Go, Geoducks, go! Through the wind and the rain and snow! Swivel high, swivel low, swivel all about, let it alllll hang out!

nyt:
Hunter Biden Found Guilty in Gun Case

President Biden’s son was charged with three felony counts tied to a handgun purchase in 2018. He could face up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.

His legal troubles are not over: The Delaware case, brought by the special counsel David C. Weiss, is widely regarded as the least serious of the two federal indictments against Hunter Biden brought last year.

He still faces serious tax charges in Los Angeles stemming from his failure to pay the government during a yearslong crack, alcohol and spending binge; the trial is scheduled to start in September.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/11/us/hunter-biden-trial-verdict

trumpf Offspring Found Lacking

Go, Ceasefire! GO!

C'MON Hamas!
C'MON all you
nuts n yahoos!

Free Palestine!
Free Isreal!

"Israel kills 274 to save four"

Palestinians lives are cheap under colonial rule. How cheap you ask, well some math genius may do the math for you.

I may not be a genius at math but

"Israel kills 37,598 to save seven"

seems a little
"lopsided"
to me.

is it just
Me?

“owning a gun while being a drug addict, a wildly dumb charge”

So The Stranger is vehemently anti-gun, except when it comes to the drug-addicted son of a Democratic president???

I wholeheartedly support President Biden… but his son Hunter is a privileged scumbag who deserves to be held accountable for his poor life choices.

@1, 7 The charges are dumb because they are politically motivated. Hunter had an agreed plea bargain and diversion agreement until Republicans in Congress pitched a fit and got prosecutors to renege on the deal. In a weird way, this was the reverse of the usual justice system--if Hunter had been anyone but the son of a president, he would have gotten a diversion agreement and nobody would have known.

The judge also suppressed a significant amount of exculpatory evidence, including that the FBI never actually validated whether the infamous laptop had been tampered with prior to being given to the FBI. Oh, and the application form that was the center of two charges? That was modified by the gun shop owner four years after the fact. The jury never got to hear that little detail, either.

I don't doubt that Hunter was addicted to drugs, nor do I think he should have owned a gun. But the prosecution of this crime was corrupt from top to bottom.

From the linked AP article:
[UN human rights] "Office spokesman Jeremy Laurence expressed concerns about possible violations of rules of proportionality, distinction and precaution by the Israeli forces in Saturday’s raid at the urban Nuseirat refugee camp. ... “All these actions by both parties may amount to war crimes,” he told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva."

Huh. It seems like there's a principle of proportionality of response after all, despite what one local self-appointed expert has been saying for months. Who are you going to believe on the details of human rights law, a former transit union shop steward or the spokesman of the UN human rights office?

@1: add to @8's summary that Hunter Biden is likely the only person ever prosecuted solely for lying on ATF Form 4473 Question F.

Others have had Question F charges tacked on to other charges, or been prosecuted for other questions (like saying you aren't a felon), but Question F? All you need to do is deny smoking weed, and you've violated Federal law.

@9

you'd be Amazed at the
Amount of Arcane info a
former transit union shop
steward has under their belt

to also be an Expert
at all things War-related
comes as no Shock to me.

perhaps
in the Future
the spokesman
of the UN Human
Rights Office might
Themselves go to NY or
wherever it Is this former
transit union shop steward
may have relocated to to find
themselves more Properly informed?

seemingly
a No-brainer.

So, Hamas should not have kidnapped civilians out of Israel, should not have held them indefinitely, and should not have imprisoned them, especially not in the middle of a densely-populated area? Because I’m pretty certain most of those were actually crimes, no determination of proportionality needed.

Shorter Ahab: " unless you can force me to do it, it's not legal" or "might makes right"

@9 don't short change him. Human rights law and the laws of warfare are but a small part of his self-declared expertise that has no bound, really

@15 Which expert are we going to believe on the topic of human rights and war crimes? Some Dude On The Internet or the spokesperson for the UN human rights office? I mean, they say that there is a requirement to use force proportional to the target and you keep saying that there is no such requirement. They say that there's a duty to protect civilians and you say that there's no need to try to limit civilian casualties as long as there's some legitimate military objective.

No doubt we should believe the shop steward. /s

@16 And just like Elmer Fudd, Israel keeps shooting themselves in the foot in the land of public opinion. At some point, you'd think that they'd learn.

I support the jury's decision in the Biden case, but I do not agree with Our Dear NoSpin that he is a "scumbag". That's not for me to say. I respect that he went into recovery, with the support of his loving family and is apparently clean and sober.

Would that the trump family to the same, but their addiction issues are multi-generational.

how many innocent Gazan children were killed by Hamas firing at the fleeing Israelis with automatic weapons and RPGs? they also fired anti-aircraft missiles at the rescue helicopters. that's when the IDF called in the planes.

@20
Report is the outcome of an expert meeting which took place in June 2016 on the principle of
proportionality in the rules governing the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law:

Commentators have pointed to the lack of precision in the principle, arguing that the application of the principle by military commanders who are planning for and conducting attacks will vary greatly. 8 While the ICRC 1987 Commentary on AP I acknowledges that analysing the disproportion between losses and damage and the military advantage anticipated “raises a delicate problem”, it also emphasized that “in some situations there will be no room for doubt, while in other situations there may be a reason for hesitation. In such situations the interests of the civilian population should prevail.”9 In the same vein, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) stated in the Galic case that “[t]he basic obligation to spare civilians and civilian objects as much as possible must guide the attacking party when considering the proportionality of an attack”.10

https://icrcndresourcecentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/4358_002_Expert_meeting_report_WEB_1.pdf

Stanislav Galic was condemned to prison for life

we can all rest easily
now that justice
has been served upon
Hunter Biden! 🌞

@24 According to the NPR reporter on the ground, the shelling started after the rescue party left. But, you are right about Hamas putting innocent civilians in the crosshair. I also wish you put the emphasis on "innocent children" in all instances. Did you hear that the number of Israelis killed by the IDF on October 7 is unclear according to Haaretz and other Israeli news sources?

Hamas was just minding their own business innocently holding the hostages they captured at gunpoint eight months ago and have been torturing ever since, when that mean old IDF came along with guns blazing to take them back! How is a self-respecting hostage-taker supposed to operate in this oppressive environment, when even zones crammed full of civilian refugees aren't safe places to imprison hostages?

It almost destroys the incentive to seize hostages in the first place! Almost.

@25 " War is the ultimate inhumanity."

Indeed, which is the reason why international institutions and Human Rights Organizations are trying to make it difficult and costly to wage war. Which side are you on exactly? Providing cover for Israel's genocide of Palestinians puts you on the wrong side of history.

@29: at this point, i'm getting weary of the focus on "innocent children". are old Gazans less valuable? less innocent? are their deaths more acceptable?

@30 it's almost as if Hamas is deliberating holding the hostages in civilian areas that have a high propensity of collateral damage rather than isolated areas where only military combatants could be impacted. I'd ask our Hamas sympathizers on this page why they think Hamas is holding these hostages captive in civilian areas? One thing's for sure now though is that the remaining hostages will be placed in even more critical areas to maximize collateral damage from any further rescue attempts.

@8 If you replace Hunter Biden for Trump you sound just like the MAGA hats about his trial in NY. I don't disagree with you but irrespective of why they were tried the fact remains they are both guilty of what they did and deserve whatever consequences are coming their way.

You're on a roll today Ahab. Can't take being wrong, can you? You'd best settle down before you blow a gasket.

@26 Thanks for the prebuttal to @28. From the document where an international court made an enforceable order to imprison Stanislav Galic for war crimes: (https://www.icty.org/x/cases/galic/tjug/en/)

"58. One type of indiscriminate attack violates the principle of proportionality.104 The practical application of the principle of distinction requires that those who plan or launch an attack take all feasible precautions to verify that the objectives attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects, so as to spare civilians as much as possible.105 Once the military character of a target has been ascertained, commanders must consider whether striking this target is “expected to cause incidental loss of life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objectives or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”106 If such casualties are expected to result, the attack should not be pursued.107 The basic obligation to spare civilians and civilian objects as much as possible must guide the attacking party when considering the proportionality of an attack.108 In determining whether an attack was proportionate it is necessary to examine whether a reasonably well-informed person in the circumstances of the actual perpetrator,109 making reasonable use of the information available to him or her, could have expected excessive civilian casualties to result from the attack.110"

Note that sentence in the middle: "The basic obligation to spare civilians and civilian objects as much as possible must guide the attacking party..." Yes, this is couched in terms of what a reasonable person would do, but so are plenty of other enforceable laws, both national and international.

You know what's even better? This document convicting a person of war crimes also discusses your favorite hobby horse, mens rea.
"54. The Trial Chamber will now consider the mental element of the offence of attack on civilians, when it results in death or serious injury to body or health. Article 85 of Additional Protocol I explains the intent required for the application of the first part of Article 51(2). It expressly qualifies as a grave breach the act of wilfully “making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack”.99 The Commentary to Article 85 of Additional Protocol I explains the term as follows:

wilfully: the accused must have acted consciously and with intent, i.e., with his mind on the act and its consequences, and willing them ('criminal intent’ or 'malice aforethought’); this encompasses the concepts of 'wrongful intent’ or 'recklessness’, viz., the attitude of an agent who, without being certain of a particular result, accepts the possibility of it happening; on the other hand, ordinary negligence or lack of foresight is not covered, i.e., when a man acts without having his mind on the act or its consequences.100

The Trial Chamber accepts this explanation, according to which the notion of “wilfully ” incorporates the concept of recklessness, whilst excluding mere negligence. The perpetrator who recklessly attacks civilians acts “wilfully”.

For the mens rea recognized by Additional Protocol I to be proven, the Prosecution must show that the perpetrator was aware or should have been aware of the civilian status of the persons attacked. In case of doubt as to the status of a person, that person shall be considered to be a civilian. However, in such cases, the Prosecution must show that in the given circumstances a reasonable person could not have believed that the individual he or she attacked was a combatant. "

Golly, seems like what you said was impossible exists, was proven in court, and is international precedent. Do you ever get tired of being wrong?

@22 You're straight-up lying again. Nobody said that every ship passing every bridge nationwide would get mandatory tug escorts.

As for the Key bridge, they probably won't issue those rules until the new bridge is under construction.

@32: And our oh-so-concerned with civilian casualties folks here continue to imply the IDF was the only attacking party, even after evidence suggesting Hamas opened fire on the hostages and their rescue party, to prevent the hostage rescue from succeeding.

@32, 39 From the Hannibal Directive article on Wikipedia; excerpt cited is in 2023-24 section but a lot more substantiating details follow:

"Some commentators have argued that the Hannibal directive, previously understood to generally apply to situations involving IDF soldiers, enemy combatants and possibly non-Israeli civilians [...], but not to Israeli civilians, was implemented by the IDF on a mass scale on 7 October 2023 when the IDF fired on Israeli civilian hostages while they were being driven by Hamas militants into Gaza. This would be the first time in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that a Palestinian kidnapping operation and subsequent IDF Hannibal reaction included Israeli civilians.[62]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

Has anyone noticed how much Ahab sounds like a toddler?

Reasonable people: Now Ahab, Israel can't just indiscriminately kill civilians.
Ahab: That's not a rule!
RP: Yes, it is a rule, see here.
A: They didn't mean to!
RP: Israel needs to try not to kill civilians.
A: You can't make them!

What's next, threatening to hold your breath until you turn blue?

@39 By your own rules, the IDF also bears responsibility for civilian casualties. You've repeatedly blamed Hamas for civilian casualties because Hamas doesn't wear uniforms that distinguish them from civilians. Turns out that the IDF had a bunch of people dressed in civilian clothes for this operation. Naturally, you'd agree that they bear responsibility for any civilian casualties that resulted from that decision?

Or is ideological consistency a bridge too far?

@35 "our Hamas sympathizers on this page "

Your statement is a blatant and disgusting attempt to intimidate and shut down debate by claiming that critics of Israel are "Hamas sympathizers". You are behaving like the autocrats you pretend to denounce, which makes you a hypocrite and a McCarthyist. Contrarily to you, I do not chose camp while ignoring the evidence. I stand for humanitarian principles agreed upon by international institutions and human rights organizations: I do not defend autocrats because they are our friends, and I do not advocate funding for extremists because they fight our enemies.

Just dropping this here. It will be willfully ignored by the Stranger and the willfully naive hard-left contingent here. No college students nor code pink will protest. It will all go down the memory hole.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-chiefs-brutal-calculation-civilian-bloodshed-will-help-hamas-626720e7

@45: The lady doth protest too much. You repeatedly ignored eliminationist statements against Israel, which flowed from campus protestors in a steady stream. You repeatedly questioned whether “eliminationist” was even a word; fifteen years ago it appeared in the title of a best-selling book, written by a prize-winning PNW journalist. In short, you had your chances to demonstrate what you’re now claiming to believe, and you fought every one of them, as hard as you could.

Don’t want a genocide tomorrow? Don’t give today’s eliminationist speech a free pass. That was Neiwert’s point in writing the book, all those years ago.

Dear Raindrop. You're what Mother Vel-DuRay used to call a "gossipy old bitch"

No wonder you're a Republican. Republicans are horrible people.

@48 "The lady doth protest too much."

As if I was going to let vile POSs (includes you) smear me without reacting

"Don’t want a genocide tomorrow?"

We don't want a genocide TODAY and tomorrow. Do pay attention.

@51: Is “eliminationist” a word?

More seriously, Hamas abducted Israeli civilians into Gaza, held them illegally, imprisoned them amongst Gaza’s civilians, and then shot at the fleeing hostages and their IDF rescue party. For the resultant needless bloodshed amongst Gaza’s civilians, the Stranger and you blame Israel. Not Hamas.

If you were trying to show you were not pro-Hamas, you certainly chose a very bad way of doing so.

@49 Ooooh! The bold "You can't make me!" defense. That's a sure way to take the moral high ground.

@35 We don't actually know that Hunter Biden committed two of the crimes he was charged with (lying when he checked a box on a federal form). The form was filled out in three colors ink by at least three different people, and was never subjected to a handwriting analysis to see who checked what box. In addition, the gun store owner admitted to altering the form after the fact.

Not to mention that people are charged with falsifying documents all the time. See below on the selective prosecution on that...

@43 The law is typically applied to give an additional charge for someone who's being charged with another serious felony. Like they shot someone and also lied on the federal form. Virtually or actually nobody is charged with these charges without other, far more serious crimes.

@46 Golly, what could be different? I dunno, maybe size and type of ships, common weather conditions, where tugs normally make up to and let go of the ship, size and depth of the channel, all kinds of things. Also, you won't see any public policy changes until after the final NTSB report comes out. Because otherwise bright bulbs like you would bellyache about making public policy changes before all the facts were known.

@51 we aren't smearing you, you and your Intifada chanting gang are doing a great job of that all on your own. I'm just waiting for one of you to go all out and post something lamenting all the innocent Germans killed when Dachau was liberated.

I have no idea whether Hunter is serious about his recovery, nor is it any of my business, but the video in question does not show Hunter Biden doing coke at the White House.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/07/18/hunter-biden-video-from-after-white-house-cocaine-found-fact-check/70415488007/

It’s also childish to pass judgement on an entire family because an adult widow had a consensual sexual relationship with her brother in law. You must have a boring sex life if you think this is scandalous.

@49 "Ending wars, by one side beating the other, is what saves the non-combatant lives. "

People stopped dying when war stopped (duh!) but you are ignoring all the colonial asymmetric wars, like the present one if you can label that a war rather than a massacre, that were stopped by lack of appetite of public opinion for continuing the mass murder of natives during military stalemates. These didn't lead to war crime tribunals and I doubt that Netanyahu would leave Israel much if subject to an arrest warrant but becoming an international pariah has consequences. I also strongly doubt that the Israeli public would want to bear such consequences for very long nor would its allies provide unconditional support forever.

but none of that has anything to do with the concept of proportionality being inapplicable as you claimed previously.

@42: Nice dodge. It should be obvious the IDF wasn't the only attacking party, and even if they were "attacking," it was to rescue hostages. Your moral equivalence between hostage-takers and hostage-rescuers has been noted.

"You've repeatedly blamed Hamas for civilian casualties because Hamas doesn't wear uniforms that distinguish them from civilians."

Really? Quotes (plural) and ULRs (plural), please.

Now, we both know you won't do that, because you're just trying to distract from what I (and others here) have actually repeatedly said, which is Hamas bears most or all of the responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza. This hostage rescue is an excellent example. At any time in the past eight months, Hamas could have released the hostages; in the event of the rescue, Hamas could just simply have not impeded the exits of the hostages and rescuers. What does the Stranger report? "Israel kills 274 to save four: Israeli Defense Forces launched an operation Saturday to rescue four hostages, killing 274 Palestinians in the process." Apparently, stray gunfire from Hamas' didn't claim so much as a single civilian life during the rescue, and the Stranger verified this!

@55 " I'm just waiting for one of you to go all out and post something lamenting all the innocent Germans killed when Dachau was liberated."

I would lament the civilians killed during the bombing of Dresden or those of Hiroshima but that is because I am morally and ethically consistent, which you aren't when you compare Palestinians who have been chased off their land to Jew exterminating Nazis.

@58 Well this is absolutely /fascinating/. So I did a search, as you requested. I found a number of places where I had replied to you (or possibly Ahab, but it's awfully hard to tell the two of you apart), in discussions about uniforms. And the comment by you (or Ahab) was missing. This is one example, with my reply at 18 and you (or Ahab) at 15 missing.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2023/12/07/79296118/slog-am-three-dead-in-university-of-nevada-shooting-kevin-mccarthy-to-resign-and-no-show-trump-wins-fourth-gop-debate/comments/18

@58 It takes two to tango. Netanyahu has repeatedly made it clear that releasing the hostages won't stop the war, so Hamas releasing hostages won't stop the slaughter in Gaza. Netanyahu could have stopped the war at any point by, well, stopping the war. Or signing on to any number of previously proposed peace deals that would have, you know, permanently stopped the war in exchange for releasing all of the hostages. But that's the thing. Netanyahu doesn't want to stop the war because the moment that happens, he loses his job and goes back on trial for corruption.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-blinken-blames-hamas-for-hostage-deal-holdup-gaza-humanitarian-crisis/

And you'll read all of that and say that Hamas alone refuses to stop the war, despite Netanyahu explicitly and directly saying that he will not stop the war regardless of what Hamas does.

You could just as well say that Ukraine could stop the war and slaughter of civilians at any point by surrendering to the Russians and taking whatever Putin wants to give them.

Ahem, I can see we are trying to skip the memory hole and just ignore. Again, Hamas apologists, Yahya Sinwar's leaked correspondence shows that Hamas is intentionally setting up Gaza civilians for death to sucker all of you useful idiots to charge out and protest, etc... I realize you don;t care and still blame Israel, but you could at least do some tortured logic here to rationalize it.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-chiefs-brutal-calculation-civilian-bloodshed-will-help-hamas-626720e7

@62: What a great comment! You start by implying Hamas can just keep the hostages as long as they like, because keeping hostages simply isn't a bad thing to you, apparently; then you end with another equivalence between a terrorist gang who takes hostages, and a legitimate government which protects its people from imperialist aggression.

Hamas could end this war at any time, by releasing the hostages and surrendering. Full stop. They refuse to do this, continuing to hide behind civilians and keep hostages, knowing full well they endanger the lives of those civilians by so doing. And yet, somehow, you assign them zero blame for the resultant ongoing deaths of the civilians you're always claiming to care about. Civilian lives (in Gaza) are incredibly important when you can blame Israel for their deaths, but for some reason, their lives are just not important enough to justify Hamas' surrender.

@63, Maybe no one is biting because it’s widely accepted that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and this is news to no one? I haven’t seen anyone here deny this or defend Hamas as a moral actor in this war.

I think the disagreement is that some people see this as carte blanche for Israel to kill civilians indiscriminately, and others see this as an opportunity for Isreal to win the long war for hearts and minds. Treating Palestinians more humanely than their own leadership has the potential to pay greater dividends than killing a few militants here and there while minting more of them and alienating allies through the casual destruction of countless innocent lives.

But more to the point, if Hamas knows they can win the global propaganda war by goading Israel into bombing hospitals and refugee tents, why is Israel so eager to give them what they want? If you see someone setting a trap it's in your best interest to avoid walking into it.

@57 “ignoring all the colonial asymmetric wars, like the present one if you can label that a war rather than a massacre, that were stopped by lack of appetite of public opinion for continuing the mass murder of natives during military stalemates”

Dude is once again ignoring Jewish claims to their historic land (but I forgot, Arabs are victims - it’s just those evil Jews who are the bad guys). It’s the colonizers whose ruins were built upon by subsequent “natives”. The sad part is @57 doesn’t even realize what antisemitic tripe he posts (he’s just down for the cause de jour).

@64 "Hamas can end the war any time they want by releasing hostages and surrendering." The first part of that statement is not true. And you know that. It's not about Hamas holding hostages as long as they want, it's that the release of the hostages is irrelevant to Netanyahu's overall war aims. The plan is purportedly to completely destroy Hamas, and release of hostages isn't going to change that. The second half is putting every single one of their heads in a noose, so I won't hold my breath on that score. I say purportedly because I'm not actually convinced the plan is to destroy Hamas. If it was, he wouldn't have pulled the IDF out of Northern Gaza, allowing Hamas to regroup there. A permanent war is actually useful to Netanyahu in a number of ways, including both staying out of prison and hardening Israeli public opinion against a two-state solution. And yes, he is that Machiavellian, having previously supported Hamas to reduce the chances of a two-state solution.

A cease fire is a compromise, and neither side gets everything they want.

I have never excused Hamas' war crimes. I have said that Israel commits war crimes as well. Hamas dials the evil up to 11, while the IDF is content to keep it around 5-7 depending on the month. Everything Hamas does, Israel does as well, with only a little less frequency and vigor. I call out the hypocrisy of Israel claiming to be the most moral army in the world because they are not.

@63 And Israel not only knows all that but they keep going in like Elmer Fudd and blasting themselves in the figurative face with a figurative shotgun. You would think they would have learned something about international relations by now, but that's the way it is.

@66 The Arabs have a historic claim to their traditional lands as well. It's not like the Jews were the only people ever to live in the current borders of Israel and Palestine. The Palestine Protectorate was given to Israel by the British, who took it from the Ottomans, who took it from... Nobody has an exclusive claim or title to the land.

thank you
Boatgeek &
averagebob for
your countenarrative
to our far 'right' commentariat's
perpetual propensities for prevarication

a Breath
of Fresh Aire
to Seatle's skies y'all're.

@66 I do think it's farfetched anyone would take seriously someone's claim to a land because they are related by a few genes to someone who lived there more than 40 generations ago and they decided to immigrate there. The overwhelming majority of Jews in Palestine came through immigration; 3 millions of which immigrated after 1948. Palestine is surely the homeland for Palestinians Jews who were about 10% of the population before immigration started with the Zionist movement. If we proceeded to remake the world the way it was before the birth of Jesus Christ we would generate conflicts the world over. Are you planning anytime on arguing that North America should be handed back to native Americans? come on, it has only been ~500 years ago. Barely a thing by your standards.

From farfetched it then become full throated racist to proceed in booting off said land people who have lived there for generations. all because they are not Jews. Those who can't be booted off are systematically discriminated against, abused and jailed without charges (we won't call them hostages of course), and occasionally murdered by snipers, colonists, etc..

I fully support Jews to have a homeland as long as it doesn't involve taking it away from someone else without their consent, which at this point is going to be quite difficult. So , I suggest that Jews should keep live among the rest of us, as fellow human beings, free of racism and discrimination.

@73, So…. we should assume Hunter Biden is snorting cocaine just out of frame in any video where that is a remote possibility? If we don’t have to see it happening to believe it’s true why stop here?

I can tell what kind of “fact sites” you like to get your information from but USA Today is a widely circulated newspaper that does credible reporting and fact-checking.

@74 Classic straw-man argument because I did mention there were Palestinian Jews before colonization. They were a relatively small minority according to what I have read and there couldn't have been many considering how many immigrated since. Anyhow, Palestinians didn't immigrate and they have a right to the land.

Take your indignity pill and shove it up where the sun doesn't shine. Liar.

@65: "Maybe no one is biting because it’s widely accepted that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields and this is news to no one?"

No want wants to engage because it would mean admitting they've been duped into doing the bidding of terrorists, and are actually exacerbating the very situation they are complaining about. Cheap moral scolding is fine, so long as it confers the warm glow of self-appointed moral superiority. Admitting it was a trap set by terrorists tends to dull that smug sense of satisfaction.

@68: '"Hamas can end the war any time they want by releasing hostages and surrendering." The first part of that statement is not true. And you know that.'

That's because I wrote the entire sentence to be read as a single, coherent thought. You decided to ignore the actual punctuation, put a full stop before the word "and," thus rendering it false. But that's your problem, not mine.

Of course, the people who complain about Israel's supposed bloodthirsty nature have yet to organize worldwide demonstrations, on-campus or off, demanding Hamas release hostages and surrender, because they care about civilians in Gaza only so far as those civilian deaths can be blamed upon Israel. As we've seen in the Stranger's headline post, the very possibility Hamas could have been responsible for so much as one single civilian death during the rescue mission was implicitly dismissed, even though Hamas had willingly created the entire situation.

"Everything Hamas does, Israel does as well, with only a little less frequency and vigor."

The IDF hides behind civilians? The IDF has committed a large number of rapes in Gaza? The IDF has taken hostages from Gaza, and surrounded them with civilians in Israel? Do tell. (Try to do better than you did @60, although that is not exactly a high bar.)

@67 Given that the Republican Party Platform is basically "We're horrible people!", it's hard for me to think of a common usage definition of "stereotype" that makes sense in your statement. I mean, can you name 3 living, widely-known, currently avowed Republicans, who aren't horrible people?

@76: "Anyhow, Palestinians didn't immigrate and they have a right to the land."

Genetic testing shows ancestors of self-described "Palestinians" arriving in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from surrounding regions, https://www.wired.com/story/23andme-genetics-palestine/

That part of the world has been a crossroads of peoples for all of recorded history. Your belief you can isolate one current group there, and say they (and they alone) have a "right to the land," is every bit as delusional as any right-wing "blood and soil" mythology.

"Take your indignity [sic] pill..."

Thanks for the laughs.

I did watch the video. He is walking right behind his father and step-mom on a crowded stage surrounded by a bunch of other people and cameras. If you believe he did a bump of cocaine in that setting it’s because you want to. The video proves no such thing.

@79 So you claim to be a specialist in genetic studies now? and the only evidence you provide is an article in Wired that doesn't even cite a scientific study?

I am not a specialist in genetic studies or the history of Palestine but here is a wikipedia article that cites numerous scientific studies that trace Palestinians to Bronze age Levantine: "[recent studies] have found that Palestinians, and other Levantine people, are primarily descended from ancient Levantines present in what is today Israel and Palestine, dating back at least 3700 years"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians

In other words, as per usual you are taking out of your behind but I am certain it won't prevent you from coming back with another tangent to create a diversion.

As for who has a right to the land, it's pretty easy. People who have lived on the land for generations have a right to the land.

Hunter and Jr’s drug habits aren’t a concern of mine, I just choose not to believe things that are fabricated from whole cloth to make idiots angry on Twitter.

nyt:

U.N.
Commission
Accuses Both Israel and
Palestinian Groups of War Crimes

A United Nations commission investigating the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza has accused both Palestinian armed groups and Israel of committing war crimes, and the panel said that Israel’s conduct of the war included crimes against humanity.

But Israel, during its monthslong campaign in Gaza to oust Hamas, has also committed war crimes, the commission said, like the use of starvation as a weapon of war through a total siege of Gaza.

It said Israel’s use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas amounted to a direct attack on the civilian population and had the essential elements of a crime against humanity, disregarding the necessity of distinguishing between combatants and civilians and causing a disproportionately high number of civilian casualties, particularly among women and children.

The conflict had killed or maimed tens of thousands of Palestinian children, a scale and a rate of casualties that were “unparalleled across conflicts in recent decades,” the commission said.

Other crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza, the commission said, included “extermination, murder, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, forcible transfer of the population, torture, and inhuman and cruel treatment.”

“The treatment of men and boys was intentionally sexualized as an act of retaliation for the attack,” it added, referring to Oct. 7.

The commission said it had identified the people most responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity, including senior members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups and senior members of Israel’s political and military leadership, including members of its war cabinet.

The commission said it would continue its investigations focusing on those with individual criminal responsibility and command or superior responsibility.

--Nick Cumming-Bruce; reporting from Geneva

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/12/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas

“There
is no justify-
cation for terrorism. Ever.”

tensorna on December 8, 2023 at 8:44 AM

‘There
Is No Justifi-
cation for Terrorism,’
Says Man Justifying Genocide

more disturbingly:
https://theneedling.com/2023/09/02/there-is-no-justification-for-terrorism-says-man-justifying-genocide/

that’s a
fucking
BINGO.

END the Madness and
Begin the War Crimes Tribunals
BEFORE WWIII: the REALLY BIG ONE

speaking of the
“right” wing:

Right-Wing
Campaign Urges Supreme
Court to Protect Fossil Fuel Interests

Some of the players
are tied to Leonard Leo,
architect of the court’s conservative swing.

Far-right fossil fuel allies have launched a stunning and unprecedented campaign pressuring the Supreme Court to shield fossil fuel companies from litigation that could cost them billions of dollars.

Some of the groups behind the campaign have ties to Leonard Leo, the architect of the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court who helped select Trump’s Supreme Court nominees. Leo also appears to have ties to Chevron, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“He’s really crafted the Supreme Court,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research and an expert on Leonard Leo’s network.

Honolulu is one of 40 cities and states suing big oil for an alleged decades-long effort to sow doubt about the dangers of burning fossils. If successful, the case could force the defendants to pay for climate damages.

“I have never, ever seen this kind of overt political campaign to influence the court like this.”

In October, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the suit can go to trial. But oil companies petitioned the US Supreme Court in February to review the state court’s decision; they argued the cases should be thrown out because emissions are a federal issue that shouldn’t be tried in state courts.

Supreme court justices met on Thursday to consider whether or not to take up the fossil fuel companies’ request, and the justices could grant or reject the petition in the coming days.

If granted, the request could catalyze the dismissal of the wave of climate accountability lawsuits against big oil—a major win for the defendants seeking to limit their liability for the climate crisis. But it’s the kind of ask about which the Supreme Court would not normally offer its opinion, advocates and legal experts say.
--by Dharna Noor

[This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.]

more:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/alito-thomas-leonard-leo-federalist-society-supreme-court-fossil-fuels-koch-industries/

is the “right” wing
truly the Enemy
of Humanity?

You be the
Judge.

@83: “So you claim to be a specialist in genetic studies now?”

Hahahahahaha… so what, exactly, was your basis for your opinion-stated-as-fact, “Palestinians didn't immigrate…”? As your argument depends completely upon it, you do have a factual basis for it, right?

“I am not a specialist in genetic studies or the history of Palestine…”

Yes, you’ve made those points very clear. Too bad your ‘arguments’ involved pretending you knew jack about either.

Look, you’re obviously starting with the conclusion you want to reach, and working backwards from there, throwing in whatever you can find (or fabricate) to support your predetermined conclusion. It doesn’t work, for the same way the right-wing “blood and soil” mythology doesn’t work, either: there’s no basis in history or biology for tying one ethnic group to one piece of land. (In fact, all of the evidence goes the other way.)

Right now, the only hypothesis you’re validating is Horseshoe Theory.

@88 "there’s no basis in history or biology for tying one ethnic group to one piece of land."
Isn't that the whole point of Zionism?

@89: Because Jews have faced harassment everywhere else they’ve ever lived, so why not have a dedicated home for them? Conveniently, their old one became available.

If the world had done a better job on the whole diversity thing, the modern state of Israel might never have been formed.

M@91, Nice try but no. I’ve seen photos of Hunter smoking crack with hookers so I’m under no illusion about his habits. I am just incapable of believing stupid things like a professional addict doing drugs in the most conspicuous place imaginable when he’s just feet away from a door and probably a few feet further from a bathroom.

That video is catnip manufactured expressly for “Biden crime family” types like you who struggle with critical thought and are desperate to make some criminal equivalence between the Trumps and Bidens.

@89, @90: The closest thing we have to international legitimacy is the United Nations. In 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, which proposed a replacement for the expiring British Mandate there. It had an Arab State, a Jewish State, and international control over Jerusalem. Palestinian Jews accepted this plan, some Palestinian Arabs accepted this plan, and some Palestinian Arabs did not; the latter faction chose war -- and lost. The Palestinian Jews and Arabs who accepted the plan and survived the war formed Israel; the Palestinian Arabs who'd chosen war and lost started down the path they're still on, sadly.

Choosing war means accepting the consequences, including the results of a loss, which in this case, means no Arab State. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine)

I guess this is an actual music video.

Then why don't you name them, raindrop dear?

I suspected as much, Raindrop dear.

That’s OK. You get a blue participation star.