Month: October 2023

Screw The Constitution!

Let me say in the onset that this is not my sentiment but rather that of one of this country’s leading political figures.

To me the US Constitution laid down the laws of the land and set forth detailed the rights of the individual and those rights need to be protected and preserved but recently there have been attacks on those very laws and rights.

Some rally around the flag or the pledge or the national anthem…but none of those are as important as the precepts set down by the Constitution….if they truly want to show their support for this great nation then the preservation of the Constitution should be priority one.

Now the meat of this post.

Trump has told the court that he does not have to support the Constitution as president.

Former President Donald Trump is arguing to a judge in Colorado that he was not required to “support” the Constitution as president, reported Brandi Buchman from Law & Crime.

The argument came as he seeks to dismiss a lawsuit filed in the state by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeking to have him disqualified from the ballot in the state under the 14th Amendment. The Insurrection Clause of the amendment prohibits those who have “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding a civil, military, or elected office unless a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate approve.

But Trump’s lawyers are arguing that the specific language of the Constitution argues that this requirement only applies to people in offices who are bound to “support” the Constitution — and the presidency is not one of those offices.

“The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution — not to ‘support’ the Constitution,” said the filing by Trump’s attorneys. “Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to ‘support’ the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President.”

The former president has already tried to remove the 14th Amendment case to federal court, but this motion was denied.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-wont-support-constitution/

Do you agree…..that the president does not have a duty to follow the Constitution?

Anybody that follows this person deserves none of the guarantees the Constitution provides…..in my opinion.

This is a scary turn of events….but everything about Trump is a scary turn of events.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Solution!

I have been wondering why some sites I visit I cannot ‘like’ them or why I need to log in every time I try to comment.

Nan a friend of Beetleypete has found at least one answer and I would like to pass it on.

A Solution!

Another thing…..I have not seen any Spam on IST for about 3 weeks and that is unusual….has anyone else had less Spam lately?

The Hunt For A Rad Speaker Continues

I told my readers that this whole political circus would be a sh*t show…..and so it is.

The front runner for the speaker’s position was Scalise and now that has turned to poo-poo.

One day after he won a GOP ballot to seek the position of House speaker, Steve Scalise is out of the running. “It’s been quite a journey,” the GOP majority leader told reporters Thursday night. “And there’s still a long way to go. I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for the speaker designee.” The reason? Scalise knew he’d never be able to get the required 217 votes in the full House because at least 10 Republicans vowed to oppose him, per Politico.

So now what? It appears that GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, the man Scalise defeated Wednesday, will again try to win the Republican conference ballot. However, it remains uncertain whether he has enough support to do that or, should he succeed, to reach the threshold of 217 votes after that. “This country is counting on us to come back together,” Scalise said Thursday. “But there’s some folks that really need to look in the mirror over the next couple of days and decide are we going to get it back on track, or they’re going to try to pursue their own agenda,” he said, per Axios. The House has been without a speaker for nine days since GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz led the charge to oust Kevin McCarthy from the post.

Looks like Jordan will try again….that lowly Trump-ite in charge of the House….could government get more silly?

Who will step forward to be in charge of the worst Congress in many years?

The clowns are circling….let the circus commence.

Stay Tune!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

White Nationalism?

There is a term that is batted around these days in all sorts of reports and blogs….then there is the less attractive fascism.

First let’s look at the history of fascism…..

In modern political discourse, the terms “fascism” or “neo-fascism” are some of the most charged and polarizing possible. Yet, they are also some of the most overused and misunderstood. Take U.S. politics, for example: Both liberal and conservative parties have publicly accused each other of being “fascist” in some respect or another, and many people argue it’s devaluing the meaning of the word to keep throwing it around so haphazardly.

So what does the term fascism even mean, and is anyone even using it correctly at this point? The term fascism describes a large political movement that occurred in Europe from the late 1910s until the end of World War II. Fascism was an ideology and system of government that served as the antithesis of liberalism and democracy in the early 20th century.

Though they were all different, fascist governments generally emphasized leadership by a single individual, a dictator, who promoted extreme state nationalism through laws and violence. Unlike liberal democracies, fascist governments were totalitarian and did not tolerate political protests or dissent, and they had foreign policies that emphasized a maximalist approach to gaining territory through militarism. In several cases, like Nazi Germany, fascism and anti-Semitism combined to form a horrifying supernova of evil. World War II largely extinguished the original wave of fascism. Unfortunately, it left the equally dark neo-fascism — or modern fascism — in its wake, and the term is still widely used today.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/1409188/history-fascism-explained/

America has had its bouts with fascism…

Pro-Nazi propaganda, courtesy of the US post office? This unlikely scheme was hatched by George Sylvester Viereck, a German-born American who between 1937 and 1941 sought to marshal US sentiment against intervention in Europe. Those who heeded him included prominent members of Congress, such as Burton Wheeler of Montana and Rush Holt Sr of West Virginia, anti-interventionist Democratic senators known for speeches that prompted accusations of antisemitism. Viereck’s contacts on Capitol Hill allowed him to place anti-interventionist speeches in the appendix to the congressional record. Thanks to friends in high places, he could order inexpensive reprints and have German-American groups mail them out on government postage.

If this sounds out of place in the land of the free, it shouldn’t – according to an illuminating new anthology, Fascism in America: Past and Present, edited by Gavriel D Rosenfeld and Janet Ward. In 12 chapters plus an introduction and epilogue, the co-editors and their contributors make the case that fascism has existed on US soil for well past a century and remains disturbingly present today.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/30/fascism-in-america-book-trump

That brings us to ‘white nationalism’ which is way to try and disguise what is most assuredly fascism.

It has been on the rise for about a decade and came to the forefront with Donald the Orange and now it seems to be getting worse.

In 2021, it was Gosar and Greene along with Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who attempted to launch an America First Caucus that would champion “uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” A secret paper, uncovered by Punchbowl News, discussed the forming of that caucus and the rationale behind it (addressing the supposed threat of “mass immigration” to “the long-term existential future of America as a unique country with a unique culture and a unique identity”). No need even to say “white,” of course. After the document was revealed and some Republican leaders criticized the initiative, all parties involved backed down (at least in public).

Time after time, key Republican figures have leaned into the ethos and ideological aims of white nationalism. It’s no wonder that America’s racists, including the KKK, have fallen in love with the modern Trumpublican version of the Republican Party. Once upon a time, of course, and for decades thereafter, the Klan was deeply linked to the southern wing of the Democratic Party — the Dixiecrats, as they were then known — but began to switch to the GOP as presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and then presidents Richard Nixon (with his infamous “southern strategy”) and Ronald Reagan exploited white feelings of resentment towards the Civil Rights Movement and the national Democratic Party’s support for racial equality.

The Political Rise of a New White Nationalism

American society has become fractured between two warring factions and this next election shows no promise of any healing….

This crisis in American democracy crept up on many of us. For generations of Americans, grainy news footage from World War II showing row upon row of Nazi soldiers goose-stepping in military parades tricked us into thinking that the Adolf Hitlers of the world arrive at the head of giant armies. So long as we didn’t see tanks in our streets, we imagined that democracy was secure. But in fact, Hitler’s rise to absolute power began with his consolidation of political influence to win 36.8 percent of the vote in 1932, which he parlayed into a deal to become German chancellor. The absolute dictatorship came afterward.

Democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint.

This election could very well be the view of things to come….laziness of the American voter is killing this society.

Will it survive?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Hunt For A Speaker

McCarthy is in his ‘hidden’ office licking his wounds and two major players have stepped up to slither their way into the House leadership….Jim Jordan and Scalise…..

I was wondering if the opponents would bring up the past allegations against Jordan….they did.

Jim Jordan should not be speaker of the House, according to four former Ohio State University wrestlers who claim the House Judiciary Committee chairman failed to protect them from a sexual predator. Jordan served as assistant coach of the OSU wrestling team from 1986 to 1994, when Richard Strauss was employed as a school physician. A 2019 investigative report found Strauss, who died in 2005, sexually abused at least 177 students from 1979 to 1997, including through 47 cases of rape. The 2019 investigation found coaches and athletic administrators knew Strauss was abusing male athletes and failed to stop him, though individual names were redacted in the public report. Jordan has claimed he never saw or heard about any abuse while at the school.

But some former wrestlers have disputed that. Dunyasha Yetts has said he personally told Jordan that Strauss tried to remove his shorts when he went to see the doctor about a thumb injury. “He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker,” Yetts now tells NBC News. “He still has to answer for what happened to us.” Other Strauss accusers have backed up Yetts’ claim that Jordan knew what the doctor was up to, claiming the coach took part in locker room discussions to that effect. “There’s no way he didn’t know what was going on,” says Mike Schyck, another former OSU wrestler. “Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys? Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”

“None of us used the words ‘sexual abuse’ when we talked about what Doc Strauss was doing to us,” but Jordan “knew about it because we talked about it all the time in the locker room, at practices, everywhere,” says a third former OSU wrestler, identified as John Doe in a lawsuit against the university. In a 2018 interview, Jordan noted “conversations in a locker room are a lot different than allegations of abuse. No one ever reported any abuse to me.” But he went on to deny knowledge of these locker room discussions, too. Rocky Ratliff, a former OSU wrestler and lawyer representing plaintiffs in the suit against the school, now wants to hear him say the same under oath. Ratliff, who claims Jordan “abandoned his former wrestlers,” plans to have him deposed, per NBC.

Did this work to keep Jordan out of the Big Chair?

It appears to may have help the Repubs decide on Scalise for the Speakership….

House Republicans have landed on Majority Leader Steve Scalise as their pick for next speaker, with the Hill reporting he bested Jim Jordan in a 113-99 closed-door vote. Things will next head to the House floor, where he’ll face off against Democrats’ pick: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The one who ends up with the gavel will be the one who emerges with the majority, which could take a while. Republicans hold a very slim majority, and ousted speaker Kevin McCarthy didn’t emerge victorious for 15 rounds.

The AP writes of Scalise, “The Louisiana lawmaker is seen as a hero to some after surviving a mass shooting on lawmakers at a congressional baseball game practice a few years ago.” The Hill adds, “Scalise’s nomination marks the pinnacle of his congressional career, which began in 2008 and has spanned more than nine years in leadership, including stints as Republican whip and, most recently, majority leader.” Sources tell CNN that a full House vote won’t happen today, with interim speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry expected to call a recess when the House meets at 3pm.

Several GOP lawmakers have already said they won’t vote for Scalise, and it’s unclear whether he has a path to winning a majority. “Surprises are for little kids at birthday parties, not Congress,” Rep. Thomas Massie said in a post on X. “So, I let Scalise know in person that he doesn’t have my vote on the floor.” Rep. Max Miller said he would vote for Jordan even if Jordan asks his supporters to vote for Scalise, the Washington Post reports.

This ought to be fascinating.

Let The Games Begin!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

WP Users Beware!

I try to be an FYI blog from time to time and this is one of those times.

This is a report that should be read by anyone using WP….seems thousands of WP sites have been hacked.

Thousands of sites running the WordPress content management system have been hacked by a prolific threat actor that exploited a recently patched vulnerability in a widely used plugin.

The vulnerable plugin, known as tagDiv Composer, is a mandatory requirement for using two WordPress themes: Newspaper and Newsmag. The themes are available through the Theme Forest and Envato marketplaces and have more than 155,000 downloads.

Tracked as CVE-2023-3169, the vulnerability is what’s known as a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw that allows hackers to inject malicious code into webpages. Discovered by Vietnamese researcher Truoc Phan, the vulnerability carries a severity rating of 7.1 out of a possible 10. It was partially fixed in tagDiv Composer version 4.1 and fully patched in 4.2.

According to a post authored by security researcher Denis Sinegubko, threat actors are exploiting the vulnerability to inject web scripts that redirect visitors to various scam sites. The redirections lead to sites pushing fake tech support, fraudulent lottery wins, and push notification scams, the latter of which trick visitors into subscribing to push notifications by displaying fake captcha dialogs.

Sucuri, the security firm Sinegubko works for, has been tracking the malware campaign since 2017 and has named it Balada. Sucuri estimates that in the past six years, Balada has compromised more than 1 million sites. Last month, Sucuri detected Balada injections on more than 17,000 sites, almost double the number the firm had seen the month before. More than 9,000 of the new infections were the result of injections made possible by exploiting CVE-2023-3169.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/10/thousands-of-wordpress-sites-have-been-hacked-through-tagdiv-plugin-vulnerability/

Please take heed for your site could be at risk.

IST will most likely be safe for I do not use the plug-in in question…..but others might.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Trying To Out Stupid Each Other

It seems that the GOP candidates spend a bunch of time trying to out stupid each other….one of the best moronic statements cam from GOP candidate Nikki Haley…..

Ron DeSantis wants suspected drug smugglers at the US-Mexico border to be shot dead. Nikki Haley promises to send special forces into Mexico. Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Mexico’s leader of treating drug cartels as his “sugar daddy” and says that if he is elected president, “there will be a new daddy in town.” Donald Trump, who has long shaped his Republican rhetoric on the border, has often blamed Mexico for problems in the US and promises new uses of military force and covert action if he returns to the White House. Many of the GOP presidential candidates say they would carry out potential acts of war against Mexico in response to the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, the AP reports.

I have hear other GOPers mouth this same type of stupidity.

I know it is a lot to ask but think about this for a split moment.

Sen. Graham also has this same idea….only he mouthed the stupidity first.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Monday said he was prepared to introduce legislation to “set the stage” for U.S. military force in Mexico, saying it was time to “get tough” on the neighboring country after four Americans were kidnapped by armed men this week.

Graham told Fox News host Jesse Watters that he would follow the advice of former President Trump on Mexico policy.

“I would put Mexico on notice,” Graham said. “If you continue to give safe haven to drug dealers, then you are an enemy of the United States.”

Graham added he would “introduce legislation to make certain Mexican drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations under U.S. law and set the stage to use military force if necessary.”

“I would tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you,” the senator said.

(thehill.com)

If the US sends Army troops into Mexico to hunt down drug dealers and cartel….is that similar, in principle, to Russia sending troops into Ukraine to hunt down Nazis?

I wrote ‘in principle’ we are not dealing with specifics.

Do we really want to invade our neighbor to the South?

Is that a prudent decision on any level?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

How Did HAMAS Pull This Off?

The war in Gaza is raging and taking many lives on both sides….and the world keeps asking how come Israel and all its resources did not see this coming….

How did the pull this off?

Ever hear of “Operation Mincemeat”?  (Look it up!  Google awaits!)

There is one story that could explain it….well partially…..

Two days after the stunning Hamas attack on Israel, the question remains: How did Israeli’s vaunted intelligence agency fail to see this coming? A story at Reuters provides one of the best explanations so far, with details from Hamas insiders familiar with the planning. For two years, Hamas leaders duped Israel into thinking it was weary of war and not looking for a fight, according to the story. Privately, however, the militant group trained its fighters all the while for the coordinated assault that took place over the weekend. Perhaps the most remarkable detail: “Hamas constructed a mock Israeli settlement in Gaza where they practiced a military landing and trained to storm it,” the report says. They even made videos of these training raids.

“Israel surely saw them, but they were convinced that Hamas wasn’t keen on getting into a confrontation,” says one of the outlet’s sources. In short, Hamas left the impression it was content living with the conditions imposed by Israel on Gaza, which included permits to let residents work in Israel or the West Bank. “This is a major failure,” says Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, per the AP. “This operation actually proves that the [intelligence] abilities in Gaza were no good.” One relatively simple way Hamas leaders kept their plans secret was by eschewing modern tech, says retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, per Insider.

“What Hamas did, what their leadership did, was apparently they moved off of the normal modern communications links that we take for granted every day and went back to what you did in the 19th century: face-to-face meetings, they went and used couriers instead of going in and using the telephone or the cellphone,” he told CNN. As for the military plan itself, it involved an initial rocket barrage, accompanied by fighters on hang gliders who helped clear the way for commando units to breach the fortified wall that separates Gaza from Israeli settlements, per Reuters. Bulldozers then widened the breaches, allowing more fighters to enter in trucks. The last part of the plan involved moving hostages from Israel back into Gaza.

One question answered.

While I do not support HAMAS at all….I can say clever rouse.

Since this began there has been much said about Iran being behind this attack….and now the IDF has weighed in on this situation and Iran.

Israeli officials said they had no evidence that Iran was involved in the Hamas attack on southern Israel after a report from The Wall Street Journal claimed Iranian officials helped plot the operation.

“We have no evidence or proof” that Iran was involved, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Maj. Nir Dinar told POLITICO. Dinar left open the possibility that Tehran was linked to the attack, saying, “Just because you don’t have that evidence doesn’t necessarily mean Iran isn’t behind it.”

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, another IDF spokesman, made similar comments. “Iran is a major player, but we can’t yet say if it was involved in the planning or training,” Hagari said.

You can bet this piece info will not make it into the reporting.

I am sure there will be more info coming out and I will be watching.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Wallet Has Moths

This ought to be good….how many AI comments will this produce?

Things are looking sort of grim for Ukraine….it appears that cash and equipment is running short.

The US is running low, UK is running low and the whole of NATO is running low.

First the US….

The US will run out of money to pay for Ukrainian government salaries and services within the next month if Congress does not authorize more Ukraine aid, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed US and Ukrainian officials.

The US and Ukraine’s other Western backers have been paying the salaries of about 150,000 civil servants in Ukraine. This has been done through a form of US support known as direct budgetary aid that is provided through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank.

According to the Journal, the World Bank has sent $23.4 billion to Ukraine through the program, with $20.2 billion funded by the US and $2 billion from the UK. USAID is expected to provide another $1.15 billion this month, but future disbursements are unclear.

A recent report from 60 Minutes showed how the US economic aid for Ukraine is not just funding the government. The US aid also subsidizes small businesses and helps purchase seeds and fertilizers for Ukrainian farmers. The owner of a knitwear business in Ukraine spoke with 60 Minutes and acknowledged funding for her company was being provided by US taxpayers.

(antiwar.com)

Read the last paragraph closely.

Now for the UK….

The UK has run out of military equipment that it can give to Ukraine, according to a senior British military source speaking to The Telegraph.

“We’ve given away just about as much as we can afford,” the unnamed source told the paper, adding that the UK had a role to play in encouraging other nations to continue arming Ukraine.

“We will continue to source equipment to provide for Ukraine, but what they need now is things like air defense assets and artillery ammunition, and we’ve run dry on all that,” the source said.

The UK has been a staunch supporter of the proxy war in Ukraine and has led many escalations in NATO support, including the provision of Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have a range of 155 miles, and toxic depleted uranium ammunition for use with British-made Challenger 2 tanks.

The UK’s lack of arms for Ukraine is the latest sign that NATO support for the proxy war is fracturing. Poland recently declared it would no longer provide Ukraine with weapons over a grain spat, Slovakia elected a candidate who campaigned on ending military support for Ukraine, and Congress still has yet to authorize the additional $24 billion in spending on the war that President Biden is seeking.

(antiwar.com)

Then there is NATO’s statement….

The head of NATO’s Military Committee is urging the alliance to increase arms production, warning the “bottom of the barrel” of NATO’s stockpiles is now visible due to the massive amounts of weapons and ammunition that have been shipped to Ukraine.

Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer made the comments on the first day of the Warsaw Security Forum. He said NATO military budgets increased before the Russian invasion but that the Western arms industry did not increase production capacity.

“And that has led to higher prices already before the war. And that actually has (been) exacerbated by the fact that we now give away weapon systems to Ukraine, which is great, and ammunition, but not from full warehouses,” Bauer said, according to TVP World.

“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible. And we need the industry to ramp up production at a much higher tempo and we need large volumes,” he added.

Bauer’s comments came after a British military source told The Telegraph that the UK was out of weapons to give to Ukraine. “We will continue to source equipment to provide for Ukraine, but what they need now is things like air defense assets and artillery ammunition, and we’ve run dry on all that,” the source said.

(antiwar.com)

I asked are cracks forming?

Now Ukraine is worried about their gravy train….

Ukrainian officials are “freaking out” over the uncertainty about new Ukraine aid being passed through Congress, a Ukrainian member of parliament told POLITICO.

“We are freaking out. For us it is a disaster,” said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, an MP who chairs the committee on Ukraine’s integration into the EU. “We are interested in getting things sorted out so American democracy can function, and so we can restore the bipartisan consensus on supporting their own national interest by supporting Ukraine.”

Markarova also said there was $1.23 billion left in budgetary aid, which the US provides through the World Bank and pays for Ukrainian government services and salaries, among other things. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the US only has enough budgetary aid to pay for the month of October and that the funds would dry up if Congress doesn’t authorize more aid.

(antiwar.com)

We pay for their government officials?

When will this stupidity stop?

American’s could be getting war weary….

A new poll by Reuters shows only 41% believe Washington should continue to send arms to Kiev. The White House is pushing Congress to pass a $24 billion aid package for Ukraine. However, the assistance package is being held up as the House seeks a new Speaker, causing some in Kiev to panic. 

The two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll found 41% of Americans support sending more arms to Ukraine, while 35% opposed further military assistance. When the same survey was conducted in May, 46% of Americans backed sending arms, while 29% were opposed.

A recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll found the country is divided on whether aid to Ukraine has been worth it. 53% responded the billions sent to Ukraine was “worth the cost,” and 45% say it has not been worth the cost. The same survey found 63% of Americans favor sending more weapons to Kiev, although Republican support slipped to 50%. 

Biden’s concern for Ukraine is admirable but where is that damn concern for the people of this country?

Biden also hinted that he may have another way to get the money. “There is another means by which we may be able to find funding, but I’m not going to get into that right now,”

Where is this hidden supply of cash when the country needs it?

Finally the EU has said that with US they cannot carry on….

The EU’s top diplomat on Thursday said the European bloc could not provide Ukraine with enough support without the US amid uncertainty about when Congress might authorize the next tranche of spending on the proxy war.

“Europe cannot fill the gap of the US,” Josep Borrell said after arriving in Spain for a gathering of European leaders, according to POLITICO.

The EU is close to approving a new economic aid package for Ukraine worth 50 billion euros that would cover 2024-2027, although Hungary could further delay the package. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the massive aid package should be approved within the next few months but said US support still remains crucial.

Von der Leyen also said she was “confident” that the US would continue supporting Ukraine but acknowledged she wasn’t sure when new spending would be authorized.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the US has another tranche of economic aid worth over $1 billion to fund the Ukrainian government through the month of October. If a new aid package isn’t authorized by Congress in the next month, the funds will dry up.

(antiwar.com)

This is all so much crap.

Time for these buttwads to stop their infernal macho crap and sit down and hammer out a ceasefire deal so calmer heads can take over.

As I was writing this draft more news has come out…..Biden wants a huge package of spending on Ukraine….

President Biden is considering asking Congress for a massive $100 billion spending package for the Ukraine war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

The idea of the huge spending package would be to fund the proxy war through the 2024 election without having to worry about the growing opposition to the policy in Congress, as the majority of the House and the Senate currently still support arming Ukraine.

“The ‘big package’ idea is firmly supported by many throughout the administration,” a source familiar with discussions on the matter told The Telegraph. “Supporters of Ukraine want this to be a one-and-done big bill, and then not have to deal with it until after the next election.”

Defense News recently reported that multiple senators have also proposed passing a massive Ukraine aid package to get through a whole year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put the price tag at $70 billion.

(antiwar.com)

Sorry but this situation is getting ridiculous….time for more money for Ukraine and Israel is not now.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Now?

The world is asking this same question.

After years of raids, protests, arrests and killings what happen to make these people snap?

What made a people decide to jump when they will be taking on a modern navy, and air force and a massive uncaring army?

An Israeli lawmaker summed it pretty well….

An Israeli lawmaker told Al Jazeera on Saturday that his party had been warning that Israeli policies toward Palestinians would “erupt” into the violence that Israel is experiencing in the wake of Hamas’ assault.

The comments were made by Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset and the leftist Hadash party, which holds four seats in the 120-seat Knesset.

“We condemn and oppose any assault on innocent civilians. But in contrast to the Israeli government that means that we oppose any assault on Palestinian civilians as well. We must analyze those terrible incidents [the attacks] in the right context – and that is the ongoing occupation,” said Cassif, who is Jewish.

“We have been warning time and time again… everything is going to erupt and everybody is going to pay a price – mainly innocent civilians on both sides. And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” he added.

Is there more to this situation?

What’s happening right now in Israel almost defies imagination.

Overnight, Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented invasion across Israel’s southern border with Gaza, storming Israeli towns and killing Israeli soldiers and civilians alike. Thousands of rockets were fired into Israeli territory, and at least 100 Israelis are dead — a senior Knesset official said the attacks led to the most civilian deaths on a single day in the country’s entire history. The fighting in southern Israel is ongoing, with reports that Hamas is bringing Israeli hostages back to Gaza. Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes have already killed nearly 200 Palestinians, a figure that will likely only grow, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that “our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known.”

Nothing like this has happened in the modern history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; even the bloody Second Intifada in the early 2000s never saw this kind of mass incursion into Israeli territory. Now an outright war between Israel and Hamas has begun, one whose consequences for the conflict and the broader Middle East we can only dimly anticipate. The only thing we can be certain about the future is that many, many people are about to die.

How can we begin to think about such a nightmare?

We can start by examining the conditions that made it possible. Though we can’t be sure why Hamas chose to launch this attack now, we do know that there are a number of background conditions — including not just the ongoing occupation but also recent surges of conflict in Jerusalem and the West Bank, a far-right Israeli government, and Israeli-Saudi negotiations about normalizing relations — that made the situation especially combustible.

https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907323/israel-war-hamas-attack-explained-southern-israel-gaza

This situation did not occur overnight when someone said…hey let’s take on the IDF.

It comes after nearly two decades of the US and world leaders overlooking the more than 2 million people living in Gaza who endure a humanitarian nightmare, with its airspace and borders and sea under Israeli control. The attack comes amid an ongoing failure to grapple with the dangerous situation for Palestinians in the West Bank where Israel’s extreme-right government over the past year has escalated the already brutal daily pain of occupation.

Instances of Israeli security forces and Israeli settlers antagonizing Palestinians through violence are on the rise, from the pogrom on the city of Huwara to a new tempo of lethal raids on Jenin. Israeli government ministers have been pursuing annexationist policies and sharing raging rhetoric; both incite further violent response from Palestinians and appear at a time when new militant groups have emerged that claim the mantle of the Palestinian cause. The now-regular presence of Israeli Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites, have further pressurized the situation. A Hamas commander cited many of these factors in his statement.

https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907912/israel-palestine-conflict-history-explained-gaza-hamas

The US is sending help.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced on Sunday that he’s ordered the deployment of an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to show US support for Israel amid fighting in Gaza and southern Israel.

Why?

Is Israel incapable of defending itself from a ragtag army that has no air force or navy…..

Not to worry we will throw more cash at Israel because we have so much laying around unused (that is sarcasm in case you missed it)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”