Joke of the Year (so far)

[PeterRS]

Netanyahu turned up at the White House yesterday bearing a gift. A  nomination for Trump to receive the Nobel Pece Prize! Does anyone take Netanyahu seriously these days? Or Trump, for that matter?

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5388994-netanyahu-trump-nobel-peace-prize/

[stevenkesslar]

11 hours ago, PeterRS said:

A  nomination for Trump to receive the Nobel Paece Prize! Does anyone take Netanyahu seriously these days? Or Trump, for that matter?

Yes.   The people who they are killing in Gaza take them seriously.

A few very sad thoughts on this.

Just a few days ago I watched an interview between John Mearsheimer and Judge Napolitano which is worth 30 minutes of anyone's time.  They are kindred spirits on most of these issues.  Mearsheimer, who is firmly in the camp that Trump just incented Iran to build a nuclear bomb so we can't fuck with them in the future, laid out a theory about Bibi and Don, the mad bombers. 

He said Trump has gotten himself into a new forever war with Iran, even though he probably doesn't know it yet.  He framed his thoughts by noting that he is trying to get into Trump's head, which is never an easy or safe thing to do.  But he thinks Trump thinks he's the top dog, and has it all sorted out.  Bibi will show up to discuss a "cease fire" and slather praise on Trump.  He'll tell him how badly Israel needs the US and how we thank you for your wisdom and blah blah blah.  And in the end Bibi, who Mearsheimer basically said is a much cannier politician than Trump, will break the ceasefire and bomb Iran more and drag Trump into that.  A new forever war!  And Bibi did it himself.

It does seem like we now have a Trump/Arab autocrat/Genocide Jew axis of evil forming in the Middle East.  How many real estate deals are Trump's family working on with those Arab autocrat states, by the way?  How many luxury planes are they gifting him?  So that is a serious matter.  Although, Mearsheimer would argue, nothing we can really do anything about.  We're just the most powerful democracy in the world, after all.  😨

There was an article in The New York Times by some likely suspect professor saying Democrats don't really understand how wide and deep the split between Democrats and Israel is becoming.  It was behind a paywall so I didn't bother to try to learn the details.  Because I think it is true and I have it figured out already.  I do look at polls all the time. And this one you can track slowly developing over the course of years.  But escalating once Bibi really got his genocide going in Gaza.  And I do think, at the margin, it was another nail in the coffin of Biden and Harris, not to mention tens of thousands of Palestinians.

So this is something to take seriously.  I am of an age where I know 25 years ago I revered Clinton and Barak as the peacemakers.  I knew Barak was the embodiment of the IDF as well as the Israel Labor Party.  But I thought, and think, they wanted to make peace.  I did, and always will, hope Arafat burns in hell forever for rejecting a deal that could have prevented all this.  But it is what it is.  And now young Democrats who weren't alive when all that happened look at Bibi and think, "Genocide Jew."  And I agree with them.  He is a Genocide Jew.  But I have no idea what Democrats will or can do about it.

 

[Suckrates]

I think even a BIGGER joke is that the party that screamed and yelled about the "DEEP STATE" and created a conspiracy theory that the Dems pulled off a coverup regarding  the Epstein files,  those people that screamed and yelled and pointed their fingers are NOW the Deep state themselves,  and have just perpetrated one of the Biggest LIES they told so far,  and it has become obvious to the MAGA base that Trump, the Repugs and his DOJ are the ones involved in the biggest COVERUP they accused the Dems of.....  Trump and his DOJ ARE the swamp !  and MAGA sees it VERY clearly.....  It even brought Alex Jones, a man of great INTEGRITY, to tears.    

[PeterRS]

6 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Yes.   The people who they are killing in Gaza take them seriously.

I agree with you 100%. What has happened in Gaza in the last 18 months or more is one of the great crimes against humanity.

Three years ago when back in the UK staying with my sister, knowing of my interest in Taiwan she arranged lunch with a lovely young Taiwanese who had recently moved into the neighbourhood and her Palestinian doctor husband. When Israel started its incursion into Gaza (which given what Hamas had recently done in Israel may have had some justification, even though Israeli intelligence had totally botched up its mandate), the doctor was immediately concerned. It was not just that his parents, brother and sister lived in Gaza, he had a total of 26 relatives living there. He immediately gave up his work as a doctor to fly to the Middle East to see if and how he could get everyone out.

It took more than a year to raise the required cash from all of their friends as well as a GoFundMe page. Eventually he did get everyone out. Some are now in the UK, others in Canada and yet more still stuck in Egypt awaiting resettlement. That young man was determined to rescue his family. Hundreds of thousands of others must have wished they could have done the same but either had no clue how to achieve that goal or were unable to raise enough money. 

It's so dispiriting - and often makes me furious - that had Yitzhak Rabin not been assassinated in 1995 by one of his own Jewish extreme right wing, perhaps - just perhaps - everything would have turned out so differently. Netanyahu has always been a right wing zealot determined to see an end to those he perceives as Israel's enemies. Without the recent wars he himself would have been in the dock for crimes the Israeli prosecutors know he has committed. He will no doubt continue on his evil path if only to see he is six feet under before ever seeing the inside of an Israeli court.

[stevenkesslar]

52 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

It took more than a year to raise the required cash from all of their friends as well as a GoFundMe page. Eventually he did get everyone out

That is both encouraging, in the context of a very sad story, and actually a little surprising   Meaning that there were actually countries with open doors for them to go to.  Certainly not the US right now.  But it shows you what one person with a heart and a mission can do.  And where the passion that helped fell Biden and Harris is coming from.