Andy1

Only one presidential candidate speaks of violence with respect to elections. Typical bully talk, except here Trump is trying to bully voters. Like most bullies, he talks tough to cover up his personal insecurities and cowardice.

Left and Right live in two different media worlds and received different information about how to respond to Covid. The disease exploded in Dem states NY, NJ & CT. Whatever controls the Dem states tried to limit spread must be bad so the right wing media decided that Republicans were the pro freedom, anti restrictions party. The rate of spread in densely populated urban areas was different than in rural areas. Hospitals in cities were overwhelmed, hospital staff were crushed with patients and bodies were stacked in the refrigerator trucks. Rural republicans felt that it was a city problem and it wasn’t going to affect them. Stories minimizing COVID severity and vax myths were the nightly images shown to the eyeballs of Fox viewers. By the time the disease slammed into red counties, people had already decided what side of the Covid response they were on. The dumbest thing was Republicans thinking they must be against whatever dems believe, so a good Trump republican was on the team of antivax, anti mask, ignore public health warnings, do whatever you want and live free. Public health policy was politicized. The sad part is all the people who died unnecessarily, believing the lies and misinformation they were fed by right wing media. Fox made their money spewing lies while Tucker and the rest of them were vaxed and protected. No one is cheering for deaths in red counties. It’s just what happened.

Religion and politics are two things that shouldn’t be combined. It leads to the degradation of both institutions.

If you have sensitive feelings when people disagree with you or when they present information contrary to your world view, PPP is not the place to be for your mental health.

In have no opinion on the ban but find it interesting that this is the first issue in forever that is not defined by partisan politics. Legislators actually have to think about it instead of going with the default party position.

Did I say that????!???!? Easy now. I was only asking for clarification on your perspective since you seem to assign more blame on Israel for what happened that day than to Hamas. I know you condemn Hamas. You have also emphasized there was no mass rape and Israel killed their own people. Some Israelis dying from friendly fire is probably likely, but that was not the main cause of deaths. The UN found evidence of many rapes, gang rapes etc. I have seen no evidence to indicate those reports were false. If your position is Hamas is responsible for the vast majority of the deaths, the kidnapping and probably a lot of other horrible actions that day, we each view it about the same way. Netanyahu seems like an idiot for his actions and inaction leading up to that day. Maybe he had some sick wish for an attack to occur, I don’t know. Sadly, the result of the attack and war is what the extremists on both sides want.

I thought all you needed was a good guy with a gun to stop the bad guy.

The reporter in the Aljazeera video you posted above acknowledges that a “very significant majority of the casualties” were the result of Hamas actions that day. Are you saying that all the casualties were from Israel firing on or otherwise killing their own people?

Cult leaders and dictators must have total absolute control over the flock. This is about purifying the party of non-MAGA members. Trump Shuttle, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump university, Trump steaks, Trump mortgages. Who wouldn’t want him in charge of the RNC? I’m sure this move will inspire donors to shell out their dues and please down ballot republicans.

1000% right! First step is to cripple agencies and convince Americans that everything is horrible and government can’t function. Then create the dream that all problems are solved once the function of the agency is in private hands. There are now proposals to privatize the role of the TSA.

It is such a cult. Even a widely respected military general must be considered a liar if they say anything negative against the orange god king. That is the automatic default response to any criticism of Donnie.

Huh? All Trump does is praise dictators. Every dictator he says is the smartest guy he ever met. Xi, Orban and Putin are his buddies he wants to be like.

🤣🤣🤣 They make fake images because the real pictures are repulsive to anyone who doesn’t own a red hat. That’s all I got for tonight!

Trump is a rambling idiot on stage. He has really lost some marbles compared to 8 years ago. His rally speech in Georgia was a classic ranting idiot. He can’t put two coherent sentences together. Every time he screws up, the reason is: “he said it on purpose of course”, because the orange king has no flaws. General Kelly called Trump “the most flawed person he had ever met”. No one who worked for him has anything good to say about him. His former cabinet officials won’t endorse him. Haley would have been a much stronger candidate. What a mess, but that’s what the MAGA crowd loves.

Justice - Prior to the war, under Hamas rule, was there freedom of speech to allow public discussion of the topic of Israel’s right to exist? This is against Hamas declared policy so that’s why I’m asking. Would there be severe consequences if one advocated for that position? It would seem that this is a necessary first step, before a leader for peace can emerge.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some Israelis were killed by friendly fire. It was probably a very chaotic situation. It still doesn’t erase the actions of Hamas that day. I appreciate your perspective as I try to better understand this conflict.

Back in December there was a public opinion poll of Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank. At that time, only 10% believed Hamas had committed war crimes. Hamas was still the most popular political party. Support for armed violence against Israel increased to 69% compared to 58% before October 7. A rational person would conclude that decades of violence against Israel only brings pain and suffering to Palestinians with no progress towards their desire for a stable, peaceful future, but there is no evidence that they think that way. It seems to me that the only (remote) possibility for peace is for both Hamas and Netanyahu to be gone from power. New leaders are needed on both sides. https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll 90 English press release 13 Dec 2023 Final New.pdf

I’m all for international standards in war but if you are going to apply them to Israel, they should also be applied to the actions and official declarations of Hamas. I keep thinking to myself, “What would America do if we had a neighbor like Hamas next to us, in a place like Gaza, who had a declared policy for our extermination, who also attacked us at a proportional scale as what Israel suffered?” I’m not sure we would do anything different. Would the American public be concerned about the lives of those people? Look at our response to September 11.

An immediate cease fire on both sides should happen immediately after the release of all Israeli hostages. The path to peace is obvious. Netanyahu doesn’t care what Biden thinks. He would rather see Trump be elected in November. Politics in America is not going to influence military decisions during war for Israel. Hamas seems happy to sacrifice the lives of their friends and families for their cause. That has been their plan. The war will end sooner or later, the timing is up to Hamas. What happens after the war is the big unknown.

Just presenting this for historical context. There is a reason why there are walls over there today.

I don’t hear much of Christ’s teachings coming out of the mouths of these Christian nationalists or their hero Trump.

Can anyone explain the infatuation of republicans with Russia? Every Republican leader pre-Trump was strong defending democracy standing with our allies against the threat of Russian aggression. As soon as Trump kisses Putin’s butt the whole ideology of the party changes and Russia is no longer considered a threat to us and they don’t care if Russia is a threat to our allies. The best theory I have heard is these Republican Russophiles view Russia as some ideal nation for the “purity” of a dominant white Christian culture. They love that there is no woke desire for diversity and minorities and LGBTQ are treated and repressed the way they wish they were in America. If they love the Russian dream more than the American melting pot of democracy, they should pack up and move.