October 31, 2023

UAW victory solidified by the first sitting U.S. president to join a union picket line

...their picket line:

United Auto Workers reached a tentative labor agreement with General Motors Monday, multiple outlets reported, ending the six week-long strike by all three of the Big Three Automakers.

...solidarity.

October 30, 2023

The Winning Team

Doug Mills @dougmillsnyt
@POTUS walks with @VP out of the East Room following an event on the Administration’s commitment to advancing the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of Artificial Intelligence.


twitter.com/dougmillsnyt/status/1719075784470470696

October 29, 2023

'If U.S. is going to pay for a big portion of Israel's Gaza war cost, then of course we should care about the war plan.'

...a colloquy:

John Hudson @John_Hudson (diplomacy & national security for @WashingtonPost)

SCOOP: The Biden administration is urging Israel against a full-scale ground invasion and instead to opt for a “surgical” campaign that relies on airstrikes and special forces raids, per 5 U.S. officials.

U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that a ground invasion could derail negotiations to free nearly 200 hostages, result in numerous casualties among Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers, and trigger a wider war in the Middle East

U.S. officials believe that a targeted operation would be more conducive to hostage negotiations, less likely to interrupt humanitarian aid deliveries, less deadly for people on both sides, and less likely to draw in Iran or Hezbollah, the officials said.

Despite their private warnings, U.S. officials do not have great confidence that Israel will reverse its intent to wage a large-scale ground offensive

Although the United States has considerable leverage over Israel as its largest military, political and economic backer, U.S. officials have not threatened to pull support or impose any consequences for going its own way.

thread: twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1717972726839689603

Chris Murphy 🟧 @ChrisMurphyCT (U.S. Senator from Connecticut.)

We should support Israel’s right to defend itself. Hamas must be held accountable.

But if America is going to pay for a big portion of the war’s cost, then of course we should care about the war plan. It would not be good to fund a plan that doesn’t work.

My educated guess is Hamas welcomes a drawn out, large scale ground invasion. There are tens of thousands of young men in Gaza, currently wanting nothing to do w Hamas. But what side will they choose, if faced with a long term fight on their territory?

It feels pretty likely that a long, open ended Israeli operation - like our disastrous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan - that cuts off fuel and water and internet and results in widespread civilian harm will create as many Hamas militants as it eliminates.

Is that good for Israel? It doesn’t seem so. Especially because there also doesn’t seem to be any concept of what will replace Hamas politically. Remember, Hamas isn’t just a terror group; it’s the Gaza government. If there’s no stable replacement, it’s perpetual crisis.

I share Israel’s desperate need to eliminate Hamas. I want them destroyed. But if there is no realistic path to do that, then other options - like those discussed with the Israelis by the U.S. - should be on the table.

thread: twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1718276142350618896

October 25, 2023

Some are criticizing giving immunity to Mark Meadows

...but it's likely the immunity is limited, and most importantly, less about his personal jeopardy, and more about compelling his testimony.

A grant of immunity would keep him from withholding testimony and other information to investigators by claiming under the 5th that it might incriminate him.


Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance
Caution: there is a big difference between a defendant who flips/cooperates & one who testifies because they're essentially forced to by a grant of immunity. Meadows sounds like the later.

October 25, 2023

Republicans will only vote for an election-denier for speaker

...they've whittled their field down to an actual certification day instigator of the insurrection.

Jake Sherman @JakeSherman 1m
We have a new speaker designate.

MIKE JOHNSON has 128 votes and is the second GOP nominee of the day.

Rep Mike Johnson voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and signed a brief supporting Texas’s lawsuit seeking to throw out the election results in key states. The day after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election, Johnson said he called Donald Trump and told him: “‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’” On the morning of January 6, Johnson tweeted that “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic!” Johnson has continued to attack Democrats for focusing on investigating the January 6 attack and referred to it as the “third impeachment” of Donald Trump.

https://congressionalintegrity.org/statement-every-house-gop-speaker-candidate-is-an-election-denier/

...the maga caucus (and their maga master) will keep tanking these nominees until the rest of republicans agree to Jordan, or one of the maga loyalists. Anyone who goes outside of the party and reaches out to Democrats will be dragged hard before their rabid base.

Those are their only choices, even if they look outside of the House for a candidate. They have to knuckle under to the active insurrectionists in their party directly aligned with the Criminal Defendant, or break away and coalese with the House Democrats - IF they'll have them.

Right now, they don't look to be able to move the majority of their members either direction.

October 24, 2023

What majority of House GOP says is disqualifying for speaker is a prerequisite for Democrats

...Tom Emmer couldn't get a majority of republicans to vote for him because they believe he's not extreme enough in voting to certify the votes in the presidential election; one of only two who voted to certify even in the running, so far.

Election denial, however, is a non-starter for Democrats. I'd guess that's not the only non-starter for most of the party, as well, so there won't be any big move to have a handful of our party vote 'present' in support of any of an increasingly, decidedly rabid republican field of prospective nominees.

MAGA extremist politics is as unworkable in the House as it's proven unpopular in the country as a whole. But republicans in Congress have never cared much about what most Americans want out of their elected representatives.

The most glaring obstacle for republicans electing a speaker is their inability to acknowledge or validate anything outside of their own party politics prevents them from making the most sensible move forward.

They refuse to reach out to Democrats in any way, except to rebuff them. It's their party...

October 23, 2023

Kudos to news orgs and others pinning down the source of the explosion outside the Gaza hospital

...and presenting evidence that it was a failed Hamas missile that struck the parking lot outside the hospital.

What I'm wondering is why we haven't seen the same effort by news orgs and others with reasonably impartial leanings to identify the sources of the other bombs dropped on civilian areas in Gaza.

I'm not one who conflates Palestinians in Gaza with Hamas, or believes it's soley their responsibility to get out of the way of Israel's defensive assault on the city.

It's a wonder to me how so much reporting has been done on this one explosion, and virtually nothing reported by major news orgs on Palestinian casualties - at least nothing as comprehensive as the analysis of this one, apparently errant bombing.

It's not as if we can't see the deliberate explosions in Gaza coming from Israel. Is this omission because it's assumed the civilians are somehow complicit?

Or is it a timidity that they'll be attacked as pro-Hamas for even suggesting the civilians in the way of Israel's reprisals have a right to live, or too afraid of U.S. public backlash to portray Palestinians with the same sympathizing manner as they have Israel's citizenry?

I'd think that the evidence that Hamas had callously lobbed a bomb at Israel that hit the parking lot of the hospital in Gaza would generate some sympathy for the Palestinians killed, but all of the focus is on making certain Israel isn't blamed.

That's worthwhile, in an effort to slow the inflaming of the wider Arab community in response. But there looks to be a serious disconnect between the focus on this one errant missile, and the deliberate bombing campaign going on right now by Israel into Gaza which is also killing Palestinians.

Most all of the focus on that explosion outside of the Gaza hospital is on blame, not on those reported killed. If the concern was for the Palestinians killed, there should be a similar concern for the rest of the civilian deaths in Gaza.

If Hamas is to be assigned responsibility for deaths, there also needs to be more than just an assumption that civilians caught in the way of Israel's missiles (many U.S. supplied missiles) are mere casualties of war.

The dearth of coverage of their plight underneath of the Israeli defensive assault on Gaza is a tacit acknowledgement that the media has adopted the Israeli attitude that these deaths are merely collateral consequences of Hamas' original attacks.



I don't now, maybe the tide of coverage will turn...

TODAY @TODAYshow 2hrs ago
@NBCNews’ team in Gaza say last night saw the most intense Israeli airstrikes since Israel began its bombing after Hamas took hostages and killed Israelis. Medical officials in Gaza say it was the deadliest night with hundreds of Palestinians killed. @richardengel reports.

https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/1716416983124549697

October 20, 2023

I used to watch Joe Biden speaking on the Senate floor, pacing into the aisle

...he had a seat where he could wander back and forth a bit as the camera followed him.



I used to watch for hours, mesmerized by his lectures on foreign policy; probably only one of a few C-Span viewers looking in most of the time.

This was the Joe Biden I remember, speaking tonight - able to explain our nation's foreign policy commitments and needs in ways that bridged differences between parties and helped advance important initiatives with bipartisan responses.

He brought old-school rationality and understanding to a difficult subject for many Americans to reconcile between the people and groups in conflict with each other, and spelled out the challenges Americans face going forward as Israel responds to the violence sparked by Hamas militants' attacks.

watch:

October 18, 2023

We should be careful not to conflate Hamas' militarism with the Palestinians

...it wasn't just 'Hamas' who initially supposed the deadly explosion outside the hospital in Gaza was from Israel.

Many people on the ground, including reporters, had questioned whether Hamas had the capibility and firepower for such a devastating blast. The resulting ripple of accusations from the wider Arab community was actually an echo of a generational struggle between Israel and that mostly Muslim population. It shouldn't be viewed in isolation of these current events.

The media isn't a stranger to that back and forth fight, either, and most all of the reporters made certain to hedge their descriptions of what happened to say that there would be an investigation to determine the actual cause. That's an understandable consequence of the fog of violent conflicts.

The accusations against Israel following the explosion happened (and will likely persist among people who are not Hamas) because Gaza residents and others aren't strangers to Israeli bombs falling on their hospitals and their civilians.

The accusations and recriminations against Gaza residents and others will persist because of the violence suffered by Israelis at the hands of Arab militants.

What I think is a danger here, is that the latest attacks become shorthand for whatever incident occurred, and both Israelis and Palestinians are going to view each other through the lens of that violence that's perpetrated or is incidental against them and cast blame.

This back and forth doesn't end with this incident, because there will be countless more bombings which each side will represent as a defense against the other.

One of the most important things to stress for those of us looking on from the outside (here in the U.S. and elsewhere) is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians in Gaza or anywhere else aren't the ones committing violence.

There isn't a militant or combatant force in Gaza that has anywhere near the coordination and support that the Israel military has right now, all arrayed against and surrounding the Gaza strip on land and sea, and none of that militarism directed at Israel has been approved by Palestinians in anything resembling the Knesset and their unified decision to wage war against Hamas.

There isn't any Palestinian parliament or council to direct or restrain Hamas. Non-combatant Palestinian civilians are experiencing violence and other assaults on their lives and living conditions, and it doesn't make a material difference in any of that in who they chose to blame. They don't control the factions which are fighting. They're just victims of it all.

The U.S. posture toward Gaza residents and inhabitants can't be the same as Israel's. That American attitude can't be the same as it was when our own military was dropping bombs on sovereign citizens across borders in Iraq and Afghanistan in a fight against a terrorist group that had mostly fled and was in hiding.

It shouldn't be the same posture most Americans assumed against the Muslim world when our own country was attacked. Or even the same attitude most Americans took toward those violently resisting our military occupations and killing our soldiers deployed there.

Most of the coordinated and supported military attacks by Israel are directed against the land Palestinians inhabit to the tune of 2 million. There is no Palestinian army stood up against an Israel mobilized to war, only refugees trying to get out of the way of the falling missiles.

Gaza residents are not going to be understanding about any of the latest violence stemming out of the original attacks Hamas directed against Israel. But why should it matter who they blame? This wasn't the first Gaza hospital to suffer the mayhem and destruction of the continuing war between the combatants.

October 14, 2023

I need these animated space bots commenting on current events to always be here, for everything

...if you're not already watching Ben Meiselas' youtube posts on his 'Meidas Touch Network, you're missing the most comprehensive news analysis available on the internet.

Today Ben introduced us (me) in his latest post to a youtube phenom effort called 'Alien Super Show,' which is basically a couple animated space characters commenting on political events and political figures with hilarious slams on republicans in the news.

If you're interested you can laugh along with Ben here...

...or just hop onto the Alien Super Show post for some unaduterated fun.