"Genocide"

It shouldn't even be necessary to explain this, but is.

When bigots tell lies, @RepRitchie tells the truth. Speaking about the Iron Dome, he says:

“I will not apologize for supporting technology that protects civilians from rocket fire.”pic.twitter.com/WwilmV9mm2

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) February 16, 2023

As a good comedian and not-so-good person would say, "what's the deal with I will not apologize for....'"?

On Thursday, President Biden said “I expect to be speaking with President Xi,. And I hope we’re going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon.” Nobody asked him to apologize, and there was no need to apologize.

The same should be said for the remark of Ritchie Torres, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from the Bronx, New York.  The tweet below includes a video which, typically from this platform, does not establish what immediately preceded nor the ending of the exchange. However, at the tail end of what we see as a discussion of Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system, Torres states "I will not apologize for supporting technology that protects civilians from rocket fire."

There is no need to apologize because as the congressman explained (interrupted periodically by critical members of the audience) to constituents unaware- or not- of the nature of the system

So you said ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians....

Can we all agree that when there's ethnic cleansing or genocide, there tends to be depopulation? That if you count genocide against the people.... The Palestinian population in Israel has gone from somewhere in the range of 200,000 in 1948 to over two million in Israel and the terror....

Torres cuts himself, for whatever reason, before completing the word "territories," and picks it up at

And then overall, it's about fourteen million. And that's based on numbers that have been reported by the Palestinian Authority. So if there were genocide, there would not be a surge in the Palestinian population. There would be systematic depopulation.

A moment later, Representative Torres adds "It is true that we fund Iron Dome technology. Iron Dome is defensive, not offensive, technology. Iron Dome does not attack anyone. It protects civilians from rocket fire."

It's hard to believe that anyone who expresses a fervent opinion, as a few audience members were, about what is unfortunately labeled the "Palestinian issue" (better understood as the conflict between Jewish Palestinians and Arab or Muslim Palestinians) do not know that the Iron Dome is a defensive system. 

More likely, Torres was only being kind to his constituents who accuse Israel of "ethnic cleansing" or genocide. He is, of course, right about that. A major premise of the anti-Israel or anti-Zionist crowd is that the country is a major power brutalizing weak, defenseless non-Jews.  But if that were the case, Palestinians would be shot dead, regularly and daily.  There would be a drastic decline in the Arab population in Israel proper and the occupied territories, worldwide horror, and unparalleled demonstrations by non-Jews and Jews alike in the streets of the nation.

Torres told people, whether they truly are ignorant about Iron Dome or are anti-Semites spewing nonsense about the country employing it, what they need to be told and told more often- Israel does not engage in genocide, and it's not even close. 

 

Share |

Self-Absorbed Nikki

Some politicians are impressed with themselves. Some are very impressed with themselves. And then there is Nikki Haley.

Most obviously, in her announcement speech, Haley boasted

I've been underestimated before. That's always fun! And I've been shaking up the status quo my entire life.

As I set out on this new journey, I will simply say this.... May be best woman win. All kidding aside, this is not about identity politics. I don't believe in that. And I don't believe in glass ceilings, either.

Does Nikki Haley believe a glass ceiling never existed? Or did it once, and no longer does? Or does she think it still exists but she will burst through it?  

As someone who brags "I've been underestimated before," Haley probably believes the glass ceiling will be no obstacle for her.  The self-esteem resembles braggadocio bursting through any ceiling.

Haley does not believe in identity politics, she assures us. However, the "brown girl growing up in a black-and-white world" made sure to point out

I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants.

My parents left India in search of a better life. They found it in Bamberg, South Carolina- population, 2,500. Our little town came to love us, but it wasn't always easy. We were the only Indian family. Nobody knew who we were, what we were, or why were there. But my parents knew.

This is by way of telling tell the Republican base that she doesn't believe in identity politics- a thing which no one claims to believe in- and then proceeding to use the race/ethnic card with the "may the best woman win" gender card. It's her own twist of the politician's ploy of elevating himself with "my parents were great; they were poor and I beat the odds!" (To hear them, no politician on the national stage, highly successful and usually wealthy, ever came from a financially secure background.)

Later in the day, Haley appeared on Fox News and Sean Hannity asked the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador whether she disagrees with Donald Trump about anything. Before spending one minute and 35 seconds (from :20 to 1:55 of the video) not answering the question, she claims "the thought of me getting in the race makes the liberals' heads explode because it shows we're doing something right."

Hannity asks Nikki Haley where she and Trump differ on issues. HALEY CAN'T NAME A SINGLE THING. pic.twitter.com/508uHyB7k6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 16, 2023

Of course, the worst thing about Nikki Haley is wanting to undermine Social Security and Medicare, force childbirth upon women, wanting to gut the public school system, and believing socialism is running rampant in the USA  Her extremist views may be the only thing authentic about an individual who would be a serious threat for a presidential nomination if voters were as interested in her as she is in herself.

Share |

Bad Ideas

Nikki Haley to the US Constitution: Drop Dead.

The ex-governor of South Carolina and ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald J. Trump, Haley on Wednesday launched her campaign for President of the United States of America. She did so while condemning "trusting politicians from the 20th century," claiming "America is not past our prime. It's just that our politicians are past theirs," and declaring "America is not past our prime. It's just that our politicians are past theirs.

But Haley did not ooze contempt for the elderly without also suggesting roadblocks to politicians she deems old. She stated

And when it comes to our politicians, we’ll light a fire under them… Their job is not to say things on TV. Their job is to do things in DC – like solve problems instead of ignoring or creating them!

In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire… We’ll have term limits for Congress – and mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old!

Haley didn't say who would determine whether the aged politician is "competent," let alone what constitutes "competency" (traditional term: "competent").  Evidence suggests she has no clue.

Term limits are a terrible idea because they would empower the permanent bureaucracy at the expense of elected officials. Lobbyists would have a field day while officials with accumulated wisdom are shown the door. Also, readily available are term limits: elections.

Haley may not realize that the qualifications for U.S. Representative and for U.S. Senator are enumerated in the Constitution, which would make her- what- not competent?

More likely, she is aware that Article 1, Section 2 indicates that a Representative must be at least 25 years of age, an American citizen for at least seven years, and a resident of the state in which chosen. Section 3 of that Article establishes that a Senator must be at least 30 years of old, an American citizen for at least nine years, and a resident of the state in which chosen.

That's it- meet those requirements, and you can serve. There is nothing about a "competency test" nor an upper limit for age. 

There were worse- far worse- remarks in Nikki Haley's announcement speech.  But an individual aiming to be her party's presidential nominee should have a basic regard for the United States Constitution, as well as the right of the American people to select their own officials subject to the limitations set out in that document.

Share |

Tweet of the Day- Tough Gal Nikki

Nominations are closed for "Comedy, Political Class" and the winner is Nikki Haley. In what speakers of Yiddish would call "chutzpah":

“You should know this about me. I don’t put up with bullies.”

— Nikki Haley, who served nearly 2 years in Donald Trump’s Cabinet. pic.twitter.com/CdcP01KR7h

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) February 14, 2023

“You should know this about me. I don’t put up with bullies.” — Nikki Haley, who served nearly 2 years in Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

Once an opponent (it would appear) of Donald J. Trump, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley jumped onto the Trump train when Donald J. had become Big Man on Campus as presidential nominee. She joined the new Administration in February 2017 as Ambassador to the United Nations and put whatever doubts she had behind her. Shortly before the incumbent was re-nominated in August of 2020, Haley insisted "Donald Trump has always put America first. And he has earned four more years."

In October of 2021, the individual who now says "it's time for a new generation of leadership," stated "we need him in the Republican Party. I don't want us to go back to the day before Trump." But the most revealing- for a reason not immediately clear- of Haley's remarks had come six months earlier when she vowed "I would not mind if President Trump runs, and I would talk to him about it."

Notice "President Trump." The "ex-President" or "Donald Trump" or "Mr. Trump" would have been accurate and inoffensive. However, not only had Trump left office nine months earlier but Haley was referring to the possibility of her ex running in the future. It was a remark of brazen ignorance of English grammar unless the speaker believed, or wanted the public to believe, that the subject was still President of the United States of America.

Alternatively, Haley is living in the world of reality, knew Trump legitimately President and didn't care whether we believed he was. In that case, the ex-governor was worried that referring to Mr. Trump as anything but "President Trump" would offend him because Trump is a unique mixture of hubris and insecurity.

That would explain Haley's assertion "I don't put up with bullies."  Instead, evidence suggests that if you spun Nikki Haley around and glanced where you shouldn't, you'd read the large "Please Kick Me" sign.

Share |

Two National Anthems?

If you thought The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem, the NFL wants to abuse you of the notion: As The Hill explains

The performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at Sunday’s Super Bowl marks the first time the Black National Anthem has been performed on-field at the NFL’s championship game.

Actress and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph belted out the song prior to kickoff on Sunday.

“It is no coincidence that I will be singing the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing at the Super Bowl on the same date it was first publicly performed 123 years ago (February 12, 1900),” the “Abbott Elementary” star wrote on Twitter prior to her performance.

“Happy Black History Month,” Ralph added

The historic performance was the first time the song has been performed in an official capacity on a Super Bowl game field. Two years ago, Alicia Keys first performed the ballad during a pre-recorded Super Bowl broadcast. In 2022, singer Mary Mary gave a performance of the song from outside of the Super Bowl stadium in Inglewood, Calif., notes Billboard.

The anthem, written by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, rose to prominence during the Civil Rights Movement when it was commonly used as a “rallying cry,” notes the NAACP.

The song was performed on Sunday prior to the National Anthem, which was sung by country star Chris Stapleton.

The Black National Anthem, superior lyrically and musically to The Star Spangled Banner, is not The national anthem  And it .would more appropriately be called the Negro National Anthem as Time magazine implied upon noting

Before long, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” would become, in Perry’s words, “a universal signifier of Black identity.” It was sung at church services, civic organization meetings, pageants and graduations; it anchored Emancipation Day and Negro History Week celebrations and daily school rituals.

“I sang the Negro National Anthem when I was hungry,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters wrote in Lift Every Voice and Sing: A Celebration of the Negro National Anthem, edited by Julian Bond and Sondra Kathryn Wilson. “I sang the Negro National Anthem when my tooth was hurting because of an exposed cavity—I sang the Negro National Anthem when I did not know there was a future for a little black girl with twelve sisters and brothers.”

Demonstrating that wokeism and hyper-nationalism do mix, the National Football League can promote the Pentagon in a pretentious flyover by the US Navy featuring an all-female cast of pilots. It has the same right to feature Lift Every Voice and Sing, even in the same context as the Star Spangled Banner.

But as this corporate decision exemplifies, legal is not always wise.  The Black National Anthem, the Negro National Anthem, or the African-American National Anthem (the song is not a response to the experience of Jamaicans or Haitians in the USA) is not a national anthem. It is no mere semantics to note that there is no nation of Black, neither here nor on any continent; the song applies to a people, not a nation.  Similarly, there could not be a Protestant or Catholic national anthem, nor a woman's or men's national anthem.

The song was sung immediately before, and juxtaposed, with the Star-Spangled Banner. Yet, it is not akin to the USA's national anthem, nor to the national anthem of Canada, played adjacent to The Star Spangled Banner at some National Hockey League games.

The purpose of any nation's national anthem is to offer a unifying message, one meant to unite individuals of all ethnic and economic backgrounds- in this case, to bring together all Americans as Americans. It shouldn't be left to the likes of Lauren Boebert, of all people, to point out the obvious: "America has only one NATIONAL ANTHEM" (emphasis hers). If a stopped clock can be right twice a day, Representative Boebert can be right at least once a year.

There is not, cannot, and should not be any white national anthem, Italian-American national anthem, Norwegian-American national anthem, or Black National Anthem. However imperfect a vehicle The Star Spangled Banner is to unite Americans. it is presently the one and only national anthem in the United States of America.  Live with it.

 

Share |

Harmful Trend

Malcolm Nance, the former Navy officer, counter-intelligence expert, and most recently, volunteer with the Ukrainian armed forces, got the Tyre Nichols question (at 6:29 on the video below) on Friday night's Real Time overnight segment. After remarking that Nichols would have been treated differently had he been white, Nance commented

You know, the issue here isn't about the color of the policemen. The issue is that the tactics, techniques, procedures and training of these law enforcement officers on these special team, uh, you know way back when I went through a SWAT officers' course with Capitol Hill police and some other police forces that were there to learn how to be SWAT cops. The techniques that we were shown back then were not always guns forward all the time. Now the average police officer is trained to believe that his, you know, number one job is to come home at night. I agree with that a thousand per cent. But there are jobs, there are things there are just clearly require an intervention that does not require you to draw your weapon.

After host Bill Maher responded, Nance noted "there is a color issue within law enforcement, altogether." Maher asked "even though they're cops?" and Nance answered

Yeah, because they're cops. It's a mindset- the same way we have in the military. We have a mindset, right? I think policing has moved so far away from community service toward self-preservation. Uh, they go to courses like the "on killing program" on how to do self-preservation, how to battle like a special forces soldier. What they need to do is to start thinking more along the beat cop. You know, protecting the community by knowing the community and not seeing. I don't understand...

As Nance obviously would understand, the departments could begin by not attaching to specialized street crime squads intentionally ferocious names such as the Memphis Police Department's "Scorpion." The

aggressive tactics are so notorious – and so similar – that in many cities they're known as "jump-out boys" for the way officers spill out of their cars to accost people during stops. In Chicago, such units have contributed to residents seeing the police as "an occupying force" that make some neighborhoods feel like "an open-air prison," the Department of Justice found in 2017.

"They patrol our streets like they are the dog catchers and we are the dogs," one Chicago resident told investigators.

If it's understood, as Nance does, that reconnecting with the community is critical, the problem is broader than the apparently brutal tactics of some street crime units. However, some authorities seem not to understand this as

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said on Thursday he supports Police Chief CJ Davis’ decision to reassign SCORPION Unit officers after she said Tuesday at Memphis City Council that at least 30 officers have been reassigned to other specialized units.

“They’re moving into other organized crime units, such as auto theft, task force, and those other areas,” Davis said. “These were individuals not involved in this incident.”

The “incident” Davis referred to was the Jan. 7 traffic stop by SCORPION Unit officers that led to the death of Tyre Nichols....

Mayor Strickland said under Chief Davis’ leadership, the city has asked the Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police to do an external review of the department’s operations and make recommendations.

The solution for medium and large cities is embedded in Nance's assertion "What they need to do is to start thinking more along the beat cop. You know, protecting the community by knowing the community."

Breaking up much of a large police department into specialized units runs completely counter to the concept of knowing the community.  If officers are assigned to auto theft and other units, they are necessarily not being assigned to a neighborhood. Neither they nor the other officers will become as familiar with a particular neighborhood as they would if they were assigned by area, not function.

These units are specialized and the root of "specialized" is "special." Put police into specialized units, and they will come to think of themselves as special.  Most of them will not consider themselves above the law, nor will more than a small minority impose the beatdown on a citizen akin to that of Tyre Nichols. But many will consider themselves better than their colleagues and the residents they should be expected to serve and protect.

If "community policing" is to be more than a cliche, major police departments can begin by reversing the trend toward specialized units or squads and encourage the immersion of their officers in the community.

 

Share |

Sunset

This is how politicians should be interviewed- not only Republicans but also Democrats, and not only by CNN's Kaitlan Collins. But in this case it was she and in the wake of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Scott was the a prime, and deserving, target.

In this interview, Florida senator Scott insists that President Biden has cut Medicare, though he is careful not to say “cut Medicare benefits.”In a fact check on Thursday, CNN noted that deputy director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark

Cubanski explained that the Inflation Reduction Act’s projected prescription drug savings of $237 billion will largely come from three particular provisions. None of these provisions cuts Medicare benefits.

One provision allows the federal government, starting in 2026, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of certain high-cost drugs for Medicare. Another requires the drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if the price of certain drugs rises faster than inflation. A third provision delays, until 2032, the implementation of a Trump administration rule that had never taken effect and already been postponed until 2027. That rule, which would have effectively banned rebates from drug companies to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, had been expected not only to increase Medicare spending but to force Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums.

So, again, not even the cost-saving parts of the law are Medicare cuts. And then there are the additional provisions Cubanski mentioned above, which will add expenditures to the government but save seniors money – such as the new $35-per-month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin and a new $2,000-per-year cap, starting in 2025, on out-of-pocket prescription drug spending in Medicare Part D.

Scott insists that he hasn't endorsed benefit cuts. At 6:10 of the video with Collins, he states

I've been clear. I will not reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits. Alright? I've been clear. And I was in my plan. Congress needs to fix Med- make sure that Medicare and Social Security survive.

Sen. Rick Scott says "no," it wasn’t a mistake to propose a plan that would require all legislation, including that relating to programs like Social Security and Medicare, to sunset unless Congress reauthorizes them. Our full interview this morning: pic.twitter.com/wOxxApUCpR

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 9, 2023

It is an article of faith- or at least, it seems to be- of Republicans that Medicare and Social Security will die on the vine (i.e., not survive) unless benefits are slashed. There is a little bit of logic there. Scott, as with some of his GOP colleagues, says he will never vote to raise taxes. If Congress does not increase the maximum annual wage- now $160,200- that's subject to Social Security tax, the trust fund eventually, in a matter of decades, will run out.

The cap, as Senator Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have long advocated, could be increased or (as it should be) eliminated altogether. That's a bridge to decency Republicans will not cross.

Senator Scott knows that cutting, or decreasing, benefits won't fly politically. Therefore, he wants to sunset "entitlements" (earned benefits) which- in the short term- does not necessarily cut benefits.  A lot of voters don't know what sunsetting is (and it's not an actual word). Elderly individuals, the Florida senator believes, may believe it wouldn't happen for awhile, and Republicans have been trying for years to condition young people to accept as inevitable that Social Security, if not Medicare also, won't last forever. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, if he's not lying through his teeth, is not keen on Scott's plan. That's for now, though. Republicans in the House of Representatives, which the GOP controls, are unpredictable, and ghastly.  So it becomes essential for President Biden, as he did in his State of the Union address, to tell the public that some Republicans want to sunset the program and tie that to a decrease in benefits. And it can only help if journalists, such as Kaitlan Collins did one fine Thursday morning, persist in asking the uncomfortable questions.

Share |