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466

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,

and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,

and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice,

except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero

and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own

and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money

and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode

and their freedoms to be washed away.

My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
~Lawrence Ferlinghetti

(Book: Ferlinghetti’s Greatest Poems https://amzn.to/43XFgkc)

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467

A dozen states, most of them led by Democrats, sued President Trump over his tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that he has no power to “arbitrarily impose tariffs as he has done here.”

Contending that only Congress has the power to legislate tariffs, the states are asking the court to block the Trump administration from enforcing what they said were unlawful tariffs.

The states, including New York, Illinois and Oregon, are the latest parties to take the Trump administration to court over the tariffs. The other states in the suit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Vermont. All of the states have Democratic attorneys general, though Nevada and Vermont have Republican governors.

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468

LOCK HER UP

TRUMP’s lawless attack on the judicial system just took a big step against judicial independence. F.B.I. Director Kash Patel said on Friday that agents had arrested a county judge in Milwaukee on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals confirmed the arrest of a sitting judge, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s battle with local authorities over deportations.

The bureau arrested Judge Hannah Dugan on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by federal authorities, Mr. Patel wrote on social media. He later deleted the post for reasons that were not immediately clear. An F.B.I. spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment by the New YorkTimes.

This sends a signal to judges that they are not safe against the Trump administration. Resisting Trump will take, courage and a commitment to justice.

469

You insult their ethnicity by equating them with this monster:

“On 30 January 2025, the IDF claimed that Muhammad Abu Aseed, whom they said was the member of Hamas’ Shati Battalion who could be seen dragging Levy in the original viral video, had been killed in a drone strike in September 2024. This news had not been made public until after the release of all the female soldiers.”

470

The question is.. should judges be being dishonest?

471

Able governments always get flack for doing what the previous governments should have done.. because they’re dirty jobs, and nobody wants to do them.
.

:expressionless_face:

I meant the crazy policies, that made it look like Western governance was totally degenerate and downright immoral.

..or did you see nothing wrong with those policy shifts towards the bacchanal/carnal?

472

Wallstreet basically controls all the statistical and polling organizations from private all the way to the state level. Illustrating that would require a thread for its own sake. Anybody that is familiar with the statistical metric systems knows this following such things for many decades. Because of the corrupt process of either manipulating or messaging statistical data for purely political and greed oriented interests is the reason why I find them very unreliable.

473

Why not? The entire stock market or economy seems to be geared towards the very wealthy anymore anyways, it’s purely a reflection of themselves while completely ignoring the majority of everyone else.

474

Democracy is the easiest corruptable form of government there is, it seems to be very susceptible to corporate oligarchies more so than any other style of government where it becomes completely captivated by private forces.

475

You’ve dimissed all the large scale statistical data that have been provided, but you haven’t provided any factual basis for your own positions. So now you’re making a statement about democracy based on what?

476

My criticism has nothing to do with ethnicity. It has to do with US support for a government committing war crimes.

477

You’ll have to be more specific for me to get what you’re referring. I was not uncritical of Biden, but I did consider him to generally operate within the bounds of the US Constitution. Whereas Trump has and continues to push those boundaries as I am documenting on this thread with an emphasis on the resistance of the people, Congress and the courts.

478

It’s interesting that liberals will complain about the government and Wallstreet all day long yet are so trusting of the manipulated statistics that comes from both.

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479

I’m open to considering whatever factual basis you have for your opinions. So far, you haven’t produced any. Whatcha got?

480

You used the word ethnic. So yeah, it has everything to do with ethnicity. To you.

481

How about the United States federal government has been lying about economic statistical metrics since 2008, we can start there if you like.

482

Okay. There’s a falsifiable claim. So let’s see your evidence.

483

I don’t get your point. The US is not an ally of Hamas. Never has been. But, the US has been and continues to be an ally of Israel. Being a loyal ally doesn’t entail unconditional uncritical support of war crimes and apartheid. I’m talking about stuff like this:

Tragedy foretold and stain on our collective humanity’: Special Rapporteur warns of mass ethnic cleansing in the West Bank

18 March 2025

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GENEVA – Palestinians face serious risk of mass ethnic cleansing as Israel advances its long-held plan to take Palestinian lands and evacuate them of Palestinians under the fog of war, a UN expert warned today.

While ethnic cleansing is not a standalone crime, it involves actions that constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide, said Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

In October 2023, the Special Rapporteur warned that Israel would use the “war against Hamas” to acquire Palestinian land and further displace Palestinians. “What Israel is doing in occupied Palestine today has strong echoes of 1947-1949 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa,” Albanese said.

“The world meanwhile is pretending not to see history repeating itself,” she said.

In 16 months, Israeli forces have killed 48,570 Palestinians in Gaza and displaced 1.9 million. Israel’s relentless bombardment has devastated the strip, making return impossible. Even Western governments now propose forcibly relocating survivors. “This idea is unlawful and adds insult to injury,” Albanese said.

Beyond Gaza, Israeli forces and settler militias have escalated violence in the West Bank. Since January 2025, more than 40,000 refugees from Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams were forcibly displaced from their homes, and nearly 70 killed.

Albanese said the West Bank faces its worst military assault since the second intifada, marked by air strikes, armoured bulldozers and controlled demolitions to conduct raids, demolish homes and destroy villages and critical infrastructure including farmland.

“We are witnessing new ‘Trails of Tears’ in the West Bank, mirroring Gaza’s fate. In 2025, such injustice is not only unacceptable but a stain on our collective conscience,” the Special Rapporteur said.

As of 23 February, the Israeli Minister of Defence authorised military reinforcements in the West Bank, preventing 40,000 displaced Palestinians from returning to northern areas. Settler-led attacks backed by the Israeli army between January 2023 and January 2025 have displaced over 2,275 Palestinians, including 1,117 children.

History demonstrates that Israel’s strategy for a “Greater Israel” free of Palestinian presence relies on forcibly displacing and repressing Palestinians, the Special Rapporteur recalled. Albanese noted that destroying Palestinian lives, homes, and infrastructure while denying their return advances this goal. .

“Israel’s conduct aiming to ethnically cleanse the land between the river to the sea, amounts to a genocidal campaign to erase Palestinians as a people.

“The international community must uphold its obligation to protect Palestinians from annihilation. The only way is to enforce the ICJ Advisory Opinion that has recognised the unlawfulness of, and ordered an unconditional end to, Israel’s ongoing presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and imposed binding provisional measures on Israel to prevent the commission of genocide in Gaza,” the Special Rapporteur said.

“Israel’s Prime Minister and former Minister of Defence are wanted by the International Criminal Court, and States must support the ICC arrest warrants,” Albanese said, calling also for targeted sanctions, halting all arms transfers, banning trade with Israel that may harm Palestinians, and prosecuting those responsible for crimes in the occupied territories.

“Palestine is a wound. What is happening to the Palestinians is a tragedy foretold, and a stain on Israel’s history for which we bear collective responsibility. It is never too late for the world to stand up and do the right thing.”

484

Again, totally fair to question the reliability of a source.

What is not fair, and not a rational basis for belief, is to just believe whatever you want because you reject a specific source. If you have no source, you should say things like “I don’t know” and “the information that would let me form a confident belief on that question is unavailable”.

Instead you say things like, “[both parties] are destroying the financial economy”, which seems like you know and are confident about beliefs based on statistical information that you also seem to claim not to have because all the statistical metric systems are unreliable or something.

Either you know something or you don’t, man. If you don’t, say that. If you do, say how.

485

It seems like you’re arguing from authority in that form of thinking. “These statistics are from reliable institutions of authority on the subject matter, you simply must trust them! They’re simply trustworthy without question or doubt!”

Sorry, still going with doubt based on years of experience dealing with their constant dishonesty.