... Just in time to discuss the passage of the Ukraine aid bill, the protests in Georgia, and the horror show in Sudan. Join us for 15 minutes as we take you around the world in the Elephant Cage.
Just listened to this today on the walk to school pick up. I am really very perturbed and rattled by these student protests. I think Netanyahu should have been gone months and months ago (before Oct 7th) and don't think his current course is doing anyone any favors, especially Palestinian citizens. AND these students screaming about how they support Hamas:
"Al-Qassam you make us proud! Take another soldier out!"
"We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!"
"Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!"
"Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!"
"It is right to rebel, Al-Qassam, give them hell!"
"It is right to rebel, Hamas give them hell!"
I just cannot get on board with that at all. Ever. They seem to have forgotten who funds Hamas and who actually started this current conflict and who continually leaves the negotiating table and who sits in their fancy pants digs in Qatar while their people suffer. It's ironic that many of them )mostly white) wear the keffiyeh which in any other context might be struck down by these same people as cultural appropriation. Sorry for the rant - I am just beyond annoyed. Also Claire you mentioned about Sudan. Anytime I have trued to engage someone about this using this (valid) point they immediately strike back saying that the US isn't funding the war in Sudan. I'd be shocked if that was actually true. I just don't think you can win with these people because the culture of the far left is very much you are either on the right side of history or you aren't. I believe George W Bush said something similar after 9/11 and that didn't end well.
I don’t read large US media enough to know if they employ a number of Arabic speakers, but there are enough well-educated Arab-speaking immigrants here that they shouldn’t have any trouble finding some. If you step on a university campus you’ll see Middle Eastern students without going out of your way to find them, and it isn’t unusual to see Middle Eastern names on a research paper in the news.
They might have trouble with Sudanese Arabic, and there seem to be a number of other languages with a non-negligible number of speakers.
Well, Johnson is showered with puff pieces but the idea was to hold up the military funding bill in the House to squeeze out border concessions. Lots of negotiations ensued, the administration and the R senators got a bill worked out to add to a draconian border security bill, and right when it was headed for the Senate, Trump blew it up. (He wanted to campaign on border security.) The R Senators ran away. That left Johnson with nothing to show for his trouble and it turned out the crazy caucus didn't to pass anything, but the R House conference is riddled with friends of Russia.
(A similar situation happened with the debt ceiling in 2011. The idea was to hold the threat of default on the national debt over Obama's head to get him to agree to drastic budget cuts that the Rs would then campaign against. There was a deal on table because the Obama econ team wanted to enact budget cuts, but John Boehner went back to the House with the deal they had demanded. The 2011 version of the House crazy caucus nixed the deal because it turned out what they House crazies wanted was to default on the entirety of the national debt because of the idiot theory that it would never be paid off. So there was no deal, there were no budget cuts and the US was in technical default for a few hours. The part the crazies didn't comprehend was that the linchpin of the wealth of the Republican donor class, banks, finance companies and the wealthy people who serve in the Senate & House are the almighty US Treasury instruments. They'd be shooting themselves in the head financially speaking. The current House crazies had their debt ceiling weapon taken from the by Kevin McCarthy, so they settled on shooting the Ukrainians in the head instead of themselves.)
At any rate, Johnson was fairly easily brought around to the idea of supporting the Ukrainians (that was the border/military aid bill that died) but he liked remaining Speaker. So nothing happened while he tried to appease the crazy caucus. The Dems set up a discharge petition which force a vote on the Senate aid bill if it got signatures from the majority of the House. D's only needed ten R votes to force a vote on the bill, and the Iranian attack on Israel made some R members ready to sign on, so the aid bill would be coming up. The other thing is that Johnson has a decent relationship with Dems, unlike McCarthy, so Johnson appears to have an ad hoc confidence & supply arrangement l(à la Westminster when there is minority PM) with Dems - if MTG pulls the trigger on Johnson, he will likely get support from the Dems - or the R conference will implode, so more R members will quit the House, and then there will be a Dem majority. Thus the military aid bill was going to come up & it was going to pass. Johnson had Hobson's choice - so he did the right thing.
Just listened to this today on the walk to school pick up. I am really very perturbed and rattled by these student protests. I think Netanyahu should have been gone months and months ago (before Oct 7th) and don't think his current course is doing anyone any favors, especially Palestinian citizens. AND these students screaming about how they support Hamas:
"Al-Qassam you make us proud! Take another soldier out!"
"We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!"
"Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!"
"Red, black, green, and white, we support Hamas’ fight!"
"It is right to rebel, Al-Qassam, give them hell!"
"It is right to rebel, Hamas give them hell!"
I just cannot get on board with that at all. Ever. They seem to have forgotten who funds Hamas and who actually started this current conflict and who continually leaves the negotiating table and who sits in their fancy pants digs in Qatar while their people suffer. It's ironic that many of them )mostly white) wear the keffiyeh which in any other context might be struck down by these same people as cultural appropriation. Sorry for the rant - I am just beyond annoyed. Also Claire you mentioned about Sudan. Anytime I have trued to engage someone about this using this (valid) point they immediately strike back saying that the US isn't funding the war in Sudan. I'd be shocked if that was actually true. I just don't think you can win with these people because the culture of the far left is very much you are either on the right side of history or you aren't. I believe George W Bush said something similar after 9/11 and that didn't end well.
I don’t read large US media enough to know if they employ a number of Arabic speakers, but there are enough well-educated Arab-speaking immigrants here that they shouldn’t have any trouble finding some. If you step on a university campus you’ll see Middle Eastern students without going out of your way to find them, and it isn’t unusual to see Middle Eastern names on a research paper in the news.
They might have trouble with Sudanese Arabic, and there seem to be a number of other languages with a non-negligible number of speakers.
Well, Johnson is showered with puff pieces but the idea was to hold up the military funding bill in the House to squeeze out border concessions. Lots of negotiations ensued, the administration and the R senators got a bill worked out to add to a draconian border security bill, and right when it was headed for the Senate, Trump blew it up. (He wanted to campaign on border security.) The R Senators ran away. That left Johnson with nothing to show for his trouble and it turned out the crazy caucus didn't to pass anything, but the R House conference is riddled with friends of Russia.
(A similar situation happened with the debt ceiling in 2011. The idea was to hold the threat of default on the national debt over Obama's head to get him to agree to drastic budget cuts that the Rs would then campaign against. There was a deal on table because the Obama econ team wanted to enact budget cuts, but John Boehner went back to the House with the deal they had demanded. The 2011 version of the House crazy caucus nixed the deal because it turned out what they House crazies wanted was to default on the entirety of the national debt because of the idiot theory that it would never be paid off. So there was no deal, there were no budget cuts and the US was in technical default for a few hours. The part the crazies didn't comprehend was that the linchpin of the wealth of the Republican donor class, banks, finance companies and the wealthy people who serve in the Senate & House are the almighty US Treasury instruments. They'd be shooting themselves in the head financially speaking. The current House crazies had their debt ceiling weapon taken from the by Kevin McCarthy, so they settled on shooting the Ukrainians in the head instead of themselves.)
At any rate, Johnson was fairly easily brought around to the idea of supporting the Ukrainians (that was the border/military aid bill that died) but he liked remaining Speaker. So nothing happened while he tried to appease the crazy caucus. The Dems set up a discharge petition which force a vote on the Senate aid bill if it got signatures from the majority of the House. D's only needed ten R votes to force a vote on the bill, and the Iranian attack on Israel made some R members ready to sign on, so the aid bill would be coming up. The other thing is that Johnson has a decent relationship with Dems, unlike McCarthy, so Johnson appears to have an ad hoc confidence & supply arrangement l(à la Westminster when there is minority PM) with Dems - if MTG pulls the trigger on Johnson, he will likely get support from the Dems - or the R conference will implode, so more R members will quit the House, and then there will be a Dem majority. Thus the military aid bill was going to come up & it was going to pass. Johnson had Hobson's choice - so he did the right thing.
elm
apologies for length
Bandwidth.
You hit the nail on the head.
Ukraine
Gaza
Trump
Our border
Antisemitism
Gun control bills in Colorado
Inflation
National debt
Armenia
I could go on, but my well of outrage is running dry.
The villains know that this is the best time to push.
And the media directs our attention towards their pet peeves - does anybody think that how Trump paid off Stormy Daniels ranks up there?
A few weeks ago Claire, you found yourself exhausted.
We don't fight as hard as you so we don't suffer as much.
But I find myself turning away from tragedies because I am out of empathy.
Don't have an answer.