I am not usually the guy who uses sport analogies but as far as the November elections go, this will be the best way to understand my thinking. Most non-racquet sports are broken down into 4 quarters. We’re at the conclusion of the 1st half (the first two quarters). It is basically halftime.
Both teams, Democrats and MAGA go to their locker rooms (The nominating Conventions) and then hit the campaign trail culminating in the November 5 election. Some states will allow ‘Early Voting’ to begin as soon as September 20, 2024, according to ‘Ballotpedia.org. Those voters who are already certain of their choice will take advantage of the early option.
As of now, Trump has named his VP choice. Trump is also keeping medical details of his injury under the same blanket of secrecy that he kept his tax returns during his 2016 campaign and presidency. Subsequent court cases have determined that he defrauded the state of New York of millions in taxes. Should he fail to regain the Presidency he will likely be found to have also evaded paying significant taxes to the US Government as well.
On the other side of the election contest, President Joe Biden, has been facing a bit of a challenge. According to most of the mainstream media outlets, He needs to step aside and allow for an alternative candidate to replace the Biden/Harris team. Most of this urging is coming from his fellow White Male Democrats. The excuse is his poor showing in the first debate he had a few weeks ago.
Let me be clear, the CEO’s and top management of most of the TV/Cable Networks, Newspapers, social media, and internet news organizations donated to Trump. They support his tax cuts and reporting on him generates revenue. They are not honest brokers of real journalism. They also pay for the polls that have constantly been reported for the past year.
That polling is not actually predictive of election outcome at this point. Aggregate polling in September and October will be reflective of the mood of the voters. Early and absentee voting will begin and we’ll have a better sense of how the campaigns are preforming. While the ‘MSM’ hypes polling favorable to Trump, the more credible national polls shows it’s between 2%-4% points. That’s within the margin of error. While the MSM reports general polling, more credible organizations report ‘Likely Voters’. They give more demographically important information.
Unfortunately there is a new dynamic for this election. It is beginning to appear that White Male Democrats want Biden to step aside and take his VP choice with him. While the MSM keeps coming up with polls suggesting there are alternatives to Biden, some men in Democratic leadership are afraid he will win, not finish out his term and allow VP Harris to become President. Then she can run as an incumbent in 2028.
Then what worries them is if Hakim Jefferies becomes the Speaker of the House. This country could then have a person of color as President and as Speaker of the House. The line of Presidential succession would have a person of color in two of the constitutionally ordained top three positions.
I am thinking that Joe Biden will refuse to step aside. Will he think about it? Yeah he will. But I believe that he knows how much he owes his Presidency to the coalition of voters including Black women, Independents, Progressives, LGBTQ, Asians, and Hispanics. The best chance to secure his legacy is to keep this coalition in tact to beat back the White Christian Nationalists, Theocrats, and Oligarchs.
Democrats have to also win the majority of both houses of Congress so they can codify abortion rights, outlaw gerrymandering as it stands now, implement new Voting Rights legislation, and reform the Supreme Court. Given how they ruled on the Immunity issue they should expand the court within the first 6 months of Biden’s 2nd term.
I heard an idea today that suggested that Biden could test that immunity and issue an ‘Executive Order’ to expand the court immediately. The additional Justices could then vote on new ethics rules for Justices. He could also issue an ‘Executive Order’ on police reforms that could drop ‘Qualified Immunity’ and make officers give up a part of their pensions when their state, county, or local governments have to pay settlements for abuses of authority or cause unjustified injury or death to citizens.
Biden is in the perfect position to run for reelection, win and institute some major reforms in partnership with Congress, that will change the dynamic of living in America as far away from the policies of the Heritage Foundation and it’s Project 2025, or Lenard Leo’s Federalist Society, or Q Anon, and of course Trump’s MAGA Movement as possible.
It’s Biden or Trump. The notion that there is an alternative is dishonest. If there was an alternative, they would have run against Biden in the primaries and won. No serious minded hopeful wanted to be President at this point. They know that 2028 is the most viable time for the next generation to take over. For now, they are willing to play a supporting role.
If Biden steps aside Trump will win for sure. Democrats know this. The old White males in leadership don’t care, because, they are entitled old White men willing to ignore what the SCOTUS has set in place. Trump will never step down, not with the legal issues he faces if he did. Those Democrats just cannot seem to grasp, the GOP theocrats, don’t play by any previously accepted rules.
They want their own fiefdoms, their own power, and they don’t intend to share it.
For several years, I have understood that there has been a great contradiction between what we have been told to believe and how the Zionists in Israel have used fear and propaganda to dehumanize Palestinians over the past 75 years. I began to realize just how the lands of the western hemisphere were stolen from the aboriginal peoples and declared the rightful lands of European Judeo-Christian Monarchs, the Catholic church, and their feudal enforcers. Just as European history has intentionally blinded us to the truth of the brutality of theft, rape, and genocide across the Americas and the Caribbean, it has been Zionist propaganda that has done the same in Palestinian lands we refer to as Israel.
The mantra, ‘Israel has a right to exist and defend itself,’ is what has been instilled in us through Western media since the United Nations partitioned the land that was once known as Palestine, formally a part of the Ottoman Empire. But we have seldom seen the Western nations listen to Muslim or Arab entities’ declarations that the Palestinian people have a right to a state of their own and the right to defend themselves against aggression, violence, and subjugation. Once the UN declarations of 1947 created Israel, Zionists were supported militarily by Britain and the US to expel millions of Palestinians from their ancestral homes. Most people who moved onto those lands were Europeans who practiced Judaism but were not necessarily connected to the area genetically.
What they brought to the area was a hatred for Arabs that is not so different from the hatred Hitler and Ayran Germans held for German Jews. What has worked for the Zionists is the victimhood Jews have enjoyed for over 70 years due to the fragmentation and tribalism of surrounding Arab nations that has allowed Israel’s right-wing to conflate any critical view of their thuggery with antisemitism. The Palestinian people are victims of Zionist aggression and betrayal from other Arab and Persian nations (tribes): Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, UAE, and others. That betrayal includes other Palestinians: Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
It is important to understand what is overlooked in the United States during the protests of Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. Iran and Russia had a direct hand in training and supplying resources for the attack. President Biden is weighing how to provide for Israel’s security while trying to offer protections for the populace that Hamas is willing to put at risk in this war.
Many parts of the coalition that elected Biden in 2020 hold him responsible for what is happening in Gaza. It is an uninformed position that lacks comprehension and critical review. Why? A 2nd Trump Presidency would see him turn his back on Palestine, Eastern Europe, and Asia to allow Russia, China, and possibly North Korea to do whatever they want as long as he is financially compensated.
Zionism is a nationalist movement that successfully established an independent state for the Jewish people in 1948 and continues to support Judaism’s claim to Israel, its ancient homeland. It is also one of the most complex and controversial political ideas of the past 150 years.
Although Zionism draws its name from the biblical Mount Zion, it isn’t primarily a religious movement. True, many of the Jewish people have yearned for a return to Abraham’s “Promised Land” for 2,000 years, but the leaders of the modern Zionist movement weren’t driven by messianic zeal. In fact, most were secular and even agnostic Jews who identified the Jewish people as a nation rather than a religion. Zionism for them meant the creation of an independent political state for the Jewish nation.
Zionism itself wouldn’t be problematic if the Jewish people were the only people with claims on the Holy Land. Palestinian Arabs, who comprised the majority of people living in the land known as Palestine for centuries under the yoke of both the Ottoman and British empires, feel that the land should be rightfully theirs.
The result is one of the thorniest and most hotly debated political issues in the modern world. Zionists and other supporters of Israel argue that the safety and continued existence of the brutally persecuted Jewish people depends on the existence of a Jewish state, and the rightful place for that state is Judaism’s ancestral homeland.
Meanwhile, Palestinians and their supporters cast Zionism as an imperialist (or worse, racist) movement that forcefully colonized Arab lands and subjugated the native Palestinian people as second-class citizens. Beyond those already striking divisions, decades of war and sectarian violence have inflicted deep emotional wounds that turn any discussion of Zionism into a potential minefield.
(In other words Israel is a racist political entity stolen from Palestinian Arabs by Europeans who observed Judaism. In America we have always accepted the conflation of Zionism and Judaism just as racist here hope to successfully conflate the policies of racist Christian Nationalism with Christianity )
Political Disinformation
Progressives and Minority voters are being targeted via social media by Russian, Chinese, and North Korean propagandists to take a shortsighted view of the circumstances in favor of Trump.
It’s clear that Trump and Republicans are using social media to try to manipulate minority voters. Recently, Trump supporters posted a series of AI generated memes purportedly showing Trump surrounded by Black supporters.
Note that the guy on the right in the first image has 3 arms. Note that no one in either of the next two images have on any MAGA apparel. The manipulation goes deeper with Trump stating that Blacks like him because they have also been victimized by an unfair criminal justice system, except Blacks go to jail first then to court. Trump goes to court where judges seem reluctant to put him in jail. Then he praises police for their brutality against minority suspects.
Another where a lot of disinformation has been published is with Trump’s v Biden’s perceived support of HBCU’s. I am providing clarifying information to refute the disinformation.
Finally, there is a lot of talk about ‘Project 2025’. This is a plan by rightwing corporations and think tanks to roll back the rights of Americans who are not Christian males of a certain economic class. I have provided images that summerize their agenda on various topics. We should take every one of them seriously.
Click on the active links to read the related articles.
The Instagram post attempts to compare Trump and Biden’s handling of HBCU government funding, saying, “Say what you want about Trump… but he permanently funded HBCUs. Biden defunded them by $30 billion dollars. The black community was manipulated for votes.”
The post’s claim about Biden “defunding” HBCUs by $30 billion, however, doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, a key piece of Biden’s domestic agenda that is still being negotiated in Congress, originally proposed $45 billion in new, additional funding to HBCUs and minority-serving institutions, according to the Associated Press. That new funding has since been reduced to $2 billion in a more recent version of the legislation, the outlet reported Oct. 5.
“The Build Back Better Act proposes a new $2 billion fund for HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) research infrastructure,” Victor Santos, senior director for government relations at the public HBCU-representing Thurgood Marshall College Fund, told Check Your Fact via email. “This is a brand new pot of money that has not previously existed. The bill also includes a $27.5 billion tuition-assistance fund for students at HBCUs and MSIs.”
Santos added that “there has been a decrease based upon the original proposals set forth by the administration, but again, these were not existing programs but new programs and the original figures presented were aspirational goals.” (RELATED: Would Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda ‘Cost Zero Dollars’?)
“In addition, dollars would have been and still are competitive grants between HBCUs and MSIs. There are 569 Hispanic Serving Institutions or HSIs (one type of MSI) and only 101 HBCUs. HSIs include schools like the University of Miami, University of California, and the University of Texas. It is likely that even from the larger number originally proposed aspirationally – HBCUs would have only received a small percentage,” Santos went on to say. “The Build Back Better Act also includes a $1.45 billion increase in mandatory appropriations for HBCUs and MSIs over 10 years.”
Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, called the “$30 billion HBCU cut” claim a “lie” and said “there has not been a cut in funding” in an Oct. 5 tweet thread. Dillard University is an HBCU.
“Fact: ‘Each year, the federal government disperses about $1 billion to HBCUs through a mix of 15 programs such as Pell Grants and research and development contracts.’ You CAN’T cut 30 from 1. Simple math,” Kimbrough said in one tweet.
The White House on Oct. 9 put out a fact sheet detailing its “Investments and Support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” including requesting a “total of $887 million for HBCU-specific funding in Higher Education Act (HEA) Title III funds” in Biden’s fiscal year 2022 budget and providing “over $4 billion in relief funding to HBCUs” through the American Rescue Plan.
“The only words the president contributed were his signature, ‘Donald J. Trump,’” Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., an original sponsor of the bill, told Inside Higher Ed in August.
Total funding for the program has trended up under Trump. However, the president’s budget proposals for the lastthreeyears show the White House repeatedly requested less in discretionary funding through the program than Congress provided.
The White House has also tried to trim funding for federal TRIO programs, which are designed to provide services to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Lil Wayne set social media ablaze Thursday when the self-proclaimed “best rapper alive” revealed meeting privately with President Donald Trump, joining the pantheon of past-their prime Black male rap stars — Ice Cube and 50 Cent — in embracing the president.
“Just had a great meeting with @realdonaldtrump @potus besides what he’s done so far with criminal reform, the platinum plan is going to give the community real ownership,” he tweeted alongside a now-viral photo of the rapper and the president side by side, smiling and offering a thumbs up.
The morning after Philadelphia police fatally shot a Black man, 27-year-old Walter Wallace Jr., Trump praised officers as “the most incredible people on earth.”
Later that day, his campaign rolled out a new ad, “Uphold the Law,” a 30-second spot that falsely accused Biden and Kamala Harris of fanning flames while American cities burned, “refusing to strongly condemn violence” — the narrator says — and “supporting bail funds that helped let rioters, looters and dangerous criminals out of jail.”
The Real Objective of a 2nd Trump Presidency: Kill Democracy and empower White Male Autocratic Rule
I want to address a couple of current issues in the news. The first issue is reporting that polling indicates that more Black voters are leaning away from Biden and thinking of not voting in November. The other set of polling suggests that more younger Black men may vote for Trump in November.
The next issue via some Progressive media outlets or commentators is that Biden is losing support among young voters because of his policy on Israel. I have stopped watching some commentators because they promote an incomplete narrative on this issue. Joy Reid and Alex Wagner are examples of short-sighted perspectives promoted on their shows.
The Younger Black Voter
I posted an interview of Don Lemon’s interview with D.L. Hughley. I found the political discussions of this interview to be very insightful. It goes directly to the concerns of what Young Black Males miss about a 2nd Trump Presidency and the lack of informed opinions on the situation in Gaza. Once you get past the discussion on Monique to the relevant political portion of the interview, Hugely shares some realistic data and ideas.
I cringe when Ice Cube, Charlemagne tha GOD, 50 Cents, and other pop culture celebrities offer their less informed views on politics. I remember Charlemagne da God asking Biden in 2019 what he would do for Black People. Hugely points out that 56% of Black people in this country live in Republican-controlled states,.
These states have Republican Governors and Republican-controlled legislatures. Those states have refused to accept and implement federal legislation that would benefit a large portion of their minority citizens. A good example would be Medicaid expansion. The Federal government offered hundreds of millions in benefits to those states, but their governments declined the funds.
In other words, more than half of minority citizens live under State government rules that refuse to utilize the Federal funding available to help make their lives easier. The uninformed believe it is the President who has failed them. They don’t think to hold the leaders of their state and local governments accountable.
Gaza
One of the failings of the mainstream media since the creation of the state of Israel is to distinguish between a Jewish state and a Zionist state. In a way, Zionism is to Judaism what Christian Nationalism is to Christianity. It is through the lenses of religious and racial bigotry that the world accepts the right of Israel to exist while we ignore the rights of Palestinians to exist in their homeland under their sovereign government.
No major Western media outlet informs us about what has been done to the Palestinian people to grow the Jewish population in Israel from less than 100,000 in 1947 to over 8 million people today. Western media does not inform us of the dozens of military expulsions Palestinians have endured as European and American Jews stole their land and homes. They do this with impunity with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) standing by to enforce laws under which Palestinians have no rights. Western Media does not inform us of how Jewish settlers commit daily acts of violence against Palestinians, as the IDF ensures that no retaliation takes place.
We always hear about Israel’s right to exist. No Western media or government entity discusses the rights of Palestinians to exist in their own country and on their land. On the other hand, no one informs us that the Palestinian people are mere pawns of their own and other Arab leaders.
Hamas was chosen to govern Gaza by a vote of the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preferred them over the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority operates without autonomy in the West Bank. Israel received money from other Arab states to pass through to Hamas.
American students protesting the actions of Israel in Gaza are right to call out the injustice here. Where I have a problem is their willingness to try to hold President Biden accountable for maintaining US policy since the creation of the state of Israel. I agree the US should reevaluate its policy but I don’t hear anyone on the Progressive side talking about how we should hold Hamas accountable.
Hamas staged an attack from Gaza into Israel, knowing how the right-wing government would respond. They embedded themselves among the Palestinian citizens who fled their homes to avoid the battle thus drawing Israeli fire upon innocent civilians wherever they sought refuge. The protesting American youth don’t acknowledge this reality. They don’t call out the leaders of Hamas for using their people as fodder for martyrdom.
They somehow believe that Biden can somehow make Netanyahu and the Israeli forces just cease-fire. They don’t understand that Hamas forces will keep the hostilities going as long as the world is changing its view of Israel’s Zionist ways under the cover of Jewish victimhood. The worst part about their ignorance about Hamas is their ignorance that both Iran and Russia provided support to Hamas to carry out the October 7, 2023 attacks.
They somehow believe that Biden can somehow make Netanyahu and the Israeli forces just cease-fire. They don’t understand that Hamas forces will keep the hostilities going as long as the world is changing its view of Israel’s Zionist ways under the cover of Jewish victimhood. The worst part about their ignorance of Hamas is their ignorance that both Iran and Russia provided support to Hamas to carry out the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Because Iran and Russia are involved in planning the attack, Biden cannot change his policy to provide such open support to Israel. D.L. Hugely notes that what goes on behind the scenes diplomatically is something we cannot know at this time. Leaders of Hamas freely admit that their citizens, no matter what age, are merely martyrs for the cause. That’s not Biden’s fault.
People need to know that Israeli Intelligence had copies of the October 7, 2023 plan a full year before the attack. They did nothing to prevent it and now they are carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Biden is trying to prevent this from happening behind the scenes. If Trump becomes President, he will give them full-throated permission to complete whatever they don’t finish.
As of May 4, 2024, Hamas has representatives negotiating a hostage release and a cease-fire in Cairo, Egypt. Before October 7, 2023, the Biden Administration was close to a peace agreement with the surrounding Arab nations and Israel. This was an agreement neither the Israeli right nor Hamas wanted. One has to wonder if there was some form of tacit collusion between Netanyahu and Hamas.
If Trump Wins
I have also included and interview with former Rudy Guiliani associate Lev Parnas. He was found guilty and sentenced to almost two years in prison for campaign finance violations around his efforts to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine. Listen to his story. When you consider his points and the details of the Right-wing Project 2025 plan to make Trump a full Authoritarian. You have to question how any objective thinking and informed Black person or American would not vote, vote for Trump, or waste a vote on a third party candidate.
I merely seek to objectively inform. I am giving you a glass of water, oxygen to breathe, eyes to see….but if you don’t find a use for these, then wherever we end up after a 2nd Trump inauguration will be our collective fate.
I first realized it back in 1992 when Bill Clinton won the election for President. That year, George H.W. Bush was a juggernaut until he went over to Japan, threw up and collapsed at a state dinner. Ross Perot got into the race and Clinton came out a head in a 3 way race.
What I noted then is what I see emerging now. How the media seizes control of the narrative to control the November outcome of Presidential elections. What the American electorate loses sight of is that the media also seizes control of down ballot races to effectuate who will control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and ultimately the Supreme Court as well. The media was supportive of Barack Obama over John McCain because McCain blew is opportunity to demonstrate unflappable leadership during the 2008 financial crisis, while Obama stayed cool calm and Presidential.
However, the media slyly stayed away from promoting the need for Obama to have a supportive Congress and Senate during the 2010 Midterm elections in order to keep his agenda on track. The Republicans won control of the House. Republicans, guided by Mitch McConnell, also abused the filibuster in the Senate, to stymie cabinet, agency, and judicial appointments. Basically, Republican resistance to a respectful and collegial relation with the Obama Administration, which grew out of the same mindset of the Newt Gingrich era as Speaker of the House, has led us to evolve from the Koch inspired Tea Party movement to the MAGA cult of Trump and Christian White Nationalism.
What the American electorate misses, is that they have yet to understand the reality of governing, how it works. The President is not the only level of governing that affects us. Most egregious is the sole focus on how a Presidential administration’s polices benefit them, when Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court all have a role in the governing process. Then there are governing policies created and implemented on the state, county, and municipal levels.
The mainstream media doesn’t provide a panoramic view of the governing process so the less informed voters focus on what policies don’t get enacted as the failure of a President. In reality, it’s the Congress, and Courts, State Governors, State legislatures, and courts that have just as much impact on those perceived failures. Take the way abortion rights have been rescinded, the President is powerless to directly give or remove abortions right. However, SCOTUS, led by conservative justices, have used obscure religious rationale, to empower individual state legislatures to criminalize a woman who has an abortion and put pregnant women at risk of death if she is carrying a nonviable fetus.
Another policy example is what’s going on in GAZA. Many Progressives and Gen Z voters are upset with Biden for Netanyahu’s obstinance. They also don’t utter a word against Hamas. Wherever the innocent citizens of Gaza go to be safe. Hamas embeds itself among them and then wages war against Israeli forces drawing bombardments into every location innocents go to be safe. Yet somehow, Biden is at fault.
Progressive voices wonder why the administration has resisted calling for a ceasefire in the United Nations. They did just that this past week, to achieve the outcome that Biden already understood would happen. The US ceasefire resolution was vetoed by Russia and China. There are three nations that can veto any resolution that is proposed in the UN, (the US, Russia, and China).
What the Progressive voices don’t tell you, is that the US continues to arm Israel because Iran continues to arm Hamas. Progressive voices don’t tell you that leading up to the October 7, 2023 attack, the administration was close to securing a negotiated settlement with the Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and others to recognize Israel as long as the Palestinians were given autonomy to govern the West Bank and Gaza.
Neither, Iran nor the Netanyahu racist right-wing governing coalition wants to see that happen. I am fairly certain that when all the dust clears, we may find that Netanyahu and the Zionist coalition colluded with Hamas (including Iran and Russia) to derail a settlement that would return captured land that would create a Palestinian State and return back land illegally seized by Jewish settlers under the protection of the Israeli Defense Forces.
The last example of how the mainstream media has seized the narrative up until now is to keep the abysmal farce on the part of MAGA Republicans, to impeach Biden under Trump’s directions. The media has done this by keeping the name of Hunter Biden in the headlines though he never held political office. The worse part of this farce is there is not an iota of evidence to link either the President or his son to any serious criminal activity.
Trump, on the other hand has been indicted in 4 criminal cases, has 91 charges against him and is using money he raises from donors to pay his lawyers, who represent a private citizen and a candidate. The courts have also been slow rolling his cases to prevent trials taking place before the next election. SCOTUS even waited to rule on whether he violated the ‘Emoluments Clause’ of the Constitution before January 20, 2020. Reports have estimated that Trump made over $600 million while in office from foreign governments. This doesn’t included what Ivanka and Jared Kushner made while serving as advisors to his White House.
What it really comes down to is that Gen Z and Progressives are in position to make real gains in leadership of the Democratic Party if they are pragmatic in their strategy. Hispanics and Blacks can assume meaningful roles in the party if they stay engaged and don’t lose focus. There is nothing wrong with these members of the Democratic coalition seeking appropriate levels of power and influence, they have earned it.
However, Hispanics are very susceptible to the influence of evangelical conservatism, and Black males are susceptible to misogynistic alignment with the MAGA dogma. Consequently, until the mass awakening of voters from their hibernation and they can focus on the election in November, the media controls the narrative. They repeatedly tell us that an 80 year old Biden, who understands how to govern, is not up to the task of being President.
At the same time they project the notion that a mentally deteriorating 77 year old Trump, who failed at governing, is a known marketing grifter and grows more unhinged under the stress of his financial and legal failures, can be trusted for a 2nd term. They suggests that Trump, who is demented enough to openly states that he wants to be the first American dictator so he can avoid criminal convictions, is more suitable than the successful Biden/Harris administration.
To wrap things up, as we move toward the election, pay attention to how much one or the other candidate is seriously mocked by the mainstream. Pay attention to which one becomes the punchline of jokes outside of the MAGA bubble.
Also the media will tell you, Trump is about to come into a $3 billion dollar windfall based on a recent merger involving Truth Social. Most of those outlets won’t understand how the financing of the Merger works. On Monday the stocks for the company will begin trading under the stock symbol DJT. Potential MAGA investors began talking to drive up the price to $45-$47 per share last week.
Friday, based on this news, informed investors started positioning to began short selling shares on Monday. The price per share has already lost 14% of its value. Trump’s paper windfall is already worth less than the anticipated $3 billion.
Once he starts to sell off shares the stock price will fall like a brick. You can then expect investors to sue and thus make his legal woes even worse. A pattern of which he has perfected over the decades. This stock opened at $44.20 Friday. It closed at $36.94. Notice in the chart below that the fair market value is already rated at overvalued.
Digital Worlds Acquisitions is buying Truth Social, it only has $3 million in revenue and $50 million in losses. It’s trading strictly on the association with the MAGA Trump name. Trump has 80 million shares. Once he starts selling off large parts of his holdings the investors who are shorting the stock will drive the price down before casual investors can react. The guy who started Digital World Acquisitions is already suing.
The media is reporting about Trump as if he is on top of everything. The facts are that he has lost almost every court case. 70 of them as it relates to the 2020 elections. He lost two as they relate to his businesses, two as they relate to the E. Jean Carol Deformation cases, and there are at least 6 more that he can only put off if he wins the 2024 election.
Watch the media narrative after the Conventions. if it seems they are are turning on him, it will be in an effort to get ahead of the coming trends when the electorate starts to engage. The signs are already there. Trump is already declaring that the 2024 election is now rigged against him. The media will try to project that they have just learned what what should be know. All the hype about the polling is disinformation and Trump himself knows it won’t work.
So now he is beginning his clarion call to MAGA militias to ‘Stand by and Stand ready’ to revolt across the country ‘WHEN’ he loses.
I want to just break down some real truths. No BS, no gaslighting, no alternate facts. The mainstream media keeps reporting to you that Presidential polling indicates that Americans don’t want a rematch between Biden and Trump. They keep telling us that Biden is too old. They don’t seem to have an opinion about age or competency as it relates to Trump.
I challenge you to name viable alternative candidates that have entered the Presidential race to date. Name one. I am not asking you who you think could make a good choice. Name a viable alternative candidate to Biden or Trump who has entered the race.
Let me stipulate that is no non-Trump MAGA candidate. Likewise, let me stipulate, that there is no viable Democratic candidate that is interested in replacing Joe Biden at this point in time. For all the breathless punditry, there is no future Democratic Presidential candidate that wants any part of the 2024 election.
That means all the polling and talking heads is pointless. You have Biden and you have Trump. You have a sitting President who has used his years in government to masterfully repair a great deal of damage that has been done to our nation by the GOP and MAGA. You also have a former President, who had no experience at governing anything ever, who crashed everything he ever touched in life, and demonstrated his ability to wreck the nation by turn it over to religious anarchists. Actually, this was done in the spirit of Ronald Reagan.
He allowed COVID-19 to kill over 1 million people. He allowed the crash of the supply chain so that every day goods became scarce, and the resulting inflation crippled the economy. He killed foreign policy goals only to be dictated by those who flattered his fragile ego. He enriched himself and his family by setting policy initiates that favored those who paid him for access.
This is what the choices in the 2024 election are. They are not what your feelings suggest they should be. The stark reality is simple. You have a sitting President who has successfully addressed the task of fixing issues Trump left behind. Biden will square off with Trump, a whinny self-centered racist sociopath, former President that needs to be elected again, to avoid criminal trials and the potential of spending his remaining years under house arrest.
No matter what the media and polls tell us, this is the only reality we face in the 2024 Presidential, Congressional, State, County, and Municipal elections. We elect people who will restore and improve democracy up and down the ballot or lose it. Now some of you will be deluded into thinking that you have a protest choices like a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cornel West, or some other unproven recognition seeking self-indulgent scammer, by casting votes for those folks you’re really choosing the worst between Biden and Trump. You just convinced yourself that at least you didn’t make a direct vote for the racist White Christian Nationalist. Trump is the Putin influenced anti-democracy candidate.
Let’s get even deeper into this. Over 100,000 Arab Americans and Palestinians in Michigan made protest votes to get Biden to withdraw American military funding from Israel over the it’s actions in Gaza. That is basically Biden’s margin of victory over Trump in Michigan in the 2020 election. If they vote that way in November Trump will likely win the election.
Trump will impose a Muslim immigration ban, detain, and deport Arab and Palestinian protestors who object to his policies. If you read the right wing contrived Project 2025 Plan, put together but religious conservative think tanks, they will then implement a plan to nullify Congress and the Judiciary thus making Trump a dictator. Arabs and Palestinians have a right to make their voices heard on Gaza. I cannot stress that enough. However, Trump would allow the right wing Zionists who control the Israeli government to do far more than they are doing now. He would allow the complete annexation of Gaza and the West Bank and the removal of all Arabs.
But here is the question no one is asking. Why does it seem that Biden is not listening to Arabs and Palestinians on his support for Israel? The answer is Iran. Iran backed and trained the Hamas attackers on October 7, 2023. Iran is backing the Yemeni militia firing on ships in the Red Sea. Iran also armed and backs the militia that fired rockets into the US base in Jordan that killed 3 US service members and injured others. The Biden Administration supports Israel in an effort to prevent a larger war in the region.
I am not judging the strategy, I am pointing out that many people have a very shortsighted view of the situation. The Biden Administration has been working on a ceasefire for months. What American protestors don’t mention is that Hamas embeds itself among the citizens of Gaza. They fire rockets at the IDF forces from positions within the areas where innocent citizens flee the bombardment of artillery and airstrikes. Hamas also confiscates humanitarian aid meant for the trapped citizens. But are they condemning Hamas? Are the complaining about Hamas?
I don’t point this out to absolve Israel of any blame. Israeli settlers have stolen land from Arabs. They have been blocking aid shipments from crossing the borders. What is not reported is that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israeli Moderates were negotiating a potential treaty before the October 7th attack.
There is evidence that Hamas leaders had been meeting with Iranian and Russian advisors leading up to the attack. There is even evidence that Israeli Intelligence Officials had obtained plans of the attack a full year before it was carried out. History shows that Netanyahu supported Hamas over the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. The reason? Hamas, like the Zionists do not want a ‘Two State’ solution.
Because the mainstream media does not report these aspects of Biden governing behind the scenes, some Progressives and potential young voters protest Biden’s position without having the broader perspective. You see, the long game has yet to be completed.
On another matter, I have watched in basic disgust as the so-called enlightened journalists on MSNBC, such as Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, Jason Johnson, and Stephanie Rhule, spew their flawed insights on matters such as these. I give the Arab journalist on the network a break because they live a different perspective, having lived in the region, or having family still living there. It’s OK to be critical of the Biden Administration but they should at least be more informed with their opinions as they seek to provide a broader perspective for their viewers.
Instead of saying, Democrats have a problem messaging, they should be saying that MSNBC is a lone voice in a right-wing MAGA media universe right now and they want to set the record straight. Many times I have heard them comment about what Democrats have not said only to view new social media outlets like ‘The Meidas Touch Network’ airing video clips of Democrats and President Biden saying the things they are accursed of not communicating. I suppose the issue is that MSNBC is owed by Comcast and that media conglomerate has to consider profit first.
What is encouraging, is that ‘The Meidas Touch Network’ airs on YouTube and other podcast platforms, consistently has larger audiences than MSNBC, CNN, OAN, and sometimes FOX. While MSNBC pretends to make some people look like friendly and sympathetic faces: Michael Steele, the former Black Chairman of the RNC, who invited in the Koch backed Tea Party movement into mainstream conservative politics, and Simone Sanders the former Bernie Sanders political advisor, they both had a role in creating the opportunity for the development of the MAGA world we live in today.
Should Biden win reelection, the Democrats flip the House and the Democrats hold a least 50 Senate seats look for the long game t be enacted:
More members of the US Congress and Senate will be investigated for conspiracy to overthrow the US Government on January 6 2020.
The Congress and Senate will vote to expand SCOTUS to 13 0r 14 seats thus nullifying the right wing of the court.
Biden will nominate 4 new Justices in short order.
Biden will sign new voting rights bills into law which include mail in ballots, secure ballot drop-off provisions, non-partisan redistricting commissions, and automatic voter registration for Federal elections
Federal investigations into Trump family profiteering for the Kushners.
I want to end this piece by referring you to the brilliant commentary by Lawrence O’Donnell. He reminds us that real governing is not done in front of a camera. It’s not an episode of a fake TV series of a failed business man. It’s a boring process where people have to be committed to learning the intricacies of developing and implementing public policy. You can’t do a rap song and wake up one day after years of neglecting your right to vote and decide you have it all figured out while wondering why no one ever thought to do what you failed to educate yourself about.
The President doesn’t make laws, at least at the moment. Religions don’t dictate policy based on their interpretations of their chosen scriptures to impose on the whole damn country. Small minded bullies who carry big guns won’t win the day if we simply self inform via judicious research, not just open up our minds to anyone tossing dirty water out of the window.
As I reflect on the year 2023, I feel compelled to address some uncomfortable realities reflected in our lives today. In the Middle East, growing up in America with a ‘Judeo-Christian’ background, I was taught to support the Jewish government in Israel. We were led to believe that Arabs, were equated with Muslims, and they were responsible for constant turmoil in the region.
We were told that Jewish people had a biblical right to the land after facing horrific persecution in many countries. We were told that giving them their own homeland, after the atrocities of the Holocaust, was the only humane solution. We were never told that to accomplish this, millions of Palestinians were forcibly displaced with military material support of the United States, Britain, and Russia.
Arab Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homes and became refugees overnight. They were pushed to the border of neighboring Arab nations (Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan). They were not welcomed with open arms. The Palestinian people were sold out by the world community. They remain a marginalized and martyred people to this day.
These surrounding nations chose war with Israel, which came at the expense of the Palestinian people, who remain marginalized to this day. What we now know is that racist right-wing policies control Israeli political leadership. We know that these policies are as brutally imposed on the Palestinians as the ‘South African Apartheid’ rule was imposed on Blacks in that country. Zionist settlers settle on Palestinian land in the West Bank, supported by ‘Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)’ and who terrorize the newly displaced families at will.
Protestors, many women, and children, are then imprisoned in military prisons, without adjudication, for as long as the military chooses to hold them. Many of the women claimed they were raped when released, and the children are beaten, because they have no rights and no one in the ‘Zionists’ Israeli leadership cares about justice for them. That is why the reaction of the current Netanyahu-led government can unleash its military forces on Gaza without any regard for the totality of destruction and deaths of over 20,000 innocent citizens.
I hear that Palestinian Americans are angry at Biden for pledging support to Israel after the October attacks by Hamas. But I have not heard these same people condemn the leaders of Hamas, who knew the level of retribution the Zionists would inflict. Some Hamas leaders merely stated that Gazans are martyrs in the ongoing struggles against Israel. In reality, Hamas is just as brutal in the way they impose their rule as any other governing entity that is not interested in making life better for their people.
How can we tell? Hamas built a network of tunnels under the city. They place soldiers and armaments underneath all structures of civic life such as schools, hospitals, churches, and commerce. Gaza was described as an open-air prison where more than 2 million people were forced to exist within a land mass less than 150 square miles.
Finally, we didn’t realize that many of those stealing land from Palestinians in the West Bank are American and European settlers who have worked to paint themselves as victims over the last 50 years. They paint themselves as the sufferers of Arab aggression when in reality it is them who have stolen the land and displaced the Palestinians, much the same way Europeans did to the indigenous peoples of the United States, Australia, Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, etc.
There is reporting that several members of the coalition that elected Biden are upset with him because he supports Israel. The list includes Palestinian Americans in Midwest battleground states, Blacks, and the youth vote. Here is what these groups miss. Biden’s hands are tied to a point. First, there was a massive intelligence failure by Netanyahu’s administration. They actually had the information and plans for the October 7th attack from many sources including Egyptian Intelligence sources.
Netanyahu had developed a coalition with the ‘Zionist’ right-wing in hopes of stripping power from the judicial system. In return for this partnership, the Zionists were given a free hand in the West Bank to crack down on Palestinians there. This plan was slowed when 100’s of thousands took to the streets to protest the move, including members of the Israeli Defense Forces.
Once Hamas carried out its attack, Netanyahu jumped at the chance to distract from his issues. Like Trump in the U.S., he can only stave off trials and prison if he remains in office. Biden has no leverage to challenge Netanyahu publicly at the moment. If he does, he will hand a huge stick to the MAGA movement to secure support for Trump.
The unfortunate thing is that Trump has already stated that he will impose policies that any Palestinians protesting here in support of Hamas or against Israel will be arrested and deported if he is reelected. Blacks choosing not to vote for Biden we continue to see more states move to suppress their access to voting. Women will see more states implement total abortion bans. Men will see more stringent child support laws.
No matter how you cut it, this shortsighted view would get Trump elected. MAGA Congressmembers and Senators were advocating turning Gaza into a parking lot. They advocated bombing the hell out of a state that invites total genocide for Gaza.
However, if Biden wins, and Democrats also control the House and the Senate by a decisive margin, they will have the leverage to help secure a better future for Palestinians provided they can build a stable governing body. No matter what, Trump and the GOP are not on the side of the Palestinians.
Minority groups all over the country need to be aware of how they are being duped by the White Christian Nationalists and the New Apostolic Reformation movements. These ‘Christofascists’ have become the heart of the MAGA movement. They are deep undercover in the evangelistic church. They play the victim role claiming to be persecuted for their worship when people reject having their beliefs imposed on them.
They feel persecuted because they believe they cannot openly condemn abortion, same-sex marriages, LGBTQ, or that most Americans don’t like Trump who the Christofascists now say he is chosen by god. Christofascists feel persecuted because they cannot spread hate. But now, Trump and the New Apostolic Reformation feel emboldened to spread hate and division through their religious views.
Hispanics and Black evangelicals are particularly susceptible to this form of indoctrination. Recently a Black minister and GOP state Representative said on the floor of his legislature that (paraphrasing) Trans people are demonic aliens and his belief in god says they must be condemned. Hispanics in Uvalde Texas, where the school massacre took place by a young man using an assault weapon, voted by 82% to reelect the governor there.
But what population of Texans are having their access to the vote suppressed? Hispanic and Blacks.
One of the comments I frequently hear, even on MSNBC, is that Democrats need to get their message out. They don’t message the way the GOP does. Part of that comment is true, Democrats don’t use hate, lies, gaslighting, and fear to communicate their agenda. Why? Because the GOP has no agenda other than to divide the people while they steal the bulk of the wealth. That is the purpose of their messaging.
But there aren’t many liberal media outlets that are commercially viable. Most Christofascists get their news from FOX and pro-Trump media outlets. Those outlets make money. MSNBC is the only cable network that leans liberal in its primetime programming. CNN is more inclined to both sides what they report and sources like the New York Times, The Washington Post, and local media will not report against Trump as critically as they report news on Biden.
It’s not that Democrats get the messaging wrong. They have a much broader agenda and fewer outlets to accurately and truthfully report what they do. All the others gaslight. Democrats depend on a growing number of social media platforms to report the news like The Meidas Touch Network, The Hopium Chronicles, The Michael Moore: Substack, and a host of alternative outlets.
While the mainstream news (Legacy Media) outlets continue to report breathlessly on poll after poll about Trump beating Biden in 2024, let’s remember, none of the polls indicated a Trump loss in 2020 nor the Democrats winning the Senate majority in 2022. Instead, the polls indicated the GOP would win 60 plus House seats and 2 Senate seats in a ‘Red Wave’ of Conservatism.
Still today the ‘Legacy Media’ refuses to report the accomplishments of Biden’s years in office. They tell us how we feel, even when we are doing well. One minute they complain about gas prices, but they ignore reporting on the profits of the companies that generate the gas. They report on inflated prices of food, commodities, and housing, but they ignore reporting on the ‘Greedflation’ that is behind the price inflations.
MAGA Republicans now want to shut down the government hoping to hurt the economy ahead of the election. They are counting on ‘Legacy Media’ to frame the story in a way that hurts Biden’s chance for reelection. Read the articles I have included beneath each comment section.
Finally, while the media hypes Nikki Haley’s movement in Iowa and New Hampshire, ahead of Ron DeSantis their interest is misplaced. Those are two states with very low minority populations. She could win those states and lose her own state, South Carolina, to Trump.
She has lost the support of a significant number of Black Republicans because she could not bring herself to say ‘Slavery was the cause of the Civil War.’
From Childhood, I was always hearing news stories of ‘Suicide Bombers’ in Israel. Israel, the nation created by UN mandate in 1947. The land once ruled by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), later conquered by the British, and then partitioned or sold off into separate lands to be controlled by the Zionist and Palestinians. Let’s understand, there has always been a small Jewish presence in the area. This is clear from the maps I have included in this post. However, after WWII, after the defeat of Hitler and the NAZI regime, 1O0’s of thousands of Jews immigrated from Europe and other Arab nations to land supported by the Zionist Movement. The Zionists were given the military armory to protect and support themselves from Western powers (Britain, the US, and others) and financial support from wealthy Jews in other countries.
While the Zionists accepted the land that the British and the UN parceled out, surrounding Arab nations rejected the proposal. This resulted in war and the Palestinian people were forced off of their land in the areas affected by the UN mandate. This was the beginning of decades of hardships suffered by the Palestinian people.
All this time the Palestinian people have been at the mercy of recalcitrant Arab nations that did not want a Jewish state in the region. They also did not want Palestinian Refugees in their lands. The people of Palestine were pushed out by the Zionists and other Arab nations pushed them back because they didn’t want the threat of future uprisings from refugees.
We were taught that Egyptian President Gamal Nasser, Jordanian King Hussein bin Talal, and Syrian Head of State, Salah Jadid launched an attack on Israel in June of 1967. While it is true that Nasser did take some provocative actions like closing down the Suez canal to Israeli ships, the reality was Israel that launched a aerial strike against Egypt, destroying its air force, that culminated in the infamous 6-Day War. Israel was fighting on three fronts during this period. Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
On 5 June 1967, as the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was in the process of leaving the Middle East, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities, launching its war effort. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt’s military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel. However, the Jordanians did launch attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel’s advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 20,000 fatal Arab casualties, while Israel suffered fewer than 1,000 fatal casualties. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident in which Israeli air forces struck a United States Navytechnical research ship.
At the time of the cessation of hostilities, Israel had seized Syria’s Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War would have long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. Nasser resigned in shame following Israel’s victory, but was later reinstated following a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal until 1975, eventually leading to the 1970s energy crisis and 1973 oil crisis due to the impact on oil deliveries coming to Europe from the Middle East through the Suez Canal. (Source: Wikipedia).
One of the things most of us don’t know about or recall is that Soviet Union refused to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel. Eventually the emigration of Jews was permitted and that opened up another avenue of Palestinian expulsion. Israel allowed newly arriving Jews to open up settlements in land controlled by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), forcibly expelling Palestinians and protecting the settlements with brutally harsh policies.
This crack down was implemented mostly in the West Bank territory. This is land that is governed under apartheid-like policies. Palestinians have little protection from the abuse of settlers, where IDF generally only step in for the benefit of Israeli citizens. Most West Bank Arabs do not have citizenship protections.
I give you this background to provide some context. The last piece, is that, like Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been indicted for corruption. To save himself, he aligned his government with the extreme right wing of the country.
His governing and military partners had been so engrossed in tamping down unrest in the West Bank, that they ignored the threat of Hamas in Gaza. It is now being reported that Israeli Intelligence had the plans for the November 7th attack a full year before the operation was implemented. The military leaders who reviewed the plans were so arrogant that they decided it was merely aspirational and could not be carried out.
Netanyahu, was so focused on stripping the Israeli Supreme Court from having the power to hold him accountable for his crimes, that no one in the intelligence agency thought to bring the potential treat to him. Now Netanyahu has only one choice; wage war in Gaza on a genocidal level. The mantra is Hamas must be eliminated. He is willing to do that while killing all the innocent citizens it takes to accomplish the goal.
The problem for Netanyahu is that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hamas Leadership view all the citizens of Gaza as martyrs. They are willing to sacrifice as many innocents as needed because they understand that the extreme right-wing policies of the current Israeli government will damage their standing in the world community as it did to the cruelty of the White regime in South Africa.
The more we know about the suffering of the Palestinian people, since 1947, we learn that Israelis missed the lessons not to mirror Nazi policies that displaced and dehumanized Jews. There is a flip side of history. Arab policies to discriminate against Jews all across North Africa and the Middle East also helped Hitler carry out his plans.
I write this post in response to reporting of people all over the US, especially Palestinians in the US, who express issues with President Biden for standing with Israel in the face of the November 7th attack. I have not heard one word of reporting condemning Yahya Sinwar and the Palestinian leadership who willingly martyr their citizens in Gaza. They know the level of retaliation their attacks would garner.
They blame President Biden for providing weapons currently being used in the war. However, here is the stickler. U.S. aid to Israel in this case has not yet been approved. The MAGA forces in Congress are currently holding up arms shipments to both Israel and Ukraine partisan politics. It has been Biden, behind the scenes using diplomacy, to focus on getting the hostages released on both sides. Many Palestinian women and children being held in Israeli prisons are also, in a sense, hostages.
Few, if any, of those complaining about Biden have applauded the number of Palestinian women and children being released from Israeli prisons in the hostage exchanges. Why is it that Israel has so many women and children being detained in their military prisons? By the way, as they release prisoners in these exchanges, they continue to arrest and imprison others.
In other words, as I always say, we cannot trust the ‘Mainstream/Legacy Media’ to keep us accurately informed. We can not trust that American news media will honestly frame what is happening. You cannot go by social media without fact checking . Most of all, become a blank slate, then do your research. After you look at the information you acquire ask yourself how the information stacks up against what you thought you knew. How does it stack up against what you were taught?
Israel is not the only side that is suffering here. Be objective and compassionate. That doesn’t mean you cannot condemn Hamas. You can also condemn the extreme right governing policies of Israel. Innocents on both sides are suffering needless pain and destruction.
Please take a look at the graphics, articles, and video below. If you are aware of most of this, count yourself well informed. If you are just learning most of this info, keep researching now. Learn what you can so we don’t turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent people be they Palestinian or Israeli.
A top official with Hamas has vowed the terror group will “sacrifice martyrs” and will conduct terror attacks against Israeli citizens until the country has been annihilated.
Ghazi Hamad, who belongs to Hamas’ political bureau made the statements during a recent interview with a Lebanese TV station.
Hamad then said Islamist militants will carry out Oct. 7-style attacks until it brings Israel to its knees and eventually to total destruction.
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again,” he said.
While referring to the surprise attacks last month, Hamad added, “[The attacks are] just the first time … Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
He said Hamas would be justified in its actions and accused the state of Israel of occupying Palestinian land.
“We are the victims of the occupation,” he stated. “Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On Oct. 7, Oct. 10, October one-million, everything we do is justified.”
Hamad also claimed Islamist militants did not set out on Oct. 7 to target civilians and that the group faced what he called “complications.”
Hamad made it clear that Hamas does not simply want Gaza, but all of Israel.
“The existence of Israel is illogical,” he said. “The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood and tears.”
The Israeli Defense Forces are currently rooting out Hamas terrorists and their leaders through a historic ground incursion into the territory.”
“Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, is widely believed to have helped mastermind the unprecedented Hamas attack thatchanged the course of Israeli-Palestinian history.
He spent more than two decades behind bars in Israel, before being freed 12 years ago in a hostage ransom deal his brother helped negotiate. In early October, Sinwar outsmarted Israel with the same hostage-taking tactic — resulting in Israel’s deadliest day on record.
Now Israel seeks to eradicate the Islamist militant group Sinwar leads in Gaza. Israel, the United States, Europe and others designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, but its surprise attack earned it widespreadsupport among Palestinians, many of whom regard it as resisting decades of Israeli subjugation.
Israel also vows to kill Sinwar, a short, wiry man with cropped white hair. Israeli leaders have deemed him a psychopath.
Sinwar assembled a small team of confidants who would smuggle cellphones into prison, interrogate new prisoners about how they had been caught preparing an attack against Israel, and catch Palestinian inmates serving as informants for Israel.
“So many spies,” Mansour says, speaking to NPR in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas and held hostage in Gaza for five years. The man who guarded the captive soldier was none other than Sinwar’s own brother, Mohammed.
A Reasonable Point of View 