Most things I'm saying can be found in the Wikipedia page on the attack and the festival massacre

Thanks! There actually a couple of pages in this area for each so if you have specific Wikipedia articles to link to, that would help a bit. Otherwise I'll make do, no worries either way.

Note that this is the only article that explicitly states that the drone both hit and was fired by Hezbollah,

Thanks for the reference! Very helpful.

so it could be a mistake on their part but I personally don't think so.

Yeah they haven't updated it after a couple of days, so it seems legit.

That was, in fact, the case.

Ok, that seems fair then. It wasn't part of the plan.

On an operational level it was a good opportunity to take hostages, but for multiple reason, including the aforementioned laxness, it quickly devolved into what we now know as the Nova music festival massacre.

Again, fair.

Still fucked up, but from what I understand it seemed like they could do it without compromising their initial objective at the time.

Yep, fair.

Israel takes hostages (also known as detainees) all the time

Hostage taking is wrong either way. Once found to be a genuine and innocent civilian who had nothing to do with the matter, that person should be released by the IDF. (It's different matter when enemy combatants are captured, but even then we have Geneva conventions and such to follow.)

you can't free them without something to trade. and that something was hostages in this case.

Something is deeply sickening about this. The idea that innocent civilians can just be taken and used as cards to trade. (Doesn't matter who or which side, the idea is sick no matter who is behind it, IDF or Hamas.)

I consider it a "don't blame the player, blame the game" situation.
I view it as a realpolitik military/political decision

Neither side should stoop that low. But if one side does stoop that low, that doesn't give the other wise a free pass to do the same thing.

I see why realpolitik is so deeply disliked.

You might say that the hostages didn't really help (other than free a few detainees), and in hindsight you'd be right

Yup.

but nobody could predict the perfect storm of Netanyahu's desperation for a forever war to keep him in power

I'll give credit here. Hamas really screwed up as it seems like things were on the verge of a grand bargain of peace here with Saudi Arabia helping to ensure an independent State of Palestine - see https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/09/israel-gaza-war-biden-netanyahu-peace-negotiations/679581/

And then it all broke down in the aftermath.

and the until-then-unknown insanity of Biden's Zionism.

Eh, the same article shows Biden really didn't want this, though he also feared publicly breaking with Netanyahu.

Even now he's still (feebly and ineffectively) pushing for Israel to stop, as per the headline "Biden tells Netanyahu it's time to end Gaza war after Sinwar's elimination" : https://www.axios.com/2024/10/17/biden-netanyahu-sinwar-gaza-war

CNN has a paywall?

Good. With the recent news from the UK, now we just need more from North America on this..

but stressed that the administration would continue to support Israel and would not delay or stop weapons shipments.

Hoping that this is one area that Harris/Walz will distinguish from Biden's admin in.

I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.

I agree with you. There's some nuance that's being missed. Obviously Biden had nothing to do with a program that got signed into law in 2007.

You (and John Oliver, who's rarely wrong) said that Biden paid the extra interest - which shouldn't have existed if things were done right from the start. And this means less money for other loan forgiveness. That's what Biden is being blamed for. Paying extra interest. Nothing else.

The catch here is that maybe Biden couldn't have cancelled or reversed that interest without new legislation, which would be tough in these times due to the strong MAGA hold on the GOP half of Congress right now. Hence he had to work within the framework of existing laws and prioritized ending the suffering of his constituents first. On that basis, I figure it's probably the right call overall, even if it means some scummy for-profits got a little bit fatter.

But the other commenter said,

And here you sit, just another asshole blaming Biden and Democrats for mess their predecessors went out of their way to create, because they didn’t clean it up instantly and perfectly.

Which is just highly inaccurate, as it was only one tiny aspect of the cleanup that was being questioned.

Agreed. If talking about "when the blueprints are drawn up" then 17 is way too short as it'd been in the works and planned for even longer. 17 years ago is when things started operating, even if the first payouts didn't happen for another ten years.

The problem with it is when it was set up, some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional .. most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should

I've been following folks who've been stuck here. Being told they were in a forgiveness plan or having an eligible employer, only to be told at the last minute that nope they gotta start all over again. (Luckily this was fixed and those folks got their second chance, but it never should have happened at all.)

some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional .. most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should

Why is it so hard to expect a for profit company to actually comply with the law here? That's all that was needed to prevent a series of tragedies from happening.

Normally I'd say that's not an excuse - but for this guy I can make an exception. After all, he's the one who offhandedly promoted violence with Jan 6 and so on.

Would fit in well with smallpox eradication day: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/5/3/23709475/smallpox-world-health-organization-disease-covid-vaccination-health

It has an annoying nagwall asking you to sign up with an email, but that doesn't show up if javascript is disabled or if using reader mode on your browser. It's also easy enough to get rid of by using developer tools in your browser if you're a bit tech minded.

More noisy saberrattling, is what this is.

Outrageous!

Ishiba has proposed establishing what he calls an "Asian NATO" to bolster security in the region

And this points out the reason why that proposal would never happen.

Ah, 2026 - that's a bit of good news that I wasn't expecting. I guess it's too soon to know if Dems will retain the House then, but once Dems control all three -

I don’t doubt that there are some out there, all I’m saying is that I haven’t seen anything to suggest they’re not a small minority.

Some ambiguity here - did you mean folks disliking Hamas (which I provided the survey showing it's at 52%) or folks who like Israel (using folks who dislike the US as a proxy, suggests less than half).

Oppressed people have protested publicly in many other countries but we don’t hear anything from the Palestinians against Hamas

I think this is answered by the C.S.M. article,

“People now are very angry with Hamas, but at the same time they are afraid to express the anger inside them by protesting or holding sit-ins,” notes Wael Mohammad, a civil engineer and longtime Hamas critic in Gaza.
Despite the rising anger, fear persists amid occasional reports of mosque imams or civil society organizers being dragged off and “disappeared” by Hamas for voicing public criticism.

Also,

Why don’t we hear anything about underground Palestinian peace movements?

I mean, we do. From the same C.S.M. article,

Protesters gathering in northern Gaza were shot at by armed men.

Finally,

Where are the videos of people denouncing Hamas?

Maybe an infrastructure issue, they're not able to take videos because of a lack of electrical power - or can't upload them due to a lack of internet connectivity? Not sure. But reporters on the ground are saying that this is indeed happening.

why aren’t people taking to the streets to celebrate?

Aren't they too busy evacuating? As per the orders of the IDF? Except for those in an area with a strong Hamas presence still - those would be too afraid to go out.

Which comes back to my earlier question, even if it really is just a small minority,

I'm not clear on how would even a pro-Israeli Zionist who lives in Gaza and is ethnically Palestinian could get registered as a friend to pro-Israeli forces.

Yes! It's about time already.

Ouch. Which ones? (So I know where to avoid)

I guess they must have copied the idea from the US or something. Disappointing as that's usually a bad idea.

What military target was a peace festival?

I have the same question. The best I can think of might be that it just happened to be next to or somehow in the way of (along the path to) an actual military target. But then (now responding to the other commenter),

They just seem to be unacceptably lax about their soldiers taking their anger out on civilians, which resulted in, well, all that

That is a degree of lax that seems to be almost nonsensical. The soldiers couldn't hold their focus on the actual military targets and took down an entirely unrelated target instead. That's like bombing in the wrong city or something, but a gazillion times worse.

if I have my information correctly the targets were military.

Plausible and will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that's right, but would appreciate a citation or reference.

to be accurate Hamas as an organization didn't really target civilians during October 7th (unless you're talking about the hostages,

I was, in fact.

in which case I don't agree

Why don't you agree?

but fair enough).

I'm glad you can see why myself and others would see things that way.

I haven't seen anything that proves October 7th had "kill a bunch of civilians" as part of the attack plans.

Fair point. I'll give this - hostages can be returned unharmed, or failing that they can at least be returned alive. So it's a horrible choice but I'll give brownie points for the "civilians get to stay alive" one.

I saw another article stating it's a Hezbollah drone.

Gotcha. In that case, I retract my previous statement on the basis of new evidence. (Again, would appreciate a link to said article or a similar one, if you can find it.)

Is it though? It seems neither of the H's claimed responsibility for the drone.

Of course Oct 2023 showed that Hamas has no problem targeting civilians as well, as horrible as it is. Ideally both sides would avoid civilians completely and only focus on military targets..

Stein has expressed support for RCV before (source: https://fairvote.org/dr_jill_stein_supports_ranked_choice_voting/ ) though she still runs without it.

I don't get how Sawant can't see the hypocrisy of her position. Harris might not be the best but she's more likely to listen and allow her views to evolve on the single issue. Meanwhile, if the GOP candidate wins, there's just no chance period.

At the very least, if supporting Stein, Sawant should also be advocating vote swapping...