Category Archives: Fail!

Israel plans to demolish 17,000 Arab buildings in West Bank, UN says

<img style=”max-width: 730px; height: auto; object-fit: contain;” title=”A Palestinian boy sits in the shade while his family search for their belongings after their shack near Ramallah was demolished by the Israeli army. More than 11,000 demolition orders are still outstanding.” src=”https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/86504c4b2c7c532222cc51b3b5de77998aec0248/0_53_2816_1690/master/2816.jpg?w=300

Source: Israel plans to demolish 17,000 Arab buildings in West Bank, UN says

Rudy Giuliani Goes Trolling: Harass The Homeless For Their Own Good!: Gothamist

Let’s put aside Giuliani’s transparent hypocrisy and personal deficiencies for a moment and focus on the premise of the article, which is right there in its headline: “De Blasio’s Progressivism Created City’s Homeless Crisis.”This is a lie.This is a lie that has already been debunked several times. In 2013, during the last year of Bloomberg’s administration, NYC had more homeless people than it had in decades. During his whole final term, from January 2010 through December 2013, “the monthly average number of families with children in the city’s shelter system grew 20 percent. The number of adult families rose 46 percent and the number of single adults climbed 38 percent.”As the de Blasio administration has pointed out, imprisoning panhandlers doesn’t exactly solve the homeless problem in the long run. “Instead of ‘getting rid’ of people, Mayor de Blasio wants to implement long-term solutions to homelessness, building new shelters, providing supportive services and ensuring the mentally ill homeless receive the care they need,” de Blasio spokeswoman Karen Hinton said in a statement.

Source: Rudy Giuliani Goes Trolling: Harass The Homeless For Their Own Good!: Gothamist

Muslims to be banned from Ibrahimi mosque for six days due to Jewish celebrations | PNN

Israeli Occupation Authorities on Tuesday have announced that they will close the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s old city for the Muslim worshipers, for six days during September, under the pretext of Jewish occasions.Head of the mosque, Munther Abul-Feelat in a press release said that Israeli authorities decided to close down the mosque for 14, 15, 17, 23, 29 and 30 September, for Jewish celebrations, where only settlers will be allowed to enter it.Abul-Feelat added that IOF prevented calling the Adaan (call for prayers) for 51 times during August.The mosque is regularly closed down by Israeli forces under the same pretext, but Jewish settlers are given full privilege to break into the mosque whenever desired.IOF set checkpoints on the entrances of the mosque and worshipers are fully inspected on the gates.

Source: Muslims to be banned from Ibrahimi mosque for six days due to Jewish celebrations | PNN

Gulf Monarchies Bristle at Criticism Over Response to Syrian Refugee Crisis – The New York Times

“We know that the Gulf could take in Syrian refugees, but they have never responded,” said Omar Hariri, a Syrian who had recently fled Turkey on an inflatable raft with his wife and 2-year-old daughter.Speaking by phone from Athens, he said he saw hope in Europe, not in the Gulf.“They have helped the rebels, not the refugees,” Mr. Hariri said.This week, the Kuwaiti commentator Fahad Alshelaimi said in a TV interview that his country was too expensive for refugees, but appropriate for laborers.

Source: Gulf Monarchies Bristle at Criticism Over Response to Syrian Refugee Crisis – The New York Times

Insane Things Republicans Say: Ted Cruz Edition – The New York Times

Donald Trump is so outrageous and noisy that it’s easy to forget about Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. So we Googled him this morning and we were rewarded.Here is what he said on Thursday about Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who went to jail for contempt of court after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples:“Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.”He’s right. That’s not America – in the real country, as opposed to his fictional version, Ms. Davis was not arrested for living according to her faith. She was arrested for using her government power to impose her religious beliefs on others. A conservative should be furious at her for violating the First Amendment.But no — Mr. Cruz said: “I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.”Leaving aside the interesting phrase “lawless court opinion,” when did the Obama administration try to compel anyone to make that choice? Certainly not in the case of Ms. Davis, who was directly flouting a ruling by the Supreme Court. Mr. Obama had nothing to do with it.

Source: Insane Things Republicans Say: Ted Cruz Edition – The New York Times

80,000 Brits want Netanyahu arrested, petition

PNN/ Bethlehem/

More than 80,000 people in the UK until the moment have signed the petition calling for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes against Palestinians during official visit to Britain in September.

The petition aims to reach 100,000 signatures within the deadline February 7, 2016.
After 10,000 signatures, the British government must respond to the petition, and after 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in the parliament.

The online petition, uploaded on August 7 to the UK parliament’s official website, demands the apprehension of Netanyahu for the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians during the Israeli military’s 51-day military aggression against the Gaza Strip last year. The petition has garnered 60,454 signatures as of Sunday morning.

The petition reads:

“Under international law, [Netanyahu] should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2,000 civilians in 2014.”

The Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs said in a statement said that the petition has “no real meaning,” adding, “Bilateral ties between Britain and Israel are closer than ever before.”

Israel unleashed its military onslaught on the Gaza Strip in early July 2014. The offensive ended on August 26, 2014, with a truce that went into effect following indirect negotiations between representatives from Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and Israeli regime in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, lost their lives in Israel’s war. Over 11,100 others – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people – also sustained injuries.

via 80,000 Brits want Netanyahu arrested, petition.

Jeb Bush Visita la Frontera – The New York Times

It may be time to offer this forlorn candidate some free advice. Although if he really is the smarter Bush, he knows these things already:

1. He should never let himself say the words “anchor babies” ever again. He got in trouble for using that derogatory reference to the children of unauthorized immigrants in passing, in an interview, then dug himself a hole by defending his use of it. On Monday, he dug deeper. He tried to explain that he had been talking about “Asian people” who arrive on tourist visas through organized schemes to give birth to American babies on American soil.

Though the phenomenon is real, Mr. Bush was blasted by Asian-American groups for repeating the slur. And, astoundingly, he handed Mr. Trump the opportunity to send out tweets like this: “In a clumsy move to get out of his ‘anchor babies’ dilemma, where he signed that he would not use the term and now uses it, he blamed ASIANS.”

It was such an unnecessary battle to wade into — maternity tourism is not what Mr. Trump and his enablers on the restrictionist right are talking about. When they say “anchor babies,” they are talking about the browning of America, with its growing Latino population, and recasting it as a sinister plot by child-rearing Mexicans. They want to upend the 14thAmendment, and the country’s family-based immigration laws, to keep the population as white as can be. Maternity tourism by middle-class foreigners is a separate, much smaller issue; changing the Constitution to stop it, as one immigrant rights advocate once put it, is like killing a fly with an Uzi.

via Jeb Bush Visita la Frontera – The New York Times.

New immigration bill to make Britain ‘hostile environment’ for some migrants

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Amid rising migrant figures, the UK has announced harsher measures aimed at curbing the trend. But some critics say the government is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Samira Shackle reports from London.

via New immigration bill to make Britain ‘hostile environment’ for some migrants.

Desparate and drowning for attention: Jeb Bush says Planned Parenthood shouldn’t get a penny

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush continued his attack on Planned Parenthood on Tuesday during a town hall in Colorado, saying the women’s health organization shouldn’t get “a penny” because “they’re not doing women’s health issues” and that they were involved in something “way different than that.”

I’ll go ahead and assume that the “way different” thing Bush thinks somehow doesn’t qualify as a “women’s health issue” is the 300,000 abortions Planned Parenthood provides each year — no matter that insignificant organizations like, oh I dunno, the World Health Organization define access to safe abortion as a human right and public health imperative. That still leaves him on the hook for explaining why the 400,000 Pap tests and 500,000 breast exams provided annually by the organization don’t count as health care. There are also 4.5 million people who got STD tests and treatments and 3.7 million who got contraception services at Planned Parenthood last year who might be surprised to find out this wasn’t health care they were receiving.

via Quote of the Day: Jeb Bush says Planned Parenthood shouldn’t get a penny.