War. War never changes. (Except when it does)

[Mongrel]

NOW BACK TO THE GOOD PART

[Mongrel]

[mharr]

It's tempting, given recent and upcoming presidencies, to look back on Nixon as not so bad after all.

But he really, really was.

It's the comfortable hindsight of knowing that despite his best efforts, he didn't actually blow up the world. Whoever's pulling shit this month feels more dangerous because they still might.

She also explains why:

Speak of the devils. No secret there, because they want more Muslim terrorism to fuel the culture war at home.

[Mongrel]

It's tempting, given recent and upcoming presidencies, to look back on Nixon as not so bad after all.

But he really, really was.

It's the comfortable hindsight of knowing that despite his best efforts, he didn't actually blow up the world. Whoever's pulling shit this month feels more dangerous because they still might.

Never forget that he sunk the '68 peace conference as part of his attempts to be elected. Millions died that didn't have to just so Nixon could be president.

As bad as Trump is, funny enough he has yet to do anything on that scale.

[Mongrel]

Could also go in SCIENCE!

The future of steel plate armour is... Steel foam armour!

[Mongrel]

Palestinians being massacred as usual...

Best quote, from the UN SecGen of all places:

As news of the violence spread, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – who is slated to visit President Trump in Washington on Friday – said he is "particularly worried" about what he called "the high number of people killed," according to the AP.

"Yeah, hi... could just tone down the death? Just a little, maybe two notches? We don't want to be too excessive."

[Mongrel]

Remember not to make the people gunning down protesters look bad folks, or they'll show you:

EDIT: This tweet:

was deleted by the journalist because the man was misidentified. His name is actually Saber al-Ashqar (but the tweet was otherwise accurate: The person in this photo from last week was shot dead in the protests yesterday.

David Confronting Goliath, circa 1000 BCE, colorized

Meanwhile Kushner is busy throwing gas on the fire while calling it water...

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]

Also:

With Monday's massacre, Israel has now killed more than 90 Palestinians in the past six weeks for approaching the fence it placed around Gaza, surpassing the total number of East Germans shot and killed for trying to scale the Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989

[Grath]

Wow that dastardly Hamas, with their master plan to attack Israel by getting gunned down indiscriminately.

[Mongrel]

The most frightening thing about this is that Bibi has actually been steadily alienating everyone in his desperate attempts to stay in power and avoid corruption charges.

Representatives of most branches of Judaism, domestic and foreign, were excluded from the ceremony and were not seen on stage at the embassy opening:

“You have made history,” Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said to U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday as the two leaders, flanked by a discomfiting alliance of far-right politicians, ultra-Orthodox rabbis and [American] evangelical preachers who have declared that Jews are doomed to burn in hell, officiated over the U.S. embassy’s move to the contested city of Jerusalem.

Good company.

Apparently Rick Jacobs, the leader of the US's largest Jewish congregation (Union for Reform Judaism) penned an editorial where he said Israel's actions had made him to feel ashamed to be Jewish (I can't link the op-ed - it's on Haaretz behind a paywall), which, even for a liberal Reform leader is... strong words. Not that that bothers Bibi's gang, since they already hate Jacobs... one of Bibi's ministers told him earlier this year that there was no need to provide prayer space for Reform Jews at the Wailing Wall, since they expected Reform Judaism to be dead in Israel inside a generation.

Non-Israeli Jewish opinion of Israel is at an all-time low; along other, less-high-profile actions, Natalie Portman (who has in the past been noted for a very strong pro-Israel stance) refused a huge Israeli award this week in protest. Never mind that pretty much the entire Arab world outside of the Saudi Royal family and MAYBE the Egyptian government, despises him at this point.

But still he clings to power. Much like Trump, God only knows what he'll try next.

Blood and greed...

[Friday]

If you have a problem that's not being solved by the use of violence, you're not using enough violence!

[Mongrel]

Wow that dastardly Hamas, with their master plan to attack Israel by getting gunned down indiscriminately.

Every time I see this, I can't help but picture it as an unironic IDF tweet.

[TA]

IDF tweet? You're underestimating the rot.

[Mongrel]

Well, Bibi is 100% scum. This is pretty well established.

[Büge]

The most frightening thing about this is that Bibi has actually been steadily alienating everyone in his desperate attempts to stay in power and avoid corruption charges.

I can't help but wonder how much US support is being derived from Mike Pence, whose religion views Jewish people as the stepping stone to bringing about the apocalypse.

Pence’s religious views matter here, because he holds an evangelical notion of Judaism, one that sees Jews as nothing more than instruments in an apocalyptic narrative that seeks the return of Christ. What at first appears to be a well-intentioned, if bungling, message turns out to have an insidious intent: to signal to his base that accommodating gestures made toward Jews are being made in the service of Christian aims.

[Mongrel]

The most frightening thing about this is that Bibi has actually been steadily alienating everyone in his desperate attempts to stay in power and avoid corruption charges.

I can't help but wonder how much US support is being derived from Mike Pence, whose religion views Jewish people as the stepping stone to bringing about the apocalypse.

Pence’s religious views matter here, because he holds an evangelical notion of Judaism, one that sees Jews as nothing more than instruments in an apocalyptic narrative that seeks the return of Christ. What at first appears to be a well-intentioned, if bungling, message turns out to have an insidious intent: to signal to his base that accommodating gestures made toward Jews are being made in the service of Christian aims.

[Yoji]

How did that line from The West Wing go? "They don't actually care about Israel; they just need someone to keep the lights on until Armageddon."

But remember, kids: it's the atheists and liberals and abortionists who are obsessed with and worship death.

[Mongrel]

Oh and besides journalists, the IDF is also deliberately shooting International and Palestinian volunteer medics.

I suppose if you're going to violate the Geneva Conventions might as well violate the biggest and oldest one of them all... But hey! If it's not technically a war, it's not technically a war crime, right?!

[Mongrel]

Wait wait wait... so, this afternoon Trump directly threatened to overthrow Kim Jong Um?!

UH. UM.