Good call, I'll do that in the future from now on when linking something from Democracy Now. I usually watch their stuff on Youtube in the background to the point I forget that they have a website 🤪
I partially agree with you, in that if that money could be used to help other countries that would at least be providing value to the world. Unfortunately I don't believe it's being used that way in this case. Money going to Israel is being used to massacre Palestinian civilians en masse (culminating in what is very likely, and I consider, a genocide), and money going to Ukraine is going to prolong a conflict that the USA has been explicitly preventing from reaching any potential diplomatic resolution. Yes, it would be ideal if Russia pulled out of Ukraine and left them alone but Russia won't do that when it holds the best cards and the best chance for that was earlier in the war when Ukraine had lots of military funding that wasn't being diverted to the Gaza Genocide and most of its troops and fighting-age population weren't crippled or dead.
A UN expert today expressed concern that the possible extradition and imminent prosecution in the United States of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could have serious implications for freedom of expression.
I read that as churches working their hardest to get new converts, assuming that if they're unaffiliated that they're essentially religious free agents, which isn't how it works but bless their little hearts for trying.
For starters, the democracy that permits a candidate like Trump to end it is perhaps a democracy worth ending, especially if it's a democracy that provides so poorly for its people that they genuinely believe he's worth electing.
Second, I think it's hyperbolic. Even with Jan. 6th, he still came nowhere near the coup that mainstream media made it out to be. The people who entered the capitol weren't hardened rebels or dissidents. There were a few with some means mixed in, but by and large they behaved like tourists, with some acting as vandals, and largely incited (read "entrapped") and monitored by the FBI. This also isn't out of character for the FBI, as it had plenty of Muslims they entrapped in the years following 9/11, including one man who was intellectually disabled.
Third and lastly, obviously the Democratic party doesn't think this is a big emergency, since they've had virtually no reaction to polls indicating Biden's flailing numbers. If they thought this was an emergency then they might do something like encourage primary candidates or for him to step down. If they're so confident Trump isn't getting reelected, then I am too.
In all likelihood, Israel already has nukes so that's pretty much a non-issue. Trump would likely give Israel just as much or more support (the only confounding factor is that he's extremely cheap but US money isn't his own money so this may not be a factor), but when a genocide is occurring and both candidates are pursuing a course of complicity, degrees of complicity approach meaninglessness. Your best bet is to reshuffle the deck in order to get a candidate who won't support genocide. Biden should be primaried, but the DNC functionaries likely won't permit this in practice (of course in theory the primary will proceed, just without party support or acknowledgement), so the sooner he's out of office the sooner he can be replaced by someone who might not be comfortable with complicity in a genocide.
Part of the problem is the lack of distinction between Zionism and Judaism, and even after that the distinction between forms and levels of Zionism. For instance there's been a lot of Orthodox Jews in and outside of Israel who protest against this conflict for varying reasons, most on a genuine moral basis though some for more mundane religious reasons. This isn't even to mention all the Jewish leftists who protest against the conflict as well solely on humanitarian grounds.
Unfortunately what doesn't get covered by the Neoliberal and Corporate (read: Moderate Fascist) media is all the suppression of these protests, especially within Israel by the Fascist Likud party-led government. Haaretz will occasionally do some real reporting and cover this kind of stuff from inside Israel but most Israeli left voices are strongly suppressed within Israel itself, and leftist parties are pushed to the margins of the Knesset. Because of this marginalization, the loudest anti-war Jewish voices come from outside Israel itself, where they have no direct influence over it, but at least are less likely to be jailed for their protests.
To be fair, it's a short Wikipedia article that really only glosses over the concept, but there's lots of other articles on it online, including if I remember correctly a Psychology Today article.
Good call, I'll do that in the future from now on when linking something from Democracy Now. I usually watch their stuff on Youtube in the background to the point I forget that they have a website 🤪
Democracy Now article link