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Saturday, February 08, 2025

The stupid



From The New York Times ...

Hamas Makes Gaunt Israeli Hostages Thank Captors Before Release

Hamas released three Israeli hostages on Saturday in exchange for 183 Palestinians jailed by Israel, in a staged handover where rifle-toting Hamas fighters prodded their gaunt captives to give short speeches, effectively at gunpoint, thanking the militants who had held them captive for 16 months ....

In a statement on the hostage release, Hamas said, “This confirms that our people and their resistance have the upper hand.” But if Hamas saw the scene in the city of Deir al-Balah as propaganda for its claim to have treated its captives benevolently, it had the opposite effect in Israel, where many people found the images almost unbearab ...


If Hamas thinks their treatment of the hostages and their show of force will cause Israel to give up on the war, they are not only evil, they're also f*cking stupid.

Three hostages released

Reuters: Hamas frees three hostages, whose frail condition shocks Israelis



Hamas staging a sham ceremony with the hostages ...

Friday, February 07, 2025

The hostages



Eli Sharabi: to be released, but without his family to come home to

Thursday, February 06, 2025

Think different

Saw this op ed in the WSJ today ...

Trump’s Plan to Free Palestinians From Gaza

President Trump shocked the world with his proposal to resettle Gazans in nearby countries, but not because the idea is cruel. Few critics dispute his point that it would benefit thedisplaced to escape the “demolition site” of Gaza and live in peace rather than as cannon fodder. The real disturbance, after decades to the contrary, is to think seriously about what it would mean to put Palestinian lives first rather than sacrificing them to the lost cause of Palestine as their leaders always do.

On Oct. 19, 2023, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal suggested that to achieve the dream of Israel’s destruction, and with it an Arab Palestine from the river to the sea, millions of Palestinians might have to die. The prospect doesn’t trouble him ...


And this from The New York Times ...

Trump’s Gaza Plan Has Many Pitfalls, Hamas Among the Biggest

President Trump took the world aback with his declaration that the United States was going to “own” Gaza and move out the Palestinians there to build “the Riviera of the Middle East.” As unrealistic and bizarre as it may seem, Mr. Trump was pointing to a serious challenge: the future of Gaza as a secure, peaceful, even prosperous place ...

Trump's idea has met with almost complete dismissal, but a few points that occur to me ...

First, the idea that the Gaza Strip is the only place Palestinians should live or do want to live is just false. Palestinians live all over the Middle East, as well as in Europe and America. In the US there are about 160,000 Palestinians, around 100,000 Palestinians live in Europe, almost 600,000 Palestinians live in Saudi Arabia, there are approximately 3 million Palestinians in Jordan, and they also live in other countries of the region. I don't really understand the ancestral homeland thing. Here in the US, almost no one lives in their ancestral homeland - we're almost all originally from somewhere else and that's just fine.

Second, Trump did make some practical points in his press briefing. Gaza is demolished and there is doubtless a lot of unexploded ordinance there. It's not a safe place at this time, and if it is going to be rebuilt, it's hard to see how that can happen with over 2 million people inhabiting the area. And Trump did not say Palestinians would have to all leave forever - when asked by a reporter if Palestinians could be among the people who lived in the Gaza Strip after it was rebuilt, he said yes. That doesn't sound like "ethnic cleansing".

Third, in blaming Israel for everything, what is not mentioned much is the responsibility the Palestinians have for the present situation. It was Hamas that started this war, Hamas that refuses to surrender and give back the hostages, Hamas that keeps promising to do more attacks in the future. People try to distinguish civilian Gazans from Hamas, but some civilians in Gaza did participate in attacking Israel on October 7 and some did keep hostages as prisoners in their own homes. Hamas members are not imported from elsewhere, they are the fathers, the sons, the brothers, the husbands of civilian Gazans, and polls seem to show that most of those civilians think the October 7 attack was a good idea. When will the Gazans repudiate Hamas and its goals?

So, though Trump's idea for ending the eternal war between the Israelis and the Gazans may sound nutty, I don't think the two state solution sounds any more realistic. Maybe it's time to "think different".

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

The US in Gaza?



Trump promises to turn Gaza into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.’

President Trump declared on Tuesday that the United States should seize control of Gaza and permanently displace the entire Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave, one of the most brazen ideas that any American leader has advanced in years.

Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Mr. Trump said that all two million Palestinians from Gaza should be moved to countries like Egypt and Jordan because of the devastation wrought by Israel’s campaign against Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference Tuesday evening. “We’ll own it ...


I can only imagine what the Israelis think of this idea, much less the Palestinians, but what strikes me is what Hamas must be thinking.

The terrorists have used the integrity and good intentions of previous US governments against us, playing on our empathy and fairness.

Now Hamas has finally met their match. In Trump they will get an adversary that is totally ruthless and has no interest in being fair. You know, someone like themselves. Maybe they will finally be destroyed after all.

Who cares?

Has it even been a week since Trump became president? It's hard to keep up with all the damage he's doing, but I want to mention a few things that haven't gotten a lot of coverage in the news ...

- Now we're going to send American citizens who are criminals to El Salvador's new mega-prison, CECOT, because how can we take away their rights when they're on American soil?: El Salvador offers to house violent US criminals and deportees of any nationality in unprecedented deal

- Trump wastes California's water: 2.2 billion gallons of water flowed out of California reservoirs because of Trump’s order to open dams

- Trump vs animals and the environment: Trump seeks species protection rollbacks to promote US oil drilling

The list goes on and on, and it seems to me that no one else cares.

The Treasury



Unions sue to block Musk team’s access to Treasury payments

Federal employee unions on Monday sued to stop Elon Musk’s team from accessing a sensitive government system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars of payments as top Democrats stepped up their attacks on what they said was the billionaire’s “hostile takeover” of the Treasury Department.

The lawsuit, which was filed days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent agreed to a plan giving department officials allied with Musk access to the system, landed amid growing pushback to the Tesla founder’s slash and burn efforts to cut hundreds of billions in federal spending ...


It makes me feel sick to see Elon Musk acting as though we elected him dictator of America, just because he bought Trump. Is there even any way to stop him? If the Courts are our only hope, what happens when Trump appeals to the Supreme Court on every case, the same Court that made him invulnerable to every charge of crimes committed while he's president?

Sunday, February 02, 2025

Marianne Faithfull: RIP



Marianne Faithfull, British singer and actress whose hits included ‘As Tears Go By,’ dies at 78

I remember Marianne Faithfull, but I didn't care for her. Her voice, compared to other female artists at the time like Joan Baez or Judy Collins or Dusty Springfield, seemed weak. Mostly I recall that she hung around with Mick Jagger and became a heroine addict. The BBC video filled in the gaps in my memory.

Friday, January 31, 2025

Two of three hostages released so far

Yarden Bibas has been released by Hamas. But not his wife and two children. Notice that the kidnappers are dressed as civilians.



Ofer Calderon and Yarden Bibas have arrived at an IDF facility to meet family members

The Bibas family

Tomorrow some more Israeli and American hostages will be released by Hamas. One who is thought to be released is a member of the Bibas family, the husband/father, Yarden, but there has been no news about the wife, Shiri, and their two little kids, then 9-month-old Kfir and then 4-year-old Ariel ... see Kidnapping of the Bibas family.

I still remember seeing a video made by the kidnappers of the abduction of Shiri and her children, the look of terror on her face as the monsters closed in around her ...

I think the IDF believes she and her children are probably dead, but hope still lives. What has become of them? Why has Hamas not released them with the other civilian women?

Hamas to release Israeli father amid ‘grave concerns’ for wife and children

[...] The release of Bibas, whose wife, Shiri, and children, Ariel and Kfir, remain unaccounted for amid “grave concerns” over their wellbeing, represents a painful moment for the large numbers of Israelis and other supporters around the world who have long campaigned for the Bibas family’s release.

Video of Shiri Bibas holding on to her children as she was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen from the Nir Oz kibbutz became an enduring image of the 7 October 2023 attacks, with her son Kfir just 9 months old when he was abducted ...


Thursday, January 30, 2025

DEI



Trump blames the terrible aviation crash in DC on DEI hires. Because, as "common sense" teaches us, the only competent mammals on the planet are straight white men (whithout disabilities, of course).

Reminiscent of the Nazi regime, which went after Jews, the disabled, gay people, and minority groups like the Romani people.

Not surprising - hatred is the glue that binds Trump's followers together. Republicans, you must be so proud.

Our country's death spiral continues :(

The "innocent civilians"





More hostages released



The freeing of the two other Israeli hostages, Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Moses, 80, and five Thai nationals, amid a screaming crowd of Gazan civilians.

Israel releases Palestinian prisoners after delay over chaotic hostage handover

Hostage Agam Berger freed

Palestinian militants begin handover of three Israeli hostages in latest stage of ceasefire deal

Right, the "militants". Hamas terrorists (and Palestinian Islamic Jihad?) once again stage a grotesque ceremony in front of screaming and whistling audience of Gazan civilians, parading the hostage, making her wave to the crowd, giving her a "certificate of completion" and a "gift bag". Sick.



Wednesday, January 29, 2025

General Mark Milley



Trump's recently confirmed choice, Pete Hegseth, has used the power of his new position as Secretary of Defense to punish one of Trump's perceived enemies, General Mark Milley.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Caroline Kennedy



Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, reads a letter she has sent to the Congressmen/women who will be voting for or against RFK Jr., her cousin. As I had said before of RFK Jr., he is a plague, and she makes that same case.

More damage

UPDATE: Apparently, the new White House press secretary has said this freeze will not apply to food stamps. But givrn the lack of honesty of the last Trump press secretary, I will reserve judgement on that statement.

There are a lot of services that will be impacted by Trump's decision to freeze federal aid ... at the moment, a judge has paused the order ... and one of those things, at least, will impact me ...

Here's everything potentially impacted by the federal loan/grant pause

[...] NUTRITION ASSISTANCE: Millions of American citizens who rely on nutrition assistance programs like SNAP, WIC, and school lunch programs will be left hungry as funding is cut off and non-profits who provide additional assistance lose federal funding.

But it's ok, because it's balanced by the wonderful fact that Google (Mark Zuckerberg) has decided Google Maps will now call the Gulf of Mexico instead the Gulf of America.

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Trump on Gaza

Chair of Arab election campaign for Trump blasts president’s ‘wild’ call to relocate Palestinians

The chairman of a group that lobbied Arab and Muslim Americans to vote for Donald Trump in the recent election comes out strongly against the US president’s call yesterday for Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from war-torn Gaza.

“We categorically reject the president’s suggestion that the Palestinians in Gaza be moved — apparently forcefully — to either Egypt or Jordan,” Arab Americans for Trump chairman Bishara Bahbah tells The Times of Israel ...


For context, let's revisit a news video from just before the last presidential election, in which Arab-American voters in Michigan blasted Biden for helping Israel against Hamas, and vowed to vote for Trump instead ...



Gee, you didn't see this stance of Trump's coming? You really believed the author of the Muslim Ban was going to be your advocate? You thought you could poop on Biden and the Democrats by voting for the Republican candidate and it would all be ok? Oh, that's right, you said iyou didn't care about the downside as long as you could stick it to Biden.

You brought this on yourselves.

More from The New York Times: Trump Pushes Jordan and Egypt to Take in Palestinians to ‘Clean Out’ Gaza

Saturday, January 25, 2025

The hostages

The four female hostages are safe, handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas, and then delivered to the IDF who brought them back to Israel.

But first, Hamas staged this bizarre scenario ...

The four hostages were led onto a podium in Gaza City amid a large crowd of Palestinians and surrounded by dozens of armed Hamas men. They waved and smiled before being led off, entering ICRC vehicles and being transported to Israeli forces. - Reuters



Friday, January 24, 2025

Heartbreaker

So, Pete Hegseth is now our Secretary of Defense. God help us all :(

As I watch the slow-motion trainwreck which is my country under Trump, I find that listening to music helps me forget for a little while. Here's a song for tonight ...



Steal from the poor to help the rich



Republicans reportedly ready to cut Medicaid funding to pay for Trump plans

Republicans are reportedly prepared to cut Medicaid funding to pay for Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on immigration and to fund tax cuts that would mostly benefit the wealthy.

The GOP in the House and Senate have floated a series of ideas – many of which would target lower-income Americans – to cover the cost of extending tax cuts passed by Trump in 2017, the New York Times reported ...


Nooooo! Don't destroy Medicaid - it's the only thing keeping me physically functional!

God, I hate the Republicans.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

The rioters



Trump pardons his "brownshirts".

Try to imagine what would happen to you or me if we beat the crap out of a police officer, the whole thing on video.

But the Jan 6 rioters are absolved.

Do you understand now?

There is nothing stopping Trump from doing anything ... anything ... he gets the urge to do. Hell, the Supreme Court has said he could have a SEAL team assassinate his political rival and that would be just fine. He doesn't have to worry about the voters - he's either a lame duck or a lifetime dictator - either way, he has no concerns about winning re-election.

This is what a plurality of Americans wanted. Can't wait until he turns on them.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Cecile Richards: RIP



Cecile Richards, Former Planned Parenthood President, Dies at 67

[...] Ms. Richards was the president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, overseeing the country’s largest provider of reproductive health care and sex education during a period in which the organization was under sharp attack by conservatives, particularly under the Republican administration of President George W. Bush and President Trump’s first. She helped fend off a raft of attempts by Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws to restrict access to abortion or to cut funding for it ...

As I've mentioned before, I was a volunteer at my local Planned Parenthood one summer during college. Contrary to what many pro-life people say, PP is not some kind of abortion factory. What it was and is still is a women's (and men's) reproductive health clinic where people can get education, birth control, cancer screening, treatment for infections, vasectomies, etc, etc, etc, and yes, abortions. It's a good place, and Cecile Richards helped make it that way.

Monday, January 20, 2025

The inauguration

I've watched part of it. So depressing to see all the tech bros, even Tim Cook, gathered around Trump, knee pads at the ready (The tech bros have front-row seats at Trump’s inauguration, but what they want goes way beyond that).

I also noticed Melania's latest disturbing fashion choice.

And the incongruity of watching a draft dodger reviewing the troops was bizarre.

I feel I should speak warnings, like how the Trump administration's first victims will be the powerless: the migrants, the poor, gay and trans people, the disabled and sick. But who cares, right? Everyone already knows this and a plurality of them voted for Trump despite this, or because of it.

This all makes me think of the book and tv series, The Man in the High Castle, in which the Nazis rule the US and everyone (almost) is fine with that.



I don't think the US will ever come back from this.