Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Gonna try to elect Jordan starting at noon. I suspect he won't win on first ballot. After that, who knows?

[Dr. Strangelove]

One top Hamas military leader has been removed from the board

Chief of Hamas military brigade killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza | The Times of Israel

[Mike]

King Abdullah of Jordan on Pali refugees: NOPE.

"This is a red line," Abdullah said. "No refugees to Jordan and also no refugees to Egypt."

I'm sure the Biden administration has a diverging view.

[klondike]

Nobody likes Palestinians in real life. They are truly the Samaritans of the Middle East. Rich oil countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE et al hire them for manual labor jobs as they deplore any manual labor, themselves. Other than that, they are treated with contempt and used as a political antagonist towards Israel.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Outcasts much like MAGA...

[lineygoblue]

"palestinians" = Liberation of 'palestine' = Israel no longer exists. Not a single one of them wants a 'two state solution'.

Yasser Arafat got pretty much all of his demands in the Camp David Accords. The one thing he refused to do was to confirm that Israel has a right to exist, and he had to say it in Arabic. Not English, which is considered the language of the infidels. Anything he said in English could be ignored.

He refused to formally recognize Israel in Arabic, and he left the meeting, and started the "intefadah"

He had a large portion of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and a part of Jerusalem in the agreement. But he walked away and started another uprising.

"palestinians' have nobody to blame but themselves.

[THE_WIZARD_]

....and yet The Chairman still believes (well he doesn't believe anything...it's what he is relaying on from his Prog Loons) that there IS a two state solution....and he continues to cuddle up to Iran...

This world hasn't been this unstable since 1939...

[Dr. Strangelove]

The popular Mary Peltola of Alaska gets a bipartisan standing ovation during the vote. She's been absent since her husband died in a plane crash.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Looks like Jordan will be close to 20 votes short this round, with several Rs not even voting.

[Mike]

LOL

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm no Biden fan. To me he's unfit to serve as US president because of age and intellectual infirmity. But Joe Biden is not the cause of America's (perceived) declining influence. He's taken hard line positions on Russian aggression in Ukraine, Chinese trade, AI and other intellectual property rights, and now, support for Israel.

I think it's accurate to say an American response to a crisis around the globe isn't as feared as it once was. The calculus of aggression by any of the world's countries governed by authoritarians is much less affected by the thought of a military response from the US than, say, prior to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1974. Subsequent military adventurism that's turned sour, e.g., Afghanistan, hasn't helped the perception that the US is strong and capable of shaping outcomes..

Some argue, and I tend to agree with them, that the threat to US power is coming from within in the form of extremists in the Republican party. They've cynically immobilized Congress at a critical time when budgets have to be negotiated and approved and now two critical conflicts - in Ukraine and in the ME - are in full swing demanding the involvement of US and the aid that the US can provide. The R's are threatening that. It should be no surprise that aggression against American allies and global interests (global instability akin to that of the late 30s), that America's commitments to control and resolve them is in question and distrust of American power to produce favorable outcomes is on the rise.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Couple reporters on my feed believe Jordan will actually get more NO votes on a second vote. There's cover now for people that held their nose and voted Jim to start edging away from him instead.

More people currently oppose him than opposed McCarthy back in January. And that took 15 votes.

But we'll see.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hospital in Gaza bombed. Likely hundreds dead. Hamas blames an Israeli strike. Israel says Hamas was launching missiles from right next to the hospital and a couple defects exploded instead of launching.

[Mike]

Let the gnashing of teeth begin.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Noteworthy that at the same time this hospital was hit, a barrage of Hamas-launched rockets fell around Tel Aviv (that they cheerfully took credit for). Very possible some fell short and hit this hospital instead.