Day: May 16, 2021

Do Something Now!

The Middle East is once again in the midst of another war in the making….Hamas is firing rockets into Israel and Israel retaliates….the continuing saga…..

The problem is that Israel is not punishing Hamas but rather the Palestinian people and now even news organizations…..

An Israeli airstrike on Saturday targeted and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of the Associated Press and other media outlets. AP staffers and other tenants safely evacuated the building after the military telephoned a warning that the strike was imminent within an hour. Three heavy missiles struck the 12-story building, collapsing it in a giant cloud of dust. For 15 years, the AP’s top-floor office and roof terrace were a prime location for covering Israel’s conflicts with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, including wars in 2009 and 2014. The news agency’s camera offered 24-hour live shots as militants’ rockets arched toward Israel and Israeli airstrikes hammered the city and its surrounding area this week.

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” said AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. “We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life.” The building also housed the offices of Qatari-run Al-Jazeera TV, as well as residential apartments. The Israeli military said Hamas was operating inside the building, a standard explanation, and it accused the militant group of using journalists as human shields. But it provided no evidence to back up the claims. Hours earlier, another Israeli air raid on a densely populated refugee camp killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, the deadliest single strike of the current conflict.

It was an accident?

Really?

All the sophisticated weaponry that the US sends to Israel and they cannot hit the targets they should……or maybe it was hitting the news media for their perceived slight in the reporting.

My feeling is that it was NO accident.

The US can stop all this chaos.

The US should suspend contracts with Israel until such time as they act in a civilized manner.

Time to hold the Arab nations up to the same pressure…..they could intervene and do the right thing…..such they also get massive aid from the US.

Time for the US to step up and make this stop and promote civility not armed response.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Mississippi Voters Mean Nothing!

I have said on numerous occasions that the vote means little to politicians anymore…..and Mississippi proves my point.

Recently there was an initiative that the Mississippi voter approved of the sale of medical marijuana…..a win right?

Maybe elsewhere but not in Mississippi…..

In a brutal loss for direct democracy in Mississippi, the state’s supreme court struck down a ballot amendment on Friday that legalized medical marijuana in the state. But the ruling didn’t stop there. Invoking a technical flaw in the law, the court invalidated the entire process for amending the state’s constitution by popular vote.

“The killing of our ballot initiative process means that Mississippi is, definitively, the state with the least democracy, the most restricted ballot access, and where voters’ voices matter least when it comes to the deciding our future,” said Ashton Pittman, a reporter at the Mississippi Free Press.

“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” read a statement from Medical Marijuana MS, which organized Initiative 65 that would legalize the use of the drug. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end.”

About 73 percent of voters supporter legalizing medical marijuana, according to Pittman.

At the heart of the court’s decision is a crucial flaw in the process that gives voters the power to amend the constitution by popular vote. According to the law, organizers for ballot measures have to collect signatures from the five different congressional districts in the state. But since the 2000 census, Mississippi dropped from having five districts to having only four.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court/

This is what you get when party politics is a decider on judges.

I continue to be a critic of voting as it is today…..

The people’s will means NOTHING to partisan politicians.

If it happened in Mississippi then it can happen elsewhere……..beware!

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”