News bits: The pro-corruption radical right; The Christian war on truth; The Christian war on unapproved sex

The WaPo writes about how the corrupt radical authoritarian Republicans that control the House are going to gut law enforcement against corruption. This should come as no surprise. Radical right billionaires (brass knuckles capitalists) hate paying any taxes, which they consider to be theft:

House Republicans on Monday unveiled a proposal to pay for emergency aid for Israel’s war against Hamas by cutting IRS funds aimed at cracking down on rich tax cheats and improving taxpayer service.

The legislation, released by the House Rules Committee, calls for approving roughly $14 billion primarily in military aid to Israel and cutting about the same amount from the IRS budget. President Biden has proposed giving Israel roughly the same amount in aid but did not call for offsetting cuts to other parts of the budget.  

The legislation reflects the GOP’s ongoing determination to undo the IRS expansion that Biden secured in 2022 in the Inflation Reduction Act, which boosted the agency’s funding by $80 billion to improve taxpayer services and pay for more enforcement actions against wealthy tax cheats. Biden and House Republicans agreed to repeal roughly $20 billion of that $80 billion as part of a deal in May to suspend the U.S. debt ceiling. Now, Republicans are pushing for more reductions.  

The GOP bill would pare back funds for most parts of the IRS expansion, including increased enforcement and a new online portal to allow taxpayers to file their taxes for free directly with the government.

The radical right GOP is not on the side of taxpayers. Period.

As far as corruption goes, it helps to recall that the tax gap, the amount of taxes that are owed but not paid is running at about $700/billion year according to a recent IRS estimate. A 2021 IRS estimate put the tax gap at about $1 trillion/year. My current estimate based on historical analyses is that it's running at about $1.2 trillion/year. In response to that massive annual festival of tax cheating, the authoritarian radical right Republican Party wants to cut funding for tax law enforcement. Apparently, corrupt Republicans want to make the annual tax cheat festival even bigger.

America is in a lose-lose situation as long as the authoritarian radical right Republican Party has power. 

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The Hill reports an example of a family that has been torn apart by the authoritarian radical right's successful war on inconvenient fact, truth and sound reasoning:

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said he was disowned by his family after he left Congress and “lost the trust” of Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“So, I had family that sent a certified letter disowning me,” Kinzinger said in a CNN interview Monday. “They said I’ve lost the trust of great men like Sean Hannity, which is funny, but they believe that. They said I was a member of the devil’s army.”

Those disowning family members sincerely believe that a radical right chronic liar like Hannity is a great man. There are millions more like them in America. PolitiFact comments: 

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The HuffPo writes about that website that Mike Johnson's Christian wife took down to try to hide after the Christian Mike got to be House speaker:

Mike Johnson’s Wife Takes Down Website That 

Compared Being Gay To Bestiality, Incest

HuffPost first reported on Kelly Johnson's counseling service that likens LGBTQ+ people to people who have sex with animals and family members

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s wife took down the website for her company, Onward Christian Counseling Services, a day after HuffPost pointed to documents on the site that compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest.

HuffPost reported Friday that Kelly Johnson, the wife of the Louisiana Republican and newly elected speaker, is owner and CEO of Onward Christian Counseling Services, which promotes Bible-based pastoral counseling. Her website featured a link to its 2017 operating agreement, which lays out the company’s corporate bylaws ― and states that the business is grounded in the belief that sex is offensive to God if it is not between a man and a woman married to each other.

Those Christians are mighty feisty about how other people engage in improper sex. And they are cowards about their real beliefs and intentions. If God says that that sex is offensive to God if it is not between a man and a woman married to each other, then why not proclaim it, instead of trying to hide it and lying about it by not being honest? Christian nationalism, morally rotted, morally coward, corrupt, anti-democracy, pro-Christian Sharia and pro-Christian, wealthy, White bigoted male Taliban. 

MSNBC writes about Christian Mike the Radical Zealot:

Johnson is a Trump-loving, election-denying, abortion ban-supporting, gay rights-opposing, climate change-rejecting, and conspiracy-believing conservative. If House Democrats are smart, they will turn Mike Johnson into a household name — though not in a good way.  

But in selecting Johnson, Republicans made one small error — they failed to vet him.

If they had, they’d have discovered that he was Democrats’ dream speaker candidate. On practically every issue on which House Republicans will be vulnerable in 2024, Johnson takes an extreme, maximalist position. For any GOP candidates in a close race, and especially the 18 House Republicans running in congressional districts President Biden won in 2020, he will be a political albatross.

We'll see about how Christian Mike plays out. Maybe he will hurt radical authoritarian Republicans in the 2024 elections. Maybe he won't. Maybe Democrats’ dream speaker will turn out to be their horror speaker.

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The New Republic writes about moral coward MAGA Mike's view of democracy:

MAGA Mike Johnson Once Warned About Dangers 

of Living Under Democracy

Republicans’ new House speaker tried to warn people about why democracy isn’t actually good

House Speaker Mike Johnson turned heads on Monday when a website hosting his podcast and church sermons suddenly vanished. Still, Johnson hasn’t been able to completely scrub his prior social media presence, with some evidence of his lectures still floating around online, including a three-hour sermon organized by his wife’s ministry that blasts the newly elected’s Christian fundamentalism.

The contents of his evangelical musings—which he apparently wants to hide—offer revealing details about the little-known congressman, including that he doesn’t really believe in democracy.

“By the way, the United States is not a democracy. Do you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. You don’t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing,” Johnson said at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in 2019.

Johnson has also attacked the idea of social services, claiming that the only entity entitled to provide care is the church, not the government.

Johnson is right to say that majority rule is not always a good thing. By keeping silent about it, he lies about the facts that (i) minority rule also is not always a good thing, and (ii) his vision of minority rule is cruel, bigoted, corrupt, authoritarian and radical Christian theocratic-plutocratic.

What's TOO SMALL?

 

Trademark law and First Amendment clash in Supreme Court review of ‘Trump too small’ T-shirts

A trademark fight at the Supreme Court will dredge up a viral moment during the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

WASHINGTON (CN) — A lawyer wants the Supreme Court to allow him to profit from making fun of former President Donald Trump. 

This coming week, Steve Elster’s fight to trademark “Trump too small” on T-shirts will be argued in front of the nine justices — three of which were nominated to the high court by the very man Elster seeks to gibe. 

The joke traces its origins to the 2016 U.S. presidential primaries, when the size of Trump’s hands turned into a national joke. Senator Marco Rubio was seemingly unimpressed with Trump’s characterization of him as “Little Marco,” throwing out his own insult. 

“You know what they say about men with small hands,” Rubio quipped during a campaign stop. 

Trump took the liberty of clearing the issue up at the next presidential debate. 

“I guarantee you there’s no problem,” Trump said while showing his hands to the audience. 

The viral moment inspired Elster to create shirts and hats emblazoned with “Trump too small.” Alongside the double entendre, Elster planned to include an illustration of a derogatory hand gesture as political commentary about “the smallness of Donald Trump’s overall approach to governing as president of the United States.”

Although those involved in the matter might appreciate the Supreme Court’s seal of approval over who bested the other, the justices are unlikely to comment on the debacle. 

“Despite outward appearances, this case is really not about Trump or the size of his policies or (body parts),” Fara Sunderji, a trademark attorney with Dorsey & Whitney, said. 

Instead, the justices’ arguments on Wednesday will cover the intersection between trademark law, the First Amendment, and rights to privacy. 

Elster wanted to trademark his idea and although it was unique, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied his request. The government cited a section of trademark law that prohibits marks on public officials' names without their consent. According to the government, this is a way to avoid confusing customers who might think the shirt was connected to Trump himself. 

Although Elster argued the message on the shirt should be enough to tell customers Trump had no hand in making the product, the appeals board still denied Elster’s mark because it needed to protect Trump’s rights to privacy and publicity. 

The federal circuit did not see eye to eye with that reasoning, reversing and finding that Elster’s free speech rights had been violated. 

The government appealed to the Supreme Court, asking if the First Amendment is violated when the patent office refuses to offer trademarks that contain criticism of a government official. According to the government, the patent office uses a viewpoint-neutral condition when offering trademarks. 

“As a viewpoint-neutral bar on federal trademark registration, Section 1052(c) is a condition on a government benefit, not a restriction on speech,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote. “Refusal of registration under Section 1052(c) does not limit the rights of trademark owners to use their marks in commerce or to engage in whatever speech they wish. The only effect of the refusal is to deny an owner the benefits — i.e.,  additional mechanisms to prevent use of the same mark by competitors — that federal registration provides.” 

Elster says Congress’ desire to protect important people’s names has allowed them to avoid criticism. 

“So, under the clause, JOE 2020 has been registered, but not ‘No Joe in 2024,’” Jonathan Taylor, an attorney with Gupta Wessler representing Elster, wrote. “HILLARY FOR AMERICA has also been registered. But not ‘Hillary for Prison 2016.’ And BIDEN PRESIDENT is registered, while ‘Impeach 46’ was denied.” 

Both sides of the aisle argue siding with the other stifles speech. The government says allowing these kinds of trademarks will chill speech by giving one person a monopoly over the criticism

“​​The anomalous effect of the court of appeals’ decision is to vest respondent with a First Amendment right to prevent others from speaking and to obtain the government’s assistance in that endeavor, notwithstanding Congress’s decision to exclude respondent’s own mark from eligibility for the benefits that federal registration confers,” Prelogar wrote. “And it is particularly strange to treat the political character of respondent’s message as a factor supporting that result.” 

Elster argues that not receiving a trademark because of the content of his speech is itself an effort to chill speech. 

“Because no one would ever consent to the registration of speech that insults them, the clause effectively precludes the registration of all marks that disparage or criticize living people,” Wessler wrote. “That viewpoint-based effect only further reinforces the need for scrutiny.” 

The Motion Picture Association of America weighed in on the debate, urging the justices to avoid a broad ruling that could stifle its ability to create expressive works. 

“If people could wield the right of publicity as a veto against their depiction in expressive works, then filmmakers would be required to obtain the consent of every living person they portray on film, likely by paying them for the privilege,” Susan Kohlmann, an attorney with Jenner & Block representing the group, wrote. “Some individuals wouldn’t grant permission at any price, rendering certain works about real people impossible to make.” 

The justices will hear oral arguments in the case on Nov. 1. 

https://www.courthousenews.com/trademark-law-and-first-amendment-clash-in-supreme-courts-review-of-trump-too-small-t-shirts/

1. How will the Supremes rule?

2. How should the Supremes rule - in your humble opinion? 

"We Are Overpaying the Price for a Sin We Didn't Commit"-- a Moral perspective on the Israel-Gaza war

This article by Nicholas Kristof was published in the NYT on 10/28.  Whether one agrees with everything he says or not, Kristof encourages readers to look at the moral dimensions of unfolding events. He spent a week in Israel conducting interviews with victims of Hamas, politicians on all sides including former PM Ehud Barak,  Israeli Palestinians,  and he also cites a survey of Israeli public opinions from 10/18-19 which reveals some disturbing findings. On X (formerly Twitter), he posted videos of several of the very affecting interviews he conducted. The link to the public opinion survey of Israelis fr 10/18-19 is in the article below.

 

‘We Are Overpaying the Price for a Sin We Didn’t Commit’

Oct. 28, 2023

Gaza City.Credit...Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

 

By Nicholas Kristof

The most consequential decision Israel will face in the coming days is how hard to continue hitting Gaza. Should it undertake a monthslong ground invasion? Continue with large-scale aerial bombardment? Allow fuel into Gaza to keep hospitals running?

Over the last week that I’ve spent reporting in Israel and the West Bank, I’ve tried to listen and learn. So let me share why I believe we’ll someday look back at this moment and see a profound moral and policy failure.

But let me start with someone smart who has a different take.

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli general, defense minister and prime minister, knows more about the military challenges of taking on Gaza than almost anybody. In 2009 he oversaw a major ground offensive against Hamas. I dropped by his home in Tel Aviv, and we sat in his office, surrounded by his collection of framed cartoons mocking him — he has a thick skin — as he argued in favor of a ground invasion as the only way to crush Hamas.

“There is no way but to send many tens of thousands of boots on the ground,” he said, but he acknowledged that this will be a prolonged and bloody task. He estimated that there is a 50 percent chance that it will lead to a war with Hezbollah in the north, plus some risk of attacks from militias on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and of serious unrest on the West Bank.

Barak also warned that after a number of months when Israel might be ready to withdraw from Gaza, it could have trouble handing the territory over to someone else. But it’s conceivable, he said, that Israel could find a multilateral Arab force to take over Gaza and that this force could eventually transfer control of the territory to the Palestinian Authority. On balance, he thinks that it is possible for Israel to destroy most of Hamas’s capabilities, establish a no-go zone along the border and extricate itself.

For my part, I’m skeptical that either the invasion or the handover would go well, partly because I’ve observed so many military operations that started optimistically and ended as bloody quagmires. But Barak also made another important point: Israel will now finally end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of bolstering Hamas.

What? Israel supported Hamas?

Yes, under Netanyahu, Israel approved the transfer of over $1 billion to Gaza from Qatar — intended to cover expenses such as salaries and energy costs — but some funds reached Hamas’ military wing, Ha’aretz reported. (Qatar has denied that the money was misused.) Netanyahu’s aim, according to Barak and others, was to buttress Hamas so as to weaken the rival Palestinian Authority and undermine any possibility of a two-state solution. “Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu reportedly said in 2019.

That monetary lifeline to Hamas will now surely be cut, and that may hurt the organization as much as any number of bombs.

Israel has the right to defend itself and strike military targets in Gaza, and there should be strong international pressure on Hamas to release its hostages. My reporting in Gaza over the years convinces me that Gazans themselves would be much better off if Hamas could be removed: Some American liberals don’t appreciate how repressive, misogynistic, homophobic and economically incompetent Hamas is in Gaza, to say nothing of its long history of terror attacks on Israel. All this explains why many Gazans are fed up with Hamas.

“Hamas spends money building tunnels, not investing in people,” a Gaza woman told me. She was stuck in Jerusalem, where her young son was receiving cancer treatment at a Palestinian hospital.

The despair in Gaza, she said, is such that for years some young men have simply dreamed of becoming “martyrs” and winning honor by killing Israelis.

“In Gaza, there is no hope,” she said. “There is no life, there is nothing we have from living in Gaza. The only thing people can do is become a martyr.”

The woman, whom I’m not identifying for fear of retaliation by Hamas, says that she is against the killing of civilians on either side and that now she weeps each day as she follows the bombing of Gaza and wonders if her husband and other children there will survive. Her son with cancer was sitting a few feet away, watching videos on his mom’s phone, and I looked over to see what he was watching.

It was TikToks of his neighborhood being bombed.

He was glued to the screen as videos showed areas the size of multiple football fields near his home turned into rubble; satellite imagery shows other large areas pulverized as well. No one knows how many people are caught in the wreckage, but some Gazans told me they had heard cries from inside collapsed buildings. They lack proper equipment to rescue people, so eventually, the cries stop, and a stench rises.

Despite her own opposition to Hamas, the woman said that anger at the Israeli attacks will probably boost support for Hamas in the territory.

One well-educated young woman inside Gaza, Amal, told me over WhatsApp that the victims she knew of were mostly civilians, and she sounded full of despair.

“Constant bombardment has me feeling as if I am not human anymore, as if our souls mean nothing at all,” she told me. “We are being massacred.”

 

A 16-year-old girl in Gaza offered this message, conveyed through Save the Children: “It’s like we are overpaying the price for a sin we didn’t commit. We were always with peace and will always be.”

As Israel stands poised to escalate the war, there are two arguments to think through. The first is pragmatic: Can a siege and large-scale ground invasion succeed in erasing Hamas?

I’m skeptical, and when I hear backers of an invasion speak of removing Hamas, I have the same sinking feeling as when I heard hawks in 2002 and 2003 cheerily promising to liberate Iraq. Just because it would be good to eliminate a brutal regime doesn’t mean it is readily achievable; the Taliban can confirm that.

The answers to the question of who will take over a battered Gaza after months of warfare also seem too iffy to me. It won’t be Egypt, said the former Egyptian foreign minister Nabil Fahmy.

“I can’t imagine any international force being ready to take on what’s left there,” Fahmy told me. He thinks an Israeli invasion is unlikely to destroy Hamas and is more likely to inflame radicalism in Gaza, and he warns that President Biden has damaged American standing in the region because of his perceived indifference to Palestinian lives.

The second prism through which to consider the Gaza war is a moral one, for we have values as well as interests. Decades from now when we look back at this moment, I suspect it’s the moral failures that we may most regret — the inability of some on the left (and many in the Arab world) to condemn the barbaric Oct. 7 attacks on Israelis, and the acceptance by so many Americans and Israelis that countless children and civilians must pay with their lives in what Netanyahu described as Israel’s “mighty vengeance.”

When Israeli Jews were asked in a poll whether the suffering of Palestinian civilians should be taken into account in planning the war on Gaza, 83 percent said “not at all” or “not so much.” I can’t help feeling that while we say that all lives have equal value, President Biden has likewise greatly prioritized Israeli children over Gazan children.

I give Biden great credit for promptly moving two aircraft carrier groups to the region, to help deter Hezbollah or others from joining the war. The White House was right to condemn the “grotesque” and “antisemitic” messages on some college campuses. And Biden’s compassion for victims of the Hamas attacks was so heartfelt that he built up political capital in Israel — but so far he hasn’t leveraged it to get significant aid into Gaza.

The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, has condemned what he called “clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza.” The Biden administration, which in the context of Ukraine constantly speaks of international law, vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for humanitarian pauses to deliver aid.

Every account I’ve heard from Gaza this past week, including directly from people there who despise Hamas, suggests that the civilian toll there has been horrendous. One gauge is that at least 53 United Nations staff members have been killed so far, including teachers, an engineer, a psychologist and a gynecologist. More than 20 journalists have been killed, too, and an Al Jazeera correspondent lost his wife, son, daughter and grandson to an airstrike.

And now the suffering in Gaza is set to get much worse.

That’s partly because hospitals are running out of diesel fuel, and Israel is not allowing fuel into the territory. I understand the reason: Hamas could use diesel fuel for its attacks on Israelis, and an Israeli military spokesman also told me that United Nations alarmists may be exaggerating the shortage. Yet if hospitals lack fuel and cannot operate generators, babies in incubators may die along with people needing dialysis or surgeries. Some 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza would face greater risks if hospitals can’t take them.

“We are on the brink of collapse,” Philippe Lazzarini, who runs the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, the largest aid agency in Gaza, told me.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the lead physician in Gaza for the aid group MedGlobal, put it this way, “When the fuel runs out tomorrow, this hospital will rapidly become a mass grave.”

Because of the siege, Gaza is also running out of insulin and anesthetic, according to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization.

Fadi Abu Shammalah, who works in Gaza with a civil society organization called Just Vision, visited the United States this year at the invitation of the State Department, presumably because he was seen as a potential bridge across cultures. “I love you,” he told me over the phone, speaking of Americans. “You are so kind to me.”

I thanked him but noted that we were also providing some of the bombs being dropped near him. He said he doubted that the Americans he so admired understood how the war was actually playing out against civilians.

“Is it a war against Hamas, really?” he asked. “Or it’s against my kids?” He said that as bombs dropped, he tried to calm his terrified children by saying that if they could hear the explosions, they were safe; it’s the bombs you never hear that kill you. That backfired; when there was silence, the children feared they were about to be obliterated.

“One of the reasons the Oct. 7 attacks were so horrible was because adult men slaughtered children,” said Sari Bashi of Human Rights Watch. “But adult men are slaughtering children every day in Gaza by dropping bombs on their homes.”

Israel faces an agonizing challenge: A neighboring territory is ruled by well-armed terrorists who have committed unimaginable atrocities, aim to commit more and now shelter in tunnels beneath a population of more than two million people. It’s a nightmare. But the sober question must be: What policies will reduce the risk, not inflame it, while honoring the intrinsic value of Palestinian life as well as Israeli life?

People will answer that question in different ways, and I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I think someday we will look back in horror at both the Hamas butchery in Israel and at the worsening tableau of suffering in Gaza in which we are complicit.

 

News bits: TDS is real; Regarding the 2020 census

The radical right refers to Trump Derangement Syndrome as people who criticize DJT. I use it to refer to Trump’s actual mental derangement. For example, Trump recently said Biden threatened to lead the US into “world war two”, and Trump said he thought he had beaten Barack Obama for the presidency back in 2016. That’s nuts.

Elsewhere he says he's a genius but often or usually blithers incoherently:

Trump also remarked that “U.S.” and “us” are spelled the same and noted that he’d “just picked that up.” “Has anyone ever thought of that before?” he asked the crowd. “Couple of days, I’m reading, and it said ‘us.’ and I said, you know, when you think about it, us equals U.S. Now if we say something genius, they will never say it.”  

He says he was never indicted: “We did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “This is all Biden’s stuff … I was never indicted. You practically never heard the word.”

Another example:

Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said the former president just doesn’t understand why attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Ken Chesboro would plead guilty.

Trump’s Spokesperson says he is “confused” about why Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Ken Chesebro would plead guilty because they are lawyers and should’ve known there was no case. pic.twitter.com/57SF8uUai8 — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski)  October 29, 2023

“I think [Trump is] a little confused because if you’re a lawyer, you know there’s no crimes here,” said Harrington, who is a journalist, not a lawyer. “According to the law, there’s literally nothing to plead guilty to because there’s nothing that was — no laws that were broken.

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At Detailed Demographic and Housing Characteristics File A, the US census bureau  released detailed 2020 census data for Native American groups or tribes. The result was surprising, but hard to explain. The NYT comments about the data:

The report provides the most detailed data we’ve ever had on America’s racial and ethnic origins, including stunningly exhaustive data on nearly 1,200 tribes, native villages and other entities. We hoped it would shed light on one of the biggest mysteries in the 2020 Census: Why did the Native American population skyrocket by 85 percent over the past decade?  

From the 1870s until the 1960s, the federal government ran brutal boarding schools designed to assimilate Indigenous children. Then came the tribal-termination era of the 1950s and ’60s when the government encouraged Indigenous people to pack up and move to the city. Under the so-called Voluntary Relocation Program, Maxim told us, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs would terminate a tribe’s federal recognition, “divide up the reservation, sell it off to the settlers and give the tribal members a one-time cash payment and a one-way ticket to the city.” It broke Native social ties and led to more marriages to outsiders.

That heartbreaking history helps explain why Native Americans are more likely to have a mixed heritage. But it doesn’t explain the giant increase in numbers in recent years. 

Slightly muddled counts of Native American origins

Random thoughts

I started commenting at Faux News a couple of weeks ago. Today, I was unable to comment. I've been canceled again by America's authoritarian radical right propaganda Leviathan (even bigger than a Kraken!). That makes 10 different sites that have canceled me. And the radical tyranny supporters complain about their free speech being canceled. 

Vox comments about the disaster called the Middle East:

Palestinians fear they’re being displaced permanently. 

Here’s why that’s logical.

In Israel, calls to expel Palestinians have become increasingly mainstream. Many believe an expulsion like the 1948 Nakba is possible

Since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza following Israeli orders to flee south, according to the United Nations. That’s over 60 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population. In wartime, civilians sometimes have to flee an area until it’s safe to return. .... But many Palestinians worldwide fear that those who are trying to escape the fighting in Gaza will never be able to return to their homes. The displacement, they worry, will become a permanent exile.  

Most of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza aren’t originally from Gaza. They’re the children or grandchildren of the more than 700,000 refugees who were expelled or forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war that led to the country’s creation. This 75-year-old expulsion — which Palestinians call the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” — is not a long-faded memory. It’s a deeply felt, visceral, and ongoing pain.

Christian nationalism just got significantly more powerful: Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a “Christian Nation” -- The new House speaker called for “Biblically-sanctioned government.”

Christian opacity and deceit:

Kelly's website was taken down shortly after 

Mike became speaker- they tried to hide this, but 

'twas too late

The New Republic writes about the latest mass shooting tragedy: The senseless violence has also tapped into another fruitless round of Republican leaders issuing “thoughts and prayers” to the families of victims while continuing to pocket large donations from gun lobbyists. In the last decade, the National Rifle Association has spent more than $37 million on its political lobbying, with GOP legislators reaping the bulk of it, including Senators Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell, according to data from OpenSecrets.

TNR's feisty headline for that bit is Screw You, Republicans, and Your Stupid, Useless Prayers.

Hm. The news hasn't been very good lately. ☹️

The callous immorality of American authoritarian radical right billionaires

A NYT opinion opines about what authoritarian radical right billionaires want for the rest of us:

It takes a certain kind of person to write grandiose manifestoes for public consumption, unafflicted by self-doubt or denuded of self-interest. The latest example is Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of the top-tier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and best known, to those of us who came of age before TikTok, as a co-founder of the pioneering internet browser Netscape. In “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” a recent 5,000-plus-word post on the Andreessen Horowitz website, Mr. Andreessen outlines a vision of technologists as the authors of a future in which the “techno-capital machine” produces everything that is good in the world.

In this vision, wealthy technologists are not just leaders of their business but keepers of the social order, unencumbered by what Mr. Andreessen labels “enemies”: social responsibility, trust and safety, tech ethics, to name a few. As for the rest of us — the unwashed masses, people who have either “unskilled” jobs or useless liberal arts degrees or both — we exist mostly as automatons whose entire value is measured in productivity.

The vision has attracted a good deal of controversy. But the real problem with Mr. Andreessen’s manifesto may be not that it’s too outlandish, but that it’s too on-the-nose. Because in a very real and consequential sense, this view is already enshrined in our culture. Major tent-poles of public policy support it. You can see it in the work requirements associated with public assistance, which imply that people’s primary value is their labor and that refusal or inability to contribute is fundamentally antisocial. You can see it in the way we valorize the C.E.O.s of “unicorn” companies who have expanded their wealth far beyond what could possibly be justified by their individual contributions. And the way we regard that wealth as a product of good decision-making and righteous hard work, no matter how many billions of dollars of investors’ money they may have vaporized, how many other people contributed to their success or how much government money subsidized it. In the case of ordinary individuals, however, debt is regarded as not just a financial failure but a moral one. (If you are successful and have paid your student loans off, taking them out in the first place was a good decision. If you haven’t and can’t, you were irresponsible and the government should not enable your freeloading.)

As a piece of writing, the rambling and often contradictory manifesto has the pathos of the Unabomber manifesto but lacks the ideological coherency. It rails against centralized systems of government (communism in particular, though it’s unclear where Mr. Andreessen may have ever encountered communism in his decades of living and working in Silicon Valley) while advocating that technologists do the central planning and govern the future of humanity. Its very first line is “We are being lied to,” followed by a litany of grievances, but further on it expresses disdain for “victim mentality.”  

It would be easy to dismiss this kind of thing as just Mr. Andreessen’s predictable self-interest, but it’s more than that. He articulates (albeit in a refrigerator magnet poetry kind of way) a strain of nihilism that has gained traction among tech elites, and reveals much of how they think about their few remaining responsibilities to society.  

There’s probably a German word to describe the unique combination of horrifying and silly that this vision evokes, but it is taken seriously by people who imagine themselves potential Chief Executive Authoritarians, or at the very least proxies. This includes another Silicon Valley billionaire, Peter Thiel, who has funded some of Mr. Yarvin’s work and once wrote that he believed democracy and freedom were incompatible.

It’s easy enough to see how this vision might appeal to people like Mr. Andreessen and Mr. Thiel. But how did they sell so many other people on it? By pretending that for all their wealth and influence, they are not the real elites.

The heartlessness, cynicism and arrogance in Andreessen’s cruel plutocratic vision for America is clear. Corrupt, unregulated brass knuckles capitalism is what the corrupt, modern Republican Party stands and fights for.

Cynical plutocrat Marc Andreessen

(Motto: I've got mine, fuck you)

What America's authoritarian radical right elites want to do

In 2022, the group Documented obtained a 38 minute video that describes what ARR (authoritarian radical right) elites have planned for America. Our future will ugly, unpleasant and constrained if they get their way. The Guardian writes about what the billionaires intend:

‘Get the right cases to the supreme court’: 

inside Charles Koch’s network

Billionaire’s web of rightwing groups works to bring cases to court that could undermine core functionings of the US government

At least two of the biggest cases to be considered by the justices this term have been spurred by groups bankrolled and coordinated within the Koch universe.

Footage of an internal panel discussion between senior operatives from Koch entities held in the summer of 2022 reveals that the network has been quietly planning the current assault on the “administrative state”. The groups are seeking to exploit the supreme court’s new six-to-three rightwing majority secured by Donald Trump to dismantle vital executive powers.

Regulatory controls in their sights include environmental standards to combat pollution and the climate crisis, consumer protections against predatory lenders, and safeguards for workers’ rights. At stake is what the Strict Scrutiny podcast has called “the future of government as we know it”.

The footage, which is made public here for the first time, was obtained by the investigative watchdog Documented and shared with the Guardian. During the 37-minute panel discussion, legal strategists with several Koch-related groups expressed excitement that the new hard-right supreme court supermajority had created the potential for a concerted attack on the functions of federal agencies.  

Casey Mattox, a legal strategist at the main Koch advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, argued that the supreme court was now “primed for a real change in the law” on federal regulations which he said amounted to a “paradigm shift”. Mattox said: “That’s why we are partnering with organizations that can get the right cases to the supreme court.”

The effort appears to have borne fruit. Two of the most significant cases before the court in the 2023-24 term, brought with the backing of Koch-linked organizations, attempt to rein back the government’s power to impose regulations on corporations.

The prominence of the cases underlines how the libertarian empire created by the Kochs is still a force to be reckoned with within US politics.

Warning 1: This is just another warning about what wealthy authoritarian radicals intend for us, regardless of their denials, deflections, distractions, lies and slanders. The USSC alone has the power to destroy democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. That is what the billionaires want. The rule of law will be changed to protect special interests at the expense of the public interest, including the environment, honest government and civil liberties. We will have a kleptocracy where vast corruption is legalized and honest citizens have few or no protections from rape and oppression by unregulated, rapacious corporate, plutocrat and theocrat power.

Warning 2: Always keep eyes on the flow of power. When government regulations are gutted, as the ARR elites want, power flows from government and the people to wealthy special interests, dictators, plutocrats, theocrats and kleptocrats. Anyone who believes that corporations, billionaires libertarian ideologues or Christian nationalist zealots will look out for us is completely mistaken. They look out for themselves and only themselves.

News bits: The bad new speaker; American radicalization update; Etc.

New House speaker Mike Johnson is a radical right authoritarian, a traitor who voted to stop the 2020 election and a deeply corrupt climate crackpot: 

New House Speaker Champions Fossil Fuels 

and Dismisses Climate Concerns

Representative Mike Johnson comes from Louisiana oil country and has said he does not believe burning fossil fuels is changing the climate

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the newly elected House speaker, has questioned climate science, opposed clean energy and received more campaign contributions from oil and gas companies than from any other industry last year.  

Since 2018, Mr. Johnson has received about $240,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.

The vote for Johnson was reported to be unanimous. That's evidence that there are no moderates left in the radical right authoritarian GOP. All that's left is radical right authoritarians and extremely radical right authoritarians.

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This year’s Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) annual American Values Survey indicate that the MAGA movement has radicalized millions of Americans. The WaPo comments in an opinion piece:

The survey’s great value comes as a warning about the radicalization and alienation of a segment of the major parties’ followers. “Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,’ up from 15% in 2021,” the survey found. “PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.” A full third of Republicans believe this, compared with 13 percent of Democrats. Meanwhile, QAnon believers have jumped from 14 percent of Americans to 23 percent, with Republicans twice as likely as Democrats to buy into the extreme conspiracy theory.

Clearly, authoritarianism has made greater inroads among Republicans than other groups. “About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%).”  

Most frightening is how many Republicans buy into white Christian nationalism, a racist ideology that rejects the basic premise of our democracy: “All men are created equal.” One-third of Americans but 52 percent of Republicans agree that “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.” The number is even higher among White evangelical Protestants (54 percent). Americans who subscribe to white Christian nationalism are more than twice as likely as other Americans to say true patriots might have to resort to violence to save the country.  

When a sizable portion of one of the major political parties, aided by a right-wing propaganda machine and infused with religious fervor, rejects the basis for multiracial, multicultural democracy, we face a severe crisis. Even if Trump does not return to the White House, this radicalized segment will not disappear. How we reintegrate millions of Americans into reality-based, pro-democracy politics in a diverse country remains the great challenge of our time.

On the encouraging side, an overwhelming majority of Americans support teaching the good and the bad of American history, trust public school teachers to select appropriate curriculum, and strongly oppose banning books that discuss slavery or banning Advanced Placement African American History. A solid majority of Americans opposes banning social and emotional learning programs in public schools. The poll data indicates that Republican “anti-wokeism” messaging is deeply unpopular. 

Even more encouraging, public sympathy for radical right authoritarianism, denials of racism and abortion bans, especially among the GOP’s main base of White evangelical Christians, are opposed by a solid majority of Americans.

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The Hill writes about how one House member sees the election of the authoritarian radical Mike Johnson:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) held up newly-elected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a shining example of the strength of the “MAGA movement,” after every GOP member of Congress voted for him to be Speaker on Wednesday, ending three weeks of chaos in the House.

That jives with how the WaPo opinion describes the effect of the MAGA movement on the now fully radicalized, authoritarian GOP in the House.

Amnesty International Finds "Damning Evidence of War Crimes" by Israel as Gaza Death Toll Tops 6,500

Below is a 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reporter and analyst, Budour Hassan, which goes beyond  and behind the staggering numbers of dead and dying Palestinians to humanize the hell on earth that is Gaza now-- as well as discussing ever increasing murders of Palestinians in the West Bank at the hands of settler colonists, many of whom were given arms by the Israeli government. We don't hear much about any of these horrific stories-- the waking nightmares endured by Palestinian in US media. But as the world becomes increasingly fed up with  the unacceptable hypocrisy of talking about Israel's compliance with "the rule of law," while heartbreaking atrocities are being documented by several human rights groups, Biden, Blinken and others are trying to maintain the moral high ground even as they increasingly come under fire.  There is an increasingly pronounced resentment in much of the world --especially the global south-- of Israel and the US.  As Ian Bremmer recently said, we have come to seem  out of touch with most of the world, and especially the global south, where we are seen as defending the last advanced, democratic power that perpetuates apartheid  and the dehumanization of an ethnic population . The sense of US  complicity looms large, and understandably as we enable  the deliberate mistreatment of an entire group  on the basis of ethnicity -- even as our leaders speak loudly and proudly about our role as champions of the "Rules Based International Order of the Free World," which justifies our military and economic warfare all over the world.  The fact is, though, that the US was the ONLY member of the UN Security Council to veto a UN Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire last week. We were the only of 15 nation-states that prevented the Resolution from passing as it did not factor in "the Israeli right to defend itself." France,Switzerland, Japan were among the 12 states that voted for a humanitarian ceasefire. Only 2 powers abstained (Russia and UK). But only ONE country opposed the idea of a humanitarian pause in this devastating and wanton destruction of the 25 by 5 mile strip of overcrowded land that has become an urban killing zone.

The following interview provides both an update on the conditions in Gaza (and also to a lesser degree in the West Bank, where settlers armed by the government round up and kill innocent Palestinians, taking advantage of the chaos to further eliminate them to seize and build on their land). It 's a tough watch, but we should not bury our heads in the sand. Facts and figures; statistics and abstract overview statements-- these cannot convey the extent and utter barbarity of the collective punishment-- torture-- of a population slowly dying of thirst, hunger, rampant disease and a collapsed health system at the hands of the country that long ago made Gaza a dependent concentration camp. Some say it is an open-air prison. The distinction of relevance is that none of those born in Gaza (the majority there are children) ever did anything indicating consent including voting. Gaza is not a prison, because prisons house people accused and convicted of crimes, not newborn babies and random civilians whose sin is their ethnicity. That is, like the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 19th and early 20th century, a *concentration camp.* It is punishment enough to be stuck there without any charges brought against you. But in this case, the wardens have decided to starve the captives, deprive them of food, fuel needed to power the last of the functioning hospitals (12 out of 35 hospitals have stopped functioning, and the 23 barely functional ones left are filled beyond capacity according to Doctors Without Borders and other sources . Rather than going on, I am posting 2 videos below. The first is the 15 minute interview with Amnesty International reserarcher, Budour Hassan, followed by a much shorter but very informative video by  a human rights lawyer from the region, Noura Ekarat. Hopefully, these fill in a much needed gap of humane and factual reporting on these things  in MSM.

Below is a video in which human rights lawyer , Noura Erakat, indicts mainstream media for failing to report the many credible findings of human rights and international law organizations that have documented evidence for both genocidal intent and action on the part of Israel's government in its response to the Hamas attacks of 10/7/23. In about 3 minute she summarizes some of the main genocidal war crimes that have simply been ignored by mainstream media. In a future post, I plan to discuss the deliberate and systematic jailing and silencing of Palestinians (including Israeli citizens) in a crackdown and chilling intimidation campaign designed to sideline their voices in the coverage of unfolding events. But for now, this 3 minute video is an important one for those who have only seen MSM and US/UK accounts of the Israeli prosecution of this war.

Analysis of rocket fire and hospital explosion

The NYT published a detailed analysis of what might have happened at the hospital in Gaza. The NYT concludes (full article not behind paywall) that both the competing Palestinian and Israeli versions of events are possible:

The footage has become a widely cited piece of evidence as Israeli and American officials have made the case that an errant Palestinian rocket malfunctioned in the sky, fell to the ground and caused a deadly explosion at Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City.

But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip — taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 — shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night.

The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israeli and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible. But the Times analysis does cast doubt on one of the most-publicized pieces of evidence that Israeli officials have used to make their case and complicates the straightforward narrative they have put forth.

The footage also suggests that Israeli bombardment was taking place and that two explosions near the hospital can be seen within two minutes of it being struck. Maj. Nir Dinar, an Israeli military spokesman, told The Times that military forces were not striking “within a range that endangered the hospital,” but declined to say how far away the nearest strike was.

The death toll, initially put at 500 by Hamas and then lowered to 471, is believed by Western intelligence agencies to be considerably lower — but no number has been verified. The hospital itself was not directly struck; whatever caused the explosion actually hit the hospital courtyard, where people had gathered for safety, and a handful of parked cars.

Moreover, the crater left from the impact was relatively small, a fact that Israel has cited in arguing that none of its munitions caused the blast, and could be consistent with a number of different munitions. Hamas has not produced a remnant of an Israeli munition or any physical evidence to back up its claim that Israel is responsible.

Asked about The Times’s findings, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said The Times and American intelligence agencies had different interpretations of the video.

Israel has fired more than 8,000 munitions into Gaza, in what has become a brutal assault, and had even hit the Al-Ahli Arab hospital with an illumination artillery shell three days earlier, according to video evidence and the hospital’s official Facebook page.

Numerous media outlets have shown the video footage and several have cited it as evidence that a Palestinian rocket hit the hospital.

But The Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.

To trace the object in the sky back to Israeli territory, The Times synchronized the Al Jazeera footage with five other videos filmed at the same time, including footage from an Israeli television station, Channel 12, and a CCTV camera in Tel Aviv. These different videos provided a view of the missile from north, south, east and west. Using satellite imagery to triangulate the launch point in those videos, The Times determined that the projectile was fired toward Gaza from near the Israeli town of Nahal Oz shortly before the deadly hospital blast. The findings match the conclusion reached by some online researchers.  

In addition, the videos show that the projectile in the Al Jazeera footage was launched after the barrage of Palestinian rockets Israeli officials assessed was responsible for the hospital explosion.

History bit: Abraham Lincoln's pragmatism & compromise

History doesn't repeat exactly because it can't, but one can see innate human traits causing recurring similar events arising from similar circumstances and reasons. 

A recent Throughline broadcast on NPR, The Contradictions of Abraham Lincoln, discussed how Lincoln dealt with the low priority native American Indian issue while trying to save the Union from dissolution over the critically high priority slavery issue. This is discussed at ~24:00-27:50 of the broadcast.

The comments that Cheyenne Indian chief Lean Bear made to Lincoln (26:36-27:10), and how he died (27:05-27:17) sound a lot like the hopeless situation in the intractable Palestine-Israel conflict. We all know how it ended for the American Indians. At ~30:05-31:25 the broadcast noted that Lincoln said he wanted peace with the Indians but a father (Lincoln himself) could not always control what his children (White settlers) wanted to do. What the children wanted to do, and did, was settle on Indian land and push the Indians out. Lincoln sacrificed American Indians to save the Union.

If history is going to rhyme here, it looks a lot like about the same ending for the Palestinians is imminent. 

 

Throughline describes the broadcast like this: 

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his best friend, Joshua Speed. Speed was from a wealthy, slave-owning Kentucky family; Lincoln believed slavery was wrong. You are mistaken about this, Lincoln wrote to Speed. But, differ we must."

One way for Lincoln to have dealt with his best friend, I suppose, would be to say you're a horrible person, you're morally wrong, and I shun you," says NPR's Steve Inskeep. "Lincoln did not take that approach, which I think might be a little controversial today."

You might know Steve primarily for hosting NPR's Morning Edition. He also writes histories, and his newest book, "Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America," takes a long hard look at Lincoln the politician: the man who went out of his way to build political consensus, even with people whose views he considered noxious. It's a case for why we should collaborate, and yes, compromise with people across the aisle – not because it's nice or the right thing to do, but because it makes our government work.

News bits: Drug company spending patterns; Global warming update; Etc.

A WaPo article from 2015 commented on how drug companies spend their money to make more money:

Prescription drugs are a massive market: Americans spent $329.2 billion on prescription drugs in 2013. That works out to about $1,000 per person in the U.S., as John Oliver pointed out in his show on Sunday night. Oliver also mentioned that nine out of 10 big pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than on research.

 

A 2017 NYT article commented about research showing that drug companies’ heavy reliance on stock buybacks hurt corporate performance over time:

Under fire for skyrocketing drug prices, pharmaceutical companies often offer this response: The high costs of their products are justified because the proceeds generate money for crucial research on new cures and treatments. It’s a compelling argument, but only partly true. As a revealing new academic study shows, big pharmaceutical companies have spent more on share buybacks and dividends in a recent 10-year period than they did on research and development.

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A Nature paper, Unavoidable future increase in West Antarctic ice-shelf melting over the twenty-first century, reports an analysis that projects the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will inevitably collapse, causing a ~5 meter increase is sea level. That is ~16.4 ft. The researchers' data and analysis indicate that it is probably too late to prevent the collapse, no matter what governments actually manage to do about carbon dioxide emissions.

Qs: How much might that sea level rise cost us? $15 trillion? How much will that cost Exxon-Mobil and other pro-pollution, anti-global warming regulation businesses? Not nearly enough.  

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Israel war: Truthout reports:

The Israeli military has launched one of its most violent attacks on the Gaza Strip since its latest bombing campaign began two weeks ago, further devastating the occupied territory as its overwhelmed healthcare system and humanitarian services teeter on the brink of collapse.

Over just the past 24 hours, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 400 people in Gaza, bringing the enclave’s total death toll since October 7 to more than 4,500. Israeli bombs reportedly hit Gaza’s largest refugee camp on Sunday, killing dozens.

Gaza’s Interior Ministry said Israel also struck “residential apartments in the town of Khan Younis and the Nuseirat refugee camp, both of which are south of the evacuation line,” The Associated Press reported.

But according to The New York Times, the Biden administration is “not making a demand of Israel and still supports the ground invasion.”

On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden joined the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom in issuing a joint statement reiterating their “support for Israel and its right to defend itself” and calling for “adherence to international humanitarian law,” which Israel has been accused of violating repeatedly with its indiscriminate airstrikes and blockade.

The Western leaders’ joint statement said they are “committed to continue close diplomatic coordination, including with key partners in the region, to prevent the conflict from spreading, preserve stability in the Middle East, and work toward a political solution and durable peace,” but they did not call for a cease-fire.

So, Israel bombs places that Palestinians were told would be safe. Israel withholds humanitarian aid, including drinking water. Both are war crimes under International Humanitarian Law. The US seems to be complicit. We don't even ask politely for a cease-fire, at least not in public. Instead the US and other nations feebly call for adherence to international humanitarian law while Israel ignores it. 

A reasonable estimate? If Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis, Israel is probably going for a Palestinian body count of at least 12,000 to satisfy its lust for revenge. One can only wonder what the ratio of non-combatant civilians to Hamas fighters is in the Palestinian body count, maybe 10:1?

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From the Babbling Dictator Files: Trump has gone fully insane:

He says he was never indicted: “We did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “This is all Biden’s stuff … I was never indicted. You practically never heard the word.”

The stable genius thinks deep thoughts: Trump also remarked that “U.S.” and “us” are spelled the same and noted that he’d “just picked that up.” “Has anyone ever thought of that before?” he asked the crowd. “Couple of days, I’m reading, and it said ‘us.’ and I said, you know, when you think about it, us equals U.S. Now if we say something genius, they will never say it.”