Day: May 23, 2024

⚡️ NYT: Blinken supports lifting ban on Ukrainian strikes inside Russia with US arms.https://t.co/cDX7WsiCot

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 23, 2024

MARTHA NEFF KESSLER WAS DYING OF LUNG CANCER, and she had a secret to tell.

Kessler’s life was full of secrets. She spent nearly 40 years at the CIA and was an expert on the Middle East. With her daughter at her bedside, she needed to say something.

“I told Dad I didn’t want to raise you Jewish,” Kessler said to her daughter a few weeks before her death on Dec. 4 last year. “He wanted to, but I was afraid of what might happen to you if you identified that way.” She begged her daughter not to raise her children as Jews. “It’s too dangerous of a religion,” Kessler said.  “I don’t want that target on their backs.”

A widely admired Middle East specialist, Kessler spoke about the CIA’s role in the Camp David Accords at a 2014 conference. Upon her retirement, she was awarded the CIA’s Medal of Distinguished Service and the National Intelligence Community’s Medal of Achievement. (C-SPAN)

Kessler’s daughter was stunned. Justine El-Khazen (she took the name of a Lebanese Catholic immigrant she married in 2001) had never suspected that her mother had any anxiety about her father’s religion or that her secular upbringing had been chosen for her. The question was, why was her mother so anxious about it? Did it have something to do with her mother’s job at the CIA? Her effort to answer that question became the subject of a moving and thought-provoking article in Tablet, a Jewish magazine about world events,  that explored the pro-Arab bias of her mother’s aging colleagues and stirred up an age-old debate about antisemitism at the CIA.

In Kessler’s final weeks, she began to despair as TV news broadcast scenes of angry protests against Israel and Jews on U.S. college campuses. As a Middle East expert, she was not surprised by the explosion of anti-Israel hatred and pro-Hamas sentiment across the region, but the appearance of it here left her bereft. The Israeli military’s pounding of Gaza had unshackled rank antisemitism lurking beneath the surface of American life. “She was totally beside herself,” her daughter says. 

She wasn’t alone. Hamas’ savage Oct. 7 attack against Israel and the war in Gaza has inflamed passions at the CIA, just as it has in the rest of American society, news reports and our own interviews have found. The agency had to admonish employees to keep their politics to themselves after The Financial Times reported that a senior CIA analyst changed her Facebook cover photo on Oct. 21 to an image of a man waving a Palestinian flag. 

The analyst’s gesture was loaded with meaning at the CIA. In its early days, the spy agency was squarely in the pro-Arab camp, even as the United States quickly recognized Israeli statehood in 1948 and, over the decades, cemented the alliance. 

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A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: The would-be dictatorships are stacked up so thick they have to wait for permission to land.
• We rightfully fear a Trump dictatorship. Right now, however, we are being RULED by a Samuel Alito dictatorship. And now we have to take measures to overthrow it. Caught flying one insurrectionist flag at his VIRGINIA home — while he was adjudicating cases that could have benefitted the Trump Coup Attempt — Alito simply lied about it, claiming he had no role in it, then contradicted himself by telling a backstory of petty personal recrimination involving neighbors — a backstory which had its OWN set of lies.
• And now we know that THAT entire story was — at best — a lie of omission, because when Alito was caught improperly flying a disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his primary home in 2021, he was continuing to hide the fact that through much or all of last summer he was flying a DIFFERENT disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his vacation home in New Jersey.
• It is, as you know, the Appeal to Heaven flag, stolen by groups of Christo-Fascists from its historical role in our founding revolution and re-purposed to rationalize a fundamentalist religious dictatorship replacing representative government. As the New York Times noted in reporting this story, “the phrase ‘appeal to heaven’ comes from the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. ‘It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,’ Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University said in an interview.”
• It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms, and it’s been flying in public view from Samuel Alito’s home.
• And now we have to figure out how to stop Alito from completing his plan to turn this country into a religious dictatorship — a kind of westernized Iran.
• On the other hand: In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump has declared himself dead. “They were authorized to shoot me!,” begins his email to try to con more money out of his dumbest cult members. “I nearly escaped death!” Uhhhh …. So … you … DIDN’T … escape death? Metaphorically, Trump may be right. The words used by the President and those around him about Trump’s “Unified Reich” video are a sea change. They are calling him an anti-Semite. Next they need to call him a Nazi.

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, apparently cannot afford a weather app. It rained so hard on him he became Rishi Sunk. Larry Hogan, a Republican, insists he’s always protected women’s rights. Of course he’s lying. And as we realize just how corrupted and unsalvageable the Supreme Court is, Jim Jordan provides some comic relief by saying something that provides an immediate opportunity to insult Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I ran into Al Roker the other day, so naturally I have to tell you all my Matt Lauer stories. These are the obnoxious, vanity ones, as opposed to the assault-y ones.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Episode 181 has been uploaded.

No preview yet

YouTube, later

A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: The would-be dictatorships are stacked up so thick they have to wait for permission to land.
• We rightfully fear a Trump dictatorship. Right now, however, we are being RULED by a Samuel Alito dictatorship. And now we have to take measures to overthrow it. Caught flying one insurrectionist flag at his VIRGINIA home — while he was adjudicating cases that could have benefitted the Trump Coup Attempt — Alito simply lied about it, claiming he had no role in it, then contradicted himself by telling a backstory of petty personal recrimination involving neighbors — a backstory which had its OWN set of lies.
• And now we know that THAT entire story was — at best — a lie of omission, because when Alito was caught improperly flying a disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his primary home in 2021, he was continuing to hide the fact that through much or all of last summer he was flying a DIFFERENT disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his vacation home in New Jersey.
• It is, as you know, the Appeal to Heaven flag, stolen by groups of Christo-Fascists from its historical role in our founding revolution and re-purposed to rationalize a fundamentalist religious dictatorship replacing representative government. As the New York Times noted in reporting this story, “the phrase ‘appeal to heaven’ comes from the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. ‘It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,’ Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University said in an interview.”
• It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms, and it’s been flying in public view from Samuel Alito’s home.
• And now we have to figure out how to stop Alito from completing his plan to turn this country into a religious dictatorship — a kind of westernized Iran.
• On the other hand: In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump has declared himself dead. “They were authorized to shoot me!,” begins his email to try to con more money out of his dumbest cult members. “I nearly escaped death!” Uhhhh …. So … you … DIDN’T … escape death? Metaphorically, Trump may be right. The words used by the President and those around him about Trump’s “Unified Reich” video are a sea change. They are calling him an anti-Semite. Next they need to call him a Nazi.

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, apparently cannot afford a weather app. It rained so hard on him he became Rishi Sunk. Larry Hogan, a Republican, insists he’s always protected women’s rights. Of course he’s lying. And as we realize just how corrupted and unsalvageable the Supreme Court is, Jim Jordan provides some comic relief by saying something that provides an immediate opportunity to insult Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I ran into Al Roker the other day, so naturally I have to tell you all my Matt Lauer stories. These are the obnoxious, vanity ones, as opposed to the assault-y ones.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Episode 181 has been uploaded.

No preview yet

YouTube, later

A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: The would-be dictatorships are stacked up so thick they have to wait for permission to land.
• We rightfully fear a Trump dictatorship. Right now, however, we are being RULED by a Samuel Alito dictatorship. And now we have to take measures to overthrow it. Caught flying one insurrectionist flag at his VIRGINIA home — while he was adjudicating cases that could have benefitted the Trump Coup Attempt — Alito simply lied about it, claiming he had no role in it, then contradicted himself by telling a backstory of petty personal recrimination involving neighbors — a backstory which had its OWN set of lies.
• And now we know that THAT entire story was — at best — a lie of omission, because when Alito was caught improperly flying a disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his primary home in 2021, he was continuing to hide the fact that through much or all of last summer he was flying a DIFFERENT disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his vacation home in New Jersey.
• It is, as you know, the Appeal to Heaven flag, stolen by groups of Christo-Fascists from its historical role in our founding revolution and re-purposed to rationalize a fundamentalist religious dictatorship replacing representative government. As the New York Times noted in reporting this story, “the phrase ‘appeal to heaven’ comes from the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. ‘It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,’ Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University said in an interview.”
• It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms, and it’s been flying in public view from Samuel Alito’s home.
• And now we have to figure out how to stop Alito from completing his plan to turn this country into a religious dictatorship — a kind of westernized Iran.
• On the other hand: In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump has declared himself dead. “They were authorized to shoot me!,” begins his email to try to con more money out of his dumbest cult members. “I nearly escaped death!” Uhhhh …. So … you … DIDN’T … escape death? Metaphorically, Trump may be right. The words used by the President and those around him about Trump’s “Unified Reich” video are a sea change. They are calling him an anti-Semite. Next they need to call him a Nazi.

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, apparently cannot afford a weather app. It rained so hard on him he became Rishi Sunk. Larry Hogan, a Republican, insists he’s always protected women’s rights. Of course he’s lying. And as we realize just how corrupted and unsalvageable the Supreme Court is, Jim Jordan provides some comic relief by saying something that provides an immediate opportunity to insult Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I ran into Al Roker the other day, so naturally I have to tell you all my Matt Lauer stories. These are the obnoxious, vanity ones, as opposed to the assault-y ones.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

Episode 181 has been uploaded.

No preview yet

YouTube, later

A-Block

• SPECIAL COMMENT: The would-be dictatorships are stacked up so thick they have to wait for permission to land.
• We rightfully fear a Trump dictatorship. Right now, however, we are being RULED by a Samuel Alito dictatorship. And now we have to take measures to overthrow it. Caught flying one insurrectionist flag at his VIRGINIA home — while he was adjudicating cases that could have benefitted the Trump Coup Attempt — Alito simply lied about it, claiming he had no role in it, then contradicted himself by telling a backstory of petty personal recrimination involving neighbors — a backstory which had its OWN set of lies.
• And now we know that THAT entire story was — at best — a lie of omission, because when Alito was caught improperly flying a disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his primary home in 2021, he was continuing to hide the fact that through much or all of last summer he was flying a DIFFERENT disqualifying insurrectionist symbol in public at his vacation home in New Jersey.
• It is, as you know, the Appeal to Heaven flag, stolen by groups of Christo-Fascists from its historical role in our founding revolution and re-purposed to rationalize a fundamentalist religious dictatorship replacing representative government. As the New York Times noted in reporting this story, “the phrase ‘appeal to heaven’ comes from the 17th century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. ‘It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,’ Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University said in an interview.”
• It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms, and it’s been flying in public view from Samuel Alito’s home.
• And now we have to figure out how to stop Alito from completing his plan to turn this country into a religious dictatorship — a kind of westernized Iran.
• On the other hand: In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump has declared himself dead. “They were authorized to shoot me!,” begins his email to try to con more money out of his dumbest cult members. “I nearly escaped death!” Uhhhh …. So … you … DIDN’T … escape death? Metaphorically, Trump may be right. The words used by the President and those around him about Trump’s “Unified Reich” video are a sea change. They are calling him an anti-Semite. Next they need to call him a Nazi.

B-Block

• THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, apparently cannot afford a weather app. It rained so hard on him he became Rishi Sunk. Larry Hogan, a Republican, insists he’s always protected women’s rights. Of course he’s lying. And as we realize just how corrupted and unsalvageable the Supreme Court is, Jim Jordan provides some comic relief by saying something that provides an immediate opportunity to insult Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

C-Block

• THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I ran into Al Roker the other day, so naturally I have to tell you all my Matt Lauer stories. These are the obnoxious, vanity ones, as opposed to the assault-y ones.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.

The tightening of Armenian-Iranian ties – opinion
The relationship between Iran and Armenia has been influenced by Armenian billionaire, Ruben Vardanyan, a close friend of Putin.https://t.co/fQKhHcerR9

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) May 23, 2024