How much health care will $74 billion buy? That's $220 per American, which is about a third of what I pay EVERY MONTH for shitty health "insurance." It's a rounding error in our "health care" system.

So, Putin gets to win because we have bigger fish to fry? Isolationism, the eternal refrain.

@2 Genocide is becoming as overused as all the other progressive buzzwords rendering it meaningless. The irony here is they are defending a political organization whose primary platform is actual genocide by claiming any response is "genocide". The daily irrationality is something to behold.

"Man, fuck this.... We should be spending $74 billion on problems in this country"

This is the Trump campaign's position. It's literally the "America First" platform.

@3 and @5 are correct.

Democracy ain't cheap, y'all

Yes, "genocide" is an overused word. Point taken. But when you tell civilians to evacuate to a specific area which you explicitly call a "safe zone" and then BOMB THAT SAME AREA, that is certainly an action consistent with a genocidal program. For now I won't go any farther than that.

Here's what I will say: With his embrace of Netanyahu's far-right governing coalition and $10B in new military aid, Biden is empowering the worst people in Israel and ensuring the U.S. will have its name front and center on whatever that vicious, hateful, racist bunch decides to do. I don't see that ending well for anyone.

Someone famous once said, “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.”

The person and the time? Neville Chamberlain, 1938, just before he gave Hitler Czechoslovakia. How did that turn out for everyone? You don’t think history can repeat?

@4, @9, @11: Hamas’ entire modus operandi was designed with the intent of maximizing the number of civilian casualties suffered on both sides. The Stranger’s absolute refusal to admit this does indeed count as a pro-Hamas position.

Yes, the IDF’s military strikes in Gaza kill civilians, just as any military operation in a densely-populated area always will. And yes, American military aid to Israel makes us complicit in those civilian deaths. Constantly repeating those true statements, with zero recognition this rewards and strengthens Hamas’ terror tactics, makes the Stranger complicit in spreading pro-terrorist propaganda.

@7: ‘But when you tell civilians to evacuate to a specific area which you explicitly call a "safe zone" and then BOMB THAT SAME AREA, that is certainly an action consistent with a genocidal program.’

Sadly, it’s consistent with any heavy military operation in a populated area, no matter what the intent.

“Biden is empowering the worst people in Israel and ensuring the U.S. will have its name front and center on whatever that vicious, hateful, racist bunch decides to do. I don't see that ending well for anyone.”

Spot on, and that’s the situation a half-century’s worth of failed diplomacy gets us. There’s simply no way for anyone to exit this mess cleanly, quickly, or easily, no matter how many times the Stranger demands we reward terrorists with a cease-fire.

near as I can figure, the couple who drove away from golden gardens tracked their stolen car there & confronted the thieves. The thieves started shooting, the couple shot back, killed the older thief and wounded the younger thief. Wounded, they tried to drive themselves to the hospital but gave up and called 911. treated and released.

one of the city's most popular parks. pew pew pew america.

@7 what you describe is a horrible tragedy of war but it is not genocide. Per Webster's "Genocide is the killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group". Israel has never taken any action which indicates their aim is to destroy all Palestinians. They have repeatedly targeted Hamas and Hamas alone. Unfortunately civilians have been killed as a result of Hamas deliberately embedding themself amongst civilian populations and using them as human shields. There are no safe zones in Gaza because the minute Israel announces one that is exactly where Hamas is going to set up shop. This is terrible and a truly reprehensible thing and you can mourn these deaths as unnecessary but in no way does it constitute genocide. Words matter and labeling Israels actions as genocide is simply a lazy way to get misinformed people to condemn Israel because we all know genocide is bad. The same can be said for the use of "apartheid" to describe Gaza, these words are deliberately inflammatory and aimed at low information people to get them to sympathize with terrorists who are the root cause of the misery and death in Gaza.

@16,

@14 isn't new, that's Neal Frothingham, aka faxthatsupportHISpoints. Report his comments for banning. He's been given literally dozens and dozens of chances to post here and not be an asshole and he's failed every single time.

@21 Thanks for the reminder. doing the same.

funny how "we can't keep throwing money at the problem" is never uttered when it's time for war funding

thousands of years of bullshit thousands of miles away, but sure, a few more hundred billion of us taxpayer dollars and we'll have it solved

@24: Seattle has been told repeatedly to reform the way it spends money addressing homelessness. Specifically, these studies have told Seattle to reduce the number of organizations eligible for receiving city funds, by concentrating funding into those organizations which have performed the best.

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HomelessInvestmentAnalysis.pdf

https://govlab.hks.harvard.edu/files/govlabs/files/seattle_homelessness_project_feature.pdf?m=1548707682

https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/future-lab-report.pdf

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Meeting%20societys%20expectations/Booming%20cities%20unintended%20consequences/Booming-cities-unintended-consequences.pdf

Seattle continues funding underperforming organizations, and now homeless persons die of addictions on the streets. So there’s another topic where throwing money at the problem remains in full fashion.

@9 Yes, if it's possible, now or in the future, to bring Hamas leaders before an international tribunal, I totally support doing so. They deserve to rot in prison forever. Hope that helps.

@12 True. No one will benefit more from a full-scale invasion of Gaza than Iran. That all by itself is a compelling reason for Israel not to launch one. Thomas Friedman at the NY Times (who I've disagreed with plenty over the years) has been doing a good job of explaining why this is the case. I highly recommend his last few columns.

@19 I didn't say Israel's evacuation bait-and-switch was genocide, per se. I said it was consistent with a genocidal program. It's not controversial to say Israel has engaged in a long-term (albeit fitful) effort to displace as many Palestinians from the occupied territories as possible. Whether that constitutes "slow-motion genocide" is a debatable point, one I won't take sides on right now. But I do think that telling north Gazans to abandon their homes and move south to "safety" where in reality they had no safe place to go was an act of deliberate, vengeful cruelty with no discernible strategic purpose. Hamas, regardless of its motive for doing so, was factually correct to tell them they might as well stay put and hunker down.

That's all from me this week. Last word is yours.

“Divide and Rule”
How Israel Helped Start Hamas
to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is urging Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where the death toll from Israel’s two-week bombardment has topped 4,100. Israel says a ground invasion may be imminent.

“This isn’t an effort to try to quell, to destroy Hamas specifically,” says Tareq Baconi, Palestinian analyst and author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. “This is an effort to pursue an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Gaza Strip and beyond the Gaza Strip, as we see the violence rising in the West Bank.”

Baconi lays out Israel’s history of enabling Hamas while designating them as terrorists in order to maintain tight control over Gaza. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,400, Baconi says, “that equilibrium has now shattered.”

What we’re seeing happening at the moment is that humanitarian aid is being politicized, that humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza is linked to political goals.

And any form of effort to try to deescalate is being blocked by the U.S. The fact that the U.S. vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution yesterday is an indication of its willingness to allow Israel to continue both its bombardment of the Gaza Strip as well as the strangulation of Gaza’s civilian population through the blocking of entry of humanitarian aid.

tonnes More on the Ongoing Massacre
of Human Beings by Israel's
nuts & yahoos:

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped

this is NOT gonna
look Good on
your Resume
Smokin'
Joe.:

there's already
too Many focused
on your Age and I gotta
say, you seem to've Lost a step*
or two, Lately. it's a shitty, Tough Job

*is it Allowed here
to be critical of
Smokin' Joe?

or does the Slightest
criticism Tank his
Chances & Hand
the Wole thing
over to trumpy
& Pooty?

"I love the exact science of weather prediction." While I tend to love Nathalie and her takes, this all to common refrain of decrying answers expressed in a range of probabilities, especially when usably simplified models of exceedingly complex systems is involved, is part of why the public discourse tends to be so silly.

"the
public
discourse
tends to be so silly."

it
beats a
shootout at
the OK Corral

donnit?

hands
Down
baby.

@17

There are terrosits on both sides- though we have been rewarding only one. And that one has been engaged in ethnic cleansing for some 70 odd years.

Diplomacy (as in the Camp David Accords) works best when it applies both carrots and sticks. When one side only gets carrots, there's no incentive to make concessions that halt the cycle of violence.

And it's created even more perverse incentives this case, as we see in Netanyahu's own words:

"In March 2019, Netanyahu told his Likud colleagues: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

@31 are you sure that’s not what’s been going on in Seattle? Seems like every corner is an ok corral anymore.

@31: Got a source for that quote? Or examples of “terrosits” in Israel hiding behind children? Or speculations on exactly which “concessions” Israel could make to “halt the cycle of violence”?

Or will you continue to provide nothing more than groundless, cheap claims of false moral equivalence?

I never comment but I have to quibble with the usage of, "a little somethin'," leading into Ashley's interval. I just feel like dropping the "g" is only the start of rendering "something" in vernacular. For one thing, very few people make the verbal distinction of "some-thing," resulting in a pronunciation more like "sumthin" or "somtin." It's also possible to drop the "t" entirely, with "sum'n", or replace with a "p", "sump'n." If some thing must be rendered as slang, it's worth going all the way. Additionally, if you're going to vulgarize (and I mean that literally, as a compliment, not figuratively as a vaguely negative word) "A little something," I feel very strongly that you should also shorten "little" to "lil" (or li'l if the editor insists on an apostrophe somewhere). Dropping both "t"s from "little" saves far more jaw energy than just leaving off the last "g" in something, and far more common of a vocal expression in my personal opinion. I'm all for shorter, more natural writing, but please go all the way!
I'm only nitpicking because I love you. 10/10 Slog as always. (P.S.: I was also surprised at Macklemore's heartfelt and tone-appropriate Instagram post. I think people underestimate him, when he's a genuine Seattleite like you or me or all the readers.)

@7 CKathes, @13 Teslick, and @28 kristofarian: I share your concerns.
I wish I had more to add, or any sort of global problem solving answer to offer.
Griz will try posting later when not feeling so overwhelmed.

@19 For a change, I actually agree with your logic. The city of Seattle needs to recognize that as Seattle is a very liberal city, conservatives have no right to own land in the city, and need to have their property seized, given to liberals who actually deserve it, and those conservatives need to be exiled from the city with nothing but what they can carry. That includes seizing any businesses or commercial property they have. After all, how do you think Israel built all those Jewish settlements on what used to be Palestinian farms?

@3 your analogy is off a bit. It would be more accurate if the liberals in Seattle tried to take the conservatives land, kill all of them and enlisted help from their antifa comrades in Portland, San Fran, Vancouver and Denver to do it. Despite this somehow the small group of conservatives survive and instead of keeping all of Seattle for themselves offer up 95% of the city back to the liberals for peace. The liberals refuse and instead elect a terrorist group to lead them with a stated goal of killing all conservatives from the “lake to the Salish Sea”. While they are trying to kill the conservative they also brutally repress other liberals using aid money to buy weapons and killing any dissenters or non conformists.

There now you are more accurate.

First Aid Trucks
Arrive in Gaza as
Humanitarian Crisis Spirals

Aid officials welcomed the breakthrough
but warned that the supplies were barely e-
nough to start addressing the enclave’s health needs.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/21/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news

yeah but they're just Children
& they must Pay Dearly for
the sins of their fathers

they can have more Food*
when they overthrow
the terrorists holding
them at Gunpoint

and not a Moment
before. that's the
Humanitarian
Way!

*& water
& electricity
& medical supplies

it's Truly the
Onlyest Way
they're Ever gonna
Learn NOT to do it
again.

& it's called
Tough Love for
a Gottdamm reason

"
Or
will
you con-
tinue to pro-
vide nothing more
than groundless, cheap
claims of false moral equivalence?"

I believe
we already
Know the answer.

There are two narratives, and we have to understand both. There's Israeli trauma and Jewish trauma, and there's Palestinian and Arab trauma. Both are real because there are two groups of humanity who each have histories. When we adopt one and ignore the other, then we end up creating the kind of torment the Palestinians have been living with.

James Zogby

This does not make Israel more secure. Taking massive amounts of Palestinian lives, evacuating them, forcing them to flee from their homes, murdering them from the air—doesn't make them more secure. At the end of the day, when the dust settles and the tears dry, you're going to have a whole lot more dead people, a whole lot more anger, a whole lot more frustration, and nothing else will change in Gaza or in the West Bank.

James Zogby

Hamas was a tiny religious organization which was fostered into a more powerful organization by the United States and Israel. They thought that if they built up a religious organization, it would undermine the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization). And once again, just as in Afghanistan, we create our own adversaries, blundering back and forth.

Ralph Nader

https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/invisible-palestinians?r=k7ee3#details

how fucking Many
Times can we
say "OOPS!"

Lots!
apparently.

In the broader Middle East, many people do not view Israel as the victim of an unprovoked terrorist attack — as some American officials have described it — but as a colonial-style occupier that has been buttressed by the United States and that has oppressed the Palestinians for decades. Khalid Al-Dakhil, a prominent Saudi public intellectual, said that what frustrated him the most was Western powers’ “blind adoption of the Israeli narrative of events.”

“You are against occupation in Ukraine — can you deny that the Palestinians are under occupation?” he said. “Nobody is asking you to go and declare war on the Israelis because they are occupying the Palestinians; people are asking you to be rational, wise and convince your allies — push them to their senses.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/world/middleeast/biden-israel-gaza-anger.html

Hamas was a tiny religious organization which was fostered into a more powerful organization by the United States and Israel.

They thought that if they built up a religious organization, it would undermine the PLO (the Palestine Liberation Organization).

And once again, just as in Afghanistan, we create our own adversaries, blundering back and forth.

--Ralph Nader

much as I'd LOVE
to believe You
dewey, gonna
go ahead &
stick with
Nader.

unless
you have
Something
to share with us?

[your Hero tentsy
must be sleeping].

Bridge builders between Israelis
and Palestinians, long derided as being
naïve or even traitors, now sense an opportunity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/peace-activists-israel-pale

two comments:

The convergence of interests between Netanyahu and Hamas, both of whom are opposed to a two-state solution or any real peace process, has brought us to this.

The extremists have utterly failed. The bridge-builders described in this article offer a small glimmer of hope, maybe the only hope.
--Edgar Pope; Nagoya, Japan

No more US and or military support until Israel formally agrees to stop the settlements, which are helping derail any prospect of a two state solution.

The US should not be giving billions of dollars unconditionally to an ‘ally’ that refuses to do anything to pursue lasting peace and continually steals Palestinian land.
--Some Guy; USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/world/middleeast/peace-activists-israel-palestinian.html#commentsContainer

read it
& Weep

A. is Anti-Nutnyahoo
NOT anti-Jew

when
you can figure
ourt Why that's True
get backto me? Thanks!

*& Anti-trumpf
but what Think-
ing Person
isn't?

(in Other words
Nutnyahoo
Ain't fuck-
ing Isreal

not proper-fucked
tho his Fascist actions
may well Destroy the place)

Israel Is About to Make [Yet
ANOTHER] Terrible Mistake
by Thomas L. Friedman*
Oct. 19, 2023

two Perceptive readers’
Comments on the article:

There can be no peace for
the Israelis without justice
for the Palestinians.

This means not just "stopping the settlements" but removing the settlements entirely and having the State of Palestine in the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

--Ron; Montreal

Anyone else shocked we have a casual $100 billion extra for Israel but no healthcare for Americans. What is more important for safety? Healthcare or getting involved in a Mideast quagmire, again?

--QuestionOfBalance; NJ

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/opinion/biden-speech-israel-gaza.html

there’ll likely be No
Nobel Prizes for
this outrageous
Extravaganza

and anyways:

we’re All Rugged Individualists:
only Sissies and Pussies
“need” fucking
Healthcare

*the Author is a
known Jew

oh and Nutnyahoo deserves
No respect for being
the face of War
Crimes - Jew-
ish, Fascist*
or Other-
wise.

*oh and didn't the Greatest
Genertion fight a fucking War
against Fascists? why on Earth are
they fucking Back Here so fucking Soon?

@55 there is a great amount of irony that someone who constantly labels others facists has spent the last week doing nothing but supporting actual facists. I hope at some point you realize how messed up this is.

"If Israel goes into Gaza and takes months to kill or capture every Hamas leader and soldier but does so while expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank —

thereby making any two-state solution there with the more moderate Palestinian Authority impossible —

there will be no legitimate Palestinian or Arab League or European or U.N. or NATO coalition that will ever be prepared to go into Gaza and take it off Israel’s hands.

There will be no one to extract Israel and no one to help Israel pay the cost of caring for more than two million Gazans —

not if Israel is run by a government that thinks, and acts, as if it can justifiably exact its revenge on Hamas while unjustifiably

building an apartheidlike society run by Jewish supremacists in the West Bank. That is a completely incoherent policy."

--Thomas Friedman
known Jew
(see: 55)
[can Jews be
anti-Semites]?

Nutnyahoo's admirers'd
better prepare for
War watch how
Israel Defeats
not only its-
self but it's
Neighbors

and maybe US too!

'supporting fascists' d13?

if I'm unknowingly
'supporting' them
I'd Prefer to
know it

show me one
direct Quote
if it ain't too
much for ya

how the Fuck is Thomas
"anti-Semite" dewey?

show me Where this Jew
disparages Other Jews
quote his anti-Semit-
ism for me wouldja

Remember: BiBi is NOT Israel
-- nor Judaism -- anymore
than el trumpfster (BOTH
fucking FASCISTS) IS
the USOFA. can't
Wait for your
responses
@58 &
@59.

oh and I Noticed something:
neither one you addressed
the Existential Damage
BiBi's putting Israel
the United States
he Middle East
& Huminity in
General into.

care to Go for the Meat
& Not simply toss up
the condiments?

thanks!

correction:

show me Where this Jew
disparages Other Jews'
Jewishness -- quote
his anti-Semitism
for me wouldja

Speaking of War Crimes
and the Indiscriminate
Murdering of Children:

Let Them Eat Cement

Israel is not only decimating Gaza with airstrikes but employing the oldest and cruelest weapon of war — starvation

--Chris Hedges

tonnes More:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/let-them-eat-cement?publication_id=778851&post_id=138199906&isFreemail=false&r=k7ee3

“Israel’s message,
on the eve of a ground in-
vasion, is clear. Leave Gaza or Die.”

and you’e OK
with this message of
upcoming War Crimes?

revenge may seem sweet
initially but in the Long
Run - it’s awful Easy to
Come Back and Bite
You in the Nether
Regions.

you're right dewey
yoi did Not say
Friedman was
anti-Semitic

you called Ralph Nader
one - but the examples
you provided showed
Nothing of the sort.

corvair's might've
'matured' if only your
Holy Marketplace'd "had time"?

like when Ford's Pinto
just kept on Exploding
when rear-ended? it wouldda
cost Ford $22 (in those days) to
put a rubber liner in their Pinto's
fuel tanks to keep from Incinerating
their Clientele but to Ford, it just did
Not pencil out. Corporations may Love
YOU dewey but I don't love soulless Corps

were it not for the Naders of this planet
we'd all've been Incinerated ages ago.

but I understand:
for you Profits
trumpf the
Citizens.

@49: “Hamas was a tiny religious organization which was fostered into a more powerful organization by the United States and Israel.”

Well, that sums it up nicely. Even the rise of Hamas is entirely the fault of “the United States and Israel.” Hence, all of the completely one-sided commentary here is perfectly justified! As far as Ralph Nader knows, no one else ever provided Hamas with support, like, say, a secure physical base from which to plan terrorist attacks, and unlimited amounts of money with which to execute said terrorist attacks. So, again, the rise of Hamas is entirely the fault of the US and Israel; everyone else is pristinely blameless.

Wait, what?

“As Israel and Hamas sink deeper into conflict, Doha finds itself in a delicate position. As a long-standing backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar has huge influence over the movement’s Palestinian affiliate, Hamas. That offers a significant opportunity in the short run. Doha’s deep connections with the Gaza-based Islamist group make Qatar a central player in the current diplomatic game. But for exactly the same reason, Doha faces the looming risk of being called to account over its record of support for such radical Islamist groups, and especially for Hamas.”

(https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/israel-gaza-conflict-qatar-hamas-muslim-brotherhood/675702/)

nutnyahoo's bombing the
FUCK outta Gaza. OUR
Tax Dollars hard at
Work - run Away,
Children!

to where?
no one can
say for sure

good thing we've
so much cash
on hand, eh?

smokin' Joe
to the Rescue?

@63: “Indiscriminate
Murdering of Children”

What’s with the constant abuse of the word, “indiscriminate”? Hamas works very hard to ensure their operatives embed deeply in Gaza’s civilian populations, so the Israeli retaliations which Hamas intentionally provokes will main and kill the largest number of civilians in Gaza; children are most definitely not excepted. This ensures that even the most carefully discriminate of Israeli military operations against Hamas will maim and kill the largest possible number of civilians; again, children most definitely not excepted.

The purpose of Hamas’ careful discrimination in embedding terrorists amongst the civilian population is to defeat the Israeli practice of carefully discriminating when using force. Each side is carefully discriminating; this is the very opposite of what the word “indiscriminate” actually means.

Gazans're hostage to
both Hamas and Israel

while We $upport
Gazans' murder

fuck that:

NO More 'Aid'
to Israel.

see: Tom Tomorrow's
typically-brilliant
take on this On-
going Shite-
show:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/23/2200789/-Cartoon-We-ve-seen-this-movie-before?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_7&pm_medium=web

buckle
up.

Easier:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/23/2200789/-Cartoon-We-ve-seen-this-movie-before

@71: “Let’s try to stop one side from killing civilians” doesn’t actually make for the moral rallying cry you seem to think it does.

(For someone forever obsessing over supposed fascists and fascism absolutely everywhere, the sight of a dictatorship sponsoring terrorists to kill civilians in a democracy doesn’t seem to bother you overmuch.)