Data Comparisons

Open thread for current events discussion.

784 Comments

I’m putting the discussion that is not about Koutsayannis’s paper here. This is because I want to find some helpful comments as I later do some toy modeling.
Migration will happen next. šŸ™‚

784 thoughts on “Open thread for current events discussion.”

  1. Biden Administration to Resume Border Wall Construction in Policy Reversal
    To expedite the construction, the administration waived laws that protect air, water and endangered species
    https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/biden-administration-to-resume-border-wall-construction-in-policy-reversal-7ff41d2e?st=gz8hfcm6zqoh5un&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    ā€œThere is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areasā€
    .
    Of course the actual story here is the same as pandemic restrictions. The demonization of political opponents as immoral followed by the group making the same decisions when they themselves are forced to deal with the consequences.
    .
    It’s goes without saying that if the non-corrupt non-partisan media
    had the courage of their alleged convictions then they would respond to this announcement the same way they did with Trump, of course they do not. This wall decision was made by people they “trust”. What is happening here surprises nobody, at least the WSJ article highlights the hypocrisy in paragraph 1. What’s missing is paragraphs of moral outrage from their rolodex of immigration experts/activists.

  2. I realize this is volatile, but when a (NY) Attorney General promises in a campaign ad to sue an “illegitimate” president for obstruction of justice in 2018, and follows up with some pretty shaky charges in 2023 then Trump does have actual evidence of a witch hunt.
    https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111183065581573868
    .
    Trump may still be guilty, but this just doesn’t look good and is not defensible in my view, * especially to Trump supporters *. Trump’s superpower is bringing out the worst in his opponents. This is probably an example of an actual planned attack from Trump that shows a semblance of strategy.

  3. Tom,
    Biden disavows responsibility for this:

    ā€œIā€™ll answer one question on the border wall: The border wall ā€“ the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didnā€™t, they wouldnā€™t. And in the meantime, thereā€™s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I canā€™t stop that,ā€ Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.

    Asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, ā€œNo.ā€

    Shrug.
    [Edit: I agree with you about the various state AG’s going after Trump. Really crappy idea.]

  4. I think they doth protest too much, ha ha. Biden could stop this if he wanted to, this is the same guy who invents new ways to give billions away in loan forgiveness every week. Clearly ā€œthe administration waived laws that protect air, water and endangered speciesā€ part doesnā€™t point to being dragged kicking and screaming. This isn’t going to get approved without Biden knowing about it. My guess is they are just trying to have it both ways.

  5. Yes Tom, This legal persecution of the leading opposition candidate for president by the current administration is really totally unprecedented and a danger to our Constitutional system. This used to happen only in Brazil and Russia. If this becomes common practice, we are in very deep trouble. I hope the Supreme Court steps in soon and ends this.

    A recent Rasmussan poll that 70% (from memory) of registered voters think we already have a police state.

  6. Tom Scharf, yes.
    Also, if I recall correctly, the Democrats had majorities in both Houses from 2021-2023. “They wouldn’t” change the appropriations is a lame excuse.

  7. Tom Scharf,
    “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas”
    .
    I think the Biden administration is evil. That quote is solid supporting evidence. They threw open the gates…. and even created cell phone aps to facilitate unlawful immigration. IMHO, there has never been a president as incompetent as Biden, as corrupt as Biden, nor an administration as dishonest as the Biden administration. Were I a religious person, I might find comfort in the knowledge Biden will burn in Hell for an eternity. But, alas, I am not. His policies damage the USA and he will never suffer any consequences, at least not until he is so demented he is unaware of it.

  8. I agree SteveF. What I find so disheartening is how so many Americans could vote for such a sad politician as Biden. I personally think this happened because our media, big tech, and state and local Democrats politicians are very dishonest and they really wanted Biden to win. In 1988, the media forced him to drop out over his plagiarism of an entire speech from a British politician. That version of the media is gone.

  9. David Young (Comment #225149)
    October 5th, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    There is one huge resson that so many voted for Biden and its name is Donald Trump. Most people, I believe are more inclined to vote against a Presidential candidate than for one.

    I think if you are willing to take a hard look at Trump and lose the rationalizations it will be crystal clear.

  10. SteveF (Comment #225148): “I think the Biden administration is evil. That quote is solid supporting evidence. They threw open the gatesā€¦. and even created cell phone aps to facilitate unlawful immigration.”
    .
    Indeed. How typical that he is saying he will restart wall construction so as to deal with well deserved criticism. At the same time, he is trying to assuage his supporter by saying “It’s not me, Congress made me do it”.
    .
    Of course, it remains to be seen if he actually does anything. Biden is dishonest enough to say he is changing policy while leaving it the same. And the open border is deliberate policy, not incompetence.

  11. The current persecution of Trump in NY is an obvious miscarriage of justice. It is a civil prosecution with no harmed party. All the banks got their loans repaid and none seem to be complaining.

  12. Ken, I know Trump can be his own worst enemy, but I really believe that the public was lied to about Joe Biden and his corruption and his physical acuity. When the entire media are attacking you every ten seconds, its hard to swim against that tide especially for Trump. The 4 year disinformation campaign against Trump did probably convince quite a few people that he was a Russian asset. Trump was never my first or even second choice.

    It is hard to underestimate how viscous and dishonest this full court press of disinformation was. This was not just the media, but almost every former CIA official, the FBI, and the Mueller team and big tech which was becoming infiltrated with former deep staters, like James Baker (who was part of Russiagate). This same cartel worked to smear honest people like Devon Nunes and his completely accurate report and elevate the Mueller report. And now this issue has disappeared from view as the media never ran corrections for the falsehoods and smears.

    I also think covid caused changes to election rules that were illegal and allowed mass mail in balloting which is very susceptible to fraud. The pandemic put people in a panic. When you are panicked the first thing that goes is critical thinking. Once again the totally biased media tried to persuade people that Trump was at least partially at fault for the pandemic response when mostly he followed the CDC and NIH recommendations. “The Science” establishment unleashed an unprecedented propaganda campaign which smeared scores of our top scientists and tried to deplatform them while propagating lies such as that cloth masks “work” or that vaccination keeps you from catching covid. I’ll repost the links from the other thread of clips.

    Many saw Biden as a grandfatherly figure whose record in the Senate was centrist, not realizing that he was mentally incapable of making rational decisions and so fell back on the old radical Obama crowd (which is indistinguishable from the current Democrat party) that really started the abuses of government power that are now so obvious.

    I do think its elder abuse for his family to allow Biden to run for re-election.

    On the previous thread I posted some links that are montages of the media and government officials during the pandemic. Refresh your memory on just how hysterical and dishonest things got during covid. People tend to forget these things.

  13. I think I’ve made it plain I don’t agree with David regarding many things. I’m sure nobody is interested in reading a replay of my disagreements from the last thread, so; let this comment suffice to note that my silence should not be misconstrued.

  16. Apparently Biden or somebody on his staff can at least read a poll. This story from NBC reads like upside-down land:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/border-biden-anger-democrats-migrants-blue-cities-states-pritzker-rcna118690
    “But with tens of thousands of migrants now attempting to settle in blue states and cities around the country, the ground has shifted in the national immigration debate, with Democrats increasingly calling on President Joe Biden to take action on the border.

    Itā€™s all quickly created a political headache for the president.”

    “According to NBC News polling, Republicans have their biggest-ever leads on the question of which party better handles immigration.”
    .
    NPR today: “U.S. immigration authorities are restarting deportations to Venezuela, as the Biden administration tries to discourage migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

    The U.S plans to resume repatriation flights directly to Venezuela immediately, the administration announced Thursday.
    …
    On a background call with reporters, an administration official said the resumption of deportations to Venezuela will “show how we are committed to imposing consequences on those who cross the border unlawfully.””

  17. Wasn’t it Venezuelan immigrants who were granted special status recently? So what makes those immigrants more deserving than those now being deported? I really don’t understand how this is supposed to work. [Not that it seems to be working…]

  18. Tom Scharf,
    “show how we are committed to imposing consequences on those who cross the border unlawfully.ā€
    .
    It is like a nakedly sick joke. Part of their plan seems to be to focus on deporting Venezuelans, who know a thing or two about the evils of socialism and are unlikely to ever embrace the lefty vision of the USA the Biden administration promotes. But they will continue to let those from central American countries and elsewhere continue to stream over the Southern border (presumably because they are more amenable to lefty propaganda). I loath the Biden administration.

  19. Venezuelan immigrants had to wait 6 months before they could apply for work permits due to some rule. This forced states to have to completely support them due to their right to shelter laws. The 6 month rule was waived for Venezuelan immigrants who arrived before July 31, apparently to try to reduce the economic burden on the states. I’m guessing there was a date cutoff here to try to not incentivize more immigrants.

  20. This move is a political panic move. Recent polling shows Republicans vastly more trusted on immigration than Democrats, they currently have their biggest lead ever. I suspect this will not work however unless they deport millions of people. They may not know where most of these people are currently. If not, the 6 million illegals will still be here at election time and still be camped out in hotels costing cities tens of millions. I don’t think issuing them work permits is legal because of Federal law.

    I doubt however if voters will forget about the economy in November either. That’s Biden’s most serious problem because he has no viable solutions except prayer. The main problem for them is that the pandemic slush fund money people put away is gone. Wages are down, credit card defaults are way up. Inflation appears to still be with us as oil prices are rising with Putin exacting revenge by cutting production as are the Saudis.

    My best friend thinks Biden will not make it to election time. Democrats will do the Nixon treatment when the evidence of influence peddling and money laundering and senility becomes overwhelming.
    This would also have serious consequences for them. Who could step in? Buttigigg?

    I also think they are gravely concerned about Biden vs. Trump polling. Trump is leading in the average by 1.1 points. In 2020 Biden was ahead by if I recall correctly 7 points. That translates into an electoral landslide for Trump. DeSantis is in the same ball park. Haley actually seems to poll best against Biden even though there are only a couple of polls.

  21. I do believe SteveF that the Biden administration will go down as the most lawless in our history. It is also the most dishonest, largely because the media are now acting almost as state media.

    It reminds me of the Southern media in the 1850’s. Very uniform narratives and opinions. All pro-slavery.

  22. Very clever math, CNN:
    “Gallup tracks Americansā€™ attitudes toward immigration and their surveys suggest an uptick in the past two years in the portion of people who want decreased immigration to the US to 41%, its highest level since 2014. Those who want immigration to stay at its present level (31%) or increase (26%) combine for a majority. ”
    .
    Not that I haven’t seen this sleight of hand used repeatedly by activists of all sorts. The neutral people are really on our side.

  23. Tom… well yeah “clever math”… since those who want it to decrease or stay at it’s present level also combine for a majority– and a bigger one.

  24. It’s just another Tom that voters are waking up from their slumbers and are smarter than many think.

  26. I guess she didn’t get the memo about how Trump shouldn’t be judged by the things he says.

  27. Hillary was as unpleasant a lizard person as they come. Still, the truth is still the truth even when uttered by the likes of her:

    “It’s a classic tale of an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional, psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population,” Clinton said. “And the base of the Republican Party, for whatever combination of reasons ā€” and it is emotional and psychological ā€” sees in him someone who speaks for them, and they are determined that they will continue to vote for him, attend his rallies, wear his merchandise because for whatever reason, he and his very negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.”

    I don’t think any part of that is wrong.

  28. You know, saying which, I thought you’d said earlier:

    iIā€™m simply not interested in shirt ripping over sentences pulled out of context from a massive opus of public utterances

    So, no massive opus defense for Hillary huh. That’s reserved for Trump I guess.

  29. Marc, I never said we should not judge Trump by what he says, merely that his supporters don’t take him literally. Hillary’s tirade you quote is wrong on so many levels. It demonizes half the country and strips them of dignity and humanity.

    Hillary is in a different category than Trump. She is an authoritarian and a war monger who as Secretary of State oversaw the disastrous Libyian revolution. She has been an advocate for every foreign war imaginable. The hypocrisy just exudes from Hillary. But this fits a pattern of demonization. It’s always her enemies who are the devil. Kadaffy, Assad, Putin, Hussein, Bolsonaro, and now Trump.

    Hillary unleashed on the country the Russiagate hoax which has done enormous damage to our institutions. Her lies are endless and because she has institutional backing have negative consequences. The Alpha Bank hoax, the DNC hack attribution, the Russian interference hoax, the private server, the Biden laptop lies, the creation of the Disinformation Industrial Complex, the Ukraine and Russia lies. All these things destroy public trust in our “institutions.”

    Glenn Greenwald has some excellent podcasts describing the sad history of Clinton’s career. He is also right that Trump has a unique ability to convince ordinary people he cares about them. That’s what Clinton really hates and thinks is dangerous. Just as J. P. Morgan hated Teddy Roosevelt and considered him an existential threat to the existing order. He was absolutely right that there was a threat because the system at the time was completely corrupt and needed reform.

    “negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.ā€ is a perfect description of Hillary’s politics.

    I think Marc you are suffering from a bad case of TDS. Can you point to what you think Trump actually did as president that you don’t agree with. He secured the border, he got the covid vaccine done in record time. He provided military medical assistance to New York and other hard hit areas. The economy was good during his term. Real wages rose largely due to his clamping down on all immigration. And most of all, he didn’t get the US into any new foreign wars.

    Adults look at actions and not words. Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me. There is a reason we say that to children.

  31. David,
    Objectively speaking, Donald Trump is a demagogue. The dangers that demagogues pose to democracies ha[ve] been known since ancient times. This is what Hillary Clinton is talking about, if we are interested in taking her words in context.
    Taibbi is not interested in taking Clinton’s words in context. He’s making a buck selling outrage. It’s a free country, and more power to him, but don’t kid yourself about what he’s doing.
    You can think whatever you want about my motives, they are not germane.
    I have no idea why you are reciting the sticks and stones admonishment to me. I didn’t call you any names.

  32. Marc, You just call people names and refuse to say what concrete policy actions you find objectionable. Adults talk about actions not words.

    You are wrong about Taibbi and Greenwald. Both are consistent advocates of the Bill of Rights and honest journalists. Adults don’t demonize people by reading their minds. Taibbi is trying to support his reporting operation. What he reports on is worthy of outrage.

  33. Okay David. I just call people names and refuse to say what concrete policy actions I find objectionable, because adults talk about actions and not words.
    I don’t even know what to say to that. Get help, my friend. I’m not a big believer, but I live amongst religious people, so I’ll pray for you I guess.

  34. List the specific policies of Trump’s administration you disagree with. Your last comment was just a deflection.

    I gave you along list of Clinton’s disastrous actions.

  35. David, please. There need be no bad guy here. It’s not about me disagreeing with Trump’s policies or approving of Clinton’s policies.

  36. Hilarious! Formal deprogramming, ha ha. That is definitely right up there with deplorables. That was actually pretty funny, especially as CNN’s Amanpour nods her head yes and smiles when she says that.
    .
    Nobody is going to be surprised that I think it is a journalist’s responsibility to challenge that kind of statement, because that is way, way out there. I guarantee that wasn’t on her talking points list. She probably begged CNN to edit that out, or at least I hope so.
    .
    I have no idea what context you think HRC’s was using here, perhaps you can explain further what she exactly means by * formal deprogramming of MAGA cult members *, aka US citizens and voters. Trump being a continuous a-hole does not absolve her from being the same. Realistically this barely hidden contempt for part of America is why she lost an election to none other than Donald Trump. This attitude doesn’t look good on anybody.
    .
    It just reestablishes her rather demeaning and dehumanizing view of her opposition. I could hear the collective groan of the entire Democratic party when those words hit the airwaves.
    https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/10/06/hillary-clinton-maga-cult-extremists-donald-trump-house-republicans-amanpour-cnntm-vpx.cnn

  37. I don’t think Trump’s support depends primarily on demagoguery or desire for an authoritarian or his supporters being crazy or hypnotized. His supporters had gotten used to politicians (especially Republicans) saying one thing then selling out their voters once in Washington. Trump did not do that.
    .
    Repeat: Trump did not do what they ALL do. That buys a lot of loyalty. Trump voters might like what DeSantis or somebody says but thdn they think “how do we know he will do what he says?”. Experience has taught them that the answer is “He won’t”. Except for Trump. So why would they vote for someone else? Only if that someone else can convince them that he won’t sell them out. Given history, that is a heavy lift. I hope that DeSantis can pull it off.

  38. All HRC needs to do is release a statement that it was a dumb thing to say and she doesn’t really believe that. That’s where she really blew it last time by not retracting the statement, which was followed by some really bizarre cheerleading from the media basically saying “they really are deplorables!”. What a circus.

  39. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue

    A demagogue (/?d?m????/; from Greek ?????????, a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from ?????, people, populace, the commons + ?????? leading, leader),[1] or rabble-rouser,[2][3] is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.[4] Demagogues overturn established norms of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so.[5]:?32ā€“38?

    I think Trump is a demagogue. You guys disagree. Well, it is what it is I guess.

  40. Do you guys keep up with the stuff he posts on Truth Social at all? I don’t keep up with all of it. But calling the media treasonous, noting that in times past Mark Milley would have been executed for treason, none of that smacks of demagoguery to you.

  41. Mark,
    I’m not sure I’d call those remarks on Milley demagoguery. But John Kelly had something to say about those remarks while also confirming media stories that Trump did not want to be photographed with the war injured or visit the burial site of the war dead.

    A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason ā€“ in expectation that someone will take action.

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html

  42. Thanks RB. Maybe I’m off in the weeds on the meaning of demagoguery. I’ll seriously review it.

  44. Marc, Politics is always about choices.

    I am willing to use any instrument to fight what I consider some very real threats to our Constitutional system. If Trump is that instrument, that’s fine.

    Your definition of demagogue fits most recent politicians including Hillary Clinton and Biden. Clinton was not effective at it. Biden based his entire campaign on demonizing Trump and his supporters. He uses inflammatory language to talk about half the country. He constantly exaggerates threats like racism, white supremacy or sexism or Putin to stoke fears. Biden has been a liar and plagiarist his entire career. That disqualified him in 1988, but today standards have gone down I guess.

    “is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.”

    I think the part about “arousing common people against elites” would fit the entire anti-slavery movement, the women’s rights movement, and many Presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt.

    You are not doing a good job at showing evidence for your desire to single out Trump and portray him as uniquely evil. Greenwald is correct that Trump is the biggest threat to our corrupt institutions around and that’s why the media do what demagogues do in their coverage of Trump.

  45. RB, I don’t really care about what people recall was said in private many years ago. A lot of this stuff is BS. Cassidy Hutchinson’s tall tail about Trump trying to sieze the steering wheel to go to the Capitol for example.

    A lot of things are said in private that people don’t really mean or don’t reflect their character.

  46. David,
    I’m not sure what is wrong with you. I’m sorry for getting into conflict with you here, because whatever [it is] preventing you from thinking or articulating clearly makes me feel like I am unfairly abusing somebody who can’t properly defend themselves or their position. I will try to be gentler I guess going forward.

  47. Trump certainly has some characteristics of a demagogue. Also from Wikipedia:

    Demagogue, a term originally referring a leader of the common people, was first coined in ancient Greece with no negative connotation

    .
    The first part of that definitely fits Trump. And some of the negative connotation also applies, although much more so if you are on the side of the elites. But by historical standards of demagogues, Trump is pretty mild.
    .
    By the way, I said that Trump’s primary appeal was not demagoguery. I stand by that.

  48. Mark,
    I’m share you opinion on David. It isn’t worth interacting with him on political issues because he doesn’t articulate claims, reasons or anything clearly. It’s tempting to set aside specific “post for people who want to talk to David”, and insist he can only comment over there. Then people will be able to continue to have political discussions without interruption by David.

  50. Politicians in general engage in demagoguery, but what you need to remember is that the extent of Trump’s demagoguery has a very good chance of getting Joe Biden and his band of progressives fully in charge in 2024.

    I sometimes think that Trump’s supporters and rationalizers are a fifth column for the progressive movement.

  51. Ken Fritsch (Comment #225211): “Trumpā€™s demagoguery has a very good chance of getting Joe Biden and his band of progressives fully in charge in 2024.”
    .
    I worry about that, but there really does not seem to be much evidence for it. Polls show Trump doing about as well against Biden as any other Republican. Maybe a different candidate would have a better chance of winning voters over between now and the election. On the other hand a lot of people will be motivated to vote for Trump who might otherwise might not vote.
    .
    I suppose that one might argue that a lot of people will be motivated to turn out and vote against Trump who otherwise might not vote. But I suspect that the Dem ballot generating machine has gotten so efficient that might not matter.
    .
    It seems to me that a lot of opinions like Ken’s (and mine) end up being “judging by people like us …”. But that is not a good guide to the other 99% of the electorate.

  52. Ken, you may have a point, but I doubt it. I pointed to the polling which shows Republicans in better position on the most important issues than in a long time. A lot will depend on how many voters will realize that things were a lot better under Trump than they are right now. There are quite a few prominent converts. Meghan Kelly, Glenn Greenwald, and to some extent Schellenberger, Musk, Taibbi and Weiss, and the other Twitter files reporters. All of them may not vote for Trump, but they are awake to how dangerous the Democrats are.

  53. Lucia and Mark, If you want me to not comment about certain topics, you need to be specific. I don’t think other commenters here mind what I’m saying. If you want, I can avoid these topics despite the fact that I think this is the most important issue we face.

    I’ve found interacting with you unsatisfying. First you prejudge my springtime blog post (on which I got a lot of positive feedback from friends and relatives and commenters) and denigrate it. Then it becomes obvious you haven’t looked at any of the evidence. When I point to some of it, you say its an opinion piece and find minor quibbles with others. Despite the pieces being by perhaps the most famous scientist of the 21st century. Even opinion pieces can point to source material. Then I link the Twitter files. Then you say you know about this. Then it becomes obvious you have no idea of the scope of what they reveal. There are various silly debating tactics, such as pointing to irrelevant Federal agencies when I misstated what the deep state was. You could have pointed out that my definition was not what most mean by that term. When I clarified and provided evidence again, you didn’t really respond. If you are not interested in this topic, fine with me.

    I think an issue here is the sources of information you are using. I’ve done a lot of reading in alternative media for the last 9 months and it changed my thinking about these topics.

    You have provided zero evidence for any positive assertions and instead just attacked what I have said. And Mark, this latest Demagogue rat hole is just a rhetorical flourish with no understanding of how your definition applies perfectly to perhaps 50% of political discourse, now and in the past. I point this out and you seem to take offense. You do a gratuitous and zero evidence attack on Matt Taibbi who is a fine reporter. If you want to read your comments, please do a better job.

    I comment on blogs to learn. I’ve learned little here except from Ken, SteveF, Mike, and sometimes Russell even though it was good to refresh my memory on the Twitter Files.

  54. I’m more concerned with Republicans shooting themselves in the foot with all the chaos in the House.

    I also believe there are very troubling economic signs out there. There is still a lot of inflation. The money supply has not declined this steeply since the 1930’s. The Fed compounded the great Depression by not cutting interest rates. This time the Fed will be powerless because they have expended all their ammo. Check car and home prices and interest rates. Most people can’t afford to move or buy a car or a home. Many auto workers know that Biden is harming them with his electric vehicle push and Green agenda. And Biden in the stupidest way has associated this mess with the Biden name.

    I personally expect things to get a lot worse. What I’m hearing about Boeing is not encouraging. I have no idea when they will return to profitability. And they have gotten rid of most of their senior engineering staff through voluntary or involuntary layoffs and retirements. Boeing’s 737 fuselage supplier is nearing insolvency. I’m losing money on Boeing right now.

    It’s the economy stupid. Get on and stay on message Republicans.

  55. David Young,
    What I see from the outside is that Boeing has significant organizational/management problems. The 737 Max catastrophe was 100% a self inflicted injury, brought on by a series of really bad management decisions. Until Boeing makes changes in management structure and philosophy, they seem unlikely to have a happy future. If they have already made the needed changes, it isn’t showing yet.
    .
    The United Launch Alliance (ULA) joint venture is a nightmare of delays and cost over-runs. Were it not for the (seemingly irrational) support of the Air Force and NASA, ULA would have zero future, because they are simply not cost competitive with SpaceX. I try to imagine ULA developing their own rocket engines and simultaneously developing retro-landing reusable boosters, then shake my head: they couldn’t do it in 35 years, if they were even willing to try…. and they wouldn’t be willing to try. As with Boeing, they need big changes if they are going to be relevant, or even exist.
    .
    If I were you I would get out of Boeing stock and into an S&P 500 fund.

  56. David Young (Comment #225216): “I pointed to the polling which shows Republicans in better position on the most important issues than in a long time.”
    .
    That is the sort of polling that led many (me included) to expect a Red Wave in 2022. Didn’t happen. The Dems counteracted it with “Trump!!!”. And they did it without Trump being on the ballot by means of the formula Republican=Trump. Maybe they can do it again, maybe they can’t.

  57. Fighting in Israel this morning.
    I’m never able to grasp Hamas strategy, if they have any. They did a surprise attack, now they’re going to get a-whuppin. I don’t get the point. There never appears to be any strategic change.

  58. David,
    I would suggest that it is worth listening to you if you stick purely to scientific or technical topics (e.g. CFD)– but not if you begin to touch on how politics influence science or the work on those topics. When you do that even when some claim you make is correct, you appear unable to organize your thoughts well enough to make a case for them. And you appear unable to listen to claims, positions or even simple statements others have made. (I mean… how many times did I have to tell you I said nothing about your CFD paper? Or that I had read your most recent blog post? It is impossible to have a conversation with others who keep blowing up about fictional notions they hold in their head which cannot be dislodged by simple statements of fact.)
    .
    Outside your technical domain, your contributions to conversations appear to me to be nothing but distracting noise.
    .
    That it is nothing but noise might be only a small problem, but you are also a prolific commenter. And you say thing very extreme ways and definitely appear to be gish-gallops.

  59. Lucia,
    If there’s anything I can say or do to help that you can think of, let me know. I helped contribute to a mess here and now I can’t figure out how to help clean it up. I feel very badly about it, but I can’t think of anything else to say about it that wouldn’t further aggravate the situation.

  60. mark bofill,
    Hamas wants to blow up any chance of normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which both the Crown Prince who rules Saudi Arabia and Netanyahu have been talking about. Hamas’ official, and never revised policy is that the state of Israel must not exist. Everything they do, from funding the families of suicide bombers to seemingly pointless attacks on Israelis to illicit Israeli retaliation, is with that single, overarching objective in mind.
    .
    I remember when Bill Clinton and Israel essentially offered Yasser Arafat a two-state settlement of the conflict; he walked away. I think is is clear Hamas will never accept the existence of Israel, and they could not care less about deaths of Palestinians and Israelis, nor about the abject poverty and misery the Palestinians suffer because of Hamas. Peace can only happen when Palestinians rise up against Hamas. Hamas rules by terror and violence, so I’m not holding my breath.

  61. Steve,
    Really! Is that what it’s all about. All this time, I never knew. Is this just speculation or is it pretty well established?
    [Edit: Makes sense. here. We sold Qatar F-16’s not that long ago. That seems so nutty to me..]

  62. mark bofill,
    Speculation, but informed by history. Then there is this from Reuters:
    .
    “The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, an arch foe of Israel, said it was in “direct contact with the leadership of the Palestinian resistance” and described events as a “decisive response to Israel’s continued occupation and a message to those seeking normalisation with Israel”.
    .
    Hummm…. there is a common thread here: Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas all insist Israel must not exist.

  63. mark,
    My travels in the region tell me there is a significant fraction of Middle Eastern Muslims who remain adamantly opposed to the existence of Israel. So the chance of Hamas being driven from power seems slim. Leaders of the surrounding countries are likely very aware of the dangers (including the potential of assassinations!) normalizing relations with Israel present.

  64. Mike M. (Comment #225212)
    October 6th, 2023 at 5:14 pm

    The anti Trump movement, as with most anti political movements, will in my judgment be much stronger in getting the vote out than the vote for Trump will produce. In addition, if Trump were to be elected, in my mind he is the worst Republican candidate to articulate for a less interventionist government. He can take a good cause and turn it to crap by his ramblings.

  65. A polling question I would like to see addressed to Trump supporters is would you vote for Trump in the primaries even if you thought the result would be the more likely election of Biden and majorities in the House and Senate.

    I worry about groups of people who see Trump as some kind of a hero above and beyond seeing the threats of the progressive left and more government.

  66. Steve,
    Yeah. This one’s never going to get sorted out peacefully. Might be it’ll never be sorted out, period.

  67. I have another question that could be posted here or at the current CO2 chicken and egg sister thread.

    If in 30 years there is a process for sequestering CO2 at a rapid rate, and any other major green house gases that could have a major impact of the global mean surface temperature (GMST), that is found to be safe and economical, what GMST temperature would be ideal, including decreases and increases?

    Adaption becomes an issue here with the common thought that the current temperature if it exist in a reasonable range for long enough it is the best temperature.

  68. Ken Fritsch (Comment #225240): “A polling question I would like to see addressed to Trump supporters is would you vote for Trump in the primaries even if you thought the result would be the more likely election of Biden and majorities in the House and Senate.”
    .
    I think that similar questions have been asked. Polls have shown that most Republicans do not identify as being primarily Trump supporters and most want a candidate who can win in 2024. No doubt, there is a “Trump or nothing” contingent, but they are nowhere near enough to get him the nomination.
    .
    You and I live in milieus where a Trump victory seems implausible, if not impossible. I suspect that a lot of Trump supporters live in milieus where a Trump victory seems probable, if not inevitable.

  69. Ken,
    I suspect the exact temperature is a lot less important than a rapid rise in sea level (eg >1 meter in <100 years). That rate of rise seems unlikely unless temperatures were to increase more quickly than they have over the past 60 years. If humans really could withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere, sea level rise would likely be the most important consideration. But I don't see any easy way (low cost, low energy) for CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere.

  72. Looks like it is time to mow the jihadi grass again. Sending 1000’s of unguided rockets into population areas is going to illicit a response.
    This blood feud hasn’t changed in my lifetime. It’s gotten to the point where I think this is sometimes more about internal Palestinian politics than attacking Israel. I admittedly have nearly zero sympathy for Hamas and Hezbollah, if they want peace they can have it, they choose otherwise. It is willful.
    .
    This type of thing escalating into a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel seems inevitable, maybe 10 to 20 years away.

  73. Come on Lucia, I have accepted your statement that you said nothing about my CFD papers or experience. It is silly to rehash something that has been settled. You referred to my “previous” blog post. I interpreted that to mean my penultimate one on CFD. I should have asked you to clarify.

    In any case, your points are mostly rhetorical and evidence free. When I supply evidence you refuse to look at it for spurious reasons while claiming you know about it when it later becomes obvious you know very little about it.

  74. Tom, Hamas and Iran are the root causes of this mass murder. Biden is partly responsible because he has abandoned Trump’s stunningly successful Middle East peace initiatives and is paying Iran billions. This will end when Middle Eastern countries establish relations with Israel and start to unite against Iran and Hamas.

    This also goes to my demonization is terrible idea. If you look at what Palestinian children are taught in school, you will see a startling rehash of Nazi propaganda and lies. Jews are constantly demonized around the world. No one cares especially the house plant in the White House.

  75. Tom Scharf,
    “This type of thing escalating into a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel seems inevitable, maybe 10 to 20 years away.”
    .
    I hope not! The ayatollahs do shout “death to Israel” all the time, but I suspect they are not really in a hurry to receive their 20 virgins in Heaven, and some of the first 20 or so Israeli nuclear bombs would surely target the ayatollahs.
    .
    There is enough resistance to the ayatollahs in Iran that we might hope they are no longer in power in 10 or 20 years (https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-february-21-2023)

  76. As it stands today, Trump will likely lose to Biden again IMO, I don’t care what the polls say. But lots can happen over the next year. Biden can still lose a lot of ground, Trump is already at max self sabotage. All the prosecutions are likely to work for Trump to the majority of the country who believe they are political in nature.
    .
    Maybe they can both be kidnapped and placed in a real nice retirement home and we will all pretend they don’t exist anymore.

  78. Tom, I’m wondering who you think would outperform Trump. It is possible Haley could by a little given the polls. But most of the candidates would be terrible. Pence, Christie, and Hutchinson would get crushed.

    The problem here is that whoever the Republicans nominate is will draw a full on demonization and propaganda campaign from the Censorship Industrial Complex. During the pandemic, there was such a demonization campaign against DeSantis that was shocking for its gaslighting. The only hope is that things get so bad average voters ignore this and vote their pocketbook.

    I could never vote for Haley given her very shrill war mongering and demonization of Russia.

  79. Tom Scharf,
    “As it stands today, Trump will likely lose to Biden again IMO, I donā€™t care what the polls say.”
    .
    You could be right, but there are so many imponderables that it seems to me impossible to predict. (Consider Kennedy as a third party candidate!) Alzheimer’s patients do often end up in retirement homes, but not wealthy ones like Biden. Trump doesn’t have dementia, he is just more than a bit crazy.

  80. There are likely many more anti-Trump independents than there are anti-Republican Trump supporters.

  81. SteveF (Comment #225260): “You could be right, but there are so many imponderables that it seems to me impossible to predict.”
    .
    Indeed.

    Total number of “experts” in 2020 who anticipated Trump getting 12 million more votes than in 2016: Zero.

    Total number of “experts” who anticipated Biden getting 15 million more votes than Hillary got in 2016: Zero.

  83. The other day, I saw some mention here of a CNN article on increases in those who want decreased immigration. Just thought I’d drop this off (without comment) as it is of relevance:
    .
    >> NEW: the problem with using simple polls to measure nuanced opinions
    .
    Ask Brits or Americans about immigration, and theyā€™ll tell you itā€™s too high.
    .
    But ask about specific groups of immigrants, and only a minority want numbers reduced. Plenty want an increase!
    .
    https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1707763015649480964?s=20

  84. Death toll in Israel over 200. 1100 wounded. 53 civilians kidnapped and held hostage. Israel has 7 million people. 200 dead is equivalent to about 9500 people in the US. Worse than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.

  85. David Young,
    I expect Israel’s retaliation will cost far many more than 200 Palestinians their lives, out of about 800,000 in Gaza, equal to more than 80,000 dead in the USA, not to mention tremendous property destruction. Clearly, Hamas does not care about the people in Gaza.
    .
    Based on official statements from Saudi Arabia, the Hamas attack appears to be scrambling efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and I suspect that was the motivation for the attack.

  86. Joshua,
    That’s the trouble with a lot of polls. They often ask “the wrong” question. (I for example don’t mind plenty of immigration. But I would still like to see a situation where the amount of illegal uncontrolled immigration is low. I’d also have quite a bit of sympathy for the majority of individual people who do resort to immigrating illegally and I think quite of few of them benefit our economy and so on after they get here. (That said: they often don’t start benefiting it for a while after they get here. Dealing with new arrival is usually costly for a period of time.)

    How to achieve the magical amount of fairly large immigration while reducing the amount of illegal immigration is not something I have tons of ideas about.
    .
    .
    It’s somewhat separate from decisions by reports report (a) x% want “more A”, (b) y% want “the same amount of A “and (c) z% want “less A” and then decided to “do the math” for readers and add “the majority don’t want more A”.
    .
    The added statement will be true enough, but if it’s also true that “An even bigger majority don’t want less A”.

  87. In the above comment I should have added: If someone just asked me “Do i want more or less immigration”, my first thought is “it depends”. What I answer I would give the poll is nearly a coin toss.

  88. Give me a break Joshua. It is well known how you ask a question can change poll results. Activist polling like that are propaganda. What if we only allow the really great talented people to legally immigrate? What if we only allow Central America to empty their prisons so rapists and murderers can immigrate? I bet those get different results and that wasn’t on that list of questions you provided.
    ,
    The average person crossing the border has less than a high school education and it is well known a lot more people support controlled legal immigration where they can be screened. Legal screened immigration is not what these polls are about.
    .
    Professional polls ask questions in a neutral a way as possible and also change the sequence of options randomly among other things.
    The trend in identically asked polls can also be just as important. In this case the trends are more against immigration recently. The Democrats are moving at the border because they are now feeling the results of the chaos and it is hurting them politically. Have you heard any stern lectures about sanctuary cities recently? No.
    .
    For the record I am neutral on the question. Japan and South Korea have real long term problems because of their declining birth rates and the US would be in nearly the same position if not for (mostly illegal) immigration. Immigration is a net negative fiscally AFAICT for the first and possibly the second generation. However the long term impacts are positive I think, and somebody needs to fund my social security checks and artillery shells for our war du jour. Uncontrolled open borders is crazy and the only thing that broke the impasse was a political stunt by Texas forcing the left to feel the pain, which is appropriate.

  89. Lucia –
    .
    Aside from the more substantive issues about the complexity of immigration (where our opinions have significant overlap)…
    .
    Regarding the CNN writeup – I get your point but I don’t think it was too bad. The whole lede was that there’s been an increase in the number of people wanting a decrease. So that number was the primary topic, the point of focus. So together those who want it to stay the same and those who want an increase are defined as having an opinion other than the trend noted as the main topic. Outlining that those wanting a decrease are a plurality but not a majority seems ok to me.
    .
    Could it have been a reflection of bias that they didn’t point out those wanting it to stay the same plus those wanting a decrease would comprise a majority? Sure, it could. But I don’t think that’s definitive. I think there was potentially an internal logic to contrasting the main focus (the number of people who want a decrease) to the other two categories of opinion in aggregate.
    .
    For me, the much more critical shortcoming in that article is the lack of nuance in how the broader issue was handled. The horse race component and the cheap polarization of the issues in play, as if what’s really important is how the dilemma affects GOP vs. Dem electoral politics. And that’s what that tweet I linked helped to outline. We simplify complex issues because that way they can more easily map on to horse race politics.

  90. Tom –
    .
    I doubt we’d have a productive discussion about immigration – so I’ll just respond this once.
    .
    As for the issue of polling – I didn’t mean to suggest there’s some deep insight in pointing out that the way questions are presented in polls affects the outcomes, or that it’s shocking news that much polling is sub-optimal in that regard.
    .
    Nonetheless, I found the breakdown in opinions listed in that tweet interesting. If you didn’t, that’s just fine with me

    Not that it was a comprehensive analysis either, but I think it’s often true that belief matrices that map on to electoral politics as rather stark binaries (or in this case trinaries?) are far more nuanced once you dig in.
    .
    No other motives for my post other than that: to basically say that regardless of how the CNN article outlined the categories for comparison, it was too shallow to be of much value, in my opinion. Yes, Dems are facing political headwinds on the issue but that’s not very interesting, imo, because I see the issue as being very complex and not very suitable for a: I want decrease/I want it the same/I want an increase, approach.
    .
    .

  91. According to al Jazeera, “at least 232 Palestinians” have already died in Israeli counter attacks. The Israeli death toll is now 250 with some 270 still in ‘serious’ condition in the hospital. No word on hostages.

  92. joshua,
    “…because I see the issue as being very complex”
    .
    Can you tell us what you think that complexity is? Not a rhetorical question.

  93. Oh, and yes. I’m sure if the poll question were something like “are you in favor of other countries opening their prisons and sending us their rapists and murderers,” the favorable responses would be a tad low. Maybe the pollsters should have considered including that question also, but honestly I’m not sure how informative that would have been.

  94. SteveF –

    I’m reluctant to engage on this, but I’ll give it a shot up until/if it gets more hostile.
    .
    Primarily, the complexity for me circles around the intrinsic moral issues I see as inextrcable from the other aspects.
    .
    Broadly described, I struggle with what are the moral underpinning of someone who enjoys certain privileges by the happenstance of where they were born (me) saying to someone else that they have no rights to the same privileges?
    .
    I see no easy answers there. I’m reluctant to to judge someone else for the answers they find. I see it as a complex issue. For example, what are the net outcomes across all communities involved if we just say no one has any such privilege? What would the impact be for my friends and family, my community? I don’t have easy answers, but I see a fundamental delemma there – for me. In part that may because I have done a lot of work with immigrant communities and international students, execs, and other clients. Being Jewish, and having ancestors who immigrated because of progroms, and knowing about how Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe in WW II were denied access, necessarily affects how I see the moral issues in play.
    .
    I also see the economic issues as very complex, in terms of the net benefits and harms from immigration, be it what’s termed legal or not.
    .
    Issues like the impact on the shared culture, I see as complex with diverging benefits and harms. For example, I think there can be a “harm” in the sense of diluting a shared identity and sense of purpose even as there are benefits from cultural diversification and a convergence of cultural diversity as a “nation of immigrants.”. I think a binary framing of “mixed salad” vs. melting pot is too simplistic and easily polarizing.
    .
    Then there are just straight up demographic issues, twisted to fertility rates and aging populations and the like.
    .
    Or the question of disperate impact on different economic demographics.
    .
    There’s the complexity in how the issue has been politicized by people who gain from the resulting polarization – as we see with that polling. I find that awful. A real stain on our county. The distinctions in how the issue of border crossings vs. visa overstays (are they still the majority?) are dealt with in public discourse is a good window into how the politicization is troubling, imo.
    .
    And I’ve only touched on the very surface of the complexity, imo.

  95. Yes SteveF, this attack will have very negative consequences. We can add it to Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal and the droning of an innocent aid workers family. Why would you pay a $6 billion ransom to a bunch of medieval war lords and fanatics. Iran sponsors terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon and bears a good part of the responsibility for the Syrian civil war.

    In any case, Biden seems to be giving a low priority to peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia which is key to getting to a peaceful Middle East.

    I asked my Israeli teammate about firearms in Israel. He said every male is trained how to use them in the military but that it was mostly older men who owned and carried firearms. I think Israeli army personnel often carry their guns with them including on public transit. Personally, I’d rather go down fighting than be captured by these fanatics.

    One thing that puzzles me is pictures of fighters standing on an Israeli tank with their AK47’s. How did the tank crew let that happen? I also heard that any captured military were executed. That’s a war crime is it not?

  96. It is undoubtedly true that real wages are directly related to levels of immigration. Real wages fell throughout the Gilded Age as millions flocked to the USA. When immigration was restricted real wages could rise. After the 1960’s loosening of immigration, real wages began to fall again and have continued to do so under Biden. They rose under Trump.

    I also know for a fact that companies love the H1B visa system and are constantly demanding higher admissions. These foreign workers do drive down wages, the companies say that internally. What I cannot understand is how many labor unions can be in favor of increased immigration. Their brethren during the Gilded Age were vastly more effective in pursuing their members interests.

    It is often in my experience, college educated middle to upper middle class people who like immigration. They can hire nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, and get a new roof much more cheaply.

  97. Joshua,
    You are Jewish? Who could have guessed? šŸ˜‰
    I am not. (Atheist, through and through.)
    .
    But seriously, thank you for a thoughtful answer. I agree immigration is a complex issue, and one where people of good will can, and do, honestly disagree about the best policies.
    .
    That said, I think there are a few basic questions where sensible public policy likely requires consensus.
    .
    1) Do the citizens of a country have any legitimate right to control who enters the country? (Corollary: are any country’s borders “legitimate” in the sense the citizens have ownership rights to the country?)
    .
    2) Is there any difference between people who apply for residency by prescribed legal procedures and people who bypass those procedures to enter a country illegally? If so, what should be the consequences for those who enter illegally?
    .
    3) What is a reasonable level of immigration, considering the relative financial burdens for assimilation of arrivals who are educated and capable versus those who are not educated and with very limited capabilities.
    .
    These are not rhetorical questions; I want to know what you think.

  98. David,

    Personally, Iā€™d rather go down fighting than be captured by these fanatics.

    Amen brother. Those videos are effective AR-15 commercials / advertisements.

  99. There are two fundamental ways to view immigration:

    1. Our country is a public mall, and nobody should be denied access.
    2. Our country is a home, and people should be invited in.

    If one feels strongly about option 1 then there is a question of who should bear the burden of the costs. Once the burden has been spread around the question all of sudden becomes nuanced. This is telling.

  100. Tom and Ken, I found the latest Marquette poll and if you dig deep you will find that voters prefer Trump over Biden on inflation (50-27), the economy(52-28), immigration(52-28), creating jobs(49-30) and foreign relations (43-38). They are ties on Medicare and Social Security. Biden leads on abortion (34-43) and climate change (24-44) with 15% picking “both the same” and 18% picking “neither”.. On who you would vote for Trump leads 51-48. DeSantis leads by exactly those same numbers.

    This indicates to me that Republicans are ahead on these issues because of Trump and not in spite of him.

    I don’t see any dynamic over the next year by which voters become convinced to change their mind on the issues. If economic problems continue to worsen (most still expect a recession later this year), if anything Trump will look stronger.

  101. The Marquette poll shows that the majority of voters preferred Trump’s restrictive immigration policy over Biden’s. Immigration has always been an issue where the working class doesn’t like it very much and the elites and wealthy love it. African Americans are unsurprisingly very suspicious of immigration. They are the ones who will get pay cuts when millions show up to compete for their jobs.

  102. Steve –
    .
    I’m prolly more agnostic than athiest, but I don’t see any inherent conflict between being Jewish and being agnostic or atheist. Although, primarily, I identify as being culturally Jewish..
    .
    1) I have a hard time answering that in terms of “rights.” As a practical or normative matter, yes that right exists – to a certain extent by virtue of the “rights” endowed by the use of force. It’s also a “right” (with some limitations) as a standard of international law. I tend to favor a broad and shared acceptance of international (as well as intranational) standards of law as a way to help reduce chaos and malignant geopolitical forces.

    As some kind of moral or ethical right? I don’t know. I think that communities have a right to reach some form of concensus or agreement over the governing rules for their own community. For example, w/r/t the whole “free speech” on campuses issue, I think that communities of students and faculty and staff have a level of “rights” to determine who they want to speak on their campus. But dissenters also have a “right” to hear those they want to hear speak, and how is it determined whose rights take precedence? What is my right if I want more immigrants without restrictions? What is the rights of someone who is a long-standing and contributing member of a community, say a service provider, who came here undocumented 40 years ago and established roots and had children, and has hundreds of clients who want her to be able to stay? Does the community have the right to allow that person to stay? Does that person NOT have rights vis a vis that community as compared to her neighbor who was born here as the child of children of people who immigrated 100 years ago, legally? I have a hard time wrapping my head around who has what rights as some kind of clearly delineated and static framework. Can two different people each have competing and irreconcilable and mutually exclusive rights? As a normative matter, given the distribution of power – probably not. But in some moral or ethical sense, I don’t know how to prioritize or create a hierarchy of rights sometimes. It’s just not always a very useful heuristic for me to answer these questions. I’m not trying to duck the question but I just don’t have a tees or no answer.
    .
    2) Yes, there’s a difference. Not only in the sense of “fairness” in that some people “wait in line” at significant sacrifice. Also in the sense that it makes sense to me, again, that a community can decide what conditions it wants to place in others to be a member of that community. But that doesn’t mean I have a clear answer to what to say to someone who is fleeing a pogrom and shows up on a county’s shore seeking admission. The main problem as I see it, is that we’re so disfunctional as a country that we can’t create a more functional system for instantiating legal immigration. Shockingly, some politicians actually tried to address immigration reform and it went nowhere, because many people tend to view the issue as zero sum.
    .
    3) I don’t know all the issues well-enough to give you a clear number. But my sense without having studied the issue that way is that we’d have the capacity to handle the numbers we currently face, if we were able to get out from behind the polarization to implement a functional system. We are a very rich country, and I think we have enough resources that we could benefit from the increased human capital if the will were there. But many people don’t believe we have sufficient resources to make it happen, so it won’t happen, as I see it. Again, some people see it as zero sum, and without sufficient critical mass it can’t happen. Even if the will were there, would there be some theoretical limit to where there would be a diminishing return? I would imagine so. And again, while I don’t have a clear analytical hold on a confident answer whether we’ve reached that point, my sense is that the answer is no, from a place of physical or inherent fiscal constraints.

  103. The boats of Jewish refugees during WWII did have a hard time finding a country to take them. It was not a uniquely American prejudice I think. In any case, I don’t think American immigration law would have prohibited them applying to be admitted. The system was based on quotas based on the current population’s ancestors country of origin as I recall. But it probably did exclude Africans I’m guessing.

  104. One thing that is certain is that our asylum system is the most generous in the world. Did the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fought their way onto evacuation flights really face serious threats of death? Almost certainly not and they were absolutely not screened at all. We left behind our translators and some Americans whose lives were in danger. But the Biden administration is the most incompetent in our history except for James Buchanan and a few others in the 19th Century. I believe asylum abuse is rampant. The 7 million illegals in Biden’s invasion probably mostly filed phony claims. They were in more danger from their cartel traffickers than in their home country. These illegals are mostly young men of military age, the least likely to be victimized in their home countries.

    SteveF, you are not going to get either clear thinking or definitive answers out of Joshua. He continues to be addicted to the long word salad. But at least he seems to have converted to a kinder gentler persona.

    Immigration is an issue where virtue signaling is rampant. It’s very easy for the upper middle class white desk jockey to want to bring in more people who won’t live anywhere near them. The cost will be borne by others and they won’t compete for his job. If you really want to help poor people, the Peace Crops still exists. You could start a school in a 3rd world country, send money to Catholic charities. You in my mind only get credit for compassion if you put some skin in the game.

  105. Balancing of rights is what a lot of Supreme Court cases are about. These are the toughest cases with the most gray area. Immigration is not about rights in the legal sense for the most part.
    .
    Illegal immigrants are not citizens and have limited “rights”. They are not allowed to vote for legitimate reasons. One can imagine a larger town going to a smaller town for a day and voting themselves all the resources and leaving. The citizens can * grant * rights (probably better seen as privileges) to non-citizens as they see fit. Health care, education, driving, work permits, etc. They can also retract those privileges as conditions change.
    .
    Student free speech rights is a bad example, one group can choose to listen to an * invited * speaker and the other group can choose to not listen. There is no conflict here unless one is imagining one group has a right to prevent another group from listening. Good luck finding that in the Constitution (except for some very narrow exceptions).

  107. Tom –
    .
    > There is no conflict here
    .
    Perhaps I shouldn’t bother to consider these issues and just defer to you as a diviner of rights?
    .
    But I see it as less categorical than “there is no conflict.”
    .
    Imagine a campus at a Jewish university with 10,000 students and many faculty and staff. And there’s one student who wants a neo-Nazi to come speak on campus and expects the university to provide a facility and security so she can listen to that invited speaker.
    .
    And 9,999 students and faculty and staff as a community say they don’t want that speaker on campus and tell the other student to go meet with the speaker at a coffee shop, or at a park and invite whoever else who wants to come listen.
    .
    Obviously, an extreme example, but my point is that a community has “rights,” in my view, to set community standards and to ask people who want to be a part of thst community to comply with those standards.
    .
    Bur none of this is absolute. Do they have the right to tell that student not to “listen” to that speaker on a recording through headphones in her dorm room? Of course I’d say not.
    .
    > one group can choose to listen to an * invited * speaker and the other group can choose to not listen.
    .
    That’s one way to look at it. Another is that the one group can choose to not refuse to comply with community standards and thus go off campus to do whatever they want to do. Or they can choose to enroll in another college where there is no such community standard.
    .
    I’m not suggesting a “tyranny of the majority” as an acceptable standard. But at some level communities, I think, have a reasonable “right” to set standards to be a member of their community. And I think if immigration as an extension of that. But thinking of it formally, as a matter of rights in some kind of a legalistic framework is sub-optimal for me. At some level it seems insufficient and too concrete or binary. Of course I recognize that at some level a determination and codification of who has what right may become necessary. Ironically, that is generally through a process of a community setting standards.

  108. They cannot do that if the minority is basically a designated group at the university. This is my understanding…
    .
    Schools (the vast majority of them) that are federally funded have to adhere to rules as if they were the government and cannot restrict speech similar to the government. The schools can have rules but those rules need to be viewpoint neutral. They cannot in fact require a certain equivalent group (e.g. a conservative club) to hold an event off campus * based on their viewpoint *, this has already been ruled on by the SC.
    .
    There is lots of gray area in these rules such as requiring certain events to have increased security that the group sponsoring the event must pay for, as long as these rules are the same for all groups. Exactly who and how official groups are designated is flexible. How schools rent out a meeting place to outside groups is also subject to some whims and judgment calls.
    .
    Shout downs are different than a banning of an event, public events in the buildings cannot restrict the audience (except through limiting the audience by who bought a ticket) and the audience has a right to scream and cause problems. Schools have begun allowing students who break the rules and not allow an event to continue to be disciplined.

  109. Tom –

    > They cannot do that if the minority is basically a designated group at the university. This is my understandingā€¦
    .
    Seems to me they can lobby the administration. And then the administration can say, in light of the opinions of the vast majority of the community, they want to disinvite the speaker.
    .
    I’m not saying the administration SHOULD do that. Or that there SHOULD be no consequences for them doing so.
    .
    There’s all kinds of problems in the real world scenarios. For example, how do they decide which members of the community should hold sway? How would they determine the wishes of the community? There are all kinds of issues related to whether limiting perspectives is in the best I reest of an educational institution. There are all kinds of problems
    .
    My points are that (1) I think that communities, at some level, have a “right” (in my view), to set standards for membership.
    My point there was that even though I have some question about the ethics, I accept that communities have a “right” to set standards for their community related to immigration (and the campus issue was only meant as an analogy) and, (2) some strict or formal delineation of what is or isn’t a “right” is, in my view, often sub-optimal and insufficient. That isn’t to say that I think it never has to boil down to a formal, binary determination. I think it may. But ironically, that means that in the end you’re relying on a community in one form or another to set the standards for membership. .

  110. In 2021 Biden gave the Palestinians $360 million despite internal emails saying that there was no way to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

    There have been some videos of Palestinians brandishing assault rifles in which the rifles look very much like M4’s. Could these have come from Afghanistan? I think its likely.

    Biden’s fingerprints are all over this.

  111. “And then the administration can say, in light of the opinions of the vast majority of the community, they want to disinvite the speaker.”
    .
    No.
    .
    They cannot do that based on viewpoint. This has been ruled on. In the case below UF relented because they were going to lose the legal case for sure.
    .
    University Of Florida Denies Richard Spencer Event, Citing ‘Likelihood Of Violence’
    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/16/543874400/university-of-florida-denies-richard-spencer-event-citing-likelihood-of-violence
    .
    White Supremacist Richard Spencer to Speak at U. of Florida
    https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-10-19/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-to-speak-at-u-of-florida
    “But the college reversed course weeks later: As “a state entity, UF must allow the free expression of speech,” the university said on its Free Speech and Controversial Speakers web page. Fuchs said, the University of Florida continues to “remains unwaveringly dedicated to free speech and the spirit of public discourse.””
    .
    Lessons From Spencer’s Florida Speech
    What other institutions can learn from the way the university prepared for the event, avoided violence and offered support to students.
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/23/nine-lessons-learned-after-richard-spencers-talk-university-florida
    “Public institutions covered by the First Amendment must accommodate speakers. They can regulate them, to a degree, and they donā€™t have to adhere to every request about time or date, but they must host speakers like Spencer — the exception being if the university has in place some sort of content-neutral policy that limits who can speak on campus (more on that in a minute).

    Spencer threatened to sue Florida in the weeks after it initially rejected him — again, because it was so soon after Charlottesville. Lawyers said at the time this was likely a credible and legally sound reason to block Spencer, but only for a time.

    But the institution didnā€™t attempt a court battle with Spencer later when he again asked to appear.”

  112. Tom –
    .
    So I doubt this article is a conclusive reference but it does do a good enough job of setting out the legal standards.
    .
    https://college.usatoday.com/2017/04/20/do-controversial-figures-have-a-right-to-speak-at-public-universities/
    .
    And I think it fits nicely with my point about “rights” and communities setting standards.
    .
    So in a legalistic sense, we could say that the 9, 999 students and all the faculty and staff at the Jewish university doesn’t have the “right” to disinvite a Nazi speaker.
    .
    That doesn’t seem a reasonable standard of “rights” to me, upon which to base a reasonable society. I get that it’s problematic to say that. But I see it in exactly the same sense, as if a woman in Latin America whose husband has died, and whose children are starving, has relatives here in the US who can help her out, and wants to come here to work to raise her children. She doesn’t have a “right” to enter this countryz legally. I recognize as a normative standard that right doesn’t exist. But saying that seems insufficient for me, at a moral and ethical level. I think it’s complicated, just as I see it that way die the Nazi speaker. Of course, just because that’s how it is for me doesn’t mean it has to be that way for anyone else.

  114. Tom –
    .
    We cross-posted.
    .
    So it’s questionable whether the administration has a legal “right” to disinvite the speaker on the basis of safety concerns (as we have seen happen in the past) but not with respect to viewpoint concerns.
    .
    So then my question there for you is whether, in the scenario I described, you think the community has a moral or ethical “right” to set the standard of disallowing the Nazi speaker on campus. Do you think the legal standard there is enough, or a sufficient basis upon which to determine moral or ethical standards.
    .
    I guess you do. I’m nit sure that I do. I think it’s complicated.

  115. Tom –
    .
    I will note, from my original comment.
    .
    > example, w/r/t the whole ā€œfree speechā€ on campuses issue, I think that communities of students and faculty and staff have a level of ā€œrightsā€ to determine who they want to speak on their campus. But dissenters also have a ā€œrightā€ to hear those they want to hear speak, and how is it determined whose rights take precedence?
    .
    So my point is that in my view, there are “rights” on both sides. A community as a right to set standards (let’s leave aside my reference to the example with a Jewish university and speak only of a public university). In this case that boils down, in a legal sense, to the dissenters’ rights taking precedence. That doesn’t really work for me in a moral or ethical sense and just boiling it down to the legal standards feels insufficient. Although as with immigration, I don’t know what the answer at a moral or ethical sense truly should be.

  116. A Jewish school that does not accept government funding can absolutely do that. You are missing a vitally important point that what you call the “community” is legally the * government * in these cases. This is not a trivial distinction. You don’t have to let anybody speak in Joshua’s house based on Joshua’s ethics and morals.
    .
    You can choose to not rent out facilities to outside groups. I think you can make a rule that groups that have a history of violent meetings cannot rent out facilities. If a rock group’s audience has a history of trashing a facility then you can deny them, make them post a larger security deposit and so on. You don’t want to use the term Nazi even if that is secretly your target. You can’t invent new rules once somebody decides to speak.
    .
    Morally and ethically it is better to allow people to speak their minds in the public square. It is not fair to me as a citizen that I cannot use the public square in an equivalent manner as everyone else based on community whims.
    .
    Beyond that I don’t think this type of suppression works. Case in point: Trump. You cannot eliminate crazy and irrational by community fiat. What are you afraid of? Have the Nazis taken over because Spencer was allowed to speak? I don’t think so. Bad ideas die on their own merits, let them die fairly.

  117. The balancing comes down to what are the dangers of allowing the government to suppress ideas versus what are the dangers of allowing citizens to express ideas.

  118. Tom –
    .
    > What are you afraid of?
    .
    It’s not clear if that was addressed to me or if it perhaps a rhetorical question.
    .
    But regardless, I’m not afraid of ANYTHING here. I’m not even saying I think the Nazi speaker here SHOULD be disinvite by the administration at the Jewish university of 9,999 out of 10,000 students and the fsdjrky and staff object to the event. Nothing I’m saying has ANYTHING to do with Trump or eliminating crazy or Nazis taking over. If you can’t understand why a community of students and faculty and staff might not want a Nazi speaker on campus at a Jewish university, that’s fine. It seems clear to me why they might now want it, and I don’t think that’s because I’m Jewish. Again, that’s NOT saying he should be disinvited. It’s just saying that a legalistic take on whether they have a “right” to set a community standard of not wanting Nazi speakers on campus doesn’t seem sufficient to me, as there are moral and ethical complications, imo.
    .
    But I’ve already said what I was saying multiple times so I guess repeating it behind this won’t be of any use.

  119. Tom and Joshua, I find this discussion abstract and vague and not really relevant to the issues facing the country. “the community” is largely meaningless and vague.

    Before the internet and cell phones, these issues didn’t come up. Generally, people were a lot more tolerant and the country was more uniform in its beliefs. We live in a dysfunctional age of cancellation, flash online mobs destroying people’s lives, and a large group of far leftists who are offended by very pedestrian statements and positions

    Why would anyone want to deplatform Jay Battacharia or sick the Stanford administration on him? He dared to talk science in an era of hysteria, political disinformation, and lies.

    Same for John Ioannidis who is totally nonpolitical. Joshua himself was part of the witch hunters and posted tens of thousands of comments with no content implying that since Gelman had written a somewhat critical blog post about one of his papers, he was a danger or not to be found credible. This is very insidious and dangerous.

  120. There is one more factor that is toxic. Online anonymous internet trolls correctly feel there will be no consequences for lies, libels, and misrepresentations. I do wish blogs would not allow anonymous commenters.

    50 years ago, there was no such shield. If you said something that was egregious there could be some consequences to your reputation.

  121. Just listening to some Glenn Greenwald. He regards the Democrat party as liars and hypocrics. Pretty devastating.

  122. Looks like the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians were worse than originally thought, with many Israeli civilians taken hostage in Gaza to act as human shields against Israeli counterattacks. Lots of reports of the bodies of Israeli civilians being dragged around Gaza and mutilated as entertainment for the public. Total killed is unknown, but certainly much higher than the original estimates.
    .
    I don’t know what the Israelis will do in retaliation, but I expect the consequences for the people in Gaza will be very grave.
    .
    IMHO, Hamas is pure evil and must be eliminated.

  123. Steve,
    If only eliminating Hamas would solve the problem in that region. I think it’s like a mythical hydra. Hamas, PLO, ISIS, Talaban, Revolutionary Guard, so on, the malevolent spirit that animates these different bodies is the same. It appears to be approximately immortal.
    It’s a hell of a hard problem. Maybe we should have offered U.S. territory to the Israeli’s in which to setup their state. Maybe we still should. What they hey, why would the Israeli’s be any less deserving than any of the other immigrants pouring through our borders. I’m not serious about that of course, but I am serious about not knowing how to really solve the problem in the middle east.

  124. It’s not a seque to trite non solutions. We’ve tried nation building in Afghanistan, I’m sure the people who thought that was a good idea had observations similar to mine as a starting point. That didn’t work at all obviously. I *really* don’t know how to solve those problems, except to get the hell out of there and leave Islam to Islam. When Islam spreads?
    Asimov once wrote, ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent’. I sure hope somebody more competent than me faces these problems, because the only thing I can see to do is kill people who would kill me and mine.

  125. Maybe a Messiah type religious leader will someday arise in the region and bring peace. Bridge the gap between Judaism and Islam somehow. I could at least imagine that eventually bringing more peace to the region. There’d be the old school remnants of the religions that’d never give up, but they might dwindle over time.
    Mentioning Asimov got me thinking along fictional lines of thought..

  126. marc bofill,
    There is no simple solution. But I think Israel needs to do whatever it takes to keep Hamas from power in Gaza…. even if that means sending the population to the West Bank and raising Gaza. Probably no need to salt the soil, but you get the idea. That will not stop the Palestinians’ desire to destroy Israel, but it may make them conclude the tactics of Hamas are not the best way to achieve that.

  127. Immigration as it is mostly occurring currently is an issue of ignoring laws on immigration and evidently producing an end result that would not otherwise occur.

    I can think of similar instances in our history where arbitrary enforcement of law has produced even worse results, as for example, in the US south after the Civil War and the Jim Crow Era. District attorneys currently have shown the degree to which laws can be arbitrarily enforced.

    My analysis and those of others have shown the statistically significant differences in immigration courts granting asylum relief by individual court and location after controlling for factors such as country of origin, age and sex.

    The results of immigration as I have observed it have been positive in the realm of trade persons and entrepreneurswith which I have dealt. What is occurring currently could lead to a very different result.

    IUnder the practicality of why one is allowed to chose who is allowed to enter their private domain as an individual, I do not see why that would not apply to a nation.

  128. I think this will end when most Arab countries make peace with Israel and we stop funding these terrorists and Iran. Biden’s fingerprints are all over this massacre.

  129. Northern Ireland seemed like an intractable problem until it wasn’t. So although the situation with the Palestinians is worse, it might not be hopeless.
    .
    The Palestinian “leaders” benefit from the conflict; it keeps them in power and keeps the money flowing from Iran. The people are controllable because they have been thoroughly indoctrinated. But I would think they are aware that their “leaders” are bringing them nothing but pain. So maybe they will eventually demand peace.
    .
    The seed Trump planted with the Abraham Accords might still bear fruit. Both MBS and Netanyahu recently told Bret Baier that they think a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is achievable. That should be a big step toward eventually solving the Palestinian problem.
    .
    But then, I am a convicted cockeyed optimist.

  130. Free speech in the domains of the private and public (government) can be greatly modified by what is considered private and public. Institutions that might have once been considered private are no longer under that domain as far as free speech is concerned given their using government funds. The reduction in private free speech can therefore be further reduced by increasing government interventions into the private sphere. It could also be further reduced by definition of private and to such extremes as a private individual or organization becoming public by way of their using public roads and other facilities.

    While public regulated speech is mostly guided by good intentions, unregulated private speech is much more conducive to a free market of ideas where bad ones come to the fore for the criticism deserved.

  132. Yes Ken, The penetration of government funding into many private institutions is a very real threat to free speech, freedom os association, etc.

  133. It was a wildly successful raid by Hamas from their point of view. Perhaps too successful in reality, it is likely going to provoke an overreaction from Israel. The videos on social media are not going to endear the Palestinians to anybody. Intentional killing of civilians and proudly taking civilian hostages. After this public failure by Israeli’s military and government they will have to show they are competent so I would expect an unrestrained response that will last months. Israel knows through experience that the rest of the world will slowly grow weary of their disproportionate war effort (as if that is not the goal militarily) and the Palestinians will parade their alleged victims in front of an eager press. We have seen this many times.
    .
    I don’t foresee many sunny days ahead in Gaza for the next 6 months. The borders will be effectively closed and security massively upgraded. Nothing is going to get better.

  134. Death toll is now at 600 with 2000 wounded in Israel. Equivalent to 28,000 American deaths. Israel is going to level Gaza and salt the earth. God help any innocent Arabs who live there.

  135. Tom, On a population adjusted basis, this is about 10 times worse than 9-11. I expect a massive response from Israel. Fondly do I hope, fervently do I pray that Biden is removed from office soon. He has a long trail of death on his hands.

  136. I would think most of the imagined Messiahs on the Arab side conquer the offending religious opponents and eliminate or convert them. You cannot count on rational actors in these wars heavily based on religion.

  138. MikeM, I agree that the Palestinian problem revolves around their leaders benefiting from the constant turmoil they foment and the indoctrination of its people. The UN and other political organizations would do better to publicly acknowledge this situation rather than attempting to legitimize and placate those leaders. Much good for that area could derive from more cooperation of the Arab and Israeli peoples.

  139. Steve,

    but it may make them conclude the tactics of Hamas are not the best way to achieve that.

    Agreed. I absolutely believe that a severe cost must be imposed. Not optional. It won’t ultimately solve the problem, but Israel’s problem are immediate.

  140. There are endless weapons available in the private market, turns out there was a war over there recently. Israel’s opponents don’t want to use western small arms because they have plenty of small arms already and they don’t want to support different ammo and maintenance. There are differences in caliber and so forth but an AK-47 will kill you just as quick as a M4. The biggest difference I have seen is that US soldiers actually aim their weapons. It is baffling how many times you see videos of insurgents shooting from the hip or over their heads.

  142. Here is an interesting poll from a couple weeks ago in Iowa and NH that bears on the question of whether Trump is inevitable. On the “horse race” question, it gives Trump somewhat more support than the RCP averages in those states. But:

    In Iowa, 20% of Republican voters say they are only considering Trump, while 48% are choosing between the former president and other candidates. Thirty-one percent say they have ruled out casting a vote for Trump.

    In New Hampshire, of Republican voters surveyed, 23% say itā€™s Trump only, while 34% have ruled him out. That leaves 43% who are considering Trump and at least one other candidate.

    https://www.deseret.com/2023/9/27/23893307/iowa-republicans-presidential-candidate-leanings-trump?utm_campaign=Utah%20Policy&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=276166875&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8fwlGHRIHS0s9XlDIvFEW9Q1sh2yUMRpy9GDFFPbJ_bY07ZgP54t-ZjqREwsDUEb0HaRUKa80X3vN4QmFCAqlr6PKeORnQm9piE4KmmAyHuqUAb-s&utm_content=276166875&utm_source=hs_email

  144. An interesting account from one of the participants in the music festival. This really makes me think I ought to take conceal[ed] carrying more seriously. It could never happen in the US you say. I know. Those Israelis weren’t expecting a need to be armed either. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

  147. Tom,

    There are differences in caliber and so forth but an AK-47 will kill you just as quick as a M4. The biggest difference I have seen is that US soldiers actually aim their weapons. It is baffling how many times you see videos of insurgents shooting from the hip or over their heads.

    ~grins~ I was almost tempted to suggest that because AK-47’s are a lot less accurate than M4’s at long ranges, it hardly matters that the insurgents shoot from the hip, but actually I’m sure the reverse is true. Better aim carefully if you want any chance to hit somebody with an AK-47! Part of the difference a lack of training and discipline makes I imagine? I’m not sure.

  148. mark bofill,
    It is claimed the Israeli intelligence agencies observed the extensive training exercises that preceded the attacks, but discounted them, thinking there were only designed to frighten the Israelis. There will be consequences.

  149. Sounds like the Israeli intelligence agencies have been taking lessons from ours. Sad. But as SteveF says, the Israelis will make changes.

  150. My guess knowing nothing is there was an over reliance on electronic intelligence and the entire raid was planned via word of mouth and among a very small group until the last moment, similar to 9/11. I don’t think hundreds of people could have kept that secret for a long time.

  151. Secretary of State Blinken:
    “We have reports that several Americans were killed. Weā€™re working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of missing Americans, and there again, weā€™re working to verify those reports.”
    .
    Great, American hostages held by Islamic extremists. What will the Biden Administration do about it? A sternly worded letter to Hamas should be about it. Threaten Hamas if the Americans aren’t released? Hell no!

  152. Yes Mark, There are a lot of big misconceptions about firearms in the general public. The AR15 which I think is roughly the same as an M4 uses 5.56×45 ammo. Typical bullet weight is 55 grains. The AK uses a heavier round, 7.62×39 with typical bullet weight 0f 122 grains. One very big issue is the weight of the ammo. 5.56 weighs about 1.25 kg for a hundred rounds. 308 is much much heavier with typical bullet weights being 150 grains and the rifles are heavier too by a lot. 30-06 typical bullet weight is 180-200 grains. I think this issue of weight may have been a big factor in the Army’s choice. For decades the standard Army round was the 30-06.

    Another factor is recoil. 5.56 is roughly 5 ft-lbs in an 8 pound rifle. I’m guessing that 7.62 is at least 10, while 308 is about 20 and 30-06 can be as high as 25. Trust me 25 ft lbs is a big punch. It took me hundreds of rounds and getting a really good recoil pad before I could shoot 30-06 without flinching. Same for 308.

    The other issue is muzzle rise. On 5.56 its not bad but for the heavier calibers it takes progressively more time to get back on target. This is also why fully automatic weapons are over-rated. After the first few rounds you end up shooting in the air. I wouldn’t want to own one even if they were legal.

    Almost as important is the sighting system. The US Army uses an enclosed red dot with flip aside magnifier. I can shoot a 1-2 inch group at 100 yards with this. Higher magnification rifle scopes don’t help me at 100 yards. However, that is off the bench. Most people don’t realize how incredibly difficult it is to hit targets even at 25 yards from a standing position. For most people the effective pistol range is 10-20 yards.

    Many military M4’s also have a bipod, a weapon light, and of course a sling. All of these add to the weight but can be valuable.

    I think typical terrorists are counting on sheer volume of fire and not accuracy. It’s a miracle that they are as successful as they are. Basically, a young man can probably only carry 400 rounds of 7.62×39 which weighs in at about 12 kg and still be effective. The rifle can weigh 10 pounds with all the extras. That’s why they had to have trucks and vehicles — to transport ammo.

    What surprised me a little is that so few in Israel seem to own and carry guns. Barricading yourself in your house gives you an enormous tactical advantage. You can hide behind cover and brace your gun. The intruder is going to be standing and at first won’t know where you are. Absolutely do not shoot an intruder unless absolutely necessary. And do not walk around your house trying to find the bad guy and keep him from stealing your stuff. Let him come to you. In most home invasions, the intruder will leave after he steals some of your stuff.

    If you want to get a gun I recommend an AR15 with a red dot sight and magnifier. That is more than enough for virtually all situations you might run into. You can use it to hunt deer in most states too.
    And its great for killing pesky wild hogs which are a really big problem in rural areas. It’s fun and easy to shoot. Washington just banned sales of “assault weapons” this previous spring. I already had mine so I’m grandfathered in.

  153. My casual understanding is the US chose smaller better engineered ammo so they could carry more of it than an AK-47 type system, but their next rifle is going back to larger more powerful ammo because of high availability of body armor that cannot be penetrated by the current ammo. Not my area of expertise, YMMV.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM7_rifle

  154. Thanks David. I agree with all that.
    I actually have guns and shoot. I don’t have an AR or a good semiauto rifle or carbine of any kind. I’ve been thinking it’s my patriotic duty to remedy that. šŸ™‚
    I have guns, but I haven’t been concealed carrying. Most of my life is going to and from work, where I’m not allowed to carry. But maybe I ought to correct that. I could keep my weapon locked in my car easily enough.
    Better to have and not need…

  155. I’d always thought that the accuracy problem with the AK’s came from the wide tolerances of its mechanisms. Although now that I think this through critically, I’ll admit I’m not sure how that’d be so. I mean, does the barrel wobble or something while shooting? It’s hard for me to see exactly how loose mechanical tolerances would affect accuracy.

  156. I’m sorry. I agree with almost everything you wrote. If an intruder breaks into my house, s/he wouldn’t be able to ignore my dogs for long. An intruder who was somehow neutralizing my dogs would be a threat (besides, I’m awfully fond of those beasts), and I got a wife and kids also living under my roof. My emergency plan involves shooting to kill. God I hope nobody ever breaks in and puts me to the test.

  157. Multiple reports now that at least 260 people killed at the Israeli music festival. Not that anything can really be considered normal in war, but that is not normal. It is simply an inexcusable willful civilian massacre.
    .
    EDIT: I think this is multiple people reporting a single source.

  158. Mark, I believe that accuracy is a function of the tolerances in the chamber and the barrel. Good quality American manufacturers do a better job than Russian factories. Accuracy is also dependent on very consistent loads in the ammo. That’s why some hunters do their own reloading.

    Tom, you are right that Sig Saur has designed a new round for the Army. It has much higher chamber pressures than conventional rounds and amazing muzzle velocity. There is some new case material being used too. I’d have to look up the details though. Armor piercing ammo is available in 5.56 and I think that would penetrate body armor. It has an embedded steel rod if I understand it correctly.

    Here’s is Sig’s writeup on this new rifle and its ammo.

  160. Mark, Perhaps its paranoid, but I do worry about becoming a target of the FBI now that they have refined their target list to include people who disagree with government covid narratives or who are MAGA supporters. I guess they probably already know about my large firearms footprint too even though they are not supposed to maintain a record of firearms purchases. We are living in frightening times.

    Just listened to a Greenwald podcast from last November where he reviewed all the private companies that were denying service to people when asked by the Disinformation Industrial Complex to do so. The corporate media was heavily involved in intimidating companies to deny service to their latest targets. At ABC, guess who was doing that? Ben Rhodes. Can my bank just close my accounts and confiscate my safe deposit box? PayPal at the time was just stealing $2500 from users accounts if they felt they were spreading disinformation. Glenn was also reviewing the tyrannical and scary seizure of bank accounts by Trudeau.

  162. David,
    I’m sure everybody’s got a file on me. Screw ’em. I’m a law abiding citizen. All the more reason for me to buy an AR or two. šŸ˜‰ Maybe a 30-06 would be prudent, I don’t know.

  163. Mark, If you want more power, I would recommend 308. The ammo is quite a bit cheaper than 30-06. I almost bought a LWRC REPR MKII but was unable to buy it before the ban. This is an expensive rifle but very high quality. My Aero Precision AR10 (which I paid a lot less for) seems to jam one time per magazine and to occasionally mutilate a cartridge. Generally I have found that the bigger the cartridge the more likely malfunctions become. My AR15 never malfunctions.

    I actually really like pump action hunting rifles as well. My Remington 7600’s are nice guns but the magazines only hold 10 rounds. With practice, a pump action is almost as fast as a semi-auto. This gun is out of production but there is huge secondary market on gun broker.

  164. Huh! Pump action centerfire rifles, I hadn’t even thought about it. I’ve got a pump action shotgun (Mossberg) I’m fond of. Neat. I’ll look at them. Thanks David!

  165. The only one I know who was burgled while in his house (Miami 1997), grabbed his Remington pump and chambered a round (heavier buck shot). The burglers heard this, apparently recognized the sound, screamed “don’t shoot, we’re leaving” and left.
    .
    I don’t have any experience with the guns you guys are discussing, but it seems to me that if your talking about defending your home while in it, you’d want something that is quick, reliable, likely to be effective, and will shoot through hollow core doors with enough carry to do serious damage to whoever is on the other side.

  166. John, It’s complicated. You want a round that won’t penetrate walls very well. The last thing you want is to shoot at someone and have the bullet harm someone outside the house or your spouse inside the house. I have a 9mm Glock for home defense. It’s got a red dot sight and a weapon light. It a pretty slow round but big enough to stop someone. I’ve seen arguments that shotguns with buck shot are best. It’s hard to miss with a shotgun. I wouldn’t use a rifle for home defense especially something like 308. I’ve heard people advocate for the AR15, 5.56X49. They just feel its more accurate and holds more rounds than a pistol.

    I believe that my goal in any home invasion is to get the intruder to leave without having to fire a shot. I would never shoot through a door. I want to identify the target visually before firing.

  167. In any situation where you use a firearm, you need to be prepared to undergo some legal scrutiny. I’m quite uncomfortable here in King County that even a clear case of self-defense might result in a criminal charge. My wife and I are considering moving to a Red state.

  168. Exactly right. I don’t want my shots going through walls either. It’s really just this, don’t break into my house. If you do make that mistake, get the hell out immediately and never return, you are putting lives at risk. My role is to make sure it’s not me or my loved ones who get killed.

  169. Come to Alabama the beautiful. People will ask you where you go to church, but other than that it’s good here.

  170. David, there isn’t much spread in a household discharge of a buckshot round. I think, but am not sure, that the idea was volume and mass which I suppose is more than any rifle round short of 50mm.
    .
    In the late ’80s, IIRC, it was possible to shoot an assailant in Dade County and depending on the circumstances the event might not even provoke a trial. The logic, again IIRC, supporting this was that a citizen had a right of some kind to act as an officer of the law in a location where the law establishment wasn’t up to the job; Hialeah it was at that time.
    .
    The above sounds like nonsense but it was thoroughly rehearsed in the newspaper at the time.
    .
    The episode which was reported in the article was the theft of a car in Hialeah, which car was then driven past the place where it had been parked, in front of its owner, who shot the thief.
    .
    There may have been a coroner’s action needed to generate a death certificate, but there was no trial.
    .

  172. john ferguson,
    Ya, better to not fire a 50mm round unless you happen to have the gun mounted on an armored personnel carrier. šŸ˜‰

  173. I’m sort of glad the discussion has come up. I remember reading about this and worrying about shots going through walls. The thing is, other than maybe birdshot which is of questionable utility for home defense anyway, shots are going to penetrate interior walls if you miss. Just gotta accept that reality. The idea is to rely on the same awareness shooters are always well advised to cultivate – know what’s around and behind your target, in this case behind walls, and exercise caution and discipline. It helps to practice; I know what I can hit reliably at what distance at the range. In the heat of the moment I won’t bullseye the middle but I can be reasonably confident of center of mass shots not missing at close range I think.
    [Edit: I should have added, hollowpoint home defense rounds of reasonable caliber are unlikely to blast through an intruder and continue on to injure other people behind walls behind the shooter. The intruder’s body will absorb most of the energy. So – make sure the bullets go into the intruder..]

  174. Like old times, I saw sunrise while at my neighborhood farmerā€™s market. It had been closed for a year due to damage from Hurricane Ian. My daily routine is back on track and my world is back in order.

  175. Right, I’m an amateur but my understanding is the best thing for home defense is a pistol and / or a shotgun. A scary black shotgun is rather intimidating IMO with a good possibility of not missing, but I suppose having that always ready is a bit weird. When you watch the military going house to house they generally have somebody with a shotgun near the front. If you look at actual statistics of how close amateurs need to be on average to hit a target in a stressful situation it is way closer than you think (6 feet?).
    .
    It is stand your ground down here in FL. I think the rhetoric is a bit overheated on the subject, the cases where people get shot in a house are pretty low and these “home invasions” tend to be targeted situation for drugs and cash and anything but random.

  176. That was another reason for the way US military ammo was designed smaller, less wall penetration, which is obviously a much bigger problem for a squad. The ammo is supposed to mushroom, splinter, and deviate course more easily (and cause a lot of soft tissue damage). There are different types of rounds though with different characteristics. There is significant engineering involved.
    .
    A sawed off shotgun with a much wider blast radius is ideal for maximum damage but they are illegal.

  177. Overheated rhetoric? I don’t know about that.
    Over 60% of assaults, including the heinous crime of rape, happens during home invasions.
    Forbes claims here that “75% of all homes in the country will experience a burglary in a 20-year span, regardless of the neighborhood.”
    Who knows, really. Lies, damn lies and statistics. I make a fuss about my first amendment rights because there is a lot of constant noise in the media about politicians trying to restrict or reduce my first amendment rights. Seems like good and sufficient reasons to me.

  180. Most red states are quite good about allowing self defense, especially Florida. I remember an instance where a Sheriff thanked a home owner who shot an intruder. Don’t underestimate how bad the justice system is in places like King County. Your jury is likely to include many who hate Republicans and think you are a white supremecist.

    Tom, I have my 20 gauge in my closet with a trigger lock on it. After extensive research I chose #3 buckshot. Big enough to incapacitate but small enough it won’t penetrate very far.

  182. There are still several commercial flights going into and out of Ben Gurian Airport in Tel Aviv. Mostly El AL, but I saw one Turkish airliner and one Pegasus. Interestingly three Polish military cargo planes are crossing the Mediterranean Sea, that appear headed to Israel. Finally, all Israeli military aircraft are flying dark.

  183. David: “Is respect for the Bill of Rights becoming rare among Democrats?”
    .
    The justification I’ve seen used is that you have to censor some people, so others can speak. Too many people speaking with the “wrong” opinion, drowns out the voices of the “marginalized” people (the ones with the “right” opinions, anyway), so, no, respect for the Bill of Rights isn’t becoming rare. They just have this super enlightened nuanced take that defends free speech by applying censorship, and by upholding the white supremacist, racist, sexist idea that censorship is bad, you are the one promoting censorship…

  185. Dave, In the Fox news clip I linked with Taibbi, they show the results of a poll in which 70% of Democrats think Americans are too free. We are living in a nightmare where at least 40% of the country has gone mad. I don’t see how this can be resolved and we can get back to “normal.” It feels to me like the 1850’s only worse.

  186. DaveJR,
    “They just have this super enlightened nuanced take that defends free speech by applying censorship, and by upholding the white supremacist, racist, sexist idea that censorship is bad, you are the one promoting censorshipā€¦”
    .
    Orwell described this in detail long ago. It is called leftist totalitarianism.

  187. Death toll in Israel is over 900, equivalent to 42,000 Americans. This will continue to go up as hostages are executed.

  188. David: “they show the results of a poll in which 70% of Democrats think Americans are too free.”
    .
    Freedom is slavery.
    Free speech is censorship.

  189. Overheated rhetoric (with respect to stand your ground). Critics said it gave license to murder. I kind of doubt that but when there are no witnesses and only one person survived in a public area shooting the shooter can claim stand your ground. It’s not obvious what the default presumption should be. Tough call.
    .
    “Home invasion” to me means an intentional armed entry in a home when the invaders know it is occupied. They enter to “query” the homeowner of valuables. This assumed definition might be completely wrong on my part. I think run of the mill burglars only enter an occupied home by mistake, that’s a very risky move in the US, especially when you can simply walk into Home Depot and take anything you want (ha ha). I don’t really know the statistics on home invasions and burglars though.

  190. Tom,
    I think the statistics would support you out on the run of the mill burglars. I’m fairly ambivalent towards stand your ground. I’m a big fan of castle doctrine though. FFS don’t break into my house, I don’t feel like that’s even a tiny bit unreasonable to have as a nearly absolute requirement.

  191. Pretty convoluted story on removing dual track classes here:
    .
    Schools Cut Honors Classes to Address Racial Equity. It Isnā€™t a Quick Fix.
    Districts in California, Illinois report data pointing to some benefits from changes as vocal parents push back
    https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/schools-cut-honors-classes-to-address-racial-equity-it-isnt-a-quick-fix-77d32e83?st=db3ma2k4x6k3m7m&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    “The districtā€™s four traditional high schools have eliminated about half a dozen honors classes in recent years, but the number of lower-income and minority students choosing to enroll in advanced courses later in high school hasnā€™t budged”
    .
    “Oak Park and River Forest High School officials pitched ā€œhonors-for-allā€ to the community for three years before implementing it. ā€œIā€™m not willing to have my children succeed if it means they have to step on Black kids to do so,ā€ Mary Anne Mohanraj, a board member for the high school, said in October 2021 before voting in favor, calling it a moral choice.”
    .
    Ummmmm … OK? Maybe don’t put your kids into honors classes then?
    .
    The article doesn’t address whether smart kids are ultimately testing lower when dual track is removed.

  192. Definitely agree on castle doctrine. Some of the laws in the Northeast that legally require you to run and hide in the furthest room and shoot at last resort if you can prove your life was threatened are mental.
    .
    It’s not that these castle doctrine laws are flawless. Go get somebody you don’t like, drag them into your house at gunpoint and shoot them dead. Burglar!

  193. I think castle doctrine only gives an initial presupposition that lethal force was justified in the absence of strong evidence either way. I’m pretty sure it can be overcome by details. Of course as you’ve noted earlier, dead men tell no tales…

  194. In my view the smart thing to do if confronted by a bad guy is to try to retreat first. On the other hand, I think stand your ground should be protected in the law. That’s one of my grave concerns about Washington state. State law was reviewed in my firearms classes and it seems reasonable to me. They said if you have a reasonable fear of death or grave bodily harm, you are justified to use deadly force. But they were trying to err on the side of caution. USCCA has a good synopsis of the laws. It turns out you can also use deadly force to prevent a felony from being committed. What the law says doesn’t matter in places like Seattle.

    Details are important. If the other person is armed and has his gun out then probably the presumption would be you acted in self defense. Better still if their gun has fired a round, its pretty clear. Not sure I would want to let an assailant get off the first shot though.

    There are lots things to do. If your assailant has a knife, point your gun at him and demand he drop it. Fire a warning shot. In a lot of cases that would probably scare the assailant. Certainly, most wild animals would flee at the sound of a gunshot. You can fire at the ground in front of the assailant.

    I really really don’t want to shoot anyone and might even take chances others would not.

  195. At 13 Baltimore City high schools, zero students tested proficient on 2023 state math exam
    .
    Of the 32 high schools remaining, if 13 had zero students test proficient, that means 40% of Baltimore City high schools could not produce a single student doing math a grade level.
    .
    Six years ago, in 2017, Project Baltimore produced a similar report, where we analyzed state test scores and found 13 City schools had zero students proficient in math. Many of the schools from 2017 are also on the 2023 list,
    .
    Itā€™s important to note that Project Baltimore is only able to report these test scores to the public because a source gave them to us.
    .
    When the state officially releases them later this month, the results will likely be heavily redacted, making it more difficult for parents to see how many schools are performing.
    .
    Earlier this year, the Maryland State Department of Education began further redacting state test scores after Project Baltimore reported on last yearā€™s poor outcomes.
    .
    https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/at-13-baltimore-city-high-schools-zero-students-tested-proficient-on-2023-state-math-exam
    .
    Looks like their equity agenda is right on track.

  196. Wait, there’s good news! The top 5 high schools in Baltimore had an 11% pass rate!
    https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/at-baltimores-five-best-high-schools-11-of-students-tested-proficient-on-state-math-exam-baltimore-city-public-schools-polytechnic-institute-school-for-the-arts-city-college-western-high-bard-high-school-early-college-sonja-santelises
    “Of the 92 students who scored proficient in math at those five City schools, all 92 tested into level three. There were no students who scored a four. In fact, not one high school student in the entire city, last school year, achieved a top level of math proficiency.”

  197. Tom Sharf

    The article doesnā€™t address whether smart kids are ultimately testing lower when dual track is removed.

    They can’t tell until the students take “the tests”

    In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Ill., the local high school is analyzing the first year of a revamped curriculum that enrolls almost all ninth-graders in honors classes for English, science, history and world languages. Those who test below grade level are placed instead in catch-up courses.

    .

    In the freshman class entering Oak Park in 2021-2022, a year before the new system,

    So… 2022-2023 is the first year of the program.
    .
    Kid’s in the ‘honors’ classes aren’t taking the AP or IB test at the end of the year they take the honors class. So presumably, none in this new experiment took those tests in spring of 2023. Those tests will take place the future after they take AP and IB tests.
    .
    All they know so far is a larger fraction of the sophomore class is taking AP or honors courses than took them before. And that increase seems to apply to all races.
    .
    We’ll see the results in a few years. If, overall, we fewer students generally do less well AP and IB, that will suggest “honors or advanced” got dumbed down to accommodate students who weren’t ready. If they do better, the experiment will have worked. If they do about the same… well, equity will have been achieved by lifting one group relative to another. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. (And it has some elements of good.)
    .
    But it would be nicer to see equity achieved by seeing the formerly achieving groups do just as well as ever while the formerly less achieving brought up in level.

    https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/schools-cut-honors-classes-to-address-racial-equity-it-isnt-a-quick-fix-77d32e83

  198. Air America ?
    Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) continues operations today. A few major commercial flights (El Al, British Air, Turkish Air) but a lot of airlines I have never heard of. I am wondering if these are clandestine flights for governments evacuating citizens.

  199. Death toll in Israel is now over 1000 with 3400 wounded. That’s equivalent to 47,000 Americans. The worst pogrom since the holocaust.

  200. The fear most parents have is that the smart kids will be sacrificed. Dumbing down the curriculum is a real thing, it happens in the normal track where people are graduating woefully uneducated for the sake of better graduation statistics.
    .
    If they can expand access without hurting the smart kids then that is fine by me, but I just don’t see how that works in real life given examples such as Baltimore. Perhaps the teachers just teach normally and leave the non-performers behind, or perhaps the smart kids overcome slower teaching and still attain the same levels because they do their homework. However the expectation should be that the higher end students will suffer some impact and that should be measured and assessed to determine if it is worth it. The politics of this is that education activists never want to talk about this aspect, but the parents sure do.

  201. Looks like the future is bright for the construction industry in Gaza starting next year. There is going to be a lot of destruction this time around, Hamas went too far. You can tell by the statements from Israel that things have changed in this cycle.
    .
    I’ve been reading some articles to see how activists justify the overt slaughter of civilians by Hamas and not much has changed here. They point to historic bad treatment by Israel that amounts to terrorism in their eyes and pretty much don’t even attempt to justify the killing of innocents. It’s similar to the Bin Laden mentality that all US citizen were valid targets because they pay taxes for the military. Hamas can’t go toe to toe against Israel so they must use asymmetric warfare, I get that, but this behavior is hard to justify on almost any level.
    .
    It’s a generational blood feud. Hamas had to know this was going to get a large response so they somehow find that advantageous to them in some twisted logic. It may simply be about them maintaining power locally by keeping the feud hot. I admit that I simply don’t understand it and may be missing something.

  202. David Young (Comment #225461): “Death toll in Israel is now over 1000 … Thatā€™s equivalent to 47,000 Americans.”
    .
    No it is not. It is equivalent to 1000 Americans. Israeli lives are not worth more than American lives.

    Your logic is like claiming that the 3000 New Yorkers killed on 9/11 were equivalent to 120K Americans killed.

  203. It may simply be about them maintaining power locally by keeping the feud hot.

    I believe maintaining power explains a lot about the extent to which politicians will go in sacrificing their own. Those same politicians in this case kept their constituents more or less destitute to maintain power. What is now occurring is the next step down.

  204. Mike M.:

    David Young (Comment #225461): ā€œDeath toll in Israel is now over 1000 ā€¦ Thatā€™s equivalent to 47,000 Americans.ā€
    .
    No it is not. It is equivalent to 1000 Americans. Israeli lives are not worth more than American lives.

    You’re correct that Israeli lives should be valued the same as American lives. [Well, in a US newsroom, they’re actually worth less, but newsworthiness is by design a locally-skewed perspective.]

    But one does need to consider the size of the country to estimate the impact — such as, what percentage of families have been directly affected. In that sense, it’s reasonable to compute a number proportional to the population of one’s own country for comparison.

    For example, I’ve seen an estimate of 130,000 people displaced in Gaza. That’s small compared to (say) the number of Syrian refugees. But the figure should be taken in light of the population of 600,000 to gauge its significance.

  206. Harold and Mike,

    To understand deaths, you always need to look at per capita numbers. They do that with all cause mortality for example and for covid deaths and hospitalizations. The per capita numbers capture how this impacts Israel. This is really very obvious and every responsible reporters of these statistics uses per capita numbers.

  208. Tom, Murderous anti-Semitism is as old as Western Civilization. Hamas is every bit as evil as the SS Nazis. Islam has always had a strong strain of anti-Semitism. What has happened in the Middle East over the last 40 years is that almost all Jews in Arab countries have moved to Israel.

    To understand Hamas you have to look at the evil propaganda they grow up with and the bloodthirsty Islamic traditions and scripture. I doubt if Iran or Hamas was thinking about consequences when they planned and executed this massacre. Martyrdom is to them a very holy thing.

  210. David Young (Comment #225470): “To understand deaths, you always need to look at per capita numbers.”
    .
    Nonsense. That only makes sense if the number of deaths are plausibly related to the size of population. Per capita numbers make no sense for isolated events since the population used in the denominator is undefined.
    .
    If an airplane crash kills all on board, is that the equivalent of 8 billion deaths globally? Of course not.

  211. Mike, If you look at Covid statistics reporting virtually all the scientists talk about per capita statistics to compare States or countries, etc. Absolute numbers mean almost nothing either to public health authorities.

    Your airplane example is absurd. It would be meaningful though to compare airplane crash deaths on a per capita basis in order to determine if there is a problem a country needs to address.

  213. David Young: “I think Harold the population of Gaza is at least 2.2 million”.

    Interesting. I had done a quick Google search, which gave an estimate of 600K. After trying to reproduce the search results, it appears that I found the population for Gaza City instead. My error.

    As for the population of Gaza, your number (2.2 million) is likely correct. I found this source saying 778K; this one says 2.2 million; Wikipedia says 2.375 million. I didn’t expect to see such wildly diverging numbers. Usually such non-controversial information is pretty consistent across sources.

    [Edit: the first source seems also to be considering the city, as it says, “These estimates represent the Urban agglomeration of Gaza, which typically includes Gaza’s population in addition to adjacent suburban areas.” ]

  215. John Ferguson,
    No, the West bank alone has 2.7 million Palestinians (and 650,000 Israelis). The best estimates are ~2 million in the Gaza strip, with half the population under the age of 14…… the population has more than doubled in 15 years.

  216. Itā€™s the most wonderful time of the yearā€¦ Hockey season!
    If anyone is interested, ESPN+ broadcasts about 90% of NHL games live. One catch, local teams are mostly [90%] blacked out. Cost is $9.99/month. I get it as part of my Hulu/ Disney+ [no ads] package for about $24.00 per month. You can tune in on either the home teamā€™s or away team’s local broadcast.

  218. Follow-up to my post about Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV). I thought traffic was almost exclusively Israeli airlines flying in and out. However, I have noticed a few flights without TLV in their flight plan enter the landing pattern for Ben Gurion Airport. One was a Boeing airliner registered to the Mexican military. My guess is this was a surreptitious flight to evacuate Mexican nationals. There are also occasional landings by airlines that I have never heard of, one was ā€˜flydubaiā€™. There was a similar flight by ā€˜Red Wingsā€™ originating from MRV, an airport in Stavropol Krai, Russia.

  221. Russell,
    Certainly you should post as you please. Personally, I’m less interested in trying to figure out the military situation in Israel because (and maybe I’m wrong) I think I already know that – that IDF has overwhelming superiority over Hamas. With the Ukraine / Russia conflict it’s harder for me to believe I know what’s going on, but with Israel it’s less of a question to me.
    But it doesn’t hurt anything- go on posting on Israel if you like. Your military posts are almost always at least mildly interesting to me.

  222. Death toll in Israel up to 1200 equivalent to 56000 Americans an order of magnitude worse that 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. Does anyone believe Israel will not level Gaza and destroy Hamas? I wish them Godspeed.

    For me, this reinforces my belief that demonization campaigns, whether of Jews, Russia, or Trump are very dangerous. Hatred is very easy to arouse in human beings. Its a bug that is in our DNA.

  223. Russell, I think its very obvious that the vaunted Ukrainian summer offensive has been a total failure. This war is now similar to WWI. How many more Ukrainians and Russians have to die before we stop this war? There really is a strong tendency for our elites to glorify and promote war. This is an attempt by our elites to divert the focus from their own corruption to focus on how evil Russia is.

  224. David

    ….we stop this war

    We? And next “we” will have to stop Hamas vs. Israel.
    .

    There really is a strong tendency for our elites to glorify and promote war.

    I don’t see anyone other than Russia promoting one of these wars. And I don’t see anyone other than Hamas promoting the other one.
    .
    Back to the other thread.

  225. Russell,
    I do appreciate your posts. I was surprised that the squawks could be identified other than by ATC.

    thanks.

  226. Lucia, Russia is primarily at fault for this war but the US in at fault for not doing more to end it or prevent it. The US has intervened in Ukraine actively to promote anti-Russian forces. There was a coup in 2013 that we actively supported that replaced a Russia friendly government with one much less friendly to Russia. US Senators went to Kyiv and spoke to the crowds. Victoria Nuland actually picked cabinet members for the new government. There is evidence we quashed Zelensky’s desire to sign the Minsk accords to end this war. We have pushed NATO right up to the borders of Russia, something that is very provocative.

    There has been a 7 year long demonization and disinformation campaign against Russia here in the US. I listed in the previous comment the continuous lying by corporate media, the deep state, and big tech. In fact the deep state and big tech are becoming joined at the hip because of the revolving door for deep staters to work at big tech. It goes from the Alpha Bank hoax to Russiagate to the Hunter laptop.

    The desire of war hawks to fight to the last Ukrainian is immoral. In fact, this war could grind on for years with mounting casualties on both sides.

  227. I also think that Biden and Iran are partially responsible for the Middle East crisis. The Biden administration has given hundreds of millions to the Palestinians despite internal memos admitting that some of it would get into the hands of Hamas.

    We have allowed at least $50 billion to go into the coffers of Iran through direct payments and not enforcing oil sanctions. We have allowed Iranian connected Americans to work in the State Department. And then Biden apologists try to claim that none of that money went to Hamas. Money is fungible so that’s a worthless argument.

    Both the WSJ and the Washington Post are reporting direct Iranian involvement in planning this Hamas war crime.

  228. One way to view it:
    .
    Iran is using Hamas/Hezbollah for their ongoing fight against Israel
    The US is using Ukraine for their ongoing fight against Russia
    .
    This is not a perfect comparison but the point is clear. All one side needs to do is supply weapons and take little risk to possibly achieve their political / military goals. An alliance of convenience.
    .
    I understand why Ukraine is taking weapons and sacrificing their citizens, I don’t quite comprehend why Hamas is sacrificing their citizens but I’m not invited to their strategy meetings, must be 4-D chess.
    .
    I read that only a handful of commanders knew of the Hamas operation before it started, so in a strange way I feel a little sorry for some of those foot soldiers who were killed being thrust into a suicidal battle and barely knowing what was going on. A little, not a lot. You really don’t need to gun down civilians and I saw some really reprehensible videos that are hard to un-see. That behavior was not isolated.
    .
    The US’s militant Palestinian organizations (particularly in the academy) aren’t covering themselves in glory when they can’t even admit that their side behaving by the very definition of terrorism is regrettable. Their credibility is now pretty low. Bari Weiss:
    https://www.thefp.com/p/when-people-tell-you-who-they-are
    .
    Academia’s administrations don’t have to release statements IMO and a policy of never taking official positions on geopolitical matters if fine by me … if they were consistent. They are not.

  229. Tom, I don’t think Hamas has a long term strategy other than to kill Jews. This is based on an ideology of hate. Similarly for Iran. This is what makes them so dangerous, they do not respond to rational self-interest.

  230. John,
    8 PM [their time] screenshot of flights over the Middle East, Mediterranean Sea, and Europe that have departed TLV. I assume all flights will activate transponders once they leave Israeli air space. Almost all planes in the air worldwide are with Israeli-based carriers:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1712163147069485121?s=20
    Here is the site where I track all this. Most of the fun stuff is behind a paywall though:
    https://www.flightradar24.com/27.32,-82.01/9

  232. Tom, What I don’t understand is the almost universal desire in Washington DC to prolong this war or support a goal of removing Russia from all Ukraine. I do understand why so many hate Russia given the 7 year long propaganda campaign of demonization. Putin is a bad guy. Russian culture is like this though.

  234. It looks like we may soon have Scalise as House Speaker. I was a little surprised at how complicated the process is – apparently he’s won the nomination but not the actual speakership. … But.. What does it mean to win the Republican nomination to be House Speaker and not win the Speakership when Republicans are in majority in the House? I don’t know, I’m confused and I’m not going to take the time right now to sort that out.

  235. It probably just means the Democrats get to vote for speaker too, so the final vote can change a lot depending on … politics.

  237. According to this, Scalise got 113 votes to Jordan’s 99. Given that all the Democrats will vote for neither, all (except for about 3 or 4) of the Jordan votes will have to switch to Scalise to avoid a repeat of having multiple rounds of voting.

  238. Right. It’s simple majority of Republicans for the nomination. It’s simple majority of the House to elect the Speaker. I’m not sure why I had such a hard time earlier getting my head around this (Actually I do, I was in the middle of something complicated, but).

  239. I would prefer Jordan, but I think getting this taken care of is critical because all this chaos looks bad to voters. Scalise is more conservative than McCarthy. Fine by me.

    I’m not really impressed with Gaetz et al not voting for a 10% discretionary budget cut in the first bill.

  240. Solution would be to blow up all the Gaza/Egyptian tunnels on the Egyptian side of the border with 4 MAOB’s borrowed from Biden.
    Solves the problems of troops hiding in the tunnels,
    Long term restocking of missiles from Iran through Egypt and punishes Egypts part in allowing the tunnels and weapons.
    Too simplistic?
    Needs a grand gesture.

  241. Round and round it goes…those militant organizations in academia looked to have misjudged the scale of the situation.
    .
    WSJ:
    “Bill Ackman, a prominent hedge-fund manager, said Tuesday on social-media platform X that CEOs have been asking for the names of students involved with the organizations who signed the letter that circulated around Harvard to ensure ā€œthat none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.ā€ Other CEOs, including Jonathan Neman of Sweetgreen, said online that he also wanted to know, so that he wouldnā€™t hire them.”
    https://twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1711788747086233661
    …
    “Several groups withdrew their support for the letter this week, including the schoolā€™s Islamic Society and Nepali Student Association. By Wednesday, all of the (30) signatories of the letter were removed and a note attached at the bottom of the letter said they had been ā€œconcealedā€ for student safety.”
    .
    Mixed feelings on this, I would prefer employees didn’t have to be ideologically scrubbed as long as they didn’t bring that ideology into the workplace with them. Alternately these elitist organizations are the very same people who demand ideological conformity and try to use these very same methods to make others bend the knee.

  242. angech,
    I believe Israel has been routinely taking out those tunnels for at least a decade. They were using ground penetrating radar along the border to identify them. To my knowledge they weren’t a factor in this attack, but there are many tunnels inside Gaza.

  243. One scenario is that hundreds of thousands of Gazans show up at the Egyptian border and storm it. What would Egypt do? Don’t know but they would have a serious problem.

    I do believe that Israel will invade Gaza and take every rifle and bullet they find and arrest or exile everyone found with a rifle, that is the ones who don’t foolishly try to shoot at the Israelis.

    Tom, I don’t have mixed feelings on this. One of our problems is the infiltration of law firms and other corporations by insanely woke younger employees. That’s why Twitter was such a mess. By all means hire graduates of Hillsdale college or Grand Canyon university or Florida state or U. of Oklahoma for that matter.

  244. Tom Scharf,
    Unfortunately, the reality is that ideology is never left at home; the policies and behaviors of companies end up reflecting the ideology of employees. I don’t see any easy solution, but I think companies hiring “the best and brightest”, who are heavily indoctrinated with leftist nonsense, has been a catastrophe for the country. The shoe-on-the-other-foot argument makes the problem clear: any employee who states non-leftist views is tormented or summarily fired, while leftist claptrap is embraced. Laws that protect people from persecution should be extended to persecution for ideology.

  245. Storming the gate at the Egyptian crossing doesn’t do you much good, it’s a big long desert to the next area of civilization. It is notable that Egypt isn’t a big fan of being helpful here either. They may ultimately allow civilans out to a refugee camp in the desert.

  246. I also find it notable that Biden is not being blamed for creating a ā€œmore dangerous worldā€, as he who shall not be named would have obviously been in endless thought pieces. I donā€™t think Biden is particularly at fault here (sh** happens), just noting how the media behaves and how only one side is typically granted a charitable assumption.
    .
    One could argue negotiating with Iran is perceived by them as weakness. I doubt any of this matters, Hamas is Hamas. The Hamas is no different than ISIS and should be treated the same narrative is probably going to work.

  247. Fortress Europeā€¦ Hereā€™s another country beefing up.
    The UK is building a lethal naval air force [I had no idea!]:
    ā€œUKā€™s F-35s to reach full operating capability by 2025
    The Royal Navyā€™s 809 Naval Air Squadron is also due to stand up in 2023, joining the already operational Royal Air Forceā€™s 617 Squadron.ā€
    ā€œThe new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are the biggest warships ever built for the Royal Navy ā€“ and the most advanced. Theyā€™re our nationā€™s flagships, and will be for the next 50 years, as they embark on our most vital global deployments.
    ā€œThe F-35 is to be Britain’s primary strike aircraft for the next three decades. ā€œ

  248. Tom, I’ve seen a report that Hamas started planning this “operation” shortly after Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Was there a causal relationship. I think its likely. Terrorists are greatly encouraged by weakness and incompetence which are two hallmarks of the Biden administration. I also think there is a causal relationship between Biden assuming office and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. We’ve seen this movie with Jimmy Carter except for the senility.

    BTW, Just saw a video in which Joe Rogan says he is voting for Trump because everything is insane under Biden. Another telltale sign Trump can win.

  249. Yes Russell glad to see the Brits expanding their advanced weaponry. They have since WWI been our best ally.

  250. Russell, lets keep things in perspective on aircraft carriers.
    .
    Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, 65,000 tonnes
    .
    Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, 100,000+ tonnes
    .
    “The new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are the biggest warships ever built for the Royal Navy ”
    .
    Kind of says it all on the state of the Royal Navy if size of ships actually means anything.
    .
    I personally think larger ships just means larger targets in a modern missile war. Useful for projecting power against 3rd world nations though.

  251. > I personally think larger ships just means larger targets in a modern missile war. Useful for projecting power against 3rd world nations though.

    How useful would they be if China attacks Taiwan? How close would they need to be to send planes loaded with payload an fuel? 500 miles or less? How well could they be defended? Are nuclear subs really any better?

    Warfare is changing. The war in Ukraine is demonstrating that.

    Aircraft carriers in another 50 years?

    Hmmm.

  252. Ed Forbes,
    ā€œRussell, lets keep things in perspective on aircraft carriers.
    Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, 65,000 tonnes
    Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, 100,000+ tonnesā€
    More perspective:
    The ONLY Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov, has a maximum displacement of 58,600 tonnes.
    The British aircraft carriers will not likely face off against US carriers. Of course, they probably won’t face off against the ONLY Russian carrier eitherā€¦ since it has spent most of its life in drydock. It has proven to be not seaworthy.

  255. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/former-irs-contractor-pleads-guilty-leaking-trump-tax-records-rcna120213
    “Charles Littlejohn, 38, pleaded guilty to one count of disclosure of tax return and return information at a brief hearing in Washington. The felony charge carries a five-year maximum sentence, but Littlejohn is expected to face eight to 14 months in prison, according to prosecutorsā€™ estimate of the sentencing guidelines.”
    “Littlejohn confirmed to Reyes that he leaked Trumpā€™s records to The New York Times and that he had leaked the tax records of thousands of wealthy people to ProPublica.”
    “Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times said in a statement: ā€œWe remain concerned when whistleblowers who provide information in the public interest are prosecuted.”
    .
    Looks like it was a plea deal. The judge doesn’t have to accept the sentencing but probably will. If this doesn’t deserve the maximum sentence, I’m not sure what does. What may be the case is the government didn’t have great evidence and did a plea deal, what might also be the case is the government only throws the book at people when it suits their momentary ideological view. We will probably learn more over time, it’s very hush-hush.

  256. Avdiivka, you are going to be hearing a lot about it I predict. The Russians mounted a large attack with a lot of heavy armor and mechanized infantry.
    I caution you that my information is preliminary and only coming from the Ukrainian side. Take it with a grain of salt.
    One reliable source has counted 50 destroyed Russian vehicles, including 40 tanks and APCs. The Russians are attacking in open country that is under Ukrainian artillery fire.
    ISW says ā€œRussian forces have not secured any major breakthroughs near #Avdiivka as of October 12 and are unlikely to immediately cut off Ukrainian forces in the cityā€
    The official Ukrainian report is that they are holding their positions.
    Stay tuned, this isnā€™t over.

  257. Well, it’s an open thread…
    I found this interesting — a study discussing many different results obtained from the same dataset.

  258. HaroldW,
    This is a big problem, analytical choices often fed by confirmation bias. Michael Mann would never have invented new statistical methods had the basic methods given him what he wanted. He surely(?) tried the traditional ones first and abandoned them when the results were unsatisfactory. The final papers never tell of abandoned numerical attempts. Forcing researchers to document their data analysis before they collect data would be helpful, but not really fix things I suspect. Hackers gonna hack, the incentives are in place for this.

  259. If you go to a scientific presentation of research results, when they get to the Q&A and the local specialists have had their way with the presenters, ask “In the course of this study, what did you find that was surprising?”
    .
    You may get the deer in the headlight reaction, but then you would have already recognized the shortage of insight during the presentation.
    .
    or…
    .
    The presenter will chuckle, look at his colleagues, and say something like “I’m really glad you asked. This didn’t fit well in our talk, but it really perplexed us. …”
    .
    And then you get to hear the thing that made giving them some of your afternoon worthwhile.
    .
    I suspect Michael Mann would not understand the question.

  260. Retired MI5 officer John le CarrĆ© wrote a book in 1989 called The ā€œThe Russia Houseā€. It is a story of a Russian rocket scientist leaking a manuscript that details the ineptitude in the Russian ā€˜Strategic Rocket Forcesā€™ and therefore the Russian nuclear deterrent. A line from the story has a CIA analyst declare ā€˜They couldn’t hit Nevadaā€™.
    The Ukraine war has shown the depth of Russian war machine incompetance; Army, Navy, and Air Force. It is probable that the ā€˜Strategic Rocket Forcesā€™ are bumbling idiots too.
    Note: It was made into a movie with Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer. The movie is free on Amazon Prime Movies, but I caution the movie is more of a ā€˜Chic Flicā€™ than a spy thriller.

  261. The aircraft carrier has always been vulnerable. Scores were sunk in WWII in the Pacific by both sides. With air supremacy, they are less so however. I think in any conceivable conflict the US would have massive air superiority because our aircraft are much more modern and have very sophisticated high tech weapons.

  262. Harold and Tom, Selection bias and positive results bias are rampant in science. In CFD it really is not possible to get a correct picture of the state of the art from the literature. Basically, RANS does a poor job with separated flows, but you would never see that from the literature. You run the code many many times turning the knobs until you get an answer you like and then you publish that one, and fail to mention or document the many other less convincing results.

    These problems are a symptom of the soft money culture that has infected academia over the last 30 years. Many “top researchers” barely read the papers published with their name on them. Their army of graduate students and post-docs do all the work. The researcher spends all his time writing proposals for soft money grants.

  263. Yes Russell, the Russian army has been third rate for centuries. Russia is a very corrupt place that lacks the engineering and computer programming skills needed to design modern weapons. This is why the demonization campaign against Russia is so dangerous. They are not really a threat except in the nuclear arena.

  264. Yes Tom, The two tiered system of justice scares me. The FBI seems focused on “domestic extremists”, i.e. MAGA supporters, and conservative Catholics and is ignoring the Islamist threat particularly with our totally open Southern border. Over 50,000 people from countries with active terrorist activity have been apprehended this year. There could be tens of thousands more who escaped apprehension. They also seem to be ignoring BLM and Antifa who have caused tens of billions of dollars damage and many fatalities during the Trump years.

  265. David Young,
    ā€œThey are not really a threat except in the nuclear arena.ā€
    Maybe, that certainly is the conventional assumption. The point of my post is that I assume the Strategic Rocket Force is just as corrupt and inept as the Army, Navy and Air Forceā€¦. probably more so, since everything it does is classified.

  266. Russell, The fact that the Russians were unable to take control of Ukraine in the north tells us that their army is third rate. They were defeated by a much smaller and poorly equipped the Ukrainian army.

  268. David Young (Comment #225650): “The aircraft carrier has always been vulnerable. Scores were sunk in WWII in the Pacific by both sides.”
    .
    Nonsense. I think we lost one. The Japanese lost 3 or 4. My memory might be off a bit, but it is much closer than Young claims.

  269. We never had scores of aircraft carriers to start with, ha ha. The Battle of Midway was the decisive battle. The Japanese lost 4 carriers, the US lost 1.
    .
    You can’t hide aircraft carriers anymore, half of that battle was played out by who could find the other guy first.

  270. I read here:

    Losing a carrier isn’t something that really happens anymore. And losing a Casablanca-class escort carrier like the USS Bismarck Sea to the enemy can’t compare to losing the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s largest and most advanced carrier to date.

    Still, when the USS Bismarck Sea was sunk by Japanese kamikaze pilots during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945, she took 318 crewmen down with her, a devastating loss.

    Twelve aircraft carriers were sunk by the enemy during World War II — five fleet carriers, a seaplane tender and six escort carriers. The loss of the Bismarck Sea was the last time that a U.S. carrier went down due to enemy action.

  272. Good point, I stand corrected. I was just thinking of the fleet carriers. I don’t think there were ever a large number active at any one time in any theater, at least that’s the impression I got from the books I read, but I guess those were mostly early war books.
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1353080/wwii-japan-us-aircraft-carrier-strength-and-losses/
    .
    I think a hot war today the carriers could be vulnerable. Good luck dealing with 100’s of anti-ship missiles from mainland China or hypersonic nuclear tipped missiles from Russia. I’m not sure how impenetrable anti-submarine defenses are either, that stuff is really hard to gauge. I think it will be quite dramatic and quite fast.

  273. People who study this in wargaming (and others) suggest that American aircraft carriers wouldn’t fare particularly well in a hot war with China over Taiwan, at least.

    “Base case” is that the US would lose 1 or 2 and up to 4 aircraft carriers in the early days of such a war.

    https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

    https://thechinaproject.com/podcast/wargaming-a-taiwan-invasion-scenario-lyle-goldstein-on-the-csis-wargame-the-first-battle-of-the-next-war/

  275. Mike, I think you are underestimating this. The Japanese lost 4 at Midway alone. We lost one at Midway. We lost 2 at the Battle of the Coral Sea. By the end of the war virtually the entire Japanese navy had been sunk largely because their inventory of combat aircraft and trained crew went to zero. I’m guessing that they had or produced many more than 20.

    Joshua, In a full scale war with China there will be carriers sunk. There are plenty of anti-ship missiles that are accurate. I’ve also seen videos of anti-aircraft gattling guns that are radar controlled and seem pretty effective. In WWII it generally took at least 4 direct hits or more to sink a carrier. In any case, China would have vastly higher losses. I can’t view the youtube video because I use an ad blocker.

    Also, pre-campaign war gaming is notoriously inaccurate. Your second link talks about the weaknesses of this game.

  277. David Young (Comment #225665): “Mike, I think you are underestimating this. The Japanese lost 4 at Midway alone. We lost one at Midway. We lost 2 at the Battle of the Coral Sea.”
    .
    Yes, I was underestimating. Like Tom, I was thinking of fleet carriers. And I was thinking of Midway, which was the decisive carrier battle.
    .
    It seems we lost 2 full size fleet carriers: The Yorktown at Midway and the Hornet at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. And three light carriers: Lexington (at Coral Sea), Wasp, and Princeton. Plus 6 escort carriers, which I had never heard of.
    .
    The 6 carriers you list includes the Yorktown twice. It was badly damaged at Coral Sea, repaired in just a few weeks, then sunk at Midway.
    .
    I think the Japanese only had 6 fleet carriers. 4 were sunk at Midway, the other two were largely held back until late in the war when they were sunk.

  278. The only reason the US didn’t lose more is that after the Coral Sea we only had one fleet carrier in the Pacific, the Enterprise. By the time our massive building program swelled the ranks Japan’s airforce was decimated.

    FROM BRITANNICa RE the battle of Guadalcanal.
    “The various naval battles cost each side 24 warships: the Japanese lost 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 1 light carrier, 11 destroyers, and 6 submarines, while the Americans lost 8 cruisers, 2 heavy carriers, and 14 destroyers.”

  279. David Young (Comment #225669): “The only reason the US didnā€™t lose more is that after the Coral Sea we only had one fleet carrier in the Pacific, the Enterprise. By the time our massive building program swelled the ranks Japanā€™s airforce was decimated.”
    .
    Midway was just a month after Coral Sea. The US had three fleet carriers in the Pacific: Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown although the last was being repaired for most of that month. I don’t see how less US air dominance protected US carriers.
    .
    Anyway, you said that “scores” of carriers were lost on both sides, which is just plain wrong.

  280. Yes I overstated American loses. I’m pretty sure Yorktown was lost at Midway and Hornet in the Guadalcanal campaign at the battle of Santa Cruz Islands. Enterprise was heavily damaged at Guadalcanal and was under repair for some time. No American carrier escaped unscathed. I should have said that after Guadalcanal for a time we had no fleet carriers.

    In any case, my point is correct. Carriers were very vulnerable in WWII if the enemy had significant aircraft.

  282. Only 1 of the fleet carriers survived the war. 3 light carriers survived. Not sure about the escort carriers.

  283. I watched two USAF B-1B Lancer bombers land at RAF Fairford, United Kingdom today. They were followed in by a U-2 ā€˜Dragon Ladyā€™.
    The official mumbo-jumbo about the deployment:
    ā€œThe long-planned European BTF deployment provides U.S. and NATO leaders with strategic options to assure Allies and partners, while also deterring potential adversary aggression throughout Europe and across the globe.ā€
    ā€œMore than 100 Airmen and B-1B Lancer aircraft assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, deployed to RAF Fairford, United Kingdom, Thursday for Bomber Task Force-Europe 24-1.ā€
    Here you can find links to the video of the arrival in the UK, the USAF blurb, and a screenshot of the Dragon Lady [Awesome!]
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1713131929929752727?s=20
    [Edit: I have no idea what is going on]

  286. Mark, The only solution I can see is for Israel to get the UN to evacuate most Gazans to some other Muslim country. Just drop them off in Lebanon or Syria. The truth about the Muslim world is very depressing. They want to keep Palestinians in place to use as pawns for their hatred for Jews.

  288. David Young,
    The UN is not going to get involved. There are too many UN members who side with the Palestinians in their effort to eliminate Israel.
    .
    Maybe if Hamas is fully dismantled, Israel might invite the UN in to act as peace keepers, but I doubt even that will happen.

  289. I read the book “Morning Star, Midnight Sun: The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign” and according to it the naval engagements were pretty much ships randomly roaming around in the dark with poor intelligence and a bunch of friendly fire incidents. Some engagements were won based on luck alone. There is a reason that post WWII there has been such an emphasis on battlefield intelligence and situational awareness. The Japanese were superior early on but the simplified view is the US manufacturing base eventually overpowered them. There were some horrific battles as anybody who has looked at it knows well. I’d prefer the Japanese be on our side next time, ha ha. I’m sure they feel the same.
    .
    People like to imagine the US military has always been competent, this is not the case at all especially in the early WWII campaigns. This is also why I think China is likely to be a bit incompetent early on once it decides to start acting with its military.
    .
    The US has been in a constant series of engagements across the world with varying environments. We are competent but that does not mean we don’t have weaknesses that can be exploited. China does not have this experience.

  290. My random guess is that Hamas will be “removed” as in anybody identified as Hamas in Gaza will be killed but they will just fade into the background in reality. Israel will have a short term occupation of Gaza and allow new elections to take place where a political party named “Hamas” will not be allowed. A party that looks and smells like Hamas will win the election and we will be back to the status quo after ten years of rebuilding … but it will be ten years to repair the damage and allow Gaza to be able to attack Israel again. During that time the borders will be widened and the defenses will be upgraded in a major way. Life in Gaza will be even more miserable and the usual suspects will keep saying the same things.

  291. The UN is now worthless as a mediator or a peace keeping force. They are useful for organizing aide and humanitarian missions.

  292. Drop Gazans off in northern Syria or Lebanon. The hypocrisy is amazing. Jordon expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians I think in the 1980’s and no one cared.

  293. Intercept: “The day after this war ends, Israel will find itself in the position of being responsible for ruling the Gaza Strip.”
    .
    Not really. Israel just abandoning Gaza as a chaotic ungoverned anarchy is an option and may be preferable. A mess like Somalia is a better option than present Gaza. The key point is almost anything is better than Hamas from Israel’s point of view. It is very likely nothing friendly to Israel will ever come out of this and the primary goal may just be to lengthen the period of time before the jihadi grass needs mowed again. That’s the imperative, nation building is low priority. It’s ugly.

  294. Europe sent 7 crusades between 1095 and 1302 to reclaim / hold lands in the holy land.
    .
    Over 200 years of conflict before the issue was settled in favor of Islam when the last crusader state fell. Currently, the fight for control of the area has been ongoing for only about 80 years. It will still be quite a while before the European settler state of Israel can claim undisputed sovereignty over Palestine. Both parties to this conflict have LONG memories. 80 years is just a blink in time for both sides in this conflict.

  295. Ed, Why do you call Israel a “settler state”? Jews have been in the Holy Land continuously for 3000 years. The truth is that “Palestine” was a very poor and very sparsely populated region until large numbers of Jews began arriving. Now its a technological and economic powerhouse. Israel Arabs have an average household income north of $60,000 per year. I think in the West Bank its about $3000/year. This is because the so-called “Palestinian authority” is focused on Jew hatred and is totally corrupt and does little for its people. In Gaza its even less because Hamas diverts most of its resources to weapons.

    Under Trump there was hope for a permanent peace in the region. Trump’s Middle East policies were excellent and a breakthrough.
    Biden has squandered that progress in a pathological effort to appease the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world in an effort that alienates our friends in the region and allows financing of this latest atrocity by Hamas.

    Biden has been a disaster on so many fronts especially the border. And it will get worse. Mortgage interest rates are at a 28 year high but prices are holding steady making it impossible for most people to buy a home unless they have an existing one they can sell. Credit card interest rates are around 22% while credit card debt is increasing rapidly. Your and my wealth has decreased by 20% since Biden took office. I’m retired so this is a huge issue for me and my wife. The media are obfuscating this by focusing on 1 or 2 “good” jobs reports. Krugman openly lies about inflation by taking out the most important things people need. So you have a job, congratulations on your 5% real pay cut.

  296. RB, Actually many Gazans do want to leave but Egypt refuses to allow them into their country because they don’t want a terrorism problem themselves.

  298. The state of Israel is at war with itself in addition to Islam.
    .
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/
    “The Split In Israel And The War Of Al-Aqsa”
    .
    “”Israel” has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of “Israelā€™s” future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish.”
    .
    The Israeli religious right is doing everything in its power to press for a total war against the Palestinians
    .
    “On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising.”
    .
    “Al-Aqsa is holy to all Muslims, Shia and Sunni alike. Its destruction [Al-Aqsa] would inevitably lead to war. The West is clearly underestimating what forces calls like this one can rise:”
    .
    This conflict has the probability of leading to full blown religious war that has the real potential of going nuclear.
    .

  299. Just listening to Meghan Kelly’s podcast from Monday. She is one of those who have seen the light. She believes this would not have happened if Trump were President. Ric Grennel was on explaining Trump’s winning approach.

  300. Ed, There is a danger of a wider war, but I get really tired of people whining about the “religious right” and how provocative it is. That’s an amazingly bad case of both siderism. Fundamentalist Islam is vastly more dangerous and evil. It openly calls for murdering every Jew and is willing to act on these barbarous ideas.

    Why shouldn’t Jews have access to the Temple Mount? It is amazing what restraint Israel shows.

  301. With respect Ed, your link is an example of conspiracy theories and lies. It tries to poke holes in the fact that documents were found on dead terrorists stating that the plan was to kill as many people as possible including children with silly and irrelevant arguments.

  303. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin:
    ā€œI have directed the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to begin moving to the Eastern Mediterranean. As part of our effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack on Israel,ā€
    ā€œThe Eisenhower CSG will join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which arrived earlier this week.ā€
    ā€œThe increases to U.S. force posture signal the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israelā€™s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war.ā€
    Yesterday a flight of B-1B Lancer stealth bombers and 91 support personnel deployed to the UK.
    All this war preparation makes me nervous.

  304. I found the USS Ford. I tracked the Greyhound mail plane. Sure ā€˜nuff, itā€™s in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
    Screenshot:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1713539472069898341?s=20
    Grumman C-2 Greyhound is a twin-engine, high-wing cargo aircraft designed to carry supplies, mail, and passengers to and from aircraft carriers of the United States Navy.

  305. Russell Klier (Comment #225704): “All this war preparation makes me nervous.”
    .
    Indeed, although I would call it saber rattling.

    The purpose is unclear. Maybe it is meant to scare Hezbollah into inaction? But groups like Hezbollah and Hamas WANT “martyrs”.

  306. I think this is entirely to make Hezbollah nervous. The US will likely join the war against Lebanon IMO if Hezbollah decides to join. My guess is that message has been clearly sent through back channels. One can debate whether this is making things better or worse. The US wants to contain the war and saber rattling is one of the tools it has.
    .
    Hezbollah is a bit more rational than Hamas but those 100K rockets / missiles they have will likely eventually be used sooner or later. The Israelis donā€™t need any more reminders they are vulnerable at the moment.

  309. Shapiro has a massive intellect, but he is not always right. But worth listening to. Similarly Glenn Greenwald is sometimes wrong but worth listening to as a stalwart advocate for freedom of speech and his recognition our elites are corrupt garbage. In fact Greenwald’s knowledge of the last 20 years is second to none. He is a little too friendly to the Palestinian “cause.”

  310. Sure Russell, its scary on one level. On another its a welcome reminder of Obama’s fondness for terrorists and how that process is continuing under Obama’s senile houseplant corrupt Joe Biden.

    The National Archives have identified almost 30,000 emails between Biden and Hunter and his business associates. So far we don’t know what is in them, but I can guarantee they were not about the weather.

    Biden is a lifelong liar and virtually everything he says is a halftruth or an outright lie. And our corrupt media covers for him and pretends he is in charge and competent.

  311. My brother reminded me yesterday that all this deep state abuse of people started in 2012 when Obama could go all in on cultural Marxism and authoritarianism.

    Also it is now a proven fact that Biden’s team “discovered” his boxes of classified documents a year before they notified the National Archives. They are actively hiding from Congress what is in these documents. I think some of them might be about Hunter’s business partners and client countries.

    Just yesterday Biden claimed that you can be married in the morning and denied seating at a restaurant that evening at a Human Rights Campaign event. He claimed this is still happening with zero evidence. Jill had to lead him off the stage again.

  312. Tom, The problem is that 8% who criticize Israel includes many of our elite institution leaders such as Tribe at Harvard and many in the corrupt media, particularly MSNBC. I was gratified to see that their ratings are down 33% since the massacre while Fox is up 47%. Please do not watch MSNBC.

  313. Jeff Landry is the new governor of Louisiana. He won 52% in the jungle primary. It’s fun to watch the media panic and call him a “hard-line Republican.” This seems to be a big enough win to be to me a sign of Republicans rising in voter’s estimation.

  317. ā€œUS sends Air Force ā€˜Warthogsā€™ to Middle East as conflict in Gaza intensifiesā€
    The A-10 Warthog- slow, ugly, antiquated ā€¦ It uses a Gatling gun for goodness’ sake. The Air Force has been trying to retire them for a decade. But when it comes to the dirty job of close air support, nothing is better. [Close air support is a military tactic that involves aircraft attacking hostile targets near friendly forces or non-combatants. ]
    My guess on the strategy might be that Growlers from the carriers take out the air defenses and communications and the Warhogs go in to blast bad guys carrying RPGs while riding in the beds of Toyota trucks.
    Image, A-10 Warthog and Gatling gun:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1713818412281892948?s=20
    Growler:
    ā€œThe EA-18G Growler is a specialized electronic warfare (EW) aircraft that can detect, analyze, identify, disrupt, deter, and destroy enemy radar and communications systems.ā€

  319. Yeah….. The IPs were changed. I wasn’t aware of it. I’ve turned Cloudflare off and need to change some settings. Then I’ll turn it back on. But I’m going to ask what I need to change at Cloudflare. (I’m never entirely sure and I don’t want to be changing… turning on and off… waiting… changing…)

  320. Well, good. Thank you. My day goes all off kilter when I can’t pop in here to read. šŸ™‚

  321. mark,
    Mine was off kilter too… trying to figure out what changed. (I probably ignored a previous email from Dreamhost or didn’t understand its significance.)

  322. Looks like GOF research has hit a political wall. Most studies have been canceled after political inquiries mostly from the right and researchers are either changing their methods (not working on live viruses or in animals) or have abandoned that type of research due to very difficult and lengthy approvals.
    .
    NYT: Lab Leak Fight Casts Chill Over Virology Research
    Scientists doing ā€œgain-of-functionā€ research said that heightened fears of lab leaks are stalling studies that could thwart the next pandemic virus.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/science/covid-lab-leak-research.html
    “Questions about whether Covid leaked from a Chinese laboratory have cast a chill over American virus research, drying up funding for scientists who collect or alter dangerous pathogens and intensifying a debate over those practices.

    The pullback has transformed one of the most highly charged fields of medical science.”
    “And elsewhere in the United States, nearly two dozen virologists, some of whom spoke anonymously for fear of jeopardizing funding or career prospects, described a professionwide retreat from sensitive experiments”
    “But critics say that fiddling with deadly viruses poses intolerable risks for the sake of only hazy public health benefits.”
    .
    It could ramp back up after the public finds something else shiny to play with, but this is good news. It’s likely large scale reform is also on the way, under review.

  323. stalling studies that could thwart the next pandemic virus.

    We don’t need to have an opinion on the lab leak theory to be aware that the previous studies didn’t do anything to thwart the pandemic.

    who collect or alter dangerous pathogens and intensifying a debate over those practices

    Have the altered any to reduce severity and then used their new less dangerous pathogens? Real question.
    .
    Even if the research is promising, it is research that needs strong safety precautions. I have no idea what precautions are appropriate, but scrutiny seems warranted.

  324. Russell, I doubt strongly that Biden (or whoever his Obama flunky for this is) has the stomach to get our planes or ground troops involved. There is a lot of risk of bad news and incompetence. I’m not sure our current military has anything near the skill levels of the IDF. For starters, I recall seeing that 60% of Army soldiers are overweight.

    I could see Trump would strike targets in Syria if they try to enter this war. Biden will not.

    You must bear in mind that Biden’s handlers have as their highest priority bringing Iran into a powerful position and normalizing their terrorist regime. Iran would be alienated by any US attacks. We have effectively funded directly or indirectly $50 billion to them in the last 3 years some of which has gone to Hamas. This is a form of insanity or perhaps senilit.

  325. Tom, I join you in cheering the demise of this dangerous research. I do not read anything in the New York Times however.

    Lucia, The New York Times can be counted on to provide talking points for the public health establishment, the deep state, and the woke mob even when they actually accidentally run a story that seems mostly accurate. In fact, as Greenwald points out they unquestioningly run leaks from deep state actors often of classified information designed to further the narrative. Recall the lies about the Biden laptop, Russiagate, Alpha bank, the DNC hack, etc.

  326. As I recall one study was altered to no longer use “live viruses” and was going to use disabled viruses. It then made it through one step of review only to be axed once the congress critters got word of it. It seems that congress just waited for the finalists to get through review and then took out those finalists with political maneuvering (i.e. funding threats).
    .
    Private industry and foreign actors can still do the work.

  327. David Young,
    I don’t know why you are giving me a stern lecture about the lack of value of the New York Times. Well, other than to possibly give yourself an opportunity to say things like “deep state”, “woke move” etc.
    .
    Honestly, I’m tempted to automatically moderate any comments that say “deep state”. Or just moderate you when you say it. Your comments tend to lack substance when you go there.

  328. All the performative virtue signaling in academia has come back to haunt them. When they don’t condemn the Hamas attacks sufficiently relative to other recent trendy chic causes, people notice, people with money notice.
    .
    ā€˜Stunned and sickened.ā€™ Wexner Foundation cuts ties with Harvard over ā€˜tiptoeingā€™ on Hamas
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/business/wexner-harvard-hamas-israel-antisemitism/index.html
    .
    UPenn in crisis over antisemitism allegations: Jon Huntsman is the latest donor to stop giving, and a board member resigns
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/business/upenn-antisemitism-israel-huntsman/index.html
    .
    All of a sudden student’s freedom of speech is sacrosanct (fine by me) and the university needs to remains neutral on geopolitical issues (also fine by me). Meaningful donors complain about some pretty suspect moral relativism and much stronger official statements suddenly appear. I wonder what Bud Light thinks about all this? We see this repeatedly, generational lessons that need to be relearned.
    .
    I would add that part of this is probably academia’s obsession with the oppressed / oppressor paradigm. They also likely feel Israel can take care of themselves and don’t require emotional support from the Ivy League.

  329. Once again Lucia, I am merely reflecting the stern lectures of lefties like Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Glenn Greenwald and centrists like Bari Weiss. Greenwald’s view of this is particularly poignant because he recalls a time when the Times had a lot of useful content. Once again there is a Mount Everest mountain of evidence that I suspect you are unaware of.

    OK, I’ll call it the National Security State. It is true however that the corporate media prints thousands of leaks a year saying “officials familiar with the matter say.” This material is usually classified, but no one is held accountable. This pattern goes back to 2001 when they reflexively parroted these leaks and helped get us into Iraq for example.

  330. Tom, It is hilarious to see the Harvard students claiming they didn’t read the statement now that they might face real consequences. This problem took 50 years to develop and it won’t be solved overnight either. I’ve always contended that higher education in the US was a giant racket. Government guaranteed student loans assure a constant stream of customers. This allows a bloated administration that has no effective measures of performance.

    However, the worm is turning. There is an entire generation of deeply disallusioned graduates who can’t get a job while being saddled with large debts.

  331. Lucia,
    You have my sympathies. How to handle David is a conundrum to me. Normally I would express my scorn regarding statements like ‘Once again there is a Mount Everest mountain of evidence that I suspect you are unaware of‘ but he comes back with such pathetic counters that it gets to the point where I am ashamed to continue. Makes me feel like I’m beating up a cripple, and I can’t bring myself to do it.
    So, I’m defeated. The alternative is to just grin and bear it I guess.

  332. I get that it is inconsiderate of David’s feelings for me to say such things plainly, but when he demonstrates no regard or consideration for our hostess, I suddenly discover I can bear David’s potential discomfort with great fortitude.

  333. Ok guys… I’m going to see if I got the changes that make cloudflare work done right. (I probably haven’t). The site might go off… or on or off. (It will be restored but it takes a big for dns changes to propagate.)

  334. I think the IP changes at cloudflare were right. (I’m not done. I know the emails ones aren’t right…. I couldn’t get the changes I thought I needed to make stick. But that doesn’t affect us here.)

  335. Mark, Have you actually looked at the Twitter files I linked or read Bari Weiss’ letter? If not, you seem willfully blind. If you have any evidence for your emotional response to my evidence, I’d be happy to look at it.

    I know, you think you know instinctively more than lifelong excellent reporters I guess. It is you who shows nothing to support your feelings. Facts don’t care about your feelings.

    Meghan Kelley is another moderate who is on the reality train about the NYT.

  336. David,
    I don’t think mark’s reaction to your response was emotional. I mean…. we could just start debating which mountain you might have considered in your colorful description. Everest? pfftt.. Maybe Cheaha? or Sassafras? Mount Wycheproof? Dunno.

  337. Gosh, David Young.

    “Willfully blind” from the guy who won’t read the New York times?

    How can you have any idea what all is in it if you don’t at least look.

    Yah, I can’t stand a lot of it, particularly the editorials which seem to me to be written by sophomores at a third rate college. But it still prints worthy stuff from time to time.

  338. David,
    I have a long list of words and phrases that will be deleted from your comments. Please avoid discussions of the deep state, corruption, resorting to trying to advance your argument by telling us about what Taibbi, Shellenberger, Greenwald, Weiss, and so one say. Don’t tell us about Hunter Biden, or discuss corruption or throw out words like Censorship Industrial Complex. I can add more words.
    .
    I haven’t put the word “evidence” in the list of words you can’t say, but I can. Oh. I’m going to add “willfully blind”.

  339. With due respect your responses are emotional because they are not evidence based. You have demonstrated ignorance of the evidence repeatedly. You refuse to look at any evidence and then prove you haven’t looked at it.

    I don’t care really. What this shows me is how dumb voters are in this country. There are millions of really smart people who are awake. I don’t care if you are asleep.

    Show me a shred of evidence. You haven’t done that perhaps because you can’t.

  340. John, Have you been asleep for the last 7 years. Alpha bank lie, DNC hack misrepresentation, Russiagate, Biden laptop. The list of outright lies from the NYT is long. Do you have any evidence or are you just upset?

  343. Lucia, I don’t care what you think, really I don’t. You are obviously wrong and have revealed your lack of understanding of the evidence. That’s emotional and not evidence based. I’m more than happy to look at any evidence you have. So far its been ZERO.

  344. David,
    Evidence for what claim? I said mark’s reaction was not emotional. That’s manifestly apparent to anyone who reads comments here.
    .
    I said we could debate what mountains could better be used in your colorful description. I don’t think I need to provide evidence that the named mountains are mountains.
    .
    Sadly, I had a bug in my moderation plugin. Hopefully I fixed it.

  345. Yesterday the mail plane revealed the probable location of the USS Ford; today there is a US Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon submarine hunter on station in the same location. They are not really trying to hide the location.
    Screenshot:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1714182214856905035?s=20
    Also in this screenshot are an RAF Typhoon Eurofighter and an RAF Airbus KC2 Voyager tanker. They are just east of the Poseiden and just South of Cyprus. Yesterday, most commercial aircraft flying into and out of TLV flew in a corridor between these two locations. Perhaps the US Navy and RAF are flying support for commercial aircraft flying into and out of Tel Aviv.

  346. NYT. WashPost. WSJ. Fox News. NPR. It depends on the subject matter. Not everything is a culture war issue and not everything demands a narrative to be enforced. Even when there is an obvious narrative enforcement happening then you just need to either ignore it or read through the lines. Some subjects (Trump) I just don’t read them anymore.
    .
    In this specific example on GOF the reading through the lines part is noting that the NYT isn’t going out of their way to once again tell their readers that “no evidence” exists for a lab leak and “get your vax now!”. It’s mostly just the facts and expert opinion from both sides. It signals a possible return to normal reporting post-pandemic. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a story on natural immunity, maybe next year, ha ha.

  350. Ukrainian sources have pictures of what they clam is anti-material sub munitions from a cluster rocket from the ATACMS raid overnight. That would explain the widespread inferno videos I saw. I did not know there was such a thing, anti- material cluster rockets.

  351. Russell,

    I did not know there was such a thing, anti- material cluster rockets.

    Me too, first I’ve heard of that.

  353. Tom Scharf,
    Seems Australian voters have a lot more sense than their government.
    .
    BBC: “At the heart of this referendum is a decades-long debate that has gripped Australia over how to close the gap on the glaring disparities Indigenous communities experience in areas such as health, wealth and education.”
    .
    Not equality. Not opportunity. Only equity in outcomes will do. Pure Marxist garbage.

  354. I have do dog in the Austrialan constitutional issue. But I read this

    Campaigners on the Yes side say mis-and-disinformation has contributed to the decline in support. The Australian Associated Press’ FactCheck team – which has been tasked with monitoring content on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok – told the BBC in August, that the volumes of mis-and-disinformation linked to the Voice debate had already surpassed what they saw at Australia’s 2022 election.

    What I did notice is the article linked didn’t really provide any information. I read the article and clicked through to a previous article. I gathered this was the first of three steps. But I had no idea what the provisions being voted on actually said. They are going to give indigenous “a voice”– meaning what?
    .
    Obviously, I know nothing much about Australian government. But were they going to be given a number of seats and representatives to parliament with members who would be elected only be people classed indigenous? Was each of those people going to have the same status as other members of parliament? Or given some veto power? Or actually be given no voting right, but just get to “speak”, the way the president of the student council might get to “speak” to the school board or principle (who can subsequently utterly ignore him).
    .
    What were the later two steps going to be?
    .
    Sort of real questions, but more precisely, just pointing out that answers to those would be “information”.
    .
    If articles gave no “information”, it would hardly be surprising if “disinformation” took its place.

  356. ā€œChapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

    129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

    In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

    i. there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
    ii. the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
    iii the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.ā€

    No wonder no one described what the amendment does. There will be a “body”. The “body” will be able to speak in front of Parliament. Parliament will then make laws defining how it works.
    .
    No idea who that body will work and so on.
    .
    I can see how “disinformation” or “misinformation” could thrive, because the true information seems to be “we don’t really have any idea what this body would be or how it would work. It has a name though.”

  357. Regarding the Voice, maybe I am just a stick in the mud. But this:

    the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.ā€

    seems like a blank check to me. A constitutional amendment (so, no law higher essentially) that says Parliament will dictate the functions and powers of this new body at some later date, as they see fit. No thanks!
    I’d need to know in advance what the ‘functions and powers’ were going to be before I’d consider supporting. But that’s just me, no fun at all I suppose.
    [Edit: :/ didn’t see your 2:47 Lucia till after I posted]

  358. From what I read elsewhere the wording of the referendum was made intentionally vague. Apparently a similar effort failed previously because it was too specific and was torn apart. “Misinformation” were claims the referendum had some sort of legal authority while the Yes backers claimed it had none according to “scholars”. It’s all very strange, why put out a huge effort for some milquetoast amendment?
    .
    What I have seen in the past in the US is that legal claims of no real authority are immediately reversed to claims of a broad mandate the moment something passes (example clean air and water act being expanded and other regulatory power being vastly expanded).
    .
    The rhetoric surrounding this effort is familiar, academia, journalism, celebrities backing it while calling detractors racists is like groundhog day. It became a divisive cultural effort (thanks mostly to No campaign) and suffered a similar fate to some efforts in the US.
    .
    So … an identity based body mandated by the Constitution that the legislature can them give (unlimited?) power to later via the normal process. I agree that this is a blank check process that could be marketed as no real authority to get it passed.

  359. Perhaps the point of the amendment was to make affirmative action type laws passed by the legislature immune to judicial review.

  360. Tom Scharf

    From what I read elsewhere the wording of the referendum was made intentionally vague.

    If so, the people who wanted it past have no business being upset that lots of “misinformation” circulated. Of course no one knew what that was supposed to mean!

  361. Tom Scharf,
    “Perhaps the point of the amendment was to make affirmative action type laws passed by the legislature immune to judicial review.”
    .
    For certain. It was an effort to arrange for a constitutionally sanctioned binding legal mandate for equality of outcomes rather than equality of treatment under the law and equality of opportunity. The left is wrong about this (intellectually and morally) always and everywhere.

  362. When you donā€™t spend time sleeping, you find all sorts of mischievous things to do:
    At 3:38 AM Florida time, the USAF has nine AIRBORN stratotankers [Boeing KC-135R or similar]! They are in the air over:
    Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia [2!], the Western Mediterranean Sea [also one from the RAF], Near Malta, Poland, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Nova Scotia.
    Four or five of these stratotankers appear to be on station and flying a pattern. I assume there are other aircraft [fighters] nearby that are flying missions in dark mode. These are curious times.

  363. Russell,
    Aren’t you skeptical that these forces could become involved in a shooting war? Do you suppose anyone in the middle east thinks that’s possible?
    .
    What would provoke it? Maybe an overt action by Iran?
    .
    If Iran is dissuaded by this show of force, does it follow that wihout it, they might have joined the attacks on Israel?
    .
    Do you think Syria has the wherewithal to attack Israel? I don’t.

  364. John,
    ā€œArenā€™t you skeptical that these forces could become involved in a shooting war? Do you suppose anyone in the middle east thinks thatā€™s possible?ā€
    Yes, that is what I was thinking when I posted that. Iran might see six of those nine tankers being there in direct opposition to its interest.
    I donā€™t have any insight into the Middle East. These same parties have been hating and killing each other since biblical times. Most of what we [USA] have tried in the last 50 years has not helped.

  365. Biden was flying into Israel. I’m sure everyone in the region was on double high alert.

  366. Biden claims he believes Israel isn’t responsible for the hospital attack.
    WSJ: “Asked what gave him confidence that Israel wasnā€™t behind the explosion, Biden responded: ā€œThe data I was shown by my Defense Department,ā€ without elaborating.”
    “Hagari shared what he said was an intercepted conversation between two unidentified Hamas operatives saying the rocket was fired by Islamic Jihad militants from a cemetery near the hospital.
    Hagari said the blast took place in the parking lot of the hospital. He said the hospital building itself didnā€™t suffer structural damage. He shared a photo of the burned-out parking lot, saying there was no crater on the site of the blast, an indication there hadnā€™t been an aerial strike.

    Hagari said the rocketā€™s residual propellantā€”fuel that boosts the rocket toward its destinationā€”explains why the explosion was so powerful.
    …
    The Israeli militaryā€™s claims and the hospital death toll couldnā€™t be independently verified. ”
    .
    Somebody needs to show their work here if I am to believe anything. It shouldn’t be hard to discriminate between an aerial bomb and a misfired rocket (or intentional sabotage). It looks like we may never know and everyone will just believe what they want to believe.
    .
    Hamas is such a bad actor (demonstrated by previous behavior) that it certainly isn’t beyond my thinking they did this intentionally based on the timing of the attack with Biden showing up the next day. They are now in an existential fight by the very definition. Still, that would be pretty low and I would defer to an accident. Alternately Israel is dropping 500+ bombs a day onto a densely crowded city and things can go wrong in many different ways so that is very easy to believe. Bad intelligence, wayward bombs, etc.

  368. Tom,
    I hadnā€™t connected the Biden flight. A lot of the USAF activity might have been because of it.

  369. I think the Ukrainians have opened up another front. Whether itā€™s real or a feint time will tell.
    ā€œ Some unconfirmed Russian chatter today, claiming Ukrainian forces have pushed out from their bridgehead across the Antonivka bridgehead. Claim fighting in several villages near the Dnipro river. This in #Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. We await developments and if true – Godspeed one and all.Lā€

  373. Israel claims they don’t shoot down missiles inside of Gaza, at least with Iron Dome system. I don’t think any local systems like a MANPAD can do that either, but not sure.

  374. I don’t have time to run a link down, but I read the other day that the homegrown rockets manufactured inside of Gaza are difficult to shoot down because their flight trajectories are difficult to predict — because they’re homemade junk, basically.

  375. The closeup picture in the WSJ is definitely not a bomb crater.
    https://images.wsj.net/im-870740?width=780&height=520&pixel_ratio=2
    .
    It also looks like they may have inflated casualties. I know the first response from Israel was “we are checking” and the first response from Hamas was “Israel did it, 500 killed!”. It is not an unreasonable assumption it was an errant airstrike before proven otherwise, but nobody knew.
    .
    There are going to be pieces of the rocket or bomb left that would be definitive but the site would have needed to be secured or some early evidence would need to be seen on video or photos.

  376. Tom Scharf (Comment #225823): “Israel claims they donā€™t shoot down missiles inside of Gaza”.
    .
    Right. But the junk missiles made by the Palestinians do often malfunction and land in Gaza.
    .
    I rather doubt that one such missile would have enough explosive power to destroy a hospital. Maybe Hamas was storing munitions there? I have seen claims that they do that.

  377. OK, so the missile did not destroy the hospital? No way that a hit in a parking lot would kill 500 people.

  378. Yes, these rockets are low tech junk. Malfunctions are very easy to believe and happen fairly frequently. It would be very unlucky for it to hit a crowded parking lot though. If that did happen one could ask why they fired rockets over a hospital, it may have just gone way off course. Witnesses should be able to testify rockets were launched near the time of the blast. The burning propellant would cause a big problem to anyone on the ground.
    .
    Israel should also know exactly when it was dropping payloads from aircraft.
    .
    There should be enough evidence, but I don’t know that we have enough independence to really know.

  379. “But the junk missiles made by the Palestinians do often malfunction and land in Gaza.”
    .
    Well, the missiles are enough to get Israel’s attention. The big issue is that Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood/Iran will duck responsibility for any atrocity, citing some lefty professor, somewhere.

  381. Here is a video of the strike. There is another video here also showing what appears to be a rocket launch. Now the question to ask here is “Why were these people filming at that moment in the middle of the night (prior to the explosion)?”. The answer might very well be because there were rocket launches occurring.
    https://www.wsj.com/video/footage-shows-moment-of-blast-at-gaza-hospital-compound/35419A2B-882F-432F-8A2B-7C53C36BDE1F.html
    .
    I don’t know the way rockets and bombs make different sounds, but they do, and that could also be helpful.

  382. A couple of volunteer OSINT guys [or girls] spent a couple of hours reviewing publicly available information and got proof of an errant rocket from Gaza falling in the hospital parking lot. All of the US media and all of the Democrats got it wrong. Canā€™t the US media do any research of its own? All they did was regurgitate what Hamas told them. [AGAIN]

  384. Overnight, a new player entered the Black Sea reconnaissance skies. The Turkish Navy had a plane patrolling off the coast of Bulgaria. It was a modern ATR 72-600 TMPA. I donā€™t know why.
    Screenshot:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1714915402743001232?s=20
    Live track [if still flying]:
    https://www.flightradar24.com/MARTI05/327ef426
    About the ATR 72-600 TMPA: https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2021/12/turkey-enhances-naval-air-capabilities-with-2-new-atr-72-mpas/

  385. Very happy the Australian referendum was defeated 60 to 40%.
    Surprised at how much Rasmussen polls have turned Democratic in the last 2 years.
    Have they got a new owner?.
    Jordan is difficult to assess, talks the talk but did little to help Trump at important times in the past.
    He might have to do a McCarthy to get in.

  387. Appears Jordan is giving up. Reports are that he will ask for some increase in the authority of the care-taker Speaker pro-tempore through the end of this year…. presumably to bring continuing resolution legislation to the floor to avoid a government shutdown.
    .
    Republicans really need to get their act together or voters will toss them from power in November next year.

  388. Another example of the subtle distinction that is very meaningful to the legacy media.
    .
    Here you will see the evolution of NYT headlines through the Gaza hospital tragedy:
    https://www.thefp.com/p/misinformation-at-the-new-york-times-gaza
    .
    How the editors get around claims they are themselves spreading “misinformation” is by “Palestinians say” which is carrying a massive load in these headlines. Most readers don’t recognize this distinction, the NYT is not factually claiming an airstrike by Israel killed 500, they are only stating that the Palestinians are saying that themselves. This may let them sleep better at night but I am calling BS on that.
    .
    First of all it is not Palestinians saying that, it is Hamas. Second of all it is using a gigantic headline and heavily implying that this is factual. Needless to say the correction is not treated with the same vigor.
    .
    I have become quite attuned to the “other people say” distinction which is almost always used to report narratives they prefer when the facts aren’t lined up yet. This was used very extensively during the Trump Russia Collusion days. This is one of the common sleights of hand they use to fool themselves.
    .
    Related: The WSJ is now using different terminology when reporting casualties.
    “More than 3,785 people, including 1,524 children and more than 1,000 women, have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks, according to the * Hamas-controlled * Ministry of Health in Gaza.”
    I think the WSJ is skeptical of the reporting here, and this change happened very recently. It looks like most major news organizations don’t have any western reporters on the ground in Gaza and use native Palestinians to do the work. This can be both better and worse. The BBC had to suspend 6 reporters for pro-Palestinian social media posts.
    https://www.ft.com/content/c998bfa4-ad8e-4c61-9117-61a57aa9a92a

  389. Tom Scharf,
    The fog of war is thick, and virtually everything “reported” in Gaza (and in Ukraine!) is not accurate, and essentially propaganda. I simply refuse to even consider what the headlines say. After the fighting ends, accurate information about what happened may become available, but even that is uncertain.

  391. What I find a bit odd is that the IDF had a news conference where they presented their side of the story with drone shots, intercepted audio recordings, diagrams of rocket launches and where they came from, how many failed launches they have detected using their tracking systems, etc.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYqlG3dKIFo
    .
    The odd part is the NYT’s and many other media sources simply don’t show this information * at all *. They might summarize it in a sentence or two even after they were just basically handed a PowerPoint presentation. I’m the first to admit this might be wrong or should be treated skeptically but when you contrast that with how the media credulously accepted the Hamas narrative (Hamas!!!) you just have to shake your head.
    .
    I absolutely don’t think this is settled yet but the weight of the evidence is that this was a faulty missile and the casualties were heavily inflated.
    .
    A second really odd thing is the best video of the event was an Al-Jazeera live shot (showing rocket launches) and an explosion on the ground and yesterday this video was not even shown on their own website.
    .
    Today Al-Jazeera is claiming the rocket was intercepted in an interesting review of the evidence here:
    https://youtu.be/yyNLvL_8SeY
    .
    It’s a bit incoherent in its conclusion. An intercepted rocket did it, or wasn’t involved? Just a coincidence?

  392. Tom Scharf,
    “The odd part is the NYTā€™s and many other media sources simply donā€™t show this information * at all *.”
    .
    The left never provides political support for those they oppose on ideological grounds. Israel is “an evil occupier” of “greater Palestine”, having “stolen the land” from Arabs after WWII. So, nothing in the NYT will be a fair representation of Israel or its actions against the terrorists in Gaza. It is naĆÆve to expect the NYT to be honest in its reporting… about any politically sensitive subject, not just Israel. It is the way of the left. With no print edition generally available, the NYT doesn’t even serve as a reasonable wrapper for fish cleanings.

  393. Tom Scharf,
    At the risk of social media being curated to one’s biases, there are more sources of information. Becoming harder for sure.

  394. > Today Al-Jazeera is claiming the rocket was intercepted in an interesting review of the evidence here:

    Intercepted by the “Iron Dome?”

    I’ve read that intercepts towards the terminal end of the trajectory.

  395. Joshua,
    Intercepts are normally on the way down, of course. Because chasing a rocket on the way up doesn’t make a lot of sense. Don’t expect honest reporting of what happens.

  396. SteveF –
    .
    I was being diplomatic. Although I guess that was verbotten as a rhetorical question, so apologies.

  397. As far as I can tell the Iron Dome is a descent phase interceptor. I found an article from 3 years ago that claimed Israel was working on an experimental ascent phase system. This is actually preferable since the rocket is moving slower and has a huge hot flame on the end helping targeting. Normally you arenā€™t close enough to a rocket launch to target it in ascent so it is pointless to build this system unless you are above it, but this is not true in the Gaza situation. I donā€™t know if this ascent system was ever built.
    .
    Al Jazeera is apparently claiming the other 9 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system (I canā€™t tell if this is true or not). Like I said their conclusion was a bit hard to understand. As least they are now claiming there were rocket launches in the moments before the explosion.

  398. The velocity changes throughout the rocket flight depending on many variables:
    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Optimized-Trajectory-of-the-Combined-Ascent-and-Descent-Flight-of-the-VTVL-Configuration_fig11_338536312
    .
    I believe targeting in descent depends on radar tracking and ultimately IR from the heat of the warhead at the end. Itā€™s very, very hard and they have been working on it for decades.
    Another problem with descent phase is you might actually hit the target but since it is just a dumb falling rock you might not affect the trajectory or warhead enough to make a difference.
    I’m thinking mostly ICBM’s. These rockets might be different entirely.

  399. Tom Scharf,
    With a range of as hundred miles or so, these rockets are nothing like ICBMs. Their active (booster burning) assent phase is very brief (30 seconds?), making assent interception seem almost impossible.

  400. SteveF –
    .
    > Their active (booster burning) assent phase is very brief (30 seconds?),
    .
    What I read (as I recall from knowledgeable sources) was that the predictive algorithm would be much more accurate for intercepting a rocket at the terminal stage.
    .
    Certainly seems to me to make a whole lot of sense
    .
    At any rate, there’s a lotta stuff on the Interwebs. I’m not going to pay much attention to an article that suggests a strong conclusion if it doesn’t even address obvious, important considerations. That Al Jazeera article goes into my “prolly not very useful” bin.

  401. For any media critics, WSJ publishes yet another retrospective on the recent bad coverage.
    https://www.wsj.com/business/media/confusion-over-gaza-hospital-blast-shows-challenge-for-journalists-covering-israel-hamas-conflict-238922b9?st=ksgv44hnjbnsgtc&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    .
    WSJ’s incoherent policy on wording:
    “The Journal doesnā€™t refer to Hamas as a terrorist group in its own voice, but says the U.S. characterizes the organization that way. A note to senior editors clarified that and other aspects of war coverage.

    The Journal spokeswoman said the Journal refers to the Oct. 7 attacks on the kibbutzim and the rave as terrorist attacks in its reporting.”
    .
    Uh huh.
    .
    This bit from WashPost’s media journalist did not age well :
    “After the Washington Post published a story about the Gaza hospital blast titled ā€œHundreds feared killed in strike on Gaza hospital, Palestinian authorities say,ā€ Laura Wagner, who covers media for the Post, wrote the following post on X: ā€œThere is no good reason for a headline to say ā€˜hundreds feared dead in strike on hospitalā€™ instead of ā€˜Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds.ā€™ This selective passive voice is not only weirdly stilted, it obscures the reality of whatā€™s happening.ā€

    The post has since been deleted. The Washington Post referred comment to Wagner.

    ā€œMy original intention was to call out headlines across coverage, and I ultimately deleted my tweets so they wouldnā€™t be interpreted as direct reference to our own coverage, which they were not intended to be,ā€ Wagner said in a statement. ā€œI respect the diligent work of my colleagues across the newsroom.ā€”

  402. Sidney Powell turning is massive shock.
    I thought she was quite clever.
    What strings did they pull on her?
    Taxes?
    Trump might survive as he was President at the time hence “immune”
    Sort of. Not so the others.
    Trump down, Biden down
    Newsome and Haley or De Santis on that order

  403. angech,

    Trump might survive as he was President at the time hence ā€œimmuneā€
    Sort of. Not so the others.

    I don’t think he’s immune. They might put him in jail. His only saving grace is that he might be elected President from prison, at which point in time he could presumably pardon himself.
    [Edit: Actually I think he could only pardon himself for Federal crimes. Huh…]

  404. So far as I know, the only real crime charged in the Georgia case was the post-election voting machine break in. Trump was not a party to that but Powell was. And that is what she plead guilty to. It is not clear that she is a danger to Trump.

  405. The Ukrainian general staff posts a daily tally of Russian losses. As expected, these numbers are gross overestimates. But today, the numbers are wild by an order of magnitude:
    Russian losses per 20/10/23 reported by the Ukrainian general staff.
    +1380 men
    +55 tanks
    +120 APVs
    +29 artillery systems
    +4 MLRS +8 UAVs
    +1 cruise missile
    Yes, they claim to have knocked out 55 Russian tanks, 120 APVs, and 1,380 men in one day. It really is a factor of ten above normal. My reliable sources are silent so far. There is a lot of chatter and posts of videos of another failed Russian offensive at Avdiivka, but these numbers are astronomical.
    Time will tell, but, for now, Iā€™m skeptical.
    The official post from the Government of Ukraine:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1715260802884579597?s=20

  406. By the light of dayā€¦.
    There are more drone videos of the destruction of the Russian armor yesterday. The armor attacked in single file across wide open terrain in broad daylight. There was constant Ukrainian artillery and drone bombardment. This doesnā€™t verify 55 tanks lost, but the Russians did have a very bad day. There are also videos of the aftermath of human wave attacks that I will not post.
    https://x.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1715290574947831899?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
    https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1715321142876029380?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
    https://x.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1715322174502842438?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ

  408. “U.S. to send $100 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinians”
    .
    This is a pretty amazing indication of how dysfunctional the Middle East is. Hamas just killed 30 Americans in a terrorist attack and is holding some number of American hostages … so we send them $100M and ask for nothing in return.
    .
    The strategy of separating the government and the civilians hasn’t paid many dividends so far and I don’t expect this will either. I suppose these are just the least worst options.
    .
    In other news … Israel is asking for $10,000M in “military aid” from the US.
    .
    WSJ: How the Westā€”and Israel Itselfā€”Inadvertently Funded Hamas
    Islamist organization diverted humanitarian assistance and levied taxes after blockade of Gaza was eased
    https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-gaza-humanitarian-aid-diverted-cf356c48?st=e5clqzbb6nikktj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

  409. “There are also videos of the aftermath of human wave attacks that I will not post.”
    .
    Yeah, don’t even think about looking at a Telegram feed. I made that mistake once. The “censor my opponents first” crowd gets all upset about X while this stuff is easily available.

  410. Tom,

    Hamas just killed 30 Americans in a terrorist attack and is holding some number of American hostages ā€¦ so we send them $100M and ask for nothing in return.

    Yup. Is it still parody if it’s just saying what happened? Not sure. I guess..

  412. “The strategy of separating the government and the civilians hasnā€™t paid many dividends so far and I donā€™t expect this will either. I suppose these are just the least worst options.”

    I don’t know much, but Gaza has been dependent on supplies passing through a blockade for a long time. Hamas in fact won the elections during a full blockade. There is more than one reality and it is probably not helpful to ignore the reality as lived by the non-combatant Arab population e.g. https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1714985262873190512

    The humanitarian aid is probably an attempt to recognize that while backing Israel in a much more substantial way.

  413. The current aid was being held up at the Egyptian border for what appeared to me to be frivolous bureaucratic problems. I’m guessing those problems were directly related to US hostages being released. The aid will likely now magically be released pronto. I’m guessing there was a backdoor deal here and Hamas probably considered US hostages a major liability anyway. I suspect as more aid crosses the border the women and children will be released.
    .
    The aid allows whatever smallish resources Hamas has on hand to be diverted to existential threats. Everybody knows the game here, it’s been going on for decades.
    .
    Hamas will want to slowly erode US domestic support as Israel exceeds the necessary force as seen by US armchair QB’s. The question is whether they can survive that long. Hama’s problem is they created a much larger hill to climb this time. The recent media screwup while running the standard pseudo-propaganda playbook wasn’t helpful either, the media will now be more conservative in reporting and they have nobody on the ground to verify anything.

  414. The Supreme Court will hear the case on Biden vs social media companies. It has lifted the ban on communications for now while the case plays out. This is a pretty hairy case, the SC needs to add clarity to where the lines are for government influencing censorship by private companies. I have no idea how this one will end up.

  415. I haven’t heard of this outlet but this is interesting. Apparently this all became public record during the trial of officer Thao. Bottom line, the coroner’s original judgment was that Floyd did not die of asphyxiation and there was not damage to a -struck- hing in his neck area. There were at least 4 prosecutors who told their boss there was no case. Their boss went ahead anyway. The coroner appears to have been pressured to change his opinion.

    https://www.independentsentinel.com/new-court-docs-show-george-floyds-case-was-the-big-lie/?utm_source=sutack&utm_medium=email

  416. Yes Tom, The fresh $100 million can be thought as just business as usual for our official houseplant in chief. I saw somewhere that since 2021 we had sent them 1 billion already. And there is official documentation that the -struck- Department knew that some of this would probably get into Hamas’ hands.

    Biden’s meandering speech was in my view not helpful. Why does he continue to decry Islamophobia when the FBI statistics show its not much of a problem compared to anti-Semitism. The speech could have been a lot worse, but its window dressing to ocure this administration’s partial culpability for funding Iran to the tune of at least $50 billion.

    BTW, I was listening to -struck- go over the speech and at 1.25 speed Biden actually sounds like a functional speaker.

  417. Tom Scharf,
    Three (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch) issued an opinion saying the lower court ruling should have stood. There have to be 4 votes to hear the case; I am actually surprised that they agreed to hear the case at all, but that they lifted the 5th’s injunction while the case is pending means almost certain reversal of the 5th’s ruling.

  418. David Young,
    “…at 1.25 speed Biden actually sounds like a functional speaker.”
    .
    Leme see… 100 IQ * (1/1.25) = 80 IQ. Sounds about right.
    .
    Being a functional speaker who says pure nonsense doesn’t make the nonsense any more sensible.

  419. SteveF, Not sure I agree. There is actually precedent for this that would tend to support them finding the government is acting unconstitutionally.

  420. David Young,
    If there were 5 who think there is a solid case against the Biden administration, why would they agree to lift the injunction until some time next year? I am reasonably confident they will continue to allow government sponsored censorship, either 5/4 or 6/3.

  421. I saw this comment on Public sutack article about the media. It’s written by Evans W. I think most (but perhaps not all) are accurate.

    How could anyone be surprised by the NY Times completely lying to the world again?

    In case you’ve forgotten:

    ā€¢ Russia collusion
    ā€¢ Trump said neo-Nazis were ā€œfine peopleā€
    ā€¢ Jussie Smollett was -struck- ed by white guys wearing -struck- hats
    ā€¢ Bubba Wallace feared for his life after finding a noose in his NASCAR garage
    ā€¢ Covington High School student -struck- s Native American Vietnam war veteran
    ā€¢ Governor Witmer kidnapping plot by white supremacists
    ā€¢ Brett Kavanaugh is a serial rapist
    ā€¢ Russia has video tapes of Trump being urinated on by prostitutes
    ā€¢ COVID lab leak was a conspiracy theory
    ā€¢ Border agents whipped peaceful migrants
    ā€¢ Trump hid nuclear codes at Mar-a-Lago
    ā€¢ Steele Dossier
    ā€¢ Russia was paying bounties for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan
    ā€¢ Trump said drinking bleach would treat COVID
    ā€¢ -struck- Bidens -struck- was Russian -struck-
    ā€¢ Trump locks migrant children in cages
    ā€¢ Cuomo had the best COVID response of all -struck- leaders
    ā€¢ Journalist calls terrorist ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi an “austere religious scholar”
    ā€¢ Build Back Better would pay for itself
    ā€¢ Cloth masks prevent the spread of COVID
    ā€¢ Standing 6 feet apart will prevent the spread of COVID
    ā€¢ Vaccination will prevent getting COVID
    ā€¢ Vaccination will prevent spreading COVID
    ā€¢ COVID is a virus of the unvaccinated
    ā€¢ Vaccine injury stories are -struck-
    ā€¢ Kyle Rittenhouse illegally brought an assault weapon across -struck- lines
    ā€¢ Iranian Revolutionary Guard terrorist leader Qasem Soleimani was a ā€œwar heroā€
    ā€¢ An SUV ran down and killed elderly parade marchers
    ā€¢ Donā€™t say gay is written into a Florida bill
    ā€¢ Putin is responsible for gas increases
    ā€¢ Ivermectin is a animal dewormer and unsafe for human use
    ā€¢ BLM protests were ā€œmostly peacefulā€
    ā€¢ Trump overpowered the secret service and took the wheel of his motorcade limo
    ā€¢ Capital police Sicknick was murdered by protesters
    ā€¢ January 6th protest was a violent attempt to overthrow the US government
    ā€¢ BYU students hurled racist insults at Duke volleyball player

    Iā€™d go on, but my hands have cramped upā€¦ā€¦.

    So yeahā€¦ā€¦the corporate/main stream media is the enemy of the peopleā€¦ā€¦FULL STOP.

  422. I believe the proper military term is ā€œBlasted to Smithereensā€.
    Another Russian armored column tries to approach in single file on open ground that has been dialed in by Ukrainian artillery. The artillery fire was spotted [directed] by drones.
    Today from ISW: ā€œNEW: #Ukrainian forces have likely repelled another intensified Russian offensive effort towards #Avdiivka (#Donetsk Oblast) in the past several days and inflicted further heavy personnel and equipment losses on #Russian troops in the area.ā€
    Intense video from the drones:
    https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1715914300487819458?s=20
    Ironyā€¦. this column was attacked in the same location where a similar column was recently wiped out. You can see the burned-out remains in this screenshot:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1715980292240863351?s=20

  423. More hilarity once a censorship regime is inserted and forced to make things “fair”.
    .
    WSJ:
    https://www.wsj.com/tech/inside-meta-debate-over-whats-fair-in-suppressing-speech-in-the-palestinian-territories-6212aa58?st=rfpt3quthlerno0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    “But still the (hateful) comments kept appearingā€”especially from the Palestinian territories, according to a Meta manager. So Meta turned up its filters again, but only there.
    In an internal forum for Muslim employees, objections poured in.”
    “A Meta spokesman said that there were more comments in Palestinian territories that violated its rules, so it had to lower the threshold to achieve the same effect produced elsewhere.”
    “But in the days following, comments from the Palestinian territories that met Metaā€™s definition of hostile speech remained high on Instagram.”
    “In a separate incident, Meta internally declared a site eventā€”an urgent problem requiring immediate remediationā€”because Metaā€™s automated systems were mistranslating certain innocuous Arabic language references to Palestinians, including one that became ā€œPalestinian terrorists,ā€ another document shows.

    An investigation found the problem was due to hallucinations by a machine learning system.”
    .
    In one world I am familiar with … one side having much more alleged hate speech than another side would be * the story * and a flurry of judgmental analysis would proceed. Instead the story here is how it is bureaucratically managed. We mustn’t judge, sometimes, based on identity. Oops. logic fault. Writing this story must have been excruciating.
    .
    The reality is there are different cultures at play here, one culture is OK with openly expressed identity hatred and the other side polices and suppresses it. I’m not convinced suppressing it has much effect on the reality of how people feel.

  424. SteveF,
    Right, I think overly broad blanket bans on government contact are not going to hold up. What I hope is going to happen is clarity on what is allowable (a series of tests, etc.) and also some clarity on what the remedy is for breaking those rules.
    .
    Legislatively a law saying all communications between government agencies and social media companies have to be public and open (not have to wait for FOI requests) would stop 95% of abuses. It’s the stuff happening behind close doors that is worrisome.

  425. Tom Scharf,
    “Legislatively a law saying all communications between government agencies and social media companies have to be public and open..”
    .
    You are thinking the left will suddenly become reasonable and willing to compromise on substance? I doubt it.
    .
    Legislation to inhibit government sponsored censorship will never pass in the Senate unless the Senate has 60 Republicans… and maybe not even then. Of COURSE the discussions between the government and social media companies must be out of public view, else the public would object to the censorship.
    .
    I was really hoping the SC would help, but I now very much doubt they will.

  426. Tom and SteveF, According to Jonathan Turley and Allan Dershowitz there are older relevant Supreme Court rulings that say that basically the government cannot deputize private entities to do what the government cannot do itself. This is Turley’s testimony in Congress. It’s long but it is very comprehensive and well documented. Another part of the -struck- I’ve referred to in the past that annoys some people here. It is a -struck- case but I really hope they do impose some severe restrictions here. The scope and scale of this is enormous and beyond the occassional CIA requests to a newspaper to hold a story for national security reasons that we have sen in the past.

    https://jonathanturley.org/2023/05/11/turley-testifies-on- -struck- -in-homeland-security-hearing/

    Excerpt: Likewise, in Dossett v. First -struck- Bank, the United -struck- s Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that the termination of a bank employee was the result of -struck- action after school board members contacted her employer about comments made at a public-school board meeting.45 The Eighth Circuit ruled that the district court erred by instructing a jury that it had to find that the school board members had ā€œactual authorityā€ to make these calls. In this free speech case, the court held that you could have -struck-
    action under the color of law when the ā€œschool official who was purporting to act in the performance of official duties but was acting outside what a reasonable person would believe the school official was authorized to do.ā€46 In this case, federal officials are clearly acting in their official capacity. Indeed, that official capacity is part of the concern raised by the -struck- : the assignment of dozens of federal employees to support a
    massive -struck- system.

    Courts have also ruled that there is -struck- action where government officials use their positions to intimidate or pressure private parties to limit free speech. In National Rifle Association v. Vullo, the United -struck- s Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a free speech claim could be made on the basis of a -struck- officialā€™s pressuring companies not to do business with the NRA.47 The Second Circuit held ā€œalthough government officials are free to advocate for (or against) certain viewpoints, they may not encourage suppression of protected speech in a manner that ā€˜can reasonably be
    interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the officialā€™s request.ā€™ā€48 It is also important to note that pressure is not required to establish an agency relationship under three of the prior tests. It can be based on consent rather than coercion.

  427. Remember when we were told [ad nausium] about developing Russian army pincer movements that would encircle the Ukrainian army and wipe them out in cauldrons? Those never happened. Well, for the past week, the Russian army has been attempting another pincer movement at Avdiivka. The salient is about five miles deep and 2.5 miles wide at the base.
    Just like at the other attempts, the Ukrainian army is fighting back. At Avdiivka it seems to be a question of whether Ukraine will run out of artillery shells before Russia runs out of tanks.
    ISW has developed a map showing how the situation has developed.
    Here:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1716347586041311337?s=20

  429. David Young,
    Why are your comments full of “-struck-” in place of the actual word you want to use?

  431. Steve,

    Why are your comments full of ā€œ-struck-ā€ in place of the actual word you want to use?

    Lucia is moderating David would be my guess.

  432. mark bofill (Comment #225948)
    “Lucia is moderating David would be my guess.”
    Way to go Lucia!

  433. The government can state its opinion on cultural issues and how social media should be censored … in their opinion. Merely having that opinion is OK. Where that line is crossed to improper influencing is way too vague right now, my guess is even Biden would not cross that line if they actually knew where it was. Also if it turns out there is no penalty to pay for crossing that line then that line simply doesn’t exist anyway.
    .
    Social media sites are going to self censor and without Elon Musk they would be doing that in an overt left leaning way. That is going to need to be handled by the market.
    .
    Where it gets infuriatingly vague is when unconnected threats to tax or pass legislation that is unfavorable to social media companies is informally connected to government “opinion”. I’m not sure this will ever go away, but it needs to be managed.

  434. NYT: Hamas Fails to Make Case That Israel Struck Hospital
    A senior Hamas official says ā€œnothing is leftā€ of the munition that hit the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City last week, killing hundreds. Israel says the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-hospital-evidence.html
    ā€œSix days after Hamas accused Israel of bombing a hospital in Gaza City and killing hundreds of people, the armed Palestinian group has yet to produce or describe any evidence linking Israel to the strike, says it cannot find the munition that hit the site and has declined to provide detail to support its count of the casualties.ā€
    ā€œThe missile has dissolved like salt in the water,ā€ said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone interview. ā€œItā€™s vaporized. Nothing is left.ā€
    .
    This is complete amateur hour BS. Bombs explode and send lots of shrapnel around that can be dug out of buildings, cars, victims. There usually arenā€™t many large pieces left but plenty of them. A failed rocket is going to leave plenty of big pieces of the rocket stage. Obviously Hamas likely cleaned these up but wonā€™t let anyone in to investigate because itā€™s hard to get it all. Iā€™m a bit surprised they didnā€™t just get some stuff from other Israeli bombs and claim they found it at the hospital.
    .
    The WSJ continues to caveat casualty counts now. I wouldnā€™t be surprised to see these dropped entirely. They are about as reliable as Ukraineā€™s and Russiaā€™s. Hamas doesnā€™t really need to lie to get the propaganda it needs, but they just canā€™t help themselves. Israel is going to make mistakes and Hamas has now lost credibility to report them.

  435. SteveF, I have no idea what happened. -struck- was not visible in my Message box when I submitted the comments. Maybe the paste function in chrome does something strange. I can try to check my comments more carefully.

    Recently, my comments bring up a screen asking for my email and then a math question. When I fill out the form, the comment appears. Don’t know why this happens.

  436. I think the -struck- comes from my editing pasted material to remove the carriage returns that screw up the formatting. Every time I do a backspace to remove a carriage return, this happens.

  437. No David. The struck comes from my plugin. If you go into one of your rants about the evils of government, it will strike many of your favorite outlandish statements. Since you adopted those from the opinion columns you enjoy reading, it will also strike them from the things you quote.
    It will sometimes strike things in non-rants. But I consider that acceptable, so the feature is staying.

  438. David

    Recently, my comments bring up a screen asking for my email and then a math question. When I fill out the form, the comment appears. Donā€™t know why this happens.

    As far as I’m aware, this has nothing to do with anything I did. The struck is entirely under my control.
    .
    I’m surprised “Jonathan Turley” and “Allan Dershowitz” weren’t included. You must not have used them frequently in your rants about the government, Twitter files and so on.

  439. The Jonathan Turley link David wanted to link is here:

    https://jonathanturley.org/2023/05/11/turley-testifies-on-censorship-in-homeland-security-hearing/
    .
    One of the topics I would prefer David not discuss is government censorship. This is not because I don’t like the topic, but because David goes off the rails. I also prefer he not discuss his theories of Covid, invermectin and so on. I’ll probably be adding Covid, masks and other treatments to the list.
    .
    I value David when he discussed technical things. But the rants are just too much.

  440. A very convoluted story on group SAT scores and why they are different. After endless blathering on how income correlation is all that really matters, they amusingly later pass along per-student funding is equal in most states. They then state the differences that matter apparently occur before kindergarten. Hmmmm …
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/23/upshot/sat-inequality.html
    .
    Paragraph 17:
    “The differences among schools are less important than what happens outside of school, a variety of research suggests”
    .
    Shockingly they even say this out loud:
    “Although the heritability of cognitive ability appears to play some role on an individual level, there is also a lot of evidence that environment matters”
    .
    ā€œThe other 90 percent of nonschool time ā€” early childhood, after school, summer, private extracurriculars, counseling, tutoring, coaching, therapy, health management ā€” masks all the most important inequality of opportunity.ā€
    .
    That’s NYT-speak for better parenting and better culture. The latest spin here is that more income makes you better parents which leads to higher performance and schools cannot fix that. No word on how some poor families manage to get good performance.

  441. Lucia, The struck deleted many words in a quote from Jonathan Turley’s Congressional testimony, which is very scholarly in nature. This was not a “rant” at all so I think you are over reaching here.

  442. Tom Scharf,
    “No word on how some poor families manage to get good performance.”
    .
    Of course not. Cultural issues are very important, of course, but the NYT and their ilk will always insist that the difference in culture is strictly due to differences in income, which is rubbish of the purest form. They always argue that ‘racism’ causes low income, which then can only be remedied by massive wealth transfer (you know… reparations!). If everyone had the same level of wealth and income, then all families would have two parents, and those would be absolutely stellar parents to boot, insisting on their children having good behavior, personal responsibility, and excellent study habits, don’t ya know!
    .
    Odd indeed that racism only has this effect on culture for certain minority groups but not others, like Japanese, Chinese, Indian, etc.
    .
    The left is utterly wrong about how to improve the plight of poor people, and they will never compromise on their preferred solution: wealth transfer.

  443. Tom Scharf,
    Why do you bother to read the New York Times? Real question.
    .
    I find their nonsense argument so irritating that I never waste any time or energy on them.

  444. Thorough and detailed presentation of Russian losses at Avdiivka so far. This is a respected analyst and he used conservative techniquesā€¦. Minimum 109 units lost.
    ā€œThrough visual analysis of satellite imagery, our team found Russian military vehicle losses in Avdiivka between October 10 and October 20. The total number exceeded 109, indicating a significant loss of approximately aligning to a brigade-sized force in just ten daysā€
    Analysis:
    https://x.com/tatarigami_ua/status/1716492677875748978?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ

  445. I read the NYT occasionally because I want to understand the counterarguments. Some are better than others.

  446. David,
    I am aware my plugin will be over inclusive and strike words from your non-rants as well as your rants. That over inclusiveness is acceptable to me.

  448. My view of what motivates the left wing media and intelligentsia is quite simple. It all starts with the idea that always increasingly intrusive government is required to solve (well at least attack) all problems of a civilized society. Therefore, evidence presented must show firstly that there is a problem. A problem deemed major is good and one deemed an emergency is the best. Next the evidence must lead as directly as possible to a conclusion that the problem can only be solved by government intervention.

    Further, problems caused by government intervention are either ignored or, if at all possible, blamed on private actors. Failing finding these blame worthies, the blame goes to a particular politician on how the intervention occurred and not the intervention itself.

    This process has been a successful formula for many years for the team of leftwing media and intelligentsia and interventionist politicians.

  449. Part of this is just a different worldview. Some people believe after an authentic social problem has been identified that the government is obligated to act to rectify the problem. My worldview is closer to the government is only obligated to act if people are somehow being treated unfairly or unequally and the solution is under limited government control. The details matter of course. The government may choose to act anyway if the cost / benefit of the solution makes sense.
    .
    Progressives believe the government is a benevolent force for good and everything is solvable given good intentions and enough effort. When government solutions fail the new solution tends to be even more government instead of accepting an imperfect world with some intractable problems. Conservatives, and especially libertarians, do not share that view. They tend to view government as an oppressive force that is more likely to be the problem instead of the solution. Queue Ronald Raegan.
    .
    Nobody is entirely consistent in their views. Progressives back away from more government force in crime for example where conservatives like more of it. My opinion is libertarians are more coherent across policy but that doesn’t necessarily make them right about everything.

  450. Tom Scharf
    ā€œI read the NYT occasionally because I want to understand the counterarguments.ā€
    The Echo Chamber does not approve! Itā€™s a slippery slope from reading unapproved material to independent thinking.
    [I stopped getting it because of the cost]

  451. Reading and listening to the media these days with views and biases across the political spectrum can be pretty well summarized with a single word: predictable. Of course, that means one must be aware of their biases.

    It does make reading and listening (as in podcasts) a much faster proposition (as in fast forward).

  452. Tom Scharf (Comment #225971): “Progressives believe the government is a benevolent force for good and everything is solvable given good intentions and enough effort.”
    .
    I think that is a fair description of most people who vote Democrat. They are useful dupes for the Leftists who largely control Democrat policy. The Left might have benevolent good intentions in their own minds, but you could also say that about the Taliban. And, like the Taliban, the Left wants the power to impose upon everyone their idea of what is right. I suspect they care more about that power than about the purpose to which it is applied.
    .
    Most Democrat voters do not wish to empower the totalitarians of the Left. They are dupes. I have no idea how to get them to see that they are being duped.
    ———

    p.s. – I initially wrote “useful idiots” but changed it to “useful tools” then “useful dupes” in an attempt to tone down my language. Not sure what would be a good choice.

  453. Progressives back away from more government force in crime for example where conservatives like more of it.

    When crime is considered more generally, progressives approve of government intervention in the form of dependency generated welfare, while conservatives tend to depend on overwhelming and above reproach government policing operations.

  454. It does go wrong when the power seekers hijack things. Covid was a good example of where alleged good intentions and “enough effort” required some draconian control of the population in the midst of a lot of uncertainty, except of course for front line workers who stock their grocery stores. They tend to jump way too quick to forcing compliance using government power. Can I use plastic bags now, or is it paper again? I’m pretty sure I will get arrested if they discover I have plastic straws hidden away under the floors.

  455. In another sign the left has entirely given up on education:
    https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2023/10/oregon-again-says-students-dont-need-to-prove-mastery-of-reading-writing-or-math-to-graduate-citing-harm-to-students-of-color.html
    “Oregon high school students wonā€™t have to prove basic mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate from high school until at least 2029”
    .
    The bar was already set pretty low, and now they just removed the bar entirely. I find this trend baffling, this is government day care. The public is not for this stuff, and it leaves education wide open for the right. It’s how they won VA and how they made major inroads in FL. The right is a gigantic clown show at the moment, but so is this. A lot of dysfunction.

  456. ā€œJenna Ellis becomes the fourth defendant to get probation in exchange for testimony.ā€ Georgia might be where Trump meets his Waterloo. I think the coordinated ‘full court pressā€™ on prosecuting Trump everywhere will eventually end his candidacy. As un-American as the approach was, I will be happy for the outcome.

  457. It seems that many libs are getting red pilled by the events of the last 17 days, at least according to this piece by Bari Weiss and Oliver Wiseman:
    https://www.thefp.com/p/the-day-the-delusions-died
    .
    For instance, they quote a Dem podcaster at some length, including:

    As a Democrat who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center but probably leaning increasingly right, I am left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger, of the message of the Trump administration because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.

  458. Russell,
    Not to mention that every conversion of a defendant to an adjudicated “Guilty” reduces the prosecution’s work-load.
    It may come down to just Trump and Giuliani.
    .
    I’m assuming the Matthews will cave, if he hasn’t already.

  459. Mike M.,
    I agree that article is worth readingā€¦ and the 1,100 comments have some real gems in them too.

  461. john ferguson,
    “Not to mention that every conversion of a defendant to an adjudicated ā€œGuiltyā€ reduces the prosecutionā€™s work-load.”
    Good point. I hadn’t thought about that. It certainly leaves no doubt about who the prosecutor is after.

  462. Russell,
    My spouse was the whistleblower who took down a 26 person RICO in Miami 20 years ago. The prosecution out to the last miscreant took 2 years. I think in the end there were only 2 or 3 trials, everyone else pleaded guilty.
    .
    The State’s Attorney who handled the prosecution kept in touch. They did the same thing Ms Willis seems to be doing. First establish the pecking order among the participants and then worked their way up the chain. The beauty of a RICO charge is that any participant shares the responsibility for all of the naughty acts even though that individual may not have actually done the thing themselves. This makes an invitation to proffer a squeal so much more enticing, and much more enticing than the prospect of a few years in the quality of slammer operated by the State of Georgia. At least there’s no more landscaping work at the end of a chain.
    .
    I enjoy watching the Legal talking heads on TV and as smart as some of them seem to be, I cannot remember anyone predicting that Fanni Willis might convert a significant number of the participants to give her the headroom to launch a first rate prosecution of the nastier ones.
    ,
    I paid close attention to both Senate and House Watergat hearings which public tv was gooed enough to rebroadcast every night.
    .
    I’m glad I did.

  463. The post above from john ferguson (Comment #225988) got me interested in the RICO aspect of the Trump trial. The Georgia law is even more ominous than the Federal law.
    Summary from the NYT:
    ā€œIt allows a prosecutor to go after the head of an organization, loosely defined, without having to prove that that head directly engaged in a conspiracy or any acts that violated state law,ā€ Michael Mears, a law professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta. ā€œIf you are a prosecutor, itā€™s a gold mine. If you are a defense attorney, itā€™s a nightmare.ā€
    ā€œIt is broader than the federal law in that the attempt, solicitation, coercion, and intimidation of another person to commit one of the offenses can be considered racketeering activity. A number of the crimes Mr. Trump and his allies are accused of are on the list, including making false statements.ā€
    ā€œAll the News That’s Fit to Print,ā€
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/us/trump-georgia-rico-charges.html

  464. I see that Tom Emmer is to be the next Republican casualty in the Speaker derby. He got the nod after it took multiple ballots to get him a majority of the caucus.
    .
    It appears that the Republican Congress Critters have yet to figure out that a majority of the caucus is not a majority of the House. They need a consensus candidate, not a majority candidate.

  465. RICO was intended for organized crime convictions.
    .
    The fear is that politically motivated prosecutors could abuse the vagueness of this law in order to attack political opponents in witch hunts. Thankfully we can trust law enforcement to never use the tools we entrust them with for political persecutions that are better handled by voters.
    .
    It’s one thing to get a jury conviction with this law against the mob which is very unpopular, and another to convict a popular-ish politician. I’m willing to accept this if they have a balanced jury pool, I’m not willing to accept this if they load it full of Biden voters.

  466. Tom Scharf (Comment #225992): “The fear is that politically motivated prosecutors could abuse the vagueness of this law in order to attack political opponents in witch hunts.”
    .
    I can’t wait to see some Republican prosecutor go after Dems for ballot box stuffing. At least that would involve an actual crime.
    .
    Even better would be to make RICO less vague.

  467. Tom,

    Thankfully we can trust law enforcement to never use the tools we entrust them with for political persecutions that are better handled by voters.

    This remark was so dry that reading it left me in need of medical attention for extreme dehydration.

  468. As a voter, I look forward to the next opportunity to participate in a “political persecution.”

  471. RICO was intended for organized crime convictions.

    RICO should never have been. That is how individual freedoms are lost. Use it against the bad guys initially and then who are the bad guys is left for the government to decide.

    To protect free speech in the public domain we have to allow coarse, abusive and even scurrilous speech.

  472. Twitter [X] is rife with speculation about the remaining ā€˜Big Fishā€™ in the Trump RICO case, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Mark Meadows.
    There are even office betting pools to join.
    Who will be offered a deal, who will flip, who will be prosecuted, who will go to jail?
    With three of his lawyers already agreeing to testify, and three more potentially, things might be getting hot in Trumpland.
    Even without a conviction, the testimony of people like Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis in open court could be sensational.

  473. Mike M. (Comment #225993)
    ā€œAt least that would involve an actual crime.ā€
    Songs like a few actual crimes were committed in Georgia too.
    Ellis:
    Attorney and prominent conservative media figure Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge over efforts to overturn Donald Trumpā€™s 2020 election loss in Georgia, tearfully telling the judge she looks back on that time with ā€œdeep remorse.ā€
    Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
    Powell:
    Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges as part of a plea deal reached with prosecutors in the Fulton County, Georgia election subversion case.
    Powell pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties.
    Chesebro:
    Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
    Chesebro pleaded guilty to one felony ā€“ conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
    Hall:
    Scott Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

    Sounds like the prosecutors have them on the run.

  474. j ferguson (Comment #225995): “As a voter, I look forward to the next opportunity to participate in a political persecution.”
    .
    Exactly right. That is a job for voters, not prosecutors.

  475. Russell Klier (Comment #226005): “Songs like a few actual crimes were committed in Georgia too.”
    .
    Nope.

    Choosing provisional alternate electors is not a crime. It is how the system is supposed to work.

    Political statements, even if false, are not crimes.

    Advancing a doubtful legal theory is not a crime.

    The only actual crime was breaking into voting machines after all the votes were counted. Not much of a crime, since it was only a misguided attempt to get evidence rather than an attempt to alter results.

  476. Mike M.
    ā€œNopeā€
    Two high-powered DC attornies, Powell and Chesebro, have entered guilty pleas. Powell was also a federal prosecutor. I find it incredible that you claim no crimes were committed. I can understand that maybe Ellis and Hall who also pled guilty are not as savvy and could be intimidated, but Powell and Chesebro are grizzled political operatives. You are telling me they were bamboozled into a plea deal when they did nothing wrong. That is an impressive bit of prosecuting. [and a crime in itself]

  477. Russell,

    As I said more than once, Powell and a few other defendants did commit a crime, albeit a minor one. Nobody is being “bamboozled” into pleading guilty; they are being blackmailed into it. In particular, the attorneys were being threatened with loss of their law licenses if they resist.
    .
    Given the vagueness of the various statutes involved, no defendant can be confident of acquittal based on either the facts or the law. It is sensible for them to accept a slap on the wrist, even if innocent. Have any of the “guilty” defendants received more than a slap on the wrist? Real question. I think the answer is “no”.

  478. Getting witnesses to testify against a more valuable defendant in exchange for a lighter sentence happens all the time. When somebody is murdered from a car and everyone in the car is arrested later … the game is on. He who testifies first that the other person was the shooter will get a lesser sentence. The prosecutors typically are willing to do these deals when they have weak evidence.
    .
    Trump’s problem is he has no friends, his demonstrated lack of loyalty gets reflected back on him. I have little doubt that Trump will go to trial because the prosecutors are unlikely to cut him a deal (it’s political). Everything and everybody in Trump’s orbit gets maligned, sometimes worthy, sometimes not.
    .
    He may get nailed with a conspiracy or process crime with the right jury, but the evidence seems pretty weak and the prosecution is politically motivated. The question I would ask is if they convict Trump and they set this standard of challenging an election as a crime, what happens when the next guy does it? Whataboutism is otherwise known as equality before the law.

  479. WSJ: “Israel has agreed, for now, to a request from the U.S. to get its air defenses in place to protect U.S. troops in the region ahead of an expected ground invasion of Gaza, U.S. and Israeli officials said.”
    .
    The US should not be micromanaging Israel’s invasion, we need to maintain shoulder’s length distance here. The US doesn’t have air defenses at their bases? This is all pretty weird, why even announce this?

  480. Plea bargains are the rule, not the exception.

    A task force that includes prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and academics cited “substantial evidence” that innocent people are coerced into guilty pleas because of the power prosecutors hold over them, including the prospect of decades-long mandatory minimum sentences.

    Beats me how true this actually is. Shrug.

  481. I don’t actually know anything about Mike Johnson, but it looks like the House Republicans have finally decided on a consensus candidate for Speaker. I guess we will find out in a couple hours.

  482. It gets complicated because defense attorneys and public defenders don’t really know if their client is guilty a lot of the time, so they might advise them to take a deal. People aren’t really “coerced” as there are hearings where the judge questions the defendant directly and specifically about a proposed plea deal and they must assert they know what is going on. Of course they don’t have much experience so it’s a crap shoot on whether that deal is good or not.
    .
    Scenario: You drank too much, were driving, and a sober driver runs a red light and you T-bone them at an intersection and kill them. It’s totally their fault but no witnesses. Are you going to trial or are you going to take a plea deal?

  483. Tom,
    ā€œHe may get nailed with a conspiracy or process crime with the right jury, but the evidence seems pretty weak and the prosecution is politically motivated.ā€
    As a militant Anti-Trumper, I donā€™t care about convictionā€¦ I am just hopeful that the trial process deals his candidacy a lethal blow. [Which I think is the point of all these get-trump prosecutions]
    The spectacle of Sidney Powell and many others testifying against him on nightly TV for weeks on end should do my Anti-Trump campaign wonders.
    Note, Willis has charged 18 co-conspirators.
    https://time.com/6306031/trump-georgia-indictment-co-conspirators/

  484. NYT is an outlier and says the missile shown in the hospital video was fired from Israel and is unrelated to what happened at the Gaza hospital (it was too far away according to their video triangulation). It’s possible they are correct but most everyone else says differently. I would say the main question I had of the video was the time between the ascending rocket failure and the explosion at the hospital seemed pretty short, not sure a ballistic trajectory would have done that.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html
    “But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip ā€” taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 ā€” shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night.

    The Timesā€™s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast, or who is responsible. ”
    .
    The NYT is a bit motivated to bring this into question because they have been excoriated for their early coverage.

  485. I’m not cheering for either of the sides fighting each other with what amounts to IMO a terrible disregard for the long term interests of our country. In my view, Trump doesn’t care what damage he does so long as he wins in 2024. Similarly, Willis and other prosecutors don’t care if they usher in a new era of banana republic style political prosecutions, provided they damage Trump.
    A plague on all of their houses. Some of us are trying to live here.

  486. Yes, the “danger to democracy” crowd isn’t covering themselves in glory here. I expect most of them feel like Russell, the ends justify the means. I very much question whether the ends are going to bring the desired result, so far it hasn’t shown up in the polls. Hopefully Trump will take himself out somehow independent of these efforts.

  487. This is all pretty weird, why even announce this?

    This is probably to deter others from joining the conflict, ahead of casualties that Mosul is likely to pale in comparison with.

  488. Mark,
    ā€œSimilarly, Willis and other prosecutors donā€™t care if they usher in a new era of banana republic style political prosecutionsā€
    To cheer you upā€¦
    ā€œThe Banana Boat Songā€

    1st RECORDING OF: Banana Boat Song (aka Day Dah Light) – Edric Connor (1954)
    https://youtu.be/zWbThdByTOA?si=KmuSkK6fJastaM_c

    Harry Belafonte remake [Day-O, Day-O]
    Banana Boat (Day-O)
    https://youtu.be/DYYkJ0kwNss?si=hEHm3LWVqr5GxgR3
    ā€œCome Mister tally man, tally me banana
    (Daylight come and we want go home)
    Come Mister tally man, tally me banana
    (Daylight come and we want go home)ā€

  490. Tom,
    I couldnā€™t read the NYT article it was behind a paywall.
    The original OSINT analysis I quoted was from @GeoConfirmed and it claimed it was an errant Hamas rocket. They have new evidence and have reevaluated:
    ā€œGeoConfirmed ISR-PAL – Hospital Bombing Based on the geolocation of new footage its highly likely that: The missile -Al Jazeera footage- is an interceptor. (Iron Dome) The explosion in the air is too far away to be related to the hospital explosion.ā€
    Full analysis:
    https://x.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1716113399728218618?s=20

  491. It also must be noted how incredibly unlucky it would be for a malfunctioning rocket to have hit a crowded parking lot in all the available area to land in. That might be numerically overcome by the high number of Hamas rocket failures over time but it is still pretty bad luck. OTOH this bad luck suggests intentional targeting (i.e. errant targeting) which is what more commonly happens with US screwups. When Israel is on target #6001 then certainty may be pretty low. An IR drone shows a group of “soldiers” and artillery is fired. Still didn’t look like an artillery shell. We will probably never know.
    .
    If it was an Israeli interceptor (or it worked properly and diverted a Hamas rocket) then that would be the kind of stuff that happens when wars breaks out. It’s a good idea to stay out of war zones for this reason.

  492. The Congressional Clowns got their act together long enough to elect Mike Johnson as the new Speaker.

  493. They finally did it. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

    And the Dems condemn Johnson as an extremist. Dog bites man.

  495. This has set the all time worst hurricane strength prediction error, likely to be broken never, ever, ever.
    https://twitter.com/burgwx/status/1716972676471021754
    .
    Tropical storm to Cat5 in 24 hours. Wow. All the models had it staying a tropical storm. Oops.
    .
    I think there is more to this story though, I believe they only had a plane go into the hurricane very recently and noted “this is way bigger than the satellite model said it is”. Probably related to it being in Mexico.

  496. I am pleased a consensus candidate was finally elected. Why could they not have worked this out behind closed doors before the first ‘nominee’ was announced? The public process only made Republicans look bad. The stupid level here is pretty high.

  498. SteveF (Comment #226028): “The public process only made Republicans look bad. The stupid level here is pretty high.”
    .
    Indeed. I think it was a game of chicken between the Goofballs and the bitter enders on the Establishment side. They each thought they could get the other side to turn the wheel and let them get their way. Instead, they got multiple head on collisions.

  499. Itā€™s morning in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. I think I have located the USS Ford and USS Eisenhauer task forces. This is based on the Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon subhunter flight track from overnight [Tel Aviv time]. The Ford TF is the more Westerly P-8 track, based on Sundayā€™s location. Also, this P-8 is leaving its station and a replacement can be seen arriving from the West. Probably the daylight shift.
    Screenshot at 6:15 AM Tel Aviv time [11:15 PM Florida time]:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1717382038758547817?s=20
    Also 6:45 AM screenshot of civilian traffic into and out of Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel [TLV]. All flights are El Al passenger jets except:
    AZG [Silk Way West Airways] flight 219 a Boeing 747 bound for Baku, Capitol of Azerbaijan [I have no clue!]
    And FDX flight 6293 a FedEx Boeing 757 from Athens. I have noticed this flight several times.
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1717388199247413472?s=20

  501. Plea bargaining as legal tactic should be questioned. Even though the defendant is wholly aware of the bargain, it is the bargaining process itself that puts rendering justice in question. The process has to favor those who are guilty of the charged offense as they can obtain a lesser penalty and further the legal system appears more efficient.

    The problem remains for the innocent who have been convinced that the odds of an unjust conviction are sufficiently great that they accept the plea bargain. In these cases justice is not served and neither is the justice system that in effect is admitting that the innocent can be penalized as opposed to making efforts to lessen the chances of that outcome.

    Plea bargaining goes against the philosophy of justice that would have some portion of the guilty go free to guard against a wrongful conviction.

  503. Iā€™m betting Trump is feeling the heat:
    ā€œCNN Exclusive: Fulton County DA has discussed plea deals with at least 6 more Trump co-defendantsā€
    ā€œSo far, four of the 19 defendants in the Fulton County case, including three attorneys directly involved in Trumpā€™s bid to overturn the election results in Georgia, have already accepted a deal ā€“ in some cases pleading guilty to felony charges in exchange for a more lenient sentencing recommendation.ā€
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/politics/fulton-county-da-is-discussing-plea-deals-with-at-least-5-more-trump-co-defendants/index.html

  504. Sometimes the only witnesses who can bring convincing testimony are participants, particularly in a RICO prosecution.
    .
    This may be naive, but I think Willis can return with a felonhy charge if one of the plea baraginers doesn’t deliver. Remember that the Willis “bargains” were for misdemeanors not the larger enchilada.
    .

  505. Ken

    Plea bargaining as legal tactic should be questioned. Even though the defendant is wholly aware of the bargain, it is the bargaining process itself that puts rendering justice in question. The process has to favor those who are guilty of the charged offense as they can obtain a lesser penalty and further the legal system appears more efficient.

    The problem is that plea bargaining has become routine and nearly replaces jury trials. The truly innocent need to go to trial to avoid jail. The provably guilty are definitely the ones who benefit from plea bargains.

  506. I think plea bargaining is acceptable when guilt is clear but the exact crime is not; e.g., manslaughter or murder? It is a different matter when overcharging is used to intimidate or coerce the accused to force a plea bargain.
    ——

    john ferguson (Comment #226036): “I think Willis can return with a felonhy charge if one of the plea baraginers doesnā€™t deliver.”
    .
    I think that is correct. The problem is: Deliver what? All that she can legally demand is the truth. But the coercive nature of plea bargaining raises a very real risk of producing false testimony.
    .
    Where is the line between bargaining in exchange for testimony and witness tampering? Does such a line even exist? Real questions.

  507. ā€œWho are the 18 co-defendants charged alongside Donald Trump in Georgia?ā€
    Interesting article. About half of these people are NOT politically astute operatives. I bet they are really scared and will jump at a chance for a plea deal. I know I would.
    Iā€™m guessing Willis released todayā€™s news about six more plea deals in the works just to put even more pressure on the poor schlubs.
    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/18-defendants-charged-alongside-donald-trump-georgia/story?id=102285022

  508. I believe plea bargains are mostly used bureaucratically to clear the docket. Only a small number of these crimes go to trial. If there were no plea bargains then they all would go to trial because there would be little to lose for the defendant (and you can’t penalize someone for going to trial in theory). The process for who gets a plea deal and who doesn’t (Trump, ha ha) can be corrupt or given to the political whims of the day.
    .
    I don’t follow this very closely but my understanding is that minimum sentencing laws have come out of repeat offenders continuously plea bargaining out and getting little jail time for a long list of crimes (e.g. plea to a felony, get misdemeanor penalties). The latest trend is not charging crimes at all and this can be seen as plea bargaining in the extreme.

  509. The “witnesses” are incentivized to lie against the target in a plea bargain or immunity deal.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jailhouse_confession
    .
    You won’t get immunity or a good plea bargain if the prosecution doesn’t feel your testimony has enough value. As I said before these type of deals don’t need to be done if the prosecution already has good evidence. The jury can discount the “witness” testimony and I believe the details of the prosecutor’s deal are given to the jury.
    .
    “but I think Willis can return with a felony charge if one of the plea bargainers doesnā€™t deliver”
    .
    Usually they know what the testimony will be, and the deal is they must fully cooperate with the prosecution. If the witness is found to be lying or doesn’t fully cooperate then they can be re-charged with the original crime.

  510. Tom Scharf (Comment #226041): “You wonā€™t get immunity or a good plea bargain if the prosecution doesnā€™t feel your testimony has enough value.”
    .
    There is another possibility: The entire prosecution is political and therefore the plea bargains are political. If the purpose of the prosecution is to advance the narrative that Trump committed crimes, then the plea bargains advance that narrative even if the “guilty” never testify.
    .
    It is pretty obvious that is working, at least among those inclined to believe the narrative.

  511. I think it is routine to overcharge defendants in anticipation of a plea deal. This is mostly in the form of a long list of charges related to the same event and most of them eventually being dropped. The person who comes up with the charges (attorney general?) is not supposed to ever charge something the evidence doesn’t support but there is a lot of gray area. The defendant then says he is not guilty and demands an expensive jury trial. The plea deal is then worked out between all the parties (usually the victim is not involved…) in a negotiation.

  512. For organized crime trials and Trump the prosecution is climbing a witness ladder to get to a target. When everyone below you on the ladder is testifying, and importantly potentially testifying against you as well, then there is a lot of pressure to testify. For organized crime it is important to have trusted lieutenants. Those lieutenants and their families will be taken care of if they go to jail by the crime syndicate in exchange for not testifying. They will also be “taken care of” if they do testify.
    .
    Some people believe the comparison between the Trump organization and organized crime is valid, I do not. They are prosecuting a bumbling fool here and treating him like he runs a sophisticated criminal organization trying to overturn “democracy”. We can see how sophisticated this organization is in the recent Speaker election clown show, ha ha. These fevered dreams are causing them to misuse the tools of justice and this diminishes people’s trust in the system.

  513. I don’t intend this facetiously, but there is no reason to suppose that a bumbling fool would never do his utmost, under some circumstance, to overturn democracy.
    .
    No matter how improbable the methods and the choice of collaborators, this looks exactly like what the intention was.
    .

  514. John,
    I am not a Trump fan by any stretch of the imagination. I wish the man would disappear. This said, some remedies are worse than the disease. Prosecuting Trump for something less than a clear and overwhelming violation might well be one such remedy that [is] worse than the disease. Justice against Trump doesn’t matter enough to justify the risk of damaging our country this way, in my opinion.

  515. mark,
    You need to assume that you are privy to the facts and understand the statute under which he is charged. I’ll give you the understanding of the statute, but having a good grasp of 90% of the facts is not the same as 95%.
    .
    I would add that the prosecution of a political crime which the attempted coup, if that’s a fair characterization, appears to be can hardly look other than political.
    .
    I think it’s too easy to discount the validity of a prosecution simply because a politician is being charged.

  516. Not just ‘a politician’. This is the first U.S. President to face criminal charges.
    Whatever. I see you’re good with it. It’s happening, regardless of how we feel about it.

  517. It’s the inventive methods used in these charges and his political opponents doing the charging which gives it the appearance of corruption. Trump isn’t burning down institutions, they are setting themselves on fire.

  518. Yeah. If there is damage though; if political prosecutions become the custom, we will remember it long after we have ceased to care about Trump. I mean, it’s not like we have hordes of people today saying ‘Crap! If only they’d pulled out all the stops to get Harding this country would be a much better place today…’

  519. I very much agree with mark bofill (Comment #226046) and Tom Scharf (Comment #226049). The #GetTrump crowd is doing far more damage to our institutions than Trump ever could have.
    .
    Trump is not a threat to our Democratic institutions or the rule of law. He is a threat to rule by the Establishment. He is a threat to the Deep State and the power of permanent Washington. He does violate norms, in particular the norm of conventionalized political language used to divert from true debate.
    .
    I hate to say this, but I feel myself swinging back into the pro-Trump camp rather than the Trump-only-if necessary camp.

  520. Isn’t it the case that Trump is not being prosecuted for whatever threat he might pose to Democracy but for what are believed to be his criminal acts in the past?
    .
    Can you suggest anyone who has been prosecuted (in the US) for what he or she might do?

  522. Well it wasn’t a rhetorical question. Trump is being prosecuted for what he did. That some people think he continues to be a threat to democracy has nothing at all to do with his prosecution.

    I thought this should have been obvious.

  524. FWIW, I don’t think Hoppe’s No. 9 is barbecue sauce. And I don’t think you do either.

  525. Test post… I get an error message when I try to cut and paste from both Apple Sheets and Google Docs. I am seeing if direct typing into the page works?
    Edit: OK, it works.

  526. [This is an abbreviated version of a post I had prepared in a word processor]
    I am wondering if Rudy Giuliani will be taking a plea deal. As of yesterday, he was pledging allegiance to Trump. But he faces mounting financial trouble. His former lawyer is suing for 1.4 million in unpaid fees. The IRS wants 500 thousand and has filed a lien on his Florida property. And there are more troubles in the news.
    Rudy could put the final nail in Trump’s coffin. Things are getting interesting.
    [Rudy may be a big enough fist that he isn’t offered a deal, maybe.]

  527. Russell,
    I think Rudy will be looking for a place to live when his assets are stripped. Maybe he’ll need a nice little place in Georgia. Isn’t he unindicted in the federal matters?
    .

  528. mark,
    If the intention of the various prosecutions had been to keep Trump out of office, don’t you think that they would have included an incitement of resurrection charge?
    .
    The 14th amendment may not require a proper conviction of incitement, but it’s hard to believe that without one, he would be kept out of office. No other conviction can do it by the silence in the Constitution on this possibility.
    .
    If he’s convicted on any ot the chaerges he’s now exposed to, he can still take office assuming he’s elected.

  529. Hah, hah,
    .
    Not resurrection, insurrection. It’s so hard to keep religion where it belongs, isn’t it.

  530. John,
    I’m glad you comment here. I was sad when you took a hiatus for awhile. I value your comments. We disagree on this, and I’ve got no interest in pursuing an argument with you about it. There are people I dread reading comments from here, but you are not one of them.

  533. All spending bills must originate in the house. The new Speaker Mike Johnson met with Biden and told him funding for Israel and Ukraine should be in separate bills. As speaker, he can probably insist on that if he wants. It will be interesting to see what happens.

  534. Thank you both.
    .
    I continue to be perplexed at how I don’t see a lot of things the way so many of the clearly highly intelligent posters do.
    .
    At the same time, Mark, I suspect we agree on far more than my comments might suggest.

  536. “The new Speaker Mike Johnson met with Biden and told him funding for Israel and Ukraine should be in separate bills. ”
    Biden was reported to want $100B in new spending, of which $60B was for Ukraine, $10B for Israel. Presumably the other $30B is pork. Wonder which aid package it will be bundled with.

    [It always annoys me that Congress bundles lots of items — including a lot of pork — into one large bill which “can’t” be opposed.]

  537. For political prosecutions the perceptions matter a lot:
    .
    Aug 2023: “46% think the charges against Trump are politically motivated, while 40% do not, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll”
    .
    It’s important to separate these things, Trump can be guilty and also be persecuted simultaneously. This can happen when Trump is being treated differently because of who he is.
    .
    When Gore decided to only recount heavily Democrat FL counties in 2000 this was never interpreted as “criminal”, just legally unwise. Trump’s ridiculous legal theories were never going to pass muster through the court system, and it needs to be stressed the more ridiculous ones were never given an opportunity to be laughed out of court. I consider this at almost the same level of the people worried the Viking King was taking over the US government on Jan 6th.
    .
    We have a system to resolve election disputes and challenging the system with crazy stuff fails. What we don’t normally do is declare not-so-clever lawyers as criminals. It’s political.

  538. “If the intention of the various prosecutions had been to keep Trump out of office, donā€™t you think that they would have included an incitement of resurrection charge?”
    .
    They didn’t charge him with that because they don’t have the evidence and/or they know they will never get a conviction with a politically balanced jury pool.

  539. The federal spending orgy has got to stop. Biden appears to believe this works by magic, he probably thinks he is Professor Dumbledore. Nobody is left in DC that even pretends to care about deficits anymore.

  540. I thought some of the elements of this story were quite remarkable. The gist is, the legal battles concerning the Charlottesville statue of General Lee have been finished and the defenders of the statue lost. The statue was taken away in secret to be melted down. So far so good.
    Here’s where it gets weird:

    Lawsuits to stop the project failed, and last weekend organizers moved forward, with great secrecy, to disassemble and melt down the Lee monument.

    The work is being done at an out-of-state foundry. NPR agreed not to reveal its location or the identity of the workers because they fear repercussions.

    Okay, people doing this fear repercussions. And yet:

    They use a torch to score the head of the statue, in the pattern of a death mask. Lee’s face falls to floor with a loud clank.

    The symbolism is poignant for Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Cultural Center in Charlottesville, which is leading the project.

    “The act of myth-making that has occurred around Robert E. Lee, removing his face is emblematic of the kind of removal of that kind of myth,” Douglas says.

    The statue must be desecrated, symbolically, before it is destroyed. Further, it does not suffice that this desecration be kept secret- the press must be alerted to spread the story.
    .
    I’m not sure precisely what flavor of cowardly contemptible this is, but it bears thinking about, in my opinion. It’s really something.

  541. Tom Scharf,
    “They didnā€™t charge him with that because they donā€™t have the evidence and/or they know they will never get a conviction with a politically balanced jury pool.”
    .
    Their is zero possibility of conviction on ANY of the charges with a politically balanced jury pool. Which is why the case in Florida (most likely some Republicans in the jury) is being slow walked, while the case in DC (~0% chance of a Republican on the Jury) is running on hyper-drive to get a virtually certain conviction before the election. Of course, it is likely there will be appeals of the judge’s gag order and appeals for a change of venue, etc which may delay the trial, but the objective is clear: convict Trump of SOMETHING before the 2024 election. I loath Trump and wish he would disappear.
    .
    But he most certainly is being selectively prosecuted under an array of ‘trumped-up’, charges to try to keep him from being re-elected. If Trump had just walked away from politics, the Biden administration would be leaving him alone. IMHO: These are 100% politically motivated prosecutions. They set an ugly, destructive precedent, and one that Democrats will almost certainly regret when they lose power.

  542. HaroldW (Comment #226069): “It always annoys me that Congress bundles lots of items ā€” including a lot of pork ā€” into one large bill which ā€œcanā€™tā€ be opposed.”
    .
    You sound like one of those extreme MAGA Republicans who are a threat to our way of life!
    .
    FWIW, I agree with you 100%.

  543. Tom Scharf (Comment #226072): ” Nobody is left in DC that even pretends to care about deficits anymore.”
    .
    Not true. There are a bunch of people in Congress who care about the deficit. They are called “extremists” and shunned by all right thinking folks, which includes majorities in both House and Senate.

  544. The gag order was a bad move, Trump will almost beg to be thrown in jail before trial on a process crime. This will likely backfire and give Trump sympathy and bring people on the fence toward his side.

  545. Mark Meadows is the wild card in the RICO case. ABC says ā€œsources ā€œ tell them be has been granted immunity to testify in the Federal case and Trump has attacked him (sort of) on social media. I donā€™t know where that puts him in the Georgia case.
    The feds are accusing him of witness intimidation because of the post.

  546. SteveF,
    “just walked away” would have been the Spiro Agnew resolution.
    .
    The comptroller at an engineering outfit I once worked at was discovered to have been embezzling for years – and a lot. It’s funny that none of the partners picked it up but I suspect it was because he handled all of the paperwork and the compapny was still profitable despite his skimming.
    .
    Eventually one of the partners figured it out, confronted the comptroller. There were subsequent meetings to decide how to handle it. It was felt that if the crime became public it would contaminate business prospects, but they came to feel that because it was a crime, the authorities needed to be notified.
    .
    This was done with great care. An arrangement was made for the comptroller to sell all of his assets which were enough to cover repayment. A much abridged version of the settlement reached the newspaper, and because the comptroller was effectively bankrupted by the settlement, the authorities settled for a guilty plea with no further penalties.
    .
    Not even Club Fed.
    .
    I had been running projects during his reign and was always puzzled why my idea of how we were doing didn’t quite match the company monthlies. Vigorish.

  547. Financial crimes are much easier than people think, especially when a company only has one person running the books. Nobody else can figure out what the heck is going on because it gets complicated very fast.
    .
    What drives me crazy is that people are treated much more harshly for robbing a gas station than they are when embezzling 1000x more money from a company.
    .
    SBF is testifying in his own defense today, that would be interesting to watch. I think he is pulling the Sgt Shultz defense, he knows nothing.

  548. Tom Scharf,
    I’m not entirely sure how the comptroller did it because I didn’t learn about it until I’d been gone quite a while, but I think it was by charging the projects more overhead than there really was.
    .
    I suspect we accumulate another sceptic everytime a homeboy finds himself in the slammer, looks around, and doesn’t see any white collar perps.
    .
    I really wish we could fix that.

  549. Wonder, I assume Trump would appeal a conviction in the Georgia case through the Georgia court system, but does he have a way of having Federal courts step in? His civil rights are being taken away by a Democrat prosecutor?

  550. More on hospital blast. WashPost long form analysis. They had a few people calculate the time of flight (video triangulated) from rocket launch origin to the hospital for the initial rocket launches, and it matched up to the trajectory and explosion time.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/26/gaza-hospital-blast-evidence-israel-hamas/
    Also: “The seven seconds between the midair explosion and the hospital explosion miles away was not enough time for debris from the intercept to have impacted the hospital, Schiller said. Any object at the site of the midair explosion would have had to travel at more than 500 meters per second, a supersonic speed, which ā€œis quite impossible,ā€ he said.”
    .
    That is what I was thinking earlier.
    .
    BBC has a photo from night of the blast with members of the “Palestinian police’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit” examining the crater. Journalists were not let in until the next day where no fragments were found. Hamas claims they will show fragments soon, a bit too late for credibility.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67216929
    “Former UN war crimes investigator Marc Garlasco tweeted: “In 20 years of investigating war crimes this is the first time I haven’t seen any weapon remnants. And I’ve worked three wars in Gaza.”

  553. Tom Scharf (Comment #226080): “What drives me crazy is that people are treated much more harshly for robbing a gas station than they are when embezzling 1000x more money from a company.”
    .
    There is a huge difference between sticking a gun in someone’s face and sticking your hand in the till. The former should be treated much more harshly, independent of the amount stolen.

  554. I guess it depends on the ethics model. Is it outcomes that matter, or the methods? The store owner doesn’t see much difference between an armed robbery and the clerk stealing the money directly from the till, or the clerk leaving the back door open for all the beer to be looted. The clerk usually gets fired and the robbery suspect goes to jail.
    .
    I’m more of an outcomes guy when it comes to theft. There are differing levels of criminal punishment depending on amount stolen and strongarm robberies are dealt with more harshly than shoplifting. Certainly shooting a store clerk is about as low it gets and bringing a gun escalates things with a lot of bad potential outcomes so it is legitimate to have harsher penalties.
    .
    As it sits today it doesn’t make a lot of sense to perform an armed robbery when you can just walk out with items with no expectation of intervention. The difference with white collar crime is opportunity. I always think “why are you robbing a gas station, think big for that amount of risk!”
    .
    I was watching a YouTube video of a recent theft scam. Two people went to Target, the first scans $1400 of items at self checkout and walks out without paying, the second continues scanning a few items on the same register. The first lady is approached by police outside and claims the second lady is paying for everything. The second “has problems” with her card and can’t pay. Usually the second then walks out and they drive away. This one is bizarre and humorous on many different levels:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StCKp9Xy5h0
    .
    Lots of scams like this now. In my area there was a professional theft ring targeting Home Depot tools he had people steal on a commission basis, just reselling them on eBay. $1.4M in one year. Like Vegas card counters, the perps are recognized after multiple thefts.

  555. Tom Scharf (Comment #226087): “I guess it depends on the ethics model.”
    .
    No. Armed robbery is not mere theft. It is a violent crime.

  558. Avdiivka is the meat grinder Bakhmut 2.0.
    .
    Regarding Russian losses, for Bakhmut, Russia made the decision to take the easier positions first, then the harder positions. Less losses in the beginning and higher losses towards the end.
    .
    For Avdiivka, Russia made the decision to take the harder positions first. The Russians took heavy losses in their successful assault on the high ground overlooking Avdiivka and that is adjacent to the industrial coal coke plant. This high ground now gives Russia direct visual observation of the entire area.
    .
    Taking this industrial plant will cut the only paved road supplying Avdiivka and put Avdiivka into a caldron similar to what happened at Bakhmut at the end.
    .
    Once the supply lines into Avdiivka are either cut or under direct line of sight fire, the Russians will not need to make a general attack on the city itself until the defenders are sufficiently reduced. Artillery, air, and direct fire from dug in positions will complete the operation as happened at Bakhmut.
    .
    Russian losses will be substantially lower than Ukraine losses during this phase as the Ukrainian will be the ones forced to continue counter attacks over open ground against dug in Russian positions to try to relieve and supply Avdiivka.
    .
    The battle of attrition continues as Ukraine orders Avdiivka to be held at all costs.

  559. The high ground Ed Forbes writes about is a slag pile of waste from the coke furnace. Russia lost thousands of men and hundreds of pieces of armor to capture a 57-acre dump that is about a 1000-foot radius and only 170 feet in elevation above the surrounding area.
    Here is a Google Earth map showing my area calculation:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1718452671852474430?s=20
    Access to Avdiivka is tenuous but as of 10/27 open and not under immediate threat. Here is a detail of the access situation, including maps:
    https://x.com/J_JHelin/status/1717932692153462993?s=20

  560. With deference to the ā€œGreatest Generationā€, I am going to steal a euphemism from World War II and call this ā€œThe Great Ukrainian Turkey Shootā€.
    Videos from today show the Ukrainian artillery’s advantage in range, accuracy, and sheer numbers over the Russians. Armor and infantry fighting vehicles continue to be cut to pieces in these two example videos:
    https://x.com/Tendar/status/1718602517955666085?s=20
    https://x.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1718478571360993310?s=20

  561. I think it was Russell who recommended Only Murders in the Building, which we watched and enjoyed. I’ll offer up Severance, if you haven’t seen it already. It’s a slow-burn sci-fi mystery thriller.
    .
    The basic premise is that certain workers at a company are implanted with chips interfering with memory, so those working inside on a special floor do not have any recollection of their lives outside, and vice versa. The people at work essentially never leave, and the work they do is of inscrutable purpose.

  562. NYC has gotten it’s wish, immigrants are now flocking there of their own accord because word has gotten around about their right to shelter law. Texas has bussed 20K there (some by request) but 130K total have gone there since 2022 using all transportation types, many flying there immediately after crossing the border. It is now routine for immigrants to specifically supply NY addresses at the border.
    “The city has spent more than $1.7 billion on migrant-related costs through July, and Mayor Adams ā€” warning the three-year tab could exceed $12 billion”

  565. Tom, it’s almost like if you offer incentives to do things, people will do them. I really can’t get my head around why saying “don’t do this”, but giving people every reason to ignore what you say, doesn’t work. I’m surprised there hasn’t been any research into this phenomenon because it seems really important to understand. Maybe speaking louder would help. Perhaps they just didn’t hear.

  566. Dave,
    Thanks, we donā€™t currently have Apple TV, but I saved it and when we cycle back through to Apple TV, weā€™ll try it out. (Only Murders in the Building is on Hulu)

  567. Finally a case on Civil Forfeiture at the Supreme Court.
    .
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-police-simply-take-your-car-supreme-court-civil-forfeiture-5a529ff2?st=jgo9nn8ddqjy5wu&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    “On Monday the Supreme Court will hear a case to decide whether the Constitution requires a prompt hearing after law enforcement seizes vehicles for civil forfeiture. The plaintiffs in Culley v. Marshall had their vehicles seized because a family member and friend allegedly possessed drugs while borrowing them. Law enforcement held each car for over a year without a hearing.”
    “Almost two years after Ms. Wilsonā€™s car was seized, a judge ordered it returned. But the car had sat in an impound lot that whole time, and the brake and fuel lines were so corroded that it was no longer usable.”
    “Prosecutors offered to return Ms. Wilsonā€™s car promptly if she paid $1,800.”
    .
    There are many examples of civil forfeiture gone wrong. What makes this stuff even more appalling is that the intended target, drug dealers, now almost exclusively lease their vehicles to get around this. Not having to charge a crime is also very questionable. The legal theory is that it is the property committing the uncharged crime, not the owner. I suppose the property has no rights or something.

  568. There may be a US recon aircraft on station over Gaza.
    An unidentified aircraft appeared onscreen originating from the area where the US aircraft carriers are operating. It has been over Gaza for 3.5 hours flying at 24,000 feet and 275 MPH. Lots of speculation on Twitterā€¦. is it a US drone?
    Track, Altitude, and speed:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1718884699148316718?s=20
    Track, Aircraft identification [none!]:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1718883943829676225?s=20
    Live track if it is still in the air:
    https://www.flightradar24.com/32a2bdb8

  569. Mike M.,
    Someone agrees with youā€¦..
    ā€œI think heā€™s a little confused because if youā€™re a lawyer, you know thereā€™s no crimes here,ā€ said Harrington. ā€œAccording to the law, thereā€™s literally nothing to plead guilty to because thereā€™s nothing that was ā€” no laws that were broken.ā€
    ā€œTrump spokesperson Liz Harrington appeared on The Absolute Truth, ā€” a show on Mike Lindellā€™s streaming service ā€” where she outlined how the GOP frontrunner is confused why Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Cheseboro would plead guilty to the charges handed down by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.ā€
    https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-spox-rips-the-guilty-pleas-from-jenna-ellis-sidney-powell-and-ken-chesebro-theres-literally-nothing-to-plead-guilty-to/amp/

  570. As I recall these are conspiracy type charges. If you pay somebody to rob a bank for you then you are guilty of a conspiracy to rob a bank even if the people donā€™t end up robbing the bank (no actual crime committed). Itā€™s all pretty messy and these are harder cases to prove without good evidence.
    .
    Another scenario is two people think about robbing a bank together but decide not to because it is too risky after some investigation. My vague understanding is that is not a crime that would normally be charged. I think there needs to be some concrete steps involved.

    1. an agreement between at least two parties,
    2. the agreement is meant to achieve an illegal goal,
    3. all parties alleged to be involved have to have knowledge of the conspiracy and participate in the conspiracy in some way, and
    4. at least one person involved in the conspiracy has to make an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
    .
    The Trump case may have a problem with people knowing the act was actually illegal.

  571. I’m not a lawyer, ha ha.
    .
    A counter argument here is Biden having a “conspiracy” to put through vaccine mandates or student loan forgiveness when he knew those arguments to be “illegal”, at least somebody certainly told him it was very shaky. They were later deemed illegal by the courts, and isn’t it a crime to try to do illegal things? Well, no, not usually.
    .
    Unless you have a bad case of TDS. Although it’s a bad analogy, this is like charging Biden with a conspiracy crime because he seriously considered student loan forgiveness via dubious legal means and never got to the point of even implementing it. It’s just a shaky foundation. It’s shaky even when they actually go through with it and get denied by the courts.
    .
    There needs to be a separation between bad legal arguments that are not crimes and bad legal arguments that are crimes somehow. I’m sure the courts have thresholds here. You can’t claim you didn’t know robbing banks was illegal or get away with presenting a novel argument that robbing banks is legal. Some things are criminal, some things aren’t.
    .
    In the little that I have read about these cases there is no attempt to discriminate between bad legal ideas and crimes beyond orange man bad. It seems like a stretch. Trump had bad, stupid ideas from clever lawyers. These legal theories never got tested in court to my knowledge. There are many articles on his theories causing a constitutional crisis which is basically admitting they have not been tested in court and he had some small chance of winning legally. Now it is a crime.

  573. Tom Scharf (Comment #226152),

    Yes, conspiracy to commit a crime can be a crime even if the planned crime was never committed. But what crime was the “Trump conspiracy” supposedly plotting? I don’t see one. Trying to convince courts to rule that an election was improper is not a crime. Trying to convince state legislatures to use their Constitutional powers is not a crime. Choosing alternate slates of electors is not a crime. Public statements challenging the legitimacy of electors are not crimes. Advancing crappy legal theories is not a crime.

  575. Mike M.
    Isn’t lying to a court about a “matter of fact” illegal? When a non-factual allegation is brought to court with the intention of changing the results of an election (rightly or wrongly) is that frivolous?
    .
    There seems to me to have been far more to this than simply wasting the court’s time.

  576. john ferguson (Comment #226159): “Isnā€™t lying to a court about a ā€œmatter of factā€ illegal?”
    .
    It certainly is if under oath. Nobody in this case has been charged with perjury.
    .
    john ferguson: “When a non-factual allegation is brought to court …”
    .
    I don’t think you can provide an example or that any such charge has been brought in this case. There have certainly been unproven allegations. If that was a crime, then every prosecutor who loses a case would have to go to prison.
    .
    john ferguson: “… is that frivolous?”
    .
    Not al all.

  578. Maybe ā€œSourcesā€ got this one right:
    ā€œFormer President Donald Trump’s final chief of staff in the White House, Mark Meadows, has spoken with special counsel Jack Smith’s team at least three times this year, including once before a federal grand jury, which came only after Smith granted Meadows immunity to testify under oath, according to sources familiar with the matter.ā€
    ā€œThe sources said Meadows informed Smith’s team that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election that the allegations of significant voting fraud coming to them were baseless, a striking break from Trump’s prolific rhetoric regarding the election.ā€
    So Tumpsā€™s Chief of Staff, who is an attorney tells him his claims of winning are baseless. Knowing this he puts together a team to change the official results in Georgia anyway. Sounds like it ought to be a crime if it isnā€™t one.

  579. I think the claims were baseless looking back, but this is likely worth way less than you think. It only mattered what they knew at that moment in time and if he had another attorney or person telling him something different (that he was predisposed to believe) then he can put up a plausible story that he believed this fantasy to be true. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, what they want to show is Trump made statements himself at the time he knew it wasn’t true. Lots of people still believe this BS today.

  580. Russell Klier (Comment #226163),

    So the sources re Meadows tell us nothing new. We already knew that some people were telling Trump one thing and others were telling him something else. That might or might not be evidence of bad judgment, but it is not evidence of a crime.

  581. Tom and Mike,
    ā€œIt only mattered what they knew at that moment in timeā€
    ā€œWe already knew that some people were telling Trump one thing and others were telling him something else. ā€œ
    I donā€™t know RICO from Shinola but John Ferguson has experience with it:
    john ferguson (Comment #225988)
    ā€œThe beauty of a RICO charge is that any participant shares the responsibility for all of the naughty acts even though that individual may not have actually done the thing themselves.ā€
    In Georgia, three of Trumpā€™s attornies and one Republican operative have already entered guilty pleas. Add on top of that Meadows MAY be testifying that he personally knew their claims were bogus. If John is right, Trump may be in RICO trouble no matter what he knew or thought at that moment. All that matters is that he was running an organization that was committing multiple crimes.

  582. Russell,
    Our colleagues apparently believe no crimes were committed by anyone, or if they were, they shouldn’t have been designated as crimes. In other words, those particular acts should never have been the subject of criminal statute; to do them shluld have been of no concern.
    .
    A problem with this discussion is just that. We don’t apparently agree on this basic element; whether there was criminal behavior.
    .
    Failing someone in the “group” having done something criminal, the prosecution must fail.
    .
    i think plenty of crimes were committed, and the evidence for one of the more egregious of them is the phone call.
    .

  583. John,
    I think if Trump is convicted on RICO charges it would be like an actor getting a ā€œLifetime Achievement Award ā€œ at the Academy Awards.

  584. Hi Russell,
    .
    The Lifetime Achievement Award is pretty funny.
    .
    It’s interesting that Chesbro and Kraken Lady pleaded to misdemeanors which I would think would be insufficient to drag their co-conspirators (RICO participants) into serious convictions.
    .
    Ellis pleaded to a felony so that could be more suitable as a heavy-duty crime to be shared by the conspirators.
    .
    I haven’t read it and may be wrong here, but I think if Kraken and Chesbro don’t behave themselves Willis can up the ante to new felony charges for each of them; or even return the original ones.
    .

  585. Wait, there’s more.
    .
    Trump, like Richard II, is reported to be a master of the rhetorical question. At least Richard was willing to take some consequence for the answer, in his case a beating.
    .
    Are rhetorical questions proscribed here lest some innocent priest be dispatched?
    .
    Has anyone hit upon our hero’s role through his career as Don Donald?

  586. John and Russell,
    There are plenty of people here who do not consider Trump ‘their hero’, so kindly refrain from generalizing.

    Are rhetorical questions proscribed here lest some innocent priest be dispatched?

    Rhetorical questions aren’t allowed here unless you answer them, as you doubtless know.

    Has anyone hit upon our heroā€™s role through his career as Don Donald?

    If this has meaning, I have no idea what it is. I doubt anyone else does either.

  587. Here is an analysis of just how flimsy the Georgia guilty pleas have been:
    https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/28/georgia-da-offers-nothingburger-plea-deals-to-build-parade-of-witnesses-for-later-show-trials/

    The prosecutors also agreed to recommend probation-only sentences to the court in all three cases, which the judge duly imposed. None of these three defendants will spend one day in jail or have a conviction on their records for their role in supposedly undermining American democracy itself.

    Yep. Once the suspended sentences are served, the “crimes” will be expunged from the record. So nothing more than a spot of embarrassment and a minor inconvenience for the “guilty”.

    In Ellisā€™ case, this manipulation was taken to a ridiculous level. Her guilty plea was one in name only. She never admitted that she knew that the allegedly false statements were false at the time they were made, which is a fundamental requirement for a criminal false statement. Rather, she said that ā€œif she knew then what she knows now,ā€ she would have acted differently.

    She pleaded guilty without ever admitting to a crime!

  588. As has been pointed out, our legal system leans heavily towards plea bargaining. You two are welcome to take the fact that many defendants utilize plea bargaining to manage risk as evidence of guilt if you want to. Personally, I think that’s a dumb thing to do, but feel free. It doesn’t make for a very persuasive argument AFAIC.

  589. john ferguson (Comment #226168): “i think plenty of crimes were committed”.
    .
    OK. So what were the crimes? So far as I know,the only actual crime was the post certification voting machine break in done as part of a misguided attempt to gather evidence of fraud.

  590. mark bofill (Comment #226174): “You two are welcome to take the fact that many defendants utilize plea bargaining to manage risk as evidence of guilt if you want to.”
    .
    But the prosecutor and jury are forbidden to do that. See my link in comment #226173.
    .
    The plea bargains are just part of a PR campaign.

  592. Shakespeare used rhetorical questions to great effect. Some of his most quoted lines are rhetorical questions.
    This quote from Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is particularly poignant:
    Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
    And another from Romeo and Juliet:
    ‘Whatā€™s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’
    Who doesnā€™t love rhetorical questions?

  594. Russell,

    Who doesnā€™t love rhetorical questions?

    Lucia doesn’t. Over time I’ve come to agree with her, but it’s not like rhetorical questions annoy me or anything.
    .
    John,

    Don Corleone

    As far as I know, Donald Trump wasn’t the head of a mafia family. I think that’s silly.

  595. Mike,
    I think you are missing the point:
    ā€œOnce the suspended sentences are served, the ā€œcrimesā€ will be expunged from the record. So nothing more than a spot of embarrassment and a minor inconvenience for the ā€œguiltyā€
    And:
    ā€œThe plea bargains are just part of a PR campaign.ā€
    The beauty in Willisā€™s method is she offers the lesser criminals a sweet deal including no serious crimes, no RICO entanglement, and no criminal record. They plead guilty to practically nothing and in exchange, she nails Trump.
    ā€œGeorgiaā€™s RICO law defines racketeering more broadly than the federal statute. It also allows a DA to introduce evidence that, without racketeering charges, would not stand on its own as individual crimes.
    Prosecutors must show a pattern of racketeering activity, carried out by two or more people seeking to control or protect an interest in some sort of enterprise.ā€
    She is using a series of minor violations to prove Trump and Rudy are violating the Georgia RICO law. The little fish swim free, she doesnā€™t care, as long as she nets the big fish.
    She even used RICO on schoolmarms:
    ā€œIn Georgia, RICO has been used successfully against …. Most notably it was used in Fulton County to prosecute public school teachers.
    The latter was led in 2014 by Fani Willis, then a deputy DA, who used RICO to secure 11 convictions and 21 guilty pleas from educators implicated in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal.ā€
    https://www.ajc.com/politics/what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/

  596. Russell Klier (Comment #226181),

    I don’t think I am missing the point. You are assuming that crimes were committed and that the plea bargainers have evidence of that. So far, there is no reason to believe that.

  598. Russell,
    Evidence is evidence. Whatever facts they have will be presented at trial. The jury can take into account these plea deals in exchange for testimony to assess how reliable the testimony is.
    .
    If the person taking the plea is given no punishment in exchange for testimony of their alleged crime then that might convince somebody to discount that testimony. It is completely up to the jury’s discretion. Perhaps it is still convincing, perhaps it is not. It will be helpful if that testimony is backed up by other evidence.

  600. Tom,
    I am no lawyer, and I certainly donā€™t know the Georgia RICO laws, but I donā€™t think they have to relitigate those underlying crimes. The string of guilty pleas will stand alone. What they are proving is that the Trump organization performed a ā€œPattern of racketeering activityā€.
    From DOJ
    ā€œThe power of RICO lies in its conspiracy provision, based on an enterprise rationale, that allows tying together apparently unrelated crimes with a common objective into a prosecutable pattern of racketeering. In addition, RICO provides for severer penalties and permits a defendant to be convicted and separately punished for both the underlying crimes that constitute the pattern of racketeering activity and for a substantive violation of RICO.ā€
    All they need to do is prove ā€œsubstantive violation of RICOā€, not also prove the underlying crimes.
    https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-109-rico-charges
    And according to the ACJ, the Georgia law is even broader.
    See: ā€œ(5)(A) “Racketeering activity”
    https://casetext.com/statute/code-of-georgia/title-16-crimes-and-offenses/chapter-14-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations/section-16-14-3-definitions
    My guess is Willis only has to show that the previous convictions by plea bargain applied to some of those 43 prohibitions.
    That is the RICO difference. They are proving a racketeering pattern based on all the previous convictions. Not litigating the underlying crimes.
    Itā€™s a really, really, bad law. Ripe for prosecutorial abuse.

  601. That’s the tradeoff with giving law enforcement powerful but vaguely defined tools. There needs to be some catch-all laws for criminal conduct for areas that aren’t always anticipated. Computer hacking laws weren’t even on the books in the early days.
    .
    Ultimately though there is a jury backing up this system to limit any abuse. That’s why I keep talking about politically balanced juries here. This isn’t a legal requirement and both sides will actively work against it. However if you get 4 independents and 4 Trump supporters on a jury here I think there is a very good chance of jury nullification no matter what the evidence says.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
    .
    Just like the OJ jury wanted to “send a message”, the citizens in this trial may also want to do the same. I think this has been a mistaken use of the justice system, but if they get this by some Trump supporters then I am fine with it.

  603. Willis got a string of guilty pleas from Trump underlings by offering immunity from a RICO entanglement. Then she uses that same string of guilty pleas to prosecute Trump for RICO violations.
    Itā€™s diabolical, I love it.

  604. John Ferguson,
    I do not pretend to speak for Lucia, but I believe she thinks (with good reason) that rhetorical questions can cause considerable confusion, especially when the ‘obvious answer’ to the question (would a rose by any other name….) is not so obvious to many people. Eg: “Have the Jews not stolen land that rightfully belongs to Arabs?” Better to raise the question and then give your own answer….. that way it is clear what you are saying and you give those who disagree with you a chance to respond without the confusion of demanding they accept your premises. The best way to advance an argument is to be as clear as possible, without assuming your audience agrees with your premises.

  605. Russell Klier (Comment #226183): “The guilty pleas ARE the evidence in the RICO case against Trump.”
    .
    SCOTUS has forbidden the use of guilty pleas as evidence in conspiracy trials. Guilty pleas are not evidence of anything other than the power of a prosecutor to coerce such pleas.

  606. Mike,
    “Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(e) bars the use in evidence of the following (with exceptions) in any civil or criminal proceeding against the person who made them:”
    Willis is not using their pleas against them. She is using them against Trump.
    They are off, Scott-free.

  608. If and when Trump is convicted in GA over RICO charges, count on it being thrown out by the 11th circuit em banc, and the Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal.

  609. Steve,
    I didn’t think the 11’th would have jurisdiction. I thought it was state law, Georgia RICO law, not federal. Maybe I have this wrong.
    [Edit: I think this is correct. Trump’s lawyers have already appealed some stuff and it’s gone up through state court channels. link here.]

  610. It’s closer to the oppressed group is always right and should be absolved of any crimes by their protected identity group. These crimes are ultimately the responsibility of the oppressor because (insert historical inequity).
    .
    It is entertaining to see how others from the coalition of the oppressed attempt to justify atrocities they barely understand.
    .
    This is edgy and cool (do bong hit). Let’s go to the protest! From the river to the sea! What river? What sea? Who cares! Down with the man! Gaza loves trans people!
    .
    For me this has gone from a bit morally dubious to very unserious. The adults need to be in charge this time.

  611. mark bofill,
    Ultimately, Federal Courts have priority over state courts, especially where questions about the legitimacy of a prosecution is in doubt. The case in Georgia most certainly will qualify for review, as will the refusal to change venue. I can easily see DeSantis refusing to turn Trump over to be imprisoned on the RICO charges in Georgia. It could be a very ugly legal mess.

  612. Itā€™s closer to the oppressed group is always right and should be absolved of any crimes by their protected identity group.

    Maybe some of this has to do with “who is the group and who committed the crimes”

  613. The Teflon man, Biden, lifts improving on real clear politics from 14.9 to 14.8% disapproval.
    Incredible and impossible with all the real mud thrown at him while being protected by the press and the FBI.
    When will the public wake up or more precisely when will the Democrats let Hunter take him down and put Newsome in.
    Gone by Christmas.

  614. For those with a couple hours to spare:
    .
    Shattered Dreams of Peace | Israeli-Palestinian Relations After Oslo (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt3PpqaLfxo
    .
    This was aired in 2002 and covers a retrospective of Israeli / Palestinian relations in the 1990’s. PLO, Hamas, Arafat, Netanyahu, Terrorism, Clinton. It is surprising how little has actually changed. Back then there was some real effort to solve this problem and now everyone has turned into hardcore hopeless cynics.

  616. Camp David, BTW, was not a good deal for the Palestinians though Clinton pushed hard for it as a legacy. West Bank was carved up into discontiguous units with highways passing through whose access was to be controlled by Israel. This is what the Israeli foreign minister at the time said

    this same diplomat still behaves in a way as a historian when he says in this book that Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well.

    In the same conversation

    One last point. Dr. Ben-Ami left out another crucial point in his account. He doesnā€™t tell us why Taba ended. It ended officially when Barak withdrew his negotiators. It wasnā€™t the Palestinians who walked out of Taba. It ended with the Israelis walking out of Taba, a matter of historical record, not even controversial.

    https://www.democracynow.org/2006/2/14/fmr_israeli_foreign_minister_shlomo_ben

  617. Russell,
    Isn’t what Mike M has written above say that if a participant in a conspiracy pleads guilty, the plea itself cannot be used as evidence to take down the other members of the conspiracy. Wouldn’t you think that would also apply to a RICO prosecution.
    .
    That doesn’t mean that the person who pleaded guilty cannot testify against other members.

  620. Tom Scharf,
    “Back then there was some real effort to solve this problem and now everyone has turned into hardcore hopeless cynics.”
    .
    I was turned into a hard core hopeless cynic when I visited Israel and a couple of Arab countries (for consulting work) in the mid-late 1990’s, and spoke with many “ordinary people”, both Jews and Arabs, about the conflict. There is no solution because, rightly or wrongly, nearly all Arabs (and to a lesser extent, the entire Muslim world) are adamantly and irrevocably opposed to the continued existence of Israel. Unless that changes, or Israel ceases to exist, the fighting will continue. I have zero hope for a political resolution within the next 50+ years.

  621. Mike M,
    “I am still waiting for someone to tell me what the actual crimes were.”
    .
    Except for breaking into a voting machine, there were no crimes beyond thinking the wrong things. I think it is a garbage, politically motivated prosecution, and if there are convictions, they will mostly get tossed on appeal.

  622. John,
    “Wouldnā€™t you think that would also apply to a RICO prosecution.ā€
    Iā€™m not a lawyer and I have no personal experience with RICO. I have just started reading about it since your post about your wifeā€™s involvement in a case.
    That having been said, in none of the stuff I have read are the underlying crimes reconsidered. All of the attention is focused on proving the racketeering element. Itā€™s the ā€œRacketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ā€œ Act.
    Itā€™s really broadly defined in Georgia as my link above shows [43 separate statutes apply], and crimes outside the state can be considered.
    Adding to this is my feeling that any organization Trump has ever led probably could be convicted as a “Corrupt Organization” under RICO.

  623. Steve,
    ā€œI think it is a garbage, politically motivated prosecution, and if there are convictions, they will mostly get tossed on appeal.ā€
    Well Duh! Of course it’s political, as are all the anti-Trump prosecutions and civil cases. The end game is politicalā€¦ tie up Trump, his organization, and his money in fighting and appealing all these lawsuits. They arenā€™t trying to put him in jail; they are trying to keep him out of the White House. [and I am rooting for them]

  624. SteveF (Comment #226207): “Except for breaking into a voting machine”.
    .
    That is the most likely crime, but even that one seems iffy. Powell sent two people to collect the data. They were escorted into the building by a county official. I can not find how they gained access to the machines; perhaps the official had access. They then copied the contents of hard drives.
    .
    I don’t know that I see the crime. I don’t see why the file contents should be secret. They did not alter anything. It seems likely that proper procedures were violated, but I would think that a fireable offense or maybe something with civil penalties, not a crime.
    .
    Also, Powell was presumably acting as an attorney on behalf of clients. I don’t see how culpability could extend to her clients unless they knew she was going to break the law on their behalf. Surely even RICO is not that broad.

  625. As always it is confusing mix of weird relationships in the Middle East. The Arab states would prefer Israeli “go away” and see them as a constant reminder of Arab weakness and humiliation. Most of them near Israel dislike Iran almost as much. The “enemy of my enemy is my friend” seems to come up a lot over there.
    .
    The Palestinians seem to be everybody’s pawn that is getting endlessly sacrificed for geopolitical maneuvering. Many states support them, just not enough to take their refugees, join the war, or really actually help them very much.
    .
    Some of the Arab states appear resigned to the existence of Israel and probably see the forced removal of them as a very bad material outcome for everyone involved. Israel will fight to the death and are nuclear armed, it’s not going to go well.
    .
    As for the previous Palestinian peace deals, the question isn’t really whether they were great deals overall which is a judgment call, the question remains whether they are better off now for having rejected those deals. I would suggest they (they = Palestinians) are not better off, and the deals aren’t going to improve going forward. Iran prefers an ongoing fight with Israel because they aren’t paying much of a price.
    .
    For now there is even less trust between parties for obvious reasons so it will be 5 to 10 years for a new option to be on the table. A new Palestinian state that is disarmed and overseen by the UN or a coalition of Arab states will still be available at some point. Maybe a public referendum can be done. All this is low likelihood for the same historical reasons. I’ll copy this post so I can paste it back in ten years from now.

  626. Russell Klier (Comment #226209): “They arenā€™t trying to put him in jail; they are trying to keep him out of the White House. [and I am rooting for them]”.
    .
    Then you are an utter fool because you are rooting for the corruption of our judicial system and the undermining of our democracy.

  627. One would think a court order would be necessary to “hostilely” copy election machine hard drives. The integrity of these things should be worked out as it is in everyone’s interest. It is assumed the valuable data on these machines are already backed up immediately after an election so I don’t know what the search was for. Perhaps they thought the machines contained the “original data” that was later modified. Auditing of these things is not something I expect needed to be invented after the election. They absolutely should be able to be investigated and I expect nothing interesting would be found.

  628. Tom Scharf (Comment #226213): “One would think a court order would be necessary to ā€œhostilelyā€ copy election machine hard drives.”
    .
    I don’t know about a court order, but there should certainly be procedures to ensure integrity. It would seem that in the Georgia case, no such procedure was followed, so it seems that there was a violation of rules. But nothing was altered and there was no attempt to alter anything, so I don’t see where the rule violation amounts to a crime.
    —

    Tom Scharf: “I donā€™t know what the search was for. Perhaps they thought the machines contained the ā€œoriginal dataā€ that was later modified.”
    .
    Some scanners create an electronic image of the ballot, then software analyzes the image. So if one had a copy of the complete data, one could do a hand count of the ballots to check against the software. My impression is that is what Powell was trying to do.
    —-

    Tom Scharf: “They absolutely should be able to be investigated and I expect nothing interesting would be found.”
    .
    But independent audits and investigations seem to be not permitted. That is certainly the case in New Mexico. I think a bunch of the court cases lost by Trump’s lawyers were attempts to get permission for independent audits.
    .
    In a recent New Mexico election (2022, I think) the commissioners in one county wanted to do a hand audit before certifying election results. The state slapped them down good and hard. That, of course, makes many people even more suspicious.
    .
    As for “nothing interesting”, here is a list of some recent voting machine mishaps. They are very interesting.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_the_United_States#Errors_in_optical_scans

  629. I agree with the SteveF and Tom Scharf comments from above on the Israeli and Palistinian conflict. I blame the problem mostly on the Palistinian and Arab political leadership. Establishing a larger numbered working relationship between the Palistinians and Israelis could be a win win situation. Unfortunately maintaining political power for most politicians these days requires having hated enemies.

    I had a Jewish fellow who worked for me who in turn had a Palistinian fellow working for him. They saw the Israeli and Palistinian situation differently but it did not affect their working relationship.

  630. Mike M. (Comment #226212)
    ā€œThen you are an utter foolā€
    Iā€™m disappointed. It took 30 hours for the ad hominems to start flying. Usually, it happens much more quickly.
    “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”
    Touchstone in ā€˜As You Like Itā€™.

  631. the question remains whether they are better off now for having rejected those deals

    Barak’s plan, described by David Brooks in the NYT as a missed opportunity, was polled by 60% of Israel as conceding too much. According to this plan the West Bank was to be fragmented and separated by Israeli settlements and soldiers and their connecting highways over which Israel would retain control, as also over the airspace. If this something is better than nothing, Palestinians who had apparently 80% support for a two-state solution in the 90s, seem to be responding as if they have nothing to lose. Rabin was assassinated for his peace efforts. Netanyahu’s political life has been about opposing a two-state solution and the far-right occupies important cabinet positions controlling West Bank settlements. The trend is not favorable for two states. The existence of Israel though, IMO, is beyond doubt, and more so with more top-down peace arrangements with other Arab nations.

  632. Russell Klier (Comment #226216): “It took 30 hours for the ad hominems to start flying.”.
    .
    No ad hominen. Merely a judgement. I presented my reasons for that judgement.

  633. mark bofill (Comment #226017), and Mike M. (Comment #226212)
    ā€œWillis and other prosecutors donā€™t care if they usher in a new era of banana republic style political prosecutions, provided they damage Trump.ā€
    ā€œyou are rooting for the corruption of our judicial system and the undermining of our democracy.ā€
    You two seem to think what the Democrats are doing to Trump is somehow unprecedented. To my mind, political operatives using the judicial system to harm their political opponents is as America as apple pie.
    Just off the top of my head, I remember it happening frequently in my lifetime. None of these miscreants were ever prosecuted for their activity:
    Andrew McCabe
    Peter Strzok
    James Comey
    Lois Lerner
    Lyndon Johnson
    Richard Nixon
    J. Edgar
    Joe McCarthy
    That said, although I hope the Democrats are successful at stopping Trump, I do not approve of these tactics. I just donā€™t see them as unique.
    ā€œCome Mister tally man, tally me banana
    (Daylight come and we want go home)
    Come Mister tally man, tally me banana
    (Daylight come and we want go home)ā€

  635. During the infamous 2000 recount in FL my county had a recount error as one group of ballots was accidentally scanned through twice. I say accidentally because it turns out that double scan only affected the net outcome by a couple votes. This was caught by comparing to previous totals and was quickly corrected.
    .
    I imagine what the government doesn’t like is partisans trying to re-invent recount procedures. It makes sense that this should be worked out ahead of time and any deviation to that would require some sort of court approval or “independent” investigation.

  636. Russell Klier (Comment #226219): “To my mind, political operatives using the judicial system to harm their political opponents is as America as apple pie.
    Just off the top of my head, I remember it happening frequently in my lifetime.”
    .
    Could you provide some examples? I suppose Ted Stevens would count. Maybe that VA governor, but there was a lot of smoke there.
    .
    The norm is to protect one’s friends. Lot’s of examples of that, especially among Dems in recent years.

  637. Tom Scharf (Comment #226221): “I imagine what the government doesnā€™t like is partisans trying to re-invent recount procedures.”
    .
    I think it is much more likely “don’t challenge my authority” and/or “stay off my turf”.
    .
    I see nothing wrong with partisans trying to re-invent recount procedures. Failure to change results would build confidence in the system. An apparent success would not matter unless accepted by the authorities of held up in court. If that happens it would right a wrong and should result in improving the system.

  638. Re: Ken Fritsch (Comment #226215)

    Economic benefit for the Arab in exchange for giving up national aspirations is more or less the gist of Smotrich’s “One Hope” solution. He was appointed with responsibility of West Bank settlements in September. Evictions are being accelerated while the bombing is underway. He says that it is not an apartheid system, but it is indistinguishable from one.

    Peace will not emerge so long as we maintain our hold on starting assumptions that this land is fated to contain two collectives with conflicting national aspirations.

    https://hashiloach.org.il/israels-decisive-plan/

  639. Gore tried to reinvent recount procedures in FL. Hanging chads, etc.
    The media ended up recounting all the votes using like 14 different standards, Bush won the majority of those standards. The scenario to avoid is one side saying “keep inventing a new recount process until we are ahead and then the recount is officially over”. You want to set the standards ahead of time and allow for some exceptional stuff to be overseen by the courts.
    .
    Florida’s recount procedures were heavily revamped using input from both sides and now FL recounts are very fast and should be less controversial.

  640. Yes, *standards* should be set ahead of time. But an audit is to determine if the reported vote matches the actual vote using the standard. An audit typically involves some sort of sampling. It is reasonable to allow ex post facto sampling procedures. A true count should pass using any reasonably designed procedure. If some procedures indicate a true count and others indicate a false count, then further investigation is required.

  642. Learned about a new branch of science todayā€¦. ā€Ice Patch Archeologyā€. WIKI ā€œThe Yukon Ice Patches are a series of dozens of ice patches in the southern Yukon discovered in 1997, which have preserved hundreds of archaeological artifacts, with some more than 9,000 years old.ā€
    Thanks to global warming the ice patches are melting and unlike glaciers, ice patches are stationary. As a result, the artifacts and human remains are perfectly preserved. They can match DNA from human remains to living individuals today. One unexpected find was the extensive use of First Nations people of atlatls for hunting caribou.

  643. Mike M. (Comment #226222)
    ā€œCould you provide some examples?ā€
    First, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and James Comey were three FBI employees with Democratic political connections who abused their positions to ensnare Trump in the RussiaGate scandal.
    Second, Lois Lerner was an IRS attorney with connections to the Obama white house who targeted the Conservative Tea Party organization.
    Third, Richard Nixon had an ā€˜Enemies Listā€™ that he used the IRS and other agencies to harass.
    Fourth, J. Edgar Hoover was a long-time FBI director who used [abused?] his position to target many, many opponents. He harassed me and my anti-war hippie friends. He also targeted MLK, Elvis, and other rock and roll icons. I believe [without evidence ] he had Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin killed. He was part of Joe McCarthyā€™s campaign against Hollywood. He targeted labor leaders.
    Fifth, Lyndon Johnsonā€¦ Itā€™s been too long, I forgot the specifics.
    Sixth, Joe McCarthy became infamous for abusing his congressional oversight powers and riding roughshod over individualsā€™ dignity and constitutional rights to rid the country of Communists.
    These are just off the top of my head. In my more lucid years, I would have provided a lot more.

  644. The expansion of settlements is antagonizing and not justifiable in my view. Rather unhelpful for Israeli relations with basically everyone.
    .
    Ben Shapiro goes into Oxford and takes questions a couple days ago:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1NFirxhXWE
    .
    If you are going to debate Ben Shapiro on Israel, or basically any subject, you better bring your A game. It is notable there were the usual protesters outside who thought these views should not be allowed to be discussed.

  646. Tom, Shapiro’s antagonist lost the argument when she asserted that Britain did not target civilians during WWII. The allies bombed civilian areas that contained war industries and 2 million German civilians died. Israel will do the same thing. The idiots who expect war to be clean and neat are reality deniers.

  647. Russell Klier (Comment #226219): “To my mind, political operatives using the judicial system to harm their political opponents is as America as apple pie.”
    .
    I asked for examples, but got a list of abuses of government power (Russell Klier Comment #226229).
    .
    I suppose that in Russell’s more lucid years, he’d have realized that none of those are abuses of the judicial system. And perhaps even that abusing the judicial system is especially damaging to the rule of law. And also that his cited abuses of power were, until recently, met with bipartisan abhorrence. Toadstool pie, not apple pie.
    .
    There have always been abuses of power. Historically, they have been regarded as most definitely not OK. What is new is that so many Democrats now regard the abuse of power as perfectly OK as long as they are the ones wielding the power. Either we destroy the Democrats who act that way or they will destroy our Republic.
    .
    I stopped to ask myself if perhaps that last sentence is over the top. No, it is not.

  648. Rather unhelpful for Israeli relations with basically everyone.

    There is a cut-and-paste expression of concern about settlements from the US side across administrations. Aside from that, nonprofits are funneling hundreds of millions in tax-deductible contributions towards settlement projects. Politicians in both parties oppose blocking this.

  649. Mike,

    There have always been abuses of power. Historically, they have been regarded as most definitely not OK. What is new is that so many Democrats now regard the abuse of power as perfectly OK as long as they are the ones wielding the power. Either we destroy the Democrats who act that way or they will destroy our Republic.
    .
    I stopped to ask myself if perhaps that last sentence is over the top. No, it is not.

    Sounds over the top to me. What do you mean, ‘destroy the Democrats who act that way’?

  650. I’ve got a college age daughter who, like many other young people, bought the post structuralist grievance study trash that her university was pushing. IMO, philosophies downstream of Focault will all tend to regard the abuse of power as perfectly OK so long as they are the ones wielding the power, to one extent or another.
    Do you propose we destroy our college kids? Heck, what about our wives.

  651. Mike M. (Comment #226248): “Either we destroy the Democrats who act that way or they will destroy our Republic.”
    .
    Clarification: If we don’t destroy the power of the Democrats who are proudly abusing power, they will destroy our Republic.

  653. It’s more than a little convenient that one can choose to be in a victim group, or a “protector of victims” group and then choose an ethics structure that relieves you of any moral obligation to behave ethically in a universal manner. Pretty soon you believe in By Any Means Necessary and you still get to be the good guys. I find this rather lazy, no need for ethical struggles that have complex tradeoffs.

  655. mark bofill (Comment #226256): “Thatā€™s quite a significant distinction.”
    .
    Yep. What I meant was clear to me. So I failed to consider how else it might be read.

  656. I suppose the college protesters chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ would tell me something similar. I have been assured that those people are not in fact calling for the annihilation of Israel.
    Personally, I think much grief could be avoided if people would say what they mean and make a point of not saying what they don’t mean. But that’s just me, regular stick in the mud [that] I am.

  657. Mike M.

    When you have written “I would hope that arbitrarily banning *any* candidate would result in violence that would make Jan. 6 look like a church picnic” Comment #223347, one might reasonably conclude that when you wrote “destroy” you had something like that in mind.

  658. And in other news, here is Trump, proposing a new government expansion: the Federal Academy.
    Isn’t that just peachy. For Freee! Because it works so well when the government brings us stuff for free, that’s a longstanding element of conservative doctrine. No, wait…
    [Edit: The American Academy. Not the Federal Academy. My bad.]

  659. I should have tagged 226263 sarcasm. Poe’s law and all, sorry. Much grief could be avoided if people would just say what they mean after all.

  660. All birds named after English (i.e. white) people will be renamed. Hilarious.
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/us/bird-species-names-changing-scn-cec/index.html
    “Many birds sport names that come from White men with ā€œobjectively horrible pasts,ā€ according to the group Bird Names for Birds”
    .
    I imagine what happened here is that a few bird names were deemed problematic, committees of serious people were formed and the selection process bogged down in not enough supply of racist bird names for the demand, so rename them all! Except of course those named after non-White people who are of sound moral fiber by definition. In other news, the birds don’t care.

  661. Oh My Goodness, whatever will we do with Blackbirds?
    .
    I guess it will be bye bye Blackbird.

  663. Mark Bofill,
    Proving once more that Trump has not the faintest idea about the appropriate limits that should be placed on government. That makes him a kindred spirit with Democrats… they both have a lot of really bad ideas about government.

  664. Steve,
    Trump did some good things in office last go round, I won’t deny that. This idea sounds pretty dubious to me though.

  665. Mark –
    .
    > I have been assured that those people are not in fact calling for the annihilation of Israel…
    .
    Who are “those people?”
    .
    And the rest of the chant is “Palestine will be Free.”
    .
    There’s no doubt that some people who are chanting that want to dismantle the Jewish ethno-state.
    .
    There’s no doubt that some want to eliminate the world of jews.
    .
    There’s no doubt that some (perhaps naively) aware advocating for a democratic state where both Palestinians and jews are free.
    .
    I’d say also there are many who (perhaps naively) advocate for a two-state solution where Palestinian Israelis are extended full rights.
    .
    I think its also important to consider that part of the context is the ultranationalists and religious fanatics who are strongly advocating for anhialation of Palestinians, or for annexing the entire West Bank and removing the Palestinians there even if they aren’t necessarily annihilated. And that those religious zealots and ultranationalists have real political power in Isreal, and significant influence even in American politics, whereas students chanting “Palestine will be free”…well, not so much.

  666. Joshua,

    Who are ā€œthose people?ā€

    “Those people” referred to students demonstrating in various places about a week ago. Columbia, Cambridge, UCLA, other places. [Edit: The ones chanting ‘from the river to the sea, palestine will be free’, the college students demonstrating. Maybe I didn’t put it clearly, I was trying to say that the students were not actually calling for the destruction of Israel. In fact *you* were the person who assured me of that.]
    I essentially agree with you.

  667. Oh. Did you think I was being sarcastic? I wasn’t. At least not while I was saying that.

  668. Mark –
    .
    Yes, I thought you were being sarcastic. Apologies for the misread.
    .
    So I should be clear that I wouldn’t doubt there are some actual “Hamas supporters” in those crowds, but I’d suggest far fewer than is sometimes assumed.
    .
    I’d say there’s a lot of outrage mining going on re those marches just as we’d find with characterizations MAGA supporters.

  669. Joshua,
    That’s true. But I still think some part of it is genuine misunderstanding. I didn’t really believe Mike was calling for the actual destruction of people, of Democrats, up above, but it is also true that I thought that was what he was saying and I didn’t understand what he meant. I don’t think he chose his words very well in that case. Ditto for the protesters, except that it is much easier to imagine the worst about people one knows little or nothing about.
    I should eschew sarcasm entirely. It makes it easier to misunderstand me and I don’t know that it actually buys me anything worth having.

  670. Here’s a * government * spokesman for Hamas, this guy is a real piece of work. At least it’s perfectly clear what they think.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-ghazi-hamad-interview-israel-oct-7-0731bd48?st=x87g0npma8bnsi0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
    .
    ā€œWe must teach Israel a lesson,ā€ he says, ā€œand we will do this again and again. The Al Aqsa Floodā€ā€”the name Hamas gave its Oct. 7 operation to slaughter defenseless Israelisā€”ā€œis just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourthā€
    ā€œWill we have to pay a price?ā€ Mr. Hamad continues, referencing Hamasā€™s plan for endless invasions of Israel. ā€œYes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.ā€
    ā€œWe are the victims of the occupation, period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On Oct. 7, on Oct. 10, on October one-millionth, everything we do is justified.ā€
    .
    Hamas might want to send him to spokesperson finishing school. The Israeli backers have been strenuously saying for weeks now, listen to what Hamas is telling you right to your face. One might think these comments would make the news side of the WSJ, ha ha. There is never going to be a two state solution with these guys in power. Netanyahu will likely be gone relatively quickly once the war is over.

  672. I’d like to add, it’s much easier to misunderstand people or take hyperbole as if it was intended seriously when there are people like Hamas in the world who mean literally what they say when they speak of committing atrocity. Once that example is present, it’s much easier to mistake people who don’t actually mean what they say for people who do, because the ‘common sense’ barrier of thinking that ‘nobody thinks that’ is gone.

  673. Part of it the culture in that region.
    .
    Death to Israel
    Death to America
    The Great Satan
    Mother Of All Battles
    ISIS et. al.
    .
    The governments talk smack which isn’t done in the overly officious West: “If the unjustified aggression from our opponents continue, we will consider all options, including military”. That’s US smack talk. It’s been walk softly and carry a big stick for at least a century now.
    .
    One has to separate bluster for domestic consumption from actual threats. Hamas acted on their words, and their continued bluster is a bit irrational if they want to survive. The only thing I can think of is they are desperately, desperately trying to get Israel to overreach to draw in Hezbollah and other actors. Otherwise they are just reinforcing why they need to be eliminated through military force.

  674. Tom,

    … and their continued bluster is a bit irrational if they want to survive …

    The whole endeavor was irrational. The best explanation I’ve read regarding this was the idea that the Palestinians never in their wildest dreams thought that their attack would be as successful as it was. They caught the Israelis with their pants down and didn’t have the sense or discipline to reign in their attack. Hamas signed their own death warrant at that point and everything since is just flailing.

  675. I shouldn’t say it was irrational. I should say it was irrational assuming Hamas wanted to survive. Maybe disrupting Israel’s progress with the Saudis was worth more to them than their lives.

  676. mark, (Comment #226281)
    That’s an interesting and believable take on what has happened and suggests that Hamas never expected the kind of response they’ve gotten.They should have.

    Below is from a column Thomas Friedman wrote in the NYT on October 14.
    .
    “The Israeli response was so ferocious that Hezbollahā€™s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a now famous interview on Aug. 27, 2006, with Lebanonā€™s New TV station, shortly after the war ended: ā€œWe did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture [of two Israeli soldiers] would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ā€¦ that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.ā€”

  677. I do not support the ā€œI will not prosecute black thugs for violent crimesā€ approach to prosecuting, but I am impressed at how successful George Soros has been at getting it adopted across the country
    70 is the current tally. They are ubiquitousā€¦ North to South, East to West. 12 have been ousted in the past, but 8 are newly elected.
    Itā€™s also has spawned the ā€œI will persecute my white political opponentsā€ approach to prosecuting.
    What is truly amazing is that it caught the Republicans flat-footed. They could do nothing to stop it, and, still today, the Republicans are doing nothing.
    Map:
    ttps://x.com/rklier21/status/1720462834834751903?s=20

  678. I do not support the ā€œI will not prosecute violent crimesā€ approach to prosecuting, but I am impressed at how successful George Soros has been at getting it adopted across the country
    70 is the current tally. They are ubiquitousā€¦ North to South, East to West. 12 have been ousted in the past, but 8 are newly elected.
    Itā€™s also has spawned the ā€œI will persecute my political opponentsā€ approach to prosecuting.
    What is truly amazing is that it caught the Republicans flat-footed. They could do nothing to stop it, and till today, the Republicans are doing nothing.
    Map:
    ttps://x.com/rklier21/status/1720462834834751903?s=20

  679. It’s hard to say what Hamas’ motivations were. There is an opinion that this was Hamas’ bid to regain political dominance on the Palestinian side. Certainly they let down the cause of Palestinians in a dramatic way by causing a massacre on both sides.
    But it might be a mistake to think that terrorism is irrational as this column describes
    https://wapo.st/3FE2NJr

    Terrorism is politics by violence. In the sense of forcing the opponent into retaliating with repression and drawing global attention, this is standard policy for terror activities.
    For example, take the Wikipedia entry on Menachem Begin’s Irgun pre-1948. At the time Zionist terror was condemned by Gandhi (who sympathized with the Jewish people for their persecution), Einstein etc.

    He devised a new strategy designed to pressure the British, proposing a series of spectacular underground operations that would humiliate the British and cause them to respond with repressive measures that would antagonise the Yishuv, alienate Britain’s allies, and cause controversy among the British public. Begin believed that the insurgency would turn Palestine into a “glass house” with the world’s attention focused on it, and that the British, faced with a choice between continued repression or withdrawal, would in the end choose to withdraw.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory_Palestine

  680. This conversation of two Zionist leaders with Gandhi in 1946 is interesting for how the core issues of the debate have always been the same.

    ā€œWell, I am half a Jew myself,ā€ said Gandhi laughing as he greeted his visitors. And when they looked puzzled he described to them his intimate friendship with Mr. Kallenbach who was his inseparable companion in almost all he did in South Africa and Messrs. Polak and Ritch, not to mention several others. ā€œYou have my sympathy,ā€ he continued, ā€œBut you have come to the wrong person. I work within my limitations. I may not, therefore, be able to go far with you in view of your methods which I hold to be wrong.ā€

    There were two sides to the question, they explained. There was a small section of terrorist hotheads. What they did was altogether wrong.

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/gandhi-discussion-with-mr-silverman-and-mr-honick-on-jews-and-arabs-march-1946

  681. Mark –
    .
    > This is a war between the children of light and the children of darkness. We will not relent in our mission until the light overcomes the darkness; the good will defeat the extremist evil that threatens us and the entire world
    .
    As you and I have discussed, I don’t see a way to parse a moral calculus here, as I think everything must be viewed in the full context. And that context is incredibly complex. Isolating the statements of particular individuals seems counterproductive to me.
    .
    So that statement above, from Bibi in a letter to the IDF is only instructive, imo, with respect to understanding the full context. I could find much more radical statements from members of the Likud party in the Knesset. There’s much rhetoric from Israeli politicians and supporters of Israeli policies in this country, that explicitly play off of “end times” rhetoric to elicit support from religious fanatics in both countries. Or from the settlers who are systematically trying to ethnically cleanse the West Bank. Does that make Israel the bad guy here? Not in my view. Not at all. It makes the Isreali side complex, imo, in that it includes what I consider to malignant players who are seeking to crate an ethno-state, a goal I can’t support on either side, even as a jew whose ancestors came to this country to flee pogroms in Eastern Europe. Just like the range of Palestinian perspectives is complex. As another example, Hamas’ revised charter – states their goal it is not to eradicate the Jewish people, but to end the occupation (I guess they’d include Gaza along with the West Bank there, although technically Gaza want exactly “occupied”). But that charter revision, obviously, should not be seen in isolation, imo, given that terrorists slaughted civilians in the name of Hamas.
    .
    I can certainly understand the thinking behind the establishment of a Jewish ethno-state, and the violence perpetrated by Zionists to achieve that goal. I can certainly understand the rationale behind the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the violence perpetrated by Islamists to achieve that goal.
    .
    You say:
    .
    > I shouldnā€™t say it was irrational. I should say it was irrational assuming Hamas wanted to survive.
    .
    Still, while I understand it, I don’t think Hamas’ actions are rational. They are driven by decades of hate and oppression in a cycle of violence. They are driven by revenge and vengence and religious zealotry. But I would ascribe those same drivers for some aspects of the Israeli contributions to the cycle of violence. I don’t see either side uniformly. But I can’t characterize many of the actions on either side as rational even while I can understand the rationale behind them.
    .
    The only people I can actually support in this conflict, the only people I see as rational actors, are those who advocate, above all else for a SUSTAINABLE, democratic, peaceful and just solution. If I thought there was a sustainable and realizeable end goal behind Israel’s actions I could perhaps find a way to support them. However, it’s also my view that their actions comprise war crimes and I believe that counties have an obligation to not violate international rules of war. So it’s complex, imo.
    .
    And with that, given what I might expect as incoming, I’ll retire to an occasional lurker status. If you want to respond here, I understand but I won’t likely say anything more in the comments here on this topic going forward. If you want me to respond to a response to this comment, it might make sense to move to your blog. Although, I guess we’ve already been over most of this.

  682. Joshua,
    I don’t think you said anything particularly outrageous there. I think some of the confusion about what is ‘rational’ is really confusion about what the underlying goals of the actors are, that’s all.
    .
    John, RB,
    I appreciate your responses as well.

  683. Mark –
    .
    I agree. I think trying to figure out what is or isn’t rational can sometimes be hard.

  684. The practical explanation for the atrocities is that in order for Hamas to maintain operational security they could not inform 99.5% of their fighters anything was going to happen until the day of the attack. They then released them across the border with a bare minimum of tactics or operational training and things went way wrong because Israel wasn’t prepared.
    .
    Ironically I see it is as potentially believable that Hamas didn’t intend or expect this level of carnage for self preservation purposes. However even if this is true it doesn’t really make things much better. If the base instinct of the fighters (and apparently later some unaffiliated Palestinians) is to murder, rape, and pillage if given the opportunity then the problem is even bigger than a crazy governing group.

  685. The Likud was also founded with a party platform of what reads either like ethnic cleansing or denial of Palestinian rights.

    a. The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

    The theocrats are in charge and the moderates are shrinking. This was the column which ascribed this as a Hamas bid to regain political relevance.
    https://newrepublic.com/article/176512/palestinian-people-enraged-israel-hamas

  686. Hamas resorts to terror because it doesn’t have any other option other than to sit idle and take whatever Israel and the world hands them. This is extremely frustrating for them. When things are perceived to be really, really bad locally and it doesn’t seem like there are any self initiated solutions then rolling the dice even with low odds is rational because * there just isn’t a lot to lose *. After the war is over, are the Palestinians going to be in a measurably worse situation? Disregarding the material damage and lives lost, probably not. The odds the war will ultimately help them are pretty low, but not zero.

  687. Tom Scharf,
    “After the war is over, are the Palestinians going to be in a measurably worse situation?”
    .
    Interesting question, but IMO, the answer is clear: the Palestinians are going to be in a MUCH worse situation….. especially the many dead Hamas fighters and (sadly) many dead civilians as well, not to mention the destruction of buildings and infrastructure in Gaza. I see no obvious limit on the tactics Israel will use to eliminate Hamas.
    .
    Were the fighting to bring about some kind of two-state solution, that could be beneficial to the Palestinian Arabs, but there is nothing which happened over the past 50 years which indicates the Palestinians will ever actually accept a two-state solution.

  688. Maybe this has nothing to do with the Palestinians. If Hamas headquarters is beneath the hospital and Hamas generally uses the locals as shields for their operations, isn’t it possible that they don’t really care about the fate of the Palestininas and are more interested in destroying Israel. Who then could that be?
    .
    Iran

  690. Now that Bankman-Fried has been convicted on all 7 counts (fraud, theft, etc.) it will be very interesting to see what his sentence is. The presiding judge is a Clinton appointee, and may well be reluctant to give Bankman-Fried the 30+ years he richly deserves. I will not be surprised if he escapes with a relative hand-slap like 3 to 5 years in a (luxury) Federal prison for white collar criminals. Better he get 30 years to be served with killers and rapists, but I doubt that will happen.

  691. Both sides have staked out different positions on the two-state solution and the Palestinians, excluding Hamas, have had majority support for the two-state solution.
    From the WaPo article above

    Itā€™s more useful to ask how Palestinian attitudes toward violence have evolved. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, at the height of the Oslo accords in 1996 ā€” when a settlement seemed possible ā€” Palestinian support for the peace process reached 80 percent while support for violence dropped to around 20 percent. Clearly, Palestinians, like any group, are capable of supporting both violence and nonviolence, depending on the circumstances.

    In the Ben-Ami/Finkelstein debate above

    Come 1981, as pressure builds on Israel to reach a diplomatic settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, they decide to invade Lebanon in order to crush the P.L.O., because the P.L.O. was on record supporting a two-state settlement. As Dr. Ben-Amiā€™s colleague, Avner Yaniv, put it in a very excellent book, Dilemmas of Security, he said, ā€œThe main problem for Israel was,ā€ and now Iā€™m quoting him, ā€œthe P.L.O.ā€™s peace offensive. They wanted a two-state settlement. Israel did not.ā€ And so Israel decides to crush the P.L.O. in Lebanon. It successfully did so. The P.L.O. goes into exile.

    The 2000 Camp David proposal pushed by Clinton was decidedly not a good deal. The 2001 Taba proposals were better but as stated in the same discussion, Barak was a lame duck and withdrew from negotiations. The 2008 Olmert/Abbas discussions got very close.
    This is described here:
    https://www.slowboring.com/p/israels-two-wars
    Before all details were worked out, the Olmert administration lost power. Pro-peace plan administrations in Israel are generally weak. Israeli voters think that they are conceding too much.

  692. RB,
    Support for Hamas in Gaza is very strong. (https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87)
    .
    I have talked with many Arabs about what would be an acceptable solution. The answer is remarkably uniform: Kill the Jews and/or send them to other countries (those who would allow some Jews to leave are the ‘liberal’ Arabs). But nearly all seem to agree on this: eliminate Israel and create an Arab Palestine.
    .
    I have seen very little interest in a negotiated solution among Arabs.

  693. SteveF,
    That same calculus might be behind Hamas’ recent violence – they want to be seen as the true defender of the cause and their stock always rises after a war. But the support for two-state solution seems to change depending on the state of the peace process. The 2008 discussions between Olmert and Abbas got very close as detailed here before Olmert lost power and Israeli politics swung towards the right.

    https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1720114021892816915

  694. For quite a long time now, the Israeli government has been doing it’s best to make a two state solution is all but impossible. The 700,000 settlers in East Jerusalem/the West Bank is the evidence that makes that obvious.
    .
    Hamas actually made official statements that indicated openness to a two-state solution in 2017. As to whether that was an opening gambit, or bloviation with no real intent, is open to question.

  696. Is my comment at 12:13 (#226302) visible? I got a moderation notice but I can see it on my screen, although it’s not listed in the “recent comments” list.

  697. Yes, the settlement process never stopped, even while peace plan discussions were underway. Under international law, the occupier is not allowed to create settlements while a military occupation is in place. Palestinians have conceded that some of those settlements will be made permanent. The sticking point is that Israeli voters are unhappy with their leaders making concessions, not based on what is required under international law, but based on Israel’s starting points. And Abbas is not asking for the right of return of millions of Palestinians either. I believe the number was more like 150,000.

  699. Tom Scharf (Comment #226293): “Hamas resorts to terror because it doesnā€™t have any other option other than to sit idle and take whatever Israel and the world hands them.”
    .
    I don’t think that is true at all. Hamas REJECTS all options that do not include the destruction of Israel.

  700. The reason settlers have now become perhaps an obstacle to a peace plan is that there is a symbiotic relationship between the settlers and the politicians who are elected for pro-settlement platforms i.e., Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their fellow party members.

  701. I hope that people who think Israel should get rid of Hamas by use of overwhelming military force keep in mind that Hezbollah largely formulated in Lebanon under Israeli occupation (Israel unilaterally pulled out in a manner similar to how the US pulled out of Afghanistan) and Hamas largely formulated in Gaza under a similar state of occupation.

  702. Very few people believe getting rid of Hamas solves all the problems, it is just one of the leading candidates on the least-worst option list.
    .
    At this moment in time not getting rid of Hamas likely has worse outcomes. If you want a two state solution then Hamas (Iran) has definitely got to go as a prerequisite, it may still fail because of all the usual reasons including Israel.
    .
    Like the current situation in Ukraine if both sides actively want to fight then a peace settlement looks unlikely.

  703. Tom,

    At this moment in time not getting rid of Hamas likely has worse outcomes.

    I agree with this.

  704. RB,
    “Under international law, the occupier is not allowed to create settlements while a military occupation is in place.”
    .
    Please.
    .
    Under any sense of common humanity, never mind international law, it is prohibited to cut the heads off of babies. It is prohibited to rape and then kill women. It is prohibited to take civilian hostages.
    .
    The equivalency you propose is utterly and completely false: savage 8th century behavior (Hamas) versus 21st century behavior (Israel). Israel tries (not always with 100% success) to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas does exactly the opposite.
    .
    If you see an equivalency here, then I think you need to change your eye-glass prescription… or maybe your thinking. Were Israel actually the moral equal of Hamas, there would be nothing left of Gaza… no people, no structures, and “salt sewn into the Earth”, as the ancients used to say… and as they actually did in Carthage.

  705. Steve,
    Yes. I make that point a lot too. I’m pretty sure Israel could kill every living thing in Gaza within a few days if that’s what they really wanted to do. I think if the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, Israel would be a nuclear wasteland at this point. There’s no equivalence.

  706. Not creating an equivalency to Hamas in Gaza, at all. This is about what international law says about settlements in the West Bank.

    Let me add here – since it is necessary. What Hamas did is barbaric, and unequivocally condemned and without justification.

  707. mark bofill,
    “Thereā€™s no equivalence.”
    .
    Best thing you said in days. šŸ˜‰
    .
    But seriously, Israel could lob 15 or 20 of its 75 nuclear bombs into Gaza, kill most everyone, then just deport whoever was lucky enough to survive. But they will not do that, because they are civilized people. They belong in the 21st century, not the 8th.
    .
    Israel (indeed the entire West!), has offered Palestinian Arabs an olive branch, economic development, and greater human wellbeing for the Palestinian people since Bill Clinton was President. They utterly reject it, and I believe always will.
    .
    Sometimes reality is very sad.

  708. RB,
    IMHO, international law is the kind of silly crap you see on regular display at the UN….. an organization that seems to me mostly a vehicle to protect the ruling of the least legitimate governments.
    Would the UN EVER unequivocally condemn what Hamas does and their subsequent celebrations? Not a chance. IMO, the UN is a organization that wastes tax-payers’ money and then uses that wasted money to harm the self-same taxpayers who provided the funds.

  709. Not occupying Lebanon was considered the less sub-optimal choice. That resulted in Hezbollah. Desposing the government in Iran and propping up the Shah was considered the less sub-optimal outcome at the time. How did that work out? Supporting Saddam? Supporting the Mujahideen, Invading Iraq, occupying Gaza? There’s a long list of less sub-optimal choices to use violence, or support the use of violence by an ethno-state, that were all undertaken with the same logic.
    .
    I don’t know what is exactly less sub-optimal but I do strongly believe that Israel royally screwed the pooch by thinking promising to keep their country secure with the Iron Dome while aiding Hamas so as to undermine the PA, so as to submarine any viability for a two-state solution.
    .
    AFAIC, the “get rid of Hamas” notion is ill-defined at least, and as near as I can tell comes with zero of a plan for what would happen next except to the extent it won’t involve working towards a negotiated, political settlement, which has been something that Bibi’s government has made zero effort to achieve, and in fact has systematically gone about undermining.
    .
    And if you’re inclined to think my views are just a explainable because I’m of the “loony left,” they do overlap to an extent with the views of Patreus and even to an extent with Neftali Bennett, the RWer former Israeli PM.
    .
    History has demonstrated that lashing out in response to violence without a viable strategic plan actually turns out pretty frequently more sub-optimal and not less sub-optimal..
    .
    Of course it would depend to a large degree on the specific response and context-specific factors. But “getting rid of Hamas,” in addition to being I’ll-defined (imo) so as to be pretty much meaningless, could also include a wide variety of actions. Massive bombing that causes massive casualties (and new generations of Hamas supporters or recruits for an organization that will replace Hamas) is obviously not the only conceivable pathway for “getting rid of Hamas” even given the vagueness of that objective. .

  710. Mark –
    .
    > Yes. I make that point a lot too. Iā€™m pretty sure Israel could kill every living thing in Gaza within a few days if thatā€™s what they really wanted to do.
    .
    Sure. They could use a nuclear weapon. Or perhaps just make Gaza a “parking lot” by other means.
    .
    Are you sure that Israel doesn’t do that because the ramifications might be far worse for them than their current actions?

  711. Joshua, I won’t bore you too much with my responses since you and I have covered this ground already. I will merely remind you of my position, which is this: IDF has a responsibility to its people to eliminate a threat that has cost Israel over a thousand lives. These other considerations are secondary at this point and the time for worrying about such things as what happens to the threat tomorrow [whether or not the long term strategic situation improves or not] has past. The threat still exists right now and it has to be eliminated right now.

  712. Of course that’s part of the reason they don’t nuke Palestine. Not only would it be evil, it would indeed complicate their lives in lots of unpleasant ways. Being evil is often not a very rewarding course of action.
    Look, it isn’t just that they don’t nuke Palestine. Israel constantly demonstrates restraint IMO, over and over and over again. They ‘knock’ on buildings before they blow them up, nobody else in the world does that.
    Again. I don’t think I’m saying anything here we haven’t already talked about.
    .
    [Edit: I donā€™t necessarily disagree with you when you point out that Iron Dome gave the Israelis the technological option of fooling themselves into believing they were maintaining an unsustainable status quo. But. In the first place, Iron Dome was another example of Israeli restraint. The only other alternative to such systems when people fire rockets at a civilian population is to go kill everyone firing rockets, rinse and repeat.]

  713. RB,
    “This is about what international law says about settlements in the West Bank.”
    .
    No, this is about whether the world will accept atrocities typical of (and acceptable in) the 8th century, or not accept those atrocities.
    .
    This is not even a hard question: You can either absolutely condemn the actions of Hamas with no equivocation at all, or join the 8th century crowd, and help throw gays from rooftops. Your choice. If you think Hamas is justified in their actions toward Israel, then I welcome you to the 8th century.

  714. I agree, Mark. Ironically, the Jews are the original Palestinians, Palestine being a corruption of Philistine (historical opponents of Greek origin), imposed by the Romans as punishment for Judea’s less than civil response to Roman occupation. Jews only did what a certain type of person would insist “white” people would do. Decolonize and go back to where they came from. Fortunately for the colonizer arabs, the Jews do not insist, using the same methods that they use, that they should do the same.

  715. I don’t want my words to be twisted when I have already said Hamas actions are unjustified and condemned unequivocally. I have nothing more to say. Adios.

  716. Joshua,
    “Are you sure that Israel doesnā€™t do that because the ramifications might be far worse for them than their current actions?”
    .
    I am quite sure they don’t do that because they are civilized humans, many of whom I have known personally. The equivalency argument is pure garbage. The argument that Israelis would behave as utter savages, just like Hamas, save for an effort to avoid “consequences’, is so wrong that it would be humorous, save for that it is so demeaning to our joint humanity.

  717. I dunno.
    .
    It’s a reasonable point to raise for sure.
    .
    But the hypothetical nature of the construct seems to me to ultimately make the argument fairly useless except as a rhetorical flourish. Sure if the entire power structure of the whole conflict were different, then maybe Hamas would turn the rest of Israel into a parking lot. But then again there are certainly many Israelis who do indeed, advocate for leveling all of Gaza even though given the power imbalance makes it possible for them to cause massive civilian casualties without leveling the entire place and wiping all of them out. Do we really know that if the power balance were completely reversed what the different parties involved would do? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I don’t think we know that the kind of bloodlust we’ve seen from Hamas isn’t to any degree a function of their relatively powerlessness. We’ve seen such babarity many m, many times in the past throughout history, in fact among Israelis fighting against Arabs and Palestinians. It’s not unique to Hamas.
    .
    I see this argument as largely moot. Yes, there are bloodthirsty barbarians among the Palestinians. But actually they exist on both sides. And for me, the critical question is how can people work for a resolution given that fact? I don’t see how the fact that Israel could create a parking lot out of Gaza as a particularly important consideration for understanding what can be done to bring about a resolution. The fact that Israel can continue to systematically undermine progress towards a negotiated solution without turning Gaza into a parking lot is a great rhetorical point but seems to me, ultimately, to be rather useless.

  718. Joshua,
    .
    Fair enough. You don’t think such considerations are relevant to actually solving the long term problem. I probably agree with you there.

  719. Steve –

    > .I am quite sure they donā€™t do that because they are civilized humans, many of whom I have known personally.
    .
    I’ve known many of them personally as well. As well as many Arabs (although fewer Palestians). I disagree with you. But further, I don’t think our personal, anecdotal experience adds much to the question at hand.
    .
    I would say that the question of why Israel might not see leveling all of Gaza to their advantage, whereas Hamas clearly feels that terrorism is to their advantage, should be considered if you’re evaluating this question. I don’t think it dealing with that aspect would be a fully comprehensive answer, but just waving away the question, let alone based on anecdotal experience, doesn’t seem to me to be a very comprehensive way to approach the question.
    .
    > The equivalency argument is pure garbage.
    .
    I haven’t made an equivalency argument.

  720. RB,
    “I have nothing more to say.”
    .
    Good.
    .
    Proffering defenses for evil (“Yes, but those terrible Israelis have occupied Palestine!”) is itself indefensible.
    .
    I have personally talked with plenty of Arabs an Israelis about this issue. There is zero equivalency. The Israelis would for sure accept a “two-state solution” to have permanent peace with no neighbors threatening to invade. Hamas never will. To draw a false equivalency, as Hamas apologists always do, is both dishonest and evil.

  722. Hey RB,
    To whatever extent I misconstrued what you were saying, I apologize. If I was part of the problem with this conversation, it was not my intention to be.
    Shrug.

  723. Joshua,
    “But further, I donā€™t think our personal, anecdotal experience adds much to the question at hand.”
    .
    Really?
    Do you think our MSM is able accurately evaluate and convey that kind of critical information? I do not.
    .
    When many “normal” Arabs, not political types at all, say directly to me “we will NEVER accept the existence of Israel”, I think that is worth listening to. (Western educated Arabs, I might add). I take them at their word; they will not accept the existence of Israel, save for by force.

  724. Thanks Mark, I appreciate that. I am not comfortable with being quoted as saying things I clearly didn’t say. I definitely didn’t want to exit the conversation leaving those things hanging in the air. Having said that, I am not comfortable continuing from my end anymore and getting mischaracterized. So, I will exit at this point.

  725. Joshua,
    You are making the mistake of assuming that past choices that did not result in optimal outcomes (everlasting peace and justice in the Middle East) were therefore bad choices. It is just as likely that unspecified different choices would have made things even worse, and doing nothing is often on the worse list. In order to have that discussion a proposed alternate action needs to be put on the table.
    .
    Sometimes force actually works. Been hearing from ISIS lately? Seen any Russians in Kyiv? Is Saddam still on a nuclear weapon path? Kuwait probably has a high opinion of force. Are there downsides? Yes.
    .
    When Obama chose the nothing option in Iraq for the Syrian civil war it was disastrous and we ended up in there anyway. Did Obama make the right choice at that time? It seemed like it, but it didn’t turn out very well.
    .
    The use of force is always detrimental in the short term, usually for both sides. Whether it is worthwhile in the long run is a judgment call. It has to be examined on a case by case basis knowing what the parties knew at the time.

  727. Steve –
    .
    I often don’t agree with how people decide what comprises the MSM, but in sure I rely on many sources for information that are neither the MSM by pretty much anyone’s definition nor personal anecdote.
    .
    Mind you I’m not saying that I think that personal anecdote or personal experiences are at all irrelevant. But I think they are very insufficient for understanding these issues comprehensively as they are obviously quite limited by definition as we well as inherently subject to biases such as selection bias and availability bias.

  728. The get rid of Hamas option is normally paired with the UN or an Arab coalition temporarily taking over, and hopefully the Palestinians can then elect a new government (last election was 2007). If they choose a Hamas type leadership again then they can live with those results. I don’t have high hopes here, but it isn’t likely to get worse than Hamas for Israel.

  729. Tom –

    > You are making the mistake of assuming that past choices that did not result in optimal outcomes (everlasting peace and justice in the Middle East)were therefore bad choices.
    .
    First, I’m not assuming that optimal choices are realistic. We’re choosing among sub-optimal choices.
    .
    Second, I’m judging the choices, to some degree, on whether they achieved the stated, desired outcomes.
    .
    Not completely, as you can’t just judge a choice on the basis of the outcome (Mark and I have discussed this).

  730. If the Russians came in and took over a chunk of Kansas and loaded up the place with nukes and tanks then they probably wouldn’t have very good relations with the neighbors. Subsequently when a bunch of displaced good old boy farmers from Nebraska went over and slaughtered a bunch of the Russian colonizers then I imagine not everyone in the US would furiously denounce the farmers who want their cornfield back.

  731. Steve –
    .
    Looking back I can see a contradiction between when I said “don’t add much” and then said “not at all irrelevant.”
    .
    I should revise “don’t add much” to “add useful information, but it’s important to be realistic about the limitations.”
    .

    .

  732. Tom –
    .
    Thinking back to your point about the unknowability of alternative counterfactuals… (my slant on your point, anyway)…
    .
    So a critical piece here for me is an assessment of likely sustainability.
    .
    I’ll give you my assessment back in 2003 of the sustainability of the obvious reason for invading Iraq, (on top of what I considered as a ridiculous, bogus, invented stated rationale, the putative need to address an imminent threat), the reason that as the leaders of the free world it was in our interest as well as the interest of the world to affect regime chan IMO, that was indeed an unsustainable goal.
    .
    Let’s look aside the outcomes of hundreds of thousands of deaths, including many American casualties and deeply affected American military personnel, trillions spent, an equally instable “neighborhood in the end, an empowered Iran, a diminshed American standing on the world stage, largely shared opinion on the US that it was a colossal mistake, largely shared opinion in Iraq that the real reason was to plunder iraq and steal their wealth, much opinion around the world that we’re hypocrites in picking and choosing where we fight injustice (with significant ongoing negative implications in the “global South” as well as other places around the world).
    .
    Aside from all of that, my feeling is that the goal was unsustainable. It wasn’t well thought out strategically. It was unsustainable because it was based on a vast ignorance of the region (even the very basic differences and history of the Suni/Shia split weren’t understood by the architects). It was unsustainable because you can’t just invade a country and have rose petals thrown on you, as the designers of the invasion framing statednwouks happen (in weeks, not months). It was unsustainable because there was no actual plan for sustainability beyond vague arm-waving. Certainly no clear and viable plan was explicated to the people who were supposedly going to be liberated.
    .
    Of course sustainability is also subject to the unknowability of counterfactuals. But sometines the unsustainability seems obvious from first principles, such as the lack of a plan for making the action sustainable.
    .
    That’s what I see what’s going on in Israel. On top of the basic unsustainability of using violence to keep together an ethno-state, a state that denies a significant % of the inhabitants basic rights, in the middle of a region where huge numbers of people feel they’ve had their ancestral lands stolen.
    .
    Sometimes a short-term plan can make sense as a piece of a coherent longer-term plan for sustainability. I don’t see anything resembling something like that here. I see an entirely understandable desire for vengeance. If there were an accompanying plan for longer-term sustainability I might feel differently about it. What I see here is that the longer-term plan is an ethno-nationalist state as I just described. I don’t see how that outcome, even in the best case (but in my opinion vague and unrealistic) scenario where the shorter term goal of “eliminating Hamas” were achieved, I don’t see a sustainable outcome in play. Very much like I felt about invading Iraq for the purpose of regime change (if you don’t think that was the objective, pleas read the PNAC documents written by the architects of the invasion).

  733. Joshua,
    So that’s sort of interesting, something I don’t know that we’ve touched on. I was under the impression that it was supposed to be a good idea somehow for the Jews to have their own State. This seems to be almost the very definition of ethno-nationalism. Yet the way you use the term gives me the idea that you think this is in fact a bad idea. Generally speaking, do you disapprove of ethno-nationalism for some reason?

  734. Mark –
    .
    I think that ethno-nationalism is inherently problematic, particularly in the modern world.
    And particularly when it’s inextricably linked to religious identity. It feels antiquated to me.

    I think added on to that, it becomes especially unsustainable when it is built on a foundation of denying equal rights to a significant % of the inhabitants, particularly when there are millions of people living right next door who feel the ethno-state was built on ancestral land stolen from them.
    .
    Such a state, it seems to me, can only be ostensibly sustained through violence and, by definition, oppression. The reliance on violence and oppression seem to me to be inherent pressures on sustainability.
    .
    Of course I have mixed feelings in this case as to a “right to exist.” for Israel. I’m not sure I think it has a “right to exist” as that right is a function of a colonialist history. Who is it that gets to determine whether Israel has a right to exist? Britain? The UN? How are the voices of Palestinians accounted for when it’s decided that Israel has a right to exist? Of course, however, here we have a special case with jews who have been persecuted throughout history. That has to figure in to the concept of a right to exist. But integrating that in with the question of sustainability is a difficult task.
    .
    That’s why I think that violence used to prop up this type of ethno-state had an inherent problem as it’s using violence to address a short term objective in service of an unsustainable longer term. That’s why I think the use of violence must be, to the greatest extent possible, used to help create a more sustainable longer term.
    .
    I do think that Israel has a right to self-defense. Of course “self-defense” is a difficult concept here as at some level you have to get to the very complicated question of “who started it?” But despite that complication, I think trying to eliminate Hamas is close enough to a legitimate self-defense given 10/7. Even despite the decades of Israeli aggression (justified by Palestinian aggression, justified by Israeli aggression,, justified by Palestinian aggression, and on and on)..
    .
    But only to the extent that it’s strategic self-defense with a clear long-term goal towards sustainability. That’s why “getting Hamas” needs to be defined. What does that even mean? Is it achievable? Is creating hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of future terrorists willing to die to avenge the massive civilian casualties working towards a sustainable goal?.
    .
    It would help, in the least, of there were clear and obvious attempts to address the unsustainability of an ethno-state that denies rights to a large % of the inhabitants. But that’s not happening. In fact, the exact opposite is happening. Along with the mass casualties in Gaza, settlers are attacking and forcing Palestinians to move out of the West Bank. The religious zealots are weilding their influence through the Israeli government’s cynical pandering for their vote. Fundamentalst religious zealotry is, imo, in the modern world, inherently unsustainable whether it’s from Islamists or jews.

  736. Everything isn’t always about truth and justice and the American way, many times it is simply punishment and deterrence. This works on primitive tribal human brains but is less effective in university debate club. I see many fights as really being about stopping the next fight. If people in Gaza are driving down the road in ten years looking at crumbled infrastructure and the same poverty they may very well think, “Oct 7th was a really bad idea, let’s not do that again”.
    .
    The Taliban got two decades of the US camped out in their back yard. Bin Laden is dead at the hands of US special forces. Baghdad fell in 3 weeks. We could have lost that war however unlikely that seems now, that’s a truly bad outcome. People now know if you pick a fight with the US, you will probably get one, and lose badly. That’s useful as deterrence. Hezbollah is so far sitting this one out because of that. Iran is basically just throwing rocks.
    .
    Israel’s fight here looks to be primarily about retribution and deterrence, and secondarily it would be great if it could be enduring somehow. They are definitely in rage mode which will blind them to possibly a smarter answer. Rage mode has its place but isn’t great for long term solutions. I would argue that short term deterrence (10 years) should be the primary objective.
    .
    Iraq is hard to justify and it was costly, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have some good things happen. The Iraqi dictatorship is over, Iraq is weakened as a regional player (to Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s advantage). Syria’s subsequent immolation was strategically a win for the US / Israel even though it was a humanitarian disaster. Both Syria and Iraq were developing nuclear weapons. No longer. Saddam with a nuke wouldn’t have been a good outcome just like Iran with a nuke now is going to be bad news. Was it worth it? Meh. I can be convinced there were better ways to do it and better alternate outcomes, but somebody should suggest what that plan should have been.
    .
    The Middle East is a tinder box with matches landing every ten minutes so I don’t put a lot of weight into a series of unfortunate events having an original sin. I thought the surge in Iraq was completely idiotic but it worked somehow. I just want people to make reasonable decisions based on the information they had at the time. Iraq is the weakest case.

  737. The justifications for invading Iraq were to address a putative imminent threat. One that was imagined (or deliberately made up.mske your choice) and proven not to exist.
    .
    And also to advance American hegemony. It is quite remarkable to read an argument that was successfully achieved. That we increased our influence and power, as that shining city on the hill.
    .
    Trillions of dollars spent, thousands of American lives lost and many, many more serious causalities. Hundreds of thousands of iraqis dead. Iran’s power greatly expanded. A textbook example of American hypocrisy regarding the “rule of law” to he exploited throughout the globe. China and Russia have increased influence in the Middle East, to some extent because of a loss of American prestige and standing due to the invasion. As if there might not have been other ways to prevent “Saddam with a nuke,” such as the ongoing inspections which largely prevented him from having a nuke in the first place. Large and dangerous terrorist organizations grew out of the ashes of the invasion, to go on and kill countless others. Organizations that never existed prior to the invasion. But maybe it was a ringing success!
    ..
    Let’s look for dome other counties to invade, I say!
    .
    How does Israel deal with Syria and Iraq developing nuclear weapons? Massive invasions that leave behind total chaos and a lawless environment for the development of new and stronger terrorist groups along with massive civilian causalities, for the goal of regime change? No.Targeted attacks as they have conducted there.
    .
    But sure, despite the obvious and unequivocal negative outcomes, if we squint our eyes just right and shrug our shoulders, we can pretend it wasn’t a disaster. Now all we need to do is convince the bulk of the American public, and popluations in almost every other country in the world to change their minds, and agree with us that their eyes are lying to them, and they’ll agree with that aasessment. Maybe squinting and shrugging hard enough could get that done.
    .

  738. > . This works on primitive tribal human brains but is less effective in university debate club. I see many fights as really being about stopping the next fight.
    .
    Decades of brutal and disproportionate Israeli reactions to terrorist attacks don’t seem to have stopped the next fight. I guess that Hamas has been hanging out too much in the university debate clubs to get the message?

  739. Regardless, the reasons why we went in is rather besides the point I’m interested in re Israel. The point I’m interested in is that our plan sucked. Mostly because we had no plan. It was a reaction to use force as if just by using force you will teach ’em a lesson, even if you have no actual plan.
    .
    So with our invasion in Iraq, so with Israel’s reaction to 10/7..
    .
    What’s the plan? Liquidate Hamas. I guess if they never actually define what that means they can always claim that they achieved it. Lord knows dropping bombs always works so well at extinguishing an ideology.
    .
    Then what? Endless occupation? Holding a buffer zone and handing the rest over to Arab states that have no interest in running a destroyed Gaza? Handing it over to the PA, who will be seen as Israel’s enforcer? Imagine all the young children who will make it a life goal to destroy those who destroyed their homes and killed their families and friends. Is that the plan? Will those lower order thinking tribal people learn their lesson to not mess with Israel?
    .
    Well, at least it will help by improving relations with other Arab countries like Saudi Arab….
    .
    Oh wait. Never mind.

  740. Last week (Comment #226140) I posted:
    ā€œThere may be a US recon aircraft on station over Gaza.
    .ā€¦. is it a US drone?ā€
    It was a US Drone!
    ā€œUSAF MQ-9 Reapers Flying Over Gaza Amid Israel-Hamas Warā€ ā€œIn support of hostage recovery efforts, the U.S. is conducting unarmed UAV flights over Gaza, as well as providing advice and assistance to support our Israeli partner as they work on their hostage recovery efforts,ā€ Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder
    I also have been seeing a few manned spy birds- Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidons to be exact, but these have stayed well offshore near the carriers. Today, [overnight Tel Aviv time] one P-8A on station about 50 KM off the coast of Lebanon.
    Screenshot:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1720631964997128420?s=20

  741. Mark –
    .
    Just came across this. Kind of interesting:

    > “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
    .
    In the Likud Party platform. By extension some might argue that it’s a call for the annihilation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. I think that’s unlikely a valid interpretation but that seems to be the logic that’s being applied in the other direction.
    .
    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

  742. Joshua,
    .
    Actually [RB] linked that above, but yeah, that was the first I’d seen of it. He made a similar argument.

  743. I don’t want to be repetitive, so I’ll pass on treading back over this ground. I don’t think I have anything new to add here.

  744. Mark –
    .
    Ah. Didn’t see that..
    .
    So it’s nteresting that in the same document they say both that a Palestinian state is unacceptable, and that their primary focus is peace. Another example of just how complex it all is.

  745. Joshua,
    I await your wiser plan.
    .
    Disproportionate outcomes are the explicit objective of a military campaign. Germany and Japan were also the victims of disproportionate and brutal outcomes. Germany and Japan decided armed conflict wasn’t worth it and things got much better for them. Hamas seems to be immune, perhaps because it’s easy for Iran to fight with proxy forces, perhaps they just believe it’s worth fighting for to the bitter end.
    .
    Hamas and the people in Gaza have agency, they get a vote in how all this pans out. They can choose to end their provocations. They can choose to throw out Hamas. They can release hostages. They can surrender the fight at any time. Gaza will always have the option to continue to fight (and lose) no matter what the foreign policy masterminds have dreamed up. This is what they have chosen to do so far.
    .
    I don’t think Israel has any other viable option today other than destroying as much of Hamas as possible and prepare better for the next round. This plan is probably not going to work to your unspecified standard of success, but feel free to share what you think is success and how Israel can get there.

  746. Curious and a little disturbingā€¦
    I tracked a plane leaving Moscow that traversed Belarus and then Poland. I almost never see a plane travel from Moscow and fly over NATO countries. It was also curious because the plane ownership and flight information were redacted. It was a Boeing 777-2FB(LR), LR is Long Range. It has a maximum range of 9,395 nm. Some sleuthing and I found that the government of Equatorial Guinea has such a plane and President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo had been meeting with Putin.
    Screenshot of the track:
    https://x.com/rklier21/status/1720708746652061872?s=20
    Live track if it is still in the air:
    https://www.flightradar24.com/B77L/32b3979c
    Africanews:
    ā€œEquatorial Guinea open to cooperation with Russian companiesā€
    ā€œ”When the Russian government promises to send its businessmen to help Africa develop, we can only say: let them come. Equatorial Guinea gladly accepts this proposal” Nguema Mbasogo said.ā€
    https://www.africanews.com/2023/11/03/equatorial-guinea-open-to-cooperation-with-russian-companies//

  747. Tom –
    .
    > Disproportionate outcomes are the explicit objective of a military campaign. Germany and Japan were also the victims of disproportionate and brutal outcomes. Germany and Japan decided armed conflict wasnā€™t worth it and things got much better for them.
    .
    I don’t find Germany and Japan terrible useful as points of references for a variety of reasons. First, you list them as examples where disproportionate response could be considered successful. How many examples might the be where other strategies were successful with vastly fewer casualties and destruction? How many other situations were there where the use of overwhelming force were not successful, or were only successful over long and protracted engagements that ultimately wasted blood and other resources?
    .
    There are arguments made that our approach in Germany and Japan could have ultimately been successful without massive slaughter of civilians. Do we know that we wouldn’t have had similar results with Japan had we not dropped the 2nd bomb? Or detonated the bombs far enough above the targets to demonstrate their power rather than drop them so as to cause massive civilian casualties? Arguments have been made that the firebombing of Dresden could have been equally effective if it were more targeted.
    .
    The circumstances aren’t very similar in important ways. Military capabilities and methods have changed dramatically, enabling different tactics and strategies. If we had the capabilities we now have, would carpet-bombing Dresden still be the advisable approach?
    .
    Our war with Japan and Germany weren’t with enemies right on our borders. With enemies with whom there cycles of ongoing violence over decades, with attached issues related to who had stronger historical rights over what land. They weren’t directly religious struggles with deep roots. They weren’t asymmetric struggles with guerrilla forces which would necessitate a house to house urban struggle with dug-in forces in guerrilla warfare amid hostile civilian populations with decades of hate built up hatred, resulting in an ongoing and extended process of massive civilian casualties. We weren’t religious group attempting to create an ethno-state in Germany and Japan, where we would create a bifurcated system giving us full rights that were denied from populations in occupied territory.
    .
    Again, the most important consideration for me is long-term sustainability with an eye towards a better outcomes through a negotiated settlement. As difficult as it is to envision a negotiated settlement, I don’t see continuation of the status quo as sustainable except as we’ve seen over decades, with ongoing cycles of violence with massive civilian casualties and great suffering on both sides.

  748. Joshua,
    .
    Our experience following WW1 was that doubt that they lost should not be avaiable to the losers, therefore total disasters were required.
    .
    It could be that this is Israel’s intent.
    .
    Maybe someone who reads here will have discovered what the Hamas end game for the current project might be.
    .
    Maybe it’s as simple as generating great hate for the Israeli’s in another generation of Palestinians. Or, provoke and Israeli reaction which might justify in the eyes of the disinterested world an Iranian attack in force .
    .
    Other probably better ideas?

  749. Netanyahu was voted back in a couple of years ago. I’m not sure if Hamas really enjoys popular support or not. I am musing at the moment on the notion that there might be some incompatibility between our love of democracy and our love of peace. I mean, it seems possible to me that there is fighting between Israel and Palestine because a majority of Israelis and Palestinians want it that way. Who are we to thwart the democratic forces that put Netanyahu back in office, perhaps.
    Maybe this is wrong.

  750. Joshua,
    “As difficult as it is to envision a negotiated settlement, I donā€™t see continuation of the status quo as sustainable except as weā€™ve seen over decades, with ongoing cycles of violence with massive civilian casualties and great suffering on both sides.”
    .
    Seems to me that has been the situation for a very long time, so the cycles of violence will surely continue unless there is a fundamental change in the dynamics. That is why I expect the Israelis plan on making a fundamental change in the dynamics. Negotiation is a nice idea, but never is successful when there is no common ground… and in this situation, there really is no common ground.

  751. > I await your wiser plan.
    .
    As for wiser plans. I’m not really qualified to lay one out. But I have a general sense that ANY plan should fit within a longer-term, sustainable strategy were it is explicitly explicated how it will achieve a sustainable outcome where people on both sides can live with dignity and security and equality. Mostly, how that boils down to the current situation, is that it (1) entails a more targeted approach to deteriorate Hamas’ capabilities in measurable ways, not vague hand-waving about “ending Hamas” in ways that are vague and measurable and, (2) makes explicit how it is linked to longer term, equitable outcomes.

    Here’s a link to an article by a “conservative” where he discusses something headed in that direction based on the views of the RWer (“ultraconservative”) former PM of Israel. I know that many folks here aren’t exactly huge fans of the NYTimes, but if dislike of the source (and the paywall) are surmountable obstacles, it might help to set the outline of the debate:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/israel-hamas-strategy-bennett.html

    Now that’s certainly not a plane I think is a better choice among the options, but I do think at least compared to what’s going on it’s based on a coherent strategy.

    Here’s another article (likely to evoke similar responses re the source) that gets to something closer to what I think would make sense. Mark didn’t like the morality talk in this article, but maybe that can not be a distraction w/r/t the range of potential plans:

    https://www.vox.com/2023/10/20/23919946/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-ground-invasion-strategy
    .
    Regardless, I would hope that any inability I would have in detailing a “wise plan” shouldn’t mean that it’s not possible to conceive of the potential for their to be one, developed by people smarter and more knowledgable than myself. Seems to me that part of the problem here is that people with VERY limited knowledge of the subject at hand think they’re in a position to formulate confidence conclusions re such a deep and complex topic.
    .
    One more piece, then I’ll make people happy and take a break.
    ‘.
    A main problem for me here is how just about 1 month ago, Bibi’s government was pretty complacent. To the point where they even facilitated massive transfer of funds to Hamas (via Qatar) and undertook a policy of massively exacerbating tensions through allowing expansion of the settlements and provocative events to take place at the Temple Mount/al Aqusa Mosque. They were so confident that they were deliberately transferring resources from the Gaza border to the West Bank. They promised Isrealis security through the Iron Dome and essentially gave up entirely on pursing a negotiated solution. To the point that they felt confident that they could provoke more anger among Palestinians without there being security implications.
    .
    The point being, that was an unsustainable policy. Obviously so. At some point, sooner or later, there would be a security failure. The policies were predicated on an unrealistic belief that they could continue along that path without there being a breakdown at some point. That’s the problem with this kind of terrorist threat. You have to be perfect – an unrealistic standard.
    .
    So this kind of even happens, exposing massive breakdowns in Bibi’s approach. So what do they do? Do they address those breakdowns by addressing those failures, specifically? Including a limited, more aggressive approach to going after Hamas?
    .
    No. Essentially, they admit that their previous policies were entirely inadequate. Instead, they say they have to conduct a massive military campaign because that one attack, which revealed specific, limited errors in their approach, completely changes the landscape so as to justify a completely different approach. Huh? They’re basically acknowledging their previous plan was entirely inadequate when just one month ago they were largely complacent? This looks to me like the definition of incompetence.
    .
    And yet, here we have people who regularly preach about how government incompetence is a problem, who more or less seem to have complete confidence in the response of the Israeli government. Now government is to be trusted in the decisions being made with regard to how to use deadly force. Where’s the questioning about Bibi’s motivations to act out of political expediency? Why aren’t the OBVIOUS questions about his self interest, his desire to appeal to the religious zealots and ultranationalist vote – the constituency which kept his badly listing government afloat, being more robustly and uniformly asked by people who tend to be so uniformly critical of “big government?”
    .
    i think ANY plan should be looked at through such a filter. Just as it should have been here, when the Bush administration was advocating a “preemptive'” war in Iraq.

  752. Ok, I promised to take a break but I wrote a comment a while back and can’t get it through. But at that point I couldn’t get anything through and now I’ve been able to get some other comments through so I’m going to go back and try to get this one through. I hate writing comments and not being able to get them through. I’m going to try to take pieces out to see if I can find what’s causing the problem.
    .
    Tom –
    .

    You say:
    .
    >Hamas and the people in Gaza have agency, they get a vote in how all this pans out. They can choose to end their provocations. They can choose to throw out Hamas.
    .
    Hmmm. I find that problematic. First you link together Hamas and the people in Gaza as if theyā€™re a single entity but then separate them when you say that ā€œtheyā€ can choose to throw out Hamas. I think itā€™s facile to just say ā€œthey can choose to throw out Hamas.ā€
    First, it effectively ignores all the understandable reasons why Palestinians in Gaza would want to continue armed resistance/aggression against what they see as an oppressor who has held them down over decades. You donā€™t have to weigh in on the moral equation here to understand how that kind of element comes into play. To just say ā€œwell, they donā€™t have to be that wayā€ just flattens those issues in an unconstructive manner, imo, so as to make for easy judgements to be formed in a very complex environment where people who have legitimate grievances on both sides are in a long-standing struggle.
    .
    Second, it ignores the dictatorial nature of Hamas, and the tactics they use to deny agency to any Palestinians in Gaze who would choose to live without Hamas, whether because they donā€™t like Hamas for a variety of reasons or because theyā€™d prefer a pathway other than ongoing violent resistance.
    .
    ā€˜This touches on what I consider to be another big issue ā€“ the widespread category errors I see in many of these discussions. Where people compare Hamas to the Israeli government, or Hamas to Israelisā€¦IMO, the useful comparisons, to the extent that comparisons are useful (which I have questions about, maybe Iā€™ll write another comment on why) are between Hamas and the religious fanatics (and ultra-nationalists) in Israel. Or between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Israelis in Israel. Oh, wait, no, to the Jews in Israel? Or to all of the Israeli citizens including the significant portion who are Palestinian Israelis?
    .
    I think itā€™s important to maintain those relevant distinctions in these discussions.

  753. The problem is in the first part of the comment. I’m going to walk my way back up to find the problem. Sorry for all the posts. I promise I’ll take a break after I get through this
    .
    .
    For me, thereā€™s a kind of bottom line that I think itā€™s most likely that most civilians in Gaza (as well as Israel) want more than anything else to lead peaceful lives, with security and safety and equality and opportunity and freedom to make choices over their future. Theoretically, with agency they would choose to work to achieve those goals over mass slaughter of enemies. Of course, there are elements in the Palestinian population who would flip those priorities. But they exist within the Israeli population as well. Clearly, the people who would prioritize that first set of goals have far greater agency in Israel than in Gaza, but that doesnā€™t prevent the religious zealots from exercising heavy influence on policies in Israel.
    .
    And I think itā€™s important to remember that part of the picture is that it has been a stated goal, and clearly evident goal by virtue of what has been manifest, for the Bibi government to empower Hamas over the more moderate elements in the Palestinian population. To give Hamas greater agency relative to those other elements. I donā€™t think it makes sense to look at this situation without considering the impact of policies that directly support the ongoing expansion of religious settlements in the West Bank, and the increasing power of those settlers who are mostly of the religious fanatic variety not entirely dissimilar from Hamas. I think itā€™s hard to overate how that policy, which directly undermines any reality of a negotiated solution in a variety of ways, affects the situation. Also, importantly, policies and developments re the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa mosque.

  754. So the problem is at the top of my comment. This is the last piece. It picks up in response to Tom’s comment about the agency of the Palestinians in Gaza:
    ..
    Well, there are all kinds of issues there. As Iā€™m sure you must be aware, there is a dictatorship in Gaza which was voted in some 16 years ago. So itā€™s not like Palestinians there actually have much agency. Particularly when you consider that included in the population now are so many children, and people who werenā€™t of age even to vote 16 years ago.
    .
    The research on public opinions in Gaza re Hamas is difficult to interpret. It seems clear that a very large percentages donā€™t like Hamas (because of corruption and their brutal repression), but whatā€™s less clear is what percentage would prefer a negotiated one state or two state or alternative settlement versus what percentage prefers an armed struggle. Itā€™s important to keep in mind that views on that topic are likely to swing pretty dramatically as conditions change over time and specific events occur.

  755. Done!
    .
    So somehow breaking the comment up and working it into pieces that I then posted in backwards order, bottom to top, solved the problem. Go figure.
    .
    Having gotten it all through, much to everyone’s relief, I will take that break now.

  756. mark bofill (Comment #226358): “Iā€™m not sure if Hamas really enjoys popular support or not.”
    .
    I wonder the same thing. It seems that if you ask Palestinians, they say they support Hamas and want to see Israel exterminated. But is that what they really believe, or just what they know they are expected to say? I don’t know.
    .
    I think that a lot of people here express support for trans rights and other DIE nonsense but know that it is destructive nonsense and would be delighted to see it all go away.
    .
    When ISIS was winning, they enjoyed a lot of support from Muslims worldwide. It seems that much of that support evaporated when ISIS started losing.
    .
    Hitler enjoyed plenty of support from Germans when Germany was winning. I imagine that support dropped rapidly when Germany started losing. And it collapsed completely once Hitler was dead and the Nazis were out of power.
    .
    So maybe wiping out Hamas will just entrench Palestinian hatred for Israel. Or maybe it will give the Palestinians a chance to decide that it is time to try something different. A problem with the latter is that even with Hamas gone, there will still be plenty of imams preaching hate.

  758. Mike M,
    “A problem with the latter is that even with Hamas gone, there will still be plenty of imams preaching hate.”
    .
    You know what Barak O said: “Islam is a religion of peace.” I guess the imams didn’t get the message.

  760. Joshua,
    I believe Bush was one of the dumbest presidents ever, though I admit I thought Obama wasn’t much smarter.

  761. I’ve got Muslim friends. I’ve got Baptist friends. [All] of my Muslim friends have as little in common with Terror Islam as my Baptist friends have in common with Westboro. I don’t think there’s a lot of use in attacking the problem from that angle.

  762. Joshua,

    And yet, here we have people who regularly preach about how government incompetence is a problem, who more or less seem to have complete confidence in the response of the Israeli government. Now government is to be trusted in the decisions being made with regard to how to use deadly force. Whereā€™s the questioning about Bibiā€™s motivations to act out of political expediency? Why arenā€™t the OBVIOUS questions about his self interest, his desire to appeal to the religious zealots and ultranationalist vote ā€“ the constituency which kept his badly listing government afloat, being more robustly and uniformly asked by people who tend to be so uniformly critical of ā€œbig government?ā€

    For my part, I am not an anarchist, and not being a fan of government solutions doesn’t mean that I see no role for government. One of the few legitimate purposes of government in my view actually is warfare, and in particular warfare in defense of the citizenry. This is why questions about Netanyahu’s possible self interest do not spring to my mind, because it looks like the government of Israel and the IDF is actually doing what it ought to, at least from my point of view.

  763. News Flash: Internet randos on obscure forum solve the Israeli – Palestinian crisis!
    .
    Probably not, ha ha.
    .
    Joshua,
    I’ve already read those articles. I have read a bunch of stuff and nothing really stands out to me for an enduring solution. The two sides need to reform themselves in fundamental ways (mostly Hamas IMO). I would point out that Israel surely has a real plan for the short term, they unsurprisingly aren’t saying what that is. Ultimately the long term needs to have incremental trust built between the two sides which is difficult with Iran successfully trying to blow that up.
    .
    Sometimes the people on the other side are not reasonable. Assume Hamas is run by Dick Cheney if that works for you. Who is Israel to negotiate with today? This is a real question and I really don’t know the answer to this. I also suspect Israel would have been a difficult partner to negotiate with even on Oct 6th if Gaza was run by Gandhi.
    .
    The fundamental disconnect here is an assumption that Israel is the problem and Israel can solve it by reforming itself. It’s the only thing Israel can directly control so it is fine to examine that, but Jesus (Allah?) … look at the other side. If sending a barbarian horde over the border to massacre 1000 civilians doesn’t draw the focus away from internal politics then nothing will. It’s not a minor point, this is a very clear act of war. If there are indications the people of Gaza didn’t support this, then I have not seen it. There is a limit to the amount of charity they should receive for being victims of Hamas governance, but I also expect they are going to blame and resent the people dropping the bombs first and foremost.
    .
    For now I think both sides want to fight, so they will.

  764. Mike,

    Hitler enjoyed plenty of support from Germans when Germany was winning. I imagine that support dropped rapidly when Germany started losing. And it collapsed completely once Hitler was dead and the Nazis were out of power.
    .
    So maybe wiping out Hamas will just entrench Palestinian hatred for Israel. Or maybe it will give the Palestinians a chance to decide that it is time to try something different.

    Sounds reasonable to me. I think once Hamas is gone it will be the time for diplomacy and looking for a peaceful way forward. Then, but not before.

  765. Tom,

    The fundamental disconnect here is an assumption that Israel is the problem and Israel can solve it by reforming itself.

    Bingo! That is the single sentence that captures the problem I have with most of the criticism I hear regarding Israel right now.
    .
    There will come a time for such considerations as I mentioned in my comment to Mike above. After the war, after Hamas is gone.

  766. Joshua,
    “…thereā€™s a kind of bottom line that I think itā€™s most likely that most civilians in Gaza (as well as Israel) want more than anything else to lead peaceful lives, with security and safety and equality and opportunity and freedom to make choices over their future.”
    .
    No doubt also love motherhood and apple pie, right?
    .
    The support for making Sharia Law the law of the country is overwhelming in the Palestinian population (as well as most Muslim countries): https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/
    .
    As of 2013, 89% of people in the Palestinian territories believe Shari should be the basis of all government.
    .
    I think it is obvious that Sharia (you know, like throwing gays from rooftops) is utterly incompatible with equality, opportunity, and freedom to make choices… leave the faith and be put to death doesn’t sound much like ‘freedom to make choices’. As unfortunate as it is, I believe Islam is completely opposed to the things you claim the Palestinians want. I think this qualifies as projection on your part; I don’t believe there is a shred of evidence the Palestinians want what you suggest.
    .
    What they clearly do want is to kill Israelis and destroy Israel.

  767. Tom Scharf,
    “The fundamental disconnect here is an assumption that Israel is the problem and Israel can solve it by reforming itself.”
    .
    Exactly. There is no equivalence (no matter the number of arm-waves about “lack of Palestinian power”) on the two sides. The Palestinians do not want ANYTHING except the destruction of Israel, and the Israelis are not likely to agree to that. When there is no counterparty with whom you can negotiate, no negotiation is possible. (See also Russia v. Ukraine)

  768. > ā€œThe fundamental disconnect here is an assumption that Israel is the problem and Israel can solve it by reforming itself.ā€
    .
    I, for one, make no such assumption. It is my belief that both sides at more or less all levels need to reform and dedicate themselves towards a negotiated solution – or we’ll just get more of the same. Imo, “the” fundamental disconnect (I don’t actually think there is a “the” fundamental disconnect, but just to mirror the language) is that people in both sides think that repeating the same kinds of interactions that had been going on for decades will produce different results.
    .
    Along those linesz the Israelis are setting themselves up for future security breaches and future Israeli casualties. It is inevitable. It would be good, I guess, if they are honest with themselves about that commitment. My sense is that Bibi promised otherwise and is [edit] now largely engaged in CYA policies.
    .
    Along those lines:
    .
    > The Palestinians do not want ANYTHING except the destruction of Israel, and the Israelis are not likely to agree to that.
    .
    “the Palestinians” and “do not want anything.” There’s nowhere to go with that. It’s the same as me generalizing from the Jewish religious fanatics to monolithically describe what all Israelis want (e.g., removal of all Palestians from the river to the sea).
    .
    I think it’s useful to keep in mind that for a long time this conflict had a very similar character even before Hamas and Islamists were even on the even and even when the actors on the Palestinian side were secular.
    .
    As for no party to negotiate with, that’s a complicated topic which, at least, is directly affected by Israeli (and American) repression of those who could be partners for negotiation (e.g., such as the BDS movement which is the subject of repressing legislation in many American states) and a long history of undermining additional elements that do accept the existence of Isreal and do seek a two-state solution, in trade-off for the votes of those who seek to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem. A lack of progress on a negotiated settlement has multiple parents. If people aren’t willing to hold people in Israel accountable, no progress towards a negotiated settlement will occur, just as if there was no expectation to hold Hamas accountable.
    .
    Anyway, I think we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns for me. Thanks, all, for the chat.

  769. We do not do enough to negotiate before resorting to war or giving thought about what can lead to a war, and that ā€œnot doing enoughā€ and thought can go back many years. Wars kill innocent civilians and destroy their properties and well-being.

    Unfortunately, wars will continue if such action is considered the ultimate method of attempting to solve conflicts, that it is part of an innate human tendency, and that the success of war is based on proposed counterfactuals and not on the war damages and failures to solve the issues leading to war.

    The Israel and Palestine conflict pre-dates the 1947 UN resolution, but the establishment of the Israel state, even though driven by good intensions and well-deserved guilt from some of the world, it involved the taking of property and led immediately to the Palestinian-Israeli war of 1947-1949 which was brutal and made a bad situation worse and more lasting.

    It is too easy to take sides in a war where one side is painted entirely as evil and the other side is entirely good when the issue should be, if we are ever to attempt to forgo wars, war alone must be looked at for what it is: cruel, damaging, and futile in resolving issues that lead to war. Besides, wars are the results of what nation states do and propagandize their people to do. Any evil must be attributed to where it belongs. Once a dispute provokes a heinous act, like we saw on Oct 7, it is too late for any form of negotiation to avoid a strong and forceful answer from the victim of that act. That fact should not, however, make the suffering of innocent people on both sides of warfare any more bearable or prevent thinking about how to avoid such horrendous events.

  770. Ken Fritsch,
    “…cruel, damaging, and futile in resolving issues that lead to war.”
    .
    Cruel and damaging? Sure, 100% of the time. But futile in resolving issues? You mean like WWII? Or the Revolutionary War? Or the Civil War? No, these were not futile.
    .
    Wars often do resolve issues that are otherwise intractable. Or as some smart person said: war is diplomacy by other means. Of course, many wars, if not most, are extremely foolish in their implementation and/or motivation, and so resolve absolutely nothing (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and many more), but some wars do resolve problems.
    .
    Just ask the Romans about Carthage. šŸ˜‰

  771. One option could have been Israel closing the border and lining up on the border and giving Gaza an ultimatum: You have 30 days to depose Hamas and release the hostages or else the miltary is coming in. That would have at least given the citizens an opportunity to resolve it, as well as show the world where they stand. Additionally a cooling off of Israeli blood lust. Do I think this would have worked? No.

  772. Ken –
    .
    > It is too easy to take sides in a war where one side is painted entirely as evil and the other side is entirely good
    .
    I could just ask Lucia to delete my long rambling comments and replace them with that.

  773. “It is too easy to take sides in a war where one side is painted entirely as evil and the other side is entirely good”
    .
    Except, it seems, when one side is Russia, of course.
    .
    The Palestinians obviously deserve a shot at getting out of poverty and getting rid of their horrible, oppressive government in Gaza. Israel should accommodate a two-state solution so that shot is possible, but only if the Palestinians are willing to accept the existence of Israel. So long as Palestinians refuse to accept the existence of Israel (and today they clearly do not), they will never get that shot. Nor will I shed any tears over their choice.

  774. It’s not nuanced when one side targets civilians and murders them in a surprise planned attack on GoPro cameras, followed by government representatives justifying this and promising more of the same. That is literally ISIS level bad behavior. Israel is not painting them as evil, they are painting themselves and they are * proud * of it. This is not propaganda, it’s as close to a by the book definition “evil act” there has been in a long time.
    .
    I completely agree that sides enter war too quickly without fully understanding what the costs will probably be or what the probability of a good outcome are, but this situation is truly different. It’s not a close call.

  775. []
    There’s an estimated 800K children in Gaza that are guilty of nothing but being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I ‘get’ that there’s little to be done about this fact and that this doesn’t really change anything, but for me it does drive a certain compassion. Just saying.
    .
    [Edit: Iā€™m not disagreeing that sometimes war isnā€™t necessary, sometimes it is. I just take some small exception to shedding no tears over the Palestinians when 40% of them are just kids.]

  776. Apparently half the Gaza population is 14 years old or younger. It seems to me that this would make the child mortality rate in this war fairly high.
    .
    This does not dilute the tragedy in any way.

  777. Mark bofill,
    “..take some small exception to shedding no tears over the Palestinians when 40% of them are just kids”
    .
    Fair enough, it is truly and terribly tragic that some of those kids will die, in spite of Israel’s best efforts to avoid civilian casualties. But I don’t think Israeli solders are going to be cutting off the heads of kids, nor raping and then killing Palestinian women.
    .
    There is no equivalency.

  778. Right, I agree. I believe the best thing Israel can do actually is remove Hamas from the equation. There is going to be a certain amount of unjust death and ruin involved with that, like there is in every war. If the Israelis were gods maybe I’d hold them responsible for that, but I don’t. Sometimes all we can do is the best we can. It doesn’t really change anything, like I said.
    I point it out mostly because for awhile my thinking went along the lines of holding the Palestinian civilians to some extent responsible for Hamas and for their situation, but eventually I remembered how many damn kids are there who bear no responsibility whatsoever. I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold Palestinians responsible for Hamas atrocities for this reason at least if no other. I thought I’d throw this out there in case anyone else might benefit from it as well.
    Shrug.

  779. Gary Larsen understood life.
    His cartoon of the cat plastered on the window due to the accident outside its house exemplifies the Middle East conflict.
    We can watch tragedies (in this case) unfold and while we can want to get involved with them, we cannot.

  780. Angech,
    The government of the United States sure as heck will involve itself. We as voters and constituents have some obligation to sort out where we stand.

  781. The Far Side was always one of my favorite funny cartoons…. I actually bought a couple of Far Side compendiums, and was sad to see it disappear. Larsen and I are almost the same age (within a couple of months).

  782. When CNN is reporting it, you know the end of the Ukrainian effort to “retake all of Ukraine” is near:
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/03/world/ukraine-president-warns-long-attritional-war/index.html
    .
    Will the Ukraine agree to negotiate? Will the Russians? We may have some answers before spring 2024. Too bad it didn’t happen in the spring of 2022.
    .
    The Biden administration (IMO, a vast collection of liars and fools) could take the facts on the ground into consideration (eg, nobody is going to push Russia out of Crimea) and push for negotiations to end the killing, then work for reconstruction and Western investment in the Ukraine.
    .
    Will they? Hell no! Better that lots more people die, at enormous cost to US taxpayers, than to accept reality and admit flawed foreign policy.

  783. Nobody wants kids to get entangled in this conflict. They have had 3 weeks to leave northern Gaza and Hamas told their citizens to stay in northern Gaza, a bit crazy. Southern Gaza is still getting bombed (less) so it isn’t exactly safe there either. Nobody is allowed to leave southern Gaza so it is pretty ugly all around.
    .
    I think there is little doubt that Israel has loosened up the rules of engagement in this campaign and this has resulted in increased deaths of both civilians and combatants. Hamas is trying to use the rules of war (to the extent these actually exist) against the Israelis in a cynical way. Forcing the Israelis to target civilian areas to get to combatants and then using those outcomes as propaganda. This has worked effectively in the past and will work again.
    .
    But a combatant can’t just really run behind a woman and claim immunity. Israel has to use reasonable judgment and it’s really difficult to judge the judgers from afar. Lots of mistakes will be made.
    .
    Here’s an example of this from NYT, two days ago:
    “A Biden administration official said on Friday that efforts to get Americans and other foreign nationals out of Gaza, a process that began on Wednesday, had been held up by a Hamas attempt to get its own wounded fighters into Egypt through the Rafah gate.”
    Yesterday:
    “On Friday, an Israeli airstrike targeted an ambulance near the entrance of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, killing at least 13 people, according to Gazan authorities. The ambulance was part of a convoy of ambulances carrying wounded people to the border in the hope of crossing into Egypt.”

  784. Tom Scharf,
    “Lots of mistakes will be made.”
    .
    Sure, the Israelis will end up killing civilian people they didn’t really target. No such compunction with Hamas killing civilians.

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