JaneAusten

Oh sorry don't think I was being critical of you posting that information. I think it's valuable to know what these folks are saying but it's not resonating. And on what wavelength do you think Bill Maher, Colin Jost, and even Jon Stewart has influence. I have talked to actual women who vote and are voting in 2024. I am working again with NARAL and am talking to independent and suburban GOP women. None of what these men are saying represent how most women feel. I guarantee you this has nothing to do with 16 weeks, 20 weeks or whatever, women are not thinking about compromise. They are thinking their freedoms have been taken away period. Bill Maher really? Who on earth listens to him about abortion or Colin Jost. No women I know or have talked to. Listen I love Jon Stewart, but this is not the same world he performed in on the Daily Show. People in the millions are not watching Comedy Central for him. I'm honestly tired of having to defend this issue as important to mostly men who don't understand how women view this. Apparently, that includes people posting here. Good lord even Mika Brezinksi is finally talking about abortion as a healthcare issue and that was a long time coming for her. She finally gets how women view this. And just a note. The media was wrong about that election in NY. My neice lives in that district and said it was never close. Tom Suozzi is a long time resident, respected, and well liked. There was never a chance he was going to lose. And according to her had he run in 2022 he would have won the seat. Holy hell, democrats can win every gosh darn special election, and we are still behind the 8 ball.

Seriously. Why do people continue to pay attention. I will never forget the Friday before the 2022 midterms when all Joe Scarborough and his klan were doing on that show was spelling doomsday for the democrats in the midterms and how it was all about crime. And it was all about abortion as it will continue to be. Is it because it's a womens issue - have no clue. I do know who runs the media so that may very well be the truth.

Some of you really need to stop looking at any of the Beltway media as it relates to abortion. 1. They barely talk about it. 2. They pretend that a 16 week ban is viable - exactly what data do they think women are looking at to sacrifice our rights? They barely talk about it and when they do it's stupidity like this. Pay attention to elections and ignore these people. And if folks don't think that had an impact on the changes in Wisconsin also they are high. They want to continue to pretend this is not a big issue. It is the number one issue.

Thank you for posting Vee. I have several friends in Wisconsin(I live in Illinois) who have been working their tails off on tis for years. Ben Winkler has been a godsend to Wisconsin and has change the trajectory of the democrats in Wisconsin. Other states that have fallen to GOP tricks should take a lesson. There have been failures along the way and it's been a long road but this was the ultimate goal. Don't let anyone tell you change is not possible. And other states should look at what Winkler did and see what lessons they can learn. Each state is different yes, but I will never believe change is not possible. Michigan is case number 2 to prove that.

Yeah I know Navalny had a following but some of his views from years past are really awful and I think the only reason the people in the West embraced him was he was a foe to Putin. Did it even matter that some of his views were shared by Putin and his entourage? The only real opposition in Russia today is the Communist Party and with that I believe they only hold 125 seats in the Duma out of around 400-450. Most of the remainder are held by United Russia which is the Party Putin is a member of. Last year when Prigozhin and his contingent were on the march to wherever with alleged designs on overthrowing the current gvmt(who knows), people were celebrating in the West. Prigozhin is as bad if not worse than Putin. What does that say.

I believe Navalny knew what would happen to him if he returned. Including his death. Heck he could have died in Germany or anywhere else in exile as it was had he not returned as happened when they poisoned him and he was lucky enough to live. Maybe he was hoping his death could set a trajectory that would lead to changes. I am skeptical. I follow Tom Nichols on twitter and have read his books and a lot of his writing. He used to be involved in the National Security apparatus and was a teacher at the Naval War College before he started his writing career. He now writes for The Atlantic primarily. He also spent several years in Moscow. His perspective on the Russian people are that they believe themselves to be victims and looked down upon by the west. This preceeds current leadership and goes back many years. And keep in mind Russia is only to happy to continue to feed this paranoia in their own people. I am guessing the population in the cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg might be different because you are likely dealing with a better educated population. We'll see if anything changes but can anything really? time will tell.

Yeah this is not shocking knowing Musk, but why is Iran and Russia on that list. Sure we all know the state outlets for these countries are pure propaganda, but does that mean they get sanctioned by twitter. It's not like we don't have news outlets in the US that push propaganda on a regular basis all over social media.

This is interesting. Not certain I believe it. The Beltway press has a tendency to print stories that are not verified and are always anonymous sources. I hope so. Time will tell. State Department reviewing options for recognition of Palestinian state (axios.com)

This is an excellent point. Part of the problem is our media ecosystem I believe that focuses on the extremes not the norms and they go a long way in helping and making money off of polarization. And this is across the board. I want to hear more from reasonable people. I believe most people in general feel as we all do. We want peace. I wonder how many do including many in this country who are in the pockets of the arms industry and other special interests. And where is it getting us. If you read on how empires ended, the United States is still all over being the police officer of the world, not successfully in recent years, is how empires end. I will make a controversial statement. There is a reason peacemakers in general have a history of being killed and that's around the world. They are a threat to the current world order IMO.

Thank you for sharing. I believe we feel very much the same. I am also an advocate for peace. but I can't think of one individual who could help broker a peace deal. Maybe Pope Francis. But we also have parties not interested in peace. The Israeli gvmt and of course Hamas and it's chaos agents in the Middle East certainly are not. I've been doing a lot of reading about the attempts in more recent years to negotiate a peace agreement. Starting with the Carter Administration, through the Clinton Administration attempts, to the assassination of Yitzahk Rabin in 2005, who was advocating for peace at the time. Much of what transpired includes things I didn't know. I read Richard Helmicks book. He was one of the mediators with the Clinton Admin and it has been enlightening. Of course, the book is from his perspective so that has to be taken into account. I share some of what he shared in another post. I thought President Biden's warnings initially to Israelis was genuine. He expressed his horror at what happened but also warned them not to make the mistake of the US after 9/11. I fear that is happening. And it's bringing up memories of everything the US did wrong. I can understand the anger and fear Israeli citizens have at this time. We all had it here after 9/11. Our feelings were exploited and I do believe the Israeli gvmt is doing the same thing. The worse part is that none of what's happening will make them safer. The comparisons to 9/11 is valid. This was a relatively simple attack. I don't mean easy I mean not sophisticated. They had a basic plan that didn't involve any high tech, high powered technology and weapons. I don't know. Maybe that is why the Israeli gvmt did not take the warnings seriously. My own feelings are Netanyahu needs to go. I believe that would go a long way in appeasing so many out there critical of Israel and he failed his main job, protecting Israeli citizens. Now he's attacking families of the hostages. His popularity since the protests has not rebounded and maybe it might alleviate the concern some have, that he's prolonging this to salvage his political career. And he's now attacking hostage families. Finally, a coalition of Israeli leaders have come forward to demand his resignation. Hoping that starts a swell of support. Netanyahu must be removed, say top former Israeli national security officials | CNN

To start off, I wanted to leave this link of the Pod Save America broadcast where former President Obama discussed this. And it got me thinking a lot more about the issue. The discussion on Gaza starts at around 15:15. IMO it is worth a listen if you have not heard this before. This is also the article from the Times referencing his words spoken in this podcast. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/obama-israel-palestine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RU0.rbjt.o3aIGjaD1Tyn&smid=url-share

This is a thread to discuss the current situation and past history in Israel and Gaza - Please be respectful and kind.

Thanks to both of you @Khan and @DramatistDreamer for your kind words. I have had a challenging couple of years. My mom passed away almost 2 years ago - she had a long and mostly healthy life but vascular dementia made her final year with moments of sadness and joy. Despite all that, I miss her terribly still. It left me with a brother who is a sweet man and suffers from Aspergers. Very smart but very socially inept and awkward due to his disability. He lived with my parents most of his life and is now retired but living on his own in a lovely retirement community by himself. It's been a big adjustment for jim and for both of us. He has a good support system and people who care about him, but it's still been a challenge. Couple that with my own health issues this past year. But I am not crying for myself. I've maintained I believe my positivity, but am feeling a bit lost the last couple of months. No real explanation other than looking at my own mortality and wondering what the rest of my life should be. I'm still wrestling with that. Anyway, thank for your interest. I agree with all of what has been said here. This is a very emotional topic for sure, and I want to avoid the political and partisan, outside of perhaps understanding how it's hampered and helped situations over many years. Anyway I'll start the thread and post some thoughts. I don't have any trajectory in mind I guess we'll see how things go.

Hi folks. I have been dealing with some health issues so I have not been around much the past several months. But I wanted to pose a question and perhaps start another thread. The conflict in Gaza and the surrounding middle eastern countries is a problem as long as time. This go around we all know the event that was the catalyst. I have been doing a lot of reading about the history in that region, specifically trying to understand The Israeli and Palestinian problem and relationships over the years. I have found very little appetite for this with family and friend in my life and social media in general is a toxic heap of everything bad. I was wondering if there was anyone here interested in a discussion surrounding this. This is not about assigning blame, but to truly understand the complexities and history and evolution to where we are today. I want to make that clear because these discussions tend to evolve into who's at fault and you're a bad person if you think these things or those things. If you're not interested I understand. It's a difficult and painful topic for many.

They could choose another nominee at the convention. I assume Haley is staying in for this reason. To keep herself visible

I'm wondering thoughts on here. I'm generally a glass half full kind of person and generally tend to be an optimistic person. So I want to be honest. I am worried about 2024 as it relates to Biden. Don't get me wrong. He's exceeded my expectations by 1000%. But I think there just might be too much damage to have to worry about deflecting or answering for. First is what's happening with Ukraine and some of the information surfacing is that they were pushed into a war with Russia when they were close to a peace deal. And now it looks like NATO and the US are going to abandon them. Israel is the other one and I don't know how there is going to be a resolution there. Last item are gas prices which we know the Saudis will orchestrate slowing production so gas prices increase right before the election. I am slowly coming to the conclusion Biden should not run. That said then who and how? So many things remind me of 1968 with johnson.

I think you can believe both things. He's may be right about the democrats, but I don't associate democrats with the left. Most of the folks on the left like Susan Sarandon are not voting for democrats so i don't consider them democrats. And the far left has always been bigoted - so the anti semitism there is not surprising. But the democrats as a whole are pretty unified in supporting our Jewish community and Israel. None of this garbage from the far left is shocking. It's always been there. College campuses I see as being more generational. I don't understand I guess how people can conflate the Israeli Government who IMO is awful with Israeli civilians or particularly American Jews. THAT is a problem that a lot of younger people need to be educated on. There in fact are many Jewish Americans and liberal leaning Jewish Israelis that are pro peace. In Israel they are being silenced by the Netanyahu gvmt. Netanyahu is and has been a horrible leader. And nothing he has done has made Israeli civilians and Jews across the world safer. His comments after the Tree of Life massacre here were frankly atrocious. How he could have even tried to rationalize it is appalling. I'm not sure what the answer is. The GOP is certainly not pro Israeli citizen. What exactly is their answer. Let's bomb Iran? They are as anti semitic as the far left. I think Biden is walking a tightrope right now, but initially he did give the Israeli Gvmt good advice. Remember what we did after 9/11. Right now Israel seems hell bent on repeating our mistakes. But let's hope this pause that I believe Biden has been crucial in pushing, leads to a cooling off. It's not that most believe Hamas is honorable or noble, they are terrorists. But there has to be a better approach than what they are currently doing. Let's hope for the sake of everyone, cooler heads prevail, but I am afraid I don't see anyone pushing for it other than what Biden has been gently doing. It's clear Hamas and the Israeli gvmt want this war to continue. None of that helps Israeli citizens or Palestinians or the world. I shudder to think what would have happened had Trump been president when this happened.

Well it's good to see that Elon's visit to Israel did no good. I am horrified that Netanyahu welcomed him but not surprised. Netanyahu uses all sorts of reasons to justify the far right attacks on people of Jewish faith all over the world. He cozied up to Orban, made excuses from that horrific demonstration in Charlottesville, and even minimized the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue. It's just ridiculous to me to see US politicians going after Tik Toc and ignoring the cesspool of twitter and it's owner.

The thing those in charge could have done is to move forward with that agreement with the Saudi's. Lord knows I think the Saudi's are as bad if not worse than other countries in the ME, but nothing would take the wind out of the sails than this. I realize that's probably not palatable for the Saudi's now. Now I will admit I have no idea what the US got out of that deal and if the Saudi's even carved out anything for Palestinians. This attack only proved how HAMAS funded by Iran who is funded by Russia wants no peace. But then neither does Bibi Netanyahu. He put his number one directive, protecting Israeli citizens, to the side for his own pursuit of power, escape from justice and ignored warnings from the IDF and an immediate warning from Egypt. I wonder if he even has any regret over what happened to his citizenry. I hope so. And I think the comparisons to 9/11 are in many ways not the same, but rings of George W Bush and his decision making are making me very nervous. HAMAS will not negotiate so I honestly don't see an alternative right now for Israel than to go into GAZA. Their citizens were butchered, they can't just stand by. But what happens when it's over. Is there a wider war in the region? It's all very scary and complex and no one really has a solution. I hope this doesn't sound too dispassionate. The butchering of the Israelis is horrific and nothing can make that right. But the leadership of HAMAS is sitting comfortably in Qatar untouched. I don't have an answer other than grief for the Israeli people.

I am going to use the Nixon mantra - The Silent Majority. The most underreported story the past so many years is the grassroots efforts on the democratic side which exploded when Trump got elected. They are much more organized now and this is without phony grassroots efforts like The Tea Party and Moms for Liberty taking up all the oxygen in the media. Imagine being a school board voter or meeting attendee and listening or reading about these wackjobs spewing garbage about book banning, diversity, teaching history, and trans kids being the biggest danger when gun violence is the bigger danger to kids, as one example. This is what the silent majority is hearing. Grassroots organizers have done a phenomenal job organizing against this and recruiting candidates. The democratic party in Illinois has recognized this and for the first time gave money and support to local races in Illinois this past spring. It's time the national party does the same thing. One of my colleagues on the local Sustainability Commission I am a member of, regularly challenged one of these nuts running for the school board in the local high school district publicly along with many other people. He lost of course and ended up coming to a commission meeting to spew his pathetic victim complex towards her at one of our meetings during the public comment section after he lost. A pathetic weak display. He got backlash when he ran which escalated after that display at our meeting. Numbers opposing make a difference and when enough people stood up he slithered back under the rock he came out from. People need to stop giving the media so much power. If anything 2022 and how pathetic and wrong they were should tell a whole lot of people something and whos paying attention to the garage they spew. The MSM is worse than Fox because they fake being allies and unbiased. They are anything but and most people pay very little attention.

I don't really understand why anyone any longer pays attention or gives credence to the corporate media after their obvious push for the GOP in 2022 and what a pathetic result it turned out to be for THEM. They were wrong about everything. I was volunteering at NARAL for the election and we were exclusively reaching out to independent and suburban GOP women in swing states and after talking to so many of them, I knew it wasn't as they kept predicting in the media. And if anything, it's even more intense now because millions of our sisters out there have been living under this garbage now. The OLD WHITE MALE run media will never understand this. The thing they really are angry about is that no one really gives them much thought anymore. The are so insulated. They think MAGAt's are average Americans. Other than the Beltway inner circle, who knows or cares about Stein or Leonhardt.

Weigel hasn't been a journalist in so long, I lost track of him. Semafor seems a perfect spot for him at this point in his "career". Their not any better than that McCarthy Tiger Beat publication, Punch Bowl News.

Inflation leveling off is not going to fix the problems in the food market. My brother and late father worked in the food industry for a long time. I live in Chicago. We have had independent retailers for years. Jewel owned by Albertsons now. Jewel was one of our independent retailers in the market as were places like Marianos(now owned by Kroger). See what happens when the Albertsons sale is fully felt and if Albertsons is purchased by Kroger, it will end the fairly reasonable food pricing in the Chicago marketplace.Pets Market at some point as they grow locally will also be snapped up by a mega retailer. I remember months back that idiocy that Jason Fuhrman started about elites and their fancy Brooklyn stores as to why people look down on Walmart. Does he understand what Walmart did to flyover country all over the United States? How it gutted small towns and Main Street. Now Amazon has joined the fray. Harvard educated?

There have to be a lot of people out there that people like Thomas, Roberts have screwed over. Now there is a story about Leonard Leo. Him too. This is going to continue. Leonard Leo directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ - The Washington Post

I love the video. It says everything. And it's not that I don't want Biden to run, in fact I was worried for a bit he would not, but he deserves peace and prosperity in his later years after so many years of service. I tend to agree with your mom @Noel that he loves this country too much to move on at this point. I like and respect Joe Biden more than I ever have. He's changed with age and I mean that in a good way. He reminds me so much of my dad in his later years. My father used to love to talk and debate but in his later years he sat back more and listened and as a result, became a more informed individual and I think we listened to him more than we ever did..