Thursday

Wars - for Energy - Gas Version

These have to be related.

• June 5th - Cyprus $9 billion gas production deal includes Israel’s Delek
• July 10th - US urges Turkey to stop energy drilling off Cyprus coast

Media

Analyzing Efforts to Rein in Misinformation on Social Media - but what happens when Major News Sites are Fake News sites?


The Ds

Pelosi needs to go.

Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, and it’s With Her Own Party’s Future

Well, really, Establishment Ds need to go.

Can Democrats grow a spine before American democracy collapses in a limp, lifeless heap? | Will Bunch

"In the Trump era, unreasoning and unjustified terror has a name, and it’s the Democratic Party." 

It's not just been "in the Trump era"

The Rude Pundit nails it. No One Is Going to Save Us... (Part 1) - the short version.... Rs fight to win. The D's, well, they don't.

We are seeing the result of decades of conservative planning to get the public to the moment where they no longer believe in anyone but the right's own media, where plain facts don't matter, where images of strength are far, far more important than actual strength. And, as Ryan Grim demonstrated in a great piece, we are dealing with a Democratic leadership group that has never gotten over its post-Reagan stress disorder. Democrats never learned to fight Republicans. We thought winning elections would be enough. We thought that the factual reality of more people having access to health care would be enough. We thought that things that polled well, like abortion rights, like stricter gun laws, like action on climate change, would be enough. We thought that Trump being a damned embarrassment every time he opens his mouth would be enough. We thought that going high when they went low would be enough.

It's not. It never was.

Republican learned back when Reagan was calling the news the "liberal media" on a regular basis, when they impeached Bill Clinton because it made the evangelicals and Clinton haters happy, when they hammered every minor thing, like a flag-burning case, into a national crisis, that the fight is all there is. They relish the fight, they live for the fight, and they can't wait for the next chance to fight, even if they have to manufacture it. They don't care about rules, they don't care about pissing off their opponents, and that's why Trump will end up appointing nearly a third of all federal judges by the end of his first term. That's why Republicans will end up contorting our voting rights until only white conservative men get a say.

And while a whole lot of us on the left, many of us who call ourselves "Democrats," have fought like hell, and while Democratic leaders may want to fight on issues, they hate it when the fight becomes personal. Sure, some Democrats will call out particular Republicans on their awfulness, but the goal is to try to shame a shameless person like Mitch McConnell. When Republicans go after someone, the goal is to destroy them and create a new identity for the person. Look at what they did with the Clintons. Look at what they're doing with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Republicans do this because it works. Democrats won't. They flinch and shy away, as if it's just too unseemly.

What do I mean by that? President Obama should have had Democrats go on the warpath over McConnell's refusal to consider the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland. McConnell should have been turned into an enemy of the nation. Instead, it was treated with the political equivalent of an eyeroll. Would it have worked? We'll never know.

MAGA My Ass

Trump Tariffs Help Sink US Steel: Investigating a Trump "Big Win"


Iran and Nukes

From Haaretz a few days ago:

No. The "biggest breach" was the US pulling out of the deal a few months ago. There is no deal now.