Over the weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that the Hamas attacks were coordinated with and authorized by Iran in a series of meetings in Beirut. Josh Marshall points out that this information appears to have come entirely from Hamas. And I can’t tell that any other news outlet has independently verified it. That doesn’t mean Iran wasn’t involved, but as Josh Marshall says, everybody should be very cautious about this. Rash decisions based on faulty information easily could turn the situation into something more widespread.
In her newsletter, Joy Vance says it’s a bleeping shame Twitter is so bleeped up.
In the past, in a crisis of this magnitude, we were able to get at least some real time reporting on social media and on Twitter specifically. It was easy to search for reporting from a wide variety of news organizations all in one place. With some discernment, and the use of blue checks with trusted experts weighing in, it was possible to get a sense of what was accurate and what was disinformation. But of course, that functionality is a casualty of Elon Musk’s X/Twitter.
No one who is serious would pretend that Twitter or any other social media platform was ever perfect, but that’s not the point. In the past, we could use the platform to obtain reliable news, often from firsthand reporting. That happened, for instance, at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when reporting was murky. But now Twitter is awash in a sea of misinformation and hate. And we see, in its absence, how important having an international public square is in a moment like this.
Speaking of Twitter … er, X … Reuters reported recently that the social media company not only is worth a ton less money than Elon Musk paid for it, at this point it probably is worth less than the debt held by banks on it. Its value is underwater. You’ll remember that Musk paid $44 billion for the company, and he got $13 billion of that from banks. Meanwhile advertisers have fled the network like rats off a sinking ship.
Put it all together, and X isn’t just worth less than Musk paid for it, but likely less than its debt. Assume that the company’s revenue last year was $4.7 billion, based on results before it was taken private. If advertising has dropped by half, then this year’s sales should be a bit over $2.5 billion. Put that on the same enterprise-value-to-sales multiple as Snap, which is down to a mere 3 times, and X is worth around $8 billion.
He’s still able to make the interest payments on the $13 billion, but this can’t go on indefinitely, I don’t think.
Meanwhile — as the U.S. shifts military assets — mostly ships, I think — closer to the Middle East, Sen. Tommy Tuberville continues to keep the U.S. military hamstrung for stupid reasons. A retired U.S. Navy Commander posted on the sinking hulk of X that there is no chief of naval operations at the moment because of Tuberville.
Well, try to enjoy Indigenous Peoples Day, anyway.
Update: I see the Biden White House is being slammed from the Right for holding a scheduled barbeque for White House staff while Israel is at war. Of course, the White House has continued to hold all sorts of gala functions since Ukraine has been under attack, and the Right didn’t mind about that. There have been, in fact, a number of wars and insurgencies and other armed conflicts going on around the globe for some time, and sometimes Americans are killed in those conflicts. And the Right doesn’t blink an eye.
re. the platform formerly know as Twitter…
Seems to me that a billionaire philanthropist could bring about the creation of a competitor of the current one(s) formulated along the lines described by Joyce Vance. Some fundamental requirements:
Strict control of standards (durable), embedded in the incorporation documents and corporate mission statement.
The founder must be of good will and not an extremist on either side of the spectrum.
I have no idea how this could come about, but I think the human race and civilization needs something along these lines or we are in deep trouble. With the shrinking of the world due to the internet and mass air transportation has produced an environment where the things that worked in the 20th century no longer suffice. Healthy societies at all levels require inter-human trust.
I was never a big participant on Twitter, but I used to appreciate the way you could use it to follow journalists and experts discussing ongoing events and the ease of embedding significant tweets on this blog. Now it won't let me do that without re-instating my old account, which I refuse to do, so I guess that's over.
Teri Kanefield wrote + thought a lot about this, along the lines of Joyce Vance. Have a look at Twitter Alternatives: Mastodon, Post.news, Threads, Bluesky, and others. She's moved to Mastodon, which IIRC is open source, but more importantly, it's architected to be a federation of sites, with each site administrator dictating the rules.
So there are alternatives, but I don't believe any of them has the critical mass Twitter once did.
If only we could resurrect Walter Cronkite. I'm afraid the internet has succeeded in destroying the concept of verifiable and universally acceptable truths, it has allowed people to easily and quickly choose whatever "truth" suits them or reinforces their prejudices. Alexa her own artificial self has said the 2020 election was stolen. I'm waiting for somebody to ask Alexa if vaccines are dangerous or if the world is flat. Dog help us.
Who could have predicted a petulant man-child billionare would take a media platform that had been used for good to inform the public and turn it into a haven for right-wing hate? That almost never happens. Chuck needs to hold a prime time pressor and explain how tuberfuck's games are going to erode the USA's ability to help the situation in Israel, but me thinks he'll just hide as he has been since he became majority leader
OT – My prediction (not my hope): US House of Representatives, under control of Q-reps, will call for taking all proposed $ aid to Ukraine and sending it to Israel instead of Ukraine. Then they will look for a way to force the US into a declaration of war against Iran. Never mind any questions about how nonsensical this would be.
sigh
You are correct, Maha, there are conflicts and wars in other places. I have been reading about the 19 Sept 2023 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ancestral part of Armenia given to Azerbaijan illegally by the Bolsheviks. As per an article in the Haaretz newspaper of Oct. 5, 2023 (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-05/ty-article/.premium/armenias-israel-envoy-expressed-alarm-to-israeli-mks-over-weapons-shipments-to-azerbaijan/0000018a-fe71-df89-a7bb-fe79ac170000) Azerbaijan carried the attack with weapons supplied by Israel. Armenians were killed and 100,000 have fled their homes. I wonder since now Israel is occupied elsewhere they might stop selling weapons to Azerbaijan and thus stop Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians? Just asking.
little late to stop it
Why is it that I have the feeling that right before he bought Twitter, Elon Musk called Rupert Murdoch and said, " Hey Rupe, I know you think YOU had a big hand in spreading BS “news,” and helping destroy American democracy. Well, hold my beer, "Mate," because I'm about to buy Twitter!!!"
I think you're on to something. Musk is rich enough he doesn't care if he runs Twitter into the ground. He has another agenda.
I have a thought experiment for all of you:
Hamas attacks Israel on Saturday.
Now imagine that Donald tRUMP was POTUS.
Couldn't happen. Becasue hama's would have never attacked Israel if Stump was POTUS because Jared!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_96jMfY9pk8
I kinda think the Israeli respose to Hamas by putting the entire West Bank under siege isn't going to play well on the world stage. No electricity, no water, no food, no medicine in conjunction with a constant bombing primarily funded by the American taxpayer is a pretty primative response. It brings back shades of Leningrad and the Warsaw ghetto. There's nothing like slaughtering thousands of innocent people and inflicting untold suffering on millions more by way of a collective punishment.
You're exactly right, Swami.
People are asking me if I'm "for" Israel, with the implicit expectation that I will support reprisals considering the way Hamas targeted civilians in the attack. And the Hamas attack (if reports are true) was brutal – over 200 killed at a "festival." Hostages taken.
I'm opposed to the slaughter of civilians. The murder of children is wrong. I don't consider the murder of Jewish children with any more or less horror than the murder of Palestinian children. The most proper response has been a call for a cease-fire, which was proposed by Ilhan Omar and OSC.
I understand (and don't agree) that Biden has to "support" Israel. I'm counting how many days until Joe pivots to calling for a mutual end to hostilities, citing the death toll as enough. PLEASE, put together a boycott of businesses that have settled in Israel. Apartheid in S. Africa was ended that way – it took years. We can do it to Israel. The sooner it's begun, the sooner we are on a path to end the bloodshed.
"No electricity, no water, no food, no medicine in conjunction with a constant bombing"
It's bad, really bad. But really how much worse is it than generations of Palestinian chidren growing up in a not so well regulated ghetto, surrounded by silence from the rest of the world? Entire lives lived under occupation, no opportunity, contant check points, no real joy. The slaughter we will witness in the coming days looks horrible on tee-vee but I would argue the occupation is far worse.
I was also never a big user of Twitter. I admit I never figured it out. However, I'm tied into Internet news with a bias towards facts and rational arguments. I'm drawn to people who can formulate an argument where facts lead to a conclusion. I'm repulsed by arguments that obviously began with a conclusion and backfilled with excuses and weak, biased sources with no facts or previously debunked propaganda.
The thing is, Twitter used to ID sources with a check mark who were verified to be the person they claimed to be. So you could develop a list of reputable sources who were commenting on current events in real-time. Those people can't be easily authenticated – bad players have moved into the void with propaganda. These bad actors can, will, and do try to impersonate real persons. Under Musk, there's no protection for the consumer. (Free speech disconnected from truth.)
What I'm wondering is how the war in Israel will affect Republicans who have to choose a Speaker. The House can't do ANY funding of Israel until they get their act together. The dynamic, as I read it, is that MOST of the House GOP is furious that fewer than ten bomb-throwers are satisfied that they stabbed McCarthy like Roman Senators leaving the only federal body the GOP controls in chaos. 126 Republicans voted to pass the CR rather than shut down government as the Freedom Caucus demanded. Gym Jordan voted to shut down the government – Scalise voted to pass the CR. Since that's the event that created the crisis, it seems like Scalise has the inside track (or should, if logic prevails.) Trump may come to DC to lobby for Jordan – again, if keeping the gov't running is a prime consideration, Trump wants it shut down to make his criminal trials go away.
There seems to be a move by Team Trump to delay the document trial until 2025. Judge Loose Cannon may be sympathetic. This might not be the gift that Trump wants – if Cannon gives Trump a huge delay, it opens up the calendar for Georgia. The documents' trial date is set for May.
The DC J6 trial date is set for March, So is the NY criminal hush-money case.
E. Jean Carrol gets another shot at Trump's fat a$$ for damages in January.
The civil trial brought by DC cops against Trump is proceeding and will take a back seat to criminal prosecutions. (It also makes sense to try that case after evidence of Trump's intentions to use violence on J6 are established in criminal cases.)
Oh, I read that the IRS laid a half-million-dollar lein on Rudy's FL condo. That's on top of 1.4 million Rudy's lawyers are owed, plus damages TBD in the trial filed by the GA election workers who Rudy and Trump defamed. And there's the Dominion suit which also names Rudy. Fortunately, Trump's foreign friend at MAL who Trump divulged US sub secrets to owns a cardboard empire. So he can give Rudy scraps for the sign he'll need at whatever highway exit is available to homeless felons when Rudy gets out of jail. May I suggest, "Homeless, disbarred MAGA Trump lawyer. Will do anything for cash!"
"Biden White House is being slammed from the Right for holding a scheduled barbeque for White House staff while Israel is at war"
In reality of course it doesn't really matter but in our tabloid media enviroment it's a serious stumble. No barbecue while we have 24 hour b-roll of War in Israel on every news outlet. Yet another example of Biden's PR shop fucking up. I don't understand how they can have the truth on their side but keep lobbing the wing-nuts softballs.
I disagree. This was for White House staff, not the general public, and a barbeque isn't necessarily all that gala. The Right likes to manufacture things to be outraged about. Obama's tan suit? Paul Wellstone's funeral? Ring any bells?
I agree that there is nothing wrong with having the barbeque, but it is horrible optics, they already knew the GQP would blame them because of the hostage deal so why give them more fuel? If I was advising Biden I would have delayed it.
After reading Swami’s comment I looked and Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention says that collective punishment is forbidden under International Humanitarian Law, with no exceptions. I saw that Israel ratified the Geneva Convention on July 6, 1951.
No electricity, water, fuel, food and medicine access for 2 million people is collective punishment. So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Just label them all as terrorists and any humanitarian conventions no longer apply. Just like Hitler deemed the Jews and the Slavs as being subhuman and worthy of exstinction, Bibi has decreed that Hamas are animals and are not entitled to the same protections and considerations that humans are. The problem is that you can't seperate the diehard Hamas adherents from the Palestinians trapped in the occupied territories who just want to exist.
One thing I do know is that no matter how brutal and barbaric a response Bibi inposes on the Palestinians. He'll never eradicate the human spirit to live free and at peace. Bibi is just another Donald Trump with a big potato head.
All is not as it appears: I fear. Was this really an intelligence failure or a plan with complicit intelligence involvement? Who knows.
We do know that Bebe has genocide on his mind and is planning on us to support him. It is a holy war, and nothing is as sacred as that oxymoron. The right wing noise machine may be harping about a bar-b-q, but the machine is stuck on hell fire and brimstone as an appropriate eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. It is not.
Not since the days of bogus weapons of mass destruction days has the call for war been so loud. Bebe has just completed an assault on democracy and needs a diversion. Did he fall into one or did he engineer one? You will never know that for sure as you will never know how many Hamas operatives are a secret part of Israel's Secret Service or of our CIA. That you can count on as being a number way more than zero. We all do know who bought a social media sight and turned it into a hate haven. It is the same guy that has all those satellites.
We know what is missing, and that speaks volumes. We are missing many more voices for peace and restraint.
No longer do we have any concern for innocent people. Now they are collateral damage or hostage bargaining chips. A red cross or a red crescent is just another bullseye. We know for sure this is not a sign of an advancing civilization.
I dunno, I find it easy to believe that Bibi and his Cabinet were (1) distracted by constant in-fighting and (2) lulled by hubris into imagining that Palestinians were incapable of planning and executing anything this big.
(That same hubris in Israeli society in general would also explain why those hip nuts would hold a Rave just 3 miles from Gaza; seems like bad Karma at least, even discounting the well-established risk of occasional rockets across the last few years).
Both are plausible, only the satellites know for sure, maybe.
I'll suggest the stupid kind of explanation the GOP is fond of; it is all intentionally orchestrated to distract from Trump's court cases. That was fun to say!
The thing that worries me most is the pressure on US politicians to compete for bigger versions of "doing something", likely leading to us attacking Iran. Republicans can talk about that without taking any responsibility for consequences, since they don't hold the White House; Democrats will be on the defensive, pressed by Republicans, Media, and Big Donors to "support Israel" (with bombs).
US public opinion of Israel has shifted a lot in the last couple decades, even among American Jews. We will not join Israel in carpet-bombing Gaza.
But the NeoCons still have outsized influence over US Foreign Policy – in Government, and in the Media – and they still place a high priority on getting the US sucked into more wars in the Middle East. They will be banging the same damn drums which suckered us into invading Iraq.
IMO, US NeoCons are the enemy, not Iran.
Saw this on another lefty website, Doom Spiral!
https://images.dailykos.com/images/1235891/story_image/doomspiral915.png