Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Come on, man.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

In my day, never was longer.

Not all heroes wear capes.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Bark louder, little dog.

Everybody saw this coming.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

The lights are all blinking red.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Open Thread (and Video of Biden’s Address On Israel)

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  3. 3.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    We are so lucky to have Biden as President.

    [It takes a little time to watch the video 😁]

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    I just walked to the street to get my mail.  It’s already dark, and it’s not 7:30 yet.  But I had to laugh – the whole house looks like it’s decorated for Halloween because I have so many plants covered with sheets because of the near-freeze tonight.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The utterly worthless scum of the White House Press Corpse again reveal their incompetence. Middle school students could do better.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Villago Delenda Est: They should recruit middle students for a day – maybe with a contest, write an essay about what you would ask if you got to be the White House Press Corpse for a day?

    Bring those kids in – maybe 30 a day for an entire week – and let them shame the actual press corp

    edit: correction. Let the kids be the press corps once a week for the rest of Biden’s term.

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    So Italy has projected an image of the Israeli flag on the Arch of Titus as a gesture of solidarity with Israel. The Arch of Titus was built built by Domitian to celebrate the victory by Vespasian (D’s father) and Titus (D’s brother who died) over a rebellion by the people of Judea. Someone needs to spend more time thinking about the Roman Empire.

  18. 18.

    cain

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    So Italy has projected an image of the Israeli flag on the Arch of Titus as a gesture of solidarity with Israel. The Arch of Titus was built built by Domitian to celebrate the victory by Vespasian (D’s father) and Titus (D’s brother who died) over a rebellion by the people of Judea. Someone needs to spend more time thinking about the Roman Empire

    I’m so over the Roman empire. But wow, that’s pretty tone deaf – but most people are not going to know that bit.

  19. 19.

    cain

    @WaterGirl: Yeah I get that. This Saturday is the solar eclipse in mid Oregon and we are not going to be able to see it due to weather. (it’s usually cloudy this time of year)

  21. 21.

    cain

    @NotMax:

    I know exactly how that is – in India, it’s always the same regardless. It’s why people can have really good regular schedules. :)

    It’s usually dark by 7pm or so there. I already feel like going to bed by 9pm because they have shitty fluorescent tube lights.

  28. 28.

    sab

    @cain: Cleveland Ohio is planning for the solar eclipse next year as a big tourist event.

    I know Cleveland weather. It will be cloudy.

  31. 31.

    Jay C

    @cain:

    Something I read once (may have been Ripley’s Believe It Or Not) – that the Jewish hierarchy put a permanent curse on the Arch Of Titus, over his crushing of Judea in 70 CE and the destruction of the Second Temple: any Jew who actually walks under the Arch is automatically excommunicated.

  34. 34.

    wjca

    @kalakal: I really am not looking forward to the time change.

    Me, too.  Me, too!

    I have meetings at least 1 day a week at 6 AM Pacific.  Except when we fall back, it becomes 5 AM.  (Because it’s scheduled on UTC.)   I can, barely, manage to get to a 6 AM Zoom meeting.  But 5 AM is just beyond the pale.

  36. 36.

    Joy in FL

    I just watched the speech. Thank you for posting it by itself and for saying it was only 10 minutes. I’m glad I heard it.  To me, President Biden’s reference to his meeting with Golda Meir added weight to his capacity to grasp the current situation.  He has so much experience and vast perspective.

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jay C: There’s some information about that on the Arch of Titus’s Wikipedia page, with sources:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Titus

    At an unknown date, a local ban on Jews walking under the arch was placed on the monument by Rome’s Chief Rabbinate; this was rescinded on the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and at a Hanukkah event in 1997 the change was made public.[16][17][18] The arch was never mentioned in Rabbinic literature.[19]

  38. 38.

    Barbara

    @Omnes Omnibus: “Italy” isn’t the Roman Empire.  Hasn’t been . . . ever.  “Italy” as such is less than 200  years old.  I love history, but I think historical amnesia, or at least, you know, taking history a little less personally, would improve many difficult situations in the world.

    So I reject that this is tone deaf or inappropriate or whatever.  The thing that matters now is support.  The battles of 2000 years ago just don’t matter anymore.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: It’s not clear to me from that article what is intended: some kind of local time measure tracking the four-week lunar day, or just a standard for a sort of Moon version of UTC?

    There are a few wrinkles to the latter just from relativity. Space missions usually conventionally run on some Earthbound time zone, but the UTC second is really intended to be used on the surface of the Earth, which is both down in the Earth’s gravity well and rotating and moving at a certain speed. So if you synchronize a clock somewhere else in the solar system to that using radio signals, the “seconds” won’t be exactly 1 second long; they’ll be very slightly different. I imagine that for very precise applications that is unsatisfactory.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    Laura Rozen is reposting some journalists’ appraisals of President Biden’s speech. One said they had never seen him as angry. Another this was the most forthright advocacy for Israel by any President since Harry Truman. I think may be be hyperbole, but maybe it’s not.

    Rozen also reposted a couple of Israeli journalists. One had an inside story about PM Netanyahu’s effort to form an emergency war cabinet that would include former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. Gantz served as Defense Minister in the recent Bennet/Lapid government and as Defense Minister in Netanyahu’s government before that. He is generally trusted by Israelis, especially the security establishment

    But two people have stalled this move. One is Itamar Ben-Gvir. In most countries Ben-Gvir would lead a gang of football hooligans, but in Israel he is Netanyahu’s Interior Minister. He is fighting his exclusion from the war cabinet even though he is a political arsonist widely blamed for this war.

    The other roadblock is Sara Netanyahu, the PM’s wife. She’s worried that Gantz will make her husband look bad.

  43. 43.

    Cacti

    Didn’t watch. Let me guess. Blah blah…must reflexively support Israel…they are our greatest ally because reasons. Something something…right to exist. Good night and God bless America.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: I also looked up coverage by the lsraeli newspaper Haaretz and was glad to see they have dropped their paywall. Haaretz is probably the best source anywhere on Israeli security matters. It also covers many stories about Palestinians and injustices done to them that the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post give scant attention to.

    Haaretz had an editorial from yesterday that placed responsibility for this war squarely on Netanyahu, his policies and the politicians that he empowered. There was also an interview with an IDF colonel and his experiences fighting Hamas forces on Saturday morning. It’s pretty gripping.

  46. 46.

    Hob

    @Barbara: Either you’ve misunderstood the comment you were replying to, or you have a strange idea of what “taking history less personally” should include. This isn’t about Italy being responsible for things the Roman Empire did— it’s about this particular monument being, very famously, a monument to how awesome it was for the Roman Emperor to have crushed a rebellion by the conquered Jews. This is not an obscure thing where you need to know the historical background to get the message; the message is right there on the monument, there is art on it that celebrates the looting of the Temple in Jerusalem, and in case anyone was unclear on whether that was supposed to be celebratory or not, there’s also text on it proclaiming that Titus and Vespasian, who led this conquest, are gods.

    Imagine if a US politician had chosen to show “solidarity” with West African countries that had suffered from the slave trade, by making a speech in front of a heroic statue of Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest.

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