Many-Faced Votary

If this is what you meant by your previous statement, I misunderstood you and apologize. I agree with you completely. Any remotely left-wing economic policy has to be framed in a certain way because the right-wing sets the narrative -- and that is not unique to the UK by any means. Well, to be clear, I am not a huge fan of Jeremy Corbyn for exactly the criticisms you have. In fact, I could not truly be a supporter, as I do not live in the UK; my understanding of its politics comes from how widely I read on the subject, and my close tracking of any political news. But if I had voted in the elections under Corbyn's leadership, I would have been a strategic supporter of his platform, not the man himself. I believe we simply disagree on matter of degree as to how prominent his personal failings were, and how much of what he faced was in fact unique to him. I doubt we will ultimately agree, partly because some of this remains speculative as information continues coming to light, and partly because we are likely to have different interpretations of some events. Having said that, I respect your views and fully understand them, and appreciate your explanation. (And apologies for the unnecessary tangent about Foot. )

Protest votes against Jim Jordan in a secret ballot exclusive to the Republican conference are not remotely comparable to votes on the House floor. Neither is it politically possible for a no-name low-profile Congressperson to receive the Speakership or even a nomination for it, in any realistic circumstance. Most importantly, there is not a single Republican who would make concessions to Democrats. Even thirty years ago, before Newt Gingrich transformed the House into the broken and bitterly partisan institution it is today, most concessions were made by Democrats to Republicans. (In House and Senate alike, though the House hadn't had a Republican majority for 40 years until 1994.)

Oh? There are numerous criticisms I have of Jeremy Corbyn, but refusing to distinguish Labour in economic policy and taxation is not one of them. I do want to push back on Corbyn being the architect of his own demise. The worst he did was appear to be a poor leader of his own party, and that was in no small part because the conservative Labour establishment was openly opposing him. To claim that he is to be held responsible is to completely ignore the sustained attacks from the right flank of Labour, never mind the stunningly corrupt betrayals they engaged in; the endless negative media coverage, which has increasingly been setting the bounds for how far Labour is allowed to go in the past few decades; and his bad luck with respect to Brexit. Not only in how it dominated the polity in 2019, which would have doomed Labour regardless of who was at the helm, but also because the party was necessarily embracing change, which was conceptually tainted by the referendum for many types of voters. I would pin this on a reactionary media apparatus owned by right-wing billionaires, and refrain from implying that the right way is the right way for Labour. Because of the UK's winner-take-all electoral system, Labour must differentiate itself from the Tories, since they are the only other party that might possibly form the bulk of coalitions. If they do not, then what purpose would voters have in even considering them? Failing to stand up to conservative Labour MPs is no less suicidal. Ceding to them all the power has helped impel resounding defeats, but more than that, has consistently stopped left-wing reformation and energy within the party before it gets a real chance. (It is also counterproductive, since we saw Corbyn be elected as Labour leader in part due to his resistant response to David Cameron's evil welfare reform bill and tax credits, as opposed to tepid abstention.) I agree completely! You recognize Michael Foot's personal qualities and accomplishments, but I also want to illustrate the context for his defeat. He was very much a victim of circumstance. Jeremy Corbyn was as well, in turn Jim Callaghan lost his no-confidence vote after the Winter of Discontent by one single vote in May of 1979, which all but destined Labour to defeat. Had the party held on until October elections, history would likely have turned out very differently. I could repeat the normal media coverage that left-wing politicians receive ad nauseam, but it was especially prominent with Foot, whose very appearance and personality were savagely attacked in the press. Perhaps the most prominent contributor to Labour's 1983 defeat was the betrayal that formed the SDP, which wasted no time in attacking Labour at every time and giving the Conservatives the best possible gift. So, too, did the Falklands War and eventual destruction of the military dictatorship in Argentina, even though it was Foot who held the moral high ground and who issued the best speeches about the Argentine invasion.

2.17 million was the estimate from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in July of last year.

It never has been effective. Democrats who are indistinguishable from Republicans will always lose to the real thing, or in the few cases where that is close to impossible, barely win and lack a mandate to govern. The strategy is commonplace because the Democratic Party as it exists today is a right-wing party. Center-right, yes; perhaps approaching the center, as of Senator Sanders' push to the left in 2020... But fundamentally conservative. The further right Democrats go, the more they lose. Yet they continue to spend all their resources and efforts punching to the left in primaries, and even doing the same in general elections instead of placing themselves in opposition to the GOP. I will quote President Truman here:

An interesting conclusion that can be derived only if you ignore the entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, disregard Israel's brutal response to the Great March of Return which granted Palestine no relief or support internationally, and blame Palestinians for suffering apartheid under Israel. Israel's apartheid against Palestinians - Amnesty International More false equivalences and whataboutisms. Just as no one here has said anything other than Hamas is a terrorist organization that must be wiped out, at no point has anyone said that Israel does not have the right to defend itself. If, to you, Israel "defending itself" means giving it carte blanche to commit war crimes and excusing its brutal apartheid regime, maybe you should reconsider the lens with which you are examining the matter.

At the rate Republicans are moving, the "baggage" he's referring to probably means "not being racist and anti-Semitic enough."

The power of the press Rupert Murdoch. A majority supported the referendum before the sustained and vile "no" campaign. Unfortunately, this is the result that was to be expected, but it's heart-wrenching even so. What a horrific message this sends to and about Aboriginal Australians.

Melisandre may be highly skilled at reading the flames, but even she is not infallible; and we already know that her interpretation of what she reads can be very far off the mark. "Fire is a living thing," the red woman told him, when he asked her to teach him how to see the future in the flames. "It is always moving, always changing . . . like a book whose letters dance and shift even as you try to read them. It takes years of training to see the shapes beyond the flames, and more years still to learn to tell the shapes of what will be from what may be or what was. Even then it comes hard, hard. You do not understand that, you men of the sunset lands." Davos asked her then how it was that Ser Axell had learned the trick of it so quickly, but to that she only smiled enigmatically and said, "Any cat may stare into a fire and see red mice at play." Davos VI, A Storm of Swords Have hope! Ser Pounce will rise again.

Of course. Nevertheless, I think it's reductive to say that after we had Jeremy Corbyn, whom Labour undermined at every turn and capitulated to the Conservatives in order to remove (insanity); when Starmer models himself after Tony Blair, which is horrifying even before one realizes that it means embracing the Tory austerity that led to the severe impact of the pandemic; and when one acknowledges that he is in fact the present-day Neil Kinnock, complete with his top priority being taking out the left wing of Labour. (Kinnock lost horribly and himself grew to criticize New Labour, by the way, a fact that Starmer would love to ignore.)

One has to believe that they will reconsider the person who already successfully became Speaker, as he might well be the only one who has any path towards 217 votes. McCarthy has already implied that he wouldn't mind being in the running, and he "only" lost about eight votes from his conference, as compared to the others' numerous more. That said, he has already made it clear that he will not deal with Democrats, and thus has no intention of governing or of rejecting Trump or keeping his far-right flank in line. All Democrats voted against the absurd rules package that enabled any one member of his conference to move to vacate the chair and led to his downfall, and all but one Republican voted in favor of it. I don't believe the GOP sees a political detriment in causing a shutdown. They certainly see no responsibility in avoiding one, or in governing in general, or in sustaining people's livelihoods, or in maintaining the country's credit rating, of course. Trump has openly commanded them to cause a shutdown and blame Biden for it, and it was an explicit push to operate as normal for House Republicans. Even with a Speaker, I tend to believe that we would have seen a shutdown. (Especially McCarthy, who is bitterly partisan and beholden to the far right, and utterly spineless.) Without a Speaker, the country and the world can see with their own eyes that the Republican Party is wholly at fault, regardless of the media coverage working overtime to normalize and excuse them. Even if it will not matter in the slightest for Republican voters, it might make a difference for the few swing voters who still exist.

It's a softer term for "Holocaust denier," sometimes used to refer to those who distort or downplay the unspeakable tragedy without fully denying that it happened. As for Daeron's post, I believe he's referring to Netanyahu cynically embracing the Central European far right in order to gain their support and crush the idea of an independent Palestinian state, and in doing so, offering cover to Holocaust revisionism and accepting anti-Semitism. Here is an article about that.

There is no easy answer. The term "Jew" has unfortunately been coopted by anti-Semites, particularly in recent decades, and effectively made into a slur. Yet, should we allow hate groups to lay claim to terminology? Jewish people seem to be split on whether or not, both in studies that have been done and anecdotally speaking, The safer method is to avoid using the term, and we can see that play out in media and speeches. But even in doing that, many Jewish people and experts who take no issue with the term itself might say that is ceding it to the bigots.

What do you mean? Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky. Melisandre I, A Dance with Dragons The king seemed happier than Kevan Lannister had seen him in a long time. From soup to sweet Tommen burbled about the exploits of his kittens, whilst feeding them morsels of pike off his own royal plate. "The bad cat was outside my window last night," he informed Kevan at one point, "but Ser Pounce hissed at him and he ran off across the roofs." Epilogue, A Dance with Dragons

Jim Jordan makes second bid for House speaker : NPR "The guy who won more conference votes than me realized that he doesn't have nearly enough votes to win on the House floor... So surely I do!" Absolute clowns. If only the pre-Tea Party and pre-MAGA Republican establishment hadn't been historically competent in their evil; we could be watching the GOP and everything they stand for finally implode in spectacular and long overdue fashion.