DL Open Thread Monday August 21 2023
These ginormous checks for Israel aren’t going to write themselves. Or…
Oh Well, McBride signs onto maximalist Coosian Israel policy. Or…
Delaware Congressional candidate Sarah McBride casts herself as a staunch supporter of Israel
McBride described the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel as “a bedrock of America’s national security and our global values” and as rooted in the U.S. and Israel’s “shared values” and “common goals of global security.”
“I believe it’s a critical relationship. It’s one that I will certainly work in Congress to continue to protect,” she continued. “And I believe that it sits right at the heart of our values as a democratic nation.”
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I AM GUILTY …of loving these Trump stories a little too much.
Mark Meadows Contradicts Trump’s Key Defense Point In Classified Docs Case
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly informed special counsel investigators led by Jack Smith that he couldn’t that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials prior to leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any “standing order” from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office.
Meadows’s revelation contradicts Trump’s public assertion that he had declassified all documents before his departure.
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We’ve got real labor shortage… better raise interest rates again. Workers might get uppity.
Biden’s infrastructure building boom is missing one thing: Workers
On the front lines of efforts to rebuild the country’s infrastructure under a plan central to President Joe Biden’s re-election pitch are the inmates in the Mansfield and Richland correctional institutions in Ohio.
Prisoners are attending a local community college program training them to climb 150-foot cellphone towers to install and repair equipment needed to expand broadband and 5G internet access, preparing them for jobs that companies have been desperate to fill once they leave incarceration.
“We’ve got more jobs than people,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, a Republican who leads the state’s workforce efforts, said in an interview. “In the past, someone would have said, ‘You’re spending this money [on inmates] and taking my job.’ But now, nobody wants these jobs. Nobody’s waiting in line for these jobs. They can’t find anybody to take them.”
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DeSantis’ durable movement,… tee hee.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has sparked the wrath of Trump supporters after calling them “listless vessels” in a recent interview. In comments to a reporter for The Florida Standard, he said: “If all we are is listless vessels that are just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that’s not going to be a durable movement.”
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Any day now…these old fuckers in Florida are going to put 2 and 2 together and stop voting for Republicans.
Video showed the chaos outside of the Century Village Pembroke Pines Clubhouse after dozens of residents say they were not allowed inside for the community insurance meeting.
“They said, ‘oh, it’s overcrowded, so you cannot go inside,’ and they started closing the doors, so they want to go inside, but they don’t allow nobody to go inside,” resident Dilsa Bressler said. “And we are talking about really, really old people.”
Unit owners were invited to attend the meeting for an update on an increase in monthly fees. An email from Century Village to residents announces unit owners will be paying an additional $100-$200 per month due to “skyrocketing insurance premiums.” The email states they may also have a special assessment.
“So now we are over $700 a month that we are paying just in HOA fees, and they’re going to kick it up to $1,000 a month,” resident Joe Hutchinson said. “We have no choice we have to sell. As a matter of fact, I just put my house on the market 10 minutes ago.”
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/crime/2023/08/21/wilmington-shooting-atvs-woman-injured/70619447007/
I just find ironic, remembering the puff piece TNJ did a few years ago about how riding atvs and dirt bikes around the city was “liberating” for young men and helping them “process trauma”
Update-the perp has been captured, turns out his fingerprints were already in “the system”.
Until we can get back to a more sensible justice system, I hope we can get some legislation that shields drivers/bicyclists/pedestrians from any liability involving the injury or death of one of these operators of illegal off road vehicles. If one of these bozos cuts me off and ends up under my dump truck, I want to know that I will be treated as the victim. I would want full acesss to victim services and a chance to take further legal action against the operator and/or their next of kin for emotional distress and vehicle repairs and cleaning.
You know what our special relationship isn’t rooted in? A treaty defining the obligations on either side. Special indeed.
“Special” means “secret.”
The unstated trade off was that that Israel would act as our “fixer” in the middle
East, so long as we looked the other way at their slow-burn ethnic cleansing.
Last I checked, gas is 3.79 and Iran has nukes, so I think this relationship as run its course
Guessing is not the same as knowing, and none of us is in a position to know.
As long as we’re guessing, I would guess that it runs much deeper than what you’ve suggested.
Guess away-I’m curious to hear your thoughts
Nothing so specific as what you suggested. I think it’s broader, but as you noted, unspoken, and so by its nature beyond public view and open to potential misunderstandings.
But what you or I guess hardly matters. The problem with unspoken understandings is what the conspiracy-minded guess. That’s where you get Elders of Zion kraziness.
I get that Jewish Delawareans are a Democratic constituency, and that McBride is running for office in Delaware, but are Jewish Delawareans also Likud leaning extremists?
I’m seriously asking. Why does “support for Israel” always mean blank check support for the very worst elements within Israel?
No. Pretty sure that the ‘End Of Days’ folks are more pro-Netanyahu than most Jews. Gotta say, her position is inexplicable.
Did she just have lunch with Chris Coons or something?
More likely one of his donors.
Her position represents like 80-90% the Democratic caucus in the House. Not much is surprising here. Even Maxwell Frost has said the same things.
Presumes DE primary voters align with the House. Maybe a fair presumption, maybe not.
No, we’re not. The median American Jew (and presumably Delawarean Jew, given that the only place where Jews skew right is New York) supports conditioning our aid to Israel on them ending and does not think that the BDS movement is antisemitic. This is a position which is literally to the left even of Bernie Sanders, by far the most left-wing Jew in American public life. Unfortunately, most mainstream Jewish institutions have been hijacked by a wealthy right-wing minority of our community and ordinary lower/working/middle class Jewish Americans, and even wealthy liberal/leftist Jews, of whom there are plenty, don’t have really have a voice except for J Street, which is pretty milquetoast itself and still only has 1/10th the money of AIPAC.
I disagree-There is a strong leftist Jewish tradition with plenty of public exposure in traditional media and popular culture. To say that the liberal wing of the Jewish people is silenced by a small right wing minority is inaccurate and robs people of their agency.
Fair, maybe silenced isn’t the right word. “Politically extremely underrepresented” and “with disproportionately very little clout” are fair though
Now the trap is set for Young to contrast his views on Israel relations with McBride’s.
This isn’t a major issue for me, but it might be the biggest one on which the candidates diverge.
McBride’s interview was careful not to express anything other than a fairly bland restatment of official US positions on Israel relations.
Young now has the choice of either agreeing with her, or explaining where he disagrees.
If he disagrees, it will become a news story, and it will likely be the first time many Delawareans hear of Young. I don’t think Young wants to be defined as an anti-Israel candidate.
Young can come out on top with a measured statement something like “urging stipulations for future aid” while maintaining the importance of the relationship.
The problem for the U.S. is that not all the values we share with Israel are positive ones. We’re hardly in a position to preach.
Most Jews in Delaware, and most American Jews in general, are not right-wing militant Jewish nationalists. But the ones that are, they’re very loud, very active, very well-funded, and laser focused on punishing any elected officials don’t express full-throated support for what they want. So politicians are afraid of them. They’re sorta like the FOP- except instead of defending the worst excesses of the police, they defend the worst excesses of the Israeli military.
That’s a real good take.
Is it really a good take??? …Let’s rephrase:
Most [[Insert any smaller/smallish group] in Delaware, and most American [Bigger group] in general, are not right-wing [or left-wing] militant nationalists /communists. But the ones that are, they’re very loud, very active, very well-funded, and laser focused on punishing any elected officials don’t express full-throated support for what they want. So politicians are afraid of them. They’re sorta like the [group you don’t like] – except instead of defending the worst excesses of the [supported group], they defend the worst excesses of [their cause].
The problem, as I see it, is that, when candidates simply say what they think ‘people’ (in this case, a small group of people with large megaphones and possibly large bank accounts) want to hear, they also send a message that they really ARE just your normal garden-variety politicos. I expect(ed) more of Sarah and Eugene. And, to be fair, we haven’t heard from Eugene on this yet.
“nobody wants these jobs”
… said the Republican Lt. Governor of red state Ohio, repeating a familiar refrain from CEOs and Republican electeds who don’t want to pony up for labor.
Interesting that this Biden official was not willing to go on the record with this eminently sensible comment:
““The way we look at it is that a strong jobs market is a good thing,” a senior administration official said. “The idea that employers have to compete to provide good jobs is a feature, not a bug, of the president’s economic theory.””
The Listless Vessels sounds like an emo band.
Isn’t a listless vessel one that is sailing upright and not leaning to either side?
Agreed, good band name for not just Emo, also bluegrass, alt country and I hate to say it Christian.
ESPECIALLY Christian. Doubt they’ll see the irony.
I hear that DeSantis’ lists toward starboard (yes, yet ANOTHER Sondheim reference, this one from Sweeney Todd).
He probably never gets it snugly harbored.
“Open me gates, and dock it straight,
I see it lists to starboard.”
Bail set for Trump in Georgia: $200K
Betcha he raises $1 million from the MAGATs by Wednesday.
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/donald-trump-bond-georgia?stream=top&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alerts_all
All 19 are gonna have to pony up some cash bail.
Rudy’s hair dye starts running in 3-2-1…
Because I’m not a single-issue voter, the McBride interview with JewishInsider.com does not cause me to remove my support from her. That said, it does dampen it considerably. Not a single mention of Palestinian Human Rights is a glaring omission. It takes political courage to mention concern about Israel’s policies vis a vis the Palestinians; I wrongly believed McBride had that courage. Does this mean she would vote for anti-BDS legislation? That’s super concerning. If young smart and empathetic politicians cannot stand up to AIPAC and their ilk, we will never be able to successfully beat back their narrative that to be critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories is equivalent to being anti-semitic or even anti-Israel. It’s not, but the bullies have most politicians running scared on this issue. I encourage readers to look up MN Rep Betty McCollum’s legislation:
Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian
Children and Families Living Under Israeli
Military Occupation Act
Look at the individuals and groups who support it. These are our progressive allies.
Well put. I don’t think anyone doubted that McBride could become a standard issue AIPAC Dem, but coming out of the gate as one is a little unnerving. That’s probably on me though. She makes a point of saying she is nobody’s revolutionary.
I did. At least to the point that I didn’t expect her to robotically regurgitate AIPAC talking points. Wasn’t a high bar, but it proved too high.