Tense news

I’m still working with iffy internet so I’m going to have to do some other “things” to try to fix it. But in the meantime, let’s see if I can get this post to stick.

So…I’m catching up on the news, which may be a mistake, because it feels like we have entered a period of really intense events that has people on edge.

Summer is coming

And along with it the severe climate warmer weather brings. So, heat waves, flooding, tornados, fires and for me, the threat of hurricanes. The weather people have said that the season will be elevated and Texas is projected to see “explosive activity”. We had the heat dome last year which ended up cracking a lot of foundations. Will we have it again this year, and then laying hurricanes over it?

I hope not.

Ukraine-Russian war

Yes, this is still continuing.

The situation has turned south due to running out of ammunitions and some people in the US no longer want to aid them.

Those opposing “say” that we should first take care of the border.

Except, last fall there was a bill that came out of some committee headed by a staunch hardline conservative that had everything the hardline conservatives wanted. It was the best bill ever that the border advocates wanted. Democrats, in order to get aid to Ukraine, decided to give the bill to the hardliners because getting aid to Ukraine was very important. And the hardliners said, “nope”.

Based upon that result, I would say the border is really not that important to them.

They (MTG and her ilk) keep braying fund the border first before giving aid to Ukraine.

Fortunately, it looks like the aid bill will pass through the Senate and the President’s desk this week, only because the Speaker of the House realizes the grave position Ukraine now is in. He realizes that if Ukraine falls, other European countries could face the same fate and Europe would be swept aside. The more the countries fall in Europe, the weaker Europe becomes.

And the closer the enemies would be at US footstep. We would no longer have allies to aid us in defending against the Russians (and possibly China and Iran).

Plus, the Speaker’s son is about to join the military.

For now, it appears aid will be forthcoming but I (and Europe) do not know for how much longer.

Abortion wars

I think these abortion wars are going to extend beyond just abortion.

We already have pregnant women unable to travel. Young girls appear to be forced to carry their fetus to term, even if they are 11 years old. Some women with non-viable fetuses run the risk of dying because doctors won’t take a chance on them. We already have the question of IVF which is leading to the shutdown of IVF services. I just recently read of a case where a pregnant woman went to emergency care and they denied her care, so she miscarried in the lobby of the center, again the doctors could not run the risk of being charged with crime.

There is talk about criminalizing the use of contraceptives, doing away with same sex marriages, and who knows what other laws. So, abortion will be a battle because it will be a proxy for all other battles.

I am surprised that in very red states, the people have voted to keep abortion on their books, i.e., they want their abortion. That’s shocking! For years they have supported politicians who were against abortion and were “pro-life” and now they want to keep Roe vs Wade intact. So, this is the case of the dog catching the car and not knowing what to do with it.

This topic is soooo contentious that it could make the elections very ugly.

Israel-Hamas war

Oh boy, is this one ugly.

Students at elite colleges are protesting and sometimes are displaying violence towards the Jews, which totally lessens the power of their argument. The students’ mistake is not condemning the Hamas; instead, some expressed support for the Hamas which is mind-boggling. They don’t want violence visited on the Gazans, but they are in favor of what the Hamas did to the Israelis? I say “they” but it could be just some of the students. Unfortunately, the few is creating a bad halo effect on all protesting students, so they all look like they support the Hamas.

They have a right to protest but they don’t have a right to block roads. Blocking roads could lead to ambulances or police or firemen being unable to get to where they need to go to save lives. Protest but don’t block the roads.

Also, don’t advocate violence towards the Jews; otherwise, you would be no better than the Israelis raining bombs down on the Gazans.

I’m conflicted on what the Israelis are doing. Yes, they should be able to defend themselves and I totally agree with obliterating the Hamas and destroying the infrastructure. However, the number of citizens killed feels too high. It feels like indiscriminate bombing or killing.

I once saw a video where a bomb was dropped and a whole block fell (or at least it looked like a whole block) rather than just one building. And then I would read an article about a strategic targeted attack on a Hezbollah military guy that just impacted where he was and left the whole building intact. So that article left me with the impression that the targeted killing could leave the surrounding areas intact without killing a whole bunch of innocent bystanders.

So why doesn’t Israel apply the same tactics in Gaza? I’m struggling with that.

When I think about how one would go about destroying the terroristic infrastructure, which is essentially the tunnels, I see where the problems arise. It kind of does feel like one have to enter Gaza and do some real damage to the infrastructure aboveground to get at the underground infrastructure.

And on top of that, getting rid of the weaponry in the Gaza. Based on news stories, it sound like just about every house contain weaponry, so houses have to be invaded and pulled apart to destroy the weapons.

I see the dilemma the Israelis are put in, and I blame Hamas 100% for putting their people in the way. The Hamas’ tactics are devious but also evil, just devoid of caring humanity. Which is why I’m all for obliterating them because they have shown what kind of people they are.

But the number of dead Palestinians feels too high.

This is another topic that will make elections very ugly this year. I wish the students would say, “yes, what the Hamas are doing is evil and we do not support it”, but they are not. Instead, they are saying, “if Biden does not stop supporting Israel or condemning the killing, then we won’t support Biden” – something like that. I’m grossly paraphrasing.

The problem is, who are they going to vote? Voting RFK Jr is just throwing the election to Trump and Trump will give the Israelis carte blanche to do what they feel they need to do in Gaza (basically go hardcore after the Hamas without consideration of the citizens). The situation becomes more dire if the election swing to the Republicans. The students will lose more under the Republican regime than they would under the Democrats. Under the Republicans, they could be “thrown off the bridge” when protesting. In short, they may die. At least with Biden, he will listen to what they are saying and he has sort of moved in the direction of protesting the killing of the Palestinians. He has moved.

Another really contentious issue that we have to wrestle with this year.

The trials

Oh boy, these are really cliffhangers for a lot of people.

The talk about the trials is really tense-filled. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if any conviction will sway anybody. It kind of feels it won’t.

But these trials are another source of stress for everybody as we wait to see the results. It looks like one of the four will be finished before the start of summer. The others, I’m not so sure, since some of the courts, appellate and Supreme, seem to want to drag their feet and use wishy-washy ways of getting out of actually making a judgment.

The election

Yeah, this is the election year and I’m not looking forward to it. Already, there appears to be charges of voter suppression through voter rolls cleaning, voter challenges, voter intimidation, and possibly other nefarious techniques.

I do worry that violence could break out and that is why the election is so tense-filled.

And the dire warnings that this could be the last election. He has already said that he will be a dictator on the first day, but you know that it won’t be just one day. He’ll extend it to permanency; hence, the dire warnings filling the airwaves.

We probably also will face fake news, misinformation and disinformation from bad actors, whether internal or external. And then there is the AI spreading hard to detect false information.

AI threat

As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, AI could spread fake news and throw the election in the wrong direction. But there are other AI impacts that are now showing up.

Hackers using AI to do cyberattacks. Or malicious developers using AI to “undress” people and defame them.

Or companies using AI to replace their people because it is deemed to be more cost-efficient so “hello, unemployment”.

I will probably have to do a post on this topic because quite a lot of news have come out about AI and jobs.

Concluding this post

All of these factors are why I’m dreading the remainder of the year. I will probably agitate again about how stressful everything is, especially as we get closer to the election day.

2024 is going to turn out to be a hell of a year.