Unpacking Joe Kent's resignation

The big news, seen via The Dissident?

Joe Kent has resigned as Trump's head of counterintelligence, the guy who runs the National Counterterrorism Center. 

Several thoughts.

First,  per the Tweet/Shit on Shitter by Kent, that link above, even Looney Laura Loomer has enough brains on this one to dig up an old Shit and show him to be more than a bit of a hypocrite, arguably. Go read all the responses; it’s the old chimps eating a human face.

In the letter he does claim "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation." He says that the US had essentially neutralized Iran since Trump's 2020 assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Loomer calls up a September 2024 Shit of his, after the domestic assassination attempt on Trump, in which Kent says:

Iran has been after Trump since January of 2020, when he ordered the targeted killing of the terrorist Qasem Soleimani.

Dead to rights. 

Well, not totally human.

Per his Wikipedia page, Kent is kind of a political whore. If he had really had integrity and less whoredom for political office, whether elective or appointive, he would never have taken the counterterrorism job in the first place. But, he decided to whore himself out.

And, he's obviously not well-read, either. Per James Bamford, Israhell was very much behind Trump's 2016 election, and his 2020 bid for re-election, too. (And surely, 2024, though Bamford's book came out in 2023.) I'm sorry your wife was killed in an arguably stupid war — setting aside whether it was "Israel-manufactured" or not —, but you had five-plus years since then to be reflective, and you still took this job.

And, you still stayed on this job after the start of the war. (That said, contra the Blue Anon yappers, you quit before anybody quit Team Biden after Oct. 7, 2023 and his blank checks to Israel.) 

Now, in terms of the war, pivoting from him to Demented Donald? How does he spin this one? Not very well, I'm sure. 

And, our answer came in quickly. Like Demented Don's wont, it involved no pause for actual thought. 

Before we get to Trump's response, let us note Kent claimed that Trump had been duped by a "misinformation campaign." No mention of names, but we all know he's talking about Satanyahu, the person formerly known on Shitter as Netanyahu, as he did mention "high-ranking Israeli officials." I love it, and am stealing it, while also being pissed I didn't think of it myself. (But, it also includes the self-inflicted wounds mentioned above.)

Now, Demento Don:

Trump later told reporters "it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat. Every country recognized Iran was a threat."

Shock me. Actually fairly low on his bluster scale. (And, per Loony Laura Loomer, Joe Kent claimed Iran was a threat 18 months or so ago, and presumably felt the same way when taking Trump's job offer.)

Meanwhile, at Vox, Zack Beauchamp says we shouldn't align ourselves with other claims in Kent's letter to Trump, either. And, for this, you have to look at Bamford, you have to look at Kent's own background, and take this all in.

You also have to look at what came in Kent's letter after "high-ranking Israeli officials," which was:

[I]nfluential members of the American media ...

Now, that's not necessarily accusing them of being all Zionist. And, it's not antisemitic. Nonetheless, that, plus the other things I mention, lead us to Beauchamp. 

Here's Beauchamp:

In fact, Trump has been hawkish on Iran for decades. Back in the 1980s, he called for troop deployments to the country and a US-led campaign to seize control over Iranian oil. In his first term, he tore up a nuclear deal designed to prevent war and assassinated a top Iranian military leader. 

Moreover, Israeli leaders have lobbied every president in the 21st century to go to war in Iran; Trump is the only one who said yes. This suggests the key variable is less Israeli power over US foreign policy generally than the specific preference set and worldview of this president.

I think he protests a bit too much. But maybe not too too much.

Beauchamp then reminds us that we were in Syria in 2019 when Shannon Kent was killed was under President Trump.

I think a Candace Owens running with this letter is indeed antisemitic. I think that there may be some people already crafting a "framing story" for when the finale of this war indeed turns stupid. I know Kent has himself flirted with white nationalists.

But, I don't think this is all about antisemitism in Republican opposition to the war. Also, whether Kent is right or wrong on his framing, one can say that intervention in Syria was, if not "manufactured" by Israel, then at least "pushed" by it and not be antisemitic. 

Beyond that, Syria under the Assads was long seen as an ally of Iran and a conduit for Iran to work with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Beauchamp either knows that and is protesting too much, or doesn't know that and should shut up. That's rhetorical; I know he knows this. So, why is he doing something that is gaslighting, or at least halfway there? 

The Dissident, in his second piece about Kent's resignation yesterday, in large part focusing on Beauchamp, reminded us of what Seth Harp said in the must-read "The Fort Bragg Cartel": 

Washington’s efforts to overthrow Assad, who, like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi, was an outspoken and belligerent foe of Israel, redoubled amid the Arab Spring protests. One of the most expensive CIA programs in history, a billion-dollar fiasco code-named Timber Sycamore, plowed thousands of tons of guns and ammo fresh from German and American factories into Syria. ... Chief among the Sunni extremist groups that benefited from the instability in Syria and the flood of black-market arms into the country was the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known by the acronym ISIS.

There's that. 

Also undercutting Beauchamp? Klippenstein weighs in. Re the current war?

It is true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agitated for war, but the Israeli military is operating more and more of one mind with the U.S. military. The two countries have shared a common war plan against Iran since the Biden administration. That level of cooperation has solidified under Trump, driven more by a true affinity and affection for the technologically and operationally sophisticated friend than anything Donald Trump (or Benjamin Netanyahu) has ordered.

There you go. He doesn't mention what Kent says on Syria, or Kent's odious personal background, but talks about larger objections to the war in both parties.

He does agree with me that this is inside baseball. On that? How Kemp phrases the letter? 

Finally, was this a smear attempt? Max Blumenthal indicates so, noting that Beauchamp was once co-president of "Brown Students for Israel," an avowedly Zionist organization:

Brown Students for Israel aims to be a big-tent community united by the belief in Israel’s right to exist as a state for the Jewish people in all or part of their ancestral homeland. By hosting Israeli cultural events, organizing political programming that reflects a range of pro-Israel perspectives, and commemorating Israeli days of significance, BSI aims to create a place for Zionists — and those curious about Zionism — to connect, celebrate, and engage with one another.

Also, Zack was an intern for Andrew Sullivan (yeah, that guy) when Sully was still at The Daily Beast. Was he forced to intern for him? Probably not. 

As for where Beauchamp stands? Per his own essay at Vox, it would be as a liberal Zionist, I think. But, even before Oct. 7, 2023, one-time liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart realized that modern Israel — and not just Bibi — had narrowed the grounds for that so much as to make it purely aspirational. Beauchamp, assuming he identifies with his essay, obviously doesn't agree, all the more so since it was written after the attacks.

Here's a good critique of his piece, and how unrealistic the idea is given current Israel, not just the middle-aged and older ruling class, but even more, younger Israelis. 

The real, real issue was raised by Beauchamp but not pursued more fully by him — the idea that Trump is an empty vessel.

This is a tool to allow MAGA loyalists, Trumptards, whatever, to maintain allegiance to Trump while calling out specific actions of him. It doesn't have to be Israel who's called out. It could next be Volodymyr Zelensky and the nation of Ukraine, if Trump asks for big new defense spending. It could be the prime minister of Denmark or the EU's Ursula von der Leyen if Trump formally agrees to take his hands off Greenland. 

In other words, you have members of a cult enabling Trump, or the idea of Trump, or the eikon or idol of Trump, because they're still afraid of Trump, and the rest of the cult. 

That said, even Klippenstein may have "bit" a little, or at least not questioned someone else advancing that same idea:

“For a Hegseth who only wants the ‘warrior’ answer, Israeli swagger and combat competence is catnip,” the officer says. 

The source adds that while Trump loves a winner, and he loves action, it is Hegseth and his “impetuousness” that pushes the relentless destroy-the-target, no-rules. no-quarter style of warfare that has unfolded.

Isn't that doing what Kent did? I mean, we all know that "impetuous" is Trump's middle name. Trump has no rules, but will give quarter if you punch back enough and others don't support him. And that's where we are right now.

Is Kent a rat deserting a sinking ship? As of March 11, 17 percent of Republicans said Trump was prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. Per the Beeb, and other polling a day or two later, 90 percent of self-professed MAGAts were still backing the war.

I otherwise quote from the AP about the reality of what this means:

A special forces combat veteran with ties to right-wing extremists, Kent was considered as much of a loyalist as Trump could have in the government’s top counterterrorism post.

That's about right. Nobody on the left should be running Joe Kent up the flagpole and saluting him. He's a 2020 election "truther," palled around with white nationalists and is a COVID semi-denialist or worse.

The Iran War so far — calling out both duopoly parties and the MSM

First, per Klippenstein, and contra many Democraps as well as Rethuglicans (he calls out both), it's a war.

Mondoweiss notes the lamestream media, whether calling it a war or not, is lining up as cheerleaders. It then doubled down, and said that even people who know about previous such cheerleading are shocked by how blatant it is this time.

As The Dissident notes, Iran was prepared for an attempt to force regime change by assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei and adds the likely backfiring effect in that this will increase the likelihood it builds a bomb.

Per another Klip? I said that Trump cut off both his balls, and gave one to Netanyahu and the Zionists and the other to the U.S. military version of the Deep State.  

Trump now wants to try to get Kurdish militias involved, which risks Iraq and/or Turkey attacking them. 

As for the results? Let's quote the dean of foreign policy realists, John Mearsheimer:

Remember that in the Vietnam War, the US won virtually every battle and lost the war.

Couldn't have said it better myself. 

Meanwhile, former Air Force Academy would-be flyboy Paul Skenes is a disgusting militarist. 

As for the Gulf Arab states getting attacked? As Palestine Will Be Free notes, they brought this on themselves, and Merikkka is going to hang them out to dry just as much as the Gulf Cooperation Council has hung out both Hamas and the rest of Gaza, and Abu Mazen and the rest of the West Bank, to dry. A new post there notes many of them are talking about yanking money from their sovereign wealth funds out of the US to pay for the economic damage Iran has already caused. If a quarter of what's threatened actually happens, it's recession time.

As for Merikkka's Zionist genocide enabling NATO toadies in the UK, France and Germany?

The leaders of France, Germany and the UK issued a joint statement Sunday that appeared to indicate they may get involved directly with the U.S.-Israeli war. “We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” they wrote. “We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.“

Fuck 'em. 

That's even as Israel has now barred the Al-Aqsa Mosque, during Ramadan no less. 

Merikkkans on the street, meanwhile, are worried about high gas prices — prices that have jumped 50 cents a gallon in a matter of days. Dottering Donald the Zionist has staff, like chief of staff Susie Wiles, worried about the fallout even as they continue warmongering:

President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is telling his advisers to bring ideas to the Oval Office to lower gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran, according to two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations. 

The White House is “looking under every rock for ideas on improving energy prices, especially gasoline prices,” said one of the executives, who was granted anonymity to describe internal administration discussions.

What's coming, coal gasification? The old Fischer-Tropsch process? Don't you laugh; somebody will surely mention it.

Meanwhile, per Bruce Schneier?  

Remember, both American Zionist fellators of Israel, and anti-Zionists as a caution note, if Israel can hack traffic cameras in Iran, just maybe it can do the same in Merikkka. 

Only 53 Democraps in the House voted against calling Iran the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism. ALL Rethuglicans except 3 non-voters voted yes, as did 157 Democraps.

The real answer, of course, is Merikkka is the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism. And, No. 2? No hints.

Update: Whether on accident or deliberately, Iran's Dena, sunk by the US sub, was taking part in a US-coordinated military exercise when it was off the coast of India. TNR notes the exercise required ships to be unarmed, so the start of the preceding sentence is purely rhetorical.

Update, March 10: Here's what might happen in days ahead. 

Lee Camp: is he now "controlled opposition" on Israel?

Yes, THAT Lee Camp, of Redacted Tonight, brave new world former RT commentariat, who writes a column about "Top 11 Signs Israel is Collapsing." No, really. It would be funnier if not so sad. 

My response? Semi-blistering, with the following being an extended version of a Substack note.

(I should note that I pretty much, though not totally, reject a literal idea of controlled opposition. For instance, nobody in the GOP is paying Democrats to act like Republicans-lite in many cases. It's all self-chosen.)

Can I have what Lee Camp is smoking?

No. 4 and 5 are laughs; Israel’s partnerships with the EU and the US are not at all “strained.” In the US, The Donald still cuts blank checks to Israel. In the EU, states that have said they will recognize Palestine, or in France's case, have done so, have made such recognitions conditional, and also still let their countries' weapons makers sell away to Israel. (Same is true of Canada.)

To quote Mondoweiss?

The sum total is that, despite the outcry over the attack on Nasser Hospital, the beginning of the massive invasion of Gaza City, and the United Nations finally declaring a full-blown famine in Gaza, the United States and Europe remain in performance mode, with little prospect of any real action being taken.

And to quote further?

Unfortunately, with feckless leaders in Europe and the autocratic, impatient, and ignorant Trump in the White House, Netanyahu has a lot of potential for manipulating diplomatic affairs around the Middle East.

And, it's not just Israel vs Gaza, it's Israel against Palestinians, period. In what is surely against international law, Trump has had Lil Marco Rubio revoke the visas of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 80 other Palestinians in advance of the kickoff for a new session of the UN General Assembly. 

Mondoweiss ALSO reports that the Washington Post has a leaked document about Team Trump officially backing ethnic cleansing in Gaza, part of Trump's "Gaza Riviera" idea floated this spring.

A leaked 38-page document details the Trump administration’s “Gaza Riviera” plan to forcibly relocate 2 million Palestinians and place Gaza’s territory in U.S. trusteeship for over a decade. 

The Washington Post reported on the prospectus for the plan, which calls for “temporary relocation” of Gaza’s population so that “AI-powered smart cities,” and a manufacturing hub named after Trump-donor Elon Musk could be erected. 

“Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets… resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments,” states the document.

But, Lee Camp would have you believe the US partnership with Israel is "strained." 

No. 2? The US will bail out Israel’s economy if it really goes that far in the dumpster. Otherwise, this sounds like a #BlueAnon Democrap saying Russia's economy will collapse at any moment.

No. 6? The UN case for genocide? Rather, the ICC’s head is facing hasbara-like charges and it’s otherwise largely being ignored by the US, the EU, and even the Gulf Arab states, at least for public consumption. Ditto on the ICC arrest warrants. Hasn’t Bibi been in Merikkka since then? Survey says yes and less than two months ago.

No. 10? BDS having a profound impact? Most Western multinationals facing boycotts in Muslim-majority nations know those nations’ elites still buy a Starbucks latte. Also note that, per Lee’s own story, we’re actually talking about franchises that aren’t owned by Star Bux or McDonald’s and in many cases franchise only in Israhell. That's Economics 101, and I was getting hits on that with 30 seconds of searching.

Small companies may be avoiding Israel, and certainly academics? Fortune 500 types? Not so much, and of course that doesn’t count the defense contractors eating this up.

Also, this column may be a recycled and updated version of an earlier one, or else he pulls some stuff out from behind the paywall after a month or two, which adds to the idea that he's become controlled opposition, relatively speaking. 

If THAT's the case, as the original is from nearly three months ago, he looks stupider yet. 

He's also a liar. 

The first two words of the header are "New Column." If all he did pull out an old column from behind a paywall and spiff it up around the edges, it's not new.

That's also self-plagiarism, and yes, that's a journalistic issue.

As a member of the media, I respect that issue. I may, at certain points on the calendar, write about a subject that is time-sensitive about which I have written before, even a theme related to that. But, I don't pull up an old saved column to that end on my computer and give it some tiny tweaks, not even if it was several years ago.

Per Stravinsky, on a long-ago column, I may "steal" some of the talking points, but it still gets a rewrite. 

Finally, it's intellectually lazy. In this case, the talking points weren't true in the original paywalled version and you did nothing to defend them in the un-paywalled one.

Iran "fallout" from Trump's stupidity

The fallout is primarily metaphorical — for now.

That's because, per CNN, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency and a leaker of its analysis (called a "low-level loser" by actual un-Christian, not submitting to her husband low-level loser Karoline Leavitt) Trump's "MOABs" did little more than bupkis. Oh, there's some damage, but nothing major or long-term. 

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” 

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

So, yeah. 

The details:

While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites’ centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment. 

Instead, the impact to all three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites’ power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

So, yeah. 

Presidents in general don't like to be seen as wrong, let alone told they're wrong, in public. Trump, a dementia-edged toddler, really has this. And, while many presidents might grudgingly accept wrongness in private, Trump will never even do that.

That's part of why classified House and Senate briefings got moved from Tuesday to Thursday. Trump wanted Pete Hegseth to find some DIA flunky who will massage the research better. Oh, he'll find somebody. Who?

Update: Iran's foreign minister has now partially undercut Ayatollah Khamenei, calling damage to the trio of nuclear sites "serious and excessive." It's unclear why Abbas Araghchi went public, but something within Iranian domestic politics is surely the lead reason.

That said, will anybody in either House or Senate call Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the witness stand, if nothing else to make her squirm while past Tulsi Gabbard (loopholes and all) is confronted with present Tulsi Gabbard, a TACO? (With his staff and administration, it's Trumpistas or Trump team Always Chickens Out [on confronting him]. And it's true.) 

Let's add to to Trump's idiocy in general on Iran this stupidity, in the last graf:

US officials believe Iran also maintains secret nuclear facilities that were not targeted in the strike and remain operational, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

So, you deliberately irritate Iran, which went to 60 percent enrichment in 2021 because of your rejecting the Obama deal, but held at 60 percent through Biden's administration, knowing you couldn't finish the job even if some DIA flunky claims it was done better than now reported? 

Oh, contra the wingnuts clutching pearls on the enrichment percentage? It means little per the site Iran Watch without BOTH

• Enrichment to bomb-grade 90 percent, which is tougher AND
• A delivery mechanism.

A U-235 gun weapon is pretty much limited to an actual bomb. It CAN be done at lower enrichment levels, but then it’s low yield for sure, and is nothing more than running something up the flag. That's why the US nuclear world, even though details of its mechanism are classified, doesn't sweat too much over it. Now, reveal details of the implosion lensing or the detonator for a plutonium implosion bomb and your ass is grass. (And, if you’re Iran and you know the details of lensing an implosion bomb, would you do that with U-235, or wait until you create sufficient Pt-239? I’m assuming you haven’t already.)

Beyond that, the link above deserves a longer look:

Iran’s nuclear program has reached the point at which Iran might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons within about one week and enough for eight weapons in less than two weeks. For that uranium to pose a nuclear weapon threat, however, it would have to be processed further into weapon components. Also, the other parts of a successful weapon would have to be ready to receive the uranium. Fabricating these other components could be done in parallel with uranium enrichment and could take place on a laboratory scale, which would make them difficult to detect.

The site goes on to talk implosion vs gun bombs with U-235 and other things. The thing of note is that, just as Iran has not enriched beyond 60 percent for four years now, it has not test-detonated anything. And, whether U-235 or Pt-239, it would want to do that with an implosion bomb. The US did at Trinity and so has every other nuclear weapons power.

Meanwhile, Iran's parliament is playing with fully suspending cooperation with the IAEA. NOTE: That is NOT "leaving" the organization. The government is playing both ends against the middle.

It's already been less than fully cooperative since 2021, when it boosted its enrichment. Again, Iran Watch:

Since February 2021, Iran has denied IAEA access to recorded data from centrifuge production plants and in June 2022 forced the IAEA to remove monitoring equipment altogether from such plants as well as from uranium enrichment and uranium concentrate (yellowcake) production facilities. Although a few cameras were re-installed at centrifuge production plants in May 2023, the Agency still cannot access the recordings. Iran has also refused to cooperate with the Agency’s investigation of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites. The overall effect has caused the IAEA to lose knowledge of essential elements of Iran’s program.

So, part of this is on Biden. Yes, Trump 1.0 screwed the pooch, but Team Biden didn't make more of an effort to unscrew it in the first 30 months, and then Oct. 7, 2023 happened.

At the same time, Iran hasn't fully rejected the IAEA. Nor has it withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And, we all know the Middle East nuclear power that never signed the NPT.

 And, Iran Watch's top research associate has past ties to the warmonger Institute for the Study of War.

And, executive director Valerie Lincy, I can easily tell, is a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ fellow traveler on Russia-Ukraine. Related? A piece about reining in Iranian drones. Don't let the name "Wisconsin Project" that heads Iran Watch fool you. It's an inside-the-Beltway org.

The point is that even these folks can't totally throw Iran under the bus because they're being honest with information. As part of that, they don't claim Iran is creating plutonium. Because it's not.

And now, Trump has announced a meeting with Iran next week, and Iran has said "we ain't heard nothing." 

Side note: Per Mondoweiss, there is no such thing as right-wing anti-Zionism, so don't get fooled by Tucker Carlson. Or Tulsi Gabbard of either past or present, since she's a Hindutva-fascist Islamophobe and has gotten into bed with Zionists. Or Thomas Massie. Carlson, or Pat Buchanan and others from the past? They're not dispensationalist millennialist Protestant Christians, so Israel doesn't really matter, and therefore neither does Palestine.

Joe Biden, full of shit one last time

In his "farewell address," Genocide Joe / Warmonger Joe / Wallbuilder Joe, etc. warned about a number of issues. I roasted him with some flash snark on Shitter, but wanted to go more in depth about the full reality of his outright mendaciousness.

This was the first warning of his:

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said.

Really? 

Yes, your Democraps have been out-oligarchied by Rethuglicans, perhaps, but not for want of trying.

Your Veep blew through billions on her presidential campaign, went massively in debt, and will stiff every non-oligarch she can.

You yourself cut back, or rather, gutted COVID aid (just like your old boss, Dear Leader, not spending enough on the Great Recession because Rahm Emanuel said so) and other issues.

You've done nothing for national healthcare.

But, you DID have your Department of Justice pile on, with the person angry to violence about healthcare and the oligarchs who run it, Luigi Mangione, and file a federal case in addition to state charges.

Fuck off right there.

On to the rest:

The president outlined some of his most pressing concerns, including what he described as a “crumbling” free press, the outsized influence of the military-industrial complex, rising disinformation, and the need to remove dark money from politics.

Oh, you're getting your ass kicked.

"Crumbling" free press? Coming from the guy who wants to ban TikTok because he's afraid of ChiNazis, tried to get social media to self-censor and other things?

Update: Throwing Sam Husseini out of a presser with Tony Blinken is sure as hell crumbling the free press.

"Criminal! Why aren't you in The Hague," shouted Sam Husseini, an independent journalist and longtime critic of Washington's approach to the world. The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.

The unusually confrontational scene in the State Department briefing room only ended when security personnel forcibly picked up Husseini and carried him out of the room as he continued to heckle Blinken.

Max Blumenthal was escorted out, but without force:

"Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?" Max Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone, an outlet that strongly criticizes many aspects of U.S. foreign policy, called out to Blinken, before he was escorted out.

Yeah, self-crumbling the free press. Here's Husseini writing about it himself. And, video:

Here's Max's video.

This is, per The Nation's Jeet Heer, "ultra-hawk" Tony Blinken, surely one of the Team Biden insideres who has long known about his dementia and who ran foreign policy as an independent fiefdom like Henry Kissinger. As for Biden himself? Heer notes his fawning over Scoop Jackson:

In a 1983 eulogy on the Senate floor, Biden said that “Jackson changed a major part of my political life” by teaching him the importance of Israel to American foreign policy.

Blech. That said, the farthest left Jeet can go for people criticizing Biden's military Keynesianism is Adam Tooze.

Outsized influence of the military-industrial complex? This is Genocide Joe, the man who never met a bomb for Israel he didn't like.

Rising disinformation? 

Like when Anthony Fauci told people NOT to wear masks at the start of COVID (and went on from there)? When he claimed Peter Daszak was NOT doing gain of function research? When he himself claimed that a "red line" with Bibi Netanyahu was a red line? When he said four years ago he'd only run for one term?

Dark money in politics? Neither you nor Dear Leader tried to do any repairs to McCain-Feingold, for starters.

Top blogging of 2024

Just as in my monthly "best of" pieces, not all of these were written in 2024, but all were in the top 10 of 2024 readership.

Not blogged about, but seen by me at 98 percent totality? The April solar eclipse. And, since it's about sun, moon, calendar and related issues, we use it instead of a "2024" graphic.

With that, let's jump in.

As with the monthly, we start from the bottom and head upward.

At No. 10? No, Juan Soto is not a generational talent, I said last April at the start of the baseball season, and said he wasn't worth $500 million, let alone $600, and certainly not what the Mets wound up paying him, a bloated $765 million.

No. 9 is tied to No. 5 and No. 7. All came from December, and we'll start with No. 5.

That was Dustin Burrows' claim to have enough votes to become the new Tex-ass Speaker of the House, and how poorly that claim seemed to face reality.

No. 7 was my laughing thoughts on current (then) Speaker McDade Phelan bailing out on an effort for re-election.

No. 9 was whether or not the Texas Republican Party would officially censure anybody for voting for Burrows instead of David Cook, and whether or not the recently added bar of a two-year GOP primary ban would hold up in court.

At No. 8 was my callout of Genocide Joe Biden's lies about seeing pictures of dying babies in Gaza. My extension, it was a callout of Kamala is a Zionist Cop, too.

No. 6? Even though I'm not a duopoly voter, maybe there was a bit of wishful thinking that ran behind my 2024 election prediction blown claim.

No. 4? A blast from the past, from 2017 in particular, in part because I posted it a few times here and there on Elmo Musk's Shitter aka Twitter. Actual Flatticus aka Alan Smithee in real life Chris Chopin and my savage takedown of the legend of Flatty got hot again.

No. 3 was an Eastertime Texas Progressives Roundup whose header riffed on my post in the roundup about Gaza and my callout of Charles Kuffner, aka Off the Kuff, for not writing about this, not even the DPS' kettling of pro-Palestinian protestors here in Tex-ass in general and even in Houston in particular. See above, Kuff the duopolist, at No. 8.

No. 2? Because I pushed it all election season long, my detailed reporting on how Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was an investments hypocrite, above all related to Israel and Gaza.

No. 1? Perhaps foreshadowing Luigi Mangione — dental care as heath care and the insurance thereof.

Left vs Left on Syria — major US-Israel meddling or not?

A sort of faceoff on this issue between Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada, on his Substack, and Joseph Daher, billed as a Swiss Syrian socialist, at The Tempest (seen by me on Counterpunch).

The Tempest did an interview with Daher that starts with this intro:

Some on the Left have claimed without foundation that their rebellion was orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel. Others have uncritically romanticized these rebel forces as rekindling the original popular revolution that nearly overthrew Assad’s regime in 2011. Neither captures the complex dynamics unfolding in Syria today.

And, this is why I see the "faceoff." Winstanley is the type of person being called out, but is it more by The Tempest or more by Daher personally?

That said, the differences start with something else. Daher, while saying that the main rebel force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, while not a walk in the park, has evolved since repudiating ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 and focusing on Syrian nationalist issues. He notes it has promised to protect Druze and Ismailis. (That said, NPR yesterday talked about how many of the latter are already fleeing Syria.) He also said that since that 2016 separation, it has repressed people of al-Qaida and ISIS backgrounds.

Winstanley looks at such claims with a more gimlet eye, noting their current name is a "rebranding" since separating from al-Qaida, talking about pre-2016 atrocities in a post-2016 Syria:

Nor did such abuses stop with the rebranding to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Human Rights Watch says it has documented severe abuses by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the Idlib enclave it has controlled in recent years.

Sounds a bit different than Daher.

Winstanley adds that HTS leader al-Julani "has never been held to account."

Now, to the header. It's true that neither the US nor Israel has explicitly backed Turkey's actions in northern Syria. But, everybody who knows Turkish President Reççip Tayyip Erdogan knows he plays under-the-table footsie with Bibi Netanyahu. The US knows the basics of this and has chosen not to intervene. Otherwise, Daher appears to take statements by both Israeli and US political leaders at face value.

Winstanley does not. Here's the background he provides:

That's the US reality.

Over the last 13 years, the various armed groups working together to overthrow the Syrian government have been backed by the US, Gulf states, Turkey and Israel itself.

In a rare moment of honesty – one he later had to apologize for – then US Vice President Joe Biden admitted in 2014 that the surge of funding had aided groups the US considers extremists.

Biden said that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and others “were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war … [that] they poured hundreds of millions of dollars, tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.”

This is the Israeli reality from years past, per Winstanley.

The last time al-Qaida and other insurgent groups were present in the Golan Heights, Israel established warm relations with them, treating their fighters in a specially constructed field hospital and even arming them.

Netanyahu on Sunday signaled the revival of that policy. He said that Israel would pursue “the same approach we maintained when we set up a field hospital here that treated thousands of Syrians injured during the civil war. Hundreds of Syrian children were born here in Israel.”

There's more on both at his piece, with links. That includes Bibi trying to take credit for the downfall of Damascus.

Daher has a number of good things to say about the Palestinian issue, and as a socialist, trying to delink it from nation-state issues and to boost Palestinian class issues. That still doesn't mean that me isn't wrong on the nation-state issues in Syria. That's especially as Winstanley noted that some Syrian insurgents appear to have already been in contact with Israelis.

This is even as, at Jacobin, on these other issues, Daher said that it's Israel, not Hezbullah or Iran, that wants a wider war. Agreed. So, what gives with his take on Syria? Turkish control of northern Syria severs its direct connection with Iran, which, in turn, affects Hezbullah.

==

Update: Mitchell Plitnick weighs in at Mondoweiss. He notes the Israeli invasion was "opportunistic," but that, it still seems to have been scenario-planned, or so I read him.

==

Update, March 9, 2025: Daher seems ever more like an idealistic dreamer on Syria, given the current state of affairs.

Biden OKs new Israel attack on Iran; MSM, others complicit

Per the second half of the header, I want to expand on a restack note I did about Ken Klippenstein's piece last Saturday about the first half of the header.

First, the meat, which gets at both halves of the header:

Two Top Secret documents outlining Israel’s preparations for a large-scale attack on Iran – which would be Israel’s largest, and here’s what’s most interesting: the mainstream media is silent. Colleagues at some of the biggest media outlets, from The New York Times to NBC, tell me that their outlets are aware of the documents. But it’s been days and no one in the sanctioned elite press is reporting on them (Axios only just reported their existence but declined to publish the documents themselves). As with the J.D. Vance Dossier, which the entire media knew about but refused to publish, it appears the media has once again lost its nerve – and its sense of what’s news.

The mainstream media has generally decided that it won’t publish classified material, in effect deputizing themselves as enforcers of the national security state’s secrecy regime. They did this last year with highly classified Ukraine documents they refused to publish (which my editor published at Newsweek).

To put it bluntly, major media are petrified of running afoul of the national security state. And not without reason. My decision to publish the Vance Dossier got me thrown off X (Twitter) and links to the story were blocked on the platform along with Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and even Google Docs. Let’s see if that happens again here.

There you go.

First, the second half.

Although Ken didn't use the word "cowed," I did in my note. I think that's a fair inference of his implication, as he DID use the word "petrified."

(And, so far, neither he nor I appear to be thrown off Twitter.)

Rather, as noted in the second half of the header, "complicit" is the word.

This is different than the Vance dossier. This is Israel, and the mainstream media run that up the flagpole and salute that, period and end of story.

It may be in part fears about the national security state/deep state, but I think that's secondary, and even the secondary falls into two parts.

The bigger of those two parts is fear of loss of access. The "elite press," as Ken calls them, is also the "inside the Beltway" media, as Ken knows. Or "access journalism," as Ken also knows.

Within that, the stenos of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ Fighting 101st Keyboarders (thanks, Atrios), definitely don't want to lose access to insider intelligence sources. It's like a domestic version of being embedded.

Now, the leaks themselves.

As Ken knows, DC is a one-industry town, and the coin of the realm / grease that oils the machines, after money itself, is leaks.

From the White House and executive branch, leaks are almost always deliberate with political purpose.

(Genocide Joe now says he is "deeply concerned" about this, and his Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ spox John Kirby says the Waffle House doesn't know whether it was a hack or a leak. Sure you don't. That said, the Beeb says it explicitly mentioned Israel's nukes. But, that's a head fake to think that makes it a hack, not a leak. Could it be forged? Different question, but still highly doubtful.)

So, what IS that purpose?

One, per the "complicit," is to test just how complicit the MSM is. Now we have an update on that.

Two and related, is to prep the stenos for when the attack might actually happen and know what to ask.

Three? A pseudo-shot across Bibi's bow. As Ken notes, we spy on Israel. This lets them know what we know. But, per the oath for trial witnesses about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it surely does NOT tell ALL that we know. And, it may not have only truth in there, as far as the "nothing but," either.

As a pseudo-shot, in other words, this is another of those red lines that Genocide Joe continues to lay down on Israel for US public consumption that he has no intention of enforcing. This also is in the context of the presidential election, with early voting underway in many states. It's another way, via Genocide Joe, for Kamala is a Zionist Cop to look tough as well, even as she continues moving her own Overton Window right. Darth Cheney and the kiddies and sellout adults at Voters of Tomorrow who have Lincoln Project connections surely approve.

Three, part 2? Let's not forget, as many people know, and as Ken put in a previous post, but didn't link to in this one, that Merikkka just put a THAAD battery in Israel — with a US crew to run it to boot. That basically says "Do what you want to, Bibi, I got your back." That said, both that THAAD and the Iron Dome must suck if a Hezbollah drone was able to target Bibi's house.

Four? Ken calls out the Beltway stenos again in a new piece. Here's a key takeaway:

“Covert UAV operations” were observed on October 15, the NGA says, indicating that Israel’s RA-01 stealth drone was initiating a flight or returning from one, likely over Iran. Israel is flying stealth (covert) drones over Iran? That’s a story in itself. This would be a capability similar to the U.S. RQ-170/180 drones, which are super secret and barely ever mentioned in the U.S. media. But they are known to operate out of Chabelley airfield in Djibouti. Are they overflying Israel to take a look and thwart its “concealment” methods?

Complicit indeed is the MSM for not reporting this.

Ken also notes how part of US spying ON Israel is informed BY Israeli intelligence.

With that all in mind? And, the explicit mention of "nuclear"? We're now at the point of discussing what type of leak this is, as in, "political" or "principled"? (That said, principled leaks still have political angles.)

These docs showing up on an Iranian Telegram channel could be seen as supporting the "principled" angle, if the leaker is deeply serious about making sure all the Middle East players know. And, the "nuclear" is probably part of what pisses Biden off. The US now knows that Israel, and the rest of the world, knows that, behind closed doors at least, we openly discuss that Israel has nukes.

And, with all this? Any idea that a Harris administration could restart some sort of 2015 non-proliferation deal with Iran is toast.

Counterpunch? You've lost me with Chomsky AND with Nader

Counterpunch, on US elections issues, has been "losing" me for months now. Start with the lack of profiling of third-party candidates. Yeah, that's not their metier, but, at the same time, more than once in the past couple of months, they've run stuff that HAS at least verged halfway close to GOTV writing for the left hand of the duopoly.

And, now, today, on the one year anniversary of the start of the Third Gazan War or whatever name we should give the current round of mindless Israeli ethnic cleansing, after years of goading both Gazan and West Bank Palestinians?

Counterpunch Radio uses a Noam Chomsky "infographic" type quote as art for blurbing its podcast. Barf me.

First, long before he was brain-dead, Chomsky tried to "nudge" Green (and SPUSA) presidential nominee out of the race in 2020. He wasn't alone. Barbara Ehrenreich, Norman Solomon and others who know better were his fellow travelers.

That said, that's nothing new. That same year, Chomsky, who's long been a duopoly sheepdogger, was one of the signers of that odious Harper's letter. (So was Cornel West, which is why I didn't really believe his schtick a full year ago, even before he decided to try copulating with Nick Brana.)

And, while Margaret Kimberly went too far (shock me) in claiming Chomsky is fully opposed to BDS? He's nowhere near being in support of it; receipts are here. (Neither is Norman Finkelstein, who flat-out rejects it, as well as still cluelessly clinging to the two-state solution.)

Reminder: Last week, the UN General Assembly, in essence, officially called for UN member states to engage in BDS against Israel.

Beyond all of the above? Chomsky has been "filtered" through his second wife for years.

While I'm here? This, too. And, this goes straight to Jeff St. Clair, an unreconstructed Naderite, as well as Cockburn fils. Running Ralph Nader calling out Dems over Israel and Gaza. Nader officially endorsed Genocide Joe two weeks before Oct. 7 and has never unendorsed him or succesor Kamala is a Zionist Cop. On St. Clair, I had somewhat moderated my stance on his stance on Nader and the Green Party at one time, but I've hardened it again, and more so after Oct. 7. In my opinion, the Green Party internal reforms for 2004 weren't perfect, but they weren't horrible. AND, contra Nader and St. Clair, they weren't entirely officially targeted at him. Also IMO, he, like Cornel West, wanted the nomination on a platter. Yeah, there's a lot of AccommoGreens, but still?

Also, per my "endorsed" link? There's LOTS of stuff that St. Clair won't tell you. Like Nader being a shitter on Terri Schiavo. Like him being a crappy boss per both Kurt Eichenwald and Tim Shorrock, among others. Both have receipts. Nader has been anti-labor in other ways. Consumer advocates in general, like environmentalists, have a history there.

Anyway, this isn't Counterpunch Radio referencing Chomsky. This is Counterpunch continuing to platform him.

Update, Oct. 25: It gets worse. This Counterpunch piece all but goes in the BlueAnon tank, talking about Republican election suppression while ignoring Democratic third-party ballot access election suppression. I've long, long said that Counterpunch, even more than other theoretically leftist political commentary magazines, is sorely lacking in establishing some sort of overall editorial direction and oversight in areas like this. Of course, managing editor Josh Frank himself has had a piece or two this year that came close to semi-officially stanning for the lesser evilism half of the duopoly.

Israel doubles down again on warmongering

Israel's assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is having plenty of fallout in most circles that are not either US wingnuts or Kamala is a Zionist Cop #BlueAnon. Part of the fallout is Iraq's government again calling for the US to leave Iraq, and again being ignored, as both the left and right hands of the US imperium duopoly have done for years.  

Jeremy Scahill has much more for the Charles Kuffner #BlueAnon lackeys of the world. Ken Klippenstein chips in with a new note.

Also on Substack, Murtaza Hussain talks about the possibility of an Israel-Iran war.

Vaguely related? Michael Moore has no problem with being a genocide whisperer in general, along with no problem turd-polishing Dementia Joe's decision to stand down. Moore's long, clearly been a tribalist for the the left hand of the duopoly, but he's now reached a greater degree of fabulism than he ever showed in any of his movies, and to reverse the old cliche? That's a high bar to hurdle.

The Kingdom, the Power and The Glory: but no Red Heifer

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a HARD book to rate, and so, as I’ve done once or twice before, I’m doing sub-ratings. These come from my dual background as a newspaper editor and a secularist with a graduate theological degree. And, I'm expanding on one issue from my original Goodreads review.

OK, subratings:

1. Conservative evangelicals in bed with Trump? (Note the word “conservative” and see below.) 3.5. The TL/DR answer that Alberta doesn’t expressly note (until the epilogue, spoiler alert)? Conservative evangelicals, or a large chunk of them, want to “own the libs,” like Trump. He says this indirectly, but no more than that, before that one aside in the epilogue. (That said, David French, Russell Moore and others appear to blow this as well, or else maybe they — and maybe Alberta, too — don’t want to admit that the desire to win, which Alberta does discuss, is that simple — and that crude. And, while more inchoate, was held long before Trump.)
Side note: Per my observation about Russell Moore last year, Christianity’s entanglement with politics in the US isn’t totally new either, per things like Teddy Roosevelt’s “Muscular Christianity.” And per that link, I have a more skeptical eye on Russell Moore’s past than Alberta does.

1A. Conservative evangelicals’ other problems, such as their version of the Catholic priests’ sex abuse scandal? 4.5. The interviews with Rachael Denhollander and Julie Roys and their legal and journalistic work, respectively, was very good. So was Denhollander’s speculation that whichever way the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Life Commission breaks on the sexual abuse database issue, it’s going to cause a denominational schism.

1B. In brief, Alberta's starting with the Reagan era is good, as he shows evangelicals' interest in politics — and per Falwell Sr. being focused on taking down Jimmy Carter — as being an early driver. Could have been explored more, namely, the degree to which evangelicals overlooked Reagan's religious failings, such as divorce, child conceived (tho not born) out of wedlock, consulting astrologers (contra legends, Ronnie, not Nancy, took the initial lead on this long before the presidency) and more, just like with Trump. Let's also not forget that the National Day of Prayer was pushed on Ike by evangelicals, and other related Cold War items. 3.25 for not more explicitly making these ties, especially the pre-Reagan ones. Alberta is sincere in his worries about politics overtaking evangelical Christianity today, but, whether he's actually less sincere, or he just didn't want to go into depth on this, he risks looking less sincere by not having explored these ties more.
Beyond the focus of this book, I suspect that my childhood Missouri Synod Lutheranism, without a formal schism, will have 10 percent of its congregations hive off over the next decade or so and that Matt Harrison will stop being able to even halfway thread the needle over the Lutefash issue.

And, speaking of not exploring ties more? ...

1C. Where’s apocalypticism and where’s Israel? I only thought about that at the end, but .... See point 5 and explication for more. 2.5 as a placeholder, but also lowered the rating on broader political commentary, especially re the issue of Israel. On apocalypticism and eschatology, no, not every evangelical has the same take, but, they’re all generally contra mainline Protestants, and Catholics and Orthodoxy’s, amillenialism. And, hellz yes, this influences their interaction with politics, and especially, in foreign affairs, Israel. (NO 1- or 2-star reviewer picked up on this; 3-star reviews were too many to read but I expect it was missed there, too. I'll expand on this, either here or at my blog sites.)

And, yes, this is the issue that gets expansion.

The Wikipedia page on millennialism is a good starter. For more on the three main options within Christianity, go to its pages on premillennialism, postmillennialism and amillennialism.

Premillennialism has two different stripes, one ancient and the other modern. Both, though, believe in a literal millennium, a 1,000-year rule of Jesus on earth. They differ on things like where to place the "Rapture" (scare quote needed) and the "Tribulation" vis a vis the millennium as a whole, but have broad similarities. Overall, historic premillennialism is less literalistic than modern dispensationalist versions, though, and it's those that drive the folks like Tim LaHaye and his "Left Behind" set.

To be complete? Postmillennialism is, per Wiki, more of a catch-all. That said, all varieties believe Jesus' second coming will not happen until AFTER a millennial period, hence the "post-" prefix. How literalistic or not to understand that millennial period itself has a wide variety of stances.

Amillennialism? Anything the bible says about a 1,000-year period is figurative.

As Wiki notes in the main article, some early church fathers were Historical Premillennialist. Others may have been around that. Postmillennialism in any form had no real foothold among the ante-Nicene fathers.

But then Nicaea happened. And everything related to it, like the legalization of Christianity inside the Roman Empire, followed by it being made the official state religion by Theodosius II less than 60 years later. And, no tribulation or any other premillennial verschnizzle had happened. (This is why, in the bible, most scholars think II Thessalonians is apocryphal; it totally ignores Paul's "Man of Lawlessness" of 1 Thessalonians. See here for the difference between that person, the Beast of Revelation and the various antichrists of Johannine epistles.)

Amillennialsts say that there is no literal millennium, and that Revelation is just referencing the time between Jesus' ascension and his return. There will be no reign of the righteous or improvability of the earth before he returns, contra postmillennialism, nor will he return to start a 1,000-year battle with the powers of darkness, let alone look for a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem after a spotless red heifer is found or anything like that.

So, per Alberta's book, who believes what?

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox are strongly amillennial. So is the Lutheranism of my youth. So is traditional Calvinism, including Alberta's Presbyterianism. Ditto on Anglicanism and Episcopalianism. "Fundamentalism" within old mainline Protestantism, as well as more liberal views of theology and interpretation in mainline Protestantism, are at least on paper, still amillennial today.

Baptist groups, and the broader Anabaptist tradition from which they arise? Also generally amillennial.

That said, premillennialism in modern times is not a 19th-20th century American issue. Many Puritans held that, seeing themselves as a "New Israel." And, tying that to the "ingathering" and conversion of all Israel. (Paul may have been speaking literalistically in Romans. But, he was still wrong.) It really exploded among 19th century British evangelicals, where John Nelson Darby essentially launched what became modern dispensationalism, then exploded further here in the U.S. with Cyrus Scofield and his infamous Scofield Reference Bible. Its impact was expanded even more by being printed right before World War I. Although Baptists' history is amillennial, dispensationalism has a strong foothold there. It does as well among charismatic and Pentecostal types.

As for where we're at now? The 1948 establishment of the nation of Israel factors largely into many dispensationalists' thoughts, including, yes, rebuilding a temple and other things.

And, ALL of this, and how it affects modern evangelical or fundagelical politics, versus Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, and on paper, Alberta's childhood Presbyterians, is ignored by him.

2. Defining “evangelical”? 3 Alberta admits it’s complex, but, without using the word “fundagelical,” takes a pass in one way. See below. Let’s also not forget that “evangelical” arose in part as a “branding” term.

3. Biblical and early Christian interpretation, even within “fundagelical” culture? 2.5.

4. The above, outside that? 2.25

5. Broader political commentary? Rating based in part on overlapping past political coverage with Alberta: 1.75

A weighted average of all of the above, weighting more for the 1 and 1A gives 3.2 stars. An unweighted average is 2.8.

Summary: I think Alberta is sincere in his description — as far as it goes. Why it doesn’t go even further, on evangelical history, and the unmentioned elephant in the room, I don’t know. Get’s a gentleman’s C 3 stars. Because of his sincerity, and because at least one of the 1-star reviews is crap, this is a solid rating. But, if he writes another book just about evangelicalism, figure out his audience and pitch first. If he writes another book about evangelicals’ intersection with politics, and it doesn’t cover that elephant, don’t read it.

Early on, like Bart Ehrman’s Armageddon, Alberta appears to have a Marcionite view of the Old Testament. (Later, he talks about the sweetness of the New Jerusalem in Revelation, but ignores the amount of divine wrath there. He ignores Tertullian’s riff on Lazarus and Dives with Christians taking joy over the torments of the dammed.)

Also early on, Alberta indicates a belief in American exceptionalism, such as talking about America’s “miraculous” victory over Great Britain. Nothing miraculous about it when you recognize that Yorktown was a 75 percent French, 25 percent American, win, which doesn’t appear in Alberta’s narrative.

There’s also problems with biblical interpretation and criticism elsewhere. Contra page 131, no Nero didn’t persecute Christians after the Great Fire and the Tacitus account is almost certainly an interpolation by a minor church father circa 400 CE.

The page before is an error that even a fundagelical should not make. Saul/Paul did NOT “supervise” the stoning of Stephen and the plain text of Acts never says that. What Acts 7:54-58 DOES say:

54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit … 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

A few pages later, from that same Wheaton conference? Maybe part of why evangelicals think, wrongly, they’re being persecuted today is even more than conservative Catholics, they’ve swallowed myths of early Christian martyrdom that Candida Moss showed more than a decade ago simply aren’t true.

Much later, on page 386, this howler: “If these women had complied with the Jewish norms of the day, which forbade women from instructing men in public spaces…” then “it’s true that Paul wrote in one letter that women should not teach men.” Alberta never delves into the issue of inerrancy, nor the critical theology knowledge that Paul didn’t write those words in 2 Timothy, but a pseudonynomous author did circa 120 CE.

Yes, I know this is not a book of biblical, and ante-Nicene and post-Nicene Christian church fathers criticism. Nonetheless, with the exception of Saul/Paul and Stephen, getting these issues wrong, and continuing to wrongly hold them, especially combined with American exceptionalism (including as expressed by Alberta) means that evangelicals, whether they continue to try to be highly engaged politically or not, will in some way get their relation to politics wrong.

The idea of dividing the book into three sections, on “The Kingdom, The Power and the Glory,” riffing on the end of the Lord’s Prayer of today (that almost certainly was not part of the original, per textual criticism) was good. But, where was Augustine, specifically, “The City of God,” in the Kingdom section? He’s referenced in passing twice in the Power section by people Alberta interviews, and that’s it. MAJOR failure there.

Also? Not all evangelicals are conservative evangelicals and Alberta makes an error of omission here like many of his theological kin do. For example, Sojourners magazine, the people behind it, and the mag’s average readers? Nowhere mentioned in your book. (I checked the index; the Russian Orthodox Church, which is definitely not a US evangelical church, is mentioned five times, and Sojourners zero.) Per Wiki, the Sojourners Community that founded the mag started at Trinity Evangelical, and I’ll venture Alberta knows this. Alberta isn’t the only person to get this wrong. So does Fred Clark at Patheos, whom I suspect knows better, and who may be loath to identify himself as a “liberal evangelical” if he is one; The New Republic, which doesn’t; and others. Whether “liberal evangelical” is totally the right word for folks like Sojourners, I don’t know, but, at least, “moderate evangelicals.” And, Jimmy Carter still self-identifies as an evangelical, I think. And, what about academics in exegetical theology who accept historical-critical methodology in general but are on the conservative edge of it like a James McGrath? They’re not fundamentalists, not in a narrow sense.

There’s also the question of who’s an evangelical and who’s a fundamentalist? I consider the conservative Presbyterian church in which Alberta grew up, does have “evangelical” in its name, but? After all, “The Fundamentals” arose from within Presbyterianism, at least as far as the Stewart brothers who funded it. And, I consider the conservative wing of Lutheranism, whether the larger Missouri Synod or the smaller Wisconsin Synod (one of the events Alberta attends is at a Wisconsin Synod church) to be fundamentalist too. (These Lutherans, including my Missouri Synod pastor’s wife sister, hate being called fundamentalists, but it’s true, even if their fundamentals aren’t Presbyterian ones.)

There’s also the question of what the core audience is? If it’s conservative evangelicals, maybe it’s not long enough. If the general public? Too long. 450 pages in relatively small font and leading for todays hardbound book world is pretty long. See the top portion of my ratings.

There’s also a bigger background issue, via a question not raised by Alberta. And, Jeopardy style, I’ll provide the answer via Ed Abbey:

“Growth for growth’s sake is the theology of the cancer cell.”

Indeed, per a biblical reference missed by Alberta, in Acts, Gamaliel says that if the movement by Jesus’ disciples is from god, it will succeed and if not it won’t.

Setting aside divine origins, for any organization that is convinced in a non-arrogant way of the rightness of its mission and ideas, focusing on growth for growth’s sake simply shouldn’t happen.

Then, there’s the general politics coverage.

On 298, Alberta repeats the canard (it is, Tim) that national Democrats generally support “abortion on demand.” Once again, he either knows better or decided not to know better.

Many, many Democrats in the House and Senate supported the Hyde Amendment, barring Medicaid funding of abortions, from when Henry Hyde first wrote it. That includes our current president, Joe Biden, while in the Senate.

Related and connected? Biden, as well as Clinton and Obama, failed to ask Congress as the start of their respective administrations, when Democrats controlled both houses, for legislation offering any federal protections for any portion of Roe that could be federally protected. Alberta knows that, too.

Also, at one point in the book, Alberta seems to treat with a half-sneer the idea in the Shrub Bush administration of looking for “moderate Muslims.” If he didn’t mean that, then, he needs to be more careful in how he describes Muslims in America.

Finally, in a BIG old issue that Alberta totally ignores? And that’s of new relevance since Oct. 7, 2023? At least on paper, the mainline Lutheranism of my youth still doesn’t cut blank checks to Israel. This, and apocalyptic thought in general, and how it fuels and festers fear, is an issue for both political coverage and the intersection of religion and politics.

Related? As I said in 2018 (maybe he’s gotten better) Alberta is not a smart / informed political writer, to put it politely, or he’s … well, he’s the same word as he is on Democrats and abortion, to put it somewhat less politely, or an l-word, to put it totally unpolitely, about Beto O’Rourke’s political stances. I interviewed Beto, per the background to that link, and during the 2018 Senate campaign general election race, not the Dem primary. Beto talked about "access for all," and said single payer was "one way to get there," but contra Alberta, that's not single payer. Period. He refused to cosponsor John Conyers' HR 676 in the House. And, he said he didn't like Sanders' similar bill in the Senate. Now, Alberta wasn't alone in drinking the Kool-Aid; so, too, for reasons of her own, did his primary opponent, Sema Hernandez. That still doesn't excuse Alberta.

==

Finally, sidebar observations. One two-star reviewer needs to actually read Alberta with an open mind rather than chastise. She won’t recognize herself in the mirror (nor allow comments). Another in the same vein.
And another:

The craptacular one-star review is by an apparent Gnu Atheist.

View all my reviews

Israel and Genocide Joe updates

Genocide Joe has written Israel a new blank check, this one for attacking Hezbullah in Lebanon. And #BlueAnon will still continue to claim it owns my vote.

That said, the Joint Chiefs now say we probably can't help there militarily. Gen. Charles Q. Brown added that Iran would likely more directl8y support Hezbullah than it has indirectly supported Hamas and warned Israel away from going too far. Will this word make Bbie pout more or less than he has recently:

Prime Minister Netanyahu told Channel 14 on Sunday night that Israel is open to a diplomatic resolution to the Hezbollah threat, but he stressed, “It must be on our terms.”

That's Bibi: Hold my breath like a toddler if I don't get my way.

I already know not to trust Hillel beyond its hasbara frontin face. Here's more: It's funding of the org that's the chief agency for spying on pro-Palestinian college students.

Genocide Joe and the Democratic National Committee have made it official on a "virtual" roll-call nomination, in an attempt to avoid Chicago 2024 becoming Chicago 1968. (It also avoids Genocide Joe screwing up an acceptance speech before a live audience.)

Did Bibi not take an Israeli history class in high school?

I mean, his blanket refusal to negotiate period with Hamas is, beyond being genocidal and warmongering.

It's also plain stupid.

And full of crap.

Per the rhetorical question in the header, James Dorsey gets at the details.

He mentions, as have other news and opinion outlets, Netanyahu's statement that no, Israel won't "occupy" Gaza in nine months or so (his projected date for the end of the war), won't get involved in guerilla warfare, etc.

He then mention's Bib's oft-stated plan to have some Palestinian administer Gaza after those nine months or whatever.

Really? 

What fucking planet do you live on?

Even more likely than the likelihood of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being assassinated if he actually tried to implement the Minsk Accords (in 2019, let alone today), any Palestinian who volunteered to run Israel's toxic inferno in Gaza would be a walking dead man.

And, per the high school history class part of the rhetorical question?

It was long after he graduated high school, of course, but ...

ISRAEL FUCKING HELPED CREATE HAMAS.

I mean, as The Times of Israel reported just after Oct. 7, 2023, Bibi was involved personally with puffing up Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority. This idea has that stupidity written all over it.

But, that's not new. At the Intercept, Mehdi Hasan has the full backstory in a 2018 story:

“When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake,” David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military who was based in Gaza in the 1980s, later remarked. “But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.”

"They never do, do they?" Hasan himself said right after that as the last sentence of the story. 

I think there's one other issue. I don't know what the Israeli Hebrew phrase is for "Irish Alzheimer's," but Bibi makes #GenocideJoe look like a piker on that.

Jamie Metzl: Disingenuous on Gaza, at a minimum

"Disingenuous" is one of those words that has a clear denotative as well as connotative meaning, and in fact, in common use, the denotative often takes the lead, with insinuations of something like earned opprobrium behind it.

So, I use it reluctantly of Metzl, the Clinton Administration National Security Council staffer who was one of the early, leading, non-conspiratorial voices on COVID discussing the possibility of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, while admitting he didn't know for sure and remained open-minded toward a purely zoonotic origin.

I was nosing around his site last week, seeing if he had updated his main post on COVID, re the Fauci investigation by the House subcommittee last week Monday, when I noticed a piece that he had entitled called "Response to Gaza Open Letter."

Here's the background:

On March 17, 2024, I received an email regarding the Gaza conflict from six of my former colleagues from when I served in the White House and State Department during the Clinton administration. The people who sent the letter are among the people I respect most in the world, and so their invitation to sign on to the open letter to President Biden they had drafted was something I took with the utmost seriousness. Upon reading the letter, however, I realized I could not sign and responded with a letter outlining my reasoning.

What follows is an originally private response to them that he made public after their letter was published.

OK, we'll look at the why.

First:

While the letter focuses on the actions of Israel, it is largely silent on the responsibilities of Hamas in deliberately fomenting this crisis.

Well, maybe it primarily is about Israel, the original letter, but not totally.

Then there's this:

Hamas leaders extolled the October 7 terrorists to commit the worst possible abuses and desecrate the dead bodies to highlight Israeli outrage and undermine Israel’s deterrence.

We know that many of those claims (maybe not all, but yes, many) by Israel are nothing more than hasbara. And Metzl either does know that or should know that himself. 

Metzl then mentions the infamous tunnels, which, IIRC, were already being discussed mid-March.

Then there's the nutgraf on how Metzl said the letter should have started:

“As former U.S. foreign policy and national security officials who served several presidential administrations, we write to express our deep concerns about the situation in Gaza. We call on Hamas to release all the hostages immediately and to surrender unconditionally and for Israel to wage its justified war to defeat Hamas with the greatest care possible. We also write to encourage your administration to continue and substantially strengthen efforts to protect civilians and promote a just and durable peace.

Zionism 101.

"Surrender, Hamas and throw yourself on the tender mercies of Bibi."

What fucking planet do you live on?

The planet where the IDF gets a pass:

Third, it would be hard for any of us to declare with certainty, as the letter does, that “military tactics employed in that response have been indiscriminate, created a humanitarian catastrophe, jeopardized the potential for further progress toward regional stability, and undermined U.S. credibility and influence in the region and around the world.”

That was bad enough as of March 18. It's godawful as of now. (Speaking of which, the letter to him looks ahead to Rafah, which Metzl ignores.)

He then goes on to reject a negotiated ceasefire because:

Doing so would hand Hamas an historic victory and, in my view, give Hamas a controlling veto on any future political arrangement. If the second, Israel has already offered a negotiated temporary cease fire in exchange for the release of some hostages.

Oh, so, despite hating Bibi, he's a full-on Zionist by that point, re the first sentence. Re the second, no, news sites generally called that a "pause." It should also be noted that his blog, and his website as a whole, do not have a search function. I'll assume, based on everything up to this point, that he simply doesn't discuss the background to Oct. 7, 2023, and surely doesn't even use the word "Nakba."

Now, to show how disingenuous Metzl is, to the point of duplicitousness? Here's Reuters' piece on the letter to him.

In its letter, the group said that an Israeli military operation against Hamas was "necessary and justified."

But Israel's operations "have been marked by repeated violations" of international law banning indiscriminate killing and the use of weapons that do not permit discrimination between combatants and civilians, the group said.

You lying sack of shit. That's hardly "largely silent," contra the first pull quote from your letter.

And, that letter explicitly mentions international law. Yours does NOT.

And, on background? The Nakba, or Israeli actions that precipitated it, actually started in 1947, before any Arab League member attacked Israel.

The background in general? Mondoweiss has it for you, Metzl.

Congrats, Metzl. You totally earned the "disingenuous," both connotatively and denotatively.

By his silence, Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff is a Zionist

Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff as in the organizer of the Texas Progressives: Zionist by silence over saying nothing about the DPS crushing of pro-Palestinian protestors at UT. Nor, at that link, about Strangeabbott's applauding the DPS. Nor has he said anything about UT faculty planning to give president Jay Hartzell a vote of no confidence over HIS applauding the DPS. (Nor did the Trib mention, as did Truthout, that this is really a faculty call for a teaching strike.) Nor has he said anything about UT administration spouting hasbara bullshit. Or, it's spouting more hasbara bullshit, namely, the conflation of antizionism and antisemitism. And, the protest was peaceful, period and end of story.

Moved from this week's Texas Progressives roundup? As written: The Austin Chronicle reports on UT faculty's reaction to the protest debacle, with Kuff not talking about WHICH protest.

Nor has Kuff said anything about Zionists "phoning in" a discrimination complaint to prevent students from voting on divestment measures. (Sadly, neither has the Trib.)

Kuff is a straight-up #BlueAnon who wouldn't dare to call out President #GenocideJoe Biden, ConservaDem Senate candidate Colin Allred or anything like that.

And, Rice and UT-Austin are both in Tex-ass, and Rice is even in Kuff's backyard in Houston, so no excuses on the claim this is something "national."

That's as Stace calls out elected officials in the Helltown area for their silence. Stace, do Kuff next. (I mentioned this Wednesday evening, commenting on a Kuff piece where he wrote about SCOTUS refusing to do an emergency review of Texas' online porn-age verification law.)

This is all as a new leak of a State Department memo indicates four bureaus within it say Israel's in noncompliance, or appears to be, on human rights violations. SoS Tony Blinken, per the piece, is supposed to report to Congress by May 8 whether or not Israel is in violation.

Kuff has had more than a full week since I wrote this to write about something other than early voting updates for non-partisan local elections in Houston.

And, with the House passing the fraudulently named "Antisemitism Awareness Act," HR 6090, Kuff also faces a point-blank political issue, namely in ConservaDem butt-sniffer and Senate nominee Colin Allred, as well as the increasingly fraudulent Sheila Jackson Lee, from right down there in Houston, both voting for the bill.

(That said, Kuff never updates the peripherals of his blog. He's got sites on his blogroll that have been dead since COVID hit, or earlier. He doesn't have me on there, even though I've been part of the Texas Progressives Alliance for a decade or more. That's said as lead-up to the fact that I don't think he ever even looks at comments.)

Update, May 8: The University of Houston is also cracking down on pro-Palestinian protestors. Right in Kuff's backyard. Crickets from him. He has had his friend of some sort Ginger, from Dallas, post about crackdowns there in what seems to be a weekly post from her. But, he himself has yet to write one post about any of the protests.

Update, May 19: Kuff still can't talk about the thuggish repression here in Tex-ass of pro-Palestinian protestors at Texas public universities, but CAN talk about Ernie Johnson helping a bar mitzvah.