Democratic leaders did not tell members to vote against an amendment to block the State Department from citing the Gaza Health Ministry’s statistics.
The House of Representatives has voted to effectively conceal the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza.
On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. The measure is part of the annual State Department appropriations bill. It was led by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, N.J., and Republican Reps. Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Lawler, N.Y.; and Carol Miller, W.V.
Mohammed Khader, policy manager at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told The Intercept that the amendment is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian sentiment in Congress since the start of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. “By preventing any recognition of the number of Palestinians killed since October, this amendment is a clear example of genocide denial and is no different from what was done towards victims of genocides in Rwanda and Armenia.”
There are way too many evil people in power in this country.
We just need to vote for the lesser of the two evils every time to get rid of them.
At least it would help if you didn’t oscillate between the two. Less evil, more evil, less evil, more evil. Pick less evil each time!
Pick less evil each time!
Part of the problem is that people are sold on these guys as “Less Evil” every time. Clinton was the less-evil replacement for Bush. Bush Jr was the less-evil replacement for Clinton. Obama for Bush. Trump for Obama/Hillary. Biden for Trump. Maybe now Trump for Biden.
Evil is necessarily subjective, and a great deal of what we see as “evil” varies starkly based on where we’re getting our news and our values. What do you tell to the people who are doggedly convinced a mob of hispanic/arabic/chinese fentanyl fueled rape gangs are charging across the border to steal American children and murder them for their adrenochrome? What do you say to the folks doggedly convinced that the wrong President will bring about a thermo-nuclear holocaust or a dozen new 9/11s? How do you reason with a person who believes Plan B is no different than strangling a baby to death with your own two hands?
So much of the conversation about “Lesser Evil” is justifying a new and more brutal police state as a defensive measure against some horrifying phantom menace - be it J6 Groypers coming to lynch everyone to the left of Mitt Romney or Chinese TikTok dancers tricking American teenagers into perpetuating a Uyghur genocide.
When you’ve got Israeli Genocide versus Palestinian Islamic Jihad as your baseline for debate, there’s an endless capacity for evil even in the “Lesser” branch.
How is less evil better than no evil?
I vote guillotine.
Because truthfully, one allows you to live to fight them tomorrow and the other starts hanging bodies on the wall next January. Grow up.
Surely this will work, eventually!
What’s the alternative?
There are several viable alternatives.
Personally, I’d like to see the public rally around a 3rd party candidate who’s focused on getting money out of politics (stop the legalized bribery), and ending FPTP in favor of ranked choice or star voting. Then we could actually let democracy play out, and wouldn’t have these terrible candidates foisted upon us time and again.
I strongly believe both the major parties would crumble within 1-2 election cycles if this happened, and it could lead to the dawn of a new age of prosperity for our people.
It’s almost impossible to get a 3rd party to win in the US. Their system is rigged so that voting for a 3rd party means throwing away the vote.
You also have to take into account that it is a country in which almost 50% believe Donald trump to be their best option as a president, there’s no way you’re gonna convince enough people to vote 3rd party.
Fuck the genocide deniers. Block all the info you want. Those of us who are sane, and aren’t bought by AIPAC money see through it all. All your attempts are transparent and ultimately futile. We know what Israel is doing, what info we do have clearly paints them as genocidal. Innocents dont murder journalists. Your reputation is shredded, Israel. Hopefully we can stay mad at this and AIPAC long enough to end lobbying. Destroying a lot of the incentive to be a complete piece of shit.
Innocents don’t murder journalists…
Hamas killed four Israeli journalists on Oct 7th during the attacks.
“but Israel is doing it worse”
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
No country in the world would get attacked and not retaliate if they had the means.
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
Per the Dahiya Doctrine the general rule is 30:1. If a single Israel is injured or killed, the state has the authority to kill up to 30 Palestinians.
Commentators for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Mondoweiss have noted that the attacks of the Israeli Defense Forces on the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip during the 2023 Hamas-Israel war may constitute an extension of the doctrine. Haaretz reported that IDF had dropped “all restraint” in its war: killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure at an unprecedented rate.
Writing in The Guardian, Paul Rogers of Bradford University argues that Israel’s goal in the 2023 war is to “corral the Palestinians into a small zone in the southwest of Gaza where they can be more easily controlled,” and that the long-term goal is to make clear that Israel “will not stand for any opposition.”
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
I mean you asked the question, whats your number?
Because Israel has killed 104 as of today.
If Hamas killed 4 on Oct 7, that puts the ratio at 26:1.
Israel estimates that 1200 were killed on Oct 7.
A recent estimate puts Israel at 34,900 killed.
Thats a ratio of about 29:1. Is that acceptable to you?
I’m doing this not because there is any acceptable level, but to highlight the absurdity of the idea that there even is one. Hamas needs to be held accountable for its crimes. Israel needs, at a level about 29 times more so, also needs to be held accountable for their crimes.
The idea that any level of incidental murder is acceptable is absurdist, and you are a terrible person if you think there is one.
To me, if my children or wife had been taken hostage. There would be no limit to the ratio I would be willing to accept to get them back.
Hamas still has hostages captured that day they are tying to use for negotiations.
The difference between my opinion and yours is that you consider it incidental murder, while I consider it a war that Palestinians are losing. War kills people, and acceptable casualties (enemy, friendly, and even innocents) are literally part of the calculations made by every single country that has ever participated in a war.
And how many hostages does Israel have? Do Palestinians not have the same right, that if their family has been taken hostage, to do anything to get them back?
You dont get it. Its clear that you dont get it.
They get it, but they believe that some lives are less important than others. When someone holds that position I haven’t found an argument to convince them otherwise.
They get it, but they believe that some lives are less important than others. When someone holds that position I haven’t found an argument to convince them otherwise.
Exactly. This is the fundamental lesson you (the royal “you”; as ‘one’) needed to learn from BLM. The history and legacy of settler colonialism and white supremacy leaves us with inherent and structural biases that means some “lives” are valued higher than others.
When you attack someone stronger than you, it usually does not end well. They can try, but there will be further consequences.
It took a few hundred thousand middle eastern civilians dying after 9/11 before anyone started complaining and even that did not lead to this level of protest.
People are ok with violence if its their country that has been attacked.
When you attack someone stronger than you, it usually does not end well.
Explaining this to the Israeli shipping companies currently bottlenecked in the Suez by Houthi rebels.
if my children or wife had been taken hostage
The first thing I’d do is find a dozen people of the same ethnicity as the hostage taker and kill them. Then I’d send in a strike team to grab anyone I believed was affiliated with the hostage taker - coworkers, family members, social media contacts - and imprison them indefinitely. Finally, I’d bulldoze someone’s house. Doesn’t really matter whose. Just to show people I mean business.
The difference between my opinion and yours is that you consider it incidental murder, while I consider it a war
I’m reminded of this old Thomas Friedman quote.
It’s important to stop for a moment here and take note of the fact that Friedman’s idea wasn’t that we specifically needed to attack Iraq. Friedman didn’t even bother to claim to Charlie Rose that there was, for example, a link between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead, he said that the problem is that “they” needed to see that Americans didn’t care so much about our “stock options and Hummers” that we were unwilling to make sacrifices.
What was the “they,” exactly? Muslim extremists? Muslims in general? The Middle East as a region? Friedman casts a very wide net:
“What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house—from Basra to Baghdad—and basically saying:
“Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?: You don’t think we care about our open society? You think this fantasy—we’re just gonna let it grow? Well, suck. On. This. That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We coulda hit Saudi Arabia… We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”
What is there to conceal? Pretty sure it’s only Hamas that’s died so far.
Innocent aid workers are Hamas?
Kids?
If you’re legitimately unaware of the war crimes being committed in Gaza, you might want to run some Google searches.
