Category: Journalism

Apple News+ and 30 percent inflation

by philg

Today is my last day of Apple News+, the cost of which was recently raised by 30 percent:

I’m not sure what justifies this increase. The major news organizations have mostly been harvesting outrage from Twitter, reposting information straight from the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), reporting on what other news outlets are saying, etc. Couldn’t ChatGPT do most of this? If so, news subscriptions should be getting cheaper, not more expensive. Maybe the 30 percent bump is consistent with media costs in what the media assures us is a mostly inflation-free environment? The latest union contract at the New York Times raised salaries by only 12.5 percent (NYT, May 23, 2023):

The New York Times reached a deal on Tuesday for a new contract with the union representing the majority of its newsroom employees, ending more than two years of contentious negotiations that included a 24-hour strike.

The agreement, if ratified, will give union members immediate salary increases of up to 12.5 percent to cover the last two years and 2023, and will raise the required minimum salary to $65,000, up from about $37,500. The previous contract expired in March 2021, and union members have not received contractual raises since 2020.

Under the contract, the median salary for reporters in the union would be about $160,000.

(The above raises a question: Why weren’t the progressive owners of the NYT willing to pay a fair wage? Why did it take two years of contention and a strike before the NYT agreed to what the union asked? Also, note that median full-time workers in the U.S. earn about $58,000 per year (BLS) and that includes government workers with their higher-than-private-sector wages. So even the lowliest journalist at the NYT is above the level of Americans identified as the principal financial losers from low-skill immigration (Harvard study) and, of course, being a native English speaker is a huge advantage in the journalism marketplace.)

Speaking of labor unrest, the progressives who scribble for the Washington Post are striking tomorrow because the DC insiders who manage the paper won’t pay them what they’re worth:

The newspaper’s editorial section says that unions are the best thing that ever happened to a company or a country. Example from September 3, 2023, “At last, a Labor Day when workers can celebrate their power”:

Young Americans are the country’s most pro-union generation. Labor has poll ratings most politicians only dream about, and the Biden administration is making workers’ pay, benefits and rights its calling card.

Lest anyone doubt where the administration stands, the Treasury Department released what it proudly called a “First-of-Its-Kind Report” on the economic value of organized labor. It found that unions raise the wages of their members by 10 to 15 percent, have “spillover effects” that benefit nonunion workers, “reduce race and gender wage gaps” and “boost businesses’ productivity.”

All this adds up to a large cultural shift, said Heidi Shierholz, president of the pro-labor Economic Policy Institute. The fact that unions are in the news again means it’s more likely that those who feel they are being treated unfairly “see a possible path to help remedy what’s going on in their own job.” This contrasts with recent decades when “unions were not being talked about at all.”

On this Labor Day, from the president on down, that’s no longer a problem.

Why won’t the paper take its own advice and give the union what it asks for?

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Israel in Crisis, print edition

by philg

My mother is an American Jewish liberal Democrat (some redundancy in there?) and bought us a gift subscription to Moment, the magazine for American Jewish liberal Democrats. The latest issue arrived in the mail a few days ago. One of the cover stories is “Israel in Crisis”. Does this refer to the October 7 attack by Palestinians coming out of Gaza? To the military and political challenge of how Israel can fight a group that hunkers down in, around, and underneath hospitals? No. The “crisis” referred to relates to how power in Israel is divided between parliament and the supreme court (the democratically elected parliament is packed with haters, perhaps due to the large number of Jews in Israel who are descended from those who fled Arab countries starting in 1948 while the supreme court is enlightened, progressive, liberal, etc.).

I think this is a good illustration of the limitations of print-and-mail!

Related:

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Washington State’s new income tax and Florida’s new billionaire resident

by philg

We are informed that Floridians are crushed under the boot of a fascist dictatorship. See, for example, “Ron DeSantis Is All In—on Creating an American Autocracy” (Mother Jones):

His plan to outflank Trump would scale up the calculated system of repression he designed in Florida. …To stifle dissent, in 2021 DeSantis signed a law that would ramp up penalties for rioting but that civil rights groups warned would ensnare peaceful protesters [what about mostly peaceful protesters?]; this spring he pushed legislation to unleash speech-­chilling lawsuits against news outlets.

DeSantis, like other distrustful autocrats, keeps a tight circle of advisers, including his wife.

One way DeSantis has created space to operate is by hollowing out state government, filling key posts with donors and loyalists—the academic term is “autocratic capture”—perhaps most notably on the state Board of Medicine, which has supported his agenda to put new limits on gender-affirming care.

Nobody would live in Florida, in other words, unless he/she/ze/they has no other option, e.g., is incarcerated or established in public housing that would take 10 years of waiting to get into in another state. Anyone who cherishes freedom should have driven north on I-95 in fall 2020 when DeSantis ordered public schools to reopen and refused to permit county and local officials to order lockdowns, masks, and vaccine injections.

In Latinx migrant suffers from fascism and tyranny imposed by Governor Ron DeSantis, we looked at Lionel Messi apparently having no other choice for where to live. This month, the victim of tyranny is Jeff Bezos. “Jeff Bezos Says He Is Leaving Seattle for Miami” is the typically thorough New York Times article:

Mr. Bezos, 59, announced his move in an Instagram post on Thursday night. He said his parents had recently moved back to Miami, where he attended high school, and that he wanted to be closer to them and to his partner, Lauren Sánchez.

Another factor, he said, was that operations for his rocket company, Blue Origin, are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral, Fla., just over 200 miles by road north of Miami along the state’s Atlantic coast.

Bloomberg News reported last month that Mr. Bezos had purchased a mansion in South Florida for $79 million, a few months after buying a neighboring one for $68 million. Mr. Bezos is worth $161 billion, making him the world’s third-richest person, according to Bloomberg.

Mr. Bezos said in his Instagram post that he had “amazing memories” of Seattle and had lived there longer than anywhere else. “As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me,” he wrote. “Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart.”

The fearless journalists uncritically accepted the “emotional” explanation and did not include the word “tax” anywhere in the article. What’s new in Washington State, historically a state that was free from any personal income tax? A 7 percent income tax on long-term capital gains (wa.gov), starting in 2022:

The 2021 Washington State Legislature recently passed ESSB 5096 (RCW 82.87) which creates a 7% tax on the sale or exchange of long-term capital assets such as stocks, bonds, business interests, or other investments and tangible assets.

This tax only applies to individuals. However, individuals can be liable for the tax because of their ownership interest in a pass-through or disregarded entity that sells or exchanges long-term capital assets. The tax only applies to gains allocated to Washington state.

Washington State also imposes a death tax of 20 percent on residents who were successful in life. Florida’s constitution bars both income and estate taxes.

Even if the new tax was not a factor in Bezos’s decision to move to Miami, the move will have a big impact on how much revenue the Covidcrats of Washington State will collect from the new tax and, therefore, what they can spend on social justice initiatives (“The Democratic Party controls the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature” (source)). It seems like a failure of what we used to call journalism that the New York Times didn’t mention the dramatic changes in the Washington State taxation landscape (first the new tax and second the moving out of the biggest taxpayer).

Related:

  • Effect on children’s wealth when parents move to Florida (a calculation that kids can be about 40 percent richer if parents move from Massachusetts, who tax rates are actually lower than Washington’s)
  • Back in 2021, the state held a public hearing on House Bill 1406, which concerns a proposed Washington state wealth tax, Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle remarked at that hearing that there is a “really pessimistic view of the world to just assume someone would leave [Washington state].” “These are folks who have been deeply invested in our community,” (source)
  • The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight, by Cornell sociologist Cristobal Young, pointing out that rich people won’t move in response to higher state taxes
  • “Lessons from Washington State’s New Capital Gains Tax” (by Kamau Chege; The Urbanist, June 2023): Taxing the rich works like a charm. … For decades, the wealthiest Washingtonians have gotten out of paying what they truly owe in state and local taxes. … One of the first lessons is that our state’s richest residents are much, much richer than we understood — and they are continuing to get richer at a faster rate than previously assumed. … working people know that private wealth is built on public infrastructure and public investments paid for by all of us — especially low-income folks who pay more than their share in taxes. … the richest people in our state, like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, have armies of accountants working to find tax loopholes and write-offs.
  • “Capital Gains and Tax ‘Fairness’” (Editorial Board; WSJ, 2021): “The Biden and Olympia tax increases on capital gains won’t matter to Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, who are already rich and can hire lawyers to shelter their future gains.” [Maybe the WSJ envisioned that Bezos would switch to borrowing against his stock? But that doesn’t work in a high-interest-rate environment.]
  • “Victory! Bill to levy capital gains tax gets “do pass” recommendation from House Finance” (Northwest Progressive Institute, 2021): A substantial chunk of the revenue from the proposed capital gains tax would be paid by just two individuals: Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, who are among the world’s richest men.
  • cities ranked by sunshine (move.org): 73 percent of days in Miami vs. 46 percent of days in Seattle
  • Ron Desantis’s latest outrageous position:
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Gender and pregnancy in the New York Times

by philg

In 2021, gender ID had nothing to do with pregnancy. “The C.D.C. escalates its pleas for pregnant and breastfeeding Americans to get vaccinated against Covid.” (New York Times, September 29, 2021):

In an urgent plea, federal health officials are asking that any American who is pregnant, planning to become pregnant or currently breastfeeding get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible.

Covid-19 poses a severe risk during pregnancy, when a person’s immune system is tamped down, and raises the risk of stillbirth or another poor outcome, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-two pregnant people in the United States died of Covid in August, the highest number in a single month since the pandemic started.

About 125,000 pregnant people have tested positive for the virus; 22,000 have been hospitalized, and 161 have died. Hospital data indicates that 97 percent of those who were infected with the virus when they were hospitalized — for illness, or for labor and delivery — were not vaccinated.

Vaccination rates among pregnant people are lower than among the general population. Fewer than one-third were vaccinated before or during their pregnancy, the agency said.

Some data also suggest that pregnant people with Covid-19 are more likely to experience conditions that complicate pregnancy … Clinical trials have a long history of excluding pregnant people from participation, and pregnant people were not included in the coronavirus vaccine trials.

The phrase “pregnant people” occurs 10 times in the article.

Fast forward to this week… “Despite State Bans, Legal Abortions Didn’t Fall Nationwide in Year After Dobbs”:

… increased options and assistance for women who traveled …

The response by abortion providers and activists to the end of Roe v. Wade, it seems, has resulted in more access to abortion in states where it’s still legal — not just for women traveling from states with bans but also for women living there.

Many women, especially in the South, have turned to methods outside the U.S. medical system or carried their pregnancies to term, researchers said. These women are likely to be poor, teenagers or immigrants, and to have young children or jobs that don’t give them time off.

Planned Parenthood Northern California, which operates 17 clinics, began hiring and expanding appointments and telehealth months before Dobbs. It was in part to prepare for an overturn of Roe, and in part a realization that demand for women’s health care had built up during the pandemic, said Dr. Sara Kennedy, its chief operating and medical officer.

More recently, women in states with bans have also been able to order the pills because of shield laws that protect providers that prescribe and mail pills to such patients.

Not a single use of the phrase “pregnant people” to describe those who receive abortion care.

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New York Times explores the low SAT scores of poor children

by philg

“New SAT Data Highlights the Deep Inequality at the Heart of American Education” (New York Times, October 22, 2023):

One-third of the children of the very richest families scored a 1300 or higher, while less than 5 percent of middle-class students did, according to the data, from economists at Opportunity Insights, based at Harvard. Relatively few children in the poorest families scored that high; just one in five took the test at all.

The disparity highlights the inequality at the heart of American education: Starting very early, children from rich and poor families receive vastly different educations, in and out of school, driven by differences in the amount of money and time their parents are able to invest. And in the last five decades, as the country has become more unequal by income, the gap in children’s academic achievement, as measured by test scores throughout schooling, has widened.

What are readers supposed to do with this information? SAT scores are correlated with job performance. By highlighting the dismal scores of a subset of Americans on its front page, is the NYT trying to persuade readers to avoid hiring those who grew up in poverty?

The Newspaper of Truth says that helicopter parenting is the sure path to a smart kid:

Parents have embraced what researchers call intensive parenting — the idea that parents should immerse children in constant learning. Half a century ago, rich and poor parents spent about the same amount of time with their children. Now high-income parents spend more one-on-one time with them, doing activities like reading — what Robert Putnam, the political scientist who wrote “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis,” calls “‘Goodnight Moon’ time.”

If true, shouldn’t the SAT scores of children from high-income families be much higher today compared to in the 1970s? The NYT cites no evidence to suggest that “Goodnight Moon” time has helped the privileged brats of today compared to 1970s kids who were left with their toys while moms socialized over gin and tonics, read their own books, had sex with neighbors (“One woman who married at 20 started an affair within a year. ”I think it’s your way of asserting that you can still act independently,” said the woman, now in her mid-30’s.” (NYT 1987)), etc. Also, aren’t the poorest parents the ones who have the most time to spend with kids? Consider what used to be called a “welfare family” whose house, health care, food, smartphone, and broadband are all paid for by taxpayers slaving away at boring jobs. The adults in that family don’t need to suffer the indignity of wage labor in order to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. The NYT does not explain what the jobless poor are doing if not spending time with their children.

One explanation that the NYT does not explore in detail: SAT performance is heritable. If rich parents had high SAT scores and the ability to score well on the SAT is heritable, it would make sense that children of the rich also have high SAT scores. One sentence is devoted to this topic: “Although the heritability of cognitive ability appears to play some role on an individual level, there is also a lot of evidence that environment matters.” There is no explanation for why heritability couldn’t play the same role on a neighborhood or city-wide level. If a neighborhood is packed with low-income parents due to everyone with a higher income having moved out, and employers in our modern economy pay for higher cognitive ability, why wouldn’t the average cognitive ability in the low-income neighborhood be low?

In a study of supernerds, it turned out that a higher SAT math score did correlate with higher income. From Insider:

The chart below compares the top (Q4) and bottom quartile (Q1) of the top 1% of performers on the SAT math section. It shows a significant difference, even among those subsets, in performance later in life (participants were surveyed at around age 33). For example, men in Q4 from one study group earn 13 percent more than those in Q1.

Note that “bottom quartile” was not the “bottom quartile” of all Americans who took the SAT, but of the top 1% supernerds. (identified at age 13).

It is surprisingly tough to find a broad study of how SAT scores from, say, 1990, correlate to 2022 income. But it makes sense that there would be a correlation. People who do well on the SAT are good at sitting at a desk, following instructions, being consistent with procedures, etc. These are exactly the capabilities that many high-paying jobs require. Some high-paying jobs, such as physician, have been explicitly limited to those who score well on standardized tests (though that may change; see “Removing the MCAT Could Improve Diversity in Medicine” (Newsweek 2023)).

Circling back to the NYT article, I find it interesting that the possibility of SAT score being heritable was not considered, even for long enough to dismiss it. Let’s also look at the solution:

The solution, researchers say, is addressing achievement gaps much earlier, through things like universal pre-K, increased funding for schools in low-income neighborhoods, and reduced residential segregation.

It could benefit all parents and students, even wealthier ones. Parenting in highly unequal societies is intense and competitive, driven by fear of the increasing risk that children will be worse off than their parents. Parenting in places with less income inequality and more public investment in families is more playful and relaxed, research shows. When the risk of falling is smaller, a college admissions test becomes less fraught.

The “increased funding for schools in low-income neighborhoods” idea seems inconsistent with a note earlier in the article that the typical state is already spending “more for students in low-income schools”. For example, Baltimore, one of the nation’s worst-performing public school systems, was spending over $17,000 per student in pre-Biden money (Fox), above the state average. Was the money effective? “At 13 Baltimore City high schools, zero students tested proficient on 2023 state math exam” (Fox).

[Note that these per-pupil spending numbers are substantially fraudulent. They don’t count capital costs, which are enormous. When $154 million is spent on a new high school (see https://www.wbaltv.com/article/building-new-lansdowne-high-school/41430553 ), that isn’t “spending”. Nor is the cost of the real estate considered. Baltimore official spending is up to about 22,000 Bidies per year per student, but it would perhaps be over 30,000 Bidies per year if these off-books costs were folded in. https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/baltimore-city-schools-spending-per-student-2022-enrollment-performance-kirwan-new-york-boston-washington ]

Given that the number of spaces at elite colleges is held fixed while the population expands, I would like to see an explanation for how the rich will “benefit” if their kids are out-competed for elite college admissions by the children of the poor, whose schools have been turbocharged with extra money (on top of the existing extra money mentioned in the article). Why didn’t Asian-Americans realize how much better off they were when Harvard rejected them in favor of non-Asians? (see Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard) Are Jewish families better off now that their kids can’t get into elite schools? (“Harvard has gone from being 25% Jewish in the 1990s and 2000s to under 10% today. … Penn’s Jewish population declined from 26% in 2015 to 17% in 2021”; Tablet)

Related:

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WSJ: “Israel’s war against Hamas”

by philg

Buried in a Wall Street Journal article on what the lockdown champs of the Northeast will be paying for heat this winter…

Israel’s war against Hamas has injected fresh risk into oil markets. Traders have hurried to reposition themselves for a conflict that could embroil oil-rich, Hamas-backer Iran.

The recent fighting is not a battle within the war that the Arabs declared against the Jews in 1948 after rejecting the United Nations partition (background). Nor is the continued fighting part of a new war that was initiated by the elected government of the Palestinians (still popular with residents of Gaza) on October 7, 2023 (two weeks ago and, apparently, already forgotten). The current fighting is a war initiated by Israel for unspecified/unknown reasons. It is entirely “Israel’s war” and anyone who isn’t Israeli is a passive victim of the war.

Maybe CNN can shed some light on why Israel has attacked the mostly peaceful mostly defenseless Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”)? Here’s the front page last night:

Muslims are heroically working in hospitals while Jews attack for no reason.

More from CNN last night, below. Palestinians are “refugees” and “evacuees”. They need “humanitarian relief” because a “complete siege” has been perpetrated by Israel for, apparently, no reason. These are disaster victims and had no role in creating the disaster:

(Separately, if whatever food trucked in isn’t sufficient for the entire population, won’t most or all of it go to those who carry guns and fight the enemy? In any type of wartime shortage situation, don’t soldiers always eat first? Thus, will it be fair to say that President Biden’s humanitarian aid will go directly to soldiers of the Islamic Resistance Movement and Palestinian Islamic Jihad? (also known as “terrorists”, but I reject this label for people fighting on behalf of an elected government))

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Science says to throw out all of your appliances

by philg

Planet Earth can be saved if we all throw out our 2-10-year-old appliances that are in perfect working condition. That’s the Science according to the New York Times… “The Climate Fight Will Be Won in the Appliance Aisle” (Oct 1, 2023):

Two of these [Inflation Reduction Act] programs are tax credits meant to give Americans a tax discount when they install a new rooftop solar system, a geothermal-powered heater, a heat pump or another technology that reduces demand for carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Unlike other tax credits in the law, these programs have no income cap, so they can be used by wealthy Americans who can presumably afford to pay upfront to install residential equipment like a water heater. But like other new tax credits in the law, they require Americans to have some federal tax liability in the first place. If you owe nothing on your taxes, then you can’t get a discount.

The I.R.A. introduced a pair of rebate programs meant to help working- and middle-class Americans afford to upgrade appliances and other features of their homes. These two programs, known as HOMES and HEEHRA, are important. When it’s finally put in place, HEEHRA will lower the cost of heat pumps and other climate-friendly appliances at the point of sale, making them more affordable to consumers, including those who are not even aware of the policy. More than perhaps any other programs in the law, these rebates are meant to allow low-income Americans to reduce their monthly energy costs. And because they involve direct cash grants, using the rebates will not require oweing any taxes to the federal government. That is huge for retirees and Social Security recipients, many of whom have no earned income and little to no federal tax liability.

The climate fight might be waged in the streets. But it will be won in the appliance aisle.

It is, of course, wonderful that working-class renters must pay for the new high-end air conditioning systems enjoyed by elite homeowners. But I’m confused as to how this can save the planet. If people throw out working appliances and buy new ones, which have to be manufactured, shipped, and installed, won’t that actually increase CO2 emissions? If so, should we consider New York sustainability expert William Lauder to be the greatest environmentalist of the moment? He pushed a 6-year-old house into a landfill:

The new house, presumably, will include higher-efficiency Sub-Zero refrigerators with R600a refrigerant. Our planet, then, began to heal when the excavators started work on this obsolete 6-year-old 36,000-square-foot house.

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New York Times on the crisis in Israel

by philg

The New York Times has been predicting doom for Israel for months.

July 2023, “In Israel, High Stakes for High Court: Democracy’s Fate”:

From Hungary to India to Brazil, how judges responded to attacks on their independence helped decide whether would-be autocrats prevailed in constraining the courts.

Over the last few decades, attempts to weaken the courts around the world have become recurring signals that a democracy is in trouble. Attacks on judicial independence were early steps toward one-party dominance in Russia, Turkey and Venezuela, for example.

But a move to limit the authority of the courts — like the new law adopted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition barring judges from using the longstanding legal principle of “reasonableness” to overrule government decisions — does not make democratic collapse inevitable. It’s more like a flashing red light, and how the judiciary responds can begin to decide how much damage is done.

From climate change alarmist Thomas Friedman, July 2023, “The U.S. Reassessment of Netanyahu’s Government Has Begun”:

Why is Israel’s cabinet trying to crush the country’s Supreme Court? Why did President Biden tell CNN that “this is one of the most extreme” Israeli cabinets he’d ever seen? And why did the U.S. ambassador to Israel just say that America is working to prevent Israel from “going off the rails”?

The short answer to all three questions is that the Biden team sees the far-right Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, engaged in unprecedented radical behavior — under the cloak of judicial “reform” — that is undermining our shared interests with Israel, our shared values…

They just find it hard to believe that Bibi would allow himself to be led around by the nose by people like Ben-Gvir, would be ready to risk Israel’s relations with America and with global investors and WOULD BE READY TO RISK A CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL just to stay in power with a group of ciphers and ultranationalists.

But it is what it is — and it’s ugly. Tens of thousands of Israeli democracy protectors blocked roads and highways and besieged the Tel Aviv airport on Tuesday to make clear to Netanyahu that if he thinks he can snuff out Israel’s democracy just like that, he’s badly mistaken.

If the hundreds of thousands of Israeli democracy defenders, who have taken to the streets every Saturday for over half a year, can’t stop the Netanyahu juggernaut from slamming this bill through, it will, as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote the other day in Haaretz, “degrade Israel into a corrupt and racist dictatorship that will crumble society, isolate the country” and end “the democratic chapter” of Israel’s history.

Friedman says that he’s unhappy about Hamas’s recent military success in the war that the Arabs started 75 years ago (see my Israel background article from 2003; no need for an update because nothing substantive has changed):

Any prolonged Israel-Hamas war could divert more U.S. military equipment needed by Kyiv to Tel Aviv

(i.e., Ukraine is the real ally)

Separately, let’s keep in mind that a country’s resources are finite. The Arabs in Gaza are among those who have vowed to destroy Israel (as U.S. Congressional Rep. Rashida Tlaib tweeted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”). Instead of spending the summer keeping track of what practical steps these Arabs were taking toward Rashida Tlaib’s goal, Israeli progressives were out protesting. They perceived Netanyahu as their biggest enemy and didn’t consider the possibility that the pen wasn’t mightier than the sword. The protests against cutting back the power of Israel’s courts were negligible, however, compared to the time, money, and energy that Israel spent fighting SARS-CoV-2. This fight apparently yielded no benefits because the country ended up with a higher rate of “excess deaths” than do-almost-nothing Sweden. Instead of cowering at home, Israelis under 65 could have been in military refresher training, manufacturing weapons;, etc.

One strange aspect of media coverage of this fight is that it is characterized as being against “terrorists” or “militants” and not soldiers of a legitimate government. Hamas enjoys more support among Palestinians than Joe Biden does among Americans. Why aren’t the people carrying guns on behalf of Hamas, which represents the interests of a majority of Palestinian Arabs, then referred to as “soldiers”?

From 2021, “Poll finds dramatic rise in Palestinian support for Hamas” (AP):

A new poll released Tuesday finds a dramatic surge in Palestinian support for Hamas following last month’s Gaza war, with around three quarters viewing the Islamic militants as victors in a battle against Israel to defend Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The scientific poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also found plummeting support for President Mahmoud Abbas, who was sidelined by the war but is seen internationally as a partner for reviving the long-defunct peace process.

The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party.

Related:

  • “Gaza struggles to accommodate the living and the dead as population grows” (Reuters, 2022): “Its population is set to more than double within the next 30 years to 4.8 million and already land is running out.”
  • from the United Nations, which guarantees health care, education, food, etc. to every baby born in Gaza: “The population growth rate stands high at 2.8% and it is expected to remain stable due to decline in mortality rates while fertility rate remains one of the highest in the Arab region standing at 4.06, with high disparity between Gaza and West Bank, 4.5 and 3.6 respectively. … The increase of youth population in Palestine for the past 20 years reflects the highest increase in the Arab countries”
  • “UNRWA textbooks still include hate, antisemitism despite pledge to remove — watchdog” (The Times of Israel, 2022): Among the content [taught in the United Nations-run schools] that IMPACT-se flagged was a grammar exercise teaching that “the Palestinians sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem,” the statement said. Other exercises include sentences about “Jihad warriors” against “the occupier,” commitment to “liberate” Palestine, and “resisting the enemy courageously,” according to the report. A poem teaches students that to die as a martyr by killing Israelis is a “hobby.” Islamic education material depicts Jews as “inherently treacherous, and hostile to Islam and Muslims,” including another grammar exercise implying that Jews are impure and defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. “Israel is described as having been implanted by an imperialist, European, colonial, anti-Arab conspiracy with the goal of dividing the Arab world,” IMPACT-se said. Israel is erased from the UNRWA material and the entire area of the Jewish state is labeled as modern-day Palestine. Students are given exercises of naming Israeli cities as Palestinian, it added. …. Sheff said the majority of the $338 million that the US funds for UNRWA goes to education. [i.e., American taxpayers fund all of the above]

From Ilhan Omar:

Harvard perspective:

Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine

We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.

Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.

The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.

Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.

  • African American Resistance Organization
  • Amnesty International at Harvard
  • Bengali Association of Students at Harvard College
  • Harvard Act on a Dream
  • Harvard Arab Medical and Dental Student Association
  • Harvard Chan Muslim Student Association
  • Harvard Chan Students for Health Equity and Justice in Palestine
  • Harvard College Pakistan Student Association
  • Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association
  • Harvard Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association
  • Harvard Graduate School of Education Islamic Society
  • Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine
  • Harvard Islamic Society
  • Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine
  • Harvard Divinity School Students for Justice in Palestine
  • Harvard Jews for Liberation
  • Harvard Kennedy School Bangladesh Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Women’s Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Palestine Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School South Asia Caucus Leadership
  • Harvard Muslim Law School Association
  • Harvard Pakistan Forum
  • Harvard Prison Divest Coalition
  • Harvard South Asian Law Students Association
  • Harvard South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research
  • Harvard TPS Coalition
  • Harvard Undergraduate Arab Women’s Collective
  • Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo
  • Harvard Undergraduate Muslim Women’s Medical Alliance
  • Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Students Association
  • Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee
  • Middle East and North African Graduate School of Design Student Society
  • Neighbor Program Cambridge
  • Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates
  • Society of Arab Students
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WSJ: Proles should be grateful that their chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams

by philg

“Why Consumers Are Mad About Inflation Even Though It Has Fallen” (Wall Street Journal, today):

Prices are rising more slowly, but consumers fixate on how much lower they were before the pandemic, a problem for Biden.

Inflation has fallen sharply in the past year. The economy remains strong. Yet Americans remain deeply unhappy about the economy, often citing inflation. It continues to weigh on President Biden’s approval and re-election hopes.

Peasants aren’t sufficiently grateful, in other words, for all of the good things that the Party has done for them. They don’t credit Joe Biden for increasing their chocolate ration to 20 grams, for example.

I wonder if there will be spontaneous pro-Biden rallies to show gratitude for the lower airfares and car prices after the latest union contracts work their way through the system. CNBC:

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Dianne Feinstein, the first female U.S. senator (and cloth mask believer)

by philg

I was chatting with an Ivy League graduate who is a loyal Democrat and who follows the mainstream media. He shared that he had learned from news articles that the recently deceased Dianne Feinstein was the first female U.S. senator and, therefore, a true pioneer for her gender ID.

According to Wikipedia:

The first female U.S. senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton, represented Georgia for a single day in 1922, and the first woman elected to the Senate, Hattie Caraway, was elected from Arkansas in 1932. Fifty-nine women have served in the upper house of the United States Congress since its establishment in 1789.

(Senator Caraway held her Senate seat for more than 13 years. Like me, she was a prohibitionist.)

A gun owner with a concealed carry permit who wanted to deny her subjects the right to carry guns, Ms. Feinstein was also an early crusher of 2SLGBTQQIA+ dreams. A 1982 NYT article:

Mayor Dianne Feinstein today vetoed a San Francisco city ordinance that would have extended to live-in lovers, including homosexuals, the health insurance benefits that now go to husbands and wives of city employees.

The ordinance she vetoed was introduced by Harry Britt, the only publicly homosexual member of the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Britt was traveling in the East today, but his office released a statement in which he said that ”by vetoing this law, Mayor Feinstein has shown it is our nation’s institutions that lack civility. She has done serious harm to the efforts of gay men and lesbians to gain acceptance and understanding of our life styles.”

Dana van Gorder, a member of Mr. Britt’s staff, said the Mayor ”does not believe in the spirit of this legislation whatsoever.” The spokesman said that the homosexual community ”has had a sense for some time that she has viewed us with a certain moral judgment.”

At dusk about 200 people, many identifying themselves as homosexuals, gathered at the City Hall steps in response to a call for a protest. They cheered speakers who criticized Mayor Feinstein, and they chanted ”Dump Dianne.”

She sought to collect income tax and other revenues in Deplorable states, but not to send any money back to them until they accepted Faucism (press release):

The Science of cloth masks was powerful in the summer of 2020. A quote from the above:

“Research shows that masks reduce transmission of the coronavirus. CDC Director Redfield said this surge in COVID-19 cases could end within two months if we adopt ‘universal masking.’… countries that are successfully controlling this virus require masks. So why doesn’t the United States have a national mask mandate?”

(Remember to check cumulative excess deaths to see how those “countries that [were] successfully controlling the virus” eventually fared.)

What are some example articles that communicate to readers that Dianne Feinstein was the first female senator? From the New York Post:

US Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing California Democrat who broke gender barriers throughout her five decades in politics, died Thursday night at her Washington, DC home following a number of health scares. She was 90.

The Guardian: “Senator Dianne Feinstein, trailblazer for women in US politics, dies aged 90″.

The Hill: “Senate loses giant in Dianne Feinstein: ‘A trailblazer in every sense of that word’”

New York Times: “Dianne Feinstein, a Trailblazing Senator, Dies at 90″

Related:

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