Zorral

And this is how They get 'er done, over and over and over -- this is the 34th mass murder this year. And They keep asking, how does this happen? This is how it's done: Uvalde: AR-15 Buffalo: AR-15 Boulder: AR-15 Orlando: AR-15 Parkland: AR-15 Nashville: AR-15 Las Vegas: AR-15 Sandy Hook: AR-15 San Bernardino: AR-15 Midland/Odessa: AR-15 Colorado Springs: AR-15 Poway Synagogue: AR-15 Tree of Life Synagogue: AR-15 Lewiston: AR-15 Ex-military They say, with 'mental health issues.' The evidence is he was a magrat, racist, election denying, shitbag -- all of which are a mental health issue. This is what we get for allowing FOX to blast everywhere on military bases and centers for how many fucking decades now? Maine voters are adamantly anti-any regulation or law over guns -- at least the majority are.

What They've love been relentlessly working for, for at least 2000 -- the end of democracy, the end of racial and gender justice and equality, any curbs or demands of reasonable responsibility for the obscenely wealthy and the great joy of exercising cruelty upon whomever whenever without repercussion. Where have you been all this time for pete's sake?

Or why food, water, medical assistance and fuel are being held off, either -- or why the routes and access for this assistance is being bombed and blockaded. So here the world is again, with the additional global climate catastrophes as well -- The Second Coming BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Why hasn’t Israel’s Gaza offensive started yet? WaPo gift link: https://wapo.st/3Q9RHAJ

The new speaker of the House is in a 'covenant marriage,' a religiously-influenced legal agreement that makes it harder to get a divorce https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-johnson-covenant-marriage-definition-divorce-speaker-house-2023-10 ~~~~~~~~~~ Additionally -- Senate committee finds Clarence Thomas committed six-figure tax fraud https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/politics/clarence-thomas-rv-loan-senate-inquiry.html

Even the relentlessly smooth even the rockiest, sharpest evils over in soothing tone -- even all the programs on NPR today are filled with voices criticizing Israel and Egypt, demanding relief and aid, power, and hundreds and hundreds of trucks per day into Gaza. Some of these voices, particularly those who work with humanitarian and medical aid groups, are barely able to hold back their weeping of desperation.

Richard III did have the greatest publicist of all time, Shakespeare. He was also the last Plantagenet, the dynasty that had held the crown, by one rose or another, since Henry II. The Battle of Bosworth Field was not going to be forgotten, particularly by Tudors (whom Shakespeare did have to flatter, after all). Then the mystery of the Princes, and disappearance of his own corpse ... juicy stuff.

We have noticed the Israeli people/voters have been putting a great deal of pressure on Bibi's cohort corrupt government for a very long time concerning these issues and so many others, yet they haven't been able to unseat him/Them. Why then are the immiserated, far less autonomous, equipped, etc. Palestinian women and children supposed to have unseated Hamas, and are blamed and berated for not doing so?

You mean, like, o say, the Cubans who rose up to defeat the Revolutionary Army when it entered Havana? O wait, those Revolution non-supporters ran away to the USA instead. Of course, an enormous numbers of Cubans did support that Revolution. Of course, that Revolution is over. As is that government. And now the Cubans are entirely immiserated and are focused on day-to-day survival. So they aren't rising up now either, but, you know, leaving. In droves.

It doesn't care about the hostages either, the voters' families believe. One of our friends there put this up, with photos, on FB. https://www.facebook.com/nili.belkind/posts/pfbid038GMZrTX6DYP6d3kC2JvLL6aPLHwEDKeeVGsSR8FRTnU9KQnWPzaCWpVz8mgeHU6Tl? https://www.facebook.com/nili.belkind/posts/pfbid0i8HMmUiXx1if6RK7Sh6g5Ki8nzFgxMnh6LAbod5k8j7q4uDeS7fFkzYrKEqCSt73l?

CAUTIONS ON ABC’S HUGE MARK MEADOWS SCOOP https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/10/24/cautions-on-abcs-huge-mark-meadows-scoop/

Judge busts Trump lawyers for wanting COVID trial delay but refusing to wear masks https://www.rawstory.com/trump-new-york-trial-cohen/

In the Jonathan Katz piece above, he says when he was an Israel-based journalist, way back already, the IDF always claimed civilian deaths, including those of infants and children, were because they were used as human shields -- when he witnessed quite otherwise. I highly suggest all of us read this piece by someone who has lived all this, personally, as a person of the heritage for whom this all is very personal.

Yikes! It has entered my mind, that if the fascists can't even select a Speaker, They are going to eventually force Biden into using the Emergency Powers Act, that thing the turd desperately wanted for himself.

I do have multiple vision problems, but this occasion, when reading a story in The Hill on Cohen's testimony, I'm not so sure. When I read "Michael Cohen’s long-awaited testimony in the New York attorney general’s sprawling civil fraud case against former President Trump began Tuesday afternoon, when he described ballooning Trump’s assets at the request of his former employer," my eyes saw "his former master"! It isn't difficult to see his minions as in a slave-master relationship, as scared of him as so many seem to be. And that he and his minions relentlessly threaten violence unto death on those who don't fall in line.

The Gop Death Musical Chairs Games continue: House speaker vote live updates: Emmer drops out, 2 candidates back in "We're in a very bad place," former Speaker Kevin McCarthy told ABC News https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/House-speaker-vote-live-updates/?id=104039543

Here are one or two details: Ex-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows granted immunity, tells special counsel he warned Trump about 2020 claims: Sources Meadows said Trump was "dishonest" on election night, according to sources. https://abcnews.go.com/US/chief-staff-mark-meadows-granted-immunity-tells-special/story?

Out of Zionism JONATHAN M. KATZ OCT 24, 2023 Gift Link to free article https://theracket.news/p/out-of-zionism?

It's obvious.

You forget the months of covid lockdown -- no cars, no planes, no trains, nothing. Everything was shut down, from restaurants to offices to churches and synogogues (which the Orthodox, Hassids, etc. screamed bloody murder about -- including that this wasn't their country and they didn't to obey its rules -- and disobeyed and lost many many many to death from covid). Only food and drugstores and health related venues were open. Also serious curfew. People don't seem to realize the first year of covid was very different here than in most parts of the country.

I knew better than to watch it. The things that have been done to that woman which she never ever earned or deserved.

My mom and community sneered at Crisco for pie crusts. I also remember when it started to be in the news that Crisco was bad for arteries, etc., and she and her friends trying to figure out what to do. As for me, I began using olive oil as soon as I left home. I haven't given up butter, not even now, but there have been literally years in which I never used it or consumed it at all, not even for toast or anything. Asap I navigated to the Mediterranean diet, which then went even further, w/o meat, for whole long spans too. I AM NOT A VEGETARIAN. Or a Vegan. We just have gone through long stretches, not all at the same time, of not eating certain things, including even bread and cheese, which I, at least adore. For...reasons. Two - three times a week, salad is our main meal (unless the weather is in a very cold streak). Since my pre-teen years, sugar*/desserts seem to have left my diet, more or less, which isn't to say, when presented with a great one, I'm not there! This seems to have worked well for us, so far anyway. No problems with HBP, cholesterol, etc. Or, you know, just luck of the genetic draw. * Considering our wine consumption though, this doesn't mean much, does it?

That's exactly what I thought at the time.. Have no idea what it was -- probably a drill/exercise, from the airforce base in NJ? Or from, I dunno, a carrier? (Do we still have those?) Not the start of a mission, but perhaps a signal to the members of both sides (and their allies) who are such a large portion of our regional populations? I sharply recalled the son of a New Mexico Chicano friend, who had just graduated from the airforce academy, with both bombers and surveillance. He had just been deployed to the NJ airforce base when 9/11 happened. He'd been flying a practice mission over Spain, when it came through his coms, what had happened, and was told not to return to the US. "Suddenly, just like that, my job became real." We saw him a few times after we started bombing. He had become an entirely different person, and he was miserable, depressed, all the light, of which C had so much, had left him. We met him one night with a colleague, a young woman, who oversaw the drone bombing missions, i.e. delivering death to men, women and children, from a bunker in the US. They both were just shot.

This afternoon, no warning, formations of fighter jets flew over us. The noise was deafening. I was out when this took place. It was a strange sight: those jets, jetting over the western part of the city, seemingly following the Hudson River Tide race, followed, o so slowly it seemed in comparison, by a couple of teeny seeming, helicopters, all against a beautiful, pristine, peaceful blue sky.

Considering how those who are able to wage their war from the air, not on the ground, not putting their own asses on the line, and how this changes the 'rules of war' and what is a war crime and what is not. This reminded me of this weekend's email from the Israeli friend who stated that the IDF had come to believe in their air superiority to such a degree that the barracks soldiers didn't even bother to care for and maintain -- or even take with them -- their hand weapons, and were thus caught so back-footed two Saturdays ago. America’s War on Syrian Civilians Bombs killed thousands of civilians in Raqqa, and the city was decimated. U.S. lawyers insist that war crimes weren’t committed, but it’s time to look honestly at the devastation that accompanies “targeted” air strikes. By Anand Gopal As mentioned above, as can be seen here, in case that was neccesary, which seems unlikely, we all have been debating and talking and discussing these matters, particularly within the context of the Middle East, for a century at least. Yet nothing changes. December 14, 2020 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians