Yes they kind of are. I’m not sure how many Firefox users there are in Russia but some how I think there enough that it would be yet another bad look for the authoritarian government.
I checked, and according to Statcounter it’s at 3.3%. So if Mozilla did go hardball, it’d affect an insignificant amount of people.
Realistically though, I don’t follow world politics much but I assume that “blocking firefox” probably wouldn’t be the worst optics they’ve had in the past few years.
If Mozilla gets blocked, people would just install some other browser (probably, something from Russia). I do not see how this helps anyone but the government itself. And departure of hundreds (if not thousands) of western companies did nothing to the Russian government, some problems with a browser with almost non-existent userbase would have the same effect. It should be quite clear by now that such tactic simply does not work.
Just to add context because this is a somewhat polarising headline, gamergate shit is back on the rise. Gamers generally aren’t being considered potential extremists, only literal extremists that happen to consider their opinions as representative of gamers
I think he’s walking a line. On the one side are people who want the US to stop all support until Israel stops, want the US to stop threatening the international courts seeking to hold Israel officials accountable for war crimes - essentially, want the US to treat Israel like we are treating Russia. On the other side is a powerful, well-funded pro-Israel lobby (which the Palestinians don’t have) and a traditionally fairly cohesive and influential pro-Israel voting block. Plus, Israel is our Ally, like officially; Palesteine is not.
He’s slowly, slightly shifting from full-throated support of Israel, but so far all he’s doing is withhold some ordinance. It feels as of all he’s doing is pissing off both sides, rather than shifting some support.
Honestly, I think he’s in a no-win situation. It’s critical for the USA that he win this next election - Trump is an existential threat to Democracy in the US. There’s a lot of money and influence he loses by not getting the pro-Israel lobby on his side, and who does he lose by continuing support? Are the disenfranchised youth going to vote for him if he pivots on Israel? All the folks who’ve been complaining (rightly) about the cost of living, housing prices, healthcare costs, loss of rights over their own bodies - all these folks who protest-voted in the primaries and are threatening to protest-vote in the general election… they’re all suddenly going to jump on Team Biden if he cuts off Israel? In enough numbers to counter what he loses from the pro-Israel lobby?
So I think the irony is that if standing with Israel means he can win the election, it’s still a better outcome for Palestine than if he loses. If he loses the election, Trump will tell Israel to just go ahead and glass the area.
Edit: Came across this article here today, which I think has basically the same view.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. It feels better knowing that at least one other person around here gets it. I’ve been trying to explain this to people since the start of this whole thing and all I get is downvoted into oblivion for it.
On the other side is a bigger powerful, well-funded pro-Israel lobby (which the Palestinians don’t have) and a traditionally fairly cohesive and influential pro-Israel voting block.
The bolding is my own addition. I think this is the part people seem to refuse to understand. The pro-Israel side is many times larger than the pro-Palestine side. Even if he were to change positions the day that Israel bombed the first hospital, all that would mean is that we’d be seeing even larger pro-Israel protests instead of pro-Palestine ones, and politicians from both parties would be taking Biden to task for essentially abandoning one of our allies.
And I agree with your assessment that at this point, all he’s doing is pissing both sides off. But in reality, there was never a situation where he wasn’t going to piss off somebody. From the point of view of his attempts to get re-elected, he’s probably taking the least shitty option available to him. Whether or not any of us agree on if it’s the morally correct choice, I at least can acknowledge and understand that the other options available to him are all significantly worse and would only significantly increase Trump’s chances of winning, which is just worse for everybody regardless of which side of the issue you’re on.
Deontology is moral masturbation, a luxury reserved for those with little effect on the world. Responsible, conscious adults have to take into account the consequences of their choices. Politicians’ choices have consequences which are orders of magnitude more significant than a random person. The president of the United States, especially this president ahead of this election, has a vast number of complex consequences to consider in their moral calculus.
When political choices have moral consequences, and vice versa, you can’t draw a tidy line between the two considerations.
It’s critical for the USA that he win this next election - Trump is an existential threat to Democracy in the US.
It’s critical for the world that Trump not win.
Trump is immediately going to stop any support for Ukraine and hand that to Putin on a silver platter, is going to weaken NATO and the UN as much as he possibly can, and is going to flip the US from the virtual ‘allies’ to ‘axis’ before the end of his first next four years. Which will go on as long as he is alive, as once he gets power he’s not giving it up.
He isn’t even playing coy with his praise for megalomaniacal current dictators, especially Putin.
With Trump in charge of the US, you can expect him and Putin together actively working to spread Christian fascism to Europe using subversion and eventually force where needed.
It’s not just the US that’s on the line in November.
So I think the irony is that if standing with Israel means he can win the election, it’s still a better outcome for Palestine than if he loses. If he loses the election, Trump will tell Israel to just go ahead and glass the area.
The irony is how much you have twisted your political beliefs to find a position you feel ok about this from.
The majority of Americans think what Israel is doing is heinous and want it to stop, the idea that Americans are evenly divided on this is not grounded in reality.
Very well said. There’s so many people here that could really use a deep education on the concept of nuance. I used to try and have patience to explain it with kindness. But that went nowhere.
Yeah…in my country it’s almost mandatory to have it or you won’t talk to anybody…it’s the only message app most people know… It’s like windows to operating systems…people just use it and ignore that there are different ways to communicate. I tried to use other apps like telegram or signal …nobody wants a second app to send messages…too much trouble
I live in a whatsapp dominated country and I have tried to move people to signal time and time again, not even the tech savy will try it. I had signal for over two years and I dont have anyone to talk to
Do you guys not have sms messaging, if someone I know doesn’t have signal we just text them the old fashioned way
I got my brother to switch from what’s app to signal finally then we got our friends who are brothers to join us, then my brothers older friends who are in the same circle joined in, then our parents recently as well. Now I’m working on getting my wife’s family to let go of what’s app. My wife’s brother married a Brazilian ladies so he got them all on the what’s app
I know your pain all to well, but when I figured my mental health and privacy were at risk, I just took the leap. It is not an easy choice. Having said that, think about these benefits:
from your “inner circle” those who really want to keep in touch won’t mind installing another app. This give you a broader view of just how important you and what YOU consider your well-being is to each of those people.
may not feel that way at first, but after a few days you will start feeling refreshed by having reduced notifications dramatically. This helps for focusing on whatever you enjoy.
the knowledge that you’re giving a tech giant less, or even nothing, is an epic feeling that can only be experienced, not described.
I also live in a country made to be driven by Meta and all its crap by the population, so much so that even the oldest and largest corporations, banks and stores have all but abandoned their websites, and handle everything over WhatsApp for transactions, and Instagram and Facebook for publicity and offers. Some of these sites have not been updated in over 10 years, and good luck getting them to reply to an email and God forbid, picking up a phone.
I’ve been out of that environment for almost 10 years now, and all it’s done for me is make me happier, save money and give me plenty of time for video games without being disturbed.
Try it, let everyone know you’re moving to (insert name of alternative and privacy focused app) and will be eliminating your WhatsApp in (whatever amount of time). Then, after the first week, disable all notifications on WhatsApp, and just check it when you feel like it. I’m not going to tell you to stop replying to people, but take longer (12 hours, 2 days, whatever you can handle) and when they ask what took you so long, just tell them what you think about WhatsApp, and that you’re easier to reach on the other app. If at the end you’re not comfortable, just don’t eliminate WhatsApp and keep it, it’s not going to harm anyone (other than your privacy, of course), and you still walk out having at least tried.
Full disclosure, I’m not young anymore, will be 50 soon, so understand that I’m in a point in life where I don’t want more people in my life, I want less 🤣🤣
Can you read this article for me? There were a lot of people asking israel to collect forensic evidence of those rapes four months ago when (if any rapes happened) there would be evidence. Why did that not happen?
Are you asking me to guess? Rampant, patriarchal misogyny, same answer as always because very few countries do do their due diligence when prosecuting rape. But that’s speculation, which is what it sounds like you’re asking for.
You linked three articles. How can you even quote the second article if you only posted one?
Your BBC link says “hears witness”. No evidence was observed. Same shit as from the debunked NYT article.
You are not presenting anything new. In fact your links were from when the IDF still claimed they had forensic and video evidence. Something which we now know is a lie.
Man could you imagine if literally any other country in the world other than Israel was spending this kind of cash to influence the election?
We’d call it election interference, a psyops, Rachel Maddie would be edging her neon liberal audience in their goon caves over the issue night after night.
To give some personal context, Summer Lee represents Pittsburgh, where I grew up. I was watching this race somewhat closely, and was in town visiting family last week. I saw a lot of yard signs for Lee’s opponent, and many signs for Lee as well, though not as many as her rival’s in my parents’ heavily Jewish, upper middle class neighborhood.
As Ryan Grim writes, this is a big victory not just because Summer belongs in congress: her victory is a sign that the current approach to removing progressive critics of the war in Gaza from congress was dealt a serious blow in this race. Attempts to present her as out of touch or radical failed terribly. We should expect even more vicious attacks on representatives like Cori Bush, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that a major shift in power has begun. Strategies for silencing critics of the Israeli system of apartheid that were incredibly potent just two years ago are already looking far less effective when countered by organized progressive candidates.
I am really hoping this Gaza thing ends up landing a lot more progressives in congress, since it seems pretty clear from this that that’s where popular (democratic) opinion seems to lay. Hopefully if that happens, next election cycle the DNC will stop being such adamant moderate shitbags, and MAYBE (massive hopium) we can actually get the social safety nets we need out of it, too.
I’m just going to say it, all kids deserve free lunch. We can give every kid in Yemen a free bomb but we can’t feed our own kids? This place is hell because we stopped simply pulling these people onto the streets and beating them. Its apparent the only thing that keeps the boot out of your mouth is the threat of violence. And even then they’ve created a system where the military police keep them safe and we’re all too busy and poor to do anything else but get to work. I want to do something, too. But if I get arrested my kids go on the street.
That is a really good point. I’m all for free lunches because i know it’s something we can do for our people. But you’re on to something that i would like to hear a rebuttal to.
An internal FBI threat advisory obtained by The Intercept defines Anarchist Violent Extremists as individuals “who consider capitalism and centralized government to be unnecessary and oppressive,” and “oppose economic globalization; political, economic, and social hierarchies based on class, religion, race, gender, or private ownership of capital; and external forms of authority represented by centralized government, the military, and law enforcement.”
Guess I’m on another list because I agree with all of that.
And Semi-Hemi-Demigod is trying to explain to you that, while you’re of course right that none of those things are symptoms of violent extremism, a lot of them are aspects of peaceful anti-authoritarian political beliefs such as those of anarchism.
I would read this as "Of the types of violent extremists, the ‘Anarchist’ type are those who… ". As a really dumb metaphor, if I have a pokedex, I don’t need to restate that they’re all Pokémon in there each time.
Not arguing that the FBI hasn’t suppressed completely valid movements in the past, because that’s well-documented for anyone to see. I just think that if I was a professional writing a handbook in this situation, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of redefining the context each time either. Because of that, I’m not sure that this is demonstrative of their stance.
If you wonder why pro Israel Dems keep getting to the general where Dem voters have no option but voting for them:
That has made AIPAC the biggest source of Republican money flowing into competitive Democratic primaries this year, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data — and drawn outrage from the left over what it sees as GOP meddling in Democratic contests.
Nearly half of AIPAC donors to Democratic candidates this year have some recent history of giving to Republican campaigns or committees.
Anyone want to guess what US politician has taken more money than anyone else from pro-Israel lobbyists?
And yes, I’m aware AIPAC isn’t required to register as an agent of a foreign government, they get an exception.
The only reason it exists is because the prior group did have to register as a foreign agent in 1962. So they rebranded and donated to the people in charge of deciding who goes on that list, so AIPAC has never had to go on that list.
This has been an issue for over 60 years and there’s no rational excuse to keep ignoring it.
Edit:
I should have presented the way for Dems to stop this:
In the United States House of Representatives, the filibuster (the right to unlimited debate) was used until 1842, when a permanent rule limiting the duration of debate was created.[70] The disappearing quorum was a tactic used by the minority until Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed eliminated it in 1890.[71] As the membership of the House grew much larger than the Senate, the House had acted earlier to control floor debate and the delay and blocking of floor votes. The magic minute allows party leaders to speak for as long as they wish, which Kevin McCarthy used in 2021 to set a record for the longest speech on the House floor (8 hours and 33 minutes) in opposition to the Build Back Better Act.[72][73]
Republicans did it for 8.5 hours just a few years ago…
Jefferies agrees with Republicans on this though.
Which is one of the big complaints about current Dem leadership. They only fight if they’re 100% sure they’ll win. Voters want politicians willing to fight even if it’s hard and losing is possible.
We can’t fight facism like this, because they fight every battle even if they don’t have a chance of winning.
I’m sorry, “before you blame this on republicans”? Republicans vote for Horrible Policy, pass it, but we should blame it on democrats for not …calling for a recorded vote? Yeesh.
Democrats didn’t have the votes. You don’t like this result, vote out republicans.
The fillibuster has nearly no relation to what the house does. I don’t know why you’re hung up on it. I mean read your own damn quote. Do you think anyone cares if a party leader decides to speak for 8 hours in the house before a vote? For a day? They don’t need a supermajority to stop them, they just let them run out of steam. The Senate it matters, but it’s just theater in the house .
Do you think anyone cares if a party leader decides to speak for 8 hours in the house before a vote? For a day?
Yes…
In the run up to a very important election it’s important for dem leadership to show potential voters that Dems will fight for what voters want.
Like. Why would you think that isnt important to voters?
But…
It’s disappointing that you don’t remember when Republicans did it in 2021.
Republican voters did, and it contributed to their gains in 2022. Because their voters believed Republicans would fight even if they knew they couldn’t win.
And that’s what voters want out of their representatives.
Because the reason many leftists are dissatisfied with Dems is that they’re largely performative, and you’re arguing for more performative nonsense that achieves nothing.
If there was going to be a fillibuster, then they would have requested a vote count. You don’t avoid a vote count to prevent fillibuster, if you intend to fillibuster, then you ask for a vote count.
That said, I mostly agree with you this time otherwise. The dems do not want to take a stand on this issue because they are trying not to alienate the moderate pro-Israeli faction. It’d be cool though, if you could stop conveniently forgetting that the dems are not a hard progressive party that always wants to do progressive things but is being held back by its leadership. It’s just not factual. There is a reason Bernie is not registered as a dem.
He literally gave an example of a filibuster on the House floor in his comment. Idk how effective it would be, but he did source an example of someone fighting with a filibuster.
It’s only for party leaders. And they’d have to actually speak the entire time. The GOP would just wait and then pass it when he was done. It’s not like the Senate filibuster which can effectively kill legislation.
I kinda see their point, though. Even that kind of performative gesture would get headlines and demonstrate to the public that they’re trying actively to fight for the cause. It’s like when Trump would try to do something and get shut down, like with the Muslim ban or something. He would look like he was doing something and getting obstructed by courts or the “deep state”, but it made people feel like they had an advocate on their site, even though he just didn’t care that much and was mostly out to enrich himself.
I agree, it’s not totally unreasonable to do it, but it’s also not totally unreasonable to not do it, and to save the media attention for something more meaningful. And less divisive for Democrats. Like, say, a law banning abortion federally.
givesomefucks covertly attacks Democrats in every comment. It’s often a baseless argument, beginning with some truth. They start making a good point, then twist it into a veiled criticism of Biden or Democrats, even when it’s the fault of Republicans or entirely apolitical.
In this case you’re correct. The Republican majority in the House makes a vote pointless.
Ironically, the same message givesomefucks is spreading will disengage people who may otherwise increase Democratic representation in government, leading to actual positive change.
They may just want to ensure they have something to complain about next year.
TLDR: OP honestly pointed out an awful thing that the Dems did. This kind of honesty is bad because it may make you not want to vote for Dems. Republicans are bad because they are dishonest and do awful things.
Incorrect. They didn’t challenge it because they don’t have House majority. If it were put to a vote, they’d lose regardless. It’s a moot point, and givesomefucks is leveraging it as a wedge issue.
It’s a baseless argument designed to point fingers at Democratic Representatives, when the actual problem is low Democratic voter turnout in congressional elections. If we had majority in the House, this vote would actually have a chance.
Dissuading people from voting Democrat will worsen this issue, not improve it. Notice they never have a solution? It’s always “don’t vote Democrat” without any suggestions for change? It’s completely contradictory advice from a passionate disengagement advocate.
BoTh SiDeS… bla, bla bla… There must be some mistake here, Trump causes all the bad stuff, we just have to keep Trump out of office so then everything will be great! Trump is a literal fascist! He’s going to do awful things, Biden and his dems are doing so good, basically the human form of the word “perfection”!
I’m sorry, I can’t really follow what you’re saying here.
But it might help if you read my reply to the other person about why without a vote there couldn’t be a filibuster allowing this to happen with a Republican majority rather than a supermajority
Now, enough Dems might have voted with Republicans on this, but I want to know their fucking names at least
Not for them to hide behind republicans skirt and count on people blaming them.
Exactly. I’m just pointing out how stupid people are who always say that it’s the Republicans that do awful shit and not Dems. This is yet another case of them both being awful, and yet whenever things like this get pointed out, people jump up and yell about how both sides are not the same. I just beat the fools to it so that when they do it, it looks especially dumb. They will probably just silently downvote since they really have no other way to respond.
Wow, not a word about the Republicans that introduced the measure to block funding and who hold a majority in the House.
It’s clear which party and which presidential candidate is a better choice for people who care about Gaza and want to resist right-wing regimes (such as Netanyahu) worldwide. The Democratic one.
It’s really something to see the way human beings can’t seem to stop doing the same damn thing over and over again. In 20-30 years time, it will be accepted fact that Israel, an apartheid state, committed genocide. They’ll even bemoan their moral failure themselves.
…aight so fuck Israel in a “your genocide is abhorrent and you don’t deserve any support from anyone” kind of way, but if we’re going to support a genocidal ethnostate anyway, at least we’re doing it in a way that stops civilians from betting blown up, as opposed to handing them half a military’s worth of bombs for them to drop on other civilians.
Now that that’s taken care of, could we maybe take the we’re planning on sending over to Israel for them to do even more genocide with, and send them to Ukraine or something so they can fight against genocide instead?
Jordan directly not really. The American bases in Jordan shot down the drones.
The Jordanian monarchy is heavily corrupt and bribed by America. They receive billions in weapons and bribes to suppress their population and turn the country into an American outpost near Syria and Iraq. Last year they got $1,619,118,868
A prime example was the Tower22 base that got bombed in the beginning of this year
Slava Ukraini indeed. Israeli citizens do, however have some valid problems with how they’re treated by the Islamic nations :| killing a bunch of people where the population demographics is half children is indeed a bit ermh, uh questionable. Feel like having a war criminals trial would be suitable for Hamas and the IDF. What was the name of that unit? 8 something something 👁️👁️👁️📿📿📿🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Israeli citizens do, however have some valid problems with how they’re treated by the Islamic nations
Largely as a reaction to the previous actions of the government of Israel towards Muslims.
Most of the citizen-to-citizen issues (in both directions) stem back to decades of government-to-government mistreatment and abuse. All the way back to the creation of Isreal and resulting displacement of Arab/Muslim people who were already there.
And, actually, it ultimately goes back centuries before that, but 1947 was a signifigant increase in hostility and mistrust.
I would suggest that the Christian Europeans have been much worse to Jewish people over the years. the Palestinians have a valid reason to be annoyed that they have to be displaced.
Yeah, Israel existing in any capacity really rubbed the surrounding Arab countries the wrong way. Hence they tried wiping it off the map several times.
Once you’re charged with a crime that’s all some people think of when your name comes up. Even worse that some family members get dragged down by it too.
And all thanks in this instance to John Ashcroft and the W administration 🤦♂️
theintercept.com
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