and you didn’t want your enemies to have this bomb -so you kept it. It is, however, a bomb and it is ticking and radiating.
Your right arm, Lee, is the Israeli right (especially the settler right) and for the past few decades your right arm has been busily duct taping this bomb to you. It wraps more and more tape around that bomb and around you and you’re taped pretty solidly to this bomb. I remind you, again, that it is a bomb and it is ticking and you notice your skin is getting a really funky rash from all that radiation.
I, in this metaphor, represent Israel’s well-meaning friends abroad and I say to you: “Lee, buddy, you have a bomb taped to your chest and it is ticking. You have grown since you acquired this bomb and your foes have become feeble and weak. If your foes had this bomb, it’d be their problem and, while they could potentially in a worst-case scenario use it to cause you woe, they couldn’t kill you with it. If you keep it strapped to your chest, though, it will eventually explode and when it explodes it will either kill you or maim you into something unrecognizable. Also, I’m pretty sure the radiation from that bomb is not good for your health- you’re pale and you’ve been showing some increasing symptoms of illiberal derangement. For your own good, Lee, you need to strip that duct tape off and remove the bomb from your chest.”
To this, Lee, you respond “But this bomb is duct taped to me and removing all this duct tape would be a LOT of work and it’d be painful. Have you ever peeled duct tape off your skin? It hurts, it tears hairs out and then I’d have this big bundle of tape I’d have to find a place for on my person. I’m willing to remove the bomb, sure, but only if my enemies give me something in exchange for the trouble of removing it. A peace deal, recognition, security guarantees, just a bunch of words really. They’re weak so giving me these things would not be hard for them to do and until they do it, I’m not removing the bomb.” Meanwhile your right arm just keeps on wrapping that duct tape around you and the bomb, year after year, and, I would like to emphasize, the bomb is still ticking.
Now I understand your reasoning. Undoing all this taping and entangling would be one heck of a big pain but my sympathy is necessarily limited because this taping and entangling is something you, Lee, have done to yourself. It is something you are continuing to do, even as I talk to you. Your right arm is taping and taping away and the bomb, it’s ticking and glowing in a very unhealthy manner.
I reply: “Lee, my friend, I know you’d prefer to get something to make it easier to justify going to the trouble of unsticking this bomb from yourself but I don’t think you’re thinking this through. Your enemies are weak and they hate you. Your enemies don’t want to give you these little things you want and your enemies wish you ill. They can see that removing the bomb from your body would be good for you and they would very much like to see you explode. So no, Lee, it is irrational to expect that your enemies will pay you to remove the bomb from your chest. You should remove the bomb now. It is ticking and radiating and it’s bad for you. Removing the bomb would give you the boon of not having a bomb strapped to your chest and that is its own reward. For goodness’ sakes at least stop adding more tape!”
To this you retort: “But look at Dave! Dave says I should remove this bomb and also cut my whole body up into small bits and then mail them to all my friends to live there. That’d kill me. Why are you agreeing with Dave?!?” I look over at Dave who, in our metaphor, represents the anti-Israeli activist left.
So, I answer “Dave is a friend and I certainly consider his opinions but I disagree with him about dismembering yourself. You exist and dismembering you and mailing your parts to everyone else’s houses is an irrational thing to demand. Removing the bomb from your chest, on the other hand- while a lot of trouble, would be good for you. And if you remove this bomb from your chest then you’ll no longer be a person walking around with a bomb strapped to your chest. People will be a lot less inclined to listen to Dave’s more wild demands if you remove that bomb from your chest.
But you, Lee, keep alternating between demanding that your enemies pay you to save yourself and pointing at Dave and obsessing about his larger demands. Every time I, or anyone, brings up the subject of the bomb or the tape you just keep going back to those two points. Meanwhile there’re really nasty colored veins growing over your torso from where that bomb is strapped to your chest. Your right arm is getting really beefy from all that taping it’s been doing. What is worst, all the young new people who meet you go “Look at that guy, he’s taping a bomb to his chest, he must be a crazy psycho.” I try and tell them that you’re a good person at heart but a glowing radioactive bomb makes a pretty strong first impression so you’re getting sicker and more right arm heavy with every passing day and most everyone new who meets you is viewing you in a negative light because you’re a radiation poisoned dude with a huge right arm and a bomb on your chest.
And that bomb hasn’t even blown up yet. It’s there under layers and layers of duct tape. I’m beginning to worry about where the duct tape ends and you begin but even still I can hear it beneath the layers. Tick… tick… tick…
Like I said, half a point. But constantly changing the subject to the Activist lefts nonsensical ideas about Israel proper does Israel no favors because the actual atrocious things Israel is doing in the West Bank are real, are getting worse and are poisoning the whole project. Oslo imploded decades ago now, the Israelis in general have to come up with a new plan or else the Israeli rights "Turn Israel into Tehran on the Levant" plan will win by default.
Perhaps we are, lord (lady?) knows I don't cary much of a torch for the activist left but when it comes to the modern Israel, at least vis a vis the territories, the Activist left has at least half a concrete point.
Err... Lee.. in case you missed it, Jews in Israel aren't playing the roll of African American slaves in America or First nations people; they're in the role of the other side. They have the power, they have the agency, they have control. What is more, for coming up on a decade now the Israeli's have been going hard core Likud and right wing. No one under 50 has any personal knowledge of the Jewish state being in any form of material peril.
Like it or not the Israelis are in the domineering role, very similar to how the Europeans/Americans were in North America in the 1800's. But 1800 era behavior isn't going to fly in the 2000's, it's just not. And none of that, none what so ever, has anything to do with the fact that the Israeli's are Jewish.
Indeed, the idea that Israel needs to occupy the West Bank for security reasons has always been pretty laughable but has gotten even more feeble as the years have ground on.
But, of course, that's a delusional cope and doesn't reflect reality, quite the reverse actually- the settlements in the West Bank are why the IDF wasn't watching Gaza more closely.
But that is all irrelevant Lee. We're talking about young people forming their opinions on Israel right now, young people who are overwhelmingly not Jewish and not living in Israel. They don't have the Israeli's... rarified... sensibilities about threats. Also, thanks to Bibi and the right Israeli's can no longer claim settlements in the West Bank are some fringe lunatic activity; they’re not- they’re the official policy of the Israeli government for several cycles now. Israel isn’t the scrappy underdog in the Middle East anymore and it hasn’t been for quite some time. Many of the old arguments for Israel are losing salience or have become completely inverted and, I say this as a long standing supporter of Israel, it’s hard to see anyone to blame but the Israelis themselves.
I mean, possibly, sure the IDF might have gotten complacent but considering that Israel has been suffering under a progressive series of administrations that have grown worse and worse as time has pressed on to their current level of absolutely deranged fanaticism and incompetence I suspect the more likely culprit is misadministration.
As for the West Bank? Who the fish knows. I have no bloody idea. I suppose it depends on what the scholeric Palestinian Authority views as in their interests.
It is probably a major factor that for most boomers and some Xers Israel was a small embattled nation refuge for Jewish refugees of the holocaust that was under genuine threat of genocidal destruction by its neighbors. For most of the later generations lives Israel has been a fearsome Middle Eastern regional power under zero threat of genocide from anyone that routinely and continuously grinds its bootheel on the Palestinians it controls the territory of while performing a slow motion ethnic cleansing action in the West Bank.
They're two very different things to have as a basis for forming your opinion of Israel when you're young.
Well it bears noting that what made Gaza so disastrous for the Israeli's was not necessarily what Hamas did; attacking; but what Israel did under Bibi ; divert attention, institutional capacity and troops from the Gazan border to defending West Bank territory grabs.
Had the Israeli's not had their pants down then Hamas would have caused enormously fewer casualties and most of them would have been military.
Trying to blur opposition to the colonization of the territories; which is current, unambiguous, indefensible and ongoing; with the opposition to the existence of Israel itself; which is more morally ambiguous and is also a fait accompli; is both incorrect and also is a really really really bad idea if you have the long term interest of Israel at heart.
Sure, and the IRS apologized for it; but it wasn't the Obama administration's abuse of power and it wasn't directed from the executive office. None of the rights characterizations of it are accurate beyond the most sweeping generalities.
Based on what the DOJ and FBI said it doesn't look like they found any evidence of "enemy hunting" or "partisan targeting" of any kind after 2010 either. So the nothing burger remains a nothing burger.
Yeah it's a whole lot of stuff to review which is why I generally rely on the summaries. I have absolutely no doubt that if the GOP could have indicted, fired or crucified anyone in Obama's administration, even post hoc, over the matter they would have. They didn't.
Yes. What the IRS did wrong was select a bunch of political advocacy groups (both liberal and conservative) for additional scrutiny that they probably shouldn't have and they did it starting in 2004. So they stopped and they apologized for it.
What conservatives claim is that Obama directed the IRS to go specifically and explicitly after conservative groups once he got into office in 2009. He didn't do this- it is an invented and now discredited scandal.
On “Was the Government Shutdown Crisis Averted?”
Being half Canadian I stick strictly to the British definition which means pleased.
On “Settler Colonialism is Just History”
As an aside, I consider Def Leppard to be the greatest rock band in history.
As a further aside, I've noticed a lot of youngs wearing Def Leppard shirts these days but my excitement was utterly crushed when, on questioning, the youngs revealed that said shirts were simply "cool looking retro t's" from target.
On “Was the Government Shutdown Crisis Averted?”
I've seen some crowing in certain partisan left wing sources and some kvetching in certain partisan right wing sources that the GOP's intended sequence of expirations of the CR have been inverted to the detriment of the GOP's strategy. But, as these are coming from wingers on both sides, I'm uncertain as to the veracity of those complaints.
I am not certain this was a coup or a fish up which is why I was soliciting opinions on the matter. Certainly as a Dem I'm pretty chuffed at the outcome. Three more months of budget policy cribbed from the last Dem trifecta is aces in my books.
"
As far as I've been able to tell the Dems got generally what they want. More than they asked for in a round about way. I'm certainly not complaining. Johnson might even get some Dem support if the wingers try and bounce him- who knows?
On “Settler Colonialism is Just History”
Don't forget tribe.
On “Was the Government Shutdown Crisis Averted?”
That tracks with my own priors which is why I'm interrogating them. My problem is I haven't been able to find confirmation that the base story; the GOP transposed the split CR and basically fished themselves; outside of Maga or left partisan sources.
"
I have read in several sources that something went wrong with the GOP's staffers and they got their priorities reversed on the deal. To wit, the DoD, border security, Agricultural pork etc ended up expiring sooner than the rest of the priorities and this represents a huge fish up because that puts the advantage squarely in the Dems court.
I'm very puzzled how it happened and if it's a huge self own. Inexperience? Ineptitude? Did Jeffries pull some sly switcheroo? Of is this just spin?
On “What Are the Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Thinking?”
Let’s try a metaphor, Lee. You are Israel within its’ generally non-controversial borders (to the wider world) and the territories with their Palestinian residents are a ticking radioactive bomb which you have, yourself, attached to your chest. You initially did this for relatively reasons- at the time you acquired this bomb you were smaller and weaker and you didn’t want your enemies to have this bomb -so you kept it. It is, however, a bomb and it is ticking and radiating.
Your right arm, Lee, is the Israeli right (especially the settler right) and for the past few decades your right arm has been busily duct taping this bomb to you. It wraps more and more tape around that bomb and around you and you’re taped pretty solidly to this bomb. I remind you, again, that it is a bomb and it is ticking and you notice your skin is getting a really funky rash from all that radiation.
I, in this metaphor, represent Israel’s well-meaning friends abroad and I say to you: “Lee, buddy, you have a bomb taped to your chest and it is ticking. You have grown since you acquired this bomb and your foes have become feeble and weak. If your foes had this bomb, it’d be their problem and, while they could potentially in a worst-case scenario use it to cause you woe, they couldn’t kill you with it. If you keep it strapped to your chest, though, it will eventually explode and when it explodes it will either kill you or maim you into something unrecognizable. Also, I’m pretty sure the radiation from that bomb is not good for your health- you’re pale and you’ve been showing some increasing symptoms of illiberal derangement. For your own good, Lee, you need to strip that duct tape off and remove the bomb from your chest.”
To this, Lee, you respond “But this bomb is duct taped to me and removing all this duct tape would be a LOT of work and it’d be painful. Have you ever peeled duct tape off your skin? It hurts, it tears hairs out and then I’d have this big bundle of tape I’d have to find a place for on my person. I’m willing to remove the bomb, sure, but only if my enemies give me something in exchange for the trouble of removing it. A peace deal, recognition, security guarantees, just a bunch of words really. They’re weak so giving me these things would not be hard for them to do and until they do it, I’m not removing the bomb.” Meanwhile your right arm just keeps on wrapping that duct tape around you and the bomb, year after year, and, I would like to emphasize, the bomb is still ticking.
Now I understand your reasoning. Undoing all this taping and entangling would be one heck of a big pain but my sympathy is necessarily limited because this taping and entangling is something you, Lee, have done to yourself. It is something you are continuing to do, even as I talk to you. Your right arm is taping and taping away and the bomb, it’s ticking and glowing in a very unhealthy manner.
I reply: “Lee, my friend, I know you’d prefer to get something to make it easier to justify going to the trouble of unsticking this bomb from yourself but I don’t think you’re thinking this through. Your enemies are weak and they hate you. Your enemies don’t want to give you these little things you want and your enemies wish you ill. They can see that removing the bomb from your body would be good for you and they would very much like to see you explode. So no, Lee, it is irrational to expect that your enemies will pay you to remove the bomb from your chest. You should remove the bomb now. It is ticking and radiating and it’s bad for you. Removing the bomb would give you the boon of not having a bomb strapped to your chest and that is its own reward. For goodness’ sakes at least stop adding more tape!”
To this you retort: “But look at Dave! Dave says I should remove this bomb and also cut my whole body up into small bits and then mail them to all my friends to live there. That’d kill me. Why are you agreeing with Dave?!?” I look over at Dave who, in our metaphor, represents the anti-Israeli activist left.
So, I answer “Dave is a friend and I certainly consider his opinions but I disagree with him about dismembering yourself. You exist and dismembering you and mailing your parts to everyone else’s houses is an irrational thing to demand. Removing the bomb from your chest, on the other hand- while a lot of trouble, would be good for you. And if you remove this bomb from your chest then you’ll no longer be a person walking around with a bomb strapped to your chest. People will be a lot less inclined to listen to Dave’s more wild demands if you remove that bomb from your chest.
But you, Lee, keep alternating between demanding that your enemies pay you to save yourself and pointing at Dave and obsessing about his larger demands. Every time I, or anyone, brings up the subject of the bomb or the tape you just keep going back to those two points. Meanwhile there’re really nasty colored veins growing over your torso from where that bomb is strapped to your chest. Your right arm is getting really beefy from all that taping it’s been doing. What is worst, all the young new people who meet you go “Look at that guy, he’s taping a bomb to his chest, he must be a crazy psycho.” I try and tell them that you’re a good person at heart but a glowing radioactive bomb makes a pretty strong first impression so you’re getting sicker and more right arm heavy with every passing day and most everyone new who meets you is viewing you in a negative light because you’re a radiation poisoned dude with a huge right arm and a bomb on your chest.
And that bomb hasn’t even blown up yet. It’s there under layers and layers of duct tape. I’m beginning to worry about where the duct tape ends and you begin but even still I can hear it beneath the layers. Tick… tick… tick…
"
Like I said, half a point. But constantly changing the subject to the Activist lefts nonsensical ideas about Israel proper does Israel no favors because the actual atrocious things Israel is doing in the West Bank are real, are getting worse and are poisoning the whole project. Oslo imploded decades ago now, the Israelis in general have to come up with a new plan or else the Israeli rights "Turn Israel into Tehran on the Levant" plan will win by default.
"
Perhaps we are, lord (lady?) knows I don't cary much of a torch for the activist left but when it comes to the modern Israel, at least vis a vis the territories, the Activist left has at least half a concrete point.
"
Err... Lee.. in case you missed it, Jews in Israel aren't playing the roll of African American slaves in America or First nations people; they're in the role of the other side. They have the power, they have the agency, they have control. What is more, for coming up on a decade now the Israeli's have been going hard core Likud and right wing. No one under 50 has any personal knowledge of the Jewish state being in any form of material peril.
Like it or not the Israelis are in the domineering role, very similar to how the Europeans/Americans were in North America in the 1800's. But 1800 era behavior isn't going to fly in the 2000's, it's just not. And none of that, none what so ever, has anything to do with the fact that the Israeli's are Jewish.
"
Indeed, the idea that Israel needs to occupy the West Bank for security reasons has always been pretty laughable but has gotten even more feeble as the years have ground on.
"
But, of course, that's a delusional cope and doesn't reflect reality, quite the reverse actually- the settlements in the West Bank are why the IDF wasn't watching Gaza more closely.
"
But that is all irrelevant Lee. We're talking about young people forming their opinions on Israel right now, young people who are overwhelmingly not Jewish and not living in Israel. They don't have the Israeli's... rarified... sensibilities about threats. Also, thanks to Bibi and the right Israeli's can no longer claim settlements in the West Bank are some fringe lunatic activity; they’re not- they’re the official policy of the Israeli government for several cycles now. Israel isn’t the scrappy underdog in the Middle East anymore and it hasn’t been for quite some time. Many of the old arguments for Israel are losing salience or have become completely inverted and, I say this as a long standing supporter of Israel, it’s hard to see anyone to blame but the Israelis themselves.
"
I mean, possibly, sure the IDF might have gotten complacent but considering that Israel has been suffering under a progressive series of administrations that have grown worse and worse as time has pressed on to their current level of absolutely deranged fanaticism and incompetence I suspect the more likely culprit is misadministration.
As for the West Bank? Who the fish knows. I have no bloody idea. I suppose it depends on what the scholeric Palestinian Authority views as in their interests.
"
It is probably a major factor that for most boomers and some Xers Israel was a small embattled nation refuge for Jewish refugees of the holocaust that was under genuine threat of genocidal destruction by its neighbors. For most of the later generations lives Israel has been a fearsome Middle Eastern regional power under zero threat of genocide from anyone that routinely and continuously grinds its bootheel on the Palestinians it controls the territory of while performing a slow motion ethnic cleansing action in the West Bank.
They're two very different things to have as a basis for forming your opinion of Israel when you're young.
"
Well it bears noting that what made Gaza so disastrous for the Israeli's was not necessarily what Hamas did; attacking; but what Israel did under Bibi ; divert attention, institutional capacity and troops from the Gazan border to defending West Bank territory grabs.
Had the Israeli's not had their pants down then Hamas would have caused enormously fewer casualties and most of them would have been military.
"
Trying to blur opposition to the colonization of the territories; which is current, unambiguous, indefensible and ongoing; with the opposition to the existence of Israel itself; which is more morally ambiguous and is also a fait accompli; is both incorrect and also is a really really really bad idea if you have the long term interest of Israel at heart.
On “My 2024 Voting Strategy (November 2023 edition)”
Sure, and the IRS apologized for it; but it wasn't the Obama administration's abuse of power and it wasn't directed from the executive office. None of the rights characterizations of it are accurate beyond the most sweeping generalities.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/13/2023”
I'll hate that less but when it happens I'll still be grumbling about how the Queen was the best.
"
I hate it. Getting old sucks.
On “My 2024 Voting Strategy (November 2023 edition)”
Based on what the DOJ and FBI said it doesn't look like they found any evidence of "enemy hunting" or "partisan targeting" of any kind after 2010 either. So the nothing burger remains a nothing burger.
"
Yeah it's a whole lot of stuff to review which is why I generally rely on the summaries. I have absolutely no doubt that if the GOP could have indicted, fired or crucified anyone in Obama's administration, even post hoc, over the matter they would have. They didn't.
"
I appreciate you clarifying your thoughts on it Jaybird, thank you.
"
Yes. What the IRS did wrong was select a bunch of political advocacy groups (both liberal and conservative) for additional scrutiny that they probably shouldn't have and they did it starting in 2004. So they stopped and they apologized for it.
What conservatives claim is that Obama directed the IRS to go specifically and explicitly after conservative groups once he got into office in 2009. He didn't do this- it is an invented and now discredited scandal.