Re TTPA, here’s an informative piece from Jane Kelsey on just one aspect of it, possibly the worst aspect, the investor-state dispute settlement clauses. If you ever decide to expand on why you think the TPPA is a good thing, please also address these non free trade aspects as well.

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/10/27/exclusive-jane-kelsey-responds-to-catherine-beards-pro-tppa-column/

Great questions, Paxton.

Twenty one of Netanyahu’s 61 seat coalition are held by explicitly religious parties. That’s not counting the religious members of Likud and Kulanu. The government is absolutely dependent on the religious parties. How is it people keep asserting that the Jewish state is secular and the religious zealotry is all on the other side? The US is regrettably religious, but even we don’t have specifically religious parties, and the religious groups, while getting a lot of attention, have been notably ineffective in shaping policy. In Israel, the key element blocking a two state solution, the settlements movement, is driven by religious extremists. Where is the New Atheist outrage? As with the Christian influence on the Iraq invasion, the New Atheists (and please Heather, this is not an attack on you) focus on ephemera and individuals and seem to ignore the more insidious religious influence on state policies. The revived influence of the Russian orthodox church on Russian policy is another religious intrusion that bears examination. I agree that creationism is ignorant and religionists who withhold medicine from their sick children are sick themselves. But these fringe loonies are not the place to look for the continuing destructive religious influences on human society. Look at religious influences on government policies. Exorcisms are absurd superstitions and are rightly subject to criticism, even ridicule. but the harm done by exorcisms is insignificant compared to the harm done By Roman Catholic bans on contraception.

Interesting article. The right in Israel does seem to be much more dominant since the last election. Netanyahu looked to be losing that election, then he made an anti-Arab speech and suddenly gained strong support that saw him and the far-right parties get strong support and win. That appears to have emboldened them, and it’s had a horrible result. This Vox article outlines the election results: http://www.vox.com/2015/3/18/8244003/israel-election-results

Another powerful denunciation of the occupation and the status quo by two lifelong Zionists:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-zionist-case-for-boycotting-israel/2015/10/23/ac4dab80-735c-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_wemost

“But we must face reality: The occupation has become permanent. Nearly half a century after the Six-Day War, Israel is settling into the apartheid-like regime against which many of its former leaders warned. The settler population in the West Bank has grown 30-fold, from about 12,000 in 1980 to 389,000 today. The West Bank is increasingly treated as part of Israel, with the green line demarcating the occupied territories erased from many maps. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declared recently that control over the West Bank is “not a matter of political debate. It is a basic fact of modern Zionism.”

This “basic fact” poses an ethical dilemma for American Jews: Can we continue to embrace a state that permanently denies basic rights to another people? Yet it also poses a problem from a Zionist perspective: Israel has embarked on a path that threatens its very existence.”

The occupation is destroying Israel and the Jewish people. Here’s an interesting article by a prominent Israeli writer:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/confessions-of-an-israeli-traitor/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_wemost

“The internal discussion in Israel is more militant, threatening and intolerant than it has ever been. Talk has trended toward fundamentalism ever since the Israeli operation in Gaza in late 2008, but it has recently gone from bad to worse. There seems to be only one acceptable voice, orchestrated by the government and its spokespeople, and beamed to all corners of the country by a clan of loyal media outlets drowning out all the others. Those few dissenters who attempt to contradict it — to ask questions, to protest, to represent a different color from this artificial consensus — are ridiculed and patronized at best, threatened, vilified and physically attacked at worst. Israelis not “supporting our troops” are seen as traitors, and newspapers asking questions about the government’s policies and actions are seen as demoralizing.”

It was smart of her to insist on testifying in public. Congressional hearings, especially in public, tend to be platforms for reps to grandstand and make speeches rather than actually investigate, and she had to know she could handle anything they threw at her. Also, this way, there can be no dispute about what she said – it’s all on tape and no one can lie or infer stuff.

I agree with Ken too – the Dems should be winning every election now, and that would have been happening since Gore if it wasn’t for gerrymandering. The GOP looks ready to implode. They’re running around like a headless chicken. Paul Ryan has the ability to bring them together, but I’m not sure his heart is really in it, and who can blame him?

Ah, thanks.

That’s the one. About the fifth heading down is “Casualties and Losses. There are five sources given, one Gazans, one UN, and three Israeli.

That they would give George a pass, while going after Hillary endlessly isn’t surprising, though I agree that this was an own goal as was expected. I expect they did it anyway as red meat for the base, who can’t seem to get enough of Hillary scandals, real or imagined. The other reason is that the Reps are indeed on a downward slope. There appears to be no real leadership any longer, though how that lot could be led by anyone is beyond me. That they can’t find anyone to be House Speaker is simply amazing and the best example of this, as traditionally people fight for this powerful role (it’s not like the Speaker in Parliamentary systems, but the true House leader).

They really need a Reagan they can rally behind, though as has been oft pointed out, Reagan would be far too liberal to succeed in today’s Rep party. I never say never in US politics, but on paper, the Dems should be a shoo in for the Presidency for the foreseeable future due to demographic changes and their continued extremism from the tea party. I’ve never thought Hillary electable, but almost anyone the Dems put up should win. And they are really already a minority in the House, having received less than 50% of the national vote, and only stay in power through severe electorate boundary gerrymandering.

I can’t find it now, but read an interesting article about how the 1968 Nixon southern strategy which flipped the Democratic segregationist South to the Republican party is now unravelling. It posits that the extreme social conservatives who make up the tea party are realising that not only is the Eastern Republican establishment not fighting for their issues, they are trying to gut the federal social programmes like Medicare that tea partiers love. Because the tea party is now an organised enough movement to wield some power (ironically because rich Eastern Reps funded it to begin with), the possibility for a real rift in the GOP is greater than it has been for decades.