Links - 17th August 2024 (2 - Hating Elon Musk)

Thierry Breton on X - "Back in the day, #BlueChecks used to mean trustworthy sources of information✔️🐦 Now with X, our preliminary view is that: ❌They deceive users ❌They infrige #DSA X has now the right of defence —but if our view is confirmed we will impose fines & require significant changes."
Bojan Tunguz on X - "America makes software. Asia makes hardware. Europe makes it difficult."
Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "You think you can tell a privately owned business how to hand out blue checkmarks? Have you totally lost your mind? Mets also verifies users. Are you targeting them?"
AwakenedOutlaw⚒️ on X - "The truth is that the left hates the idea that people they disagree with ideologically are allowed to speak or share opinions that aren't in congress with their own."
Visegrád 24 on X - "Blue Checkmarks never meant “trustworthy sources of information”."
Hi, I'm KellyJo 🙋🏽‍♀️🇺🇸 on X - "Blue checkmarks were given to well-known people. Lots of people who were pushing misinformation"
Leftism on X - "Funny, because those "trustworthy" sources turned out to be completely wrong and straight up liars about many things (like Biden's mental health). And I assume that you'll be going after Meta for having the same type of verification system? Or do you only have it out for X and Elon?"
I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 on X - "There is nothing more telling than seeing globalists and bureaucrats threatened by the truth."
Ian Miles Cheong on X - "Louis Farrakhan and a number of other crazy people had blue check marks. I guess they were reliable sources of information?"

Richard Hanania on X - "The role of government is not to police the meaning of a blue check. Europe has truly lost its way."

Meme - "America innovates. China replicates. Europe regulates"

Pirate Wires on X - "Musk: EU Wanted "Illegal Secret Deal" to "Quietly Censor Speech"
the european commission wanted 𝕏 to hire a team of people in the eu that would unilaterally oversee the removal of 'misinformation' on the platform, a source with knowledge of the issue told us
On Friday, @elonmusk  said the European Commission (EC) "offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone," they would not seek to issue daily fines related to 𝕏’s blue check verification system that could total 6% of the company’s annual revenue.  "The other platforms accepted that deal. 𝕏 did not," his post says.  Elon’s post came after EC commissioner Thierry Breton announced the Commission's preliminary findings that pre-Elon, blue checkmarks "used to mean trustworthy sources of information," but now violate the Digital Services Act because, today, "anyone can subscribe to obtain such a 'verified' status," therefore the commission may "impose fines & require significant changes."
The EC wanted 𝕏 to hire a team of people in the EU that could number in the hundreds to remove 'misinformation' from the platform, a person with knowledge of the issue told PW Editor-in-Chief @micsolana . 𝕏 would have no recourse in these removal decisions, the person said.  "The objective of the Digital Services Act is to ensure a safe and fair online environment for European citizens that is respectful of their rights, in particular freedom of expression," EC spokesperson Thomas Regnier told Pirate Wires over email. "The DSA requires a fair and transparent complaint mechanism for users. If an account is suspended, the user has the right to contest the decision. This means that decisions must not be arbitrary, and users are empowered to protect their online presence... When an account is restricted, the user must be informed and has the right to appeal the decision." Shortly after his post about the secret deal, Elon posted that he plans to take the Commission to court if its preliminary findings are confirmed and it pursues an enforcement action against 𝕏.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a new legislative regulatory bundle by the EC that only became fully applicable this February, and seeks to fine companies like 𝕏, Meta, and Google up to 6% of their annual revenue for violations, which include failure to remove "illegal" content once it’s reported. What’s considered illegal can vary depending on the specific national laws of EU member states, provided these laws are compatible with EU law. For example, content that’s illegal in Germany must be removed for users in Germany, even if it is not illegal in another member state.  The EC also accused 𝕏 of failure to "comply with the required transparency on advertising, as it does not provide a searchable and reliable advertisement repository," and prohibiting "eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data," both of which are in violation of its DSA.  In April, Elon publicly feuded with Brazilian lawmakers after he refused to comply with their demands to remove accounts without explanation to account owners or the public. Brazilian lawmakers had previously asked 𝕏 to remove accounts critical of its regime under these conditions.  "We do not know the reasons these blocking orders have been issued. We do not know which posts are alleged to violate the law. We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or on what grounds. We are prohibited from saying which accounts are impacted. We are threatened with daily fines if we fail to comply," posted 𝕏’s Global Government Affairs team about Brazil’s demands. 𝕏 ultimately reversed course, and announced it would comply with the Brazilian government’s requests.  Today, the EC's findings are "preliminary," but per the EC, "if the Commission's preliminary views were to be ultimately confirmed... [it] could entail fines of up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of [𝕏], and order [it] to take measures to address the breach."  — Brandon Gorrell (@brandongorrell )"

eigenrobot on X - "one thing I had not realized about twitter under @elonmusk is that he seems to have quietly destroyed the academic Misinformation Studies cottage industry by charging for twitter API access credit where due: this was an enormous public service"

Meme - Travis Allen @TravisAllen02: "I love when the trash takes itself out by leaving Facebook and Twitter to join Parler."
Travis Allen @TravisAllen02: "Will you leave Twitter if Elon Musk buys it?"

Meme - Elon Musk @elonmusk: "My politics are (I think) fairly moderate anyway.
- Safe cities
- Secure borders
- Neutral judiciary
- Sensible spending
- Pro environment"
evan loves worf @esjesjesj: "My politics are moderate:
-Nazi dog whistle
-Nazi dog whistle
-Nazi dog whistle
-Classic Republican position
-Obvious lie"
Yakov Gourevits 🇩🇪 @solr22: "If you declare safe cities, secure borders and neutral judiciary as nazi positions, most people will shrug and say well then I guess I'm a nazi and you will lose."
As usual, a "dog whistle" is the left trying to put words into the mouths of people they disagree with and defame them

What To Do If You've Been Doxed | WIRED (2017) - "There are few more toxic practices online than doxing, the distribution of someone's personal information across the internet against their will. It’s all too common, though, deployed regularly and devastatingly as a means to harass and intimidate. The practice is not limited to public—or briefly internet famous—figures either. Anyone can be a victim, at any time. Doxing is an effective tool for bad actors"
Elon Musk's X Is Suspending Accounts That Reveal a Neo-Nazi Cartoonist's Alleged Identity | WIRED (2024) - "X has locked and suspended the accounts of journalists and researchers who shared the alleged identity of a neo-Nazi cartoonist known as Stonetoss after the cartoonist appealed to site owner Elon Musk."
Harassment and doxxing are good when liberals approve of it. And of course anyone who pushes back against the left wing agenda is a "neo-Nazi"
I looked into the claims that doxxing that Musk approves of is allowed, but they are all fake, because most of the links to doxxing allegations describe anything close to doxxing (since personal information was not revealed), Junlper / Tyler Sternbach posted his own identity and the allegation that Chaya Raichik (Libs of TikTok) doxxed Zach Drennen / Ari Drennen link to a Nov 2023 tweet, but in Mar 2023, Ari posted her old photo and name and proclaimed that "I’m not hiding from my past like I did when I was closeted. No fear, no shame."

Meme - Liberal screeching to sky: "ELON MUSK WAS SUPPOSED TO SMOKE WEED WITH US NOT HAVE OPINIONS I FIND CONTROVERSIAL"

Corporations Offended By Free Speech Are Happy to Invest In Places Without It - "While other social media firms continued to narrow the range of acceptable speech, X was broadening them.  As Vox reported earlier this year, advertising executives were skittish about the service’s greater commitment to freedom of expression, fearing that it would associate them with unsavory content. “Major corporations don’t want to jeopardize what they call “brand safety” by associating with offensive content,” the publication wrote after speaking to a range of industry insiders.   As Public has reported, the presence of much of that offensive content has been exaggerated. But the hundreds of firms that have reduced or eliminated advertising on X felt differently, fearing that their ads may be placed next to content that some may find offensive. In other words, they were offended by being somewhere on the Internet that people are speaking to each other relatively freely with little censorship... Disney is heavily invested in China, where political dissent is heavily suppressed and citizens are monitored by one of the world’s most comprehensive surveillance regimes.   Those investments include not just manufacturing many of Disney’s products but also the sprawling Shanghai Disneyland, which opened under Iger’s watch. Iger and Disney’s passion for entering the Chinese market was so intense that in 2010, he met with the country’s propaganda minister and promised to help “introduce more about China to the world” through the company’s products and platform.   Disney’s case is not unique. Many of the firms that pulled out of Twitter maintain robust presence in countries that maintain repressive speech environments.  Take for instance IBM, which pulled ads in November. The company has a wide range of economic partnerships in Saudi Arabia, which last year was ranked 170 out of 180 on Reporters Without Borders’s index of press freedom.  Apple, which also pulled ads in November, struck a deal to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in China, making a promise to “do its part to develop China's economy and technological prowess through investments, business deals and worker training.”  The message these firms are sending is that free speech – which includes speech that some people may find offensive – makes X too reputationally damaging for them to associate with. But associating with countries that are virtual police states isn’t. This suggests that free speech, warts and all, is more intolerable to these companies than even dictatorship.   Why is that?   Why have corporations turned against free speech?

Michael Shellenberger on X - "The media say antisemitism is rampant on X, but it's not. Wash Post/CCDH won't even release the data to back up their latest claims. The media have abandoned all pretense of objectivity and are waging the worst war on free speech since the rise of totalitarianism 100 years ago."

Thread by @shellenberger on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The media say "misinformation" is more rampant on X than on their websites, but it's not. The mainstream media got every major story of the last several years wrong. The real reason the media are attacking X is because they are losing so many readers to it. The main sources of disinformation and hate speech are governments and corporate media. They have waged a series of hateful disinformation campaigns and spread wild conspiracy theories to undermine democracy & cover up their failures, eg Covid's origin, Hunter Biden's laptop. {oliticians, news media, and advertisers have entered into an unholy alliance to destroy X as a free speech platform.  Their desperate efforts to maintain censorship show the alarming degree to which they controlled information & thought before 2023. The efforts by the media/corporate advertiser/politician blob are positively maniacal.  They're working through the EU to control the whole of the Internet. They even opened an office in downtown San Francisco to try to control X & other tech companies. Every week brings a fresh disinformation campaign from the media/corporate advertiser/politician blob. The message of the counterpopulist blob is always the same because it's aligned with their financial and political interests.  Their problem is that once their disinformation strategy becomes visible to the people, it loses its power.
The media is in a vicious downward spiral.  It spreads disinformation ---> Loses public trust ---> Loses readers/traffic ---> Loses money ---> Layoffs.  "Over 20,000 media jobs have been eliminated this year... The figure is also six times higher than the number of job losses in 2022 when several large media companies including Warner Bros.  "Discovery and Disney and others had undergone a series of layoffs impacting thousands of media workers." — Forbes We have big battles ahead of us. Ireland is seeking to pass legislation that would allow the police to enter people's homes and read their phones & computers.  But as long as X remains a free speech platform, free speech & democracy will prevail."
Of course, left wingers keep claiming that Elon Musk is running X into the ground

Meme - ""Twitter is dying."
X is as vibrant and busy as it's ever been."
"X All Time Organic Traffic (2012 to 2024)
*shooting up some time in 2022 and never dropping below that starting level*

Laurence Fox on X - "It’s worth noting that if @elonmusk  hadn’t bought Twatter, there would be no home of free speech anywhere in the west, and the plagiarist would be being lauded and promoted and anyone who took issue with her theft of intellectual property would be banned from the site.   What a difference a year makes."
Why the left hate Musk buying Twitter

Colin Wright on X - "Very glad that @elonmusk  is suing Media Matters (@mmfa ) for their false and slanderous accusations. Most of us don't have the resources to push back against their damaging lies.  They have been trying to destroy my reputation and ability to make a living for years by publishing articles accusing me of being an "anti-trans bigot" and "maligning and demeaning trans people," distorting my valid criticisms of the Trevor Project for secretly helping minors transition, and attempting to implicate me in data fraud via guilt by association.  They're not journalists; they're unscrupulous political attack dogs.  Thanks Elon. Give them hell."

KanekoaTheGreat on X - "🚨BREAKING: @FreeBeacon  has uncovered a confidential list revealing Media Matters' major contributors.   Brace yourself for this shocking surprise — they're all Democratic megadonors.
• Deborah J. Simon: $4,000,000
• Gill Foundation: $2,970,000
• Josh and Anita Bekenstein: $1,750,000
• Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation: $1,900,000
• Susan T. Buffett Foundation: $1,751,199
Media Matters, the brainchild of Clinton loyalist David Brock, calls itself a media watchdog but operates as a DNC front group orchestrating advertiser boycotts and suppressing free speech on social media.  In a shocking federal lawsuit, a Media Matters employee obsessively refreshed a fringe video on @rumblevideo  over 70 times until he found a Netflix ad that could be used as fodder for a public pressure campaign.  Despite being the sole viewer of that Netflix ad next to the fringe video, Media Matters falsely insinuated in an article that Netflix ads frequently accompanied fringe content on Rumble, coercing advertisers to abandon the platform.  On @X , Media Matters accessed accounts active for 30 days, bypassing ad filters for new users, and selectively followed accounts with fringe content and those owned by X's major corporate advertisers.  After repeatedly scrolling and refreshing their timeline - 13 more times than an average user - they generated screenshots of fringe content next to X's top advertisers.  Media Matters' defamation was so fabricated that IBM, Comcast, and Oracle had their ads appear next to fringe content for just one account—an employee of Media Matters—out of over 550 million active users on @X .  Media Matters conveniently left out these details in their reporting, sidestepping the fact that their reporters manipulated the platform to create fringe content next to major corporate advertisers.  Why are Democratic megadonors like @GillFoundation , @Josh_Bekenstein , and @BuffettScholars  financially supporting these clearly deceptive, malicious tactics aimed at stifling free speech on the internet?"

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Disney worker charged with 32 counts of child p*rn in Brooksville, Florida.  Maybe Disney should focus on their own problems instead of projecting on X.  Michael David Foster, a Disney worker, was busted in possession of child p*rn.  It’s no secret Disney has a pedoph*le problem which is deeply concerning considering their whole business model centers around children.  Earlier this year, 40-year-old Paul Viejo was arrested in Florida on child p*rn charges. He worked at Cosmic Rays Restaurant at Disney World.  Dozens of Disney employees have been arrested over the years for s*x crimes involving children.  Sickening."

Meme - Stephen King @StephenKing: "Dear Elon: Twitter. Twitter, Twitter. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. And so on. Fuck your need to put your personal brand on everything."
greg @greg16676935420: "Says the guy who puts his name bigger than the title of the book on all his books"

Lucas Lynch | Facebook - "Elon Musk is proof that you can dedicate the golden years of your life to some of the most important progressive priorities, like renewable energy, electric cars, and the exploration of the universe, and no matter how successful you are, far-left progressives will hate you regardless."

Scott Adams on X - "After several years of watching Biden destroy America, I asked my smart Democrat friend if he had changed his views since 2016.   He advised me to read the New York Times to get real news and stop falling for all the Republican hoaxes.  You can't even talk to Democrats these days. Not enough common assumptions to even get started."
Elon Musk on X - "Recommend that they also read X. Worst case, they will have a better understanding of the so-called “hoaxes”. They don’t need to stop reading NY Times, but they probably will once they realize they’ve been had."
Scott Adams on X - "I did recommend X as the only place showing both sides. That was the main reason I messaged him. I was trying to free him from his bubble. No interest."
I Will Not Comply on X - "It's a cult... It's VERY hard to convince someone to be willing to look at new information that will force themselves to admit they were wrong... Fear of being wrong is a very powerful force..."

Ian Miles Cheong on X - "Without 𝕏, Claudine Gay would still have her job at Harvard. Most people—academics, tech leaders, etc.—would still be afraid of speaking their minds and saying all the quiet parts out loud. Free speech, provided by 𝕏, and Elon Musk, has enabled a newfound degree of freedom previously unafforded by Twitter or any other social media platform.   Now, the tide is turning against the woke regime and they’re genuinely terrified of losing their entrenched positions. They can no longer be protected from criticism as people—the public—rejects their use of -isms as a shield from the truth."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Facebook's former engineering director David Erb says the pedoph*le network inside Meta platforms is "a hundred times worse" than anyone expected.  Why do advertisers have an issue with X but not this? Really makes you wonder.  In 2019, Erb resigned in protest after he became disgusted with Facebook's plan to encrypt messages which he believed would give pedoph*les more protection.  "It was a hundred times worse than any of us expected. There were millions of pedophiles targeting tens of millions of children," Erb said during an interview with the Wall Street Journal.  Once Erb discovered that Facebook was planning on encrypting messages, he threatened to resign because he was worried not enough was being done to confront Facebook's alleged pedoph*le problem.  Days later, Erb was removed and placed on leave, prompting him to resign.  Wild."

Tobi on X - "It’s time to acknowledge that 75% of Twitter’s staff were laid off and this thing is still running"
Shibetoshi Nakamoto on X - "imagine how embarrassing it would be to be a former twitter employee who very confidently stated that the app would die without them, and seeing it continue to thrive with 20% of the manpower that it used to have"

New York Post on X - "Elon Musk’s X now worth 71% less than when billionaire bought it as Twitter"
ib on X - "You are post-economic at ~50M if you don't lose your assets. You can't consume more from what's available/against others consumption. Bezos doesn't live much better than men his age with 25M. Billionaires don't even get better phones. Musk owns English-speaking opinion making"

Meme - Peter St Onge, Ph.D. @profstonge: "In the year since @elonmusk took over, traffic tripled, eclipsing Instagram. This is becoming humanity's public square"
Weird. The left keep claiming he destroyed it and no one uses it anymore

Meme *Elon Musk* "So you're not mad at those who lied to you for years. But you're mad at me for proving they lied to you?"

Collin Rugg on X - "JUST IN: Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes says X is an extremely toxic place and says the name scares her while speaking at the World Economic Forum.  What a clown 🤡  "It's become such a toxic place that I've concluded it's not a worthwhile place to spend time... it is exhausting."  "I have given up on X, what a scary name that even is, right?""
These are the same people who go on about "white fragility"

Meme - Mike Pesca @pescami: "If you aren't familiar with the grammar of the Times front page layout here it is: The top right story is the lead story, the top left story is the sub-lead everything else above the fold is the important news of the day. Today the New York Times says the second most important story is mounting pressure from senior congressional Dems to push Biden out of the race. The 3rd most important story is a shocking French election results upending all expectations. The MOST important story is Elon Musk's successful space launch destroying nine bird nests."

Meme - Ian Miles Cheong @stillgray: "Elon Musk has confirmed to me that there have been two separate attempts on his life within the past 8 months.   Posting this because everyone else seems to want to crop out my name from their screenshots."
Ian Miles Cheong @stillgray: "Please, please triple your protection. If they can come for Trump they will also come for you."
Elon Musk @elonmusk: "Dangerous times ahead. Two people (separate occasions) have already tried to kill me in the past 8 months. They were arrested with guns about 20 mins drive from Tesla HQ in Texas."
In the wake of the Trump assassination attempt. Left wing hatred has consequences

Meme - Gavin Newsom @GavinNewsom: "Manipulating a voice in an "ad" like this one should be illegal. I'll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is."
"Elon Musk retweets altered Kamala Harris campaign ad. In the video, Harris seemingly exposes herself as an incompetent candidate for president. The origin of the video isn't known yet."
Elon Musk: "I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America"

The Left Has an Authoritarian Problem (but Doesn’t Know It)

Among other takeaways, 

- this explains why left wingers keep insisting left wing authoritarianism does not exist
- suggests that promoting democracy in formerly authoritarian countries is useless
- shows that the left has the worst of both worlds - they don't want to comply with authority themselves (leading to social dysfunction) but want to use authority to crush their enemies (which leads to a different sort of social dysfunction)
- provides an explanation for why so many left wingers hate their families

The Left Has an Authoritarian Problem (but Doesn’t Know It)

"In the movie The Avengers, Loki—playing the part of the consummate authoritarian leader—orders a group of average Germans to kneel before him. It seems to work, as almost everyone complies. But one solitary man refuses, saying that he will “not [kneel] to men like you.” Loki arrogantly asserts, “There are no men like me.” Then the German man utters the great hidden truth of authoritarian psychology: “There are always men like you.”

Probably the most common misconception about authoritarianism is that it is largely about the authority figures in charge, the Loki types of the world. In fact, that is often the direction the conversation turns when I present evidence of left-wing authoritarianism. On The Rick Ungar Show, for example, one of the guests criticized our lab’s work because it didn’t clearly identify left-wing authoritarian leaders. An alarmingly high percentage of news stories about authoritarianism in the last seven years also referenced one particular right-wing leader: Donald Trump.

It is easy to see why there is a focus on authoritarian leadership. “Authoritarian” has “authority”—that is, the person in charge—built into the word. When people think “authoritarian” they often think of the leaders. So it’s only natural to think that the authoritarian problem is only a problem with leadership.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The hidden truth of authoritarian psychology is that there are always people like that. There are always people who will fill the power vacuum, who want to rule and order and dictate. Every movement has authoritarian leaders. Every movement has people who want to gain power and use it harshly. Every movement has leaders who wish to control, manipulate, and crush. So to spend time talking about authoritarianism as if what changes is in the leadership is futile. Nothing changes in the leadership. What changes is in the people they presume to lead.

Indeed, leaders are irrelevant if no one will obey them. It requires a lust in the masses for authoritarians to punish their enemies, to create and enforce norms for which dissent is not allowed, to promote intolerance and hatred. Authoritarian leaders are pathetic stooges if the masses are uninterested in them. So “Are there authoritarian leaders?” isn’t the primary question—the primary question is “Will the people submit?” It doesn’t matter if Congresswoman Maxine Waters tells protestors to “get more confrontational” if they don’t like a trial verdict; it only matters if everyone thinks that kind of authoritarian fear-mongering is okay. Will they submit? Do they want leaders to boss others about, to lead them to aggression?

This truth maps onto decades of authoritarianism research in my own field of social psychology. That research has largely been built around personality and attitude scales that measure authoritarianism. These scales are not built to measure authoritarian leaders; rather, they are built to measure authoritarian followers...

Thus, most of what we know about authoritarianism—most of the actual data used in the primary questionnaires that have come to define what we think about authoritarianism—is about the people who follow, and not the people who lead...

Which come first—authoritarian followers or authoritarian leaders?

Our work over a thirty-year span suggests that changes in the authoritarian status of governments were predicted by the predisposal of the populace to authoritarian followership traits like collectivism; but authoritarian governmental changes had comparatively little effect on followers’ psychology. This work suggests that certain psychological features predispose followers to accept authoritarian dictatorships. This empirical fact is quite remarkable. So many things influence the rise of dictators that have nothing to do with the internal culture—military power, foreign politics, the status of a nation’s immediate neighbors—that it would seem like the cultural beliefs of the followers in the populace hardly matter. And yet not only do they matter, they matter primarily. They are central. An authoritarian dictator may take over a country, but if the people never wanted that to happen, it won’t last. A democracy may be installed from the outside, but if the people want authoritarian leadership, it won’t last. 

Thus, when we come to the potential for left-wing authoritarianism, the primary question we should be asking is not “Are there authoritarian leaders on the left who will grab power and enforce dictates?” The real question is “Do lots of left-wing people want authoritarian leaders to crush their enemies?”...

To a psychologist, “authoritarian” doesn’t just mean “obeying authority” or “ordering someone to do something.” Parents who punish their kids for being mean to their siblings aren’t authoritarian leaders. People who obey the speed limits aren’t authoritarian followers. Authoritarianism means something specifically nastier. Authoritarians don’t merely enforce reasonable rules or obey those rules—they want a strong leader to crush and silence their opponents. They want that leader to hurt people for the benefit of their group. 

The authoritarian is thus vastly different than the person who merely complies with authority. In fact, merely obeying authority is largely a positive thing as far as it goes. If students in my classes refused to do what I ask of them, no one would ever learn. If they interrupted my lectures to discuss Taylor Swift, or yelled at their fellow students about line dancing, or wrote “Luke stinks” on top of the notes I was trying to write on the board, then there would be little point in my class. Their obedience accomplishes a positive goal. We teach children to respect their teachers because it is a positive thing to respect their teachers. 

Similarly, we want people to obey the law. We want them to respect the authority that tells them “do not murder.” We’re glad when people obediently decide not to drink and drive, when they follow directives to evacuate burning buildings in an orderly manner, and when they refuse to vandalize our property. Obeying authority in this way isn’t authoritarianism, because we don’t want those things primarily to hurt or crush or silence anyone. We just want people to behave well. 

Authoritarians also want people to obey—but they differ in several respects from those who merely obey. The classic definition of authoritarianism is that authoritarians want a strong authority figure to hurt others (called “authoritarian aggression”), to enforce radical group norms (called “authoritarian conventionalism”), and to require submission to those norms (called “authoritarian submission”). Authoritarians want to obey strong authority figures, but they are largely motivated by a desire to have their group dominate other groups...

Authoritarians aren’t especially interested in obeying the law—they are actually less likely to obey the law if their own authority commands them not to. 

The distinction between good and bad authority can be seen in remarkable work on parenting by Cal Berkeley professor Diana Baumrind. This work suggests there are two primary dimensions of parenting: Responsiveness/Warmth and Authority/Control. How parents score on these two dimensions defines their parenting style. Parents who are low on both responsiveness and authority are Neglectful parents who basically don’t attend to their children at all. Parents who score high on responsiveness but low on authority are Indulgent parents who spoil their kids.  

It is the contrast of the two high-authority parent types that is most relevant here. Parents who score high on authority but low on responsiveness are Authoritarian parents who are strict, dogmatic, and uncaring. However, parents who score high on authority but also score high on responsiveness are Authoritative. They expect obedience but they listen to their children and show warmth to them. 

In my experience, it occasionally surprises some Americans that lots of research suggests kids have the best outcomes under Authoritative parents. Indulgent and Neglectful parents tend to raise unhappy and unsuccessful kids. So parents with no authority at all don’t do very well. Parents who have nothing but authority—cold authoritarians—also don’t do well. But parents with a combination of authority and responsiveness raise successful kids at very high rates.This work highlights an important point for our larger study of authoritarianism. The proper substitute for authoritarianism isn’t chaos. The proper substitute is good authority that is responsive to the populace. We need leaders. Authoritarianism is essentially a desire to put strong-but-bad leaders in power. The proper substitute for authoritarianism isn’t to put no leaders in power, but to put responsive and warm leaders in power. We shouldn’t want less leadership; we should want better leadership...

Authoritarianism is highly domain-specific: authoritarians get very attached to particular leaders in particular domains, but they aren’t likely to obey just any old leader. 

This means that people can be authoritarian about almost anything. If people really hate bats, they might form an authoritarian movement to kill bats. But if people think that bats are awesome, they might be just as likely to form an authoritarian movement to save bats. Authoritarians are more likely to seek out and obey authority figures, yes—but only authority figures who care about their preferred domain. And that domain can literally be anything. That means one of the questions we have to ask about authoritarians is: authoritarianism to what? 

Consider the religion-versus-science dichotomy. We commonly associate authoritarianism with religion. And rightly so—religion is often one of the most pernicious purveyors of authoritarian evils. People less commonly associate science with authoritarianism; and yet an increasing amount of evidence shows that science isn’t a cure-all for authoritarian ills and, in fact, can actually serve as a conduit for them. For example, in one of my favorite studies, participants were told to do something they believed would seriously harm a fish. (Don’t worry, fish-lovers, the fish was actually a very lifelike robot—but participants didn’t know that.) Beforehand, the researchers put some of these people in a “scientific mindset” by having them write about science, while other control participants were not. Did approaching the situation with a scientific approach make participants less likely to obey the authoritarian command to harm a presumably innocent fish? Not at all. In fact, the opposite occurred: putting people in a scientific mindset made them more likely to obey scientific authority to inject toxic chemicals into a fish. 

This example illustrates the complex and domain-specific nature of authoritarian behavior. Putting people in a science-loving mindset can make them more authoritarian if the authority figure in question is a scientist asking them to do immoral things. This is important because, psychologically speaking, there is no reason that liberals can’t be just as authoritarian as conservatives, if the situational domain meets the right set of authority figures for the right kind of people...

Social psychologists have long denied that authoritarianism on the left was a topic worthy of study. Indeed, as recently as 2020, the very existence of any left-wing authoritarians was called “largely mythical, like the Loch Ness Monster.”  

It often surprises outsiders to my field when I tell them that many social psychologists deny the existence of a meaningful number of left-wing authoritarians. Those outsiders immediately gravitate to obvious examples of left-wing authoritarians either in their own lives (that one mean uncle who keeps going on about Marxism) or in the political landscape (clear leftist authoritarian regimes such as Communist China or Cuba). This gap between academic psychologists and the public was apparent when we collected national samples to examine how many left-wing authoritarians normal Americans can identify in their own lives. Before we looked at the data, I and one of my social psychology colleagues made guesses about the average number of liberal authoritarians in people’s lives. I guessed one; my colleague guessed two. On a lark, I also asked a non-academic outside of our bubble to estimate how many left-wing authoritarians the average American knew. She said fifteen. I laughed and said: “That can’t be right!” But she was very nearly right. The actual number was not quite fifteen, but well over ten, and nowhere near the guesses that two social psychologists—two social psychologists who have championed the idea of left-wing authoritarianism, mind you—made. It was clear that I and my social psychology colleagues had no clue what was happening in the real world. 

It isn’t just our lab that has woken up to this growing left-wing authoritarianism threat. There is an emerging revolution of academic data revealing a large body of evidence that left-wing authoritarians in the United States and elsewhere are extremely authoritarian. This includes work in the United States published in major research outlets that says, among other things, liberals more broadly are often just as prone as conservatives to possess traits considered hallmarks of authoritarianism. Yet, you may wonder how it is possible for academics to have completely missed such an obvious truth, and the answer is important in helping us understand the nature of modern left-wing authoritarianism in the United States—and why it is especially difficult to eradicate. The answer is that liberals are highly motivated not to see left-wing authoritarianism. And the more left-wing authoritarian they are, quite ironically, the less they want to believe in authoritarianism on the left. They have a kind of curious self-ignorance of their own authoritarian motives. Put another way, liberal authoritarians have a blind spot. 

Most of the traits of left-wing authoritarians more or less apply to all kinds of authoritarians. Authoritarians of every ilk tend to be intellectually apathetic, show an obsession with misinformation, trade in principles for groups, and exhibit cognitive simplicity. The specific domains attached to those traits do change, of course—for example, liberal authoritarians are especially simple about race, conservative authoritarians less so—and there are always exceptions we could make to those rules. But in general one would expect authoritarians everywhere to demonstrate traits such as resistance to change, cognitive rigidity in attitude formation, opinion certainty, sweeping biases, and racism.  

However, the authoritarian motivational blind spot is something that is unique to left-wing authoritarians. And this blind spot makes liberal authoritarianism uniquely dangerous. 

As an academic psychologist who has taught prejudice for over twenty years, I’ve often said in my classes that one of the most dangerous people in society is the person who thinks they aren’t racist. Why? Because everyone has the potential for racism, and the person who denies that potential will never address their own problems and thus will spend their life engaging in racist actions. By parallel, a political party is particularly dangerous when it claims the loudest that it is not authoritarian. Why? Because that party has potential authoritarians. Every party has potential authoritarians—but a party that denies the problem also won’t address the problem.  

Right now that party is the Democratic Party. We’ve tacitly raised a generation of liberals who think that it’s normal for Disney to fire actress Gina Carano for having a political opinion that some people don’t like, and yet also think they aren’t authoritarian for doing so. 

Psychologically speaking, such apparent contradictions are actually quite commonplace. For example, as anyone who has objectively observed a Nike commercial can tell you, it is well known that Americans are quite collectivistic about their individualism; and it is certainly the case that conservatives hold seemingly contradictory beliefs in multiple domains. The kind of psychological hypocrisy involved in today’s left-wing authoritarian is thus an instance of a common phenomenon: just as it is psychologically quite possible to limit freedoms in the name of freedom or to exhibit collectivism in the name of individualism, it is possible to exhibit authoritarianism in the name of anti-authoritarian ideology...

Liberals have norms that tell them their group should oppose authoritarianism. But often their individual members have motives toward authoritarianism—and the net result is that liberals have a motivational blind spot for believing that their own authoritarian behaviors are authoritarian. They simply don’t want to believe it. 

This isn’t mere speculation. Our scientific data demonstrate this very clearly. In a national survey of over five thousand Americans, we gave people a standard authoritarianism questionnaire and then afterwards asked them a simple question: “Do you view yourself as a dogmatic and authoritarian person?”

Conservative Americans who scored high on the authoritarianism questionnaire had no problem saying “Yes, I am authoritarian.” But liberals were a different thing entirely. Not only were liberal authoritarians less likely than conservatives to accurately identify themselves as authoritarians (when they were, in fact, authoritarian), but there was actually a negative correlation between left-wing authoritarianism (the reality) and liberals’ willingness to identify as authoritarian (their own perception). That means that the more authoritarian liberals are, the less they believe they are authoritarian!

The results of this survey were one of the most astonishing things I’ve seen in all my years conducting research. It is important to keep in mind that liberals who score high on the authoritarianism scale agree that (italicized words are direct quotes from the scale) our country needs a mighty leader; that the leader should destroy opponents; that people should trust the judgment of the proper authorities, avoid listening to noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people’s minds, put some tough leaders in power who oppose those values and silence the troublemakers, and smash the beliefs of opponents; that what our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush the evil; that society should strongly punish those they disagree with. They also deny that an opponent has a right to be wherever he or she wants to be, and support the statement that the country would be better off if certain groups would just shut up and accept their group’s proper place in society. These items hit all of the hallmarks of the consensus conceptualization of the authoritarian person. When conservatives agree with those items, they subsequently admit (accurately) that they are authoritarian. When liberals agree with those items, they actually are more likely to say they are not authoritarian.

Why is this? It is because American liberals have a psychological dilemma about authoritarianism that conservatives don’t have. Liberals, unlike conservatives, believe their group’s norms are anti-authoritarian. Thus, they have a motivational blind spot for admitting they are authoritarian. And the more they actually are authoritarian, the more they are motivated to adhere to their group’s anti-authoritarian norms, and thus the more motivated they are to deny their own authoritarian nature. Our data show this very clearly. The negative relationship between liberals’ actual authoritarianism and their self-identification as authoritarian is reduced to essentially zero when we account for their perception of their own group’s norms. In non-statistical terms, this means that a large part of the reason that liberal authoritarians disavow their true authoritarian nature is that liberals believe that their group officially opposes authoritarianism. 

It’s worth noting that this strong emphasis on their group being complex and anti-authoritarian has both negative and positive consequences. On the negative side, it makes it especially difficult for liberals to admit obvious examples of authoritarianism in themselves and in other liberals. But, on the positive side, this means that liberals in the United States do still have a built-in aversion to authoritarianism. If one can tap into that aversion, it could make it easier to defeat authoritarian tendencies on the left side of the aisle. That’s probably why a lot of long-time progressives and liberals have clearly turned on American Democrats—the reckoning is harsh once the blind spot is removed. When comedian and long-time Democrat Sarah Silverman said she no longer wanted to be associated with the Democratic Party, this is what she said: “It’s the absolutist-ness of the party I am in that is such a turnoff to me. It’s so f****** elitist.” This provides reasons for hope in overcoming left-wing authoritarianism. It may be harder to get leftists to see the problem than we’d like—but if we can get them to see the problem, they are naturally inclined to really want to solve it."

Links - 17th August 2024 (1 - Harris-Walz)

Wesley Yang on X - ""From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" -- if a politician made a speech affirming this principle, they would be one of two things -- a Communist, or a person too ignorant and incurious about Communism to avoid blithely blasting out the foundational Marxist formula as part of their messaging.   With regard to "equity means we all end up in the same place," Kamala is clearly the latter."
Rona Dinur on X - "She is, by the way, repeating almost the exact wording of every "equity" talk you'd hear on YouTube and in TED talks given by random HR/DEI personnel & in semi-academic materials. She's just the head of a blob using the same slogans across different industries, institutions etc."
Wesley Yang on X - "Yes the Blob has fully adopted Communist slogans and messaging -- but in the service of mere rent seeking within the capitalist system"

Benjy Sarlin on X - "Trump is holding a presser today, we interviewed him last week and Vance yesterday and Vance is taking open press questions. Time’s just about up on Harris to avoid this becoming a thing."
Michael Brendan Dougherty on X - "I mean, we’ve had the most eventful political month in modern US history and the main beneficiary hasn’t answered a single question about Biden leaving the race, what she knew, when she found out about the endorsement, even how she feels entering a race where her opponent was nearly killed. This is truly nuts."

Bill Ackman on X - "The best thing that can happen for long-term supporters of the Democratic Party is for this election to be a massive loss for the party. That’s the only way the party will reform itself.   Consider how the party shut down competition in the primary, misled the public about the health of the president, chose its nominee without a democratic process, and ultimately today selected its VP.  When something is totally and fundamentally broken, the best thing to do is to start over. We won’t see a reboot of the party unless it takes a massive loss in this election.    Please vote accordingly."

Gays Against Groomers on X - "🚨BREAKING: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has just been selected to be the Democratic candidate for Vice President. We would like to remind everyone that under Walz's leadership, Minnesota was the second state to become a "sanctuary state" for "trans kids" after California, meaning that children have the option to run away from home and escape to Minnesota to get "gender-affirming care" (sterilization and mutilation) and be placed into foster care. It is legalized kidnapping.  Transgender Minnesota State Representative, Leigh Finke, also publicly endorsed the bill, claiming that failing to pass it would result in the eradication of trans people.   Walz has also endorsed and supported allowing boys to compete in girls' sports and putting pornographic smut in school libraries.   He is the most radical possible pick Kamala Harris could have chosen. American parents deserve to know what they're getting themselves into and what is at stake under a Harris-Walz ticket. We are witnessing a full-fledged war on children, and one of the ringleaders might become the Vice President. It isn't just disappointing; it’s evil.   We need to get loud and push back against this before it's too late. An entire generation is at risk of being sexualized, indoctrinated and mutilated with the help of this monster.  It is a dark day for the United States."
Wesley Yang on X - "Walz has been at the avant-garde of this movement because of the makeup of his legislature and state government. But there is not a single major Democratic party politician that has or will venture a single gesture toward moderation on this issue."

Coddled affluent professional on X - "Hey WHITE DUDES! Kamala has added a middle aged gym teacher commie to her ticket. Would you like to reconsider your antipathy towards the Democratic Party? Now’s your chance to say you’re sorry for all the hysterias and manias you were the target of the past 5 years!"

Kamala Harris under fire after old clip of her asking 'Americans to be woke' resurfaces - ""We have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke," Harris had said during Recode's annual Code Conference while speaking with philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. "And you can talk about if you're the wokest or woker, but just stay more woke than less woke.""
Weird. Why does she keep using what left wingers claim was the new n-word (before they pivoted to claiming that was DEI)?

Thread by @SaysSimulation on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Speaking as a Midwesterner, let me give you my opinion of Tim Walz.  Walz needs to be seen in the context of the rapid fall of Minnesota, and particularly what happened to the Twin Cities.  The Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul used to be one of the nicest, safest cities in the United States. The Mary Tyler Moore show was set there for good reason, it was friendly, safe place.  Minnesota used to be purple and quite centrist.  The local Democratic party is called the DFL - the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. That was how Minnesota politics worked - the cities in the metro area allied with the unions (primarily in the mining Northeast) who allied with the farmers. They went against the Twin Cities suburbs and businessmen, it was always polite, and the state was even.
The big shift happened with the mass influx of Somalis, along with the Dems trying to bring in blacks from other metro areas. The "nice" Repubs being controlled opposition, they of course did nothing to stop this process. The demographics changed sharply, crime rates soared, and the political situation rearranged itself.  Along with much of the rest of the country, enough of the suburbs switched to the Dems, that along with the newly black metro areas, the Dems began to get a decisive margin.
Polite and nice stopped right there, the new DFL played strictly hardball politics  They also turned on their traditional constituencies of the farmers and the Iron Range union workers. As soon as they didn't need the votes, it was slap across the face, and knife in the back, they had no need for those traditional white Americans, or there traditional values.  Minnesota rapidly became the most radical of the Midwestern states, even more so than Chicago-dominated Illinois.
Walz is a snake & a chameleon. Yes, he hunts, does the fishing opener & sometimes wears flannel shirts - all of which are used by the entirely Democratic Minnesota media to portray him as something he is not, a folksy politician with a common touch.Walz is despised in the outstate regions where the hunting & fishing are primarily done. Those areas have flipped from Blue to solid Red, as they try to protect themselves from the radical in the Twin Cities - to no avail. The real Walz? He's the face of the Great Replacement, that is followed by the Marxists crushing the opposition.  That's exactly why they want him as VP. He brings no election advantages. They're not worried about the election, but what comes after."

Haviv Rettig Gur on X - "I’ve now spoken to three Jews prominently involved in politics in America. They all basically said the same thing.  Walz was the smart political choice, irrespective of who they actually wanted as Harris’s running mate.  By skipping over Shapiro, Harris gets to make a show of catering to the anti-Israel camp while actually choosing a candidate who has been less critical of Israel’s government than Shapiro. In other words, the left of the party feels heard while pro-Israel Jewish Democrats, even those who experienced the anti-Shapiro campaign as basically antisemitic, don’t actually feel any catastrophe has befallen them.  In one fell swoop, she also makes a serious appeal to the white working class, or at least as serious an appeal as the current leadership of the Democratic Party allows for.  So she holds on to the left and the center all at once. Tactically, it was the right choice.  But this is where things get interesting. A lot of Jewish Democrats are expressing relief. Again and again I heard or read the same thing – a Jewish VP with ties to Israel would’ve provided the administration identitarian cover to ward off criticism of policies deemed foolish or outright dangerous for Israel.  Those policies would have been instituted in any case, but now Harris won’t be able to deflect with a Jewish shield. Shapiro, they say, would have been used to neutralize their criticism and advocacy.  My own sense from afar, for what it’s worth, is that all this is more evidence that the new left is illiberal and bigoted. What’s the evidence? Look at how carefully, agonizingly Jewish Democrats need to tread through the minefields of these new politics and tell me there’s nothing anti-Jewish about it all. Look at the lack of trust of their own party the argument above represents. This isn’t an open, serious, fundamentally respectful political debate. This is closed-minded bigotry on the march.   My second observation - again, this is only a view from the outside - is that Democrats don’t actually have a proper Middle East policy that isn’t just moralizing domestic politicking. That means that they are more likely to break things than fix things. A Biden administration that took care repeatedly in recent months to be seen to rein Israel in is a Biden administration that’s helped stretch out and worsen the broader regional conflict. At the moment, if they don’t get serious, Democrats simply can’t be trusted to be thoughtful and wise on the world stage. Nothing about Walz or Harris or the dust-up over Shapiro says any of that is going to change."

Was Harris Biden's border czar? Left rewrites her VP, Senate record - "I had thought that after the liberal media was exposed for its shameless attempts to cover for President Joe Biden’s deteriorating mental and physical condition, mainstream outlets would maybe take a moment for a collective mea culpa.    Fat chance.  Instead, Biden’s allies on the left quickly turned their cheerleading efforts from the president (once it became blatantly obvious he was in bad shape) to Vice President Kamala Harris, now that it looks like she will be the Democratic Party's replacement on the presidential ticket.  Some of the media’s largest players are proving their newfound devotion to Harris by attempting to rewrite her past – and some of their own coverage. Yes, it’s as Orwellian as it sounds. And it’s a little too close to the tactics used by the Soviets to simply “erase” opponents from photographs. Don’t like someone – or something that happened? Hit delete... Anyone in Washington knows that people put in positions of power like this are commonly referred to as “czars.”  It's a phrase that dates at least to 1989, when President George H.W. Bush appointed William Bennett to be his "drug czar." Yet now, accurately referring to Harris’ vital undertaking has become a huge no-no.  Since Harris failed to address anything to do with immigration (the number of illegal border crossings continued to skyrocket during the Biden administration until recently), she quietly was removed from that position and has turned to other things like visiting abortion clinics and fighting Islamophobia.  Harris bothered to visit the border only once – and only after being shamed in an interview for not having done so... A supposedly nonpartisan organization that tracks congressional voting records, GovTrack, has simply waved its wand and made a 2019 page on its site dedicated to Harris’ voting record go “poof.”  It no longer exists on its main site. (Well, actually it does, thanks to the Internet Archive).   Why? That page accurately referred to Harris’ record that year as the most liberal in the Senate – beating out even self-declared democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.  Apparently, that could be seen as unhelpful to Harris’ crowning as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.   GovTrack doubled down on its disappearing act, by adding an editor’s note of its own this week on an article it published in 2020, detailing Harris’ record: "On July 23, 2024, this article was updated. The text ', especially given our ranking her as the most left-leaning senator in 2019 based on cosponsorship. But looking at the legislation she’s introduced tells a different story ‒ judge for yourself' was removed... The GovTrack founder told Fox News that the page no longer exists because it had stopped single-year ratings of lawmakers a few years ago.  And while 2019 report cards have disappeared for other lawmakers, too, GovTrack was inspired to make that call to take down these pages, including Harris' page, "sometime in the last two weeks."  Interesting timing.  Expect a lot more of these shenanigans to continue in the coming months. Don’t let the media get away with it."

Drew Holden on X - "I see we’re in for engaging and honest analysis from the media of the Tim Walz VP selection."
Happy warriors Harris and Walz propose an antidote to Trump’s American carnage | CNN Politics
Tim Walz Is the Biden That Harris Needs—Same Vibes, Same Base
Tim Walz’s first day as VP on Harris’s ticket fuels Democrats’ buzz - The Washington Post

Walz vs. Vance in an election where reality doesn’t matter - "in 2024, you might get picked as VP because you said the word “weird” on MSNBC...   That’s where we seem to be landing  as a culture during this absurd electoral cycle — coasting on vibes and vibes alone. A one “progressive Hill aide” told the liberal publication Talking Points Memo, “elections are about energy, and they’re about networks, and they’re about vibes. Walz was clearly the vibes candidate.” Politico declared that “Tim Walz passed the vibe check” in an email newsletter. “The Tim Walz vibe shift,” announced the Columbia Journalism Review.  Walz isn’t just running on vibes to work his way into the position of VP candidate, he’s embracing more artificially manufactured vibes too. During his first campaign event with Harris, he talked about how he “can’t wait to debate” Vance, before adding “that is, if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”  The crowd erupted knowingly, recognizing this wasn’t just a bit of trash talk but a nod to the bizarre but effective Extremely Online push to associate JD Vance with couches. It’s something the “Kamala HQ” X account has been embracing as well, posting recently, “JD Vance does not couch his hatred of women.”  For those who aren’t familiar, the couch reference relates to the implication that JD Vance likes to have sex with couches, and that this revelation was contained in his bestselling 2016 book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” It’s not true, of course, there is no such passage in his book. None of it is even remotely factual — it’s all completely made up. So where did this get started? Well a guy who goes by the X handle “Rick Rude’s Calves” (a reference to the famous WWE wrestler from the 1980s and his…calves), who had about 1,000 followers, posted a few hours after Vance was named Trump’s running mate that Vance wrote about how he “admitted” to “f‑‑‑ing an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions” on page 179 of his memoir.  A random anonymous X account literally just posted some nonsense he thought was funny. Then that post got more than 1.8 million views. Eventually, Rick Rude’s Calves deleted his account — but not before an entirely new reality-free smear had emerged...   The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer was one of the few mainstream journalists to recognize that this line of attack may be self-defeating, if not a bit, well, weird.  “Does Walz really want to make jokes about baseless online slanders? That couch cushion has two sides,” he posted.  His colleague Tyler Pager was more in line with the rest of the partisans who masquerade as intellectually honest media members. He quoted the Walz line based on a defamatory tweet and added, “Tim Walz goes there.”"
Weird. I thought misinformation was a bad thing according to the left

David Bernstein on X - "I'm seeing a lot of Walz apologists returning to the 2020 playbook of treating major riots following George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, presided over by Gov. Walz, and that spread to cities nationwide, as minor excesses in a broader context of peaceable social justice protests. The riots were not "minor."  See below with citations. Walz should have called in the National Guard right away, something he did not do until a Minneapolis state legislator begged him to do so after several days of rioting:  George Floyd’s death on May 26, 2020 sparked unrest and lawlessness resulting in at least $500 million in damage to approximately 1,500 properties https://perma.cc/54CE-V6AE and two deaths, https://perma.cc/3NZD-UBDT, maing the riots in the Twin Cities the most destructive since those in Los Angeles in 1992. https://perma.cc/Q7N2-DZCR.   The riots devastated numerous small, often minority-owned, enterprises. Much of the destruction took place in the Lake Street corridor, a largely Latino and East African business district. Small businesses there suffered an estimated $200 million in damage not covered by insurance. https://perma.cc/JXL3-DTKY;   The chaos also sparked a surge in crime that Minneapolis officials called “unprecedented.” https://perma.cc/TZS6-7US.   During the month following Floyd’s death, over 1,500 shots-fired 911 calls were made—twice the number made during same period the previous year. https://perma.cc/H4PP-FEGX.   As of July 20th, 269 people (82% of whom were Black) had been shot in Minneapolis in 2020, 60% higher than the five-year average for the same period, and the same number as were shot in all of 2019. https://perma.cc/H4PP-FEGX. Homicides were up by a shocking 114% from 2019. https://perma.cc/48MN-7HEH.   During this breakdown of order, local law enforcement was often absent or at best ineffectual. For the first few days of riots, Minneapolis police focused on defending their embattled 3rd Precinct building located at the center of the unrest. https://perma.cc/F63J-VEFJ. On May 28th, Mayor Jacob Frey ordered officers to stand down and abandon the building to the angry crowd that had surrounded it. The police withdrawal caused the situation to “spin[] out of control in the neighborhood around the precinct house;” the precinct was burned to the ground; and “nearly every building around it [was] vandalized, looted or set on fire. Neighbors banded together to protect their property because 911 dispatchers were overwhelmed.” https://perma.cc/H5HS-PKYA.   “We could’ve defended that precinct, we could’ve defended that part of Lake Street if we had the resources,” said Sgt. Anna Hedberg, of the Minneapolis Police Federation. https://perma.cc/NN3Q-2RLB. Officers’ efforts to restore order were reportedly hamstrung by orders from superiors not to wear their riot gear for fearof inflaming tensions. As as a result, rioters injured police officers with projectiles. Id."

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 on X - "They're recycling the 'America's Dad' branding from Tim Kaine to Tim Walz. Entire media falls in line You aren't looking at reporting, you're looking at a high-level propaganda system in action"
Everyone In America Just Realized Tim Kaine Is The Ultimate Dad | The FADER
Twitter Just Turned VP Nominee Tim Kaine Into Your Dad | WRUR
Tim Kaine, America’s Dad, Makes His Pitch to Millennials | The New Yorker
Tim Kaine Wants You to Know He’s America’s Cool Dad | TIME

Meme - "Liberal white women with daddy issues say Tim Walz is like the father figure that they lost. They're literally crying over this pick. tok And they say we're in a cult."
"You actually worded this PERFECTLY! I never get emotional, but I've been getting very emotional as - I've been learning about Tim Walz, Walz really feels like a man who truly cares and wants to help others, especially those who can't help themselves, in a kind, paternal way."
"Yes!!!! Tim Walz is who my dad used to be"

CQ on X - "Tim Walz is the dad an entire generation wish they had instead of the one they lost to Fox News."
Coddled affluent professional on X - "A lot of lib political energy is just laundered disappointment with family, relationships, and career. There aren’t any real political interests and so there can’t be any real political solution."
Social distancing champ on X - "Thank God my dad didn't get a DUI, flood our house with illegal aliens, push me to cut of my body parts, and have my mom abort my siblings in the 9th month."

Meme - Joe Gabriel Simonson @SaysSimonson: "Were a lot more people than I thought abused as kids or something? Why are there so many tweets like this"
Bill D'Agostino @Banned_Bill: "The "I hate my dad"-to-marxist pipeline is firing on all cylinders."
Nina in NOLA @ninainnola: "With a lot of stops at the therapist's office along the way"
This is very telling and ties into how left wingers hate the family, and keep encouraging children to cut off their parents because parents are always in the wrong

Meme - Gabe Guidarini @GabeGuidarini: "Normal, well adjusted, totally not projecting childhood experiences onto political candidates."
Aaron Regunberg: "Tim Walz is my dad; Kamala's my fun aunt who lives next door. They just found out I'm being bullied by the shittiest kid in my class, JD. When they try to talk to his dad, Don, it becomes clear he's the real problem. They go back to their car; Kamals pulls out her cop badge, Tim grabs his old baseball bat. They walk back to Don's porch. As Tim reaches for the doorbell they look at each other and smile. This is going to be fun."

Charlie Kirk on X - "Welcome to the race, Tim Walz!  Let’s make sure America knows who you are.  You helped ignite the George Floyd riots, the worst the country had seen in decades. While Minneapolis burned, you stalled on deploying the National Guard for an entire day, blaming the city for not submitting the right paperwork. You let your daughter leak the Guard's deployment plans online, so that rioters would know how long they had to loot the city with impunity. Minneapolis is a war zone because of you.  Just days after the attempted murder of Donald Trump, you called him and his supporters "fascists," egging on the same rhetoric that led to him being shot in the first place.   You have overseen some of the most radical youth trans surgery laws in the country. Under your leadership teenagers can get their breast chopped off and get sterilized, and your government calls it “healthcare.”  You have the most radical abortion laws in the country. Zero limits. Every year 5-6 babies are BORN ALIVE and then murdered “legally” under laws you support.  On immigration, you famously said you wanted to provide a “ladder” so invaders can come over Trump’s wall. You are a radical open border zealot.   You oversaw the single worst fraud of the Covid era, the Feeding Our Future case. Thanks to ineptitude at your Department of Education, criminals stole $250 million of taxpayer dollars to spend on luxury cars, houses, and vacations.  Also during Covid, you approved $500 million in "hero pay" for frontline workers, only to have 40% of that money go to people who were ineligible or, in many cases, literally deceased.  In the House, you were Pelosi’s sidekick and did whatever the Democrats demanded.   You will try and disguise yourself as a folksy midwestern moderate. In reality, you are a white male version of Kamala Harris. Radical. Inept. Undeserving to be in leadership.  Make this go viral. Ruin their honeymoon. Let’s educate millions because the media will not."

Robert Sterling on X - "Tim Walz has no skin in the game when it comes to the US economy.  He’s never had a private-sector job.  He doesn’t own a home or pay a mortgage. He’s not directly affected by unaffordable housing prices or high interest rates.  He doesn’t own any stocks. He’s never built a business, raised capital, or had to struggle to make payroll. He’s probably never even looked at a P&L, and he’s definitely never had to manage a balance sheet.  Unlike most Americans, who rely on modest 401k funds to pay for retirement, Walz has three separate public-sector pensions: one from Congress, one from the military, and one from being a teacher. His retirement, unlike yours, is backed by the full faith and credit of the government—three times over.  I’m all for middle-class people serving in office. But a guy this disconnected from the economic reality of regular Americans isn’t someone I trust for a role this important."

Eli Steele on X - "I am glad many are seeing @Tim_Walz  's folksy demeanor for what it is: a cover for white guilt racism.   Ever since I was 17 years old and applying to college I've encountered Walzes at nearly every major turning point in life. They were never the angry segregationists you see on TV. No, they were charming, affable, and rather pleasant. They would always tell me, wow, you come from such a fascinating family history, slavery and the holocaust, wow. But in the end they would always ask me to reduce myself to one race. It was for the good, they always said.   But it was never for my good as an individual American. It was never for my good to reduce myself to my black side for whatever advantage and betray my merit.    It was for good of the Walzes who built their images and careers on diversity, inclusion and equity. They could fail at whatever, but as long as they pushed the diversity con, their selfish virtue signaling made them golden.  A man like Walz will push America over the edge for his own good."

Coddled affluent professional on X - "The idea of Walz, a normal fella from a farm who just wants kids to have free school lunches, is much better than what he actually is: A COVID authoritarian, a George Floyd fetishizer, a cheerleader of child mutilation, and a guy who let his cities burn and crime run rampant. It will be interesting to see if his folksy middle class Minnesota farm boy shtick and Hollywood production for the Harris campaign can make people forget the past 5 years."

Matt Wolking on X - "Tim Walz: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy”"
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 on X - "Uh, yeah there is. Misinformation and hate speech are literally protected by the First Amendment."

Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "Kamala Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz downplayed the uniqueness and gruesomeness of the Holocaust. I don’t need a reason to detest him more. But here we are. And no, there is no comparable event to the extermination camps and techniques. Nothing. And hopefully never will be. That’s the point of proper Holocaust education — never again.  2 out of every 3 European Jews were exterminated by 1945. More than 60% of the world’s Jewish population was wiped out. In 2024, Jews still number below their pre-Holocaust population. That’s 6 million “in the greater context.”"
It's only anti-semitic when the right does it

Joel Berry on X - "The media is trying to report that Tim Walz retired before he knew his unit was deploying, since he retired 2 months before his unit received “alert orders” to deploy. What they’re not telling you is that units also receive something called “warning orders” much earlier—months, sometimes years in advance. Tim Walz knew his unit was deploying to Iraq, which is why he quit."

AG on X - "Trying to sort through the Walz military claims:
1) There were several articles that claimed he was deployed in Iraq. He was not. Unclear where the claim came from.
2) There was a book he endorsed that claimed he was deployed in Afghanistan. He was not. Unclear where the claim came from.
3) Walz has made numerous statements suggesting that he served in a war zone. These are, at best, exaggerations.
4) Walz did serve for 24 years. He was deployed in Italy during the time of Operation Enduring Freedom in a support role. His rank was master sergeant when he retired. He did achieve a provisional rank of command sergeant major, which he still claims on his website, but he did not finish the necessary coursework to maintain that rank prior to retirement.
5) Walz retired in May 2025 to run for office. There were rumors at the time about an upcoming deployment to Iraq, but the official alert for the 1st battalion came in July of 2025.
Those are the facts I’ve seen so far. Up to people to judge for themselves."

Links - 16th August 2024 (2 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

'Struggle against Zionist regime': Masked man vows 'rivers of blood' at Paris Olympics - "The man, clad in a shirt adorned with a Palestinian flag, stated, "In the name of God, our struggle against the Zionist regime continues... The video comes amid multiple online threats targeting the Israeli athletes partaking in the games, which are set to be held between July 26 and August 11." With the utmost respect intended, how is it possible for so many average Israelis on sites as this to defend their state's ongoing assault on Gaza, when even such mainstream ' Western ' sources like Oxfam attest to its singular level of brutality? - Pro-Israel - Quora - "I understand where you’re coming from, I genuinely do. It’s very easy to look at the large amount of criticism being leveled from seemingly reliable institutions and think that must be the right side of the issue. I was there once years ago with the UN. The problem is there is a great deal of evidence of that they’re way off base if you look a bit deeper. (And I know very well how hard that is with so much ‘information’ being out there these days.  Let me give you one example: you may have heard/seen an article on CNN a few months ago saying that half of the bombs Israel was dropping were ‘dumb’ bombs, meaning imprecise weapons that would result in greater collateral damage. There was a major uproar about this. I myself wasn’t sure what to think about it, so I tried to wait for the Israeli response to compare the two as best I could.  But it turned out I didn’t need to, because CNN had pulled a fast one, something I knew they do and still fell for it because it takes a lot of time to catch it on every article. They had a US government/military source who said that the US believes that when they use dumb bombs, Israeli bombers dive bomb the target in such a way that those bombs become nearly as accurate as a precision bomb. But almost nobody saw that because it was the 15th paragraph of a 20ish paragraph article. The last research says 70% of people don’t read past the headline, so of course almost nobody saw something buried that far down.  This isn’t a unique case, this kind of thing happens all the time. At the end of the day sifting through the media circus takes a lot of time and effort, and even then you’re still not always gonna find the complete truth" COGAT on X - "Armed terrorists hid in a school near the humanitarian route in Rafah Area, where they tried to take over the route: They would do anything to prevent aid from reaching the people of Gaza."
When you know the whole world will blame everything on Israel, you can be as evil as you want to your own people Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "Wow. It has been revealed that various American unions have sponsored the defacement of American monuments as well as the American flag burnings in DC yesterday."
Why the left love unions so much Andrew Fox on X - "Just made this point to Admiral Hagari in IDF HQ and I think it’s a good one so I’ll share it.  Even though I have combat experience myself, have degrees in Law, War Studies and Psychology, on first seeing the destruction in Rafah my nanosecond first reaction was: “Fucking hell.”  I *know* why the damage occurred. If you’re destroying Hamas’ capability and infrastructure root and branch, the fact that their infrastructure is in every school, hospital, mosque and house means that those things are all going to be damaged.  If every home contains a booby trap, every home is going to be explosively damaged. No army in the world has sufficient engineers to diffuse every bomb like that in a kinetic clearance operation. The IDF don’t want to damage people’s homes, but they’re taking the only tactical option they have to achieve operational goals.  This does mean two things, though. If I, with my experience and knowledge, am having that reaction, so will the world when they see it. And for the wider world, without the knowledge to rationalise and understand what they’re seeing, that reaction will be enduring.  So the first requirement is for the IDF to explain to world leaders and opinion leaders, simply, what has happened and why.  The second thing is the priority that must be given to reconstruction. Palestinian Arabs cannot stay in tents indefinitely. The wider world needs to step up as they did in Germany in 1945 to create a society that is enduring and can live at peace alongside Israel. It’s going to require billions of currency and huge efforts. Get this right, and Gaza could be a Mediterranean paradise."
Joachim Voth on X - "to stick with the German experience - you would also need total occupation + de-hamasization + re-education for years, foreign administration, gradual transition to local rule; all on the back of total moral, military and reputational defeat. That's a long road." Eyal Yakoby on X - "All charges against four people who assaulted police during the Pro-Palestinian riot in DC have been dropped. If there is no accountability, they will continue to do it."
Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 on X - "Charges against four people who assaulted police during yesterday’s riot were just dropped. People who wandered into the Capitol Building and committed no violence on J6 got years."
When you know what the Regime stands for ‘What happened at Union Station was vile’: Leaders condemn DC protest vandalism - "several national leaders condemned property defacement outside Union Station and the burning of American flags. "What happened at Union Station was vile, offensive, wrong," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told NBC News. Thousands of people filled streets and chanted “Free, free Palestine” on Wednesday as Benjamin Netanyahu visited the District and delivered a speech on Capitol Hill... The most disruptive behavior centered around Columbus Circle, outside Union Station. American flags were replaced with Palestinian flags, and members of the crowd set American flags, Israeli flags and an effigy of Netanyahu on fire. The Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain was still covered with graffiti early Thursday. The words “Hamas,” “Free Palestine” and “Free Gaza” could be seen, in addition to profanity. Some people outside Union Station said they were stunned by what they saw Thursday morning. “Never seen anything like this. It’s pretty bad,” one woman told WTOP... Just 29 U.S. Park Police officers “did everything they could to protect life and property” outside Union Station, the chairman of the department’s police union, Kenneth Spencer, said in a statement. He cited an “officer staffing crisis.” “A small unit of 29 officers arrested 10 individuals while being assaulted by a mob of thousands,” he said. “We simply did not have the resources to accomplish a mass arrest operation.”"
More censorship of pro-Palestinian speech!
It's only wrong if they burn Pride flags, or if they are Trump supporters with fake guillotines for Mike Pence Exclusive | 'Badly understaffed' Park Police assaulted by 'mob of thousands,' pelted with poop at pro-Hamas riot in DC: union chief - "Park Police Fraternal Order of Police chairman Kenneth Spencer told The Post in an interview a day after the unhinged riot that just 29 of his officers had faced down the terrorist-sympathizing mob outside Union Station — which is just blocks from the Capitol.  “We were primarily alone,” said Spencer, a 15-year veteran who revealed that years of “empty promises” to beef up the agency’s shoestring budget have gone unfulfilled by Congress and the Interior Department, which primarily deals with the nation’s rural national parks rather than civil unrest in big cities...   “If you remember in 2020, we were the agency that was in front of the White House, and we had 52 officers injured over those riots,” Spencer recalled of the demonstrations after the death of George Floyd... Rioters tagged monuments with graffiti messages such as “Hamas is coming” and tore down US flags, burning and trying to replace them with Palestinian banners in opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress.   During his speech, the Israeli leader mocked Ivy League university protesters and other anti-Israel demonstrators for playing into the hands of Iran’s terrorist proxies — noting that some have received direct funding to do so.   “When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you — you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots,” Netanyahu thundered... Westerman added that the House Oversight Committee was weighing an investigation into the riot and any potential ties to foreign terror groups, before taking a swipe at Democrats — including Vice President Kamala Harris — for enabling years of destructive demonstrations."
Imagine if a non-left wing supported movement had done any of this. Foreign funding is only bad when it impedes the left wing agenda Wilfred Reilly on X - "There is literally nothing that could make me sympathetic to Hamas.  Following a terrorist group's initiation of a big war by un-provokedly raping and killing 1,200 people, the focus of the mainstream Western media - which is 75+% pro-Hamas, but cannot openly say this - has been on documenting individual Israelis crossing lines, or bombs missing targets, and plaintively asking "Is THIS not ENOUGH?!! Shouldn't they have stopped at just ONE dead CHILD?!!"   Eh. I disapprove of any actual atrocities, but remain ~totally unmoved. Almost every historical leader would have completely obliterated Gaza - leveling every building over two stories, and killing as many people as it took to conquer the place. We all would have understood exactly why, and most of the US population would have anonymously approved. Even today, the criminal government of "Palestine" can either surrender, or continue to reap the hard fruits of its own actions."
Tyler J Talks on X - "Taking this one step further, Hamas was fully aware of what they were doing on October 7 and what Israel would do in return. It’s near impossible to feel sympathetic when Hamas basically begged for this, then got it." Peter Daou on X - "Can anyone name a conflict in modern history where calling for a #ceasefire to protect civilians was somehow controversial??"
Idan Schwartz on X - "Can anyone name a conflict in modern history where people are calling for both a #ceasefire and #intifada at the same time?" David Collier on X - "When they say the conflict did not start on Oct 7 - they are right.
Knife intifada in the 2010s
Second intifada in the 2000s
Suicide bombing in the 1990s
The first intifada
Plane hijacking
Munich Olympics
The 1964 PLO
The wars Arabs started
The 1929, 1933 or 1938 massacres etc" Imtiaz Mahmood on X - "A bomb that killed Ismail Haniyeh was planted two months ago. Haniyeh was known to have stayed in before, was detonated remotely once it was confirmed that the Haniyeh was inside the room.  Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, was staying next door to Haniyeh but his room was barely damaged and he was unharmed.  Say what you will about Israel but they pull off some Hollywood style shit every now and then. You wouldn't want to be on their hit list, that's for sure. You'd never be able to guess what kind of inventive plans they have in store for you." Raylan Givens on X - "There is a spicy detail that people keep missing with Haniyeh's assassination. The explosive device was very small (2x4) and was placed underneath his bed. It was detonated minutes after the light went off in his room. In the explosion, his bodyguard was also killed. All I'm asking is, what was his bodyguard doing in his room when the lights were off?" Meme - Hammad Azzam @Humveekhan3: "He lived like a Palestinian and Died like a Palestinian."
"He was born in Egypt and died in Iran."
"I wasn't aware your typical Palestinian has a net worth of $4.5 billion in looted humanitarian aid. 🤣"
"So he is Egyptian just like Arafat. Arafat born in Egypt died in France."
"And buried in Qatar." Meme - dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ @DahliaKurtz: "Please take a moment of silence for the Ottawa Police.  They are mourning the loss of two terrorists — leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah.  It's a hard time for many struggling to determine who will kiII all the Jews now."
Ottawa Police @OttawaPolice: "Recent reports of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders being killed will undoubtedly impact many communities. We remain in close contact with community leaders and institutions. There will be an increased police presence at areas of religious and cultural significance in Ottawa, and at local demonstrations. We urge residents and visitors in Ottawa to remain peaceful and lawful. Police will continue to remain neutral. Any perceived threat or intimidation, theft, property damage, act of vandalism, or other crime, will be taken very seriously. If you or someone you know has been a victim of a hate-motivated incident, please report it by calling 613-236-1222 or filing a report online" Top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran, group says : r/internationalpolitics - "Very Very Sad day for all over World."
"why is it sad a mass terrorist was killed? you think he was a good guy?"
"The fact that this comment got downvoted says a lot about the crowd in this echo chamber"
"When bin laden died was it a sad day?" Yashar Ali 🐘 on X - "Shaun King has just issued this statement (not a joke):   “The United States and Israel have just assassinated the dear brother Ismail Haniyeh - who was the political head of Hamas. This comes after they already murdered virtually every member of his family. In the face of this, Brother Ismail remained steadfast to Islam and to a free Palestine.   He was working hard, day and night, on the ceasefire even though these genocidal monsters had murdered his own kids and grandchildren. I never understood how he had such strength to push forward. But he knew and said that he was no different than the average Palestinian who has lost so much.   These genocidal monsters think that this weakens Hamas, or weakens the resistance, but it does neither. It will only strengthen both.   I must admit that I am furious, because they murder people with impunity. It’s absurd. But you can never destroy a people who do not believe that death is the end.   I am sending prayers to his remaining family and to the leaders who must now rise up in his place.”" Dr. Eli David on X - "Yesterday I posted a joke that the name of Mossad agent who killed Haniyeh is “Amit Nakesh”, which in Hebrew literally means “assassin”. Today the Turkish press ran with it, and some even referred to him as Colonel Amit Nakesh 🤣 👇" Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was an UNRWA teacher - former agency official - "Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh worked as a teacher for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the past, former UNRWA official Ahmad Oueidat revealed in an interview with the London-based Al-Hiwar TV channel last week, according to footage translated by MEMRI... "The Israelis, the Americans, and the Western politicians felt that as long as UNRWA upholds its goals, it constitutes a source of danger. This is why [they decided] to corrupt it."... UNRWA’s schools have consistently been found to use material directly inciting students to terrorism and antisemitism.  The IMPACT-SE watchdog noted in its most recent report on the matter in November that UNRWA textbooks are “openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad, and martyrdom while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies proliferate throughout the curriculum, including in science and math textbooks.”  Some examples of incendiary and antisemitic educational material include a reading comprehension exercise celebrating a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus as a “barbecue party” and material glorifying Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who murdered 38 Israeli civilians in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, as a role model for children"
Ironic, given that UNRWA promotes terrorism. But if you are pro-terrorism, of course it's "corruption" to promote neutrality Shaiel Ben-Ephraim on X - "There is a lot of concern over the Iranian response to Israel after the Hanyieh assassination, and understandably so. However, the Israeli position is now much better than before the strike.   To understand why, we need to break down the concept of deterrence. Israeli attacks on Iran and its proxies (except Hamas) are not meant to destroy them since that is not possible. They are meant to deter.   Deterring an actor involves making them believe they will pay a higher price for attacking you than they are willing to pay. Deterrence is based on three elements:
1) Your ability to punish the enemy.
2) The credibility of your threat to punish the enemy.
3) Your ability to prevent the enemy from causing you harm.
Israel has gained in all those metrics. Here is the breakdown:
1) Its intelligence abilities and ability to work with local opposition groups in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza have allowed it to kill the most senior targets conceivable. Israeli abilities are sharper than ever.
2) The rash of assassinations has made Israel seem irresponsible and crazy in its use of force. That might sound like a bad thing. But in deterrence, it's the best thing. It enhances your credibility immeasurably.
3) Israel has a significant ability to prevent the worst damage from an Iranian attack. It has any country's most sophisticated technological systems in that regard (Arrow, Sling of David, Iron Dome). And it has retained support of its international coalition, which has proven capable o shooting down targets on their way to Israel.
In addition, Israel has chosen to communicate that it will respond to any attacks with aggressive countermeasures. In other words, they will bomb the bejesus out wherever attacks come from. This raises the specter of Israel causing Iran and its proxies a lot of damage without sustaining much itself. The Israeli rash of assassinations means the enemy doesn't doubt Israel means it.   That means Israel has achieved "escalation dominance." That is a situation where you have “the ability to respond appropriately to any level of potential attack and to pose the risk of escalation to higher levels of conflict.” Your enemy is likely to sustain more pain in those higher levels than you.   Obviously, it is preferable not to have to deter your enemy at all. It is not a reliable mechanism. But Israel has been at war with Iran and its proxies for months now. The difference is that now Israel has the upper hand. If it plays its cards right, it can keep it." Alicia Segovia on X - "It’s ironic that Israeli intelligence is operating successfully at the highest levels, yet what started this war was a huge failure in intelligence"
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim on X - "They learned a lot of lessons. I have talked to some people about it. It is no coincidence." Thread by @sfrantzman on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "INSIGHT into why the loss of Haniyeh matters most of all for Hamas. Hamas wanted to leverage Oct. 7 to come to power in Ramallah. The Iranian axis was working to bring Haniyeh and Hamas to power and replace the PA. China was brokering the talks with the 14 factions to accomplish it Ankara and Doha were working closely to coordinate this goal. The reason Doha dragged out the hostage talks was to bring Hamas more clout and enable it to survive in Gaza and then get a deal that would let it release hostages slowly, to take over the West Bank. Haniyeh was key to the Hamas plans. It knew he had popularity in the West Bank and among other Palestinian factions. There were increased whispers among the Palestinian factions that they could work with him...including from PFLP and others considered "moderate" and on the "left" Before Haniyeh could swoop back into the West Bank on the back of some kind of long slow hostage release where Hamas would release one hostage a week or one a month...Haniyeh met with an accident in Tehran and was killed. This DERAILS the Tehran plan that came along with Oct. 7. Iran's plan was to use Oct. 7 as the first shot in a large regional war that was designed to bring about a new regional and new world order, part of the multi-polar world Iran is working on with China-Russia-Turkey. Turkey was playing a key role, preparing the way to also push for Hamas to take power in the West Bank with Russian and China's backing. Now Haniyeh is gone. The other Hamas leaders in Doha don't have the clout. Who else is left? Sinwar, Marzouk, Ghazi Hamed, Mahmoud Zaher, Khaled Meshaal, Zaher Jabareen, Basem Naim, Osama Hamdan, Mahmoud Zaher, Sami Abu Zakhri...  Haniyeh had support and respect of other groups and even regional leaders. He was known. His removal, removes a key person who might have led Hamas back to power. The real story of the elimination of Haniyeh is not about the ceasefire talks or necessarily defeat for Hamas in Gaza, it's actually about the day after and not having Hamas take over the West Bank with any kind of popular leader. also this guy, Khalil al-Khayya If you’d like to know the background and story behind Oct 7 and how we got here, as well as more about Iran’s plans, you can check out my just released book on the war that also looks at Iran and Hamas’ plans" Top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran, group says : r/internationalpolitics - "How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? It should be clear to everyone that by now, Israel wants a prolonged and protracted war. It's only through war Zionism can complete it's aims of creating and securing a Jewish state in what was the mandate of Palestine. Let's be honest: October 7th was an opportunity for Israel. And Israel seized it with both hands. The only peace Israel wants is another piece of Palestine."
"Hamas really wanted mediation? This was the leader of a terrorist organization that vows to commit 10/7 again and again. A person that is a billionaire by stealing aid meant for Palestinians. Rather than commit to peace he he teaches and practices martyrdom."
"What “mediation” bro? Hamas wants Israel wiped off the map. Israel wants Hamas wiped out. Any mediation is nothing more than a temporary “timeout” in a death match."
"I don’t know ask Japan, Germany, and Italy. Peace seemed to magically happen when their leaders got toe tags. Now that we are talking about it, which peace treaty was created without at least one leader from either side being killed? I’m going to guess a few but I personally can’t think of any.  You weirdos want a fairytale war and a fairytale peace agreement. Have a critical thought for once in your life. Please 🙏" AG on X - "Remember when Ismail Haniyeh went on a rant on the need for dead Palestinian civilians to help spur on the war effort… "The blood of the women, children, and elderly...we are the ones who need this blood so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit...”"
Why do the monstrous Zionists want Palestinians to die?! Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Falls Down After Loud Popping Noises | Babylon Bee Andy Kaczynski on X - "POLITICO writes about this guy taking over Hamas like he got a promotion in the lobby shop at Covington."
Fatigue and frustration could hinder Israel’s attack response - POLITICO - "YAHYA SINWAR will assume leadership of Hamas in the wake of Haniyeh’s assassination, the militant group announced today. Sinwar previously led Hamas in the Gaza Strip."