This is what a second trump term would look like. He'd just fire anyone he wants and make whoever acting director. He has a rigged Supreme court now. It just blows my mind that there's even a chance trump can become president. How can anyone vote for him after 1/6 absolutely blows my mind. We're so pathetic of a nation to allow someone like trump to be treated as a normal human.
Get rid of the geriatrics and get someone who actually represents America....like Obama. It's not that hard of a concept.
No thanks. Not sure if you're trolling but I speak out agaisnt Obama all the time. Trump for God's sakes had better trade views than Obama. Who cares about someone age rather than policy? Biden is the oldest president yet he's the most pro anti trust and pro industrial policy ever. His trade policies are hands down the best we've had as a country. He's accomplished more than any of the previous presidents this century
Insanity. There is nothing normal about a sociopath and pathological liar like Trump. That alone makes him incapable of serving the people. Corruption lingers around every self-serving move he makes. It's calculated and dangerous.
We also need to keep in mind that what we’re seeing in Israel could and has been attempted here in the US. In several states we’re seeing laws that would give the legislature more poser than the judiciary. There is a pending case in the USSC they would essentially remove the power of state courts in regard to elections but leave it to legislatures.
I get the feeling that Bibi completely misread his mandate. He leads an ostensibly secular and right wing political party that is supposed to be the moderating influence in the right wing religious coalition. He's doing the judicial reform to protect himself from criminal charges but the religious parties get so much more out of this. They get to steamroll the last institution that prevents the coalition from basically enshrining the privileges of the Haredi over the secular population. But Bibi's own party is still culturally tied to the secular Israel community. And I think a lot of voters who vote for Bibi because he might be strong on national security or for his economic policy can't get behind letting the religious right do whatever they want. To give an example, Israeli law still doesn't allow civil marriage. Interfaith marriage can't be performed in Israel. Marriage can only be performed by the religious institutions that a person is part of. And only certain institutions are recognized. Today Israelis that want a civil marriage have to perform it outside of Israel. But the right to even have this marriage recognized was not established by the Knesset. The Supreme Court actually overrode the Knesset and ruled that the Basic Law guaranteed the right of all marriages performed outside of Israel (regardless of faith) to be recognized by the state. This was later extended to same sex marriages. Other protections around child marriage, marital rape etc.. have all been established by the courts rather than the Knesset. The Supreme Court has also been instrumental in striking down laws on things like housing discrimination and land expropriation from Palestinians. Also historically only converts performed by Orthodox synogouges were recognized and given the right of return. The Supreme Court struck down this restriction and ruled that conversions from any recognized body (Orthodox, Conservative or Reform) must be recognized by the state. In short, if the court is conquered by the religious right, all of this is at risk. Netanyahu is simply doing this for selfish reasons but the Haredi parties are the big winners if this happens. They can more or less tear apart a lot of the basic rights that the courts have established.
Looks like the general strike has started. All the unions are participating. The airport is shutdown, only emergency services at hospitals are functioning, malls, schools, and most workplaces are all closed. Most businesses have already agreed to pay striking workers. Transportation is the only functioning service because the transport union wants to ferry protestors to protest sites. I think Netanyahu screwed up here and I suspect he'll at least temporarily back off. This won't be the end of the story because he's clearly committed to these "reforms" but it does send a strong message.
Is the Knesset not a representative body representing the will of the Israeli people? Why do the Israeli people have a representative body so opposed to progressive policies if the Israeli people seem to generally favor such policies?
I agree that he misread the situation, but he made his bed with an increasingly radical coalition who demanded this. As you said, the Haredi get a lot more out of this proposed change than anyone else and they're Bibi's power brokers now. Nobody else would partner with him to form a new government and the margin is only four seats so he's beholden to what they want to get what he wants: power.
Because there's a massive population imbalance. When the state of Israel was created, the Haredi community was quite small and the country was overwhelmingly secular (primarily Ashkenazi immigrants from Europe and North America). Today, almost all internal population growth comes from the Haredi community. The birth rates among the secular population resemble the birth rates of Western Europe while the Haredi families are still having large numbers of children. The other group having large population growth is the Arab-Israeli population. Additionally, there isn't very much immigration from Western Europe and North America anymore. The secular base that created the country are still a majority but its a dwindling one. The other thing to note is that Israel uses a straight proportional representation system. And the Israeli center left tends to vote split among multiple parties (leading to some parties failing to hit the threshold). Also the Arab Israelis have lousy turnout so they also underperform in elections. Meanwhile, the Haredi always show up to vote and Likud is really the only center right/right secular party so they basically don't have to deal with vote splitting like the left does. The protests were largely inevitable. This open fight between the secular and the Haredi communities was going to happen at some point but Bibi sped up the timeline with the judicial reforms.
Yes but his coalition has limits. His party composition doesn't actually fit with the Haredi community. The average Likud voter has more in common with the protestors than the Haredi. I'm willing to bet many of his voters were fine with judicial reform to protect Netanyahu from criminal charges but once people figured out how many freedoms and rights are a result of the courts stopping past governments, there was a change of heart. Doesn't mean that judicial reform won't happen but he really does risk fracturing the secular right wing with this stuff.
Dude youtube has bombarded me with all these Israel ads @Os Trigonum @Jontro @Reeko Does this mean hot black women in bikinis are waiting for you in Israel?
I've watched/listened to this DJ set several times. It's in Israel (maybe Tel Aviv). Having never been there, and never really thought about it as a destination, I was struck by a few things: Lots of chain smokers More tattoos than expected Lots of pretty women (and some fugly ones too)
