Stidmatt

It is not a coincidence that Donald Trump is suing George Stephanopolous at the same time that there is a bill in Congress claiming criticizing policies done by Netanyahu and his government is on par with Holocaust denial and calling for genocide against Jews.

They are two sides of the same coin.

Israeli Democracy in Peril

At the core of democracy is the freedom of speech and the press. There has been a massive erosion of democratic norms in Israel under Netanyahu’s rule, as we see from Israel arresting more journalists than all but five other countries despite being the 93rd most populous nation. Democracy cannot exist when journalists are frequently arrested or killed for doing their job. In 2020, Israel scored 69 out of 100 points in the Press Freedom Index, slightly above Hungary. Today, Israel scores 53 points, below every NATO country except Turkey.

There has been severe democratic backsliding in Israel over the last few years. To not recognize these facts and call them out is doing a great disservice to Israelis who want to live in a democracy and to support a corrupt, plutocratic government that is destroying the country.

To maintain power, Netanyahu is using more extreme methods, which is easily seen in how Israel is the 6th most dangerous place to be a journalist on Earth out of about 194 countries.

The Zionist movement is now trying to erode freedom of speech in the United States by passing a law criminalizing political speech. This is profoundly anti-democratic. Welcome to Zionism, an inherently authoritarian religious extremist movement of Evangelical Christianity.

To silence critics of their savior, serial rapist Donald Trump, Evangelicals are now working towards attacking journalists like we are seeing with the persecution against George Stephanopolous.

Zionism is Inherently Evangelical

Evangelical Christians believe the end times are coming soon. They have believed they have been coming soon for centuries and will always believe the end times are coming soon. Because of this, they believe Israel is the place where Jesus will arrive in Israel, as prophesied by the Book of Revelations, and so Israel needs to not be under Muslim control. This is why the United States will not endorse the two-state solution as long as Joe Biden is President. Joe Biden may be a Catholic, but he is obviously influenced by their ideology. He has only changed his social positions since the Obama Presidency. He is a fundamentally conservative Catholic.

This is why Evangelical Christians did not oppose the Third Reich, and the Catholic church had a mixed response. Israel was never about saving Jewish lives. It was always about putting Jews in danger instead of Christians, while the most radical Zionists became leaders and ensured perpetual conflict with their neighbors. This fits into Evangelical mythology of Christians being the perpetual victims, now putting Jews in the boat to be the ones in danger. I believe this is a big part of why not all victims of the Third Reich were able to reclaim citizenship immediately after Hitler committed suicide in a bunker because he was a coward.

Evangelical Christianity led to only some Third Reich victims being able to reclaim citizenship, and they opposed Jewish immigration to the United States, so Israel was left as the only option for many of these now-stateless people. It wasn’t a free movement. The claim it was a choice is mythology. It was forced on many Jews deprived of German citizenship who could not attain American citizenship.

Zionism has been a Christian idea since at least the First Crusade.

Biden’s version of Christianity is why he criticizes descendants of Holocaust victims who criticize Zionism as being anti-semitic.

Evangelicalism is Inherently Authoritarian

So here we have the stage. Zionism is a fundamentally Christian ideology. Evangelicalism takes the most extreme Christian viewpoints and puts them on steroids. They support an adulterer (Exodus 20:14) and cheater, claiming he is going to bring in Christian Nationalism. He has embraced their zeal against abortion (Numbers 5:19-22) and the death penalty. (Exodus 20:13)

So, George Stephanopolous’s criticism of Donald Trump is not just to criticize him personally but to attack the entire Evangelical movement.

Likewise, advocating for the rights of the Palestinians is to prevent Israel from having Bethlehem, which they believe is necessary for Jesus to return from the dead.

These ideas are based on mythology and are obviously never going to happen. But the Evangelical movement, in general, is not democratic. There is no process for the average members of many churches to elect their leaders. Their leaders are often appointed by those who came before, such as in the Mormon and Seventh-Day Adventist denominations. There is no direct way for members of such organizations to impact their leadership except to leave.

Their internal organization system, which stifles all disagreement, and their inherently authoritarian polity lead them to support sanctions against journalists. They do not care how Israel governs itself. It is irrelevant to their goal of the second coming of Jesus.

Criticism of Israeli politics and journalists investigating Donald Trump are both attacks on the Evangelical movement. This is why they are fighting for the criminalization of such acts.

Democrats must oppose both the conflation of hate speech with political speech and the suing of journalists. Hate speech is not free speech. Criticizing policy is not hate speech but the most protected speech under our laws.

Evangelicalism is a threat to American democracy and global security.

References:

Israel-Gaza War

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/18/israeli-arrests-of-palestinian-journalists-soared-in-2023-cpj

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68582953

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

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

First of all, the United States recognizing and supporting the government of Afghanistan after 2001 was not a support for the Taliban but a critical part of the effort to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. Likewise, the best way to fight Hamas is to support the Palestinian Authority and recognize them as the legitimate sovereign state of Palestine. Right now, we do not recognize any government, which creates a de facto power vacuum, which gives Hamas room to maneuver. If you want to fight the Taliban, support a free Afghanistan. If you actually want to “kill Hamas,” you need to support Palestine.

There is a quick and easy way for Biden to end the War in Gaza, and that is to recognize the Palestinian Authority, regardless of what Netanyahu says.

The United States needs to recognize Palestine as a state and support their accession to the United Nations if there is to be peace, assuming a one-state solution is off the table.

The 1967 border will be controlled, and Israelis will need visas to go to Palestine because of the hate crimes committed by settlers against Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority will have full sovereignty over Palestine. While Israelis will have the right to travel to Palestine, assuming they pass a background check in a rigorous visa process, there should not be an extradition treaty to Israel. If you attack a Palestinian in Palestine and you are found guilty of assault, you will not be extradited to Israel. If an Israeli commits violence against a Palestinian on Israeli territory, they will be extradited to Palestine. If a Palestinian commits violence against an Israeli on Palestinian territory,  they will be extradited to Israel. This arrangement will prevent future violence.

The border will be patrolled and customs will be done by the United Nations. Israel and Palestine will surrender their right to run customs on this border. This will be better than allowing Israeli police to unlawfully detain and harass Palestinians.

The visa policy for Israelis to Palestine and Palestinians to Israel will also be controlled via a third party to prevent it from being hijacked by another far-right government.

A third party will prosecute state violence against Palestinians by Israel or Israelis by Palestine. I recommend the International Criminal Court.

This third party will be a UN peacekeeping force, where both Israel and Palestine will be unrepresented, and no country will contribute over 10% of the troops to maintain security and lasting peace in the region.

In the future, once conditions change, the UN peacekeeping force can be disbanded if Israel and Palestine enter into a customs union with an open border or a one-state solution. Until there is an open border between these two states, the customs between the two must be managed by a neutral third party, and a multinational task force led by the United Nations can provide that security. There is no reason to believe that Israel or Palestine will treat citizens of the other state fairly.

Israel and Palestine will both be fully demilitarized, and NATO will protect their security, but neither will be member states of NATO.

With regards to the whole “Israel is a democracy” despite their policies against Palestinians… people who believe that probably think Andrew Jackson believed in equal rights for black people.

Hate speech is being debated again, and I think I can clarify this.

It is profoundly American and protected by our constitution to criticize our government. The United States Constitution gives it the highest protection. The freedoms outlined are as follows:

1. Habeus corpus
2. Ban on bills of attainder
3. Ban on ex post facto application of laws
4. Prohibition of a state religion
5. Freedom of religion
6. Freedom of speech.

It is literally the sixth right clearly outlined in the Constitution. When not in violation of other rights, the Supreme Court has long upheld a very broad definition of this right regardless of political party.

There are limitations on free speech, of course. They are well outlined in this Wikipedia article.

Criticizing our government, or any foreign government, is explicitly protected by the First Amendment.

Brandenburg v. Ohio is the key case “holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation.”

If clear hate speech done by a member of the KKK is protected speech, then surely advocating for the 1949 ceasefire borders and Geneva protocols is protected by the First Amendment.

We also have the “clear and present danger” test, which was decided in Whitney v. California. There is no clear and present danger in criticizing a government for violating the Geneva Protocols.

We have the right to criticize our government as long as we do not present a clear and present danger. We also have the right to criticize other governments with that restriction. We absolutely have an undeniable right to petition our government when we believe our government’s actions violate morality or, god forbid, international human rights law.

As outlined via treaty, advocating for the enforcement of the 1949 borders falls within the rights outlined by the courts and the Constitution.

Given how Israeli policy has violated the 1949 borders for many decades with the construction of settlements in violation of this international treaty, which Israel is a party to, supporting the 1949 borders is a criticism of current Israeli policy.

This criticism of Israel is a criticism of their foreign policy and is, according to the IHRA’s definition of anti-semitism, on par with advocating for the Holocaust. I disagree with this definition; it is not calling for anyone to be genocided; it is merely advocating for Israel to follow international law, including laws that were written in the aftermath of the Holocaust. There is a clear difference between advocating for the slaughter of civilians and advocating for a government to respect international law.

The law passed today by the Supreme Court is in clear violation of the test the Supreme Court created in Whitney v. California, and the definition of anti-semitism, which defines criticizing the government of Israel as anti-semitic speech, will not pass constitutional muster and is profoundly anti-American.

Suppose the Supreme Court upholds this abhorrent law. In that case, we will be in a situation where obvious hate speech, which Clarence Brandenburg spouted, is seen as legal, but advocating for Israel to not attack civilians and respect international law will be seen as hate speech. It couldn’t possibly be more backward. Clarence Brandenburg was a terrorist. Petitioning our government to uphold international law is in no way worse than what he did.

This bill must be filibustered in the Senate. It is profoundly anti-American.

Read the ACLU’s statement on this unconstitutional bill on their website here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-urges-congress-to-oppose-anti-semitism-awareness-act

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/us-house-overwhelmingly-approves-anti-semitism-awareness-act/ar-AA1o0xn2

The United Kingdom probably has the most screwed-up political environment of any NATO member right now. The US is in a close second, but we are not still having politicians beat their chest about Brexit and how great it was, even though it has been a disaster to the British economy.

In England, there are realistically only three options, the Tories, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats.

The Tories and Labour are both Euroskeptic, supported Brexit, and defend it today.

The Liberal Democrats opposed Brexit in 2016 and 2020 and are the only major English party advocating for the United Kingdom to rejoin the European Union, which is the only sane option.

Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats want to keep the energy price cap at its current level, so they are not perfect, and no one in the UK is advocating for a fee and dividend approach.

However, the Liberal Democrats remain the only English party advocating for the UK to rejoin the European Union, so they are the only good party running in England today. If you live in the UK, they deserve your vote.

Labour and the Tories just aren’t that different anymore.

Overall

Labour has made three promises: not to rejoin the single market and customs union, and they oppose freedom of movement. This has already been demonstrated in their flat-out opposition to an agreement to make it easier for British students to study in the European Union.

The European Union has already made it very clear that if they want a trade deal more than just a free trade agreement like what the EU has with Canada, they would need to have the UK join the customs union. Only the customs union will give the UK the benefits of shorter lines for trucks when they cross into France.

The Labour or Conservative Parties cannot lower trade costs with the EU without breaking a red line Keir Starmer has already drawn.

It won’t have lower costs until the UK wants to join the customs union.

Unless the UK wants freedom of movement, British students will be treated like Canadians or Americans when applying to European Union universities.

The only way for the United Kingdom to relieve the pain of Brexit is through either:

• Join the Customs Union
  • Benefits: No taxes with the rest of the customs union. British companies get a competitive advantage.
  • Red line: trade policy is negotiated as a bloc.
• Join the EFTA:
  • Benefits: all of the benefits of the European Economic Area, lower regulations for trade, more standing on the world stage
  • Red line: No free movement, regulatory autonomy, no financial contribution
• Join the European Union:
  • Benefits: customs union, open border with the European Union
  • Red line: Loss of monetary autonomy, all of the above

I do not believe the UK will be able to rejoin the European Union with any opt outs again.

The minimum of what the UK should do is join the EFTA and then push for more nationalities to use the egates, including the ones who currently can use the British egates.

This is the only way for things to change.

This fiscal year, the United States Federal budget is expected to have a deficit of $1.8 trillion.

Deficit: -$1,800,000,000,000

Taxing capital gains as regular income would raise an additional $1.4 trillion, bringing the budget deficit down to $400 billion.

Deficit: -$400,000,000,000

This could then be closed by ending the home mortgage interest deduction, which increases the cost of housing. This would raise $800 billion, closing our deficit and creating a surplus.

Surplus: $400,000,000,000

If we did Medicare for all or some other universal healthcare system we could bring the annual per capita cost of health care to around $6000 per year per capita. Medicare For All would cost $1.8 trillion. Instead, the government loses $3 trillion by excluding employer contributions for medical insurance and medical care. This means the Federal government loses a net $1.2 trillion to our current health care system. Implementing universal health care and having the government cover health care costs through universal health care increases our surplus to $1.6 trillion.

Add 3 trillion of revenue, Add $1.8 trillion of spending.

Surplus: $1,600,000,000,000

This change means we will remove the $1.2 trillion spent on Medicare and Medicaid from the Federal budget.

Surplus: $2,800,000,000,000

We need to subtract the $350 billion in Medicare payroll taxes, which will no longer be levied because we can cover this from the general fund.

Surplus $2,450,000,000,000

We should keep HSA plans because there will always be some out-of-pocket costs for health care, both for copays and certain medical expenses Medicare might not cover. HSA plans are good. The only change here is likely removing the High Deductible Health Plan requirement. If we didn’t remove the HDHP requirement, people with HSAs would have higher deductibles from Medicare than those without HSAs; this would also reduce government spending.

I have turned a $1.8 trillion deficit into a $2.45 trillion surplus through these three changes.

We need to deal with Social Security OASI to prevent future deficits. OASI is expected to increase its costs by $1 trillion over the next decade. It is out of control. Allowing people to use superannuation, like in Australia and Singapore, will provide better retirements and reduce taxes and spending. More for less sounds good to me. This will be optional and gradually reduce the program’s cost over the long term. There will be fewer OASI tax receipts, but expenditure will decline more than revenue drops, especially in the long run. This is good for everyone.

Social Security Trust Fund has $2.6 trillion right now and is very poorly invested. It lost money over the last three years. This is absurd. We need to invest it in better investments like municipal bonds. A 6% interest rate on this money would raise $156 billion this year for OASI, closing the OASI deficit. DO IT NOW.

Surplus: $2,600,000,000,000

How should we spend this money? Personally, I would look at long-term investments, the best possible investment being education. Create guaranteed childcare subsidies that scale down gradually as people make more money. Reduce the cost of college and put government subsidies for higher education back to where they used to be while also ensuring that college expenses are within reason so the money can be used to increase access. We could eliminate customs duties. We could pay down the debt, but the interest rate is so low that it doesn’t make sense. We will want to have solid programs to cover the basic cost of living for seniors whose retirement accounts are not large enough to cover their cost of living. This will save us a significant amount of money in the long term.

That is how we can quickly close the federal budget deficit by cutting down on a few tax breaks and implementing Medicare for All.

Sources:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/budget_fy2024.pdf

Ranked: The Biggest U.S. Tax Breaks

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a1.html

Military aid to Ukraine has passed the House, and now just has to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by Biden today, and the Russians are already scaling down and withdrawing their troops because they know what is coming.

Because of US aid:

• Fewer civilians are being killed.
• Fewer civilians are being raped.
• Fewer children are being kidnapped.

And it hasn’t even been passed by the Senate yet, though that seems certain now.

World War III is becoming less likely by the minute.

This is despite Sabre rattling by Russian outlets both in Russia along with propaganda machines like RT and Faux News that increasing military aid to Ukraine and sending Ukraine fighter jets would risk nuclear war.

But everyone with a basic understanding of game theory has always known this is not true because that is not how the game is played. I detailed that way back in February 2022, since I actually am a qualified political economist and I have studied game theory.

The game theory which I walked through in February 2022, and again, I did not draw out the tree, is still true for every military action the United States makes, and this action by Russia proves that weakness from NATO will be responded by hostility from Russia.

But international relations scholars like myself have known this for years.

Newsweek article

A few days in my life of roughly three decades have been pivotal moments in world history, and today is one of those days.

11 September 2001 was obviously the big one in terms of global politics, which started the War on Terror.

August 2008 saw the Russian-Georgian War, the first foreign invasion by Russia since the Soviet era. This is the point where politicians needed to realize Putin was not our friend, and he should have been removed from power at that point. We have removed democratically elected leaders for far less historically; there was no reason not to do a US-backed coup against Putin after he invaded Georgia.

The 2014 invasion of Ukraine started a now 10-year-long war, the biggest war in Europe since World War II.

Today, the US Senate will decide whether to provide Ukraine with over $60 billion of military aid.

If we provide Ukraine the aid they so desperately need so they can save their democracy, we will both save Ukraine and also prevent an invasion of the Baltic States.

If we don’t, Russia will invade the Baltic States, which are members of NATO, and an attack on one is an attack on all.

Mike Johnson, Netanyahu, and Biden do not matter. A solution to the crisis in Palestine and military aid in Ukraine, so the fascist Putin stops killing civilians in Ukraine and does not start World War III, is the only thing that matters today.

It couldn’t possibly be more simple.

The US vetoed the resolution to grant Palestine UN membership yesterday, and in response, the Israeli occupation minister said:

“The proposal to recognize a Palestinian state, more than 6 months after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and after the sexual crimes and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists was a reward for terrorism”

The United Sates claims resolutions from the UN will not create statehood for Palestine, but give no path to statehood for Palestine.

They claim it relies on negotiations by Israel and Palestine, like the ones which the United States negotiated in 1993?

There are many problems with claiming that granting Palestinian statehood is a reward for Hamas. Granting Palestine statehood does not give Hamas any legal recognition, only the Palestinian Authority, and contrary to Hamas’ wishes gives the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.

Hamas is not an ally of the Palestinian Authority. It couldn’t be more clear.

We claim that the Israelis and Palestinians must reach an agreement but do not outline an agreement that would be approved by America.

The Israelis and Palestinians did come to such an agreement. In response, their Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, and Benjamin Netanyahu has been in charge of the country ever since. As long as he has remained in de facto control of the country, he has blocked all possibility of peace for almost 30 years.

Fishy, right?

I’m surprised Netanyahu has not pardoned Yigal Amir for his services in preventing a Palestinian Peace Process and giving Netanyahu 30 years of almost complete control of government.

The Two State Solution is a sham until Palestine is given UN membership.

Israelis don’t even have the excuse of fraudulent elections; their elections are legitimate. The War in Gaza is what Israelis have voted for for 30 years.

We must stop bailing them out. The ship is sinking under Netanyahu’s leadership. Without US support, Israel will collapse, and as long as we support them, Netanyahu will only make it worse.

The best course of action is to stop providing military aid to Israel and force them to come to a diplomatic solution.

Without citizenship in a UN member state and without the PNA having enough legitimacy and control of their territory as outlined by treaties Israel has signed, what course of action do Palestinians have to be heard in the world? What option do they have? Netanyahu has given them no other option.

The United States needs to recognize Palestine and force them to come to a peace agreement.