I’m going to be straight with you here. If I were POTUS now, I’d be seriously considering a super-dark special ops operation that takes out Benjamn Netanyahu. With extreme prejudice. And any other extremist faction leader that’s keeping the hard-right coalition in power in the Israeli Parliament. They are a threat to the world at this point.
I understand the Biden Administration was going all-out to persuade Netanyahu to not retaliate. There are reports they even offered to step aside and let the IDF invade Rafah as long as there was no retaliation against Iran. So Bibi retaliated, and I’m sure he’ll invade Rafah anyway. There are also many reports that aid isn’t getting into Gaza any faster than it was before Israel bombed the World Kitchen trucks. Basically President Biden keeps drawing red lines, and Bibi merrily waltzes right over them.
I’m sure Netanyahu thinks Trump will be re-elected in November, which makes Biden just a temporary annoyance in his view.
Right now it looks as if the Ukraine and Israel aid bills are about to be passed in the House. I understand they are both up for a vote in the full House tomorrow, and if that’s the case I don’t see how they wouldn’t pass. And if Congress passes an Israeli aid bill, President Biden either has to veto it or implement it. But I’d really like to cut off all military aid to Israel now. That might get Bibi’s attention.
In other news: Selection of alternate jurors continues in Manhattan. See also Trump’s covid response was even worse than you remember.
Totally with you on Bibi. If SCOTUS delays on immunity, perhaps Biden could do that, with a side-note to donnie.
Excellent article on TFG & Covid. Here's a couple of paragraphs that stood out for me:
"The first recorded case of covid in the US was in January 2020. A few weeks later Judd Legum at Popular Information posted on Twitter, 'I feel like more people should be talking about the fact that Trump fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.'
Indeed, the Trump administration gutted the infectious disease defense infrastructure through shortsighted cost-cutting measures starting in 2018 — a year after passing a trillion-dollar tax giveaway for his billionaire buddies. The administration specifically canned the executive branch team that would’ve coordinated a response."
—
Think about that. Was it really short-sighted cost-cutting? Given that this happened in 2018, and we know that TFG invited two Russian high level officials into the oval office without press present?
I must be a conspiracy theorist, because I'm seeing KGB fingerprints.
Yes, I remember that. So stupid.
To be clear: After the 2016 election I was convinced that the R campaign had consciously worked with Russia to gain electoral help… not directly but possibly surreptitiously. I'm talking about more than just internet trolls spreading propaganda. Private campaign lists turned over to an oligarch. I waited for the Mueller report and figured it would sort things out for our country. The report did, but it didn't reach the people broadly. Shortly after that happened I decided that it doesn't really matter if anyone can find evidence of active coordination between Russian propaganda outlets and the R party (ie. agreements, with or without money exchanged). All that matters is that the TFG cult has been engaged in and continues to be engaged in "do whatever it takes" efforts to bring about US government actions (or lack thereof) that serve the interests of our global enemies, who are trying to severely reduce our power in the world and our ability to defend ourselves. That's all that matters. So if someone accuses me of spreading "conspiracy theories" without proof, my response would be: "Well theory or truth, maybe hard to tell, but it's just a story that would explain HOW actual events could possibly occur. But it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. What matters is the events that it explain DID happen."
If you're helping the enemies of our country, who cares why you've decide to do that?
I'll temper that statement in the following way: If we can figure why so many Americans are doing things to undermine America, then maybe that will help us with the long term effort to reduce the number of Americans that are believing the propaganda.
Our nation is under attack by foreign adversaries. We have an insurgency in our own country. That insurgency was not started by foreign adversaries; it has centuries-old roots in our own history. But our foreign adversaries see it as one of several Achille's heels that we have and they are glad to try to leverage it.
Priority 1 is to prevent TFG form getting back into the white house.
Priority 2 is to reduce the number of insurgents in both houses of Congress. Their goal is to make it impossible for our government to function.
Priority 3 is to get better at countering propaganda, because this is going to take a long time.
For a long long time, I have felt that the R party in this country is beyond repair (more about that in separate post sometime). I've also had some vague feelings of discomfort with the current R party being characterized as "conservative extremists". Somehow I couldn't square that with the coalition that now dominates that party: Neo-Nazis, KKK, White Christian Evangelicals, Ayn Rand Libertarians, Corporatists, etc. "Extremist Conservative" might apply individually to those groups, but it doesn't explain what's at the core that brings them together as a "movement". Yesterday on Deadline Whitehouse, I saw a segment with Ian Bassin, of Protect Democracy, and he did a great job of articulating it for me. I can't do it justice by typing here.
I looked for video online and failed. I did find a page with audio. I encourage y'all to follow the link and listen. You'll probably have to do a cookies thing, and then select the "termites in the foundation" segment on the page. There will be a control bar at the bottom where you can move the slider to the 00:35:30 mark, and listen at least until 00:40:30… listening until 00:42:50 puts a little icing on the cake.
https://player.fm/series/deadline-white-house-2494834/termites-in-the-foundation-of-our-society
Hope I'm not out of line with this…
Good link, thanks! Added it to my favorites list. I hold a very high opinion of Nicole Wallace's intellect and analysis.
Bibi and Trump are both *symptoms*, not causes.
"Taking out" Netanyahu would not fix Israel; his successor would probably be less corrupt, but not less militant. The political power of Israeli West Bank settlers makes any Two-State Solution impossible now. Israel cannot be both a "Democracy" and a "Jewish State" unless it somehow removes millions of Palestinians from [what it considers to be] its territory. Conversely, Palestinians will never trust Israel to allow them full political, religious, and personal freedoms. This is now an ethnic cage match, and frankly, Israel can't "win" it.
Trumps eventual [political or physiological] demise will likely result in the old Big Money GOP regaining control of his Mob – people who were trained to hate Democrats by Rush Limbaugh, FOX, and other GOP propaganda sources.
Regarding Israel's most recent attack on Iran: that was *not* an escalation, it was a symbolic attack which allowed both sides to back away from WWIII while claiming "victory". Israel can [reasonably] claim that it gathered intel about Iran's air defense systems which would make any subsequent attacks more effective; Iran can [reasonably] claim that the attack was trivial, so they don't need to retaliate.
IMO, this exit-ramp away from WWIII was probably engineered by the Biden Admin, likely with diplomatic help from *pretty much every other country on Earth*. Moreover, I believe that the same could be said of the Iranian missile attack on Israel last week: it was (1) limited; (2) tightly focused (on the military airfield where Israel's attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Syria originated), and (3) telegraphed in advance, which both protected civilian aircraft in the region and made it easy for Israel and its allies to shoot down most of the drones and missiles.
Israel's hit on the Embassy in Syria was a serious breach of International Law, and even Biden is getting tired of letting Israel get away with that s**t. The tactical details of their response make it look like the US actually has more influence in Iran than it does in Israel these days!
I understand why people view Bibi Netanyahu as Bad Guy leading Israel down the path of [self/global] destruction; nobody on Earth has violated Maha's "Bigger A-hole" Rule as often or as flagrantly has he has. But in this case, he is not the problem, which is really two-fold: (1) Israel has promised its [Jewish] people a prosperous, secure Homeland, but its ability to guarantee that militarily is (inevitably) declining, and (2) US campaign finance "laws" have allowed the Israel Lobby to essentially control this aspect of our Foreign (and military) Policy. (AIPAC is spending $100M to defeat AOC's Squad…).