Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Second rate reporter says what?

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You are here: Home / Politics / This and That in the News

This and That in the News

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A few snippets of news today while we (or at least I) wait form the immunity / jurisdiction ruling from the appeals court.  And a couple of images that caught my eye.

🌼  Hell yes!  10-second video that is sheer perfection!

🌼  Is it true that Joe Manchin has promised to not be a spoiler for 2024?  (see chyron)

🌼  It’s about time Roger Stone gets some attention from the FBI for his talk of murdering people.

🌼  One of the many reasons I love Joe Biden.  Great backstory.  Joe is a regular guy in a way that Trump will never be.

🌼  Why do Republicans hate voting?

🌼  How sad is this?  Sad, but smart.  And necessary.

🌼  And a bit of sad truth.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

362Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Is it true that Joe Manchin has promised to not be a spoiler for 2024?

    He’s said that many times. Don’t mean nothing.

  4. 4.

    MrRoivas

    To paraphrase one of the above tweets:

    If you can’t understand why your Jewish friend is scared right now, you don’t have a Jewish friend; you know a Jew.

  6. 6.

    matt

    @Baud: As the wise man once said, never take a Maserati-driving coal plutocrat who loves to party with Republicans at his word.

  8. 8.

    Scout211

    @Baud: That Ackman piece is awesome

    My many reasons to vote for President Biden just had another reason added: He told Bill Ackman to shut the hell up years before it became popular.

  9. 9.

    Jackie

    @Baud: Aren’t Manchin and Biden having a private tête-à-tête in the very near future? I’d love to be a well hidden fly in that room when it happens!

  11. 11.

    Ken

    Fox chyron: “Haley supporters divided on possible Trump-Biden matchup”

    My hope is the division is between those who will vote for Biden, and those who won’t vote at all.

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    I’m excited to hear the GOP’s “plan B” for once the convictions start dropping and it becomes apparent that hey, what do you know, 10-20% of the party won’t support a felon for president.

    (maybe as high as 30%)

    How about it, Republicans?  What’s “plan B”?

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie:  Here’s my guess.

    “What the fuck are you doing, man?  Do you want Donald Trump to be president?  You know better than that, what’s going on?  How can I help?”

  19. 19.

    Old Man Shadow

    Too many people on the right devolve to “We should murder them” when they don’t win.

    Somehow the media never writes them articles about how they should reach out and try to understand Democratic voters.

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia:   I appreciate that.

    A lot of folks are in a hard place right now, and it seems like quite a number of BJ peeps lately are more inclined toward criticizing and second-guessing.

    Human nature, I guess.

  22. 22.

    Jackie

    GQP rules: Ignore or disobey court orders – unless it’s their court orders!

    Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “is urging the Louisiana Legislature and GOP Gov. Jeff Landry to ignore a court order to draw a second majority Black congressional district because he wants to protect Republicans’ razor thin majority in the House,” the Shreveport Times reports.

    “Johnson said the Legislature should not voluntarily create a second majority Black district that would likely result in a Democrat being elected.”

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: Since when is obeying a court order *VOLUNTARY?

    We need to beat these people at the ballot box, good and hard.  A virtual smackdown.

    I do not understand why there isn’t one single Republican willing to make the motion to vacate the chair since it appears that Mike Johnson is going to obstruct everything.

    edit:   Just chiming in with my anger and outrage.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: Obstruction is the point. Anything to make Biden look weak. Johnson’s only threatened with a MTV when he appears to support/agree with Biden.

  28. 28.

    UncleEbeneezer

    On a similar note: a black comedy podcast I love made a similar point that “if your Black friends have never felt comfortable opening up to you with their general frustrations with White People, you don’t actually have Black friends.”

  29. 29.

    Shalimar

    @Jackie: I assume something like this:

    Manchin: I am considering a run against you for president.

    Biden:  We were in the senate together for years.  I was the only one there who likes you.  And I’m not voting for you.

    Manchin: ……..

    Biden:  Seriously, don’t embarrass yourself.  You won’t get 1000 votes in the whole country.

  31. 31.

    smith

    Joe Manchin’s got to have a super-sized ego if he thinks he could be a spoiler. A poll of normies about his chances would probably get “Who?” as the most frequent response. He’d be neck and neck with Dean Philips for third place.

  33. 33.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken:

    Fox chyron: “Haley supporters divided on possible Trump-Biden matchup”

    My hope is the division is between those who will vote for Biden, and those who won’t vote at all.

    That would be ideal, but even if they’re divided between voting for Trump or not voting, that’s still Republicans who won’t vote for Trump.  The more the merrier.

  34. 34.

    oldgold

    If you want  be amused start following the Katie Phang’s live blog of the Trump trial. The Judge is taking no prisoners. Getting wild.

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jackie:

    GQP rules: Ignore or disobey court orders – unless it’s their court orders!

    Ah yes, the party of law and order.

    Translated: the party that’s all for beating up black people and hippies when they step out of line.

  40. 40.

    Paul in KY

    @matt: He’s also a bit of a tightwad (IMO). He can afford a Ferrari or Lambo (both of which are considered much more reliable than Masers), yet he gets a Maserati. One of those ‘you have to own two. One to drive while the other’s in the shop’.

    Will state that the Quattroporte is a very pretty car, though.

  43. 43.

    cain

    BTW – it seems like the next GOP pivot is to legally challenge all the DEI programs everywhere in the country. Read a very disturbing one and we have that asshole Chris Rufo’s handiwork all over again. I hope a million fucking fleas roost in his hair.

  45. 45.

    oldgold

    Kaplan threatened to kick Trump out of court after Carroll counsel complained again about Trump’s commentary. Kaplan: “Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited.” He continued: “Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial”

    After Trump threw his hands up in the air and said, “I would love it,” Judge Kaplan continued: “I know you would,” Kaplan said. “I know you would. You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.”

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @oldgold: Just put a gag in his mouth.

    “Mr. Trump, I won’t kick you out of the courtroom.  Here are your choices.

    Either sit there quietly like every other defendant, or if you prefer, I can ask the bailiff to return to court with a gag.

    Your choice.”

  50. 50.

    cmorenc

    @Ken:

    Fox chyron: “Haley supporters divided on possible Trump-Biden matchup”

    A neighboring couple I know in who are Haley supporters and ardent never-Trumpers plan to vote 3P if Trump is the nominee.  They now reside in NC, but are formerly SC residents.  They cannot bring themselves to vote for Biden, despite my efforts to connvince them of the long historic track record in the US of 3P voters inadvertently assisting the election of the candidate most counterproductively antithetial to what they are attempting to dissentingly show their support for with their 3p votes – but hey, I’ll take the half-loaf of their refusal to vote for Trump in a state closely divided on the Presidential level, even though state government is GOP-dominated via severe gerrymandering.

  51. 51.

    lowtechcyclist

    @laura:

    if you sneak off for a nap, that’s a paddling!

    All sorts of responses came to mind, but I decided it was a bit early for Balloon Juice After Dark. ;-)

  52. 52.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud: Meantime, I got a meeping email from the “No Labels” folks whining about MEAN OL’ JOE BIDEN NOT LETTING US ON THE BALLOT IN DELAWARE, OH NOES! and offering up their lead choads for interviews, including Joe Lieberman! And Ben duPont, who’s actually a relation of sorts.

    I couldn’t help myself and wrote back:

    Oh, grow the fuck up. Aren’t there actual, you know, RULES for getting on the ballot in all 50 states? If you couldn’t be bothered to figure them out in time to qualify, that speaks mighty ill of your putative candidates’ ability to actually handle the job of POTUS.

    And Ben, Ben, Ben…shame on you. Aren’t you rich enough already without this “No Labels, No Clue, Not a Thing to Do But Shit in the National Bed” grift? Jesus, I hope the rest of my duPont and Hemingway connections are busy doing more productive things with their time.

  53. 53.

    Paul in KY

    @cmorenc: I’m sure you have already said this, but (if not):

    “If you really, really, really hate TFG and want to keep his sorry ass out of the White House, you need to hold your nose, get really drunk, whatever you have to do, and pull that lever for Biden. All you are doing is voting that Biden is better than TFG.  That’s all.”

    Edit: Also, if you are afraid your friends would razz you or shun you about voting Biden, you can just tell them you voted 3rd party or for TFG. What goes on in the voting booth, stays in the voting booth.

    Best o luck!!

  54. 54.

    Dman

    @MrRoivas:

    To paraphrase one of the above tweets:

     

    If you can’t understand why your  Palestinian friend is scared right now, you don’t have a Palestinian friend; you know a Palestinian.

     

    Wow that was fun

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro:

    I’m excited to hear the GOP’s “plan B” for once the convictions start dropping and it becomes apparent that hey, what do you know, 10-20% of the party won’t support a felon for president.

    What’s our Plan B for when it turns out they will?

  57. 57.

    C Stars

    @TBone: I don’t know if this is a drug reference or not, but I just looked up the trial and found a photo of Trump wherein his face looks like it’s melting off his skull. Fair enough, I’ve seen similar. But then I saw a photo of Alina Habba and her face also looks like it’s melting. Not from old age, but kind of like someone went into photoshop and futzed around with it until it just looks–not human. Is it nose drugs? plastic surgery? An inner core of pure evil gradually making its way to the surface?

  62. 62.

    Sister Golden Bear

    The trans meme is far too true. Missouri Republicans are holding hearings on nine anti-trans bills today. They’ve introduced 48 anti-trans bills within the last three weeks. Among them:

    • Ending all legal recognition of trans people — effectively defining us out of existence — potentially revoking driver’s licenses and revised birth certificates for “incorrect information,” or else reverting them back to a trans person’s dead name.
    • Making trans people being allowed to use the bathroom of their gender identityconstitute “a hostile work environment,” and would weaponize the Missouri Commission on Human Rights against the rights of transgender people
    • Removing the grandfather clause for transgender people already receiving gender affirming care in the state, who were exempted from last year’s ban on trans healthcare — forcibly de-transitioning them.
    • Allowing anyone in healthcare facilities to refuse to doing anything related to trans healthcare, including nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, lab techs, and more; all would be allowed to refuse to process tests, provide prescriptions, or fill out paperwork if it involves a transgender person receiving gender affirming care.

    The trans genocide is happening NOW.

  63. 63.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Just to add how the trans genocide is affecting me personally, I really want to get a cat or two, but part of me is hesitant because of the possibly of having to leave the country if Republicans win a trifecta, and/or the SCOTUS legalizes trans discrimination. Yes, I live in deep-blue California, but all it takes is a new federal law, or the SCOTUS upholding a Fifth Circuit decision that applies the law nationally.

  64. 64.

    BlueGuitarist

    Especially for Geminid and other Virginia peeps:

    via political wire

     

    Donald Trump’s allies are ramping up a primary campaign to oust Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) over Good’s endorsement of Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential race, Cardinal News reports.

    Said Trump adviser Chris LaCivita: “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him.”

  67. 67.

    Captain C

    @WaterGirl:

    TFG:  * incoherent nonsense, lies, and threats *

    Judge:  “Bailiff, forget the gag.  Go get some duck tape and use that as the defendant’s gag.”

  70. 70.

    artem1s

    @MrRoivas: ​ 
    If you can’t understand why your female friend is scared right now, you don’t have female friends; you have a binder full of women.

  71. 71.

    Tony Jay

    A Joe Manchin run for the Presidency couldn’t possibly be a spoiler. He’s Joe ‘ Weathered Gravitas’ Manchin, for gosh darn’s sake, the most bipartisan man to straddle a divide since Abraham Franklin Johnson-Johnson II negotiated the secret Moon-Worm/Horror Ghosts of Counter-Earth treaty of 1952. If he is forced to present his glory to the American People’s judgement it will be the most serious candidacy any of us will ever be privileged to cast our  awestruck eyes ‘pon.

    But he doesn’t want that. Of course he doesn’t. He’s a coal-ribbed Democrat of the old school, loyal as a minor royal and sagacious as one of those desert bushes you find rattlesnakes lurking beneath. He’d never run against the Democratic Party, not as long as The Other Joe does the right thing at their summit and signs off on a Double Joe Ticket*. The People demand it. The Press expect it. The Trumpists fear it. Anything else would be such a ghastly insult to West Virginia’s favourite son that honour itself would demand he take up the torch of liberty and give Dean Phillips Ron De Santis Kevin Sorbo a call.

    *Kamala can have the Ambassadorship to Haiti or Thailand or somewhere else they probably like her.

  72. 72.

    Anoniminous

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    quite a number of BJ peeps lately are more inclined toward criticizing and second-guessing.

    We TOLD you to make that left turn in Albuquerque. But did you LISTEN?

    NoooooOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOO oooooooooooooo ….

  75. 75.

    Captain C

    @Alison Rose: Dude looks creepy as fuck.  If someone shot him dead from behind in a school zone and I was on the jury, I’d vote not guilty on the grounds of protecting the kids.

  76. 76.

    Kathleen

    @Old Man Shadow:  NYT: Spokesman for Stone claims his comments was taken out of context. “Roger was just expressing concern about how haggard and old Swalwell and Nadler looked and suggesting they might want to dye their hair to look younger.” (M Haberman aka Roger’s Godchild)

  78. 78.

    smith

    And…they’re going for the law clerk offense-defense again, demanding the recusal of one of Carroll’s lawyers because she clerked for Judge Kaplan. “There’s an atmosphere of hostility!” Can’t imagine why.

  79. 79.

    MrRoivas

    @Dman: Why bring up Palestinians? My comment didn’t. Do you behave in a similar way when all minority groups are mentioned, or just Jews?

  81. 81.

    brendancalling

    @C Stars:

    Roald Dahl, from “The Twits:”

    “If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

    A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

    That’s why she looks that way. The ugly inside has a way of showing on the face. Just look at all the people, men and women, at Fox News. They all look like mutants.

  82. 82.

    Kathleen

    @WaterGirl: I was thinking the same. Aren’t there legal repercussions for an elected rep advising a legal body to ignore a court order? Oh, wait. I live in Ohio. Never mind.

  83. 83.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Years ago in Misery, back when it was still “trending red” (but all of us could see where it was going), I used to say that the Legislature (I worked in the capitol for decades) always wanted to “Out Kansas, Kansas” in the batshit, RWNJ legislative department.

    And here we are.

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @Sister Golden Bear: I know, it’s so gross. I saw an article about this in the paper and wondered “Why?”, then answered my own question, “Because they hate and fear anything they can’t or won’t understand”.

  86. 86.

    Tony Jay

    @MrRoivas:

    I presume he brought up Palestinians because in your original comment you forgot to. Do you behave in a similar way when all minority groups are mentioned, or just ones currently being bombed by Israel?

    See? Anyone can be a bitchy snark. If you don’t like it, try a bit of empathy before posting.

  90. 90.

    Dan B

    Someone commented that they’re tired of reading about people wanting to leave the US.  I’m discouraged that there’s no discussion of how to protect trans, black, pregnant women, immigrants, asylum seekers, etc.

    The GOP plan is to rule and expect minorities to adapt.  Adapting includes, but is not limited to, ceasing hormone treatments, gay couples separating and surrendering their children, immigrants and asylum seekers being sent back, and thus is just the beginning of being wiped from the public sphere.  If a minority cries out in a GQP regime does it make any sound?

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @Other MJS: Mars-Texas was just an image.

    The 10-second video is the thing right after Mars-Texas.

    FYI, I try to use the 🌼 emoji as a signal that it’s a new thing.  To separate it from the thing above it.

  93. 93.

    Gretchen

    @Sister Golden Bear: Missouri Republicans just want to be in everyone’s doctor’s offices. Disgusting. Meanwhile, MO has the lowest starting teacher pay, abortion and trans health care bans, and terrible roads. Jess Piper, of Blue Missouri, is saying MO has had trifecta Republican rule for 20 years – If we don’t like how things are here, we know who to blame. She is working to get Democrats to contest every seat, no matter how red. At some point people have to decide that they want good roads and schools, not busybodies dictating their medical care. I’m sorry this is happening to you and everyone else it affects.https://bluemissouri.org

  95. 95.

    Librarian

    There was apparently today in the Supreme Court oral arguments about a case involving the Chevron doctrine. According to some, if the doctrine is overturned, it won’t be good news. Of course, all the right wingers on the court will probably overturn it.

  96. 96.

    different-church-lady

    I don’t even really know any trans people but I can still totally understand why they’d be terrified.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    @MrRoivas: Why not bring up Palestinians?   Both groups are suffering right now.  To feel for the Palestinians does not make a person an anti-semite.

    @MrRoivas:  I don’t think anyone is dismissing the fears of any of the groups that have been mentioned in relation to that meme.

    it’s an eye-opening meme whether it’s a comment about Trans people, or black people, or Jewish people, or the Palestinian people, etc.

    I think people are riffing off, and relating to a meme, that makes perfect sense.

    Do you think something different than that?

  98. 98.

    Gretchen

    @Baud: she’s great. She ran in her rural, bright red district, knocked on hundreds of doors, and lost by something like 30 points. That didn’t convince her to stop trying. She says of the hundreds of people she talked to, there were none that brought up trans kids or culture war issues. It was concern about 4 day school weeks and closing rural hospitals.

  99. 99.

    MrRoivas

    @WaterGirl: Because I figured people in liberal spaces know better than to say, “All Lives Matter” in response to the concerns of a specific community.

    Was I incorrect in that thought?

    And I think it’s enraging that Jews are not allowed to be frightened, alarmed, or angered for ourselves, or get support with just us in mind, same as any other minority group.

    If the trans community deserves to have their very valid fears tended to without caveat, then I ask the same be done for Jews.

    Instead, I get snark and shamed.

  106. 106.

    Ksmiami

    @Dan B: I think we infiltrate and destroy Republican gathering spaces. And hack their phones and web browser histories because I’m sure they’re all really fucked up… look, our side didn’t start this fight, but if we must, we shall finish it. No one said guerilla warfare is easy.

  107. 107.

    MrRoivas

    @Baud: Yes, I did.

    Not because I dismiss the horrible things done to trans people, or the threats they face. I don’t. They distress me, greatly.

    My comment was meant to spread awareness, that there is another minority group in deep pain and suffering great fear right now.

    It seems that truth is unacceptable for some, even here. Because they feel we deserve our pain and fear, by my accounting.

  109. 109.

    WaterGirl

    @Dan B:

    I’m discouraged that there’s no discussion of how to protect trans, black, pregnant women, immigrants, asylum seekers, etc.

    The GOP plan is to rule and expect minorities to adapt.  Adapting includes, but is not limited to, ceasing hormone treatments, gay couples separating and surrendering their children, immigrants and asylum seekers being sent back, and thus is just the beginning of being wiped from the public sphere.  If a minority cries out in a GQP regime does it make any sound?

    Would you like to put together a guest post on that?

  110. 110.

    Baud

    @MrRoivas:

    Right. And bringing up Palestinians by itself also isn’t an “all lives matter” problem.

    The problem was the way it was done in this case.

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    Goddamn, some people just cannot fuckin’ stand other people getting empathy.

  113. 113.

    different-church-lady

    NOBODY GETS ANY EMPATHY UNLESS EVERYONE GETS THE SAME AMOUNT OF EMPATHY THESE ARE THE NEW RULES MEASUREMENTS WILL BE TAKEN

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    @MrRoivas: I did not snark or shame you.

    With your comment here at #99, it’s more clear that you feel that listing any other group in the formulation of that meme is somehow offensive, relating that to “all lives matter” which was dismissive of black lives matter.

    Yet it was you who first riffed on the meme, using Jew instead of Trans.

    So now I am confused.

    It appeared to me like you were offended that someone followed up on “Jewish” with “Palestinian”, as if it were either or.

    Help me understand what i missed?

  115. 115.

    Tony Jay

    @MrRoivas:

    Faux confusion. Passive aggressive insistence that others present themselves for your judgement. Pressing all the usual troll buttons. Staying dry over there on that rock? 

    Convince me otherwise. Or don’t.

  116. 116.

    Geminid

    @BlueGuitarist: State Senator John McGuire campaigned for Trump in Iowa last week, alongside Kari Lake. He tweeted out a picture of himself with Trump.

    Good’s allies helped him unseat Denver Riggleman in 2020 by engineering a caucus/ convention process. This time will be different, according to Cardinal News reporter Markus Schmidt:

       If he runs again, Good will face McGuire not in a party-run convention but in a Republican primary, as it is now required by law.

    Cardinal News is based in Roanoke and specializes in Southside and Southwest Virginia news. They seem to be covering this race closely.

    I’d say McGuire has a “Good” shot at winning the June primary. The only problem is that he’ll probably be a better  general election candidate than Good.  Redistricting has taken the 5th out of play for now I think, but it could become winnable for a Democrat by 2028, depending on demographic shifts.

  119. 119.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Yes, and the direct reply adds to it. If someone wanted to express empathy for Palestinians, there was no particular reason to call out the original comment.  But the “wow that was fun” confirmed the offensiveness.

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    @MrRoivas:

    My comment was meant to spread awareness, that there is another minority group in deep pain and suffering great fear right now.

    That’s how I took it.

    It seems that truth is unacceptable for some, even here. Because they feel we deserve our pain and fear, by my accounting.

    I don’t understand why you think that about people here.  Do you think the addition of Palestinians was dismissive about your comment about Jewish people?

    It seemed like a natural follow-up to me because both groups are suffering as part of the same war.

    What am I missing?

  123. 123.

    MrRoivas

    @WaterGirl: Sorry, I can see how that was unclear. You were not shaming me, nor showing snark. Other people here have.

    What’s offensive is that nothing in my comment says the concerns of the trans community are not worth mentioning. The comment about Palestinians, on the other hand, shows clear contempt for me, and a further contempt for bringing up the issues Jews are facing, now right.

    Jews should have the dignity of having their needs listened too without people shouting at us, “BUT PALESTINE, YOU EVIL ZIONISTS!” or its many variants. One of which you see above.

    If you’re genuinely interested in knowing more about what inspires me to write this here, I’m willing to expand.

  127. 127.

    Gin & Tonic

    @MrRoivas:

    My comment was meant to spread awareness, that there is another minority group in deep pain and suffering great fear right now.

    You seem to be new here (although I don’t read posts as much as I used to.) Are you suggesting that this community is unaware that there are various minority groups in deep pain and suffering great fear now?

  129. 129.

    MrRoivas

    @WaterGirl: Decided to split up this comment in two, as it responds to two different ones of yours.

    The fears which animate me and other Jews right now? Not happening as a result of the war. Nothing Hamas does can touch me here in America. Anti-Israeli protesters, on the other hand? People in crowds chanting for violence? Those terrify me, and most other Jews right now.

    Anyone dismissive of that isn’t a friend to Jews.

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: I didn’t really understand the “wow that was fun” so I just dismissed it.

    I can think of at least 5 different ways to take that.  But I get that it can be seen as offensive, as if it’s a game.

  131. 131.

    MrRoivas

    @Gin & Tonic: Not various minorities in the abstract. Jews. My people.

    And yes, given the responses I’ve gotten here: I feel quite justified in my suspicion that a lot of liberals aren’t aware of the soul wrenching, sleep destroying, security shattering terror the Jewish community in America, Canada and Europe are experiencing right now.

    I’m doing my best to change that.

  133. 133.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @WaterGirl: There’s a general rule that it is bad form to take a statement highlighting the oppression of one group and come in and mention another oppressed group for comparison.  Because it takes attention away from the first group and derails the conversation, creates an “Oppression Olympics”, stokes possible division between the two groups and also it is a common bad-faith practice by trolls who want to do just that.  So it makes sense to always try and stay on topic and avoid derailing away from the intended purpose of a post.  But in practice, it doesn’t really work so cleanly because there are always multiple groups under attack, there are often important similarities to how they are being targeted, and sticking too hard to a “no derailing” stance ends up harming the group with the fewer members and the one whose cause is less-popular.  It’s one of those messy realities of social justice and I don’t think there is a simple, easy rule-of-thumb that always works.

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    @MrRoivas:

    The comment about Palestinians, on the other hand, shows clear contempt for me, and a further contempt for bringing up the issues Jews are facing, now right.

    Really trying to understand.

    Was it the “wow that was fun” part of the comment that you feel shows contempt for you as a person who is Jewish or contempt for bringing up the issues Jews are facing?

    Or the mere fact of bringing up Palestinians right after your comment abut Jewish people?

    If you want to send me an email message, I will gladly read it.

  135. 135.

    Marcopolo

    @Gretchen: I’ve been doing a monthly contribution with these guys since they began with the “It Starts Today” campaign.  Lol, didn’t realize Blue MO were the same renamed group till a few months ago.  I am a long time MO resident who has worked on numerous campaigns over the years.  With our demographics (older, white, for the most part low educational attainment—just absolutely ripe for grievance politics) I do not see MO becoming less conservative as far as I can see into the future.  There can be action on issues that are less partisan IDed like right-to-work, legal weed, and, fingers crossed, freedom to choose (reproductive rights), but any issue/candidate with a clear D label is dead on arrival statewide.  I live in a blue area but it’s been quite a trip to see the sharp right turn we took from Obama coming within 5K votes of winning here in 2008. And yes, folks like Jess Piper, who continue to fight & stay optimistic,  are amazing.

  136. 136.

    different-church-lady

    @MrRoivas:

    1) I totally get why Jews would be terrified right now.

    2) There’s a lot of oppressed groups in this country who are terrified right now — ascendant fascism will have that effect.

    3) When someone is expressing empathy for one of those groups, responding with what amounts to “Hey, we’re oppressed too, ya know,” ain’t a good look.

  137. 137.

    MrRoivas

    @Tony Jay: Your attempt at mind reading is noted. If you wish to assess my sincerity, feel free to read the comments I make in response to people who address me with curiosity or understanding, as opposed to contempt.

  138. 138.

    Marcopolo

    @UncleEbeneezer: Great explanation.  Would add, also some folks are looking to cause dissention and will find a way to feel aggrieved.

    Edited to add not saying folks aren’t entitled to their feelings, as there are lots of raw (and often justified) emotions out there.

  139. 139.

    Alison Rose

    @WaterGirl: I won’t speak for him, but this is a constant thing that Jews have been dealing with since Hamas’ attack. Anytime we bring up our own fears, our own worries, our own losses, etc, we get told BUT WHAT ABOUT PALESTINIANS? The implication is that we are not allowed to have those feelings, or at least not without also and always mentioning that Palestinians are also feeling fear and worry. This has happened to me multiple times, and to many Jews I know. We don’t get to be afraid or to talk about our fear. There is no need to respond to a Jewish person saying they are afraid because people are calling for our genocide under the guise of free speech by saying “but what about X”.

    This has been exhausting, and goyim continue to exhaust us. A Jewish person saying they are afraid does not automatically imply that they don’t think Palestinians have a right to be. And yet that is what a lot of people hear when we speak. And we get chastised for others’ incorrect inferences

    I do care about Palestinians’ lives and safety. But responding to a Jew saying “I’m afraid” by saying “oh yeah well so are Palestinians” sure sounds like others don’t care about ours.

  140. 140.

    MrRoivas

    @different-church-lady: I can see how someone might see my initial comment as what you mentioned in number 3.

    For that, I am sincerely sorry. I just have been feeling waves of anxiety and total abandonment by those I thought as allies. I wanted to make sure people here knew what’s going on.

  141. 141.

    Citizen Alan

    @Alison Rose: In his defense (on this issue at least), the article indicates that he was actually trying to expand the law against incest so that it would extend to sexual contact that falls short of intercourse. IOW, under the current law, oral and anal sex between siblings aren’t covered under the statute. However, being a Republican and therefore incompetent, he left out “1st cousins” when copying over the “forbidden relations” part of the original statute.

    I mean, he’s probably a disgusting person, but I doubt he genuinely wants to legalize incest.

  142. 142.

    TBone

    @Dan B: I protected an elderly Black woman who had started routinely walking down our street after the Rumpy neighbor tried to intimidate her by pulling up in his car and asking out the window why she was walking around here.  I ran out, held out my hand, and told her that if she ever doesn’t feel safe, that I am always here, just knock or shout.  She took my hand and said in an accent “God bless you.”

  143. 143.

    WaterGirl

    Is there any interest in a guest post series?

    What it’s like to be __________  right now?

    Trans, gay, Ukrainian, female,  Jewish, Palestinian, black, undocumented….  the list is much longer, and not signaling importance by whether a group is listed or not or the order in which they are listed.

    One or two people from each group that feels particularly threatened by the authoritarian threat around us?

    Happy to hear feedback whether it’s yay or nay.

  144. 144.

    MrRoivas

    @WaterGirl: Alison Rose’s comment down below explains the dynamic of that first response to me, and why it’s so ugly. Better than I probably could, at the moment.

    Your offer to read my further thoughts is a real blessing, and I thank you. I’m not terribly familiar with the system here. I know my username is associated with an email. Is there an easy way for me to find yours through this website/your username that I’m not seeing?

  146. 146.

    Mike in NC

    Stefanik is trash. Fat Bastard is going to choose Tucker Carlson as his fascist running mate.

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: Yeah, I’m rooting for McGuire even though he’ll vote the same way as the incumbent. Bob Good makes my skin crawl.

    In 2020, Good faced a very good Democratic candidate, Cameron Webb. Good still won by 5%, close to Trump’s margin in the 5th District.Then, redistricting made the 5th more Republican and Good trounced the only candidate who qualified for the 2022 Democratic primary. We’ll probably will put up a better one this year but they’ll have an uphill battle.

  150. 150.

    Marcopolo

    @WaterGirl: Hey 👋 Just want to say thanks for all the stuff you do here.  God knows, you’ve more patience & energy (and positivity!) than I do.  We are lucky for your being here.

  152. 152.

    Tony Jay

    @Paul in KY:

    He’s a peach, isn’t he? Part of me is pleased to contemplate the grinding of planks and creaking of sails emanating from l’Palais Manchin as he comes to realise he may have missed the river tide and that any announcement now, with Biden 99.9% unopposed by anyone else on the Democratic side and the Running of the MAGOPs officially underway, really would be seen as just a spoiling manoeuvre.

    The other part of me recalls how many times it’s been pointed out here what a preening, self-obsessed, money-grubbing slutbang the man is, and I worry he’d jump at the chance to spoil Biden’s chances, confident that Corporate Media will do what they always do and ignore consensus reality to push a fake narrative of Super-Centrist bravery in the face of Democrat dirty-tricks all the way to November. For a nice juicy paycheck range of post-politics corporate sinecures, of course.

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    @Mike in NC: Really?  I think Trump would be threatened by Tucker.  Tucker is too much of a star.

    I think he would want another blob like Pence, only this time that person would have to sign the loyalty oath before they could be on the ticket as VP.

  156. 156.

    WaterGirl

    @NotMax: So that’s a yes? :-)

    Times are tough enough without people feeling like they are not seen or not understood by their allies.  Even on Balloon Juice.

    Another question for the hive mind:  Is it better to ignore that or bring it out in the open?

  158. 158.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Is there any interest in a guest post series?

    What it’s like to be __________  right now?

     

    Given that Cole currently does that every day for cranky white dudes, it makes sense to give other groups a platform too.

  160. 160.

    Captain C

    @Citizen Alan:

    I mean, he’s probably a disgusting person, but I doubt he genuinely wants to legalize incest.

    You may be right, but the bill fuckup combined with his particular creepy look makes him seem like the uncle who isn’t allowed to be alone with the kids and teens at family gatherings.

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MrRoivas:

    Why bring up Palestinians? My comment didn’t. Do you behave in a similar way when all minority groups are mentioned, or just Jews?

    Why are you riled by someone bringing up Palestinians in this way, but not blacks (#28) or women (#70) or trans persons (the OP)?

    Apparently you don’t behave in a similar way when all minority groups are mentioned, just Palestinians.

  167. 167.

    Dan B

    @Sister Golden Bear: The GOP seems to be on a purity campaign.  Trans and asylum seekers, with ab added bonus of “impure” women who get pregnant, seem to be at the top of the list but the desire for purity has no limits.  Meanwhile a crisis of the unhomed, global climate catastrophe, and the insurance crisis in Florida, among others, are not considered.  There is zero awareness of the harm done or the harm unfolding when crises are not addressed.  Wealthy oligarchs believe that lack of empathy is a sign of manly strength.  I’m sure that many right wingers view the trans and gay members of Biden’s administration to embody the utmost evil.

    Is it possible for us to protect the most vulnerable?

  168. 168.

    oldgold

    Habba is embarrassingly bad. She is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too inexperienced to be acting as lead counsel in this trial. Just awful. And, the Judge, like most federal judges, is being unmerciful.

    @innercitypress

    Habba: Do you know if there is a communications team at the White House? Carroll: I don’t know. Habba: I represent to you that it does – Judge Kaplan: You’re not going to be representing anything, or you’ll be a witness.

  170. 170.

    Tony Jay

    @MrRoivas:

    I have assessed your sincerity, hence my response. Your comments have done nothing to convince me that I’m mistaken in my assessment of your intentions, only confirmed it.

    Feel free to bask away.

  172. 172.

    Geminid

    @MrRoivas: I am aware of the the threatening atmosphere Jewish people live in these days. I may not feel it personally, but the flood of anti-semitism I’m seeing now on the internet now is appalling. So I think you did right to express your thoughts on this.

    But you still have a lot of allies, and I guess it’s good in a way that you’ve found out who isn’t.

  174. 174.

    MrRoivas

    @lowtechcyclist: That 28th comment, where the parallel with black people was brought up, no one mentioned Palestinians and then snarked in a reply.

    Why do you think that is? And are you okay with that? Or is the lack of mention of Palestinians in #28 or any replies to a regrettable error

    And if you somehow failed to notice, I popped back at the person who snarked at me with the “binders full of women comment.” So your initial charge is inaccurate.

  176. 176.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @MrRoivas: Why bring up Palestinians? My comment didn’t. Do you behave in a similar way when all minority groups are mentioned, or just Jews?

    Hmm. Who’s trying to “all lives matters” whom? I support innocents everywhere no matter what nation they belong to and denounce the murderous Hamas and Likud alike.

    Now as far as which of those organizations I should concern myself more? Which is bigger? Which is more effective at killing people? Which one has my nation supported, if any? Should that support continue in its current form?

  180. 180.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Alison Rose: Well said.  And it goes both ways.  Every post I see about the suffering of Palestinians gets bombarded with a bunch of attempts to change the subject to the realities of Anti-Semitism.    Obviously, the latter is also a valid concern.  But it has the same flavor of a “But what about White/Blue Lives?” response to Black Lives Matter.  When the two groups are in direct conflict (and both view each other as oppressors) it makes it kind of a no-brainer to avoid derailing in such a way.

  183. 183.

    cain

    @Dan B:

    Completely sympathize. I think everyone is thinking ‘we got to elect more democrats’ as the end all solution. But otherwise, it will have to be civic disobedience.

  185. 185.

    C Stars

    @Alison Rose: Yes, it’s the competitive grievance that gets me. Anytime anyone brings up anything, there are two people (one on either side) barking about what’s happening in the middle east, as though we all don’t already understand that there’s a terrible, deep seated, profoundly complex conflict going on there. It’s hard to get through the day without encountering this. Calling out one side or the other individually on social media doesn’t make someone a better person or do anything to help the situation.

    Anyway, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this. I know here in CA it has become very trendy among a certain generation to blame Jewish people/Israelis for every humanitarian transgression of the Netanyahu administration and the lack of perspective in that viewpoint is really exhausting.

  186. 186.

    MrRoivas

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Where did my initial comment mention any of those groups?

    I was talking about Jews, and the fact we’re scared because we’re vulnerable. If you don’t care about that, I can’t stop you. But don’t pretend to be a friend of my community.

  187. 187.

    oldgold

    Habba does not know the most elementary procedures for introducing evidence. She tries to cross-examine on a transcript and forgot to first get it into evidence. And, seemingly does not know how to. This humiliation ensued.

    Judge Kaplan: No, we are not going to read out loud a document not yet in evidence. We are going to take a break right here to 3:30 and you’re going to refresh your memory about how you get a document in.

  188. 188.

    Baud

    @cain:

    Electing Dems would probably deal with most of the LGB and especially T issues, and abortion issues. Other issues are more complicated.

    But electing enough Dems in enough places isn’t easy.

  189. 189.

    smith

    @oldgold: And just now :

    @innercitypress

    Judge Kaplan: No, we are not going to read out loud a document not yet in evidence. We are going to take a break right here to 3:30 and you’re going to refresh your memory about how you get a document in.

    This is at least the sixth time today he’s had to tell her how to lawyer. She should look into getting a refund for that correspondence course she took.

  193. 193.

    different-church-lady

    @MrRoivas: I’m glad you took it the right way — I was a bit worried I would come off as hostile.
    There’s more to say about this, but I have to leave it at that for a few minutes.​

  195. 195.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    @Baud:
     

    Reminds me of my favorite moment in US debate history.

    Which would it be:

    1. Bentsen telling Quayle “you’re no Jack Kennedy”

    2. Biden telling Granny killer Ryan “That’s a bunch of malarkey”

    3. Biden telling Dump, “Will you shut up, man”

    4. Biden mocking Ghouliani, “probably the most under qualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency, there’s only three things he [needs] to make … a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.

    5. Obama trapping Mittens, “Please proceed, Governor”

  197. 197.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @MrRoivas: To clarify, my comment was really more about in-group/out-group solidarity and how to know if you are being a good ally to a group you aren’t a part of.  Because I think there is a lot of truth to the fact that if your friend in a minority/(oppressed) group doesn’t feel comfortable expressing their frustration with your majority/(oppressor) group, it’s usually a sign that they don’t fully trust you to understand, care etc.  It had nothing to say about which cause is more important.

  198. 198.

    Chris

    @David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:

    “Please proceed, Governor” is probably my favorite of these.

    Although “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” is up there too, and might be my favorite if I were actually old enough to remember that election.  Quayle’s bitchy “that was really uncalled for, Senator!” response just makes it even more perfect.

  199. 199.

    oldgold

    The mistakes Habba is making is the basic stuff you learn in Trial Advocacy I in law school.

  202. 202.

    cain

    @Baud: Nope, but fascists always make mistakes. There has to be an in-group and an out-group and the in-group can never be happy. They’ll keep circling the drain.

    That said, as someone noted with Missouri – sometimes that might take awhile before they hit rock bottom.

  204. 204.

    WaterGirl

    Which debate was it when Reagan had the great line about not holding his opponent’s young age and inexperience against him?

    That belongs in the top 10 for sure.

  207. 207.

    Chris

    @WaterGirl:

    That was against Carter.

    Miserable piece of shit as Reagan may have been, that was a fantastic way to bury the “but you’re old!” complaints.

  208. 208.

    cain

    MrRoivas makes some interesting points especially if you mention jews and immediately also have to mention palestinians. Which might be ok if you’re talking about the conflict in Israel – but in the U.S. our young leftist friends are all on the rampage yelling about Jews and Israel that doesn’t lead to safety and as far as Jew history goes – the hostility against Jews is global and sustained over centuries.

    I’m actually not sure of any group of people that is so maligned globally as Jews.

    A Muslim can escape to a myriad of places if they had to to feel safe. Where does a Jew go?

  212. 212.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Cranky old white woman here and even I relate to a lot of what Cole writes (especially the love of being alone). I do not, however, relate to all of the projects and cooking.

  213. 213.

    Kay

    I got a 20 year old F-150 from gov.deals w/70k miles for $2300. It was the city engineer’s vehicle in Marshall MI and he must have just driven it inside the county. It’s for my youngest so my middle son and  I picked it up in MI and dropped it at youngest house in MI. It has an amber light on top :)

    Such a nice truck! I’m thrilled with this purchase.

  216. 216.

    Dan B

    @WaterGirl: I’ll put together some thoughts and some questions about strategies to provide some support for the most vulnerable minorities.  The far right is ratcheting up their attacks.  There seems to be little agreement on how to organize where we could be most effective.

  218. 218.

    chopper

    @Tony Jay:

    I presume he brought up Palestinians because in your original comment you forgot to.

    is it a requirement that the palestinians be brought up every time someone brings up anti-semitism?

  219. 219.

    Kay

    @WaterGirl:

    It has a cap on the bed, too, which he was impressed with. He said “oh, good. You could live in it if you needed to”. I think he says these things deliberately to worry me.

  223. 223.

    schrodingers_cat

    People from vulnerable groups, I have found in the last 6 years or so that this is not a place to express your deepest fears and your heartfelt opinions. Lowering my guard and sharing my vulnerabilities has not worked out for me. In hindsight I wish had not done that. Your experience may be different. But I just want to put out my cautionary tale

  224. 224.

    Tony Jay

    @chopper:

    No. But when, as in this case, knee jerk accusations of anti-Semitism come immediately after someone mentions Palestinians, pointed responses follow naturally.

  226. 226.

    chopper

    @Tony Jay:

    i would figure it would be pretty obvious that when people whatabout anti-semitism, it generally comes off as anti-semitic itself.

  229. 229.

    Dan B

    @TBone: That’s a great action.  I don’t see resources available to people who would benefit in knowing how to help in direct ways.

  230. 230.

    Marcopolo

    @zhena gogolia: Yeah, found the clip.  Never let it be said I’m not up for being corrected.  Now I’m wondering what other stuff I totally remember hearing is just plain wrong!  Sigh.

  232. 232.

    Geminid

    I was checking out Tom Watson (@tomwatson) to see if there was any big New York political news. There was nothing much in that department, but Watson reposted the schedule for singer/songwriter Richard Thompson’s upcoming tour.

    Thompson will play 16 concerts starting March 1 in Mamaroneck, New York and finishing April 26 in Collingswood, New Jersey. Most of Thompson’s gigs in between will be in New England, but he’ll also play Annapolis, Richmond and Vienna, Virginia.

  242. 242.

    Tony Jay

    @chopper:

    No. I figure that each individual instance needs to be looked at on its own merits, or you get lazy accusations tossed around by bad actors who would really rather not have their sole and inviolable right to appropriate to themselves the authority to define what is and is not antiSemitism questioned.

     Which is what happened upthread. Which is what I poked barbed fun at. I don’t like it when people do that. In fact, I think it’s a pretty appalling thing to do. It’s damaging and it’s cynical and it’s ever so common. So I call it out when I see it. 

    No ‘whataboutism’ involved.

  244. 244.

    Tony Jay

    @Manyakitty:

    I disagree. Dismissing concerns over Islamophobia, war-crimes and genocide with snide accusations of anti-Semitism is a lot worse than a lack of empathy, but I bit my tongue instead.

    YMMV

  246. 246.

    Anyway

    @Baud:

    A rabbi, an imam, and a horse walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?” Who is he talking to?

    Sarah Jessica Parker?

  248. 248.

    cain

    @MrRoivas: I suspect the large population of French muslim who are already angry at the white French for other things.

    Macron needs to do more to make Jews safe.

    Yes, I suppose that Israel is the safest option. With Israel’s rightward lurch – will they be able to support all variations of Judaism? It should. But as we can see with right wing Christians here – they love them some fascism.

  249. 249.

    Alison Rose

    @Tony Jay: It is the place of targeted groups to determine what constitutes bigotry against them. Moreover, it is not the place of someone who isn’t the target of said bigotry to decide whether or not it qualifies.

    If a white person says something that a Black person tells them is racist, the white person doesn’t get to say “no it isn’t because blah blah”.

    If a cis person says something that a trans person says is transphobic, the cis person doesn’t get to say “no it isn’t because blah blah”.

    If a straight person says something that a queer person says is homophobic, the straight person doesn’t get to say “no it isn’t because blah blah”.

    Most of these are understood and accepted by at least a sizable portion of the left. But for some reason, all y’all think you get to decide what counts as antisemitism and that our opinions don’t matter, or worse, are invalid because we’re not objective about it.

    In the same way that some on the right act like you can only be a racist if you’re literally in the Klan and/or screaming the n-word all day, there are a lot of non-Jews who think you can only be antisemitic if you literally did the Holocaust. Anything else is just us being too sensitive or whatever. And that in itself is indeed prejudiced. “Your pain doesn’t matter unless it’s the worst iteration possible.” What other group is it okay to say that about on the left?

    Like I said above: This shit is exhausting. If you have never had to defend your very humanity against an onslaught of dehumanizing eliminationist bullshit, then you should count yourself lucky. There is nothing more tiring to the soul.

  250. 250.

    chopper

    @Tony Jay:

    what happened upthread was, someone pointed out how jews feel unsafe these days and someone else responded with a find-and-replace whatabout comment. obviously you don’t have to be one of us Overly Sensitive Jews(tm) to see that for exactly what it is.

    this is one reason why we feel america doesn’t really have our backs; when we point out anti-semitism people respond by changing the subject, and when we point that out people roll their eyes at it.

  252. 252.

    AlaskaReader

    @WaterGirl: I had to smile,

    I know what you meant,

    but to be surprised by having a great adult relationship with your children was cause for the smile.

  255. 255.

    Manyakitty

     

    @WaterGirl: that’s the part that got me. 

    Look, I agree that Netanyahu is absolute garbage and much of this is his fault. His henchmen are possibly even worse than he is, and the fact that the ruling triplets include 2 other people who are so right wing that they’d be alarming otherwise doesn’t help. All that said, I don’t see many people worried about the hostages, who have been gone for 104(?) days now. Nobody talks about the raped, tortured, and/or murdered Israelis. And the horrifying increase in antisemitic activities is only getting worse.

    Israel is not Netanyahu, Gaza is not Hamas.

    The world is beyond lucky that Biden is president right now. I can’t imagine anyone handling this no-win nightmare better than he is. He also shows a way to thread the needle: he supports Israel and its right to exist. He supports the Israeli and Palestinian people but not the actions of the awful people who thrive on war and destruction.

    Can we agree that nobody decent wants innocent people to suffer?

    Jews comprise 0.2% of the world’s population. That’s it. I just find it disappointing and scary to see how quickly the tide turned against us. Again.

    We are all in this together. Let’s act like it.

  256. 256.

    Manyakitty

    @Tony Jay:

    @WaterGirl: that’s the part that got me.

    Look, I agree that Netanyahu is absolute garbage and much of this is his fault. His henchmen are possibly even worse than he is, and the fact that the ruling triplets include 2 other people who are so right wing that they’d be alarming otherwise doesn’t help. All that said, I don’t see many people worried about the hostages, who have been gone for 104(?) days now. Nobody talks about the raped, tortured, and/or murdered Israelis. And the horrifying increase in antisemitic activities is only getting worse.

    Israel is not Netanyahu, Gaza is not Hamas.

    The world is beyond lucky that Biden is president right now. I can’t imagine anyone handling this no-win nightmare better than he is. He also shows a way to thread the needle: he supports Israel and its right to exist. He supports the Israeli and Palestinian people but not the actions of the awful people who thrive on war and destruction.

    Can we agree that nobody decent wants innocent people to suffer?

    Jews comprise 0.2% of the world’s population. That’s it. I just find it disappointing and scary to see how quickly the tide turned against us. Again.

    We are all in this together. Let’s act like it.

  257. 257.

    db11

    @Alison Rose: I continue to appreciate your ability to cut to the heart of (almost) any issue, and to explicate — with full moral clarity — what it truly means to be progressive in thought and deed.

    As a non-Jew with a multitude of Jewish friends, I feel and share their fear and distress in these fraught times.

  258. 258.

    chopper

    Most of these are understood and accepted by at least a sizable portion of the left. But for some reason, all y’all think you get to decide what counts as antisemitism and that our opinions don’t matter, or worse, are invalid because we’re not objective about it.

    it’s definitely weird how so many people in american politics feel the incessant need to try to define anti-semitism for us or minimize or explain it away with a scoff and an infantalizing head pat.

  262. 262.

    schrodingers_cat

    @chopper: You are not being overly sensitve.  I am an immigrant and a naturalized citizen, I am not rolling my eyes. I have your back. This blog at times can be a bubble of privilege and ideology , not to mention the sharp elbows that @otherchurchlady mentioned.

  265. 265.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Manyakitty: I agree with almost all of what you say, except I’m not sure the other two War Cabinet members- Gantz and Gallant- are as right wing as they have been described by you and others here. Gantz is more of a Center politician, I think. Gallant is similar to Netanyahu in policy but is at least more honest.

  266. 266.

    Another Scott

    @Sister Golden Bear: Thanks for keeping us informed.  It’s a horrible time in many ways.

    We have to vote the monsters out, and protect those who are being attacked.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  269. 269.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MrRoivas:

    That 28th comment, where the parallel with black people was brought up, no one mentioned Palestinians and then snarked in a reply.

    Why do you think that is? And are you okay with that? Or is the lack of mention of Palestinians in #28 or any replies to a regrettable error

    Well, sure I’m OK with them bringing up blacks. After trans and Jewish persons had both been mentioned in this way, the field was pretty wide open.  No, I didn’t have a problem with them adding blacks to the meme.  Not sure what Palestinians were or weren’t supposed to do with #28.  You keep on bringing them up out of context, as well as in relation to the comment where they were originally mentioned.

    And if you somehow failed to notice, I popped back at the person who snarked at me with the “binders full of women comment.” So your initial charge is inaccurate.

    I didn’t take that (#80) as snark.  If it was intended that way, then while my concern for Jews runs deep, I have no sympathy for you.  It seems that your concern for Jewish people can piggyback on the perils that trans people face, but the piggybacking must stop there.  At least your ire with the Palestinian comment can be explained by his “wow, that was fun” which was a shit comment, no argument there.

  270. 270.

    Lobo

    I hope this helps:

    “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
    ― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail

    We have to have each other’s back. They are after all of us.

  272. 272.

    db11

    @WaterGirl: I’ll always feel disappointed that Edwards personal failings (with an added touch of hubris) tanked his well-crafted ‘Two Americas’ message — not to mention his entire presidential campaign.

    (In a similar vein, imagine what a president Bill Clinton could have been with Obama’s self-possession and discipline).

  273. 273.

    Manyakitty

    @MrRoivas: Israel hasn’t been an option for me since bibi took power. One cousin flies in from Boston to protest against the current policies and another is a right wing lunatic in the West Bank. Two Jews, 3 opinions, right?

    NEVERTHELESS. It needs to survive and getting rid of the poisonous leadership is how that happens. Hope it happens sooner rather than later.

  276. 276.

    japa21

    This has been an interesting thread, if, perhaps, at times, over-reactive. I have no answers but I want to throw my 3 cents worth in.

    I am a 76 year old, male caucasian. I am straight, Christian, married.

    Guess how many times in my life I have had to defend my background or felt attacked for what I am. Not counting eversor, not once.

    I bring this up because it tells me I have no ability to fully emphasize with any of the several groups mentioned in this thread. But I can attempt to understand where members of those groups are coming from. Adam did a great post on this at one time, shortly after the attacks by Hamas.

    A point he made, speaking from his own experiences within the Jewish community, but undoubtedly able to be expanded across other communities, is that the attacked community tends to draw within itself and work to exclude non-community members. When this happens, it is very hard for allies of that community to really show empathy, no matter how hard they want to, because the community feels, sometimes rightfully so, that no outsider can truly understand the pain or fear or anger.

    I remember the last job I had prior to retirement. One of my coworkers was (he still is) an AA. This was at the time of the relatively early onslaught of cop on black violence making headlines. I asked him, trying to really get an understanding, if he, in a liberal state, in a area with great diversity, had experienced feelings of fear when he saw a police vehicle behind him. His response was ,”Every time.”
    That’s a feeling a can’t really fully relate to, no matter how hard I try.

    I would like to point out that there were no direct dismissals of the original comment, though through attempts at snark, a couple (and only a couple) may have come across that way. But it should also be recognized that a person in fear will jump at shadows, real or otherwise.

    I don’t know, as I said earlier, a real answer to the dilemma, though the way the world is going, it might be wise to find one.

    BTW, this also extends to white, male Christians who do feel threatened (I don’t).

  277. 277.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    I got a 20 year old F-150 from gov.deals w/70k miles for $2300. It was the city engineer’s vehicle in Marshall MI and he must have just driven it inside the county. It’s for my youngest so my middle son and  I picked it up in MI and dropped it at youngest house in MI. It has an amber light on top :)

    Such a nice truck! I’m thrilled with this purchase.

    For sure!  I’d jump on that one myself, the kiddo is going to need wheels before too long, and he wants a pickup truck.

  278. 278.

    AlaskaReader

    @WaterGirl: One of those quirks of our written language, things that occur where if the communication was face to face, likely a lot less chance of miscommunication.

    Also explains a percentage of the sharp elbows.

  280. 280.

    WaterGirl

    @chopper: Except the FIRST thing, the meme that started it all, was about Trans people.

    Riffing on the general idea, that morphed into Jewish.  Which morphed into Palestinian, though with the suspect “wow that was fun”, then morphing to women then to….

    So it didn’t start about Jewish.

    I did not see that any of the things mentioned was intended to dwarf or diminish any of the other things.  I saw an expression of commonality – that the mean told the truth – that if you don’t understand why your friend is afraid because of X, then you are not really paying attention, and you are not their friend.

    So I mostly saw the statement about friendship as TRUTH, played out with many “differences”.

  281. 281.

    Brachiator

    @Almost Retired:

    Here’s a link to an article in today’s Los Angeles Times by my favorite columnist entitled “Will Billionaire Bill Ackman Ever Learn to Shut Up?”

    That was a fun read. Thanks for the link.

    It’s also a reminder that newspapers like the Times are valuable, even as it tries to deal with financial woes and the recent resignation of its executive editor.

  283. 283.

    lowtechcyclist

    @chopper:

    what happened upthread was, someone pointed out how jews feel unsafe these days and someone else responded with a find-and-replace whatabout comment.

    The problem was, Mr Roivas’ initial comment had itself been a find-and-replace whatabout comment.  I still read it as ‘the threats to MY group are sufficiently dire to justify piggybacking on the threats to trans persons, but the threats to any OTHER group do not justify their piggybacking on the threats to MY group.’

  284. 284.

    MrRoivas

    @Manyakitty: that person’s mask slipped even before that parting snark.

    To put it simply: why reply to my comment at all, if it wasn’t meant to be an attack? If that comment had floated in the thread with no connection to mine, I would have slid over it without a word.

    It was targeted at me, because how dare I mention that Jews can feel pain without qualification or apology.

  285. 285.

    Another Scott

    @Librarian:

    The SCOTUS cannot wait to gut Chevron and let the courts decide everything that the federal agencies are set up to do.

    GovExec.com has a decent summary of the ramifications.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  286. 286.

    MrRoivas

    @lowtechcyclist: if that comment about Palestinians had not been made as an explicit, direct reply to me, I would have made no issue with it.

    Same as when another person did it for black people. They didn’t direct it at me, so I have no objections to it.

  287. 287.

    Nelle

    I was raised as a Mennonite.  Everyone in the big family genealogy book back to the 1600’s was Mennonite.  I married a man for whom everyone in his known genealogy was Jewish, though he wasn’t raised in the Jewish faith nor practice.  He was raised in a white suburb in California.

    I don’t know how or why strangers can pick him out as Jewish.  He was bullied and called “Jew Boy” in grade school.  Jews for Jesus accosted him (and only him) on a busy sidewalk in Seattle.  He wasn’t even with me when a rabbi broke away from a group and came up to me, put one hand on each of my children’s heads, and blessed them.  There were other children in the room, but no, he came to these two.  A Jewish student looked at their photos on my desk, looked at me, and asked, “Are these your children?  But you aren’t Jewish.”  My daughter went to Israel on the Birthright program and thought, “I’m at home, among my people.”  Last summer, my husband found most of a swastika scratched in the side of his car while he was at the gym.  The police told him it was probably random.  Right.

    I’ve stayed off of the internet about a lot of what is happening since Oct. 7.  But I talk regularly with my neighbor, Saed, from the West Bank.  He says that we are the only neighbors who have reached out to him.  He had been scheduled to fly to Tel Aviv on Oct. 10.

    My daughter gets a spidey sense, for which she is often mocked.  And too often, she’s been right.  That was one of the reasons she moved from Phoenix to northern Minnesota – she wanted to be able to get to the Canadian border quickly.  Even when young, she wanted to know why more Jews didn’t get out of Germany in the 1930’s.  One of the first things that happened to her up there was the question – Are you Jewish? which seemed to come out of nowhere.

    And yes, all of us despise Netanyahu.

  289. 289.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Dan B:

    Someone commented that they’re tired of reading about people wanting to leave the US.  I’m discouraged that there’s no discussion of how to protect trans, black, pregnant women, immigrants, asylum seekers, etc.

    A-fucking-men.

    @Gretchen: I’ve been loving me some Jess Piper. She’s definitely fighting the good fight.

  290. 290.

    NobodySpecial

    I can feel empathy for the terrible situation ordinary Jews are in and be extremely tired of accusations of anti-Semitism at the same time, because the Israeli government and their proxies have overused it to shut down criticism of their apartheid policies. The crimes of Hamas leaders and soldiers don’t justify what’s going on in Gaza any more than the crimes of Al-Qaeda justified us fucking up both Afghanistan and Iraq and getting a few million people killed in the bargain.

    Punish criminals and make ordinary people safe. Period. No race or religion needs to be noted in that statement.

  292. 292.

    Manyakitty

    @schrodingers_cat: thank you. FWIW, I appreciate your perspective. My employer is a company started by an Indian woman (she’s still in charge) and the vast majority of my colleagues live in India or are immigrants.

    Always casually interested, now I’m much more aware of random details and your comments help me pull a lot of things together.

  293. 293.

    chopper

    @WaterGirl:

    I did not see that any of the things mentioned was intended to dwarf or diminish any of the other things.  I saw an expression of commonality – that the mean MEME told the truth – that if you don’t understand why your friend is afraid because of X, then you are not really paying attention, and you are not their friend.

    that’s certainly the way i read the first comment about anti-semitism, because anti-semitism is not something people usually bring up as a way to minimize anti-trans stuff; they’re not seen as two sides of an argument by people.

    on the other hand, we’ve been dealing with a lot of “oh yeah what about the palestinians” any time anti-semitism is brought up, with the express purpose of changing the subject, which made that comment pretty suss.

  294. 294.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MrRoivas:

    Same as when another person did it for black people. They didn’t direct it at me, so I have no objections to it.

    I don’t grok the difference, sorry.  A reply to you is ‘directing’ a comment at you in some hostile way?  So that’s why you let the one about blacks pass by, but took on the one about women?  Seriously, this is where the line is between a comment you regard as offensive and one you don’t?

    Forget it, I’m outa here.

  295. 295.

    chopper

    @MrRoivas:

    nobody saw the comment with the version of the meme with black folk instead and replied with something about, say, white people. for obvious reasons.

  296. 296.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @different-church-lady:

    3) When someone is expressing empathy for one of those groups, responding with what amounts to “Hey, we’re oppressed too, ya know,” ain’t a good look.

    At least when one doesn’t acknowledge/empathize with the first group and then bridge to one’s own concerns, e.g. I sympathize with the existiential fear that my Jewish friends are feeling right now, because of the existential fears I’m feeling myself in the face of a Republican trans genocide.

    And before someone accuses me of not being sympathetic enough to Jews, let me point out that I have Jewish ancestors only three generations back — although I wasn’t raised in the faith — and while the knowledge that an entire side of my family was wiped out by the Nazi doesn’t generate the same bone-deep reaction I’m still acutely aware of how it could happen again.

  299. 299.

    WaterGirl

    @MrRoivas: I don’t know about anyone else, but I sometimes reply to someone with another thought just because their comment was what led me to think about the other thing.

    So you could be right about that because that person added “wow that was fun”.

    I could have easily replied to the comment about Jewish people with a comment about Palestinian people – not feeling like it’s one verses the other.  With Israel-Hamas-Palestine, to me it feels like the government of one being against the government of the other, and the actual people are all caught in the middle.

    To me it feels like terrible leaders on both sides and no one really giving a shit about the people who are starving and dying or in captivity.

    But that’s from the perspective of that war and the people who are in the middle of it, not the perspective of what it’s like to be Jewish or Palestinian in America with that war going on.

  300. 300.

    MrRoivas

    @Sister Golden Bear: I already apologized for my clumsiness for how I started this, and I’ll do it again: I should have been better at bridging that gap, like you said.

    Within the last year, I’ve managed to stumble into a large number of friendships with trans women. The cruelty being directed at them distresses me greatly.

    Hope this helps.

  301. 301.

    Alison Rose

    @NobodySpecial:

    I can feel empathy for the terrible situation ordinary Jews are in and be extremely tired of accusations of anti-Semitism at the same time, because the Israeli government and their proxies have overused it to shut down criticism of their apartheid policies.

    No one on this blog or in this country is part of the Israeli government. Dismissing concerns of antisemitism from regular Jews around the world based on our lived experiences because Bibi and his minions overuse it is not okay.

  302. 302.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott:

    The SCOTUS cannot wait to gut Chevron and let the courts decide everything that the federal agencies are set up to do.

    GovExec.com has a decent summary of the ramifications.

    Grrr, indeed.  Even if one theoretically believed this sort of review should be in the hands of the courts, administrative agencies have to make so many of these decisions, there’s no way the Federal courts could handle the load without staffing up massively, which isn’t gonna happen.

    These people don’t give a damn about this country. They’re just tearing it all down.

  304. 304.

    NobodySpecial

    @Alison Rose: To be fair, I haven’t seen much dismissal on this post if at all beyond one person saying “Wasn’t that fun?” in response to whataboutism.

  305. 305.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Bill Arnold:

    What countries do you consider to be, for the foreseeable future, safe?

    Honestly the list keeps getting shorter and shorter. Canada and New Zealand are relatively safe, but not really doable at my age without an actual refugee status. (Basically, I’m too old to be of interest, even as a skilled worker, and not old enough to be a retiree bringing in those sweet, sweet US dollars.) Current bug-out plan would be moving to Portugal, which is strong on LGBTQ+ rights, and taking premature retirement due to the low cost of living and relative ease in getting their equivalent of a green card.

  306. 306.

    chopper

    @NobodySpecial:

    and be extremely tired of accusations of anti-Semitism at the same time, because the Israeli government and their proxies have overused it to shut down criticism of their apartheid policies.

    if you feel that likud has somehow ruined the concept of anti-semitism for you, i would suggest you look into the long history of it and maybe realize that there’s actually a shit-ton of it in the world today.

  307. 307.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @MrRoivas: Apology not needed, but thank you. Although I will say the find-and-replace reply as phrased initially came across to me as a bit of Oppression Olympics. Especially as while there obviously a terrifying spike in anti-Semitism and anti-Semite violence, trans people have already had rights stripped from us, and there are ongoing active efforts by Republicans to further legalize discrimination and eradicate us from public life (if not entirely).

    I’m glad that wasn’t your intent.

  308. 308.

    Geminid

    @NobodySpecial: That “wasn’t this fun” was in response to the commenter’s own whataboutism. I have to wonder about someone who finds anything fun about this topic.

  309. 309.

    chopper

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    portugal is a pretty good sweet spot from what my trans friends have told me (they all have bug-out plans, at least the idea of one). canada has def made it harder to attain citizenship, from the US at least.

    the hard part’s learning portuguese, if my SIL’s any representation of the people there. no matter how hard i try to pronounce my nephew’s name she’s always shaking her head.

  310. 310.

    CarolPW

    If we found out the commenter at #54 is trans, it would put a whole different spin on this conversation. We assume too much, and too many of us (including me) are cranky.

  311. 311.

    NobodySpecial

    @chopper: There’s been a shit ton of it for literal hundreds of years, yes. But I’m not interested in tier-listing the legitimacy of people’s various fears, because as was noted above, people of all kinds of out groups are currently under fire in a climate of rising fascism.

  313. 313.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @MrRoivas: I wanted only to point out that minority groups of all kinds everywhere are under threat.

    I will speak out emphatically against anyone disparaging Jewish people for their faith or propagating wink/nudge conspiracy theories or, god for

    But people who use accusations of anti-Semitism to protect the Israeli government or to criticize people for acknowledging Palestinian plight or Trans or any other group are being disingenuous.

    I’m not being guilted into supporting a genocide just because the government implementing it has a link to a religious group that has been the victim of genocide in the past. And you aren’t doing yourself any favors suggesting that Jewish people should be the sole point of concern for those who value justice.

  314. 314.

    Citizen Alan

    @db11:  I voted for him twice without reservation, but I still want to scream in his face WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST KEEP YOUR GOD-DAMNED PANTS ZIPPED UP?!?!?

  317. 317.

    chopper

    @NobodySpecial:

    There’s been a shit ton of it for literal hundreds of years, yes.

    well, thousands actually, but sure

    But I’m not interested in tier-listing the legitimacy of people’s various fears, because as was noted above, people of all kinds of out groups are currently under fire in a climate of rising fascism.

    i’d argue that saying you’re sick of hearing about prejudice against a certain minority because you think somebody goes too far with accusations of it doesn’t really comport with this statement.

  322. 322.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @chopper: Depends on its relevance to whatever matter is at hand. If you’re talking about this neighbor’s accent, for example, their African background is clearly relevant.

    Likewise, if we’re discussion oppression and my regard for the plight of Palestinians gets me labeled anti-Semitic, that’s just nonsense and flibbertygibbet.

    I want people everywhere safe from weapons of war. I’m sorry, everyone means everyone. I want you safe from weapons of war, too, that don’t make you special.

  323. 323.

    Alison Rose

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Oh wow, that’s a new one. You do have access to the same internet as the rest of us.

    Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who interpret it as referring to racist hatred directed at all “Semitic people” (i.e., those who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabs, Assyrians, and Arameans). This usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus (lit. ’antisemitism’) was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a “scientific-sounding term” for Judenhass (lit. ’Jew-hatred’), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.

  325. 325.

    chopper

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    at least most portuguese people speak more than a bit of spanish. i always found that portuguese (not brazilian) sounds like spanish and russian got in a bar fight or something

  327. 327.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Alison Rose: It sure feels like that accusation is being directed at everyone who doesn’t denounce  Hamas with every breath. Most comments I have seen of yours on this thread were doing that in some manner.

    May not have been your intent but you can’t control how people take things.   As far as I see,very time Israel comes up, a not insignificant amount of people here on BJ start sounding like Foxbots.

  328. 328.

    NobodySpecial

    @chopper: i’d argue that saying you’re sick of hearing about prejudice against a certain minority because you think somebody goes too far with accusations of it doesn’t really comport with this statement.

    It’s the “boy who cried wolf” issue. I don’t know anyone personally on the left who is particuarly happy when a synagogue gets vandalized or when Israelis get kidnapped or killed, but I know a lot of people who throw out “anti-Semitic” for saying that maybe it’s a bad thing that the Israeli government thinks it’s okey-dokey to just displace or bomb Palestinians willy nilly or that maybe it’s a bad thing that Israelis keep electing leaders who think it’s okey-dokey to do these things.

    One of these things is not like the other, but when people use the same label to cover both, it weakens the meaning of the label. And that’s all I have to say on that matter.

  329. 329.

    chopper

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    It sure feels like that accusation is being directed at everyone who doesn’t denounce  Hamas with every breath. Most comments I have seen of yours on this thread were doing that in some manner.

    wait, what? i suggest you take a nap

  330. 330.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @chopper: It doesn’t mean black no matter what the corcumstance. African American is not a universally accepted descriptor for American black people.

    To say we can’t use the term “African” to describe someone who literally emigrated from Africa is…an odd position to take.

    Say, my roommate is ethnically Haitian but emigrated from Germany. Since you’re the great arbiter of this, what is he?

  331. 331.

    chopper

    @NobodySpecial:

    I don’t know anyone personally on the left who is particuarly happy when a synagogue gets vandalized or when Israelis get kidnapped or killed

    yeah i know, that’s the type of anti-semitism leftists are actually able  to point at and say “wow, that’s bad”. kidnappings and murder. all the other stuff tho, naw, that’s just people being overly sensitive or they’re trying to make us support the IDF, or something

  333. 333.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @chopper: You’re splitting hairs because you don’t want to admit your disregard for a group you aren’t in.

  334. 334.

    Alison Rose

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I have been clear since Hamas’ attack that I absolutely loathe the Israeli government and that I have deep empathy for innocent Palestinian civilians and what they are experiencing. I have also explained why, in what I believe is fair and reasoned ways, it is hurtful and perpetuating of bigotry to shout down any Jew who tries to talk about our feelings, to admonish us to think about people in Gaza instead, to insist that the hatred we feel in our daily lives does not really exist.

    Saying I sound like someone on Fox is disgusting and you are cordially invited to go fuck yourself. I have tried to be measured and to have this discussion because it’s important to me as a Jew to get people to understand what life is like for us. You have made it clear you don’t care, and instead of engaging on then merits, you’re going to erroneously label me as some kind of raving loon who would call someone an antisemite if they said they didn’t like bagels.

    If you don’t care about my people, that’s fine, but don’t try to make me out to be worse than I am to justify it.

  336. 336.

    MrRoivas

    @Alison Rose: My comment about this commenter not being a friend of our community is wearing better by the minute.

    Wish I could I say I was happy to be proven correct.

  337. 337.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Alison Rose:

    I disagree with you on who’s shouting down whom. People have been using bad faith accusations of anti-Semitism to defend murder of Palestinians for as long as I can remember.

    That sure as shit looks like what you’ve been doing here. Maybe not as strident as Fox News, but we know about dogwhistles here, right? .

    @MrRoivas: And this hateful sack of shit makes it explicit. Note he only has seemed tonhave a problem with people defending one particular group.

    I know what I believe and you’ve given me plenty of reason to not care what you have to say.

  338. 338.

    MrRoivas

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: That we do. Which is why your denial that antisemitism is a term which only applies to the Jewish community trills so loudly. It’s a common lie and misdirection. As honest and good faith as people saying, “Phobia means fear, and I’m not afraid of gay people.”

    You’re not subtle.

  339. 339.

    Captain C

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Yes.  However, the term ‘antisemitism‘ &c. came into use in the 1870s or so, essentially as a respectable form of Jew-hate.

    (First link wikipedia, second to a Jewish outreach organization)

    From the wiki article:

    The origin of “antisemitic” terminologies is found in the responses of Moritz Steinschneider to the views of Ernest Renan. As Alex Bein writes: “The compound anti-Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his ‘anti-Semitic prejudices’ [i.e., his derogation of the “Semites” as a race].” Avne Falk similarly writes: “The German word antisemitisch was first used in 1860 by the Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) in the phrase antisemitische Vorurteile (antisemitic prejudices). Steinschneider used this phrase to characterise the French philosopher Ernest Renan’s false ideas about how ‘Semitic races’ were inferior to ‘Aryan races'”.

    Pseudoscientific theories concerning race, civilization, and “progress” had become quite widespread in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, especially as Prussian nationalistic historian Heinrich von Treitschke did much to promote this form of racism. He coined the phrase “the Jews are our misfortune” which would later be widely used by Nazis. According to Avner Falk, Treitschke uses the term “Semitic” almost synonymously with “Jewish”, in contrast to Renan’s use of it to refer to a whole range of peoples, based generally on linguistic criteria.

    According to Jonathan M. Hess, the term was originally used by its authors to “stress the radical difference between their own ‘antisemitism’ and earlier forms of antagonism toward Jews and Judaism.”
    Cover page of Marr’s The Way to Victory of Germanicism over Judaism, 1880 edition
    In 1879, German journalist Wilhelm Marr published a pamphlet, Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet (The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit. Observed from a non-religious perspective) in which he used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both “Jewry” (the Jews as a collective) and “Jewishness” (the quality of being Jewish, or the Jewish spirit).

    This use of Semitismus was followed by a coining of “Antisemitismus” which was used to indicate opposition to the Jews as a people and opposition to the Jewish spirit, which Marr interpreted as infiltrating German culture. His next pamphlet, Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (The Way to Victory of the Germanic Spirit over the Jewish Spirit, 1880), presents a development of Marr’s ideas further and may present the first published use of the German wordAntisemitismus, “antisemitism”.

    The pamphlet became very popular, and in the same year Marr founded the Antisemiten-Liga (League of Antisemites), apparently named to follow the “Anti-Kanzler-Liga” (Anti-Chancellor League). The league was the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany and German culture posed by the Jews and their influence and advocating their forced removal from the country.

    And the second link:

    “Antisemitism” came about (in its Germanic form) in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1860, an Austrian Jewish scholar, Moritz Steinschneider, introduced the term antisemitische vorurteile (anti-Semitic prejudices). He used the expression in a piece he wrote countering the ideas of French philosopher Ernest Renan, who claimed that the Semitic race was inferior to the Aryan race.

    The term antisemitism was made common by Wilhelm Marr, a German publicist and agitator. Unfortunately, his 1879 pamphlet, “The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism,” in which he used the term Antisemitismus, was very popular. That same year, Marr founded the League of Antisemites. It is interesting to note that Marr’s first three wives (he was married four times) were all of Jewish lineage and that, in 1891, he published an essay titled “Testament of an Antisemite,” apologizing for his mistaken antisemitic notions.

  341. 341.

    Alison Rose

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Let me get this straight:

    You are accusing me of defending the murder of Palestinians?

    Fuck you. Fuck you a million times.

    If you think wanting people to care about Jews means celebrating the deaths of Palestinians, then you are infinitely more hateful and fucked up than I thought.

  342. 342.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Captain C:  Someone explained that upthread too. I’ll stop using that pedantic argument, but what you just explained sounds like a good reason to stop using the term as well.

    It’s less than accurate in the way it’s commonly used. And it was popularized by the haters.

  343. 343.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Alison Rose: Right back at you.  I never expressed anything remotely hateful toward Jewish people. I get shamed every time I express empathy for Palestinians, even if I express it in a way that makes sure to include the Jewish citizens of Israel and Palestine as well.

    This ain’t no goddamned competition.

  344. 344.

    Captain C

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Someone explained that upthread too. I’ll stop using that pedantic argument,

    That’s good; if one keeps using it it tends to make them look like a lazy and annoying college sophomore.

    but what you just explained sounds like a good reason to stop using the term as well.

    It has a long history since then and despite its abuse sometimes, remains a useful term.

    It’s less than accurate in the way it’s commonly used. And it was popularized by the haters.

    I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.  Or what throwing the term down the memory hole is actually supposed to accomplish.

  347. 347.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Captain C: That’s good; if one keeps using it it tends to make them look like a lazy and annoying college sophomore.

    I appreciate good sarcasm. And I’d like to point out I’m responsive to constructive criticism. You did that.

    Assertions I don’t care about the wellbeing of Jewish people because I also care about others is not that.

    The suggestion to favor a different term was only that. I’m fairly plugged in to these conversations and I still needed that explained to me. Which happens. It takes time for us to have all the conversations.

    I don’t hate anyone. I’m upset my culture asks me to value one set of lives over others in many, many places.

  348. 348.

    chopper

    @Alison Rose:

    i find a lot of leftists like our friends here have the same take on antisemitism that republicans have as to racism.

    most republicans think of black folk as a minority that isn’t really in need of defense, at least by them. they’re doing fine! way better than they say, they just use racism as an excuse. so lots of these republicans may be willing to recognize and even call out the blatant cases of racism (although there’s still plenty of whataboutism and subject-changing), but the non-blatant stuff is ignored or handwaved away because “well, you people say everything is racist” or “it’s all part of an agenda”. by god they’re just so tired of hearing how everything is racist from these people who clearly have an agenda, amirite?

    well, lotsa leftists are the same with regard to us. sure, they’ll point at someone shooting up a synagogue and say ‘that’s wrong!’ and act all self-righteous about what an ally they are, but when we point at all the other antisemitism that happens on a day-to-day basis, it ‘s eyerolls and handwaves.

  349. 349.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @chopper: And turnabout being fair play, I feel justified in some rhetorical excess. I’m not saying it’s right, but I was not the first person to accuse others of blithely accepting murder on this thread.  I thought those accusations were baseless and hurtful and in that moment I wanted the accusers to hurt too.

    Now they’re in the pie filter. You’re with them. And everso

    most republicans think of black folk as a minority that isn’t really in need of defense, at least by them. they’re doing fine! way better than they say, they just use racism as an excuse.

    And clearly you don’t know shit about me. Great. This is also far afield of this conversation. Glad I pied you.

  351. 351.

    Eduardo

    @Sister Golden Bear: Spanish native here, lived in Brazil 5 years.  Spanish and Portuguese are close cousins but Portuguese is way more complex phonetically (grammatically they are very close). So the Portuguese may be able to understand you if you speak Spanish slowly but not viceversa. But if you know Spanish you should be good to go in about a year of immersion.

    a bunch of Americans are moving to Portugal.  I think you can survive with English and have fun learning Portuguese.

    Have you heard anything about Uruguay?  Very liberal, very safe, open immigration system, great weather — as in not hot for a Latin American country

    Hopefully we will defeat the fascists in November and you go to Portugal just as a tourist.

  352. 352.

    Other MJS

    @WaterGirl: D’oh! You were commenting on the next video, not the previous. Guess I really wanted to see Marscopter video ending with followed by a Texan kicking a clothes dryer in frustration. 😊

  353. 353.

    Paul in KY

    @MrRoivas: The Palestinian people have legitimate grievances over how they have been treated by (mainly the Likud) governments of Israel.

    Hamas is still a bunch of murdering sissy losers.

  356. 356.

    Paul in KY

    @japa21: It is very hard (I think) and infuriating to be a non-cis, non-white, non-Christian-background person here in the USA. Also seems to be getting harder.

  357. 357.

    Paul in KY

    @Nelle: I can only assume your fine husband must look stereotypically ‘Jewish’.  So sad that these evil shitheels have tormented him.  I hope your family can find peace ASAP!

  358. 358.

    Paul in KY

    @Citizen Alan: Me too! Wished he resigned and let VP Gore take over for last year. Running as an incumbent may have been that little bit of umph that would have got him over the line.

  359. 359.

    Paul in KY

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Hamas should be denounced at every opportunity. They are (purposely) effing up any chance the Palestinian people have for their own state.

    Plus they are Islamic weirdos (Whabbists) who gleefully murder innocent non-combatants (which makes them loser sissies, as they never fight the IDF directly).

  361. 361.

    Barry

    @smith: “Joe Manchin’s got to have a super-sized ego if he thinks he could be a spoiler. A poll of normies about his chances would probably get “Who?” as the most frequent response. He’d be neck and neck with Dean Philips for third place.”

     

    He would be hoping to move juuuuuuust enough votes in a swing state or two.  And considering the help he’d get from the media, that is not a forlorn hope.

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