Some Reactions to Recent News

 

• Seems pretty clear that the US Supreme Court isn't just conservative; it's a full-speed-ahead supporter of Trump's fascism.
• Israel is bombing everything in sight in the Middle East. The US is fully behind all the aggression. Are gambling sites putting odds on the next country on which Israel will inflict an act of war?
• One of the most laughable contradictions in the current ADL antisemitism-on-campus fabrication is that I haven't heard of a single Jewish professor fired for supporting the Israel-US genocide. There have been many profs fired--including not a few Jews--for expressing any pro-Palestinian sentiment.
• Just so we don't think it's only the US: The UK Labour government is all in on Israel-US genocoide, arresting anti-genocide protesters and expressing solidarity with Hezog just today. Germany, too, is pretty much on board. They talk about recognizing the Palestiniam State but those are empty words if you're supporting genocide and starvation.
• Bari Weiss's "The Feee Press" is also all-in. Labeling anything that moves antisemitic, and actually denying that starvation is occurring in Gaza. The Venn diagrams of Weiss's principles and Trump's have an overlap of about 90% (and not just on Palestine). The champion of the faux free-speech brigade. What a joke. 

 

 

In the News

 

• Headline in The Guardian: "How Google's shift to AI has upended the online news model". My solution? Don't use Google. I know that's functionally impossibe to do completely. But I never use Google--other than Gmail, which I hope to phase out over time. It is an evil company. Same with Meta, Amazon, and most other tech companies. You only have to see who attended Trump's "tech dinner" where the CEOs of these companies groveled and kissed Trump's ass. They are all evil. They will do anything for money.
• America's genocide and ethnic cleansing--begun under Biden--continues unabated with Trump. Both parties are on board. America's shame.
• Hakeem Jeffries--arguably the highest-ranking elected Democrat in the country--has refused to endorse the mayoral candidate decisively selected by actual New York Democrats. I will take that as his permission for me to vote for third party candidates in future elections. Jeffries--as well as many other prominent Dems--takes his orders from AIPAC.

 

 

Tacking Right

 The fact that the establishment Democrats want to tack to the right on most issues, supposedly to win the "next election" is beyond arguing anymore (and it's not a new thing). There are two problems with this strategy. One, it doesn't seem to work. And two (more importantly) it is morally bankrupt.

What happens is that every tack to the right concedes issues to the Right. Take the border. The public posture as presented is that, yes, the border is in crisis, but we Democrats have a better way of dealing with it. My contention is that there is no crisis. Maybe there are problems to be solved on the border and immigration, but every "problem" is not a "crisis". Once you have conceded the fiction that there is a crisis, you have greased the wheels for those who want to use the most extreme measures to solve it.

Trans athletes? Yeah, there are some issues to be discussed. But the dozen or so actual trans athletes out of 300 million Americans hardly amount to even a big deal, much less a crisis, but you wouldn't know that from the politicians and NY Times columnists. You have just given Trump and Hegseth and Mace permission to persecute trans people all over the country.

Is there antisemitism on colloege campuses? Probably. There is antisemitism everywhere. Is there a crisis of antisemitism on campuses? I call bullshit. The real crisis is the genocide and war crimes being committed by the US and Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. But Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, Biden, Hillary Clinton are all in with ADL and AIPAC (both of which are now just supporters of evil). Any criticism of Israel is antisemitic to the Dems in 2025.

The Dems can keep going rightward to satisfy Third Way and AIPAC and the popularists, instead of supporting what is right simply because it's right. But I am looking elsewhere.

 

 

Quote of the Day

 "Gaza is and should be the dividing line in our history, because all of the beliefs that we once had about the moral order of the world — about international law and human rights — have been deliberately pulverized. Together the Israelis and the United States have destroyed it."

--Author/Journalist James Robins, Jacobin interview 

Random Bullets

Random thoughts

• Costco Colombian coffee has gone up about 40% since Trump took office: 12/2/24--$14.99; 8/5/25--$20.99. I view it as a tax increase for me to help "pay for" Trump's billionaire tax cut. Tariffs on coffee are pretty stupid: it can't be grown in the continental US. It's just a tax paid by consumers, plain and simple. 
• The overtly racist Trump ICE secret police are now racially profiling (violating a court order) and publicly bragging about it.
• Trying to figure out by what stretch of the imagination the FBI has any jurisdiction over a state if Texas poliical dispute where no law has been broken. I know--stuoid question in 2025.
• I am a big sports fan, but am losing interest when the leagues start mimicking Ivy League schools and bending their knees to Trump by joining his phony sports council.
• As expected, Netanyahu announced that Israel plans to occupy Gaza.
• Also saw today that 1.5% of Gazan farm land is damaged and/or unfarmable. We knew from the outset that Israel's goal was to make it uninhabitable, and here we are. According to the ADL, if you find this unacceptable, you are antisemitic. (Actually, both parties seem to agree with the ADL.)

 

 

Israel the Occupier

Netanyahu plans to occupy Gaza. It appears that he may be meeting some opposition, so we will see what happens in the end.

It was clear, however, since shortly after the Hamas attack in October 2023, that occupation was the ultimate plan. Eveyone knew that, and a great proportion of Western governments publicly and dishonestly denied it.

Most notable among these governments, of course, was the US administration of Joe Biden. It is his administration that owns this. He could have stopped it at any time. Not only did he not do so, but he actively and vocally supported the genocide throughout, and actively and dishonestly labelled any US opposition as antisemitic. He was silent when Congress went after American college campuses where protests occurred.

But Biden was not alone. To this day, a majority of elected Democrats in Congress (in opposition to the actual grassroots of the party) have totally supported the genocide. They were also silent--and therefore complicit--when Elise Stefanik lied about antisemitism on campus. There have been a few notable exceptions, but the national elected Democrats are totally guilty in this. It's pretty hard to put the blame in the lap of Donald Trump.

Any Democrat running for national office who does not (1) explicitly condemn the genocide and (2) support some form of Palestinian statehood--now--will not receive my vote.

 

 

• Assuming they actually follow through on their recognition of a Palestinian state, France, UK, Germany, and Canada are showing a lot more moral courage than American law firms and universities, not allowing themselves to be bullied over something so morally significant. I am ashamed to be an American watching these "institutions" doing the wrong things, all for the sake of money, pure and simple. Disgusting.
• American universities are also caving to the ADL, having official required "training" that defines any opposition to the Israeli genocide as antisemitism. If I had kids at that age, it would be tough to find a school I would be willing to send them to.
• To be fair, I used the term Israeli genocide, but I could just as well call it American genocide, since America is officially 100% on board (and I include the Biden administration here). We fund it, run interference for Israel at the UN, publicly lie about it, and go after Americans who protest it. An immense stain on our history.

 

 

Policy Differences between Democrats and Republicans

Here is my list of issues for which there is barely any daylight between the party position of Republicans and Democrats (some overlap on issues to be sure):

• Gaza (the most important issue of our time)
• Funding of Israel's genocide
• Border policy
• Crypto 
• Homelessness
• Alliance with AIPAC and ADL
• Defense spending
• Housing crisis
• Surveillance of American citizens (FISA Courts, etc.)
• Censorship of campus protests with phony cries of antisemitism
• Police
• Cuba
• Trans rights
• Minimum wage
• Medicare for All (or other universal health care)

This is a list I put together here in about twenty minutes. If someone took a couple days, the list would be way longer.  Getting harder and harder to justify my vote for this.

 

 

 

It's Not Only the Dems That Suck

A couple days ago I ranted on the Dems, claiming that most of them--at least the elected ones--pretty much suck. But they aren't the only ones. Have you watched American TV news, both network and cable? It's kind of rhetorical, since I honestly stopped watching years ago. Why do I want to watch Jake Tapper or Claire McCaskill or James Carville or other talking heads with their breaking news that turns out to be inacurrate anyway in a couple days? They are all pretty much all in with the Gaza genocide, for example, not just Fox news. If there is any bias, it is toward Third Way conservatism, nothing lefty at all. 

In our house we actually found that watching France 24 or DW (Germany) or Al Jazeera gives us more thorough and in depth coverage of what's happening in the US than their US counterparts, without the endless panels of political operatives and hacks spouting their savvy insider "knowledge." Who needs it?

Print media is hardly better. NY Times coverage of the NY mayor's race has been a disgrace, and--as with the Iraq War and 2016 election--they double down on their biased and bad coverage, essentially endorsing the corrupt candidates because of "experience" (yeah, lol, amirite?).

In short, all the institutions suck, at least the ones funded by the oligarchs of both parties. Corporate media isn't there to serve you, except for serving you pablum that their oligarchs will allow. They even bribe Donald Trump in the form of court "settlements" for phony lawsuits. Fuck you CBS.

 

What If the Dems Didn't Suck?

Seven months since my last post. I've pretty much left social media--who knows for how long--so found myself back here, and who knows why. I was on Bluesky for the last couple years or so and liked it there as well as the people I followed. But I also found that I don't need to be pumped up with anger and total disbelief about this country, and the whole world for that matter.

Maybe I will write about some of that here, I have nothing better to do. Since my last post, the war in Gaza seems exactly the same as it was, which means it's worse, because it means more and more people are needlessly dead. It's doubly sad and troubling, because most (elected) Democrats are fully in support of the genocide. What's a person to do? Who's a person going to vote for?

The argument seems to be that it's a no-brainer. Of course you have no choice but to vote for the Dems. But there are problems with this argument. Most recently, for example, many of these voices (the vote shamers) are the same voices that are condemning the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York. Apparently "Vote Blue No Matter Who" only applies to those that they approve of. I also have difficuty with the notion that we have to support the evil Israeli tyrant because it is necessary so that we can defeat the evil American tyrant. Quite a trade-off, huh?

Well, I'm not buying it. It is time for the Schumers and the Jeffries and the Pelosis and the rest to listen to the people who want to vote for them instead of thr other way around. I will not vote for anyone who doesn't in some way explicitly oppose and condemn the genocide that the US is currently and financing. Thta's the current no-brainer for me. I will vote third party if the Democrats continue to support things that are evil.

And it's not only Gaza (and the West Bank). These vote-shaming lecturers vote to confirm most of Trump's nominees. They voted for the crypto scam bill. They invite Third Way conservatives to their retreats and ignore the left (disdain the left is more accurate). Medicare for All? Nah, they aren't for that. Trans rights? Nope, just the latest group tp throw under the bus. They are the Party of donors and consultants and their own oligarch buddies. Time to listen to voters like me instead of David Shor and Ezra Klein and James Carville. You want to endorse Andrew Cuomo? Go for it, but you've lost me.

In short, to steal from a Congressional candidate in my district, I'm not voting for candidates who suck anymore.