Hard Times at Harvard: Enemy of the educated, President Donald Trump, announced the newest tactic in his war against Harvard. The Trump administration, through Department of Homeland Security director and murder of dogs Kristi Noem, halted Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. Not only that, but the administration said all existing international Harvard students must transfer or lose their legal status. This ongoing battle with Harvard stems from Trump’s claims that the university didn’t comply with his orders and was guilty of “fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist party on its campus.” This punishment is a way for the Trump administration to “root out the evils of anti-Americanism and antisemitism in society and campuses,” Noem’s letter to Harvard read.
How Timely: Unrelated to this recent Trump tantrum, a federal judge in California issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities” across the US. Additionally, the injunction “prohibited the administration from arresting or detaining any foreign-born students on the basis of their immigration status.”
In a Shocking Turn of Events: Harvard is suing the Trump administration over the international students block. “We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” Harvard president Dr. Alan M. Garber wrote in a letter. He expressed that this action by the Trump administration “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.” The Trump administration is at war not just with the elite schools, but with higher education in general. If we are stupid and incurious, then they can roll right over us.
Ummm, ramifications please? So, what does this move by Trump do? According to what Pippa Norris, a lecturer in comparative politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, told The Guardian, this “is basically cutting off international knowledge to American students, he is reducing soft power, and therefore weakening America.”
Happy Memorial Day Weekend: Don’t forget to check road closures and ferry schedules. Plus, good weather and a long weekend mean the people will be out!
Is that…? Bah gawd! That’s Paint Map’s music! THEY’RE BAAAACK.
It’s Memorial Day Weekend, so expect heavy traffic everywhere. While we pause most of our road work during the holiday weekend, you should expect delays because there’s (gestures broadly) a LOT happening.
— WSDOT Traffic (@traffic.wsdot.wa.gov) May 22, 2025 at 3:39 PM
A Bit of a Pickle: An Interbay parking lot used as the only safe lot for RV dwellers and permanent car campers is no more. The space was the only one of its kind in a city where 15 percent of homeless people are living in their cars. Now it’s slated to become a giant, three-story pickleball complex. So, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) must move on and find another space. LIHI’s use of the site (which helped connect 60 percent of people living there with housing) was always meant to be temporary; they signed a five-year lease with the lot owner in 2023 with an early termination option if another development came along after two years. The bright side, aside from possibly alleviating the pickleball onslaught on public courts, is LIHI has sited a potential new space which will could host even more RVs, cars, and tiny homes.
Quilcene School Board Sucks Rocks: Out somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula is the Quilcene School District. They have one school. It has 93 students. For whatever reason (probably bigotry), the school board voted to ban transgender athletes from school sports. Students will only be allowed to participate in sports based on their sex assigned at birth. The measure, which directly violates state law and the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rule book, passed 3-2.
Bleakest Headline of the Week: “Mahmoud Khalil permitted to hold newborn son for the first time despite government objections.” Columbia alum and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is still being wrongfully detained for his role in pro-Palestine protests on Columbia’s campus last year—in other words, for exercising his First Amendment rights. Khalil was arrested while his wife was nine months pregnant. Authorities would not allow him out of detention to see the birth of his child. One month later, Khalil held his son for the first time, against the government’s wishes. Apparently, Khalil was only allowed to hold his child because a judge blocked the Trump administration order to keep Khalil and his newborn baby separated by plexiglass. The inhumanity makes my insides roil.
Life on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance rover is self-obsessed. Here is its latest selfie from the Red Planet. I gotta admit, it seems peaceful. Our billionaires could be pretty happy there. Maybe they should get a head start on the apocalypse they’re all so jazzed for and pack up and ship off to beautiful, sandy Mars.
The latest selfie by NASA’s Perseverance rover at Mars has captured an unexpected guest: a Martian dust devil.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) May 21, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Holy Ship! In Sweden, construction crews are tunneling under the historic city of Varberg as part of the aptly-named Varberg Tunnel railway project. So far, the construction process has unearthed six shipwrecks that date from the 17th century to as far back as the medieval era. Usually, I expect a good tunnel project to unearth at least one centuries-old shipwreck, but six! Wow!
Chat, Is This Good? The number of white nationalist groups is down in the US! Yay! Wait. Oh, no. The drop in hate groups is because they think their views have gone mainstream and been normalized by the government so they don’t feel the need to organize.
Sorry to the Bots: It’s not time for us to care about your humanity, robots. Save that for the plot of I, Robot. A Florida court has ruled AI chatbots aren’t protected under the First Amendment. The mother of a 14-year-old child who died by suicide after developing a relationship with an AI chatbot sued the company, Character Technologies, for wrongful death. The company tried to use a freedom of speech defense for whatever its chatbot said. (The bot was speaking to the 14-year-old as Daenerys Targaryen and Rhaenyra Targaryen from the Game of Thrones universe) That didn’t fly in court.
It’s in the 60s and sunny—do you know where your clams are? Sunning themselves, probably.
Seattle is beautiful.
— Ryan Packer (@typewriteralley.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 12:34 PM
King of the Economy: Trump says his trade discussions with the European union are “going nowhere.” As the international trade genius that he is, Trump threatened to chuck 50 percent tariffs on European imports. In the same Truth Social flurry, Trump also said he would put a 25 percent tariff on iPhones manufactured outside the US—so, uh, all iPhones. The stock market did not like this news.
RIP to a Real One: The College Inn Pub, a favorite haunt of many Huskies, is closing on June 15 after over 50 years. The pub tried to shutdown five years ago during the pandemic before a group of people flew in to save it. Hopefully this will happen again.
A song for your Friday: Seattle band Coral Grief has new tune just in time for a perfect late spring weekend. It feels sun-drunk.
That’s a great decision the judge made in the Chat bot case. I can easily see how a young life, and old also, can be completely enraptured by these botmonsters. I’ve taught myself to be restrained in singing the praises or being chatty after AI provides the answer to a coding question. A simple click on the thumbs up is that’s needed to indicate success. Otherwise it gets creepy really fast.
And Mark Zuckerberg wants to create AI comapionions to combat loneliness (shudder).
The conversion of the interbay RV Hoverville into something more productive is a great move (they knew it was temporary anyway). Maybe the RVs can move on down the road to…. perhaps Yakima or Othelo or Dusty or….
From WSJ this morning;
[FYI – What you read below is the play space of TS]
Since the Oct. 7 massacre, the chant has rung out on campuses and at protests: “Globalize the intifada.” Perhaps some people at those rallies didn’t know what the phrase meant, but the leaders must have. What happened late on Wednesday in Washington is a terrible warning.
At about 9 p.m. a gunman opened fire outside the Capital Jewish Museum as people exited an event for young Jews working in foreign policy. He murdered two: Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, employees of the Israeli embassy. Friends say Lischinsky had bought a ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.
“Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” said the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, who pulled out a red kaffiyeh, according to a witness. We don’t know if he had identified his victims or would have shot at anyone leaving the Jewish museum.
As it happens, Lischinsky was an Israeli Christian who called Israel “the only place in the [Middle East] where Christians can thrive.” Milgrim, an American Jew, worked to build friendships between Israelis and Palestinians as a path to peace. The event they attended was a panel on multifaith humanitarian efforts to aid Gaza and other Arab war zones.
Many Americans don’t realize it, but Jewish schools, synagogues and the like in the U.S have long required serious security. It’s only getting worse. A study of 63 Orthodox Jewish schools found that the average security cost in 2022-23 was $184,000 a year. That has risen to $339,000 in 2024-25. Many Jewish events now keep their locations private.
A purported manifesto from the suspect recites the usual slanders about Israel, though new ones are popping up all the time. This week a United Nations humanitarian chief claimed 14,000 Gazan babies could starve to death in the next 48 hours. All now concede that’s bogus, but not before it went viral.
In 2017 the newspaper of the Party for Socialism and Liberation identified the suspected gunman as a member, though it now disavows him and says he’s been out of contact since. The PSL, a communist group with links to China, has been a major organizer of anti-Israel rallies, including one in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Hamas death squads.
If that sounds far out, consider what the campus fixture Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) did on Oct. 8. “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” it told its chapters, and provided them materials for a “Day of Resistance” at colleges. A pamphlet depicted a Hamas paraglider alongside student protesters, all waging one struggle.
We don’t know to whom the shooter listened or whether he had a history of mental illness. But the rise of Soviet-style anti-Zionism, including enthusiasm for the total destruction of Israel and efforts to ostracize its domestic supporters, is corrosive to America and is stirring up old dangers for Jews. Americans of all faiths and political views have a share of the responsibility to push back.
@3:
I’m not sure if your post is meant to be ironic, given your handle is a clear reference to pre-Soviet Russian Cossacks (sic), who were infamous for carrying out state-ordered massacres against Jewish populations during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. It seems like a very odd association for someone presumably expressing pro-Zionist sentiments.
It only took Harvard 15 minutes this morning to obtain a TRO against Trump’s foreign student ban.
@5, It is a court in Massachusetts.
@3 My main impression is that yet again the strict gun control of DC has failed to prevent a shooting
@4: It may seem inconsistent for a self-identified “Cossack” to be pro-Zionist, but it’s also inconsistent for self-identified “anti-racists” to be antizionists … and yet that’s somehow where progressives have ended up! 😂 In 2025, the Cossacks turned out to be less antisemitic than the progressives are! 🤣
@1
“That’s a great
decision the judge made
in the Chat bot case. I can easily
see how a young life, and old also, can be
completely enraptured by these botmonsters.”
and their
Monstrosity
Unleashed upon
a Citizenry and Normalized
see also: wormmy’s
sicsokbott aka
thumpfuck:
lol! Lol!
LOL!!!
Gleeful
Emoji
inf.
@3
“… the rise of Soviet-style anti-Zionism, including
enthusiasm for the total destruction of Israel [&]
efforts to ostracize its domestic supporters, is
corrosive to America and is stirring up old
dangers for Jews. Americans of all faiths
and political views have a share of
the responsibility to push back.”
gee
I wonder
If bibi’s Keep-
The-FUCK-OUTTA
Prison gambit cum
Ethnic Cleansing cum
Land Grab might pose any
Issues for those Committed
to Human Fucking Rights, the
Rule of Law & Taxpayers Fed the
FUCK Up with shipping BILLION$
of Amerca’s Treasure not to fucking
MENTION Two-THOUSAND LB ‘Bunker
Busters’ to rain Down on the Elderly, Kids
Babies – I Could go On for fucking Days but
ever heard of
“Blowback”?
@9
and
NO Worm-
tongue, that is
NOT a CALL for Retribution
tho
I’m sure
you’ll fucking
Spin it That Way.
fuck off.
@4: OK, that’s the weirdest attempt at a hand-waving dismissal of the evidence I’ve seen here yet, and I’ve seen a lot of them, especially on this topic.
The pro-Palestinian protests, especially on American university campuses, have loudly encouraged warfare in Israel, and harassment (at least) of Jews in America. As I quoted in yesterday’s Slog AM thread:
‘The anti-Israel demonstrations around Columbia University turned threatening and antisemitic Saturday night [in April 2024], as they have repeatedly across the country. On social media, you can find footage of crowds taunting Jewish students to “Go back to Poland!” and chanting, “We don’t want no Zionists here!” There is a masked protester with a sign that reads “Al-Qasam’s Next Target” with an arrow pointing at Jewish counterprotesters nearby. Al-Qassam is the military wing of Hamas. A protester screamed at Jewish students, “The 7th of October is going to be every day for you!”’
(https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/columbia-protest-anti-semitism-campus-israel-jewish-students-justice-palestine.html)
To put it mildly, this has neither helped the Palestinian cause generally, nor to end suffering in Gaza. Quibbling over someone’s Slog nym changes none of that.
https://youtu.be/Xy4JCa60_ZQ?
Is this happening too? Are any pro-Likud protestors being deported for inciting violence against anyone who protested the brutal methods of Bibi’s government?
11 Why should anybody listen to you on that, “tensorna”(btw, we all know you aren’t trans and you only added the “a” on the end of you posting name to mock the trans/non-binary people who, unlike you, are fighting for survival in this country)? You’re a standard issue “nothing can change until Netanyahu says so/it’s antisemitic to question anything Israel does to Palestinians!” type.
You’ve never posted in good faith on this issue.
What happened in Washington should not have happened- but it does not invalidate or discredit the Palestine solidarity movement and there is no alternative for people with progessive, humane, life-loving values but to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, the end of the perpetual military harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank, 95% or more of whom have nothing to do with any armed faction, and the end of every part of the totally failed “Iron Glove” policy towards Palestine and Palestinians.
It isn’t possible to make any form of positive change within the West Bank or Gaza by continuing to collectively punish all Palestinians for the actions of the tiny number who are members of the armed groups- especially when the Israeli government has never rewarded Palestinians for choosing any alternative to violence- as they refused to reward the PLO for choosing peace and negotiations in the 1990s, but instead kept on illegally and unjustifiably expanding the settlements and inflicting an official policy of beatings in response to any resistance, including the vast majority of Palestinian protests which are nonviolent.
Your posts on this subject sound like every the things Scoop Jackson always said about the US involvement in Vietnam. As Melania would say “Be Better!”.
@11 — the Voice
of Authoritarianism
see also:
nyt:
The Group Behind
Project 2025 Has a Plan
to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement
Even before
President Trump was re-
elected, the Heritage Foundation,
best known for Project 2025, set out to de-
stroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.
The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power.
Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious policy paper: Project Esther, the foundation’s proposal to rapidly dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States, along with its support at schools and universities, at progressive organizations and in Congress.
Drafted in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 and the mounting protests against the war in Gaza, Project Esther outlined an ambitious plan to fight antisemitism by branding a broad range of critics of Israel as “effectively a terrorist support network,” so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered “open society.”
Project Esther’s architects envisioned outcomes that at the time might have seemed far-fetched. Curriculum it believed to be sympathetic to a “Hamas support” narrative would be taken out of schools and universities, and “supporting faculty” would be removed. Social media would be purged of content deemed to be antisemitic. Institutions would lose public funding. Foreign students who pushed for Palestinian rights would have their visas revoked, or be deported.
Once a sympathetic presidential administration was in place, the plan said, “We will organize rapidly, take immediate action to ‘stop the bleeding,’ and achieve all objectives within two years.”
Now, four months after Mr. Trump took office,
Heritage Foundation leaders are taking an early victory lap.
By Katie J.M. Baker
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html?searchResultPosition=2
say Hell-Lo to the
Heritage Foundation’s
Spokesperson here @tS
aka the Wormtongue and
his ai sicsokbott thumpfuk
here to Bash your
brains out with evil
Lies & Vile Emoticons
relax.
at Least it
Ain’t fucking Genocide.
some comments on
The Group Behind
Project 2025 Has a Plan to
Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement
This gives away the whole sinister game.
It was never about fighting antisemitism.
If it was,
the fact that many
leaders of the Palestine
protest movements are themselves
Jewish would be relevant. That fact, however,
is usually completely ignored by those who are
most zealous in suppressing this peaceful movement.
— CB; Philadelphia, PA
[ring a Bell,
wormmy?]
@A.P Perhaps you missed this part.
Anyone who effectively speaks in support
of a civilian population living under the some
of the worst war-inflicted suffering of the last 100 years
is to be labeled a terrorist or terrorist supporter. It’s pretty basic
authoritative stuff. Control the dialog. Suppress dissent. Criminalize opposition.
— buddhaboy; NYC
[ring a Bell,
thumpfuck?]
It’s essential
to distinguish between
legitimate criticism of a nation’s policies
and hatred toward a people. Advocating for the
rights and safety of Palestinian civilians doesn’t negate
the horrors perpetrated by Hamas, nor does it equate to antisemitism.
Both truths can coexist:
condemning terrorism and calling out dis-
proportionate military responses that harm innocents.
— Kiki; NY
[sorry
About your
Narrative, wormmy]
It is not antisemitic to
be against killing innocent civilians.
It is not antisemitic to protest Trump’s greed
in wanting to take land away from the owners of
desirable real estate on the other side of the world
in order to enrich himself and his buddies. I am alarmed
to see our rights being removed to accommodate their greed.
— Tammy G; Kent OH
@James
I am heartened
by the fact that Project Esther
has now seen the light of day in a
mainstream, highly regarded [sic] news-
paper; but I am waiting for coverage of the
Hannibal Directive and the unbelievable project
whose name I shall not mention yet, promoted by
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir regarding the deliberate starvation,
decimation, erasure of a people and its culture. Most of us have
not yet witnessed the pictures of all the emaciated children,
children with amputated limbs, children’s bodies buried
partially under rubble, the charred bodies of children
burned inside their tents by the airstrikes.
(Unicef] has called this a war against the children,
although it was said that there are no children,
no innocents in Gaza, and our “religious”
oriented ambassador Huckabee opines
that Palestine never existed.
Although no journalists are allowed inside Gaza
and local journalists are targeted, the news is
trickling out; and in Israel too despite the
shutdown of Al-Jazeera and opposition
channels to blare government
funded Channel 14.
–@She; Miami,FL
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html?searchResultPosition=2#commentsContainer
see also:
The Trump-Supporting Christians
Accusing Jews of Antisemitism
[et Tu,
thumpfuk?]
Ultra-Zionist gentiles are transforming America into something out of Jewish nightmares, pretending they’re trying to ensure Jewish safety.
–by Michelle Goldberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/antisemitism-israel-palestine-esther.html
@13 — Thank You.
@6, duh. Harvard is located in Massachusetts. Did you think they were going to file in the Northern District of Texas?
@13: Not-Parnell, even by the standards of the Stranger’s most progressive commenters, you remain non-pareil in your ability to pompously state abject nonsense as if it was proven truth.
My nym, “tensorna,” has absolutely nothing to do with gender, gender identity, sexuality, or the like. It’s the word*, “tensor,” under which I used to post, until problems with my personal IT got me locked out of the Stranger’s comments. So I created a new account, and added “na” to my nym, for, well, “new account.” It was my way to tell everyone it was still me**.
“What happened in Washington should not have happened- but it does not invalidate or discredit the Palestine solidarity movement…”
And then you go on, to list many, many things Israel must, in your opinion, do to remedy this situation. Nothing at all about returning hostages, ending attacks on Israel, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, negotiating in good faith for a two-state solution — nothing. Absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, for over a year and a half, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded the violent end of Israel, have harassed American Jews on their own college campuses, and screamed endlessly here and elsewhere that the IDF-Hamas conflict is a “genocide,” via the simple expedient of completely ignoring Hamas’ actions — if not Hamas’ very existence. And you continue that last part here, not even naming that terrorist group as you lecture Israel. You follow this with yet another paragraph of complaints about Israel’s behavior, whilst hand-waving away literal decades of hostage-taking terrorism. You’ve bought, and now preach, a completely one-sided narrative for a highly complex conflict — a narrative which men of violence find very useful in justifying their cowardly attacks, like the cold-blooded murder of an international, interfaith couple on the streets of our capital.
You’re a part of the problem, not part of any solution.
@14s, @15: Thanks for putting my new mouse’s scroll wheel to the test! It passed beautifully, as I flitted from not-Parnell’s comment @13 to the commenting box and back again, many times, reading nary a word in-between.
You could look it up and everything, but we can’t have you knowing even the very first thing about any topic upon which you’re bloviating, now can we?
** Certain commenters here have rewarded my TRANSparency by accusing me of sock-puppetry. Of course.
@7 Remind us which of DC’s strict gun laws might have prevented the shooter from bringing an out-of-state gun, with, I should stress, the Federal Government’s knowledge and consent?
@16: Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release all hostages, lay down their arms, and relinquish the governance of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. He blamed Hamas for inviting the Israeli invasion of Gaza. From your mouth to god’s ears, Prime Minister! 😄
But of course, western progressives would never demand that Hamas surrender as a condition of a ceasefire. They would never dare blame Hamas for the war. Progressives here think they are more Palestinian than the Palestinians ha ha ha! 😂
Hear the voices of Palestine, oh progressives of the West! Disarm Hamas! Disband Hamas! They who started the war must be the ones to end it! 😘
@15, Given where they filed, its no surprise they got a TRO in 15 minutes then.
@18
there was no
History prior to
10/7/23? you just
Orwelled yourself into
the Liars Hall of Shame
way to Go,
wormmy.
and your
denials on the
previous post may
convince Yourself but
the rest of us aren’t quite
the Fools you Wish we were.
just another
Heritage
IO(d)D
AIPAC
apologist
spokesperson
Justifications windmill
we
SEE
You
wor-
mee.
@20: “there was no
History prior to
10/7/23?”
Au contraire, there was 3,000 years of Jewish history in Israel prior to 10/7/23. That’s why they aren’t too keen on surrendering to Hamas, whose history is not even 40 years. 😛
The Prime Minister of Palestine can see it, so why can’t you? Hamas started the war, so Hamas will have to end it—by giving up its weapons and its governance. 😃
@3: You quoted from the WSJ’s editorial. The WSJ’s news story on the double murder contains these additional details:
‘It was Wednesday evening, around 9 p.m., and Ran Goldstein, a humanitarian aid worker for the Israeli charity IsraAID, had just finished a panel discussion at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The theme: how organizations like his had managed to work in places like Gaza and Syria to alleviate suffering.’
[…]
‘[On the day before,] Lischinsky attended a conference hosted by the Middle East Forum think tank. Yuval David, a journalist and filmmaker, was also there. He was speaking on a panel about the dangers posed by links between Islamists and Western progressives. Lischinsky approached him after his talk and they chatted for 25 or so minutes about an issue that worried them both.’
‘“Yaron was brilliant. Charming,” David recalled. There was a sober tone to their discussion, a nod to a reality they were both immersed in. “We spoke about the dangers and the security risks that Jews and Israelis have even just attending an event like this,” David said.’
(https://www.wsj.com/us-news/the-final-moments-of-two-promising-lives-cut-short-by-a-gunman-fixated-on-gaza-7f6bcba0?mod=hp_lead_pos8)
You read that right. The murdered couple had just left a conference hosted by IsraAID, on how this Israeli charity had delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza and Syria. The conference’s purpose was to help other humanitarian aid organizations succeed in such places. The day before, one of the future murder victims had attended a conference on “…the dangers posed by links between Islamists and Western progressives”. Their killer? “…a far-left American extremist who had embraced the Islamist agenda in the name of socialism.”
@18, you nailed it: “…western progressives would never demand that Hamas surrender as a condition of a ceasefire. They would never dare blame Hamas for the war. Progressives here think they are more Palestinian than the Palestinians…”
Now the Stranger, and supportive commenters, will continue screaming “genocide,” at Israel, because they know they are right and just and good and moral, and they will remain serene in their confidence that by so screaming, they help to save lives. And they will continue to deride anyone who objects to such extremist rhetoric as stooges of Netanyahu, tools of AIPAC and Heritage, who just want to watch innocent persons die.
@5 I think the whole Harvard thing is his revenge for them rejecting Barron for admission. Using Antisemitism as reason is rich, when Trump is accepting a flying palace as a bribe from the largest funder of Hamas.
USA USA has finally solidified into ONE unitary hate group, AKA the GOP-dominated federal government.
No more of that woke E Pluribus Unum crap!!!
16: OK, I stand corrected on the origins of your name. It was a natural assumption that you’d have done it for the reason I stated, but when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I was wrong there. Apologies on that only.
I have never defended or supported Hamas- I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza, including the continual slaughter of children.
The reason Hamas-again, a group that I utterly despise- in any position of power at all is a result of your hero Netanyahu’s obsession with discrediting and anathemizing Fatah- the faction which did recognize Israel- and btw, recognizing the state was/is enough- it doesn’t matter whether or not they add the arrogant, intentionally humiliating phraseology of endorsing Israel’s “right to exist” a right no other country on the planet demands that anyone recognize its right to exist, because recognizing the fact of its existence is the same thing- starting with the allegedly “dovish” Israeli governments of the 1990s refusal, after everything Fatah did- and Fatah did everything the Israeli side aske- to even impose a permanent freeze on the expansion of new settlements, let alone to end its official policy of beatings in the West Bank and Gaza. This policy- culminating in the pointless humiliation of Arafat by the IDF when they put him under siege in Ramallah, trying to force him into exile so they could replace him with somebody else as the Palestinian leadership, even though there was no alternative figure they could have imposed who would both have been credible with ordinary Palestinians and the armed factions- both groups whose supporters would be needed for any Palestinian leadership to be able to do anything- And be willing to do what both Netanyahu and yourself would insist on, which would be to accept either never getting a Palestinian state at all- or the revival of the totally discredited “Jordan is the Palestinian state” canard- or at the MOST a totally disarmed statelet-on-sufference the IDF could overthrow any time it wanted.
It was because of the fact that the Israeli side- the side which holds all the power in this dynamic- refused to accept anything short of Fatah being humiliated that Hamas gained the level of support it did.
I hold Israel to a higher standard because it holds all the cards and it has done most of the damage.
I hold Netanyahu responsible for the vast majority of everything because Netanyahu is obsessed with making sure the war never ends and the immiseration of the Palestinian people never ends- he is doing his best to make sure nothing ever changes because that is the only way he stays in power- support for the Israeli Right would instantly collapse with the onset of peace- and out of prison, because he is certain to be convicted of corruption and given a long sentence if his trial is ever allowed to continue without corruption.
And yes, it would be better if the hostages were released, but again, your hero Netanyahu has made that impossible by repeatedly stating that the war will go on even if they are. If the war doesn’t stop, what possible reason WOULD Hamas release the hostages?
And what right does your hero Netanyahu have to be sanctimonious about what happened at the Nova Festival when he refused to do what he should have done and cancelled the festival on security grounds, because he’d been warned by the IDF and the Mossad in advance that Hamas was planning something. He shares responsibility for the deaths as a result of refusing to do that.
So I don’t share the “It’s all on Hamas” delusion, because holding to that viewpoint achieves nothing. Nor do I share the “get rid of Hamas and everything will be fine” hallucination, because if Hamas is also humiliated, it is impossible for that outcome to produce a more moderate Palestinian leadership of the sort that would just do whatever the West Bank settlers, the IDF and the right-wing hate parties in Netanyahu’s coalition wanted, which would be simply to capitulate and accept getting nothing- on the contrary, the only thing that could come of insisting on “crushing Hamas” would be the immediate creation of a more violent, more extreme group to replace it.
Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews- by contrast, campus Likudniks have targeted and slandered the protests. And, if you’ve somehow missed this, one of the largest components of the Palestine solidarity community is Jewish Voice For Peace(JVP), a group whose support is growing dramatically among younger members of the American Jewish community.
Peace needs to be achieved here, but it can’t be made without the collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli government ending first, and it can’t be made without the admission, at long last, that the Palestine solidarity movement is not driven by hatred of Jews, but by legitimate grievances over the way the Israeli government has collectively punished ordinary Palestinians for the crimes of the armed few.
16: OK, I stand corrected on the origins of your name. It was a natural assumption that you’d have done it for the reason I stated, but when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I was wrong there. Apologies on that only.
I have never defended or supported Hamas- I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza, including the continual slaughter of children.
The reason Hamas-again, a group that I utterly despise- in any position of power at all is a result of your hero Netanyahu’s obsession with discrediting and anathemizing Fatah- the faction which did recognize Israel- and btw, recognizing the state was/is enough- it doesn’t matter whether or not they add the arrogant, intentionally humiliating phraseology of endorsing Israel’s “right to exist” a right no other country on the planet demands that anyone recognize its right to exist, because recognizing the fact of its existence is the same thing- starting with the allegedly “dovish” Israeli governments of the 1990s refusal, after everything Fatah did- and Fatah did everything the Israeli side aske- to even impose a permanent freeze on the expansion of new settlements, let alone to end its official policy of beatings in the West Bank and Gaza. This policy- culminating in the pointless humiliation of Arafat by the IDF when they put him under siege in Ramallah, trying to force him into exile so they could replace him with somebody else as the Palestinian leadership, even though there was no alternative figure they could have imposed who would both have been credible with ordinary Palestinians and the armed factions- both groups whose supporters would be needed for any Palestinian leadership to be able to do anything- And be willing to do what both Netanyahu and yourself would insist on, which would be to accept either never getting a Palestinian state at all- or the revival of the totally discredited “Jordan is the Palestinian state” canard- or at the MOST a totally disarmed statelet-on-sufference the IDF could overthrow any time it wanted.
It was because of the fact that the Israeli side- the side which holds all the power in this dynamic- refused to accept anything short of Fatah being humiliated that Hamas gained the level of support it did.
I hold Israel to a higher standard because it holds all the cards and it has done most of the damage.
I hold Netanyahu responsible for the vast majority of everything because Netanyahu is obsessed with making sure the war never ends and the immiseration of the Palestinian people never ends- he is doing his best to make sure nothing ever changes because that is the only way he stays in power- support for the Israeli Right would instantly collapse with the onset of peace- and out of prison, because he is certain to be convicted of corruption and given a long sentence if his trial is ever allowed to continue without corruption.
And yes, it would be better if the hostages were released, but again, your hero Netanyahu has made that impossible by repeatedly stating that the war will go on even if they are. If the war doesn’t stop, what possible reason WOULD Hamas release the hostages?
And what right does your hero Netanyahu have to be sanctimonious about what happened at the Nova Festival when he refused to do what he should have done and cancelled the festival on security grounds, because he’d been warned by the IDF and the Mossad in advance that Hamas was planning something. He shares responsibility for the deaths as a result of refusing to do that.
So I don’t share the “It’s all on Hamas” delusion, because holding to that viewpoint achieves nothing. Nor do I share the “get rid of Hamas and everything will be fine” hallucination, because if Hamas is also humiliated, it is impossible for that outcome to produce a more moderate Palestinian leadership of the sort that would just do whatever the West Bank settlers, the IDF and the right-wing hate parties in Netanyahu’s coalition wanted, which would be simply to capitulate and accept getting nothing- on the contrary, the only thing that could come of insisting on “crushing Hamas” would be the immediate creation of a more violent, more extreme group to replace it.
Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews- by contrast, campus Likudniks have targeted and slandered the protests. And, if you’ve somehow missed this, one of the largest components of the Palestine solidarity community is Jewish Voice For Peace(JVP), a group whose support is growing dramatically among younger members of the American Jewish community.
Peace needs to be achieved here, but it can’t be made without the collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli government ending first, and it can’t be made without the admission, at long last, that the Palestine solidarity movement is not driven by hatred of Jews, but by legitimate grievances over the way the Israeli government has collectively punished ordinary Palestinians for the crimes of the armed few.
16: OK, I stand corrected on the origins of your name. It was a natural assumption that you’d have done it for the reason I stated, but when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I was wrong there. Apologies on that only.
I have never defended or supported Hamas- I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza, including the continual slaughter of children.
The reason Hamas-again, a group that I utterly despise- in any position of power at all is a result of your hero Netanyahu’s obsession with discrediting and anathemizing Fatah- the faction which did recognize Israel- and btw, recognizing the state was/is enough- it doesn’t matter whether or not they add the arrogant, intentionally humiliating phraseology of endorsing Israel’s “right to exist” a right no other country on the planet demands that anyone recognize its right to exist, because recognizing the fact of its existence is the same thing- starting with the allegedly “dovish” Israeli governments of the 1990s refusal, after everything Fatah did- and Fatah did everything the Israeli side aske- to even impose a permanent freeze on the expansion of new settlements, let alone to end its official policy of beatings in the West Bank and Gaza. This policy- culminating in the pointless humiliation of Arafat by the IDF when they put him under siege in Ramallah, trying to force him into exile so they could replace him with somebody else as the Palestinian leadership, even though there was no alternative figure they could have imposed who would both have been credible with ordinary Palestinians and the armed factions- both groups whose supporters would be needed for any Palestinian leadership to be able to do anything- And be willing to do what both Netanyahu and yourself would insist on, which would be to accept either never getting a Palestinian state at all- or the revival of the totally discredited “Jordan is the Palestinian state” canard- or at the MOST a totally disarmed statelet-on-sufference the IDF could overthrow any time it wanted.
It was because of the fact that the Israeli side- the side which holds all the power in this dynamic- refused to accept anything short of Fatah being humiliated that Hamas gained the level of support it did.
I hold Israel to a higher standard because it holds all the cards and it has done most of the damage.
I hold Netanyahu responsible for the vast majority of everything because Netanyahu is obsessed with making sure the war never ends and the immiseration of the Palestinian people never ends- he is doing his best to make sure nothing ever changes because that is the only way he stays in power- support for the Israeli Right would instantly collapse with the onset of peace- and out of prison, because he is certain to be convicted of corruption and given a long sentence if his trial is ever allowed to continue without corruption.
And yes, it would be better if the hostages were released, but again, your hero Netanyahu has made that impossible by repeatedly stating that the war will go on even if they are. If the war doesn’t stop, what possible reason WOULD Hamas release the hostages?
And what right does your hero Netanyahu have to be sanctimonious about what happened at the Nova Festival when he refused to do what he should have done and cancelled the festival on security grounds, because he’d been warned by the IDF and the Mossad in advance that Hamas was planning something. He shares responsibility for the deaths as a result of refusing to do that.
So I don’t share the “It’s all on Hamas” delusion, because holding to that viewpoint achieves nothing. Nor do I share the “get rid of Hamas and everything will be fine” hallucination, because if Hamas is also humiliated, it is impossible for that outcome to produce a more moderate Palestinian leadership of the sort that would just do whatever the West Bank settlers, the IDF and the right-wing hate parties in Netanyahu’s coalition wanted, which would be simply to capitulate and accept getting nothing- on the contrary, the only thing that could come of insisting on “crushing Hamas” would be the immediate creation of a more violent, more extreme group to replace it.
Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews- by contrast, campus Likudniks have targeted and slandered the protests. And, if you’ve somehow missed this, one of the largest components of the Palestine solidarity community is Jewish Voice For Peace(JVP), a group whose support is growing dramatically among younger members of the American Jewish community.
Peace needs to be achieved here, but it can’t be made without the collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli government ending first, and it can’t be made without the admission, at long last, that the Palestine solidarity movement is not driven by hatred of Jews, but by legitimate grievances over the way the Israeli government has collectively punished ordinary Palestinians for the crimes of the armed few.
16: OK, I stand corrected on the origins of your name. It was a natural assumption that you’d have done it for the reason I stated, but when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I was wrong there. Apologies on that only.
I have never defended or supported Hamas- I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza, including the continual slaughter of children.
The reason Hamas-again, a group that I utterly despise- in any position of power at all is a result of your hero Netanyahu’s obsession with discrediting and anathemizing Fatah- the faction which did recognize Israel- and btw, recognizing the state was/is enough- it doesn’t matter whether or not they add the arrogant, intentionally humiliating phraseology of endorsing Israel’s “right to exist” a right no other country on the planet demands that anyone recognize its right to exist, because recognizing the fact of its existence is the same thing- starting with the allegedly “dovish” Israeli governments of the 1990s refusal, after everything Fatah did- and Fatah did everything the Israeli side aske- to even impose a permanent freeze on the expansion of new settlements, let alone to end its official policy of beatings in the West Bank and Gaza. This policy- culminating in the pointless humiliation of Arafat by the IDF when they put him under siege in Ramallah, trying to force him into exile so they could replace him with somebody else as the Palestinian leadership, even though there was no alternative figure they could have imposed who would both have been credible with ordinary Palestinians and the armed factions- both groups whose supporters would be needed for any Palestinian leadership to be able to do anything- And be willing to do what both Netanyahu and yourself would insist on, which would be to accept either never getting a Palestinian state at all- or the revival of the totally discredited “Jordan is the Palestinian state” canard- or at the MOST a totally disarmed statelet-on-sufference the IDF could overthrow any time it wanted.
It was because of the fact that the Israeli side- the side which holds all the power in this dynamic- refused to accept anything short of Fatah being humiliated that Hamas gained the level of support it did.
I hold Israel to a higher standard because it holds all the cards and it has done most of the damage.
I hold Netanyahu responsible for the vast majority of everything because Netanyahu is obsessed with making sure the war never ends and the immiseration of the Palestinian people never ends- he is doing his best to make sure nothing ever changes because that is the only way he stays in power- support for the Israeli Right would instantly collapse with the onset of peace- and out of prison, because he is certain to be convicted of corruption and given a long sentence if his trial is ever allowed to continue without corruption.
And yes, it would be better if the hostages were released, but again, your hero Netanyahu has made that impossible by repeatedly stating that the war will go on even if they are. If the war doesn’t stop, what possible reason WOULD Hamas release the hostages?
And what right does your hero Netanyahu have to be sanctimonious about what happened at the Nova Festival when he refused to do what he should have done and cancelled the festival on security grounds, because he’d been warned by the IDF and the Mossad in advance that Hamas was planning something. He shares responsibility for the deaths as a result of refusing to do that.
So I don’t share the “It’s all on Hamas” delusion, because holding to that viewpoint achieves nothing. Nor do I share the “get rid of Hamas and everything will be fine” hallucination, because if Hamas is also humiliated, it is impossible for that outcome to produce a more moderate Palestinian leadership of the sort that would just do whatever the West Bank settlers, the IDF and the right-wing hate parties in Netanyahu’s coalition wanted, which would be simply to capitulate and accept getting nothing- on the contrary, the only thing that could come of insisting on “crushing Hamas” would be the immediate creation of a more violent, more extreme group to replace it.
Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews- by contrast, campus Likudniks have targeted and slandered the protests. And, if you’ve somehow missed this, one of the largest components of the Palestine solidarity community is Jewish Voice For Peace(JVP), a group whose support is growing dramatically among younger members of the American Jewish community.
Peace needs to be achieved here, but it can’t be made without the collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli government ending first, and it can’t be made without the admission, at long last, that the Palestine solidarity movement is not driven by hatred of Jews, but by legitimate grievances over the way the Israeli government has collectively punished ordinary Palestinians for the crimes of the armed few.
16: OK, I stand corrected on the origins of your name. It was a natural assumption that you’d have done it for the reason I stated, but when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I was wrong there. Apologies on that only.
I have never defended or supported Hamas- I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza, including the continual slaughter of children.
The reason Hamas-again, a group that I utterly despise- in any position of power at all is a result of your hero Netanyahu’s obsession with discrediting and anathemizing Fatah- the faction which did recognize Israel- and btw, recognizing the state was/is enough- it doesn’t matter whether or not they add the arrogant, intentionally humiliating phraseology of endorsing Israel’s “right to exist” a right no other country on the planet demands that anyone recognize its right to exist, because recognizing the fact of its existence is the same thing- starting with the allegedly “dovish” Israeli governments of the 1990s refusal, after everything Fatah did- and Fatah did everything the Israeli side aske- to even impose a permanent freeze on the expansion of new settlements, let alone to end its official policy of beatings in the West Bank and Gaza. This policy- culminating in the pointless humiliation of Arafat by the IDF when they put him under siege in Ramallah, trying to force him into exile so they could replace him with somebody else as the Palestinian leadership, even though there was no alternative figure they could have imposed who would both have been credible with ordinary Palestinians and the armed factions- both groups whose supporters would be needed for any Palestinian leadership to be able to do anything- And be willing to do what both Netanyahu and yourself would insist on, which would be to accept either never getting a Palestinian state at all- or the revival of the totally discredited “Jordan is the Palestinian state” canard- or at the MOST a totally disarmed statelet-on-sufference the IDF could overthrow any time it wanted.
It was because of the fact that the Israeli side- the side which holds all the power in this dynamic- refused to accept anything short of Fatah being humiliated that Hamas gained the level of support it did.
I hold Israel to a higher standard because it holds all the cards and it has done most of the damage.
I hold Netanyahu responsible for the vast majority of everything because Netanyahu is obsessed with making sure the war never ends and the immiseration of the Palestinian people never ends- he is doing his best to make sure nothing ever changes because that is the only way he stays in power- support for the Israeli Right would instantly collapse with the onset of peace- and out of prison, because he is certain to be convicted of corruption and given a long sentence if his trial is ever allowed to continue without corruption.
And yes, it would be better if the hostages were released, but again, your hero Netanyahu has made that impossible by repeatedly stating that the war will go on even if they are. If the war doesn’t stop, what possible reason WOULD Hamas release the hostages?
And what right does your hero Netanyahu have to be sanctimonious about what happened at the Nova Festival when he refused to do what he should have done and cancelled the festival on security grounds, because he’d been warned by the IDF and the Mossad in advance that Hamas was planning something. He shares responsibility for the deaths as a result of refusing to do that.
So I don’t share the “It’s all on Hamas” delusion, because holding to that viewpoint achieves nothing. Nor do I share the “get rid of Hamas and everything will be fine” hallucination, because if Hamas is also humiliated, it is impossible for that outcome to produce a more moderate Palestinian leadership of the sort that would just do whatever the West Bank settlers, the IDF and the right-wing hate parties in Netanyahu’s coalition wanted, which would be simply to capitulate and accept getting nothing- on the contrary, the only thing that could come of insisting on “crushing Hamas” would be the immediate creation of a more violent, more extreme group to replace it.
Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews- by contrast, campus Likudniks have targeted and slandered the protests. And, if you’ve somehow missed this, one of the largest components of the Palestine solidarity community is Jewish Voice For Peace(JVP), a group whose support is growing dramatically among younger members of the American Jewish community.
Peace needs to be achieved here, but it can’t be made without the collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli government ending first, and it can’t be made without the admission, at long last, that the Palestine solidarity movement is not driven by hatred of Jews, but by legitimate grievances over the way the Israeli government has collectively punished ordinary Palestinians for the crimes of the armed few.
@29: “Also, the campus protests have never targeted Jews”
Oops that’s another one you’re going to have to walk back. 😂😂😂
@25-29*
BRAVISSIMO, Alaskan-
but-not-Sean-Parnell!
thank You for elucidating
the History of Palestine,
Denied by tS’s right-
wing contingent
seemingly Here
to spread lies
dis- and Mal-
information
portraying Israel as the perpetual
and innocent Victim with ZERO
Resposibility for the Carnage
cum Massacre cum Land
Grab, Ethnic Cleansing
& Horrors unleashed
upon Innocent vic-
tims of bibi’s keep
the Fuck Outta
prison gambit.
I’d be Amazed if your History
Lesson is absorbed or even
Read, let alone Acknow-
ledged by the Pro-bibi
Pro Israel’s current &
Ongoing massacre
Cheerleaders here
at the Stranger.
But Thank You
for trying!
*the Submit button
can get a little
Tricksy
@30 — Con-
firming my
point.
all the rest?
Whoosh!
Never.
HAPPENED.
@30: B-b-but Not-Parnell simply made up his own fact to refute it! So there! And @32 explicitly confirmed Not-Parnell’s utterly groundless denial was correct! PROOOOOOOOOF!!1! 😉
@29, @32: In addition to the quote and URL already provided for @11 Columbia University’s abusive, Jew-hating protestors, UCLA also tolerated such abusive, anti-Jewish behaviors:
‘”LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus.
[…]
‘“In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith.” Scarsi wrote.’
(https://apnews.com/article/ucla-protests-jewish-students-judge-rules-573d3385393b91dae093a8a8f0861431)
@29: Yet another narrative so one-sided, an Israeli even gets the blame for the 10/7 attacks. (And you should get some kind of special mention for being possibly the only person on Slog — heck, possibly the only person in the Western Hemisphere — who still retains sympathy for Arafat. His bold leadership of the Palestinian cause immediately before the First Gulf War must really have earned your admiration.)
“I simply reject the idea that Hamas’ existence justifies everything Israel is doing in Gaza,”
So does everyone else. The issue is Hamas’ actions, which intentionally use civilians in Gaza as human shields, with the further intent of getting as many of those civilians killed as possible. Hamas’ behavior means most of the responsibility for those deaths falls upon Hamas. That still doesn’t justify “everything Israel is doing in Gaza,” which is why no one here has made that claim.
I have neither the time nor inclination to untangle the rest of your nonsense. The idea it was “reasonable” to assume another commenter had changed his nym because of your own illiteracy really raised the level of idiocy here on Slog, which I guess makes for some kind of accomplishment, albeit not a positive one.
Dear COMTE, [see Ilya Repin, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks]
Zaporozhian Cossacks to COMTE!
O COMTE, woke devil and damned devil’s kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can’t slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we’ve no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.
You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig’s snout, mare’s arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw your own mother!
So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won’t even be herding pigs for the Christians. Now we’ll conclude, for we don’t know the date and don’t own a calendar; the moon’s in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day’s the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!
—koshovyi otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.
I wonder if a staff writer is going to perhaps tear their self away a bit from this long weekend to upload reporting on the tempest in Cal Anderson Park yesterday.
@35: Capitol Hill Seattle blog has it pretty well covered already, https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2025/05/seattle-police-makes-multiple-arrests-during-counter-protest-of-fundamentalist-church-groups-rally-in-cal-anderson-park/#more-2067290550
Mayor Harrell noted Seattle should apply closer scrutiny to groups who apply for park permits. This particular anti-trans hate group apparently didn’t reveal their real agenda until they set up at the park. Everyone has the First Amendment right to speak and assemble, but Seattle has no reason to give such vicious haters preferred access to prime urban park space. Let them walk along Broadway, face to face with their fellow human beings, whom they insist upon hating so very much. (Maybe some of their children/adolescents will begin to question their own gender identities…)
If the city does slip up and allow such nonsense, the “counter protest” should consist of everyone who already lives on Capitol Hill just going about their ordinary weekend activities, occasionally giggling at the broadcasted lies.
This comment section makes Reddit look like damn MENSA meeting sometimes. Good lord.