The war in Israel

The situation in Israel is significantly worse than I initially imagined. The Messenger writes about what is going to happen to all of the people in the Gaza Strip:

Israel’s defense minister on Monday declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, as Hamas rockets continued to fall on Israeli cities.

“There is no electricity, there is no food, there is no water, there is no fuel,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced at a briefing.

Power and fuel supplies to the Hamas-ruled territory had been cut off since Saturday, Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, told reporters. Now, he said, drinking water to Gaza’s 2.1 million people would be stopped as well.

“I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately,” Katz said.

People cannot survive for more than about 2 days without water. Everyone in Gaza will be brought to their knees in a few days, unless there is some way to get water in.

The WaPo gives some history about why the situation became so bitter and apparently hopeless:

Since winning an election in the Gaza Strip in 2006, Hamas has repeatedly attacked Israel with rockets and mortars, emerging as a defiant adversary. Israel has retaliated with its superior firepower and a punishing blockade, restricting imports and movement of civilians in a strategy of collective punishment. The blockade and recurring Israeli strikes have contributed to Gaza’s poor infrastructure and living conditions. Israel declared a full siege of the enclave on Monday, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promising “no electricity, no food, no fuel” and calling Hamas "savages.”

Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, a 25-mile-long, densely populated enclave of more than 2.1 million people. Hamas emerged as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 1987 against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric. Its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was established around 1991.

It is committed to armed resistance against Israel and aims for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, along the borders before the Six-Day War in June 1967, during which Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced as a result.

In October 1997, the United States designated Hamas a terrorist organization. The group has used explosives and rockets along with suicide bombings and kidnappings to target Israel.

Why did Hamas attack Israel now?

The coordinated attack by Hamas caught Israel by surprise but comes after months of worsening tensions over violence at al-Aqsa Mosque — a deeply revered Muslim holy site in the heart of Jerusalem — as well as the punishing blockade and occupation of Palestinians. Once-fringe Jewish supremacists and settler leaders have been given key positions in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, further inflaming tensions.

Palestinian anger also reached a boiling point in May 2021 over the evictions of families from a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem, leading to clashes between protesters and Israeli forces that prompted Hamas to launch rockets at Israeli cities.

Even worse than all of that, there may be a new front in the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon attacking Israel in the north:

Oct 8 (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon's powerful armed group Hezbollah exchanged artillery and rocket fire on Sunday following the deadliest attack in years by Palestinian gunmen on Israel.

On Saturday, a multi-pronged attack by Palestinian gunmen on Israeli towns left around 500 Israelis dead, with more than 300 Palestinians killed in Israel's retaliatory bombardment.

The scale of the attack prompted fears that a wider conflict could break out between Israel and other factions opposed to it in the region, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, an armed party backed by Iran that has previously clashed with Israel.  

Hezbollah on Sunday said it had launched guided rockets and artillery onto three posts in the Shebaa Farms "in solidarity" with the Palestinian people.

"Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you," said senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine at an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh on Beirut's outskirts in solidarity with the Palestinian fighters. 

To blunt authoritarian radical right propaganda smearing Biden about the war The Hill reports:

$6B in frozen Iranian funds remain unspent in wake of 

Hamas attack, Blinken says

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday the $6 billion in Iranian funds expected to be unfrozen in the U.S. prisoner swap with Iran have remained unspent, pushing back against suggestions that the Biden administration’s deal may have contributed to Hamas’s recent attacks on Israel.

“The facts are these — no U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “These were Iranian resources that Iran had accumulated from the sale of its oil that were stuck in a bank in South Korea. They have had from day one, under our law, under our sanctions, the right to use these monies for humanitarian purposes.”

“From one account to another in another country to facilitate that use,” Blinken continued. “As of now, not a single dollar has been spent from that account.”  

U.S. officials said the funds were to be used only for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, a point Blinken emphasized Sunday.

“And, again, the account is closely regulated by the U.S. Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” Blinken said. “That’s what this is about.”

One can only hope that Blinken is not lying. The radical right as gone completely nuts in blaming Biden for the outbreak of this war and supporting it with that $6 billion. Those lies are now fully embedded in the minds of the radical right rank and file. Truth cannot counteract that.

Al Jazeera reports:

The Israeli army says some 100,000 reserve troops have amassed near the fence with Gaza.

Here are the latest casualty figures as of 2pm local time (11:00 GMT):

Gaza

• Killed: At least 560
• Injured: At least 2,900

Occupied West Bank

• Killed: At least 16
• Injured: At least 80

Israel

• Killed: At least 800
• Injured: At least 2,243 

Sixteen years of Israeli blockade

Gaza has a population of about 2.3 million people living in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Located between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean coast, the strip is about 365sq km (141sq miles).

Since 2007, Israel has maintained strict control over Gaza's airspace and territorial waters and restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza.

Following Hamas's attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to turn Gaza into a “deserted island” and warned its residents to “leave now”.

Land area = 141 sq mi

This looks like the end of it for the Palestinians. The survivors are going to be living in conditions not much better than the stone age, assuming some are still allowed to live there.

News bits: New global warming propaganda tactic; Irreparably broken GOP;

Media Matters reports about new propaganda tactics to reach young people online that oil companies are employing. Oil sector propaganda promotes acceptance of more carbon dioxide emissions and more global warming:

As young voters increasingly support phasing out fossil fuels, oil giant Shell is aiming to reach this demographic — not by cutting its oil and gas development, but via video game marketing. The company is working with Fortnite creators and sponsoring popular gamers to promote its premium gas on the streaming platform Twitch, as well as on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

The campaign comes as trade industry groups and energy companies have sought to use influencer marketing to humanize their products even though the impacts of these products are driving climate change, jeopardizing the future of its target audience. In a 2021 survey of young people between 16-25 years old from 10 countries, 75% said the future is frightening because of climate change.

Meanwhile, the company announced in June that it is planning to expand its natural gas business. According to Bloomberg, its business plan “puts oil and gas front and center while giving low-carbon efforts a smaller supporting role,” despite the International Energy Agency’s recent warning that, “no new long-lead-time upstream oil and gas projects are needed” for a global pathway to net zero emissions by 2050.  

The campaign, dubbed “Shell Ultimate Road Trips,” encourages Fortnite players to use a new map made by six different Fortnite creators who were “invited” by Shell to participate in the project. To promote the map, Shell sponsored popular gamers to test it out. The campaign is meant to promote the company’s “new and improved” premium gasoline. In the game, players first fill up at a Shell gas station and are encouraged to take screenshots of the game and post them on social media using the hashtag #Shellroadtrips. The campaign also includes sweepstakes to win Shell e-gift cards or a “dream road trip.” 

In part, the Ultimate Road Trips campaign reflects Shell’s continued efforts over the last few years to reach a younger audience using TikTok and Instagram.

An August DeSmog investigation described a Shell-sponsored video from one popular feel-good account as “part of a concerted push from oil and gas supermajors to improve their image among younger generations. Edelman, one of Shell’s principal PR agencies, said in relation to a 2017 campaign that the oil and gas giant set the task of ‘giving millennials a reason to connect emotionally with Shell’s commitment to a sustainable future.’” According to Twitch, in 2022, 70% of its users were between the ages of 18-34.

Un-freaking believable. Shell’s commitment to a sustainable future?? Shell is committed to profit, not a sustainable future.

The ruthlessness, gall and shameless lies and deceit of polluters is jaw dropping. Not only are we in an all-out war against democracy and civil liberties, we are also fighting to protect the environment against sophisticated mind manipulation campaigns by wealthy, powerful corporations. 

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An opinion piece in The Messenger argues that the GOP is too broken to be fixed:

The Republican Party Cannot Be Fixed

There still are main-line Republicans who hope that if Trump loses the election next year, the de-Trumpification of the party can begin. Sorry, that train has left the station.

Trump's tenacles are deep into the GOP at the congressional level and in states around the country. Remarkably, Trumpism is more embedded than Reaganism ever was; in many GOP circles, the Bush presidencies should be expunged.

Not only is Trump dominating party polls, but the Republicans overwhelmingly believe his lie** that the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen from him; a significant portion of Republicans say the January 6 violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol was primarily a peaceful protest, that any trouble was instigated by left-wingers. Both ideas are demonstrably false — but within the GOP, facts and truth no longer matter. 

** CNN Poll: Percentage of Republicans who think Biden’s 2020 win was illegitimate ticks back up near 70% (August 2023 poll data)

This has antecedents: The slashing incivility of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s; in the decade before that, the intraparty struggle between the vision of Jack Kemp — inclusive, entrepreneurial, optimistic — versus that of Jesse Helms — dark, reactionary, racist.

President Reagan straddled those two elements, but was more Kemp. Trump is Helms-plus.

The Trump camp dismisses such critics within their Party as “RINOs” — Republican in name only.

It’s a term they’d certainly apply to Stu Spencer, who says: “This isn't my Party anymore.” Spencer was the political genius behind Ronald Reagan's initial election as governor of California in 1966, and he played a critical role in Reagan’s 1980 election as president.

Stu Spencer a RINO? Really?

That’s how badly the Republican Party has been broken.

Maybe the GOP isn't broken, but just different. At one time the Democratic Party was the home of racists. Now it's the GOP. Things change.

Qs: Is this an indication of how badly the Republican Party has been broken, or an indication of how radicalized and changed it has become? In other words, does the GOP now mostly reflect traditionalists or Trump cultists?

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Fun billionaire facts and logic flaws from Bored Panda. Our team here at Bored Panda has traveled all across Reddit to bring you some of the most mind-boggling facts about billionaires and the wealth gap:

Put blame where it belongs

8 vs 4,000,000,000

It's too complicated!

But think about all the people working for those insurance companies become instantly whose jobs would obsolete! 

Oh wait, nobody did that when they invented self checkout so screw it.

Didn't the person that published that 

stuff get car bombed?

Actuality vs common belief vs common desire

About the war in Israel: Honorable war vs dishonorable war

Everyone has a different story about how we got to to this bloody mess. By the way, after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a radical Zionist monster, I strongly believed that a bloody day of final reckoning was coming sooner or later. Well, now it's apparently here. This time will probably finish the Palestinians for good, but there are probably going to be a hell of a lot of corpses and horrors along the way.

My vision of the history

My version of the history of this ongoing story of misery and death is pretty simple. Yes, almost all of this will be bitterly rejected by most Jews as a pack of lies and slanders. 

Major event 1: In 1947-1948, a gigantic population change occurred in the Jewish & non-Jewish population of Israel/Palestine. It was a whopper. 

According to Zionist mythology, hundreds of thousands of non-Jews apparently all decided accept buyouts from local Jews to permanently get the hell out of what the United Nations would turn into Israel in May of 1948. My understanding of actual history indicates that most of the non-Jews (Palestinians) who left were forced out, not voluntarily buggering out. 

That point of history, like every other point of the miserable, bloody Israel history, is bitterly contested between the two sides. The Israel-Palestine situation from that time and continuing today looks to be to be almost identical to the bitter differences in reality and belief in modern American politics. One example is what has happened to the Jewish-non-Jewish population from 1995 to 2023, Jewish presence is declining. 

That demographic shift scares the hell out of radical Jewish theocrats who are now fighting in Israel to install radical, aggressive fundamentalist Jewish Sharia law under a radical fundamentalist Jewish Taliban. Does that sound familiar? It should. (hint: Christian nationalism in modern America is fighting for aggressive Christian Sharia law administered by an intolerant, self-righteous, wealthy, White, heterosexual male Christian Taliban)

Major event 2 (still ongoing in 2023): Between 1948 and 1995, there were periods of peace talks, Palestinian terrorist attacks and atrocities. At the same time there was an always increasing occupation of land that Palestinians lived on. Palestinians kept get pushed back over and over and over. The peace talks were going nowhere because neither Israel nor the usually corrupt, incompetent and arrogant Palestinian leadership really wanted peace on terms that were possible at various times. The US sponsored peace talks but they always got derailed by one damn stupid thing or another, usually something bloody. During this time, and continuing today, Israel was slowly annexing Palestine into Israel, despite constant United Nations condemnation of each new illegal territory occupation. An Israeli newspaper commented in 2023:

The United Nations General Assembly passed more resolutions critical of Israel than against all other nations combined in 2022, contributing to what observers call an ongoing lopsided focus on the Jewish state at the world body.

Since 2015, the General Assembly has adopted 140 resolutions criticizing Israel, mainly over its treatment of the Palestinians, its relationships with neighboring countries and other alleged wrongdoings. Over the same period, it has passed 68 resolutions against all other countries, UN Watch said.

That article points out that various dictator-controlled nations the UN has condemned for human rights and other violations have ignored similar UN resolutions, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, Qatar, China, etc. Apparently, human dictators don't care about treating people like garbage when they can get away with it.

The US at the ineffective United Nations, 2018

Major event 3: The 1995 assassination of Rabin is the event that struck me as the end of any possibility of a peaceful two-state resolution of the stupid, bloody conflict. That's major event 3. After Rabin died, it was clear that Israeli society would back away from peace, prodded by incessant dark free speech to scare, divide and conquer Israeli society and turn society against the Palestinians and a Palestine. Does that sound familiar? It should. (hint: decades of authoritarian radical right dark free speech in America has turned a significant portion of society against democracy, civil liberties that God hates (including voting rights), the rule of law and the legitimacy of political opposition) 

The expected result of major event 3 is probably going to turn out to be the war the Palestinians launched against Israel in the past few days. What other options are there? Peace talks since the murder of Rabin were mostly a farce with no chance of a settlement. Since the non-Jews were forced out of Israel in 1947-1948, the Palestinians have constantly seen their land stolen and their freedoms strictly curtailed. They have nothing left to live for. No country on Earth wants the Palestinians, so they are left to their fate at the hands of cruel, racist, radical Zionist theocrat thugs. 

Honorable vs dishonorable war

So, is the current bloody war that Hamas launched against Israel and its non-combatant citizens dishonorable? After all, they attacked and brutalized innocent Israeli citizens. Or, since there is (i) no reasonable hope of any reasonable negotiated settlement, and (ii) a very high likelihood that the misery and hopelessness of Palestinian people will continue for at least decades, if not a century or two. A couple of examples of the hopeless rage that Palestinians feel helps to exemplify this asymmetric in some context:

A rock against a tank

Rock throwing

More rock throwing

Yes I know, murders and horrors have been committed by the Palestinians against non-combatant Israelis. Does that make one last ditch effort, driven by rage and hopelessness, dishonorable? The Palestinians are probably going to be slaughtered by the thousands in this war unless something miraculous intervenes. The US military has already committed to defending Israel. Maybe US troops will wind up obliterating some Palestinians.

An example of non-shooting war morphing into a shooting war

Despite outbreaks of shootings, I consider what is happening in American politics to still be predominantly a non-shooting war. But it is a real war. It is democracy and civil liberties vs dictatorship and oppression (i.e., power and wealth concentrated with the elites). 

How can that be a war without many shots being fired? Simple, take control of the levers of power and slowly chip away at democracy and civil liberties. So far, the American authoritarian radial right has taken a big chunk out of abortion rights (God hates abortion), voting rights (dictators and plutocrats hate voting), and anti-corruption laws (kleptocrats love corruption). If this erosion continues, there will be very little or no plausible peaceful political means to stop the rise of tyranny, oppression and bigoted cruelty in America. The American experiment will have failed and ended in corrupt, bigoted-racist tyranny.

If some Americans, seeing the hopelessness of their plight as authoritarianism, kleptocracy and hopeless oppression slowly engulfs them, rise up and start a shooting war and killing non-combatants, would that be dishonorable terrorism, honorable patriotism in defense of democracy and liberty, or something else?

News bits: About wealth inequality; Trump legal sleaze; Amazon’s AIexa spreads disinformation

An interview with an expert discusses wealth inequality, criticizing libertarianism for having a negative impact on economic analyses and average people generally: 

Angus Deaton on inequality: 

‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’

The Nobel prize winner and author of new book Economics in America argues economists must get back to serving society

The Scottish-born winner of the 2015 Nobel prize for economics struggled at first to understand why there was so little interest in a subject most European economists regarded as a central concern of post-war policies to reduce poverty and build more equitable societies.

But, as Deaton describes in his unsparing new book, Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, he soon realized he had run headlong into the libertarian monetarists of the Chicago School of Economics, and they were driving US policy.

“There is this very strong libertarian belief that inequality is not a proper area of study for economists,” Deaton said. “Even if you were to worry about inequality, it would be best if you just kept quiet and lived with it.”

Deaton persevered, building a reputation as a contrarian for scrutinising the prevailing orthodoxy that an unfettered free market would deliver greater economic equality and individual liberty, and that government intervention and regulation would undermine both.

The result, said Deaton, is a predatory brand of capitalism in the US that enriches corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working people, deepens inequality of wealth and opportunity, and – although many Americans will deny it – is fuelling the rise of a class system. As he picks the system apart, Deaton zeros in on the evident absurdities of claims about the purity of the market.

“If you need an ambulance, you are not in the best position to find the best service or to bargain over prices; instead, you are helpless and the perfect victim for a predator,” he writes.

The results are clear. Real wages have stagnated since 1980 while productivity has more than doubled and the rich cream off the profits. The top 10% of US families now own 76% of wealth. The bottom 50% own just 1%.

The time has come, Deaton argues, for economists to get back to serving society.

“The discipline has become unmoored from its proper basis, which is the study of human welfare,” he writes.  

Deaton ticks off the list of Nobel prizes for economics won by the Chicago school’s highly regarded minds, including Milton Friedman and George Stigler. He does not doubt what he calls their intellectual contributions.

“Yet it is hard to imagine a body of work more antithetical to worrying about inequality,” he writes.

“A friend of mine, a conservative economist and deeply religious man, is fond of saying that ‘fair’ is a four-letter word that should be expunged from economics.”    

Deaton describes his own hopes as an immigrant 40 years ago as tempered by the corruption of the American economy and its politics to an extent that threaten democracy. But he is not without hope.

Deaton also sees change because of immigrants like him. He points to the Turkish-born American, Daron Acemoglu, as an economist whose thinking is changing the discipline.

“Seventy per cent of economics PhDs in the US are non-American. I compare it to the Jews who came to America between the wars who completely changed physics. Economics is being completely changed by this influx. I’m not the only immigrant who comes in to America and finds it a strange place,” he said.

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Slate writes:

The Most “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” Trump Argument Ever

Trump’s attorneys argue that the Constitution itself gives him immunity because it specifies that impeachment may be followed by a criminal indictment. Trump’s attorneys reason, therefore, that an acquitted president, such as Trump, can no longer face indictment. See for yourself:

Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts is also rooted in the text of the Constitution. The Impeachment Clauses provide that the President may be charged by indictment only in cases where the President has been impeached and convicted by trial in the Senate. Here, President Trump was acquitted by the Senate for the same course of conduct.

The Impeachment Clause of Article I provides that “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office … but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” … Because the Constitution specifies that only “the Party convicted” by trial in the Senate may be “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment,” … it presupposes that a President who is not convicted may not be subject to criminal prosecution.

What is much more galling, though, than this logical error is that during the impeachment trial over the events of Jan. 6, Trump’s lawyers argued the exact opposite in order to win acquittal. Specifically, Trump attorney David Schoen said during that impeachment trial that the Senate could not convict Trump because, since he was no longer president, the only appropriate venue for accountability was the criminal justice system. Schoen went so far as to explicitly cite the very same section of the Constitution to say the exact opposite thing now being argued in court. Here’s what Schoen argued (emphasis mine):

[The impeachment managers] contend, citing various law professors, that ‘‘[any official] who betrayed the public trust and was impeached could avoid accountability simply by resigning one minute before the Senate’s final conviction vote.’’

This argument is a complete canard. The Constitution expressly provides in article I, section 3, clause 7 that a convicted party, following impeachment, ‘‘shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law’’ [after removal]. Clearly, a former civil officer who is not impeached is subject to the same. 

Now Trump’s attorneys, having successfully argued that he couldn’t be convicted during his impeachment because the criminal courts were the only appropriate venue, are arguing that he can’t be held accountable in criminal court because he wasn’t convicted during his impeachment. 

There is, it’s worth noting, a legal principle called estoppel, which prevents someone from claiming in court something contrary to a case that they made to win a previous argument in court. Judge Tanya Chutkan should consider deploying it.

Why Trump's lawyers are not heavily sanctioned and Trump jailed for contempt of court is beyond me. Trump's new arguments are estopped because his earlier argument directly contradicted this argument. 

Our rule of law is rigged to favor rich and powerful elites. That is why I doubt that Trump will ever be held accountable for his crimes. So far the only liability he has faces is in civil lawsuits, not criminal ones. Paying a fine is nothing to a criminal sociopathic narcissist like DJT.

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The WaPo reports about Amazon’s naughty AI-powered Alexa:

Asked about fraud in the race — in which President Biden defeated former president Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video streaming service favored by conservatives.

The 2020 races were “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service.

Alexa disseminates misinformation about the race, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source to more than 70 million estimated users.

Amazon declined to explain why its voice assistant draws 2020 election answers from unvetted sources. “These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention,” Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Raemhild said in a statement.