Wow what a deal! Enlist to support lawless American imperialist fascism abroad and get four days off! 🤩
>Beyond the Washington rhetoric, Third Way is saying that if your political views aren’t vanilla, you’re an “extremist.” That’s national security’s polite word for terrorist, once a reference to Muslim Americans and would-be revolutionaries but now applied to any American citizen who dares to venture away from Party talking points.
>What is worse, it used to be the case that when the government or the administration, whether Obama or Bush, used the word “extremist” they were always careful to include a qualifier: “violent extremism.” That meant that physical violence (actual or intended) was necessary to get one labeled a terrorist.
>Back during the Obama years, there was “countering violent extremism.” Then from Trump’s first term to Biden, there was “domestic violent extremism.” The FBI’s threat categories carried it too — “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism,” “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism.” They are all imperfect and ugly labels, but the “violent” qualifier at least maintained a pretense that there was a threat of physical harm. And pretended that the threat label wasn’t questioning free speech or association.
>Now it’s just “extremism” — one word. Third Way is joining the Trump administration in dropping the violence qualifier. It’s enough to just have the wrong beliefs; wrong, that is, in the eyes of the Party apparatus in Washington.
>When I asked Third Way this week how it defines this “extremism,” spokesperson Kate DeGruyter said that the effort “is aimed at the DSA itself, not at liberal Democrats” — though it wasn’t clear how they define “liberal Democrats.” Asked who gave Third Way the $15 million for this project, DeGruyter’s only response was: “This a new effort and we are in the process of fundraising.”
>Before Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan primary to run for Senate as a Democrat, Cowan, the Third Way president, issued an open letter and op-ed directly targeting him as a member of DSA despite his never having been a member of the organization and explicitly describing himself as a “capitalist.” (Third Way tells me it now supports El-Sayed, presumably because he’s since won.)
>Three members of Congress are DSA members or describe themselves as democratic socialists — Senator Bernie Sanders and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib — along with the mayor of the country's largest city, Zohran Mamdani. You may have heard of them.
>The Times reported that Third Way’s new campaign would go after both self-described democratic socialists and candidates like El-Sayed, whom Cowan at the time accused of running a DSA-style campaign without the membership card. So because DSA is too narrow, Third Way has done exactly as the FBI would do: it has expanded the definition of the threat category. The war is against members of DSA and people who espouse DSA positions or use DSA tactics, or just socialists, or just “far-left extreme voices and forces,” as Third Way says, or even more broadly people with “politically toxic ideas and offensive rhetoric.”
Rivera wrote that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fallout from it in the U.S. is a "complex situation." But, he added, the "political analysis is simple — the electoral results and voting shifts in Michigan and elsewhere demonstrate the impact the crisis had on the Harris campaign."
>The experience of these administrations demonstrates the wisdom and extraordinary insight of America’s first president, George Washington. In his Farewell Address, Washington warned that the American system of government could all too easily be exploited by a group with a “passionate attachment” to a foreign country. In a system designed to rely on the mobilization of countervailing power to limit the effects of factions driven by self-interest or very particular points of view, Washington argued that since any faction committed to the interests of another country would not naturally find its influence checked by effective domestic opposition, it would therefore drive the United States into exaggerated and dangerous commitments abroad and implicate it in quarrels and wars contrary to the country’s interests.
>In the wake of the genocide, the politics of the issue in America have changed as numerous Americans react with passion to Israeli onslaughts in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. Biden and Kamala Harris paid heavy costs for knuckling to Israel and its lobby. Nearly a third of voters who voted for Biden in 2020 and did not vote for Harris in 2024 said that ending Israel’s violence in Gaza was the top issue influencing their voting decisions. Across both parties, support for Israel has plummeted; sixty percent of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel, and a record number of Israel critics are winning congressional primaries.
>But these losses have not deterred Israel or its lobby from working to reverse Trump’s 2024 campaign promises to avoid wars in the Middle East, to pursue even closer relations between the US and Israeli militaries, and to spend millions to thwart the rise of critics of the country.
>To be sure, American supporters of Israel and its governments have every right to express their opinions and work to shape public policy, and the lobby is by no means the only vehicle for moneyed interests that warp American democracy. Moreover, American presidents have free will: the George W Bush administration was run by many who were in perfect ideological alignment with the Israeli right. An incompetent and gullible Trump is plainly responsible for yielding to Israeli pressure and dragging the US into the latest war.
>But unless other groups are able to act freely with other interests in mind – and without the threat of antisemitism accusations – US policy in the Middle East will remain dangerously distorted. Both to secure and advance American interests abroad and to protect American freedoms at home, Americans must unite to prevent any foreign power from enjoying the influence over policy and public debate that Israel has exercised, both directly and through the faction operating on its behalf.
Used to watch most segments of Breaking Points on an off for years but it's hard to respect them much anymore after the Platner debacle. It was already weird how they glazed him so thoroughly in their interview, giggling and laughing and helping him excuse whatever he wanted, especially when that came only a few weeks after their incredible Slotkin interview where they grilled her on her genocide support, but Ryan's pitiful response to the Platner fallout (whoa Politico didn't include that the victim wanted a massage before he raped her?! STOP THE PRESSES NOBODY DOES THAT TO MY OLD BARTENDER) without anything approaching a mea culpa for his role in Platner's rise just kills his credibility for me. He was even trying to do idpol for white guys with Platner? That one segment with him and Emily talking about this was so strange, if anybody remembers. The only one of these Platner boosters that has done any sort of public introspection/apology has been Emma Vigeland and even then it was meh.
Anyway thanks for letting me get that rant out. Just wondering if Krystal has addressed the Platner stuff with any substance besides the one tweet on the show since she was out when it happened? I don't see a segment about it with her on it.
Thanks!
(seriously tho compare these two interviews, it's like the best vs the worst I've ever seen)
>Following objections from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority to a proposal to use crocodiles at a prison holding Palestinian security inmates, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman has reclassified the Nile crocodile as a “tended wild animal,” a move intended to allow the plan to proceed, according to Hebrew media reports.
>Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir reportedly first raised the idea last December during consultations with Israel Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi, proposing a prison modeled on the US “Alligator Alcatraz.” Senior prison officials subsequently toured the crocodile farm at Hamat Gader in northern Israel as part of a preliminary assessment.
>Senior prison officials tour the crocodile farm at Hamat Gader in northern Israel, January 2026. (Via social media)
>The Nature and Parks Authority later concluded the proposal was not feasible under existing regulations, saying wild animals may only be kept for purposes such as education and research.
>By reclassifying the Nile crocodile as a “tended wild animal,” Silman’s order would allow state bodies such as the IPS to launch a pilot program to keep crocodiles on prison grounds, subject to animal welfare requirements and appropriate holding conditions, according to reports.
Usually the imperial boomerang hits us, but it looks like the US is so terrible that it's now exporting cruel oppression beyond parody like this. This isn't The Onion, I don't think I've ever meant that more.
Other sources that get deeper into it:
Inspired by Trump, Israel Advances Plan for Crocodile-Ringed Prison for Palestinians
>It’s called Section 219. Tucked away in the massive congressional spending bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, this provision of the law would effectively require our nation to permanently entangle the American military with the Israeli military.
>Among other things, the United States-Israel Defense TechnologyCooperation Initiative would require the US to share intelligence with Israel and establish a system of weapons research, development, and production, particularly in the domains crucial to warfare in the modern age: artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and various other fields of high defense technology.
>The House provision, which has a Senate version known as Section 1217, would also forbid the president of the United States from limiting intelligence collaboration with Israel over its human rights abuses. If the President ever wants to limit such collaboration, he or she must tell Congress and can only cite American national security as a basis.
>In other words, these bills would connect the US and Israeli militaries in unprecedented ways and make it exceedingly difficult for any future president to unwind this partnership with a foreign government.
>There’s a reason why members of Congress are trying to sneak this bill through right now, buried in a massive and must-pass defense spending bill: This might be their best, last chance to thwart the will of the American people.
>If these bills pass in their current form, the US military would be more integrated with Israel’s than with that of any other country, including America’s NATO allies.
>There’s a reason why members of Congress are trying to sneak this bill through right now, buried in a massive and must-pass defense spending bill: This might be their best, last chance to thwart the will of the American people.
>
They reached out in DMs for any "questions" I might have had and then that turned into a debate where unless I acknowledge that Destiny is a victim because the teen he thought he was sending private sextapes to was a catfish, I'm bad faith.
Does this work on anyone outside the bubble? I guess this is the wrong place to ask.
And while I'm here....did they pay George Santos for his Take Back America tour appearance? Good god do NOT donate to those people.
edit: I apologize sincerely for posting the same screenshot twice.
>US Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna says he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with US-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week that he cast as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation as he weighs a 2028 presidential run.
>Speaking with Reuters on Thursday in a Palestinian village, Khanna says his group’s van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles a day earlier while touring a part of the southern West Bank where residents face frequent settler attacks.
>“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” says Khanna, a progressive lawmaker from California in the US House of Representatives.
Glad Cam’s okay, hope he and Ro can do something about the ethnic cleansing.
I thought this was quick and fun and boy do I agree with my results lol
>The commission's new report says Israel has targeted Palestinian children in Gaza directly by shooting at their vital organs using precision weapons, such as quadcopter drones and snipers, and by using high-impact weapons in strikes on residential buildings, schools, and displacement camps crowded with children.
>Israel is also legally responsible for failing to protect Palestinian children from being targeted by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, it adds.
>The report also says that children in Gaza and the West Bank, especially adolescent boys, have been "arrested, tortured, and ill-treated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities", and that it has documented "incidents of sexual and gender-based violence targeting Palestinian children, often during arrests or in detention".
>Israeli attacks on neonatal and paediatric hospitals in Gaza have meanwhile "systematically dismantled children's access to life-sustaining care, undermining their survival as a protected group", according to the report.
>It also accuses Israel of using starvation as a method of war, and warns that restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza have "produced acute and chronic malnutrition among children in Gaza, removing the basic conditions necessary for their survival".
>And it alleges that through attacks on schools, mass displacement and enforced closures, Israeli authorities have "systematically disrupted children's ability to learn, thereby sabotaging the intellectual and social foundations of Palestinian society itself".
>Bezalel Smotrich, who holds authority over parts of Israel's civilian administration in the West Bank, said a planning committee approved the construction of 2,162 new Jewish homes.
>They include 1,006 units in a new settlement near Jerusalem, 922 near the Palestinian city of Nablus and 234 near Hebron.
>"We are continuing to build the Land of Israel in practice," said Smotrich, an ultranationalist sanctioned by Britain, France and others who accuse him of inciting violence against Palestinians.
>Smotrich has denounced the sanctions against him, saying the measures would not change Israeli policy.
>The new homes would "strengthen our hold on the land, reinforce Israel's security, and establish clear facts on the ground that prevent the creation of an Arab terror state in the heart of the country," Smotrich said in a statement, without specifying when construction would begin.
>Since becoming a minister three years ago, Smotrich has sought to tighten Israel's control and presence in the West Bank while advocating against the idea of a Palestinian state.
>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has overseen the significant expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the establishment of new settlements.
Reminder, Chuck Schumer, Kathy Hochul, Letitia James, Jerry Nadler, and other top level democrats just attended a pro-Israel parade with this Israeli minister who can’t stop bragging about all the ethnic cleansing and apartheid Israel is doing under his watch, with Chuck Schumer even giving a speech!
>Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted last week that while the US and Israel “already work together heavily on missile defense,” Section 224 “would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more.”
>“It also proposes ‘network integration’ and ‘data fusion.’ In other words, the US military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data. If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the US has with any other country in the world,” Freeman wrote. “The result could well be a US political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the US into military conflicts in the Middle East.”
>Among the delegation was Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, alongside Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu and 13 members of the Knesset.
>Smotrich has called for Gaza to be emptied of its Palestinian population and for the destruction of the besieged enclave.
>Middle East Eye reported in May that the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court had filed a secret arrest warrant application for Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
>MEE understands that the charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.
NY leaders join over 50,000 marchers at Israel Day parade boycotted by Mamdani
Hi, frustrated brand new owner of a playdate here. This thing just won’t turn on. To specify, it is new new from the official store and I haven’t seen it turn on yet. I let it charge overnight, it still won’t turn on, I used a different charger/cable/outlet and tried to charge it again last night, still unresponsive.
Troubleshooting said to press the reset button in the crank recess, and the only paper clip I have isnt one of the small ones so I can’t quite tell, but it sounds like a button is being pressed when I use it to try to force reset, still unresponsive.
Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to hold the lock button down for a while? Is there another thing I need to do? I see the lock button also has a lil recessed reset looking button on it, do I need to do something with that?
I’ll contact play date themselves of course but they said they don’t help on the weekends so I thought I would try here first. Thank you in advance.
Edit: more details that probably don’t matter. I ordered it with a case and put it in the case before I tried to charge/turn it on. I feel like it might have gotten warmer at some point like it was charging but it doesn’t seem to be doing that anymore with a cable plugged in. The first time charging I used an anker 100watt charger and the second time a 60 watt Anker charger (the ones that have multiple usb ports, not like a straight laptop charger or whatever, I’m now trying an ancient iPad 15watt charger that is usb-c to usb-a
Edit 2: I wasn’t using the cable that came with it, and looking at it now it’s usb-a to usb-c. Is this one of those devices that requires an a to c cable to charge and can’t do c to c charging? I’m going to try to use this cable with the old 15w ipad charger all day I guess and see what happens
Edit 3: browsing this subreddit, many people seem to have had an issue like this, and one or two say using the included cable and a very low watt charger finally worked for them, but that’s weird because the play.date website trouble shooting says this for a new unit: Plug it in to give it power.
Plugging your Playdate USB cable into an AC adapter will charge your Playdate faster than plugging it into your PC. The higher the wattage of your power source, the better.
I’m so confused, i don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble getting a new device to just turn on before
tl;dr nobody outside of her circle thinks she should run and they all wish she would have walked into being the next California governor.
>When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party. When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.”
>“After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
Ken Martin is such a weasely little fucking liar, go back and watch his interview with Pod Save from three weeks ago where he flopsweats and humiliates himself for half an hour about this shit. What a joke.
DNC Chair Ken Martin in HEATED Interview About RELEASE of 2024 Election Autopsy
The video is embedded in the article.
