SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2023
Dershowitz shouts and yells: With apologies for repeating a phrase, we're going to ask the question again:
Should Barack Obama be equipped with a new yard sign—with a yard sign which says, "Kill the Jews?"
As we've been noting all week, that's what Batya Ungar-Sargon either said, or strongly suggested, during her astounding performance on last Sunday's Fox & Friends.
Before we move on to something similar which someone else has now said, let's consider one part of Ungar-Sargon's astounding performance which we've haven't specifically cited to date.
Ungar-Sargon holds a PhD in English literature from Berkeley. Today, she's an editor at the endlessly reinvented Newsweek—one of 57 such savants at the reinvented magazine.
In our view, Ungar-Sargon also a bit of a bungled logician. Once again, here's some of what the distinguished scholar and journalist said:
UNGAR-SARGON (11/5/23): Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Rachel. Thank you for your incredible courage at this time, and I also just have to say thank you to everybody at Fox News, every producer, every writer,
You guys have been incredible in a sea of antisemitic media and bigotry. So thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart.
Speaking of signs, I was joking with a friend over Shabbat that the progressives need a new sign for their yard, right? "Black Lives Matter, In This House We Trust Science, No Human is Illegal, and Kill the Jews," right?
I mean, that's what we're seeing.
Professor Dershowitz is absolutely correct that the progressive movement is deeply, deeply antisemitic. Rashida Tlaib out there defending Hamas' chant, "From the river to the sea?" Why would anyone pick that as the hill to die on, I don't know.
But even President Obama, out there with a clip yesterday with absolute moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. Absolutely disgusting stuff.
Speaking of absolutely disgusting stuff, Ungar-Sargin had said, or had strongly suggested, that Obama himself needs that sign.
Barack Obama needs a yard sign—a yard sign which says, "Kill the Jews!" That's what the Berkeley scholar—and the sadly failed logician—pretty much more or less said.
In part, she made that wonderfully amusing statement in her role as master humorist. But as you can see, in her role as failed logician, the Newsweek sage also said this:
But even President Obama, out there with a clip yesterday with absolute moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel.
Good lord! Obama hadn't simply declared "moral equivalency" between Hamas and Israel. He had declared an absolute moral equivalency between the two named parties.
At this point, we weep for the people who live in the country where flyweights of this type are given so many tools to play with, as our million-and-one academic logicians look on without saying a word. We refer here to the remarkably elastic, weaponized tool, the claim of "moral equivalency."
Starting on Tuesday, we've repeatedly shown you what Obama actually said. Our question today is this:
At any point, did Obama assert some sort of "moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel," let alone an absolute version of that nebulous form of assessment?
Rather plainly, the answer is no. To this astonishing Berkeley star, we'll offer a brief starter lesson:
There is no truck scale in the world which measures degrees of moral misconduct.
In his statement, Obama said that what Hamas did on October 7 "was horrific, and there’s no justification for it." That said, he also said this:
"And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable."
In short, he said the October 7 killings had been horrific. He also said that "the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable."
He didn't drag these two events onto the truck scale which seems to exist in Ungar-Sanger's "highly educated" mind. He didn't say which of these matters was morally worse. He also didn't say that they were morally equal.
It fell to Ungar-Sargon to drag out a rhetorical weapon which is now widely employed by many within our own tribe. Because Obama had voiced disapproval of two different staters of affairs, he had somehow declared them to be "morally equivalent"—absolutely so!
You have to have the mind of a child to exercise such a move on your way to that astounding statement about the sign in the yard. Ungar-Sargon, the Berkeley scholar, was willing to put that imaginary truck scale to use, then to erect that sign.
A few days ago, along came Professor Dershowitz offering similar thunder. Sadly, the headline on the Fox Business report reads exactly like this:
Alan Dershowitz calls out Obama's 'deep hatred of Israel': 'He should be ashamed'
Pathetic and silly! Sad!
Does Obama need to erect that ugly yard sign? Similarly, did Obama exhibit a "deep hatred of Israel" in what he said in that video clip?
Ungar-Sargon went on Fox and played the fool with a weaponized turn of phrase. Coach Dershowitz called a different play from the shouter's play book—the play in which you take some comment which someone has made and you paraphrase it in the most unattractive way possible.
(Did Al Gore ever say he invented the Internet? Endlessly, for two solid years, that was preferred paraphrase!)
These are the plays of the shouters and screamers. As our nation dies beneath such discourse, our "highly educated" academic logicians refuse to offer their alleged expertise—refuse to so much as say boo about such piddling matters.
These are the plays of the shouters and screamers. Also, this is the never-ending behavior of a demographic called humans at war.
According to experts, Ungar-Sargon's performance was a pathetic gong show and a dim bulb disgrace. According to that same array of observers, the professor was dumber and worse!
Alan Dershowitz is dishonest.
ReplyDeleteHe is also disgusting.
DeleteMy comment detailing how disgusting keeps getting deleted, hilarious!
Just shows what a scaredy cat fraud Somerby is.
That happens to me too.
Delete"Pathetic and silly! Sad!"
ReplyDeleteWhy? Deep hatred of Israel appears to be a common attitude. Overwhelmingly common, certainly, among 2 billion Muslims on this planet.
After all, some say it's an ethnocentric settler-colony established by an ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine.
Palestinians and other Arabs living in Israel would disagree.
DeleteAs of March 2022, there were 1,957, 270 Arabs living in Israel, constituting 21% of the population. Of those 1,595,300 (17% of total pop) are citizens with full rights.
The area called the Palestinian Mandate was largely uninhabited until Jews and Palestinians (from neighboring areas) both moved into the Mandate at about the same time. Palestinians were immediately hostile to the Jewish settlers and engaged in violence toward them. That has continued to this day. @11:15 presents this as a natural consequence of being Muslim but that is no diffent than saying Germans and other Europeans were right to hate and try to exterminate Jews in their countries, which is what was happening.
At some point, people who harbor such deep hatreds need to stop their own ethnic cleansing campaigns (projected on to Israel today by 11:15) and learn to live on a diverse planet among people of many different ethnicities and religions.
It seems right to me to hold Palestinians accountable for their hatred and their brutal acts derived from mistaken beliefs about their right to kill Jews. And that should start with those in the US who harbor similar views, whether they are former grad students or deranged lawyers or buffoons like Somerby who refuse to acknowledge what has been happening. Somerby has plenty of hate in his heart -- he just directs it at different targets than Ungar-Sargon.
The Arabs in Israel who are not full citizens live in East Jerusalem and hold permanent resident status.
Deletehttps://en.idi.org.il/articles/38540
Who does Somerby hate? Rachel Maddow, obviously. Women in general, especially successful women. He doesn't like Hillary, Stormy Daniels he called a grifter. He doesn't like Black people in general, judging by his past remarks about Charles Blow and Don Lemon, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Trayvon Martin and he hasn't been very nice to Kamala Harris either. He thinks racism and sexism are over, like many right wingers and very few liberals.
DeleteOddly, in all of the time Somerby has been writing about Al Gore's loss to George Bush, Somerby has never said anything derogatory about Bush. The people Somerby doesn't hate are almost as interesting as the ones he singles out for attack. He doesn't hate Roy Moore, for example, or Donald Trump (who he pities) or DeSantis (who most liberals cannot abide) or MTG (despite her being female-like in appearance).
Quoting Dershowitz makes a mockery of this entire topic.
The repetitious anti-Israel comments, often one-liners, that have been appearing here may be part of that Russian disinformation campaign. For example, the idea that ALL of the world's Muslims hate Jews therefore the Palestinians are only doing what all Muslims would do, given the chance, strikes me as something a Russian troll would say.
DeletePalestinians living in Israel do not have the same rights in a similar but worse way to Blacks in America before the Civil Rights Movement or Blacks in South Africa before apartheid ended there.
DeleteMost Palestinians are refugees that live in reservation type areas where they are treated worse than those in prison in America.
All Palestinians are existing under severe oppression, with no real political power. Indeed Hamas is a tool of the right wing fascists, not of Palestinians.
The area the British comandeered and called the Palestinian Mandate was the homeland of close to a million Palestinians who were then dispossessed of their property and livelihood.
Hamas’ recent attack on Israel was horrific, as are all their attacks, but it was quickly outdone by the much worse response of Netanyahu and the right wing militants in Israel, much to the dismay of secular Israelis.
Jews are not to blame, the proximate cause is right wing religious fanaticism and antisemitism; however, the only solution rests with secular Jews who need to return to the developing peace of the 90s, and eventually assimilate all Palestinians as full and equal citizens of the land.
Israel is ethnostate engaging in apartheid with respect to the Palestinians. Fortunately for the majority of us Jews, we live in relative peace and comfort in the US.
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens have the same rights as Jews. Those who are living in Gaza are refugees and do not have citizenship. Gaza is a territory separate from the nation of Israel. How they are treated has a long and complex history that you have not discussed. Palestinians need to accept both negotiation with Israel and assimilation, but they have been unwilling to do that. That is on them.
DeleteIsrael is not an ethnostate and it is not engaging in apartheid. It has enacted measures to protect itself. Your use of such terms is propagandistic not factual. The condition of Jews living in the US is irrelevant to conditions in Israel and Gaza.
All people engaging in terrorism and military action against Israel need to stop and then Israel will feel safe to stop its defensive measures, including the current bombardment of Hamas strongholds.
You are not accomplishing anything here with your repetitive attempts at propaganda. For example, I see no reason why you would meantion "us Jews" when there is no way to verify such information on a blog like this. In my experience, most Jews do not accept talking points being promulgated by pro-Palestinian propagandists or Russia/Iran trolls.
I appreciate your passion, but your claims are false, as has been repeatedly demonstrated.
DeleteMost Jews in fact do not support the horrific attacks on Gaza.
https://imeu.org/article/are-palestinian-and-jewish-citizens-of-israel-treated-equally
Most Jews support the continued existence of Israel. No one in their right mind supports the killing of people, whether in Gaza or outside it, as Hamas and the Palestinians did on 10/7 and thereafter. Hard choices are being made to protect Israel from brutal surprise attacks arising in an area where Israel has attempted to support Palestinian well-being and prosperity. The necessity to engage in security-related measures compromises the ability to treat Palestinians as if they were peaceful Israeli citizens. It is specious to insist that should happen.
DeleteMeanwhite, you provide a link to IMEU.org. Here is what they do:
"The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is an independent non-profit organization that provides journalists with quick access to information about Palestine and the Palestinians, as well as expert sources, both in the United States and in the Middle East. Both through its website and its staff, the IMEU works with journalists to increase the public's understanding about the socio-economic, political, and cultural aspects of Palestine, Palestinians, and Palestinian Americans."
This means they are a pro-Palestinian lobbying and propaganda source. I would need to fact-check anything they say and I am not going to waste time doing that. Israel says citizens are treated equally and I will trust them ahead of your propaganda because they are the nation granting citizenship and collecting official stats, and because they are defending themselves whereas your guys in Gaza are the ones who launched that brutal sneak attack last month. You have no credibility.
Most Jews support Israel existing without being an ethnostate engaging in apartheid, which is the current circumstance.
DeleteMost Palestinians do not support Hamas, and in fact do live under oppression without the same rights as Jews in Israel.
It’s not propaganda to point to the many laws, as many as 65, that limit the civil and human rights of Palestinians living in Israel; Israel passing these laws is a fact.
I only lack credibility with you because your views are being challenged and your ahistoricity is being corrected. It is reasonable to conclude you are not open to persuasion, so be it.
I repeat, it is propagandistic to refer to Israel as an ethnostate, much less one engaging in apartheid, presumably because of the territories occupied by Palestinians. Here is the current situation (from Wikipedia):
Delete"Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People (Hebrew: חוֹק יְסוֹד: יִשְׂרָאֵל—מְדִינַת הַלְּאוֹם שֶׁל הָעַם הַיְּהוּדִי), informally known as the Nation-State Bill (חוֹק הַלְּאוֹם) or the Nationality Bill,[1] is an Israeli Basic Law which specifies the nature of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The law was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 (7 Av 5778),[2][3] and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature.[4][5][6][7][8][9] However, it was met with sharp criticism internationally, including from several prominent Jewish American organizations,[10][11][12][13][14][15] and has been branded as racist and undemocratic by some critics.[16][17]
Following the passage of the law, petitions were filed with the Supreme Court of Israel challenging the constitutionality of the law. In January 2019, the Supreme Court announced that challenges to the constitutionality of the law would be heard by an 11-justice panel and would decide if the law, in whole or in part, violates the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, passed in 1992. Additionally, the hearing would also be the first time the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether it had the authority to strike down another Basic Law in whole or in part on the basis of constitutionality.[18][19]
In July 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional and did not negate the state’s democratic character. Writing the opinion for the majority, President of the Court, Esther Hayut, stated that this "basic law is but one chapter in our constitution taking shape and it does not negate Israel's character as a democratic state." The court's majority opinion concurred with arguments that the law merely declares the obvious — that Israel is a Jewish state — and that this does not detract from the individual rights of non-Jewish citizens, especially in light of other laws that ensure equal rights to all.[20]"
Your attempt to portray Israel as less than democratic and as a state that does not welcome other ethnicities is propaganda and disinformation:
"The State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population (see Jewish state). Other faiths in the country include Islam (predominantly Sunni), Christianity (mostly Melkite and Orthodox) and the religion of the Druze people."
The Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and Golan Heights have full voting rights, are citizens of Israel and can vote in Israeli elections. They are subject to movement restrictions and checkpoints intended to ensure security against terrorists in those areas.
There is no "persuasion" that would allow me to understand much less condone the Hamas attack or the terrorist acts that have been committed regularly against Israelis trying to live peaceful lives. I do not understand how anyone could have committed that 10/7 attack. Israel has the right to retaliate, since negotiation has done no good. The entrenched hatred of the Palestinians for Israeli Jews (and other Jews) is incomprehensible. If they do not like Jews, they should emigrate. Why anyone would remain under the horrendous conditions you claim is beyond reason.
It is propaganda to portray Israel as maliciously persecuting Palestinians when the attacks have all been one sided since 1948. Israelis live under intrusive security procedures too, but they do not want to be blown up on the street. Palestinians need to stop what they have been doing and become actual citizens of a country that has tried to make peace repeatedly.
If you are here as anything but a troll, try addressing my statements instead of repeating your own.
Amnesty International says:
Delete"The situation in the Negev/Naqab region of southern Israel is a prime example of how Israel’s planning and building policies intentionally exclude Palestinians. Since 1948 Israeli authorities have adopted various policies to “Judaize” the Negev/Naqab, including designating large areas as nature reserves or military firing zones, and setting targets for increasing the Jewish population. This has had devastating consequences for the tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins who live in the region."
In the US state of California, there are very large tracts of land designated as national and state parks. There are also several large military reserves set aside for testing weapons and training military personnel. Indigenous people residing in those areas were moved long ago, but do have reservations where they work cooperatively with neighboring fire departments and police, and help with community improvement projects. They also build casinos that employ tribe members and return wealth to their members. There is no terrorism and few lingering resentments between people adjacent to reservations, or statewide.
What is different for indengous people in CA and Palestinians? First, they were not encouraged to engage in ongoing military terrorist conflict by adjacent Arab nations desiring to wipe out the country. Second, there is good will between people.
No one has suggested that our national parks should be regarded as an apartheid plot to deprive our Indians of their land, nor that the military reserves are anything other than a remote place for testing defenses that maintain safety of everyone.
Complaining that the Bedouin do not have land rights strikes me as specious when Bedouins have traditionally been nomadic. That makes creation of schools that teach in their native languages difficult.
Even reading the list of Amnesty International grievances, it seem clear that the origin of this problem is not Israel's desire to create a Jewish state, but the ongoing warfare urged by neighboring Arab nations. As international diplomacy works to "normalize" relations between those nations and Israel, the continuing agitation fomented by Iran and Russia and other meddling enemies of Israel does nothing to make life better for Palestinians.
Most noticeable in the Amnesty Internation piece was the continual accusation that Israel was attempting to Judaize Israel whenever it did something to benefit its citizens. That reveals the bias in the report. Why shouldn't a nation engage in activities to benefit its citizens? The desire of Palestinians to reclaim land they abandoned in 1948 and 1967 by joining enemy forces attacking Israel strikes me as unrealistic. Those outsiders who encourage Palestinians to pine for things like "right of return" are irresponsible and exacerbating this situation. Imagine someone from Mexico telling American Indians that they should be entitled to the lands that were nomadic hunting grounds before the settlers in the US moved West! Today, Indians have been successfully suing for enforcement of treaty rights (ignored by previous governments). Perhaps with the elimination of the external threats to Israel's existence, Israel can negotiate with Palestinians to achieve a workable compromise and ongoing way of cooperating that will result in greater trust and greater prospertiy for Palestinians. That isn't going to happen via terrorist and military threat -- that entrenches Israel into a defensive posture that they perceive as necessary to their nation's survival.
Those who care about Palestinians need to stop encouraging them toward violence, stop funding their arms and weapon systems, stop making unrealistic and unreasonable demands for things that cannot happen (due to past historical events) and stop trying to manipulate the US into supporting Palestinian claims by meddling in US politics.
https://jabberwocking.com/the-man-who-wrecked-the-middle-east/
DeleteIf no one had ever attacked Israel and Israel had started out from day one setting up a consitution that discriminated against non-Jews, creating laws that pushed other religions off their land and gave them second-class citizen status, then Amnesty International might have a point, but that is far from what has happened.
DeleteA people as opposed as they suggest the Palestinians are, would not have the means to have carried out that Hamas 10/7 attack. Recall that 800,000+ Jews were expelled from other Arab nations when Israel was created. Were they treated like equal citizens in those nations?
"Should Barack Obama be equipped with a new yard sign—with a yard sign which says, "Kill the Jews?"
ReplyDeleteShould Somerby obsess like this over a lame joke made by a random journalist on Fox News?
Is she representative of anything, much less The Progressive Movement?
The idea is to distract from the big electoral win for the Dems this week.
DeleteIf Pres. Obama wasn’t equating the horrors of the attack on Israel with the occupation, he would have left it at the retaliatory strike on Gaza.
ReplyDeletePoor timing. Ineffectual tone and attitude . Biden looks like FDR in comparison. Feckless.
Compare the occupation in Gaza with the concentration and work camps administered by the Germans during WWII. That might introduce some sense of perspective to this discussion. Compare the occupation of Gaza with the camps and treatment planned by Donald Trump for dealing with US immigration should he be elected in 2024. Even in Gaza, they are not putting children in cages, separating them from parents and losing the paperwork. They are not shipping to cold climates (with snow) without proper clothing and with no resources for their survival at the destination, as deSantis and Abbott and others have been doing.
DeletePresenting the occupation of Gaza as the crime of the century shows a total preoccupation with Palestinian grievances and no sense of balance. Have people never seen what the refugee camps in Kenya are like? And recall that the details of this occupation are the result of previous Palestinian actions and negotiations. Israel is protecting itself, not choosing to persecute Palestinians, but the same cannot be said for the Palestinians themselves, who are still engaging in terrorist acts after Oct 7. Palestinians have the means to rescue themselves within their own power, by making different choices and controlling their own extremists.
However, don't use truck scales to make your comparison.
DeleteUse fish scales.
Delete“There is no truck scale in the world which measures degrees of moral misconduct.”
DeleteHas to be one of the sillier comments from Somerby, yet well demonstrates his folly.
Truck scales measure physical weight, in part a function of gravity, whatever that is.
Moral misconduct indeed can be determined, even by degree. For example, we have a developed system of justice. Most organizations among human societies have codes of ethics, etc.
We are all born with a similar innate sense of humanity (there are no bad seeds, although a great movie); however, for many of our brethren, that humanity gets beaten out of them by the harshness of our knife’s edge existence in our current society. Hand waving this circumstance only enables further oppression. Somerby’s thesis is dangerous and bad for society.
What a crude idiot Cecelia is, but a good reminder of the race based garbage thrown at Obama.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:58pm, fecklessness doesn’t come with a melanin level. Obama is feckless, but he is not an antisemite.
DeleteFeckless definition: "lacking initiative or strength of character; irresponsible"
DeleteI doubt this is what Cecelia really means to say about Obama. It doesn't describe him very well. Cecelia likes to grab words and use them without the step in between where you figure out what they mean. Too much three-cuing?
Love him or leave him, no one would call Obama lacking in character or irresponsible. Cecelia just wants to call him something bad -- who cares whether it fits or not.
In a native speaker, Cecelia's behavior would suggest major stupidity. In a non-native speaker such as an Eastern European on a troll farm, she is giving herself away, but about par in her mistakes.
Somerby does the same thing, except he is grabbing song lyrics and literary phrases instead of individual words.
DeleteAnonymices go through life utterly bummed that the world isn’t their oyster or their sock puppet.
DeleteLook who woke up in a bad mood this morning.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:41am, go back to bed, you’ll look better.
Delete"Does Obama need to erect that ugly yard sign?"
ReplyDeleteObama did not erect any such yard sign. It is important to remember that. Obama is now a private citizen with the same right to hold an opinion as anyone else. I don't agree with him any more than Cecelia does, probably for different reasons. I don't understand why Somerby is making such a fuss about this minor, trivial set of remarks among many being made by a wide range of people. And no, Ungar-Sargon does not represent progressives and Obama does not represent liberals.
It also think it would be a spectacularly bad idea to ask logicians to weigh in on controversies. It isn't what their field does. Semanticians, maybe, but not logicians. It is like asking mathematicians to make foreign policy.
Somerby cannot be serious about such suggestions -- he is yanking people's chains with that stuff. He cannot be so stupid that he doesn't know the content of the field of logic, what logicians study in their work. Google a logic book, look at the first chapter and see whether a person writing that stuff would have any qualifications whatsoever to deal with world problems.
My question is why Somerby seems to be mocking the efforts of concerned individuals to deal with the suffering in the Middle East? Is it funny to him?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:44am, Ungar-Sargon’s remark wasn’t trivial. It is the sort of hate-filled hysterical bs that anonymices express about political opponents here.
DeleteWhat makes the comment significant as to discussion, is that it was said on tv to an audience of over a hundred thousand people, with no push back from the news host.
That is precisely the media scenario that Bob discusses and it’s from the side of the media that you think should be his sole focus.
Yet you’re still bitching. Surprise
She made a joke.
DeleteAnonymouse 3:16pm, no, she used a preposterous illustration to tar and feather all her contrarians.
DeleteAs Somerby and Ungar-Sargon both said, she told a joke. You may consider it unfunny, but the fact of it being a joke states her intention. You don't get to deny that just because you don't like the joke.
Delete2:28 when you view your precious but misguided notions being debunked as “hate filled hysterical bs”, the problem is you. The most prolific criticism of you here is that you are tragically wounded and deserving of pity and help. Sorry but that’s not hate filled, hysterical, nor bs. It’s a sober and sympathetic acknowledgement of the tragedy of our society.
DeleteYou’re being conned by Somerby, from the context of his years of blogging, it is clear his goal here is not to point out a flaw with Fox News, but to weaponize the situation to push his general theme of wanting the blue tribe to acquiesce to the red tribe. Thematically it is not dissimilar to how Trump is running around now threatening to do to others what he is currently experiencing, wrongly conflating prosecution with persecution, and of course conveniently ignoring the supposed fundamental Republican idea of personal responsibility.
Don’t be a sucker.
Anonymouse 4:59pm, neither Somerby or Ungar-Sargon think what she said was a joke.
DeleteI also think it wasn’t a joke. It was too vicious and the situation is too dire to joke about it like this.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:30pm, unfortunately, it is part and parcel with militancy to be tone deaf as to how your “compassion” sounds straight out of Brave New World. That would be more chilling than it is if you were smart. As it stands, it’s an obvious attempt to demean me under a guise of feigned largess.
DeleteYou can’t carry that off. You not up to it.
You view everything as an attack, this is a common trait of those suffering such as you are; understanding that, I hope you find peace.
DeleteI appreciate your comments here, they provide insight into the tragic condition of right wingers.
You obviously haven't read Brave New World. Perhaps you were thinking of 1984?
DeleteLargess definition: "money or gifts given generously"
DeleteNot the right word, Cecelia. Try feigned compassion.
Be careful, the anonymous you are trying to piss off may like you better than anyone else here.
"I also think it wasn’t a joke. It was too vicious and the situation is too dire to joke about it like this."
DeleteYou can always say you think it wasn't funny, but it is mind-reading to claim to know the intentions of the speaker, who explicitly said she was joking.
Joking covers a lot of animosity in our culture. I agree there was nothing funny and a great deal offensive about it, but if Somerby says we cannot call someone a liar without knowing whether their misstatements were deliberate, I think Somerby cannot say this wasn't a joke without knowing the intentions of the speaker. She undoubtedly felt she was among people with the same attitudes and that her "joke" would be received favorably and perhaps even found funny. She was among friends when she originally told it, and among friends on Fox News.
It was a stupid thing to say, but she is going back to Newsweek to work, not academia.
Anonymices, you need to reread Brave New World and largess is the perfect word to describe your faux understanding for your description of my mental state.
DeleteIt’s not sympathy or empathy, it is meant to convey the condescension of largess.
Anonymouse 9:54am, you’re a two-bit tyrant. You don’t require contemplation.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:39am, you’re not anyone’s best friend or anyone’s worst enemy.
DeleteYou’re merely a two bit tyrant.
OK, stay stupid.
DeleteThis is what logicians do:
ReplyDelete"Given that we can test an argument for validity, it might seem that we have a fully developed system to study arguments. However, there is a significant practical difficulty with our semantic method of checking arguments using truth tables (you may have already noted what this practical difficulty is, when you did problems 1e and 2e of chapter 3). Consider the following argument:
Alison will go to the party.
If Alison will go to the party, then Beatrice will.
If Beatrice will go to the party, then Cathy will.
If Cathy will go to the party, then Diane will.
If Diane will go to the party, then Elizabeth will.
If Elizabeth will go to the party, then Fran will.
If Fran will go to the party, then Giada will.
If Giada will go to the party, then Hilary will.
If Hillary will go to the party, then Io will.
If Io will go to the party, then Julie will.
_____
Julie will go to the party.
Most of us will agree that this argument is valid. It has a rather simple form, in which one sentence is related to the previous sentence, so that we can see the conclusion follows from the premises. Without bothering to make a translation key, we can see the argument has the following form.
P
(P→Q)
(Q→R)
(R→S)
(S→T)
(T→U)
(U→V)
(V→W)
(W→X)
(X→Y)
_____
Y
However, if we are going to check this argument, then the truth table will require 1024 rows! This follows directly from our observation that for arguments or sentences composed of n atomic sentences, the truth table will require 2n rows. This argument contains 10 atomic sentences. A truth table checking its validity must have 210 rows, and 210=1024. Furthermore, it would be trivial to extend the argument for another, say, ten steps, but then the truth table that we make would require more than a million rows!"
https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/concise-introduction-to-logic/chapter/4-proofs/
DeleteJulie is not going to that party. She and I have other plans.
DeleteLogicians are fine with making concise and coherent claims, 11:46, I encourage you to make a good faith attempt, you can do it!
DeleteLogicians are spectacularly unsuited to conflict resolution and most diplomats have other types of training that are more useful. I suspect that Somerby is joking about putting logicians into Gaza to negotiate a ceasefire. He is more likely trying to suggest that academic endeavors have little practical application, except that is untrue. Logicians earn their keep by influencing computer science.
DeleteI will make a better faith effort when Somerby stops being such an idiot.
Thank you, I agree with you, glad you restated your idea.
DeleteSomerby will never stop being an idiot, even so, I hope your good faith efforts continue.
This is an isolated instance of an unrelenting pattern on Fox. It would seem to exemplify a deliberate bias at Fox. In other words, I suspect that Fox books people like Ungar-Sargon because they will have incendiary things to say, deliberately tarring all Democrats/liberals/progressives as not just anti-Israel, but as Hamas-supporting antisemites. It’s part of their 24/7 demonizing of liberals. Their base eats it up.
ReplyDeleteWhy Somerby picks out this one instance, I don’t know, but it would have been helpful if he had been doing this all along.
Rawstory reports:
ReplyDelete"Russia has been spreading "disinformation" about the situation in the Middle East, the president of Microsoft said Saturday, as tensions soar in the region due to the Israel-Hamas war."
California schools will begin teaching "media literacy" which will include identifying fake news and disinformation on social media, as well as identifying trustworthy news sources, which should increase faith in mainstream media.
Deletehttps://www.rawstory.com/recognizing-fake-news-now-a-required-subject-in-california-schools/
Hillary lost because she was spectacularly unpopular and didn't have any meaningful political accomplishments. Trump beat her just like he beat Jeb Bush who was the same thing on the other side. An unlikeable, lousy politician who was only there because of nepotism.
DeleteNo other theorist agrees with you about that, just the misogynists in the room. Look at the popular vote, asshole.
DeleteSpectacularly unpopular? She got most votes.
DeleteSpectacularly unpopular. Clinton and Trump were both the least popular candidates of all time
DeleteBoth Clinton and Trump had the "worst favorable ratings of any presumed Democratic or Republican nominee in decades."
DeleteThe graph in the article comparing them to previous candidates shows spectacular, astonishing unpopularity.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/03/us/elections/trump-and-clinton-favorability.html
If you read liberal blogs in 2016 I'm sure they mentioned often how extremely unpopular she was. And I'm sure they mention it now as a primary factor in her historic loss when discussing the election. Obviously running such an unpopular candidate was a risk that did not pay off.
DeleteIf they didn't mention her popularity back then and don't now, that's a problem.
She is unpopular the way Biden was unpopular in 2020. Clinton's popularity goes down when she is attacked, as she was in 2016. When she is not running for anything, she has the highest popularity of any First Lady and wins Woman of the Year, over and over, even beating Michelle Obama and certainly Melania. This isn't about popularity but about political opposition, which we all know included irregularities such as Comey's Oct surprise, hacking emails, and Russian bots on social media. That has nothing to do with popularity.
DeleteAgain, look at the popular vote in 2016 to see how popular she was.
You may be referring to the unpleasantness when the Bernie Bros "borrowed" right wing talking points to try to steal the nomination. They lost but they are bitter about it. Or you may be discussing the way Obama borrowed Bernie's talking points to attack Clinton and then refused to count her delegates at the nominating convention. Clinton took the high road and rallied behind Obama rather than split the party in 2008. If Obama supporters are still mad at her for running against him for the nomination, they need to get over it.
Trump says he beat Jeb Bush because Jeb Bush led us into the disastrous Iraq War. This is just one of many weird mind glitches Trump has displayed in recent weeks, obviously indicating a severe mental decline.
DeleteClinton, when she ran in 2016, as I have pointed out with sources, was one of the most unpopular candidates in history.
DeleteMaking an argument that she was a popular candidate is a lie.
She is one of the most unpopular politicians in modern history. People have never like her. The only reason she was running was because she married Bill and it was "her turn".
Please stop lying about Clinton and how unpopular she was in 2016 and how unpopular she always has been. Stop blaming her loss on something other than the lousy candidate and party insiders who were responsible for it.
@8:39 -- you may not have liked her, but the votes don't lie. She won the popular vote by a historic margin (at that time). That is what popular means. You are perhaps thinking about polling, but that isn't how popularity is measured except temporarily in order to make election predictions.
DeleteBetter trolling please.
If one of two unpopular candidates wins the popular vote, that does not make them popular. That is not what popular means unless you are retarded.
DeleteClinton is by far one of the most unpopular candidates that has ever run for office. She's not even that popular when she's not running for anything although she's slightly less unpopular. This makes sense because she has never really done anything. She's not inspiring. She just rode the coattails of her husband who spent his time in the Oval Office fucking everything that walked. And Hillary, in an embarrassment to feminism, defended him over and over and demonized poor young girls he was banging every other day. Not only is she a product of nepotism, she's a sleazy anti-feminist. But I don't think that's why she is so unpopular. She's just not interesting or inspiring and she's only there because she married into it. I like her but I'm not going to lie to myself about her unpopularity.
DeleteWashington Post August 31, 2016:
Delete"A record number of Americans now dislike Hillary Clinton"
ABC News:
"Poll: Clinton Unpopularity at New High, on Par With Trump"
NBC News:
"NBC News poll found that just 11% of Americans say she is honest and trustworthy. "
Guys - we need to be real about how unpopular Clinton was as a candidate and what a bad idea it was for her to run in the first place. Let's not lie to ourselves about the obvious
We need to solve Biden's Black and Latino voter problem. They don't like him.
DeleteWhich makes sense because he's too old and isn't inspiring.
Let's get someone new in there. Klobuchar? What about that little gay mayor?
8:52 Biden is also really unpopular NOW and you don't see anyone worried about that.
DeleteIs it a coincidence that the polls and media are now screeching about how unpopular Joe Biden is, after a major popular vote victory in 2020?
DeleteJust want to mention Kamala Harris is in her 50s, for those pretending to be concerned about Biden's age.
DeleteHas a major popular vote victory in 2020 changed how how unpopular Joe Biden is? The victors specifically avoided mentioning his name. The blogs you read surely mentioned this over and over. I guess you missed it. (I don't read them.)
DeleteIf they didn't mention this when covering this issue, that's a problem.
Popularity is only important with respect to whether a candidate wins an election of not. We don't care how people feel about Biden on social media or whether they would have a drink with him. If he wins the presidency in 2024, that is what counts.
DeleteOddly, Trump on the ballot does nothing to help down-ballot Republicans and MAGA candidates are not winning even while Trump's popularity remains high. Why is that?
Have a drink with him? He's 80. He goes to bed at 7:00 p.m..
DeleteThere was other news last week, for example this:
ReplyDelete"Dylan Byers: “Earlier this week, former president Donald Trump gave an interview to Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, during which he threatened to weaponize the F.B.I. and the Justice Department against his political opponents. The statements, which came on the heels of a Washington Post report revealing that Trump and his allies had been drawing up plans to use the federal government to retaliate against adversaries and former cabinet members, were arguably the most brazenly authoritarian remarks the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has made to date in a mainstream media interview. And the interview reasonably unnerved the political pundit class—’dangerous’ and ‘insane’ are among the words that have reverberated across cable news in the last 24 hours.”
“Inside Univision, however, the hour-long sit-down raised alarms for another reason. The interview, which was conducted by a non-Univision journalist who did little to question or push back on Trump’s claims, effectively functioned as a propaganda special, current and former Univision journalists have protested. In it, they saw glaring evidence of a broader effort by their new parent company, which has close ties to Trump and especially to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to curry favor with the former president and push the network further to the right.”
---------------------
Somerby could be talking about the dangers of reelecting Trump, his crazy plans for his next term, which might allow everyone (right and left) to see the danger in electing Trump again.
Hillary pointed it out, but then she is much smarter than Somerby and obviously cares more about our country than Somerby does.
Right-Wingers are Really Terrible at Pretending to be Lefties says Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog:
ReplyDeletehttps://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/11/right-wingers-are-really-terrible-at.html
He deciphers the attempt of a domestic terrorist to portray himself as a lefty by including three symbols: an anti-fascist symbol, a pride forward flag, and a pentagram. You have to see the image of the letter to understand how lame this attempt to mimick the left is. Steve M explains why this is majorly silly on the part of whoever sent the letter, who is obviously not a lefty.
But this raises the point that it is similarly easy to see that Somerby is not a lefty either. He gives himself away in dozens of ways with every essay. Sometimes it is as if he is hardly trying.
Anonymouse 2:13pm, and left wing extremists are really awful at pretending that they don’t exit.
DeleteHow can we miss them if they won't go away?
DeleteThose that engage in non defensive violence are, definitionally, not left wing.
DeleteThis is yet another reason why political discourse requires clear and coherent definitions of terms, as one can see how easily an interloper can disrupt good faith discourse in an attempt to manufacture ignorance.
Anonymouse 5:57pm, that sort of illogical thinking is straight from the playbook of tyrants.
DeleteCecelia, you have to be the least self aware person I have ever encountered. You support a would be tyrant who promises to use the DOJ to go after his enemies. He couldn’t be clearer in his intentions.
DeleteYet you are confounded by demonstrating any illogical thinking in others.
DeleteI understand your anger at you failing to provide coherent counterpoints, and surely it’s more than a self own on your part, we are all an assembly of all that we have experienced.
I hope you can find a way to holster your anger.
mh, you’re saying that I don’t have any self-awareness while all of officialdom is doing everything it can to put Trump in jail and out of the race?
DeleteAnonymouse 7:13pm, a counterpoint is not your suggest that you set the terms and definitions (in the most puerile manner) of what constitutes what or whom.
DeleteI use definitions backed by academia, history, and science.
DeleteYou do not like these definitions because they expose your incoherency and interfere with your goal of manufacturing ignorance.
You remain defiant in offering any credible or coherent counterpoints, more power to you.
Cecelia, Trump is being prosecuted because he has broken the law. He has already been convicted and found liable in several trials. He is not being prosecuted for political reasons. He led an insurrection for God's sake! He had hundreds of classified documents at Mar a Lago. How long do you think someone can get away with stuff like that?
DeleteTrump is already out of the race because he doesn't have the votes to win reelection. There is no need to disqualify him, except that he will drag the Republican party down with him if he is the nominee. Trump is a fat old man in poor health, showing cognitive deficits. Less than half the Republican party is MAGA and the rest are looking for other options besides Trump next Nov. He has lost and he is flailing because he has never been held accountable before. Somerby knows enough to feel sorry for him. You, sucker that you are, still believe he will win. He had his best chance in 2020 and it is all downhill from there. Wise up before people catch on to how stupid you truly are.
Anonymouse 7:54pm, there is no disconnect is thinking that Trump could well have done something that could land him in jail and also feeling awe and alarm at the magnitude of the efforts against him.
DeleteYou can contribute that solely to partisanship or to my feeling sorry for him because he’s my politician/honey bear or something, but from the start of his term to now, it just gets bigger and bigger. It’s far bigger than Trump and his voters and his detractors (which includes all the old guard GOP). It’s been a revelation as to how things work. You can throw insults like sucker and stupid around, it won’t help me wise up according to your perspective.
I’ve already been wised up.
Anonymouse 7:48pm, tyrants always claim to have history and science on their side.
DeleteThe awe and alarm should be about the magnitude of crime engaged in by Trump, his cronies and his children. Yes, the government has more resources than private citizens and especially criminals. That's why most people try not to break so many laws.
DeleteI am waiting for the information to come out about Trump's sharing of classified information with other governments, including US enemies (Russia, Saudis) and journalists, spies & random citizens with no need to know. I am also waiting for the information about his collusion with the Russians to win in 2016 to be thoroughly investigated and made public. That is as bad as his attempts to overturn the valid election in 2020, because it too subverted the will of the voters (thus stealing their votes) and subjected us to meddling by a foreign government (Russia).
Whether Trump is prosecuted for these things, the historians will eventually uncover it all, and the magnitude of Trump's wrongdoing will be staggering. He will be the worst villain in American history. If our democracy survives, that is.
Your belief that the wheels of justice are some sort of malevolent conspiracy is very sad. But that's what Fox tells its viewers, and yes, that makes you a super chump.
Anonymouse 8:41pm, don’t give yourself too much credit.
DeleteMost conservatives were waiting for Trump to be locked up since the pee tapes.
Nothing illegal about kinky sex in Russia. The illegal part is what Trump did when blackmailed — or maybe he did it voluntarily, to earn respect from Vladimir? He seems desperate to join the he-man dictators club.
DeleteCecelia, everyday I feel more and more "awe and alarm" at Trump's ability to escape justice by abusing the court system and the enabling of his corruption by cult following idiots such as yourself.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:16am, there’s medication that can help you.
Deletehelp me what, Cecelia?
DeleteRegistering for an election allows you to rob banks legally. Everyone knows that.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:30am, cope with your demons.
DeleteEverybody can earn 500 dollars Daily…Yes! you can earn more than you think by working online from home. I have been doing this job for like a few weeks and my last week payment was exactly 25370 dollars.
ReplyDeleteCOPY This Website OPEN HERE…….…..
I am Corby.
ReplyDeleteCorby went to Panama.
DeleteThis is getting tiresome. One annoying aspect of this series is Bob treating the yard sign comment as serious, Of course, it was obviously a dramatic way of accusing Obama of antisemitism. In fact, Bob's quote above identifies the comment as a joke.
ReplyDeleteBTW I am becoming an expert at identifying joking ways of accusing some of bigotry, thanks to an anonymous commenter here who finds news and clever ways of calling me and Republicans' racists.
Are you saying that Obama is genuinely anti Semitic, but the idea that republicans can be racist is ridiculous?
DeleteThey stopped calling my cousin a duck, once he stopped quacking.
DeleteWord is spreading in right wing media that Obama enjoys crack cocaine with his gay lover.
DeleteThey report, you decide.
Look how the right wing recycles old smears! This one was debunked in 2007.
Deletemh - I am saying that I am not a racist.
DeleteIt's not possible to measure what's in someone's heart. I suppose some Democrats and some Republicans are racists
IMO many Democratic policies have an adverse effect on black Americans. Eg opposing school choice I don't think that's because Democrats are racist. I think it's because Democratic legislators pass laws and make public statements that will encourage blacks to vote for Democrats, even if these laws and statements are not in the best interest of black Also, they pass laws that reward groups like labor and teachers Some of these laws are bad for blacks
They aren't doing much about the epidemic of white-on-white crime, either, as far as I can tell.
DeleteCrime rates are down, even murders.
DeleteBTW what does it mean when Jews like Dershowitz, Ungar-Sargon, and me recognize a comment as badly antisemitic while Bob does not see it that way?
ReplyDeleteNow you know how we feel about his sexist and racist statements.
DeleteProbably means you are so biased you can't fathom that the other sides civilians deserve the same care you demand for your side.
DeleteDavid, anonymouse flying monkeys are as clever as a kid with a squirt gun.
DeleteFlying monkeys are pretty darn clever. Can you fly?
DeleteDavid questions Bob’s understanding, and Cecelia mentions anonymous commenters. Eh, … what?
DeleteAnyway, David, why do you insist that Obama’s comment is antisemitic?
Project X is a great movie that involves chimps flying planes. (Directed by Kaplan who made other great movies like Over the Edge and The Accused)
DeleteI doubt any monkeys truly comprehend the Bernoulli Principle that underlies our ability to fly, but it’s not hard to imagine monkeys evolving flight capabilities; birds evolved from dinosaurs, anything is possible.
Right wingers, like Dershowitz et al, process threats differently and are incapable of applying reasonableness or rationality to these kind of circumstances.
Anyone who isn't a bigot, or isn't perfectly fine with bigotry, left the Republican Party almost two dozen years ago.
DeleteOldie, but goodie.
DeleteCecelia, why did you bring up anonymous commenters in reply to David’s questioning Bob’s judgment? Do you have anonymous commenters on the brain, or are you flustered because Bob’s view diverges so much from yours and David’s?
Deletemh, I didn’t bring up the flying monkey anonymices with their hackneyed quips about bigots. David did.
Delete“BTW I am becoming an expert at identifying joking ways of accusing some of bigotry, thanks to an anonymous commenter here who finds news and clever ways of calling me and Republicans' racists.”
Any criticism of Israel and any defense of Palestinians is antisemitic because Israel is the state of the Jewish people.
DeleteThe Cowboys are America’s team, if you root against the Cowboys, you root against America.
DeleteWhat defense is possible for the atrocities of 10/7? Using a word like antisemitism is unnecessary. Human beings don't do that to each other, which leaves the Palestinians with a lot of explaining to do. Instead they point fingers and lie.
DeleteThere are other ways to respond to horrible attacks like Oct 7 than killing ten times as many innocent civilians, half of whom are children.
DeleteIsrael warned the Palestinians to leave the area where they are bombing in Northern Gaza. Their response was predictable and yet Hamas apparently did not prepare for it.
DeleteWhat other ways would you suggest? The goal is not to kill any children, but when Hamas uses innocents as human shields, should Israel do nothing? Remember that Hamas is still holding hostages. Do their lives not matter to you?
mh - For one thing, Obama has a double standard He equates Palestinians who go out of their way to murder, torture, rape and kidnap innocent civilians with Israelis who go out of their way to avoid harming innocent civilians All this while conducting a defensive war that was entirely begun by the other side
DeleteIn particular, there is Obama's falsehood about Israel controlling the Palestinians. He completely ignores the fact that Israel entirely withdrew from Gaza 18 years ago.
Why is it that commenters here cannot differentiate Palestinians from a terrorist organization? Likewise why is empathy for the Palestinians considered the moral equivalency of supporting Hamas? "Gaza is the world's largest open air prison" is the recent quotation of an Israeli, who opposes the day to day subjugation of Palestinians by the current far right wing Israeli regime. Within the Israeli community, you know, people who actually live in Israel, there are groups who speak out against the Netanyahu regime's mistreatment of the Palestinians. Shall we label them antisemitic and suggest what kind of lawn signs they put up? The rubbish commented on by Somerby here is standard fare over at Fox, and Dershowitz, the only visitor to Epstein's island to have ever gotten a massage from a matronly older woman, is an irrelevant publicity hound (but of course a Fox staple) dating back to his defence of OJ Simpson.
DeleteDefense
Delete6:42,
DeleteThe Right hates political correctness, right up to the point you tell them the truth about themselves.
Just read a NYT article in the Sunday book section, page 25 by Ethan Bronner, senior Middle East Editor and Israel bureau chief for Bloomberg news, who describes the relationship between Israel and Palestine as " ... Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation next door...". How much time have you spent observing this relationship, David? Your talking points and generalizations are inaccurate at best dishonest in the service of right wing agendas at worse and more likely.
DeleteFrom that article: The per capita GDP of Israel, to its credit, is higher than that of Japan, France, and Great Britain. Why do they need my hard earned taxpayer dollars, incidentally?
Unamused asks, "Why is it that commenters here cannot differentiate Palestinians from a terrorist organization? Likewise why is empathy for the Palestinians considered the moral equivalency of supporting Hamas?"
DeleteHere are some factors to consider:
1. The Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas as their government, once.
2. Although no more elections have been held, there is no evidence that the Palestinians wish to replace Hamas as their government.
3. There is every evidence that Palestinians in general hate Israel.
4. Aside from these specifics, it's unusual to differentiate the populace from what their organization is doing. E.g., Germans were hated for starting WW2 and for the Holocaust, even though these things were done by a minority of Germans.
Unamused, they don't need or get money -- they get military technology and systems. Note that the US also relies on Israel for intelligence. They are allies not dependents.
DeleteDavid, before you excuse everyday Germans, read this:
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Willing-Executioners-Ordinary-Holocaust/dp/0679772685
Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Daniel J. Goldhagen, 1997)
Corby is adorable.
ReplyDeleteToday is Veterans Day. Most public figures take the day to acknowledge the sacrifices of our military and their families. Not Somerby and not Trump.
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump on Saturday thanked the veterans attending his New Hampshire rally, but then proceeded to attack a familiar target: General Milley.
Trump veered off course from his stump speech several times at his rally, even appearing to confuse Barack Obama for Joe Biden at one point. He also took numerous shots at the retired general named Mark Milley, who said he had to restrain the former president's worst impulses throughout his time in office.
Trump mentioned Milley alongside secretary of defense James Mattis.
"You know Mattis. General Mattis. General Milley. Real beauties," Trump said on stage on Saturday."
Not only did Somerby say nothing at all about our veterans, but he has said nothing about Trump's increasingly obvious cognitive decline. Trump is not a sociopath, he is showing clear signs of dementia. One such sign is loss of emotional control, anger, aggressiveness. Another is his confusing figures from the past with current opponents in his campaign speeches. His inability to control himself in court is another troubling symptom. I suspect that his rambling may arise because he cannot remember what question he was asked.
Trump has never valued the military. That is one reason why those serving in the armed forces have been veering left in their voting patterns, after being traditionally Republican and conservatives. They have a sense of responsibility and conscientiousness that makes it impossible for them to support Trump and MAGA Republicanism. This is why Trump and his supporters didn't want to count mail-in or late ballots. That is how members of the military vote.
Crickets from Somerby. But then, avoiding the draft isn't the way to start a life that values such service.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-milley-veterans-day/
DeleteMy uncle volunteered for two combat tours in Vietnam, he was a young writer and wanted life experience that could inform his writing.
DeleteOn his second tour he was wounded by stepping on a bamboo shoot booby trap and received a Purple Heart, but that was not his worst experience, which was being forced to defensively kill a Viet Cong teen that was attacking him with a gun. That tormented him his whole life.
He did have some success, even writing a play about my dad that won a best of year award in nyc in the late 70s.
They are dead now, but they were leftists that voted for Dems and were horrified by people like Trump.
The least we can do for them and others who served is remember them and thank them for putting their lives and sanity on the line like that.
DeleteOr refer to them as losers and suckers and ask why the fallen dead had gone to war insofar as there was nothing in it for them. Said the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, as confirmed by senior military officials present during his comments in 2018.
DeleteTrump says he is going to root out the vermin in our country. What do conservatives have against mice?
ReplyDeleteIt’s hard for them to face their internal issues so they scapegoat those that they perceive as lacking an ability to fight back.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:33pm, mice aren’t vermin. My guess is Trump means the DC type
DeleteCecelia, look up the definition of vermin. It says “rodents.”
Deletemh, that’s anonymouse type of mices. Not cute furry mice.
DeleteTrump was given an opportunity to improve society, instead he lowered taxes for the wealthy, engaged in corruption for his own personal benefit, and incompetently responded to a massive public health issue that directly led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
DeleteThe only thing Trump is going to root out are potatoes grown in the prison yard garden.
Anonymouse 7:21pm, but that is who he meant by vermin.
DeleteMaybe you're thinking of varmits?
DeleteTrump means to punish his political enemies for opposing him.
DeleteUnfortunately, Trump engaged in illegal activity for which he will likely be convicted.
Anonymouse 7:43pm, there’s been no change in that Trump rhetoric since 2016 when the Peter Strok was texting that Trump would be stopped and the FBI was altering FISA warrant apps.
DeleteRight wing BS
DeleteIt's funny you mention Peter Strok, Cec, who was already wrongfully terminated by trump. We don't have to wait until 2024 to understand the capacity for that orange abomination to abuse his power to punish his political enemies. But go ahead, momma bear, wrap you protective skirt around him, poor misunderstood foul excuse for a human being.
DeleteAnonymouse 7:53am, Strzok wasn’t wrongfully terminated. He showed himself to be completely biased and compromised and was a liability to an already disreputable agency.
DeleteDon’t believe me? Ask Chuck Schumer.
We'll let the courts decide that, Cecelia. Is there some law that all FBI agents must be neutral or supporters of person they are investigating? You should Hillary Clinton know about it.
DeleteThe FBI needs agents who support criminality, too, so as to alleviate the bias in their ranks.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:43am, the FBI doesn’t need a law in order to fire a compromised and embarrassing employee, and those people can always get jobs in the media.
DeleteAnd yet neither of them has done that.
DeleteCompromised, how, Cecelia? There is no evidence he did anything improper in his part of the russia investigation. That overgrown 3 year old child you call the leader of your party abused his power.
DeleteDONALD TRUMP’S DOJ SHUT DOWN A BURISMA CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION OPENED WHILE JOE BIDEN WAS VP
November 9, 2023/37 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, Hunter Biden /by emptywheel
Right in the middle of an impeachment for extorting Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on the Bidens and Burisma, Bill Barr’s DOJ shut down a corruption investigation into Burisma’s Mykola Zlochevsky.
Then, days later, Barr set up a process that would insert an allegation that Zlochevsky bribed Joe Biden into the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden.
That is — by far — the most scandalous allegation that has come out of the Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan-led effort to gin up an impeachment of Joe Biden. Bill Barr’s DOJ shut down an investigation into Zlochevsky’s corruption, and then mainlined an allegation of corruption involving Zlochevsky into the investigation of Joe Biden’s son.
To be fair, the claim that Bill Barr’s DOJ shut down a corruption investigation of Zlochevsky didn’t come from Comer or Jordan. It came from Chuck Grassley.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/11/09/donald-trumps-doj-shut-down-a-burisma-corruption-investigation-opened-while-joe-biden-was-vp/
Pretty funny, huh Cec? How is your investigation into the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband coming along? You've always shown such great instinct in these type of matters.
Anonymouse 11:43am, I don’t think calling Strzok corrupt is disproved by saying that Bill Barr is corrupt.
DeleteUnfortunately, there’s no limit on the number of people that can be corrupt.
Barr will argue that the investigation was closed because Ukraine wasn’t interested in cooperating. We’ll see. Strzok is a sleazebag no matter how many other people are members of that party. Not that this matters to you.
Being a sleazebag at is, as far as I know, not illegal, nor proof of anything, corruption or otherwise. But your ability to recognize sleaze in others is noted, Cecelia.
Deletemh, I didn’t call others sleazebags.
DeleteI called Strzok that.
Trump has moved on to other enemies.
DeleteCec, is there any common ground here? Trump did do on multiple occasions in his first term and is promising to do again what you seem to believe Strzok did without any evidence. Do you agree that is totally disqualifying in a presidential candidate and you can never give him your vote now?
DeleteCops don’t want to be bothered.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/11/gotta-give-cops-more-money.html?m=1
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/day-laborers-hired-by-tarzana-murder-suspect-to-move-body-parts-human-remains-encino/3266061/?amp=1
That's why Latin X is supporting Trump now more than ever.
DeleteDersh lost any respect he had among serious people a long time ago. But Bob must be careful, if he takes his fingers out of his ears and stops chanting “Trump Trump Trump!” He is going to hear all sorts of upsetting things.
ReplyDeleteRemember when weirdo Mao and his gay lover Fucker Carlson pretended to know that the Biden administration had blown up the Nord Stream pipeline? He went on and on about it too, day after day, belittling anyone (including Somerby) who questioned such an obvious fact? After all, some European intellectuals said it was so, as did Jeffrey Sachs. (Mao's whole self-worth was tied up in pretending to be more clever than everyone else, which meant he always had to have a non-mainstream, non-consensus take on everything.) But alas, as with so many things Mao said, it turns out that might not have been accurate. Shocking, I know. From the WaPo: "Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack
ReplyDeleteRoman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was integral to last year’s brazen sabotage operation of the Russia-Germany pipeline, according to people familiar with planning." But of course we know how Mao would wiggle out of such an embarrassment: pff, that's just what the Bezos Post wants you to believe.
Mao still pops in from time to time but has mostly moved on. Perhaps the sugar daddy who was paying him cut the funding.
DeleteI don't remember Mao commenting on this. I think they were gone by then.
DeleteSo, the CIA blames Colonel Sanders now? Nice.
DeleteBut what happened to the imbecilic "Russkies done it" narrative? Quietly disappeared into the memory hole?
The U.S. did it and it was a good move.
DeleteWhy do you insist on right wing disinformation even when news reports conradict it?
DeleteWhat makes this act of international terrorism a "good move"?
DeleteWhat if other countries take it as a signal that these kinds of "good moves" are fair game now? For that matter, they probably have already.
Anonymouse 10:07pm, we’re bigger than they are and have lots of plausible deniability as well as saps like you.
DeleteWhere did the Ukrainian military rent a sailboat, deep sea diving gear and buy explosives in the Baltic Sea? The waters where the explosion took place is nowhere near Ukraine.
Delete@10:35 AM
DeleteSo, you're opposed to the international law, and to elementary decency in international relations.
In imperialistic "might makes right" style.
Okay, sure. Everyone has the right to an opinion. Here's John Quincy Adams, 200 years ago:
https://loveman.sdsu.edu/docs/1821secofstateJQAdmas.pdf
A lot has changed.
As for deniability, you're fooling yourself. Outside the US, everyone knows.
DeleteNow that the war has been lost and we are looking for a way to GTFO out of there, the US may be trying to throw some Ukrainians and Ukraine itself under the bus with a story like this.
DeleteAnd it does give normies a data point to pass around when trying to refute the Seymour Hersh article etc..
Oh oh. One or two of the comments here sound like Mao. Taking Seymour Hersh's reporting more seriously than mainstream reporting, and the over-confident "outside the US, everyone knows." Did Mao go anonymous? Mao (and the right in general) never concedes even when contrary evidence surfaces. The "stolen" election is a perfect example. But I digress.
Delete"The Russkies done it." There might have been a handful of people who brought that up as a possibility, but it wasn't anything Somerby (or I) claimed. And no mainstream reporting was making such a claim as if it were a foregone conclusion, unlike how smugly and over-confidently Mao and others on the right advanced their counter-narrative (and apparently still do).
"It was a good move." Good point. Ultimately that's the real question. I think Putin is such a malevolent presence on the world stage that anything that undermines his power is a good thing. And weakening his leverage over such an important country as Germany is unquestionably a good thing.
"Now that the war has been lost." Lol. Only someone hoping that Ukraine loses (for the childish reason that Biden and the Dems are on Ukraine's side) would say such a thing. The war obviously isn't over. But if the good guys do lose, it will be because of Republicans undermining the war effort -- both materially and through their isolationist propaganda, which Mao and others have bought into.
@11:18 AM
Delete"we are looking for a way to GTFO out of there"
What does it mean, exactly? There's still a couple of million of unfortunate Ukrainian citizens to throw into it. Cities and towns to destroy. Weapons and ammo to buy and burn. Why would whoever is running this thing on the US side want to stop it? It doesn't make sense.
A senior U.S. official said we have been in confidential discussions with Ukraine about starting peace talks with Russia to end the war because neither side is making large strides on the battlefield and the American public isn't supporting the war. And now with Israel Hamas, we have bigger fish to fry. Bye bye Ukraine.
Delete"The war obviously isn't over."
DeleteIt is over. They just haven't told you yet.
"A senior U.S. official" says a lot of things. 99% of them is baloney.
DeleteThe only real question is: why is it published by the government media.
On the second thought, there may be some logic to it after all. Suppose the imperial planners are worried that their puppet government in Kiev is collapsing, and all of Ukraine may join the RF. Then indeed they would prefer to save what they still own.
There's that smug over-confidence again. You're like a religious fanatic, Mao. Always pretending to know things you don't actually know. Always smarter than "they." It's a way to feel superior and boost your self-esteem I guess.
DeleteInteresting the B.S. story that a Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack doesn't even quote a "current senior U.S. official", it quotes "people familiar with planning", which could be anybody.
DeleteThe war is over, 1:13? I hadn’t heard that Russian troops marched into Kiev and took over the government, rather than slogging through a humiliating stalemate.
DeleteMao doesn't know he's being propagandized as a result of politics, religious fundamentalism, and corrupt, self-interested pro-Russia/anti-Ukraine sentiment. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/8/why-are-us-republicans-pushing-for-aid-to-israel-but-not-ukraine
Delete"humiliating stalemate"
DeleteYes, so far they only added a territory size of (I'm guessing) Italy to their country? Getting a land path to Crimea and restoring its water supply? Gaining full control over the Azov sea?
Yes, humiliating.
Yes, the Ukraine war is over.
DeleteNow it's just how do we:
1. GTFO
and then
2. tell the Normies.
THIS is antisemitism:
ReplyDelete"NEW YORK — Reported bombs at separate Jewish sites caused alarm on Saturday and prompted an New York Police Department response as antisemitic incidents sparked by the war in Gaza continue to rise, police said.
First, police were called to Holocaust Memorial Park on West End Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, just before 10 a.m. when someone walking through the park found a grenade among the markers dedicated to Jews killed during the Nazi regime.
The NYPD Bomb Squad was called and ultimately cleared the scene after the grenade was found to be inert, an NYPD spokesman said.
No one was injured and no arrests were made.
Less than an hour later, someone texted 911, claiming that he had left two backpacks filled with pipe bombs inside Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue near East 54th Street in Midtown.
Cops responded to the scene, but found nothing, cops said. The synagogue wasn’t evacuated.
The two incidents came as hate crimes against Jews in the city have nearly tripled during the monthlong war in Israel."
Progressive are by and large, not anti-semetic. Some, of course are, but not as much as the right led by Trump and his supporters. Remember the chant "Jews will not replace us"?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is comical that Trump supporters who comment on this blog suggest that liberal antisemites outnumber those on the right wing. Find me a single rally for a liberal politician that is 1/10th as ugly as Charlottesville for racist and antisemitic followers. Republicans do not vote for Jews in Congress. In the last 10 years 4/41 Jewish House members elected were Republicans, and 1/9 Jewish senators elected were Republicans. The numbers are impressive for how little Republicans consider Jews for public office. There is no escaping what the numbers say about Jews and the Republican party. But go ahead and make jokes about progressive's lawn signs.
ReplyDeleteTrump Compares Political Foes To ‘Vermin’ On Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda
Deletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/11/12/trump-compares-political-foes-to-vermin-on-veterans-day-echoing-nazi-propaganda/?sh=5bdc74de7229
And yes, David, vermin is the word Hitler and his Nazis often used to describe the Jewish population in Germany.
David and Cecelia are both on board with this stuff from Trump. Anything to attack the libs. You will never hear a clear condemnation of any of this from them. They will bring up “radical leftist tyrants” instead.
Deletemh, embattled (but never one to shy away from a pejorative…or ten of them…no matter the circumstance… ) Trump calls his many foes vermin and we’re supposed to get excited about it?
DeleteWhy? mh, if you’re going to try and shame someone, make it your mother.
Spoken by someone who calls other commenters mice.
DeleteJust the nameless ones.
Deleteanonymous is a name
DeleteCorby is adorable.
Delete