Pretty much says it: As Israel launches its eye-for-an-eye effort to obliterate Hamas for murdering 1,000+ civilians on its soil in a rave of bloodshed — young and old, Israelis and tourists — multiple commentators remind us that killing the idea of Hamas is quite a different thing from killing its leaders. Flattening northern Gaza and killing more even civilians in the process will not accomplish that. And yet no state cannot endure such a threat on its doorstep. Palestinians cannot endure life under tighter and tighter restrictions. Something was going to give. This is it. And yet. Those of us watching, powerless to stop the killing, would do well to heed Nicholas Kristof’s admonition: If we owe a moral responsibility to Israeli children, then we owe the same moral responsibility to Palestinian children. Their lives have equal weight. If you care about human life only in Israel or only in Gaza, then you don’t actually care about human life. CNN reports: What are the chances it will be only foreign nationals allowed to leave? See below.
Uncategorized
2024 is a decade away in political years Dave Wasserman commented last night on the present chaos in D.C.: “What’s so wild about the current political environment is that if the 2024 election were held this November, I believe a) Biden’s numbers are so bad he’d lose to an indicted Trump and b) House Rs are so dysfunctional/out of sorts they would lose the majority.” November 2024 is a decade away in political years. Donald Trump could be appealing convictions by then, be banned from the ballot in a state or two, or be drooling onto his fast food while raging about beating Barack Obama at the polls in November as a regional war burns in the Middle East. Still, Wasserman’s warnings about Biden’s weakness point to some Democratic weaknesses I monitor. How is it Dems are cleaning up in special elections/referendums if their national poll numbers are so bad? Because in the Trump era, Dems are excelling w/ the most civic-minded, highly-engaged voters. Their biggest weakness? Peripheral voters who only show up in presidentials. — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 14, 2023 They skew young, unaffiliated, nonwhite and non-college.
He may be the front runner but that hasn’t stopped him from making back room deals to secure it The NY Times lays out Trump’s strategy to ensure that he can’t lose the nomination. Does anyone think he won’t do the same with the general election if he can? Not long after the new chairman of the Republican Party in Hawaii was elected in May, he received a voicemail from none other than Donald J. Trump. “It’s your all-time favorite president,” Mr. Trump told the chairman, Tim Dalhouse. “I just called to congratulate you.” The head of the Kansas G.O.P. received a similar message after he became chairman. The Nebraska chairman had a couple of minutes and a photo arranged with the former president during an Iowa stop. And the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, Michael McDonald, who had served as a fake elector for Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, was among a group of state party officials who were treated to an hourslong Mar-a-Lago meal in March that ended in ice cream sundaes. Months later, Mr. McDonald’s party in Nevada dramatically transformed the state’s influential early contest.
Republican voters act like children This is ridiculous: David Alexander, an engineer who attended the Iowa Faith and Freedom dinner last month, called the absent Donald Trump “arrogant” and “egotistical” while praising a raft of other Republican presidential candidates who attended. But he doesn’t blame Trump for skipping the event — and figures the former president is busy defending himself from indictments on 91 criminal charges. The “beating” Trump has taken is a key part of his appeal, Alexander said. “The people that don’t like him. … When they dislike him, it helps me like him more,” said Alexander, 61, who called Trump his top choice in the 2024 nominating contest. “If they ignored him, I probably wouldn’t like him as much. Does that make sense?” Only if you are a toddler. Mature adults don’t think like that. The whole damned party is a bunch of whiny little babies.
It’s Friday the 13th Donald Trump’s attorneys this week argued in a Colorado case brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that the Constitution does not prohibit him from running for office. Based on Trump’s Jan. 6 actions, CREW hopes to disqualify Trump from the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause prohibiting any officer who has “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding a civil, military, or elected office unless approved by a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate. But this is Donald Trump we’re talking about. And Trump attorneys. They argue the Constitution does not apply to him becuase he never took an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” per the amendment’s language (Law & Crime): “Section Three does not apply to President Trump,” the filing reads.
No one could be more ignorant or self-serving It seems like only yesterday that then-President Donald Trump appeared before the Republican Jewish Coalition and referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister” despite the fact that, by definition, everyone there was American, not Israeli. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Lamenting that American Jews tend to vote more often for Democrats, in the same speech he proclaimed that voting for them again “would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves” and then suggested that “maybe you could explain that to some of your people who say ‘Oh, we don’t like tariffs.’” This was happening at the same time as Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was under fire from the right for suggesting that some American Jews have “dual loyalties,” but somehow Trump didn’t hear any condemnation from his fellow Republicans.
There is a ton of good writing out there on the war in Israel. It’s so fraught with emotion and complex morality that it’s hard to keep up. I admit that I’m starting to flag a bit. There have also been some good television discusions. This was one of them and I’m glad Josh Marshall caught it: Very good discussion and worth listening to all the way through https://t.co/xEA03nmYuY — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 13, 2023 Here are a few links I’ve bookmarked. I don’t endorse all the ideas within them necessarily but they’re all thoughtful and interesting: The NRRB: Heading toward a second NakbaDissent: Toward a humane leftThe Nation: The Catastrophic Moral Failing of Those Who Won’t Condemn HamasHaaretz: Israel’s new concept of Hamas and Gaza is doomed to fail just like the last oneNYT Kristof: Seeking a Moral Compass in Gaza’s WarNYT Goldberg: The Massacre in Israel and the Need for a Decent LeftThe Guardian: How should the US respond to the Israel-Palestine crisis?
American voters were crazy enough once before Brian Beutler offers thoughts on Donald Trump dissing the Israeli prime minister on Wednesday when Benjamin Netanyahu is down. And Netanyahu is down after the Hamas attack last Saturday per Noga Tarnopolsky at Intelligencer: Netanyahu Is Losing the War at Home. It wasn’t Israel’s failure to aid in Trump’s drone strike on Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani that soured Trump on the Israeli PM, as Trump’s Florida rally comments suggest. Nor even Netanyahu upstaging Trump at a past White House event. NBC News: Trump has long sought to emphasize his appeal to Jewish Americans and has complained when he feels he has not been recognized sufficiently. Even after having left office, Trump has maintained he has done more for Israel and the Middle East than any other U.S. president, holding up the historic peace agreements he forged with Arab nations. He wants Jewish votes. They owe him. Yet 7 in 10 overall support Democrats.
His employees are a bunch of Sgt. Schultzes In case you’re interested in the recent doings of the Trump fraud trial this week, this article in the Daily Best runs down a part of it. By the way, Trump hasannounced that he plans to attend the tril next week when Michael Cohen is expected to take the stand. I guess hw figures he can bad-vibe him with that mug-shot scowl: For years, a high-ranking accountant at the Trump Organization was the point man for ensuring that tweaked numbers padded Donald Trump’s wealth on paper. But when he appeared on the witness stand at the former president’s bank fraud trial last week, the accountant’s supposed finance expertise suddenly vanished into thin air. Jeffrey McConney, who recently retired as the company’s controller, has spent recent years facing close legal scrutiny. In 2017, state investigators questioned him over the way Trump misused his charity, which was eventually dissolved. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg used McConney’s testimony to convict the Trump Organization of tax fraud last year.