Gloom: Good morning, Sloggers! Thanks for reading The Stranger, you are morally and intellectually superior. Despite the superiority, sadly, we all get the same weather, regardless of where we read it. This morning, expect cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid 40s. Around noon, things will warm up to the high 40s and showers should roll in around 1 pm. But don’t worry, the rain should subside by about 4 pm. Temperatures will drop slightly into the evening.
Cyclone: Western Washington is still recovering from the bomb cyclone Tuesday, which killed two people and left hundreds of thousands without power across the region. The Seattle Times will post live updates here as we gear up for round two Friday. However, Friday’s windstorm won’t get the “bomb cyclone” classification. Still, it should pack a wallop.
Hands where I can see them, Bibi: The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, making him the first-ever Israeli official in history summoned by the court for crimes against Palestinians. The ICC says it has “reasonable grounds” to believe he’s criminally responsible for war crimes such as “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” When will we see Netanyahu in cuffs? Well, the ICC doesn’t have cops to fulfill their warrants, rather, the court relies on its 124 member states to act if Netanyahu steps foot in their territory. This will severely limit Netanyahu’s ability to travel. The ICC also issued warrants for former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and surviving senior Hamas official, Mohammed Deif, after finding reasonable grounds he committed “crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and rape and other form of sexual violence, as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape and other form of sexual violence” during the October 7 attack, CNN reports.
Arms embargo when? Well, it could be now, but the United States Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject three resolutions sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would block the sale of the deadliest offensive weapons to Israel, a move which would disempower Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Only 18 senators voted to put any guardrails on Israel after 13 months of killing civilians with our tax dollars.
AIPAC’s Darlings: Washington State’s two senators, Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell, joined the genocidal majority in rejecting Sanders’s tepid embargo on Israel. We shouldn’t be surprised. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) gave Murray’s campaign more than $120,000 between 2019 and 2024, making the pro-Israel PAC her third-biggest contributor, according to Open Secrets. AIPAC also ranks as Cantwell’s number one campaign contributor, giving her nearly $200,000 in that same period, records show. When a majority of Democratic voters support a ceasefire—and have for many months—and Washington State saw a sizable turnout for “uncommitted” in the primary in protest of the Biden administration’s response to the war, it is abundantly clear that Murray and Cantwell represent AIPAC, not the people of Washington.
Pissed? Tell them how you feel (via @JVPSeattle) pic.twitter.com/7I4JqvIjgM
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) November 21, 2024
Speaking of ceasefire: The United States vetoed the UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza despite 14 out of 15 members, including the United States’ closest allies Britain and France, voting in favor. US deputy ambassador Robert Wood tried to blame it on the other 14 members’ stubbornness. He said, “We made clear throughout negotiations we could not support an unconditional cease-fire that failed to release the hostages” and that it was unfortunate the compromise language did not make it into the final resolution. However, from my read, the resolution did demand Hamas release the hostages. Have a look yourself: “…demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire to be respected by all parties, and further reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
Don’t stop believin’: Remember how the Seattle City Council voted against Council Member Cathy Moore’s capital gains tax on Tuesday? I tried to keep it positive on the blog, arguing that after Alexis Mercedes Rinck gets sworn in a few weeks, the council will have enough votes to pass the tax anyway. But Moore has outdone even me when it comes to optimism and political will. She thinks they can pass it today! Yesterday, Moore’s office put out an action alert calling on capital gains tax supporters to lobby Council Members Rob Saka and Tanya Woo to switch their votes in the final full council vote today at 2 pm. If you want to tax the rich to support programs that benefit the working people, contact Saka at Rob.Saka@seattle.gov or 206-684-8801 and Woo at tanya.woo@seattle.gov or 206-684-8808. In my opinion, Saka’s the more sympathetic of the two. He said earlier this week that Moore found the “right tax at the wrong time.” Maybe if he understood that this tax wouldn’t bring in revenue until the 2027 budget—when the City expects a $100 million shortfall—he would better appreciate the timing.
McBride responds: US Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, set to be the first trans member of Congress, said she would “follow” the Speaker of the House’s newly minted rules that ban her from the women’s bathroom, inspired by Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s recent transphobic crusade. A lot of people online are unhappy with her response, accusing her of capitulating to bigots.
I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. pic.twitter.com/bCuv7pIZBY
— Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride) November 20, 2024
Falling in line: Republicans on the House Ethics Committee voted not to release the findings of the investigation into Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Rep. Matt Gaetz. It’s an early sign of the party’s loyalty to the man who just may be our final president!
Venmo privacy settings strike again! Speaking of Gaetz, newly-released Venmo records show Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women between July 2017 and January 2019 while he served in Congress. The women later testified as witnesses in sexual misconduct probes by the House and the Justice Department. The House Ethics Committee also obtained a check Gaetz made out to cash for one of the women for $750. On the check, he allegedly wrote it was for “tuition reimbursement.”
Matt Gaetz paid young girls for “Being awesome and “Just because” pic.twitter.com/zNmWWGKQ1F
— Liam Nissan™ (@theliamnissan) November 21, 2024
UPDATE: As of around 9:40 am, Gaetz said he is withdrawing from consideration for the attorney general post. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote in a tweet. “There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General.” Said like a man who would like his skeletons to remain inside his closet.
He sure knows how to pick ’em: New details emerged about Trump’s secretary of defense pick Pete Hegseth’s sexual assault allegation. According to police reports, Hegseth blocked a woman from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot.” The same police report says Hegseth denied the allegations, saying he repeatedly checked that the woman “was comfortable with what was going on between the two of them.”
Inspired: Stranger reporter Ashley Nerbovig sang this song at karaoke earlier this week and I’ve been thinking about the genius of the selection ever since. Impeccable taste, radiating cool girl energy.
@47: AIPAC doesn’t spend US tax dollars, lol! It really is Protocols of Zion with you people, ha ha ha!
@45. Matters not a bit what EU countries say they would do. Honeybadger Trump would slap 500% tariffs on the arresting country and abandon them to Russia’s tender mercies. Bibi is quite safe from any arrest outside Israel.
@52
“Bibi
is quite safe
from any arrest outside Israel.”
hoo-rah!
maybe bibi
and his Defense
Minister (where was
He when Hamas broke
thru that fence?) might go
on a World Tour with the Cheney
bush in an open convertible starting
in the Middle East. the donold
could ride Shotgun in the
Presidential chopper
with an Army a Navy
an Air Force and a
few Marines for
backup they’d
surely Bring
out them
Crowds.
Countries that don’t have such a strong Israeli lobby (sorry, a strong relationship, don’t want to trigger Trumpus) will have to think twice about delivering weapons to a country accused of war crimes. Borell and the EU made it clear that they have to respect the court’s warrant. Rule of law and all.
But Bibi can how have his day in court and prove his innocence.
The hotel dry cleaners of the world would like to thank the ICC for their actions.
Israel is a nuclear-armed power, backed up by the world’s most powerful nation with a crazy incoming president. No country will risk the consequences of “arresting” him. If he is to receive any trial it will be in Israel by his own government.
The ICC is toothless and impotent.
Amusing, isn’t it, when paid writers claim they can’t understand what the words mean:
“…demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire to be respected by all parties, and further reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
If the cease-fire is “unconditional,” then, by definition, it cannot be linked to anything at all, release of hostages included. The release of hostages is therefore correctly phrased as a separate demand. This perfectly fits with Hamas’ position, which is for a cease-fire while Hamas keeps all of the hostages. Unsurprisingly, the United States vetoed this resolution.
If the UN had wanted to tie the cease-fire to hostage release, it would have done so. It refused, and the U.S. properly vetoed the result.
@49 so your claim is that 70% of UN Gaza facilities, bombed by Israel, were taken over by Hamas. Good luck having international courts see that argument as anything other than a ready made excuse to preempt being held accountable
@50 clown thumpus has no argument but slander in its 24/7 attempts to run interference for Israel.
Once, you morons, are done debasing the meaning of what is antisemitism in order to justify the unjustifiable, we the anti-racists will be left picking up the pieces.
@55 We get it: you believe that might is right, and there is no use for international law. Unfortunately we don’t need to wait for a further break down of the international order to know where we are going since we have been there before.
@56 only a twisted soul could claim that is not consistent to call at once for both unconditional ceasefire and unconditional release of all hostages but we understand your desperate need to continuously redefine the English language.
@57, You haven’t read the ICC warrant have you? None of the charges against Netanyahu, et. al. are related to bombing. They are all related to the failure of Israel to allow enough food into Gaza..
@58, The resolution did not condition the ceasefire on exchange of hostages. It is worded to call for the ceasefire, without requiring the exchange of hostages in return. I.e. Hamas can get what they want, without being required to offer hostages in return. Hamas gets what they want, without being forced to offer anything in return to get it. It is worded such that the U.N. is making a list of demands, and if it gets one out of two, they can call it a win, and the hostages, and Israeli security are expendable.
@58: As I made no claim as to any consistency (or lack thereof) between the two unconditional demands in the UN resolution, your criticism is misplaced (to put it mildly). As you have now asked, it is entirely consistent to put two unrelated, unconditional demands in the same UN resolution.
I was responding to the Stranger’s claim these two unconditional demands were actually linked, which they cannot be, per the plain meaning of the word, “unconditional.”
Therefore, my points @56 all stand.
@57. Merely pointing out the very large potential downside to any action against Netanyahu while he is Prime Minister of Israel. Putin has an arrest warrant that was ignored by South Africa because they understood the consequences. You do not.
bibi’s on a knife-edge
precipice with his little
genocide on one side
the wrath of the Planet
on one side and Israeli
Justice on the third. his
only parachute a pardon
take it bibi
get the Fuckoutta
Dodge & Never look
nor Come back. danke
@62
bibi’s only parachute
a pardon or Arm-
ageddon.
‘When a majority of Democratic voters support a ceasefire—and have for many months—and Washington State saw a sizable turnout for “uncommitted” in the primary in protest of the Biden administration’s response to the war, it is abundantly clear that Murray and Cantwell represent AIPAC, not the people of Washington.’
In August, the Stranger surveyed the results of Democratic Congressional Primary Elections in the State of Washington. The Stranger concluded, “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
Believe it or not, persons who’ve served a combined total of more than fifty (!) years as U.S. Senators from the state of Washington can read such results all by themselves, and come to the exact same conclusion. No AIPAC money required.
@57: “clown thumpus has no argument but slander in its 24/7 attempts to run interference for Israel.”
Lol, it’s not slander to call you an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist! 😁 AIPAC’s $100 million is something like one-half of one percent of spending on US elections. Yet even though AIPAC spends 0.5% of the money, you’re on here like, “THESE PEOPLE OWN AMERICA!” 😂🤣😂🤣 Never mind the other 99.5% of the money! 😂 If it was any other group than Jews, we wouldn’t hear a peep out of you, but because it’s Jews you think they control the world! 😉
@65 you are really pathetic. Of course AIPAC didn’t spread $100 million over all races. They focused on races to defeat critics of Israel like Bowman , Bush and several other progressives where AIPAC spent sometimes over half the outside money in the race. For example against Bowman AIPAC spent $14 million out of the $23 million spent on a race where AIPAC wasn’t the only pro-Israel group spending money attacking Bowman.
I say “AIPAC infuences election” and you claim I said “THESE PEOPLE OWN AMERICA!” This resumes pretty well what an unethical serial slanderer you are, and we know that it is because you have NO valid arguments.
“In total, outside groups spent $23 million on the race to unseat Bowman. More than 60 percent of that money came from one group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which poured more than $14 million into the race over the course of five weeks. In total, progressive groups backing Bowman spent $1.75 million on the race.[..]Other groups in AIPAC’s orbit have joined its electoral push. Democratic Majority for Israel, a group that shares donors and other ties with AIPAC, has spent just over $1 million on the race against Bowman.
The influx of AIPAC election spending has shifted the electoral calculus of the Democratic Party. Historically, Democrats took drastic measures to protect incumbents from primary challenges, but party leaders have done little to support progressive incumbents facing an onslaught of attacks from AIPAC and its allies. ”
https://theintercept.com/2024/06/25/jamaal-bowman-george-latimer-election-results-aipac/
“Arms embargo when? Well, it could be now, but the United States Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject three resolutions sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would block the sale of the deadliest offensive weapons to Israel, a move which would disempower Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Only 18 senators voted to put any guardrails on Israel after 13 months of killing civilians with our tax dollars.”
This may well be the closest the Stranger has ever gotten to admitting the President cannot simply slap an arms embargo on Israel — you know, the election-season demand from Arab-Americans to VP Harris, which the Stranger repeated as a serious demand, each and every time it was made. Such an embargo would require a change in our laws, because federal law obligates the US to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region. Although this wasn’t that change, or even a try at it, it was congressional action, no matter how ludicrously weak.
(Speaking of weak sauce, Bernie got a whopping 18 votes for his pet resolution. Ouch. Perhaps next election, the Vermont Democrats might re-think their policy of allowing him to run without a Democratic opponent.)
see: the Stranger’s puppet
Master and his ‘Charley
McCarthy’* in Fine
Form right Here
at tS, /bove.
*likley
Senator
MkKarthy,
rejuvenillated.
see: the Stranger’s puppet
Master and his ‘Charley
McCarthy’* in Fine
Form right Here
at tS, /bove.
*likley
Senator
MkKarthy,
rejuvenillated.
The world has gotten so batshit crazy my beloved and I might not make it very far into 2025. 🙁
@66: lol, I see, so election money only works when it’s AIPAC spending it, ha ha ha! The other 99.5% of the money just vanishes uselessly, but when it’s that 05.% AIPAC money it magically controls everything! 😂😂😂 Bob, this is brilliant, you should write an exposé about the Protocols these AIPAC wizards have invented! 🤣🤣🤣
@66: While it’s fun to watch you labor diligently at building AIPAC’s mystique for them, no matter how hard you pound that sand, reality will eventually arrive and destroy your fairy tales. Feast upon The Nation’s devastating takedown of Bowman’s protracted political suicide, with AIPAC’s colossal expenditure merely handing Bowman some slightly stronger arsenic:
“Way back in January, well before AIPAC even spent a dime, the Latimer campaign had internal polls showing him up 10 points over the incumbent: That’s a massive lead for a non-incumbent, which testifies to Bowman’s weaknesses. Latimer later won by 17 points. What really made the difference in the race were Jewish voters themselves: people who live in the district, some of whom voted for Bowman previously, some of whom did not—the majority of whom could not stomach his rhetoric around the war in Gaza, exacerbated by an indifference bordering on hostility to their fears and feedback. It’s easy to blame Bowman’s loss primarily on AIPAC, but that would be as misleading as it is for them to claim credit. The real story here is much more straightforward—and sad.”
So, in NY-16 (unlike in Western Washington’s Congressional districts), Gaza WAS driving votes. Just not in the direction you and the Stranger had wanted.
‘A non-exhaustive list: describing the war in Gaza as a “genocide,” a term that Bernie Sanders has explicitly resisted; disputing that the attack was unprovoked; using the settler colonialism framework that posits Jews as non-Indigenous interlopers in a land they have no claim to… generally promoting or aligning with groups and people who celebrated October 7 as “resistance”… using “Zionist” as a pejorative.
There’s no amount of money AIPAC could possibly have spent which would have damaged Bowman’s re-election campaign as much as he did.
‘These are not people AIPAC “controls,” as Bowman described the group’s grip on Congress, although voters most certainly saw their Web ads, which featured truly ugly footage of Bowman denying that Hamas raped Israeli women on October 7 (he eventually apologized, sort of). Presumably, these voters were scared and offended by what they heard from Bowman, and voted accordingly.’
(https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bowman-aipac-antisemitism-westchester/)
Obviously, there’s nothing anywhere in Bowman’s extensive litany of self-inflicted political failure which you, the Stranger, or other supportive commenters should heed. Carry on!
@71: Yeah, “Death to the Jews” probably doesn’t message well in a Jewish district, though AverageBob will struggle to understand why not! 😄
@66: As you copied the Intercept’s bitter whining about the Democratic Party’s failure to squander campaign funds in a futile attempt to save Bowman from himself, here’s another thought from the Nation:
‘This is where the institutional left needs to do some serious self-criticism. The explicitly anti-Zionist Jewish Voices for Peace and the Jewish Vote—the 501(c)(4) arm of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which counts 500 members in NY16—are simply not representative of the majority of Jewish voters. And it’s not because that majority are “AIPAC voters” or “pro-genocide” as Representative Ilhan Omar slandered Jewish students at Columbia who were not part of the encampments. Polling repeatedly shows that most Jews in America support a two-state solution, an end to the war, the hostages returned home, and Netanyahu out of power—positions well-represented by the liberal Zionist organization J-Street.
‘Bowman lost J-Street’s endorsement and Jewish voters who’d previously supported him not only because he moved away from this position but also because he flirted with and then fully ingratiated himself to a section of the left that does not believe in Israel’s right to exist at all…’
[…]
‘By framing the race as a proxy battle with the “Zionist regime we call AIPAC,” Bowman ended up treating Jewish voters in the district as if they themselves were foreign to it, as opposed to people with legitimate concerns… Things veered into hypocrisy when Bowman rallied outside of the district with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—arguing that right-wing billionaires were trying to buy the district, when only 10 percent of his own contributions came from within.’
Again, nothing to see here, carry on…
nothing to
see or hear here
Wormtongue* just wiped
out $100M worth of Citizens
United fools parting with their Oodles
give us Ranked Choice Voting
End Citizens United
& let the People
Decide.
*not forgetting
you, too!
🛴
“[‘Democratic’] . . . party leaders
have done little to support progressive
incumbents facing an onslaught of attacks
from AIPAC and its allies.” –@averagebob
the ‘d’nc &
Wormtongue*
HATE Progressives
cuz the Status
Quo WORKS
for Them.
*🛴 too!
TEN Million
Dems stayed Home
this time. and voted for
the Fucking Fraudster. bibi’s
& the Wormtongue’s side is Winning.
they gave
Us eltrumpfster
& they’ll keep Giving
us Nazis, long and hard.
@75, @76: Thanks for validating my predictions @71 and @73. Why spend the large amount of time it would take to examine all of the foolish and unnecessary choices Rep. Bowman made to scuttle his own re-election, when you can simply quote from the Protocols of the Elders of AIPAC?
Of Bowman’s many foolish choices, check out the specific one which made it to the very top of The Nation’s list:
‘…describing the war in Gaza as a “genocide,” a term that Bernie Sanders has explicitly resisted…’
Wow! I hadn’t known that I shared agreement upon use of language with such a famously well-spoken senator! Henceforth, in recognition of this linguistic comportment between the senator and myself, please refer to me as “Berntongue,” or just “Berny,” for short. Thanks!
And after you change your linguistic behavior to agree with the senator’s, you can be “Berntongue,” too! (Or rather, “Berntongue II,” as I was in agreement with him first.) Nothing like having a lofty goal to aim for, eh?
tl;dr
pass
wormmy
@78: Proud to agree with Senator Sanders’ usage guidance for the word, “genocide.”
Looking forward to your recognition of Bernie’s accurate guidance on “genocide,” too.
Love,
Berntongue
ok
babs