Lonestarblue
Lonestarblue's JournalRevealed: the extremist Maga lobbying group driving far-right Republican policies
We are up against well-funded, powerful groups trying to turn democracy into autocracy and theocracy. I don’t know whether Democrats are doing anything to counter these groups, but whatever it is doesn’t seem to be working.
“A powerful, rightwing lobbying group is promoting a hard-right policy agenda and cementing ties between the Republican party and the far right at at least 21 events involving senators, members of Congress, and both junior and senior political aides, documents obtained by the Guardian show.
The documents offer previously unreported details of Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) trainings and “bootcamps” for congressional staff at CPI’s sprawling Maryland ranch, and lavish, star-studded retreats for members of Congress – mostly members of the far-right Freedom caucus – at a string of Florida resorts.
They also show how CPI, widely described as the “nerve center of the Maga movement”, enlisted its own network of affiliated organizations along with like-minded far-right organizations – some classified as hate groups by experts – as well as individual extremists to promote anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-vaccine policies, along with others premised on the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/23/conservative-partnership-institute-republican-laws
The View Within Israel Turns Bleak
The NYT has recently published a couple of articles about the right-wing takeover of Israel, essentially by the equivalent of our MAGA crowd. For a long time, I believed that the right-wing settlers were the minority in Israel. I was wrong. They and their philosophy of genocide for all Palestinians are now the majority. I know my views matter little to anyone but me, and I have no say in what happens in Israel or the US other than my vote, yet I find this change in Israel so very disturbing. It is as if the Proud Boys were now ruling the United States. How do we reckon with support of Israel as a state when that support funds the type of right-wing government that most of us abhor? A government and a population determined to exact death and destruction for another people?
“America’s romantic mythology and wishful thinking about Israel encourage a tendency to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the main cause of the ruthlessness in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 people. The unpopular, scandal-ridden premier makes a convincing ogre in an oversimplified story.
But Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, the creeping famine, the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods — this, polling suggests, is the war the Israeli public wanted. A January survey found that 94 percent of Jewish Israelis said the force being used against Gaza was appropriate or even insufficient. In February, a poll found that most Jewish Israelis opposed food and medicine getting into Gaza. It was not Mr. Netanyahu alone but also his war cabinet members (including Benny Gantz, often invoked as the moderate alternative to Mr. Netanyahu) who unanimously rejected a Hamas deal to free Israeli hostages and, instead, began an assault on the city of Rafah, overflowing with displaced civilians.”
Snip
“Israel has hardened, and the signs of it are in plain view. Dehumanizing language and promises of annihilation from military and political leaders. Polls that found wide support for the policies that have wreaked devastation and starvation in Gaza. Selfies of Israeli soldiers preening proudly in bomb-crushed Palestinian neighborhoods. A crackdown on even mild forms of dissent among Israelis. The Israeli left — the factions that criticize the occupation of Palestinian lands and favor negotiations and peace instead — is now a withered stump of a once-vigorous movement. In recent years, the attitudes of many Israelis toward the “Palestinian problem” have ranged largely from detached fatigue to the hard-line belief that driving Palestinians off their land and into submission is God’s work.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/opinion/israeli-palestine-psyche.html?unlocked_article_code=1.s00.g2Ab.d14WvLvkSNHK&smid=url-share
Israel's offensive is destroying Gaza's ability to grow its own food
This is what the IDF is doing to Gaza for no reason other than trying to starve the population and make Gaza unlivable for Palestinians. The before and after photos in the article make that clear. I doubt any Hams fighters were hiding in the lettuce.
“Even before the war, most of Gaza’s fruits and vegetables were imported into the enclave. Gaza’s ability to feed its people has been limited for nearly two decades because of a punishing blockade by Israel and Egypt, which was put in place after Hamas seized power in 2007. Israel controlled all but one border crossing; limited electricity and water supplies; barred access to deeper fishing waters offshore; and restricted the import and export of goods.
As a result, agriculture and fishing were often small-scale but essential undertakings. Gazans farmed and fished where they could, building greenhouses on rooftops, harvesting rainwater for irrigation and jury-rigging boats to run on cooking oil or car engines. Small olive groves and fruit trees dotted the landscape.”
Under international humanitarian law, civilians caught in conflict cannot be denied access to food or water by warring parties, legal experts said. This also extends to targeting food infrastructure.
“With very narrow exceptions, it’s prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless those objects,” said Tom Dannenbaum, an associate professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.“
https://wapo.st/3QsXUJ7
Almost 50,000 Wisconsin voters just told Biden to stop the Gaza war. Will he listen?
Ignoring the message that swing voters are sending is dangerous. US policy for arming Israel must change. I don’t think these voters are protesting the existence of Israel. They are protesting Israel’s decimation of Gaza and its murders and deliberate starvation of innocent Palestinians, and now humanitarian aid workers, and the US role enabling Israel. Not a good look. I hope Biden’s advisers are paying attention.
We all know that Trump would be a worse alternative since he would just tell Bibi to do whatever he wants so long as he reserved waterfront property in Gaza for a Trump development. But I think these protest voters are registering their belief that our policy is wrong and needs to change. How that will play out in November is anyone’s guess at this moment, but if nothing changes and Israel has murdered many thousands more Palestinians, the result for Biden will be a lot of no votes.
Edited to add link and info:
“This Tuesday, more than 48,000 people defied cold, rainy weather to register protest votes in the Wisconsin Democratic primary against the Biden administration’s unrelenting support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by an excruciatingly narrow margin of victory of about 21,000 votes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Wisconsin’s “uninstructed” vote tally – the equivalent of the “uncommitted” campaign that Arab Americans launched in Michigan – was 48,093 votes, more than twice Biden’s 2020 win margin.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/wisconsin-democrats-biden-stop-gaza-war
Workers were on break in cars when Baltimore bridge collapsed, wife of survivor says
Most of this information has already been posted here, but I’m posting this article for its information on an organization that is raising money for the families of the victims in case anyone wants to donate.
“A crowdfunding campaign set up by the Latino Racial Justice Circle, a non-profit organization serving the Baltimore area, had raised nearly $100,000 for the victims’ families as of Wednesday afternoon. The funds will be distributed across the families and will be put towards basic needs including rent, groceries and utilities, the campaign said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/28/baltimore-bridge-collapse-workers
From New England to Notre-Dame, a U.S. Carpenter Tends to a French Icon
We can all use a happy story, and this one about a carpenter from New England who is helping to restore Notre Dame cathedral is such a story. It’s well worth reading the whole article about artisans who are using ancient wood-working techniques to be faithful to the restoration.
Free link
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/world/europe/notre-dame-restoration-carpenter.html?ugrp=m&unlocked_article_code=1.gU0.vmvQ.FzuyxjQ4h1wF&smid=url-share
The next Clarence Thomas? Abortion pill case spotlights rightwing judge and his wife's shadowy connections
Packing the courts with right-wing extremists is just one weapon in the Republican war on freedom in the US. Evidently the Ginni-Clarence corruption duo on the Supreme Court was a model to pack federal courts with the same. There are many people like the Hos working to impose right-wing extremist theocracy on this country, and most of them are unknown to voters who just vote for Republicans based on the lies they tell, not the laws they pass to hurt people and take away freedoms. Unfortunately, Republicans have done a far better job of setting up media as their propaganda machines, and too many voters do not bother learning about real issues. I truly fear for the future of this country..
“The Hos are just one of the increasing number of power couples in the conservative movement in which the wife of a prominent official works in the background, laying the groundwork for Republican policies that their spouses will rule upon or legislate. In the mifepristone case, the wife of the Missouri senator Josh Hawley, Erin, is the attorney of record for Alliance Defending Freedom and argued the case before Ho. The supreme court justice Clarence Thomas rankled the legal world when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving questions about the January 6 insurrection and the “Stop The Steal” campaign to which his wife, Ginni Thomas, was closely tied.
For Aronson, these are examples of “serious concerns about what is becoming an apparent pattern of coordinated activity by some of these couples in this extremist movement, including the Thomases, Hawleys and Hos”.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/judge-james-ho-wife-mifepristone-abortion-pill
Revealed: documents shed light on shadowy US far-right fraternal order
A British-owned news site does a far better job of reporting on the organizations that secretly work to undo our democracy. US media rarely reports on any right-wing organizations, though they often report Republicans lies about the Soros Foundation. These organizations are actively working to turn the US into a theocracy. One would think that overturning democratic government for theocratic rule would be of some interest to our media.
“New documents have shed light on the origins and inner workings of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including methods for judging the beliefs of potential members on topics such as Christian nationalism, and indications that its founders sought inspiration in an apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond.
They also show that Boise State University Professor and Claremont thinktank scholar Scott Yenor tried to coordinate SACR’s activities with other initiatives, including an open letter on “Christian marriage”.
One expert says that one of the new documents – some previously reported in Talking Points Memo – use biblical references that suggest a preparedness for violent struggle against the current “regime”.
The SACR is a secretive far-right men-only organization with an emphasis on Christian nationalism and a desire to open branches across the US.“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/far-right-fraternal-order-sacr
Missouri law bars divorce during pregnancy - even in cases of violence
How long before extremist Republicans ban divorce for any reason in their war to force women to live by their religious views of patriarchal control? These laws jeopardize women’s lives but Republicans just do not care.
“Under a Missouri statute that has recently gained nationwide attention, every petitioner for divorce is required to disclose their pregnancy status. In practice, experts say, those who are pregnant are barred from legally dissolving their marriage. “The application [of the law] is an outright ban,” said Danielle Drake, attorney at Parks & Drake. When Drake learned her then husband was having an affair, her own divorce stalled because she was pregnant. Two other states have similar laws: Texas and Arkansas.
…
“In Missouri, homicide was the third leading cause of deaths in connection with pregnancy between 2018–2022, the majority (75%) of which occurred among Black women, according to a 2023 report by the Missouri department of health and senior services, which examines maternal mortality data. In every case, the perpetrator was a current or former partner. And in 2022, 23,252 individuals in the state received services after reporting domestic violence, according to the latest reporting from Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence, which compiles data from direct service providers in the state.“
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/15/missouri-law-divorce-pregnancy-violence-abortion
The 10-Year-Old Boy Who Has Become the Face of Starvation in Gaza
The photo at the top of this article of a starved child is what Israel is turning innocent Gazans into, not because they are eradicating Hamas but because they are eradicating as many Palestinians as possible. This war is shameful and has not served any purpose for months. Israel has retaliated beyond reason for October 7. Israelis are now doing to Palestinians what was done to them in WWII. Genocide by starvation is still genocide.
“ It is all too easy to trace the skull beneath the Gazan boy’s face, the pallid skin stretching tight over every curve of bone and sagging with every hollow. His chin juts with a disturbing sharpness. His flesh has shrunk and shriveled, life reduced to little more than a thin mask over an imminent death.
In one of a series of news photographs of the boy, Yazan Kafarneh, taken with his family’s permission as he struggled for his life, his long-lashed eyes stare out, unfocused. In that widely shared picture online, his right hand, bandaged over an intravenous line, contracts in on itself at an awkward angle, a visible marker of his cerebral palsy.
He was 10, but in photographs from his last days at a clinic in southern Gaza, he looks both small for his age and at the same time ancient. By Monday, Yazan was dead.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/world/middleeast/yazan-kafarneh-gaza-starvation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bU0.sObf.Ss_IKoF_27KX&smid=url-share
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