Chit Chat

By Ted Belman

From now on comments on every post must relate to the content of the post.

Comments that don’t relate to the post must go here.

Any person who contravenes this demand will be put on moderation. Also their offending comment will be trashed.

The reason for this demand is so that people who want to read comments which pertain to the post, don’t have to wade through the chatter.

Everyone will be happier.

April 16, 2020 | 7,781 Comments »

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50 Comments / 7781 Comments

  1. Mikey-
    Hi yourself -if you don’t know the normal salutation of “hello”.

    Please don’t bother sending me Wiki crap, I never look at it whatever it is. Probably some self written validation of your recent nonsense. I never heard of Freddie Baldwin, don’t want to know him anyway. Maybe another “Jesus Freak” like yourself.

  2. Romanian Parliament Declares Israel’s Independence Day a National Holiday
    By David Israel – 11 Adar II 5784 – March 21, 2024 0

    https://www.jewishpress.com/news/global/europe/eastern-europe/romanian-parliament-declares-israels-independence-day-a-national-holiday/2024/03/21/

    Pro-Israel NATO official is Romania’s leading presidential candidate
    NATO Deputy Secretary-General, Mircea Geoana, is the leading candidate for president of Romania in next year’s elections. Geoana has strong ties with Israel and a Jewish-American son-in-law.

    By ZVIKA KLEIN
    NOVEMBER 30, 2023 18:19

    https://www.jpost.com/international/article-775931

  3. Blackrock gets to feel the pinch:

    The Texas Permanent School Fund (PSF) opted on Tuesday to terminate an $8.5 billion investment with BlackRock Inc., with one official citing the financial asset manager’s support of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) proposals.

    State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey said in a statement that PSF’s “relationship with BlackRock was not in compliance” with legislation enacted in 2021 that “prohibits state investment in companies like BlackRock that boycott energy companies.”

    PSF “has a fiduciary duty to protect Texas schools by safeguarding and growing the approximately $1 billion in annual oil and gas royalties managed by the Texas General Land Office,” Kinsey said, adding that terminating BlackRock’s contract “ensures PSF’s full compliance with Texas law.”

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-schools-fund-moves-to-pull-8-5-billion-contract-with-blackrock

    This is major news. Between them, Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street essentially control the world, using money saved away by American workers. It’s no small matter, for those workers to stand up to this abuse. Texas is doing it.

  4. Just saw a wonderful Holocaust film, “One Life,” about Nicholas Winton. I cried. I really have no interest in seeing, ” Zone of interest.”

  5. Good Shabbos, Peloni

    Being a goy, of course, I have my own ideas about what it is to “rest” than observant Jews do. For me, just being able to post messages while you’re not posting back, is “restful” enough. So now, I will take a deep, restful breath and go at it.

    I will start with the matter of biased media, a subject we’re apparently on different pages about. You seem to have an intense hatred of the British media, British Intelligence and all things British. So does Putin, of course, and so did Hitler.

    It is true, that the British people, from the PM to the street urchins, have a characteristic set of biases. Americans have theirs as well, Bidenites have theirs, Vladimir Putin has his, the Russian people keep theirs to themselves as do the Chinese people, and the Communist Chinese leaders, which is to say, the person of Xi Jinping, have theirs. Here is an example of the latter, from this morning’s headline:

    China: Biden, Trump Nominations Show American Democracy Has ‘Failed’
    Frances Martel 14 Mar 2024
    https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2024/03/14/china-biden-trump-nominations-show-american-democracy-failed/

    “China’s state-run Global Times newspaper predictably observed the occasion of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump formally cementing the nominations to their respective parties on Wednesday by lamenting that both are “unpopular” candidates and proof that American democracy has “failed to express or address issues of public concern.””

    There you have it, the “truth”, according to the chief news organ of the second-largest country on earth. Is it biased? Yes, but no more than Michael S and Peloni are biased. Xi Jinping has his opinion, and we have ours: the British, meanwhile, have theirs, and Denys Davydov has his own.

    Of course, Xi seems to believe that overwhelmingly winning a string of primary elections in the US proves that a candidate is “unpopular”. Whatever one’s bias is, we all reserve our own opinions as to whether that is “truthful” or not. Like Trump and like Xi, your “friend of Israel”, Vladimir Putin is also in the process of being elected by the Russian People. The foregone conclusion is that he will win handily, surpassing all surviving competitors by incredible margins. The Putin Press will laud this as a great victory; the Moscow Times (which is the voice of the Opposition) will have a somewhat different opinion, the Chinese and British will have their own, Denys will have his Biden and the Americans will each have theirs, and you and I will have our own.

    So, we’re all biased — and all strongly biased, I might add. We all, also, differ in our respective freedom to express our bias. In this, I truly erred, in bringing up the matter. For the sake of clarity, what I wanted to convey was the fact that Denys Davydov tends to post observations that are his own, as an observer who closely follows the events he is reporting on; and that he doesn’t parrot the opinions of MI5, of Victoria Nuland or of Adolf Hitler.

    The upshot of all this, is that one ought to be able to take what Denys says in it’s own right.

  6. I think it’s interesting, about Bob Dylan. All this talking AT one another that I’ve seen here and elsewhere, but nobody listening. I remembered it from Bob’s song, but had to look it up to see the context. Here it is:

    Dylan’s fear of a nuclear apocalypse during the Cuban Missle Crisis inspired the writing of this song:

    Every line in it is actually the start of a whole song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn’t have enough time alive to write all those songs, so I put all I could into this one.”

    https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-lyrics

    Every line is a separate song, so there IS no context; except that all the lines are connected by the looming cloud of a nuclear war.

    That’s what we’re looking at today. Denys mentioned Emmanuel Macron, and showdown with Vladimir Putin. Vlad is so full of himself, he doesn’t realize that other leaders beside himself need to be taken seriously. Let’s see how just France matches up to Russia (and remember, France is just one of several powerful countries in NATO):

    Russia:
    Population: 144,444,359
    Gross domestic product: US$ 2.240 trillion (2022)
    Nuclear weapons:1,674 deployed

    France:
    Population: 64,756,584
    Gross domestic product: US$ 2.779 trillion (2022)
    Nuclear weapons: 280 deployed

    Considering that 280 nukes are enough to destroy Russia’s main manufacturing and population centers, Putin ought to take Macron seriously. and make some serious moves toward standing down. If not, I think we will have enough material for Bob Dylan to write another song.

  7. Hi, Peloni

    We seem to be having an awfully difficult time communicating. You said,

    No, I said no such thing. I simply agreed with you that Everyone gives a more unbiased picture of the situation in Ukraine than British intelligence

    Go back and check. I said nothing about “everyone” — you were first to comment on them. I compared British Intelligence (which I believe sets the agenda for the Times) with Denys Davydov, not “everyone” After you brought up that completely different subject, I provided you a map showing the state of press freedom of “everyone”.

    I certainly didn’t say “everyone”, or even “a significant part of the world”, was more biased than the mainstream British media — or, for all any of us know, their intelligence services.

    Concerning Russian media, you’re playing your usual shill / ardent sympathizer game. I think you would be apologizing for Vladimir Putin (who effectively IS the source of the Russian press) were he discovered to be the Devil himself. Please don’t waste my time with this. You know my estimation of the man, and I know yours. If you could ever crawl out of that pit you’ve dug for yourself, we might have a fruitful conversation. (Alas!) The map, or one identical to it, is sourced, so far as I know, on Wikipedia; or if you want, you can research another on the subject. I have never seen Russia ranked on the side of press freedom or individual freedom by anyone. Putin is an absolute dictator, and you know this full well.

    BTW, you left Denys completely out of the discussion, when he was obviously the center of it. (You must’ve had something distracting you). Denys, whom by now I hope you can see, is less biased, in general, concerning the war effort than the British, made comments about French President Macron; calling Putin’s bluff, about his attempt to find common ground with Chancellor Scholz, about Medvedev’s ridiculous, absolute demands of the Ukrainians, about his and Putin’s objective of wiping Ukraine completely off the map. All of these are interesting subjects, if readers like you could be open-minded enough to give Denys the time of day.

    “And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
    And what did you hear, my darling young one?
    I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warning
    I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
    I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
    I heard ten-thousand whispering and nobody listening
    I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
    I heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
    I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley

    “[Refrain]
    And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
    It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall”

    https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-lyrics

  8. @Michael

    You DID voice an opinion on that, implying that while British intelligence is engaged in deceiving people …, the Russians and others do not.

    No, I said no such thing. I simply agreed with you that

    Everyone gives a more unbiased picture of the situation in Ukraine than British intelligence

    Notably, those were your words, not mine. I simply agreed with you, as I found it to be a fair statement.

    As to the ranking of Russian media, who did the ranking? In fact, I really could not speak to the validity of such things, but I will note that political show trials were once the hallmark of everything which is wrong with Soviet Russia, which came to be seen in the Yukos trial under Putin as well, even as his motives in manipulating that case were pretty clear. Yet, today, political show trials are well tolerated in the West, and not just in the US, with the complete support of Western media. In fact, there can be no greater betrayal by the Forth Estate than to play the toady of the corrupt leadership with whom they helped defenestrate the values and beliefs upon which the West was founded. So, while you suggest that Russia’s media is ranked the lowest, no doubt by a conglomerate of western opinions, I would bring the subject back to the West, where the media has lost ALL credibility. Of course, this should not be seen as an endorsement of Russian media, for, as I stated above, I really could not speak with any authority on the Russian Fourth Estate, but with regards to the Western Forth Estate, it is a fantastical masked charade, acting in support of the power mongers which fund its existence, in complete defiance of their mandate to seek out corruption and serve the republics which they helped bring to a state of ruin.

  9. Peloni

    What is your opinion of Trump? What is your opinion of the scamdemic? What is your opinion of the toxic shots? What is your opinion of IVM? What is your opinion of the 2020 fraud?

    You didn’t mention any of the above.in your post.

    BTW, did you notice that Russia has one of the worst rankings in the world, for freedom of the press? You DID voice an opinion on that, implying that while British intelligence is engaged in deceiving people (Duh — this is what intelligence agencies do), the Russians and others do not. I disagree with that opinion.

  10. @Michael

    I don’t agree with you on any point

    Really? What is your opinion of Trump? What is your opinion of the scamdemic? What is your opinion of the toxic shots? What is your opinion of IVM? What is your opinion of the 2020 fraud? But have it your own way.

  11. Ted,

    https://www.israpundit.org/chit-chat/comment-page-129/#comment-63356000274100

    The following is exemplary:

    Supreme Court ruling appears to validate ‘unprecedented’ lawfare campaign against Trump

    by WorldTribune Staff, February 20, 2024

    It is “clear to me that one of the goals of lawfare is to deter lawyers from challenging the 2024 election,” attorney Lin Wood said on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court on rejected his appeal of legal sanctions imposed after his alleged participation in contesting the 2020 election in Michigan.

    By rejecting the appeal, the high court left in place a June 2023 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that partially upheld the sanctions against Wood and other lawyers, including Sidney Powell…

    The root crime here, is apparently “challenging the 2020 election” This sort of thing belongs in 1980 Guatemala, under Gen. Fernando Lucas Garcia, not in the US.

  12. Peloni,

    I don’t agree with you on any point, for what it’s worth. An accurate map of World Press Freedom follows:

    https://rsf.org/en/index

    I mentioned Davyd, because he tends to quite freely take an independent stance in his reporting, to maintain a degree of objectivity. Of course, with a war going on, he is reined in to some extent . The main constraint on him seems to be YouTube.

    By “British Intelligence”, I refer mostly to The Times, although all British outlets, including Reuters, the BBC and the Guardian, have biases, as does media everywhere. Even so, if one wants to ascertain British public policy, for instance, these are go-to places. Case in point: an interview with the former British ambassador to Moscow:

    https://youtu.be/sPCb0ZrODHk

  13. @Michael

    I notice that Davyd Davydov gives a more unbiased picture of the situation in Ukraine than, say, British intelligence.

    Everyone gives a more unbiased picture of the situation in Ukraine than British intelligence, which is clearly a named as such to deceive people into believing that there is anything intelligent about the British MI6.

  14. @Michael Yes, and he was also great in “The Amazing Mrs. Maisel” (2017-2023) and “Quick Change” (1990) in which he plays a taxi driver. I wonder if he was influenced, as an actor, by Andy Kaufman, who played a taxi driver in the tv series “Taxi” (1978).

    But, the writing in “Monk” is also brilliant. In one episode in which he is investigating a murder in a circus, “Mr. Monk goes to the circus” (2003), he oberves that a circus performer must have not admitted she was a witness because she was waiting to take her citizenship exam and didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

    When she asks how he could possible have deduced that, he says that she has a copy of the U.S. Constitution half sticking out of her purse, which the camera, shows, and no U.S. citizen would ever study the U.S. constitution. 😀

  15. @Michael

    “Now, isn’t this a quandry? In one breath, the man despises Wikipedia, and in the next he lauds a book commended by them!”

    I’m guessing he’d say, “even a stopped clock is right twice a day” though I also respect Wikipedia but no encyclopedia is perfect and I also respect his scholarship and his corrections even if he can be snotty about it, at times. I’m really a novice in this area but one thing jumped out at me from what you said.

    I thought Chresto was just the name of an American toothpaste, yaknow? transliterated into Hebrew with the gargling sound in the back of the throat – like the Krauts and the French, and one Korean word, I’ve notice, also have – by way of prefix. (Foreigners are so strange, aren’t they? Oh well, when in Rome. Thank God for English Subtitles.)

    I am also reminded of this funny article concerning a recent case between Heinz, which is owned by John Kerry’s wife, and an Israeli Ketchup company that didn’t want Heinz to be able to call it Ketchup in Hebrew because there’s almost no tomato in it.

    But, I mean, why would you want there to be any tomato in ketchup? Yuk. You wouldn’t be able to leave it out for months without it going bad! Reagan was smart, anyway. In the debate over school lunches he told us that Ketchup is a vegetable. And he shoulda’s known. He was old enough to have known Suetonius!

    Gosh, that exhausted me. I have to go take a little break and enjoy myself. Back to Netflix. I’m re-watching, “Monk” (2002-9). I never realized how hilarious it is. The series came to an end pretty much around the time that Hollywood became boring and East Asian, mostly Korean dramas picked up the ball we dropped and have been running with it ever since. Perhaps, not coincidentally, the year Obama took office.

    There really should be a course called, “American products in Ancient Rome.” I mean, I don’t remember learning much in school about any other country, so it would be a nice segue into widening that a bit, wouldn’t it? And of, course, they couldn’t mention slavery in Ancient Rome because that might confuse students and lead them to question the fact that American Exceptionalism means that we invented slavery and that that pretty much sums up our history. And that wouldn’t be good.

  16. ANYONE-

    Any news about Trump’s choice for Vice P. I’ve seen all the lists , just want to know if anything more definite has emerged.

    They all seem flawed and even some at one time Anti-Trumpers,
    I’d pick a black or minority skilled politician, male of female. If female
    the trump rape stories will proliferate, but no denying a female would be an advantage. 51% of the voters are women.

  17. That Michael crapper can’t stop twisting. He must be like a havdalah candle by now.

    Accorsing to the “gospels” the mythical jesus was not a man.
    Therefore the most talked about man in History was Napoleon Bonaparte hands down.

    As for Zeitlin and Wiki, I have no control over what they write. When it comes to tchnical and professional data like as with Zeitlin, who was world famous, they can and do get it right as they are repeating what the experts have said.

    I am not disputing this, but twister MS is trying to make a full set of clothes from a few scraps of rags, the latter being his intellect and thoughts issuing from his by now long addled (hashsish, mary-jane, cocaine, Amanita Muscaria???) thinking processes, such as they are

    Religious lunatics always deteriorate, never get back on an even keel..

  18. Hi, Sebastien.

    Zeitlin, which Edgar was kind enough to recommend and whose author Wikipedia describes as “the world’s leading authority,

    Let’s see… Put that together with,

    Edgar hates and despises Wikipedia…. That one was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

    Now, isn’t this a quandry? In one breath, the man despises Wikipedia, and in the next he lauds a book commended by them! Let’s be honest: Edgar agrees with those who agree with him, but despises those who don’t; and often the same source is cast into completely opposite lights, depending on Edgar‘s preconceived notions.

    This, in itself, is not a grave sin, and I haven’t called the man on it until now; but let’s call a spade a spade.

    It was Edgar, who first brought up this recent spate of argumentativeness, and I have not been eager to engage in it. His doctrine, all the time I’ve known him, has been of beginning with the thesis of the supposed “fact” that the most talked-about man of history never existed. Does he have a right to such a doctrine? Of course! But then, he doesn’t have an inherent right to insist that I agree with it.

    Edgar bases his fantasy on timelines of his own invention. When he gave a sloppy treatment of the dates and ages of Jesus (of whom he denies the existence) and John, I supplied the correct dates — correct according to the New Testament, of course, which has been widely distributed since ancient times. cf the books of Clement, Ignatius, Barnabus and the Didache, which were roughly contemporary (based on internal evidence) with the Revelation of John; the Dialog of Justin Martyr with Trypho, which was roughly contemporary with the messianic Bar Kochba Revolt, and of course, the secular works of Josephus and Suetonius.

    Concerning Suetonius, let’s again quote the ubiquitous Wikipedia:

    The Roman historian Suetonius (c. AD 69 – c. AD 122) mentions early Christians and may refer to Jesus Christ in his work Lives of the Twelve Caesars.[1][2][3] One passage in the biography of the Emperor Claudius Divus Claudius 25, refers to agitations in the Roman Jewish community and the expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius during his reign (AD 41 to AD 54), which may be the expulsion mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (18:2). In this context “Chresto” is mentioned. Some scholars see this as a likely reference to Jesus, while others see it as referring to another person living in Rome, of whom we have no information.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians

    Notice that it’s EDGAR‘s position, that Chresto was not Christ, which is completely without basis.

    What this all boils down to, is an argument foisted on me by a hot-headed, dogmatic diehard. It isn’t the first I’ve encountered, and it probably won’t be the last.

    cf. https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2018/08/military_and_religious_life_in_the_middle_ages_and_at_the_period_of_the_renaissance_1870_14784757102-516×640.jpg

    Caption: “Chrestos worships his god”

  19. Seb-

    Michael our resident Christian lunatic doesn’t seem to know that Wiki can be written even by a liar like HIM. It says very little for his intellect to have cribbed word for word from Wiki. I happen to have Suetonius and read it several times. Although he wandered a bit-which historian doesn’t- He had all the Imperial records to get his info from, as well as people who’d actually lived in much of the times of which he was writing.
    So I tend to believe him.

    Of course he was writing post facto and during the time of Hadrian, a different dynasty, who may not have been fond of the Caesars, ,and which might have coloured his tales a bit…That’s to be expected.

  20. @Michael [to Edgar]

    Concerning Suetonius, I have directly quoted Wikipedia — word for word, and in context. Is that a lie?

    😀

    Edgar hates and despises Wikipedia, Michael. I guess you missed those exchanges. That one was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

    But, good news. All three volumes of “The Rise and Fall of the Judean State” by Solomon Zeitlin, which Edgar was kind enough to recommend and whose author Wikipedia describes as “the world’s leading authority, in his time, on the second commonwealth also known as the 2nd Temple Period,” have finally arrived and when I manage to get through them (let’s see I’m at page 108 in volume 2 and xvii in vol 3, and they are each about 400 pages long) I will know all. See in you in 20 years or so. 😀

    Though I must say, I had a dream about Suetonius, last night, I met him at a party, and he said he didn’t remember either of you!

    So sue me! 😀

  21. Michael-

    It is useless to debate you as you are not honest, an attribute noticed and commented on by several other prominent posters.

    so I need say no more than that you are again obfuscating positive historical facts which disagree with your total reliance on the fabricated NT.

    As one wise Jew said 40X0 is still Zero. Quoting from an undeniably unreliable source seems to be your only fallback.

    This conversation is OVER, I have no more time to waste .threading through your pseudo-innocence of fault, and twisty Christian “innocence”.
    I notice that the 2000 years you mention does not include that every year contained horrible persecution of Jews, inspired by your ludicrous NT. Nor that all the good in those 2000 years came directly from TORAH-although the source was hidden by false claims of the kind sponsored by you and your like..

    And there are your positions in a nutshell. No need for you to act as a rubber wall .

    FINIS…..!

  22. Hi, Ted. You posted a very good message:

    UNBELIEVEABLE.

    Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2023, a day after being ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers who sued him for defamation while he was a lawyer for former President Donald Trump.

    tHIS IS CLEARLY INTENDED TO BE PUNITIVE.

    Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in defamation lawsuit and was fined $355 million for the NYC fraud case.

    Four years ago, this would have been unbelievable. Unfortunately, it is true and VERY believable now. America has been under attack, since before I was born. What is becoming obvious nowadays, is that objective truth itself is under attack — mainline, and full throttle, like a speeding locomotive. I sense that there’s a tressle out up ahead:

    https://youtu.be/yCH-tUmMl7Q

    Truth will prevail: The whole universe is built upon it. Sooner or later, the lies will be spit out.

  23. Edgar, you said,

    MICHAEL-

    Being right up to par, you are fabricating another set of untruths. ANyone with 1 half blind eye can see this without my spelling it out.

    You said it, and it’s ALL you said. Now, before going any further, look at your hand, the one with the finger pointed at me. Notice the three fingers pointing back at you. What you are doing is called “projection”: You are accusing me (out of the blue, actually — I did not provoke this attack, nor ask for it) of what YOU are doing.

    Fabricating? That’s Edgar. You’ve taken the main narrative of Western Civilization, the one upon which our calendar is based, the one which inspired most of Western literature for the past 2000 years, and declared not that it contained errors, but that it DIDN’T EXIST!

    You have created an entire universe out of your personal imaginations. Does that qualify as “fabrication”?

    Untruths? We used to call this “lies”. How have I lied? Concerning the gospel, I have said that it says what it says. Is that a lie? Concerning Suetonius, I have directly quoted Wikipedia — word for word, and in context. Is that a lie? God only knows, what additional past sins you’re trying to dredge up; and speaking of sins, does your personal religion include Edgar sitting on the Great Throne of Judgment? If it does, you are free to believe it: Both Canada and the US presumably allow such things.

    As for “anyone with one half-blind eye”, I dare say that these visually impaired people don’t want to waste their eyes, time and energy watching you spout off with personal attacks that have nothing to do with anything remotely relevant to anything interesting.

    Cheers (please!)

  24. TED-

    That certainly is very possible, But, since the present success against Hamas, which will drive the LIKUD’s ascendency is led by Netanyahu it is more than likely, in my opinion that, assuming he is still leading the Party and not incapacitated by illness, he will be returned again as PM.
    This is only logical. At the same time we have no idea what will eventuate in the US , and even assuming a Trump victory,( not certain because of Democratic Party crookery), who knows if he will rake up his recent animosity towards the PM. Although I believe he is larger than such pettiness on such an important matter.

    If ill or defeated in a leadership vote, of course your inference will be true. He is getting on in years but the US is setting an example with octogenarian leaders. The PM will still be a youngster of 76.

  25. @EDGAR
    Rather than look at the polling of the parties, I prefer to look at the long run. Perhaps in two years when the elections will take place.
    Providing Bibi pursues his right wing policies and achieves Total Victory, the right will form the next government not necessarily with Bibi as PM.

  26. PELONI-
    I totally agree with your puzzlement as re Smotrich. It is not reasonable that Ben G’vir get’s about 10-11 seats and Smotrich, who walks hand in hand with him , gets only 4, and in other polls gets none.

    Even though you quote the most reliable polling Group, I still don’t know why LIKUD gets only 25 instead of about 40,and Gantz gets a whopping 22.. with Lieberman almost doubling the numbers he’s been mired in for many years.
    Gantz, based on hsi performances should not even pass the threshold.

    Your point about Sa’ar bolting is very telling for me also.

  27. There are three kinds of lies, Lies, Damned lies, and Statistics,

    Mark Twain who said he heard it from Benjamin Disraeli.

  28. MICHAEL-

    Being right up to par, you are fabricating another set of untruths. ANyone with 1 half blind eye can see this without my spelling it out.

  29. TED-

    He has been pursuing those policies from the beginning, and also fending off the impossible demands of Biden, yet his numbers have NOT changed one iota…..WHY??

    Also, why tell Peloni, why not include me, as it was I who brought up the issue

  30. UNBELIEVEABLE.

    Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2023, a day after being ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers who sued him for defamation while he was a lawyer for former President Donald Trump.

    tHIS IS CLEARLY INTENDED TO BE PUNITIVE.

    Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million in defamation lawsuit and was fined $355 million for the NYC fraud case.

  31. @Edgar
    You make the case very well for why the polls make no sense at all. In fact, I would argue that if the polls were believably accurate, many in Likud, in particular, would be moving to join Gantz, and instead, we see Sa’ar breaking free of Gantz to stand on his own as he mumbles that he will drop his Never-Bibi stance in the next election. If Gantz were truly that far ahead of the pack, would Sa’ar really have chosen this moment to break from him as he makes concessions to the Right to take him back? I am as flumoxed as you in making this make sense. In any event there is a new poll out from Ch. 14, which Glick recently reported had the most accurate data in the last election. In that poll, Likud was the largest party with 25, but only because Sa’ar, with 6, bolted from Gantz leaving National Unity with 22. Yesh Atid has 12, Shas has 10, Yisreal Beitenu has 9, Otzma Yehudit has 9, Torah Judaism has 8, Raam has 6, Meretz has 5, Religious Zionism has 4, Hadash Tel has 4, and Balad and Labor fail to meet the threshold.

    This poll did not include Bennett, so there is that to consider.

    The poor numbers by Smotrich leave particularly puzzled.

  32. ON a completely different subject.

    Can anyone tell me in simple terms and concisely, WHY LIKUD is constantly doing so poorly in polls cut by 50% and Gantz, a holtzhaker doing so well as are Bennett a traitor and turncoat, and Lapid also a traitor as well as an ignoramus.
    And why Lieberman who for 20 years could never get more that 6-7 seats now polls at nearly double…AND why the Religious Right, would be wiped out.??

    Israeli politics have always been a rather roulette wheel bet, but this seem amazing to me right in the middle of a deadly War that the LIKUD PM is conducting with great success.

  33. FELIX-
    Thank you for that article on Miliale. It was indeed nostalgic and not altogether happy for me to read.

    The mention of Barney Hurwitz brought back memories . I used to visit their home as his wife Ceina, was my beloved mother’s first cousin having grown up together in Cork and resembling her a lot.
    He was the President of the Community for about 25 years and was also a J.P.

    Although the article says it closed in 1948, it must have reopened again some years later, as my nephew, who lives in Dublin was sent there age 16 to learn agricultural work and used to write to me about his pet tractor, which according to him, was almost human. He was there for 2 years, intending to farm in Israel.

    He came out from Dublin to me in Canada for several years and we took a house at Point Roberts, actually in that tiny part of the US that is cut off from the main land mass. He is just verging on 80 years old. still in Dublin; the son of my recently departed sister, at the age of 103. So he’s still a youngster…….!!!!!

  34. @Michael @Edgar Why don’t you ask Biden and you can invite Bibi since Biden seems to think he is curious, too?

    Netanyahu needs a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting with me, says Biden

    various media, I won’t bother to cite specifically.