StephenKMackSD's Blog

Newspaper Reader.

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May 20, 2026

Editor: Can the reader even be surprised by Bret Stephens … what to name it but Zionist Apolgetics, mauled and debased to support a kind of riff on Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, in a key remineient of Benjamin Netanyahu’s murderious onslaught against his neighbors. Bret Stephens as political provacateur that also has a certain kinship with The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde? Or is this just an instance of… or my own detetestation of Stephens, as a ersatz political moralist wallowing in Jewish Victimhood, under the klieg lights of the NYT?

Editor: Stephens intervention is World Historical?

There are powerful reasons to dislike, even despise, Israel’s current leadership: the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who repeatedly puts his political interests ahead of the national one; the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who hung a portrait in his living room of the Jewish mass murderer Baruch Goldstein; radical settlers who, to little apparent pushback from this government, abuse, terrorize and sometimes kill their Palestinian neighbors in the West Bank.

There are also reasons (less persuasive to me, but subject to opinion) to object to the way Israel went to war in Gaza, with its heavy toll in civilian lives and a result that left Hamas in power. The same goes for Israel’s strategy toward Iran, which so far has gotten rid of neither the regime nor its nuclear program. Not least, there’s Israel’s overall approach to the Palestinians, which has resigned itself to a bleak and interminable status quo.

Valid or not, these sorts of objections to Israel are criticism, not hate. It is not a country of saints. As is true of every other country, the United States not least, plenty of sins past and present can be laid at Israel’s door. They include allegations, by Israelis and others, regarding cases of abuse of prisoners in Israeli jails. Those cases should be thoroughly investigated, just as in the United States the 8,628 allegations of staff-committed sexual misconduct victimizing adult inmates tallied in 2020 alone by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics need to be deeply investigated.

Editor: Here is where Stephens actual political self is manifested!

Yet this kind of good-faith criticism of Israeli leaders and policy has for years been giving way to something darker. It’s a hyperbolic and often conspiratorial hatred of the country. It’s a belief that Israelis are perpetually out for the blood of their enemies, even when it comes at the cost of the blood of their friends. It’s the sense that it’s socially acceptable to boycott, assail and sometimes assault Israelis for the supposed sins of their government. It’s a conviction that Israel, alone among the nations, was a mistake to begin with and has no right to exist now.

Editor: It takes patience to cover the Stephens self-assigned mandate thus quotation is an instructive tool!

More broadly, the fashionable frenzy that is today’s loathing of Israel, coming from the far right but especially from the far and not-so-far left, is a sign of the degradation of the West.

…

I’ve been closely covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for over 25 years. It’s given me something of a front-row seat to this degradation.

…

I remember the story of Muhammad al-Durrah, the Palestinian boy who in 2000 became a global icon of Palestinian martyrdom and Israeli perfidy after allegedly being shot dead by Israeli troops — and then James Fallows presented a detailed and dispositive case in The Atlantic that the fatal bullet could not have been Israeli.

…

Editor: The final paragraphs of Stephens diatribe does not mention the on going Gaza Genocide, nor the attacks by Israel on Lebanon that are ongoing!

How is it that hatred of one country can wind up doing more damage to the haters than the hated?

All prejudice, mindless or deliberate, is mind-warping; obsessive prejudice, of the kind Israel disproportionately attracts, is even more so. There are today millions of people around the world who, with considerable media and academic assistance, have convinced themselves that the major, if not sole, cause of injustice in the Middle East and even the world is Israel’s occupation of parts of the West Bank and Gaza.

As a result, this obsession has contributed to the relative neglect of the region’s other fundamental problems, above all the abiding grip of authoritarian politics in places like Cairo and Ankara and totalitarian religious fundamentalism in Gaza and Tehran. When was the last time you heard of an American campus protest against the treatment of Kurds by Turkey (a NATO ally and longtime beneficiary of U.S. security guarantees), or the genocide in Sudan? Why is this year’s arts biennale in Venice being roiled by the inclusion of Israel, but not of China? Why has the recent report detailing the extensive documentation of systematic use of rape and sexual torture by Hamas and its collaborators received little attention?

These aren’t just questions of hypocrisy or double standards. They are evidence of minds that have lost the capacity to think dispassionately and critically. What we should really be worried about isn’t the future of Israel; it’s the fate of the West.

Moral judgments should be made about Israel according to the same standards by which we judge other countries faced with similar circumstances. It’s when Israel is demanded to be a saint — and then, as it invariably falls short, is damned as the worst sinner — that we lose our sense of perspective and proportion.

“Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world,” observed the philosopher Eric Hoffer in 1968. That remains true today. Hatred of Israel has become the sty in Western eyes that, as it grows larger, risks making too many people blind.

Editor: Recall that Eric Hoffer was the only Public Intelectual that LBJ could muster, as an apologist for the Vietnam War. Like Hoffer Stephens wallows in the self-serving ahistorical!

Newspaper Reader.

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May 20, 2026

For Govenor there are 31 Candidates

For Lieutenate Governor there are 46 Candidate

I have plenty of time to explore the avalance of office seekers, and the many attendent other office seekers. Yet as I ponder this selection of office seekers: The Toxic New Democrats, led by the toxic duo of Bill & Hillary, and there lateast political aqisition Adam Schiff, a Zionist lapdog . And the various iterations of Trumpian mendacity in all its vulgar iterations.

The defeat of Thomas Massie is the evidence that America is under threat from insider itself , via AIPAC loyalist and Miriam Adelson money! Reader look to the most powerful venal New Democrat Chuck Shumer.

Chuck “Shomer” Schumer has not only called for a resolution to support genocide, but he also visited the Genocider’s command post in Israel to get a front-seat view of ethnic cleansing in action.

https://www.boughtbyzionism.org/chuck_schumer

Political Observer.

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May 20, 2026

Dylan Byers delivers the bad news!

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May 19, 2026

…

Bari’s New Role

As Paramount closes in on its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, I’m told that members of the senior leadership team have had informal discussions about changing Bari’s mandate at CBS News—and, eventually, CNN—in ways that would give her less control over the linear product. Paramount would look to bring in an executive who could manage that business.

No plans have been telegraphed or formally enshrined, and it’s unclear how involved David himself has been in the discussions. But sources with knowledge of the conversations said that Bari would likely cede day-to-day control over Evening News, CBS Mornings, and 60 Minutes to this more experienced, as-yet-unnamed executive, shifting her focus to the news division’s digital growth while maintaining broad editorial influence across all the company’s platforms. (A spokesman for Paramount responded: “Bari has the full support of Paramount and David Ellison as the editorial leader overseeing CBS News and 60 Minutes. Reports suggesting otherwise are inaccurate.”)

The conversations, I’m told, reflect Paramount leadership’s newfound acceptance that Bari was given too broad a mandate for someone without previous experience in television, as well as some irritation with the ceaseless barrage of negative press. After all, before founding The Free Press—which Paramount acquired last year for a handsome $150 million—Bari had only ever served as an editor and writer. Nevertheless, David put her in charge of the news division, with a direct reporting line to him, while entrusting that network president Tom Cibrowski, a TV news veteran, would pick up the slack. But even with Tom in place, sources inside CBS News and 60 Minutes complain that Bari is drastically overstretched, and lacks the experience and managerial skills necessary to run the network.

For now, it’s unclear whether leadership would enlist current CNN C.E.O. Mark Thompson for the linear role, though David has met with him in recent days, I’m told. Sources said it was unlikely that David would elevate Cibrowski, a capable broadcast manager but not necessarily the right fit for a combined mandate across CBS and CNN. Meanwhile, it remains very possible that they could bring in someone from outside the building. As you’ll recall, former Paramount president Jeff Shell had informal conversations with former CBS News president David Rhodes about serving in a similar role. Many CNN veterans still fantasize about the second coming of Jeff Zucker, who has quietly advised Bari at times, but most doubt that David would want to risk antagonizing Trump by hiring his old nemesis. In any event, as one source noted, David & Co. have come around to the view that they need to “let her be her.”

Bari has her supporters and detractors, to be sure, but it would be entirely unfair to pin this misadventure solely on her. She took a nine-figure deal that most people in their right minds would have accepted and held her head mostly high amid an unprecedented situation. Ellison is also concurrently trying to close his $111 billion WBD deal in order to stand up a bona fide media kingdom —and may have been working through his own learning curve during this experiment. In this sort of dynamic environment, big decisions have been made quickly, even if they need to be undone relatively quickly too.

That said, it’s hard to imagine that the pace of change is going to slow down anytime soon—not at CBS News or Paramount Skydance or, eventually, WarnerMount. Closing this merger will require a massive pro forma-ing of thousands of people and finding billions in synergies. In a way, this potential new role could be a gift for Bari. Despite all the headaches she’s had to manage, the next person is going to have to deal with much worse.

NYT on ‘Who Should Govern California’?

Political Observer on the connection with Newsom: Father and Son and Getty Family Trust!

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May 19, 2026

Editor: What this panel failes to even touch upon, is the fact that the current Governer of California, is the son of Willian Newsom, the administrator of the Getty family trust, how can that be? The pretence of ‘objectivily’ just falls flat! NYT does not just aid and abet the facts of California Political Life: as refeacted through the collective ‘lenses’ of various experts, but abandons political objectivity for a proffered cadre of experts, listed below !

Opinion

The Choice

Who Should Govern California?

Feb. 26, 2026

• Share full article
• 194

Jump to topicPanelists’ RatingsThe CandidatesHousingClimate and EnergyCalifornia’s FinancesRegulating A.I.President Trump

California is the site of a series of interlocking problems: It’s just too expensive for many people. There aren’t enough homes, or at least enough affordable ones. The insurance market is a challenge. Homelessness is difficult. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is splitting up families. Federal cuts to universities and health care are rampant. Gasoline and electricity are expensive. Water rights are complicated. Fires and floods and the effects of climate change are already savage. The state is also home to the biggest economic story of our age, artificial intelligence, and remains one of the most beautiful places in the country, where millions want to live.

Whom should voters choose to deal with all of this? The California governor’s race has been chaotic and confusing. Democratic candidates are offering up their party’s full range of choices, from technocratic moderates to progressive populists.

Times Opinion assembled a panel of experts with a range of viewpoints for a new installment of The Choice, aimed at guiding voters — and in California, especially Democratic voters — through the complex issues in this election.

The Choice was prepared by Times Opinion editors, based in part on a round-table conversation with the panelists held on April 24 and a survey from which Times Opinion averaged the panelists’ responses.

Our Panel’s Ratings

We asked panelists to rate the leading candidates on how they would approach governing. Each chart reflects an average of their individual ratings.

Political Observer.Political Observer on the connection with Newsom: Father and Son and Getty Family Trust!

stephenkmacksd.com/

May 19, 2026

Editor: What this panel failes to even touch upon, is the fact that the current Governer of California, is the son of Willian Newsom, the administrator of the Getty family trust, how can that be? The pretence of ‘objectivily’ just falls flat! NYT does not just aid and abet the facts of California Political Life: as refeacted through the collective ‘lenses’ of various experts, but abandons political objectivity for a proffered cadre of experts, listed below !

Opinion

The Choice

Who Should Govern California?

Feb. 26, 2026

• Share full article
• 194

Jump to topicPanelists’ RatingsThe CandidatesHousingClimate and EnergyCalifornia’s FinancesRegulating A.I.President Trump

California is the site of a series of interlocking problems: It’s just too expensive for many people. There aren’t enough homes, or at least enough affordable ones. The insurance market is a challenge. Homelessness is difficult. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is splitting up families. Federal cuts to universities and health care are rampant. Gasoline and electricity are expensive. Water rights are complicated. Fires and floods and the effects of climate change are already savage. The state is also home to the biggest economic story of our age, artificial intelligence, and remains one of the most beautiful places in the country, where millions want to live.

Whom should voters choose to deal with all of this? The California governor’s race has been chaotic and confusing. Democratic candidates are offering up their party’s full range of choices, from technocratic moderates to progressive populists.

Times Opinion assembled a panel of experts with a range of viewpoints for a new installment of The Choice, aimed at guiding voters — and in California, especially Democratic voters — through the complex issues in this election.

The Choice was prepared by Times Opinion editors, based in part on a round-table conversation with the panelists held on April 24 and a survey from which Times Opinion averaged the panelists’ responses.

Our Panel’s Ratings

We asked panelists to rate the leading candidates on how they would approach governing. Each chart reflects an average of their individual ratings.

Political Observer.

stephenkmacksd.com/

May 18, 2026

https://www.ft.com

Newspaper Reader opines : (Sir Keir Starmer—Britain’s beleaguered prime minister—has played a good hand terribly.) and other pressing questions…

stephenkmacksd.com/

May 17, 2026

Is Britain ungovernable?

Recorded on May 14th · 47 min

Episode summary

Sir Keir Starmer—Britain’s beleaguered prime minister—has played a good hand terribly. When Labour ousted the Tories in the last general election it won a thumping majority and a mandate to revive a stagnating country. Two years on, Sir Keir’s poll numbers have collapsed, his party has been hammered in local elections and his MPs and ministers are turning on him. The prime ministership that was supposed to show Europe how to save centrism now looks unsaveable.



What went so wrong? Is Sir Keir uniquely incompetent or has Britain itself become ungovernable? Join Edward Carr, our deputy editor, and a panel of our journalists as they make sense of the chaos in Westminster, explain why Britain can’t seem to keep a prime minister and ask whether centrist politics has a future—in Britain or anywhere else.

https://www.economist.com/insider/the-insider/is-britain-ungovernable

Editor: Without the stern guiding hand of Zanny Mention Beddoes, and the utter absence, as always, of a viable transcript, with which the reader might check the arguments of the participents, the listener then is at the whim of political chatters, and the vagaries of memory !

Newspaper Reader.

Kit Klarenberg May 17

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May 17, 2026

All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please click this link.

On April 15th, Declassified UK published a bombshell investigation exposing how in the mid-1990s, senior British political and military officials were well-aware NATO expansion into Central and Eastern Europe “would provoke [the] Russians,” and likely trigger all-out war. Hitherto unreported Ministry of Defence files reveal London knew Moscow’s “sensitivities” over a “hostile military alliance” enlarging up to its borders were profound, and based on very “real” concerns. Yet, NATO’s dangerous crusade to absorb Central and Eastern Europe continued apace, ultimately producing the Ukraine proxy conflict.

Since the so-called Special Military Operation’s February 2022 eruption, British officials have relentlessly reiterated the mantra the proxy war was “unprovoked”. However, a declassified March 1995 Foreign Office memo noted “there was a widespread psychological and intellectual perception in Moscow that NATO was a real threat.” In May that year, then-Prime Minister John Major succinctly articulated Russian anxieties to his Irish counterpart John Bruton, as a “fundamental fear…of encirclement.” Concerns about EU membership were comparatively muted:

“For the Russians, NATO had a much more threatening symbolism and political resonance…The Baltics were particularly difficult, with extreme sensitivity for Russia. It would be very hard to have a NATO border directly against Russia.”

Still, in 1997 NATO invited Czechia, Hungary, and Poland to join, which they did two years later. In 2004, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania simultaneously joined the military alliance. So too did ex-Warsaw Pact members Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and former Yugoslav republic Slovenia. Declassified UK shows how back in August 1996, British Defence Intelligence prepared a NATO enlargement study specifically forecasting that these countries joining could trigger war, and an alliance military operation launched via Article 5 of the NATO treaty in response.

This refers to collective self-defence, under which NATO members are obligated to come to each other’s defence if attacked. In the scenario, Defence Intelligence assumed “Russia has vehemently opposed NATO membership for the Baltic states and has threatened retaliation to preserve her own security against a perceived hostile military alliance on her borders.” In the real world, Boris Yeltsin made at-times irate public statements about NATO enlargement into the Baltics at the time, while lobbying US President Bill Clinton on the issue behind closed doors.

NATO expansion continued regardless. In December 1996, Declassified UK reports then-Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin privately warned Major: “Russia could not stop NATO enlarging, but this would create a fragile situation which could explode.” Other declassified files from this time show senior apparatchiks in London were acutely aware of Moscow’s “concern,” “fears,” “hostility,” “negative attitudes,” and “resentment” over alliance enlargement. Both Major and his successor Tony Blair explicitly pledged in person to Kremlin officials that NATO wouldn’t “move up to Russia’s borders.”

However, a secret September 1996 policy paper made clear Britain was committed “to enlarge NATO to the East,” even if “Russian acquiescence is not possible.” In February 1997, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Nikolai Afanasievsky angrily branded public discussions in Western capitals of admitting former Soviet republics to the alliance a “blatant provocation” in a meeting with Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador to Moscow. Greenstock reassured his Russian opposite number NATO had “no intention” of admitting former Soviet states “at this stage” – which, technically, was true.

…

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red-lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In my more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests…a [membership] offer would be seen…as throwing down the strategic gauntlet…Russia will respond.”

Global Delinquents

Declassified: UK Knew NATO Expansion ‘Would Provoke’ Russia War

All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please…

Read more

24 days ago · 19 likes · 3 comments · Kit Klarenberg

Political Observer offers the reader just a portion Kit Klarenberg’s political wisdom!

stephenkmacksd.com/ Jan 02, 2023

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May 16, 2026

While reading the first chapter of Helen Hackett’s book ‘The Elizabethan Mind : Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty’ I was struck by the ideas about the mind , and the part played by Humours and Melancholy in the lives of the Elizabethans

I thought first of ‘Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness’

And this quotation from Noë’s book on Consciousness:

And Julian Jaynes book:

I must confess that I purchased this book in 1976, and had not yet read it. Yet when I thought of Noë’s book, I knew where I had Jaynes book stored. My intellectual ambition is subject to a disturbing lack of discipline, allied to a fear of my possible lack of ability to understand. Yet Jaynes’ style is always lucid and at times poetic , I was more that a little intimidated by the subject matter. And my lack of experience with Consciousness. I have not read these books, in their entirety: yet I was struck that The Elizabethans made me think about their view of the world, themselves and the vitality of their milieu. Both Noë and Jaynes offer thoughts on ‘Consciousness’ … perhaps further reading of both their books will offer further insights on the possible interaction between the two?

Philosophical Apprentice

With the Gaza Genocide, and its political corrilary of the Genocide in Lebinon, Nancy Jacobson political loyalties are explored below. Political Observer comments.

stephenkmacksd.com/

May 16, 2026

Nicholas Kristof and the Collapse of Journalistic Standards

COMMENTARY

By Nancy Jacobson

How can the American people know what to believe anymore? They’re supposed to be able to turn to the New York Times and other legacy newspapers for impartial facts. Although that aspirational view was never as true as many of us supposed it to be, it’s become scandalously untrue today.

The Times this week played host to one of the most astonishing examples of journalistic malpractice in recent memory. It was perpetrated by Nicholas Kristof – a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned progressive columnist and aspiring Democratic politician. Hiding under the cloak of the Times’ opinion section, Kristof ran a report alleging shocking and lurid claims of widespread, systemic sexual assault by Israeli prison guards against Palestinians.

This would be horrifying if true, except we have little reason to believe it is. To justify his claims, Kristof relies on Hamas-linked organizations, anti-Israel activists, and anonymous accounts that lack any semblance of independent verification. He also regurgitates a monstrous claim – that Israel trains dogs to rape prisoners – that is widely believed to be impossible, let alone unsubstantiated.

Let’s start with Kristof’s marquee source: the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. He calls it “a Geneva-based advocacy group often critical of Israel,” which is like calling the DNC “a Washington-based political group often critical of Republicans.” Euro-Med exists to oppose Israel. Many of its leaders, including its founder and chairman, are linked to Hamas. The group has a track record of promoting unverified or false anti-Israel claims, including the exact “dogs trained to rape prisoners” story Kristof repeated.

…

Viewed that way, the op-ed begins to look much like the rest of the discourse from aspiring candidates in America – where facts take a backseat to agendas, and claims are measured more by whether they hurt the opposition than whether they capture the truth.

The difference is, this claim appeared in the New York Times, bringing us back to the question: How can the American people know what to believe?

…

Editor: Reader note that this hystical chatter is yet further evidence of the loyalty of a Zionist Apologist. I trace the evolition of a her politics over time.

Nancy Jacobson is a founder of No Labels, a national organization of Democrats, Republicans and independents dedicated to a new politics of problem solving.

No Labels

Jacobson founded No Labels in 2010 with the stated goal of promoting bipartisanship.^[9] The organization has put forth ideas that it claims will “put problem solving above politics”,^[10] and purports to support centrist, moderate social and economic policies.

The No Labels group has been instrumental in the creation of the Problem Solvers Caucus.^[11][12][13] A number of proposals supported by the group have been signed into law.^[14][15][16] In 2021, the Problem Solvers Caucus, composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, released a “Building Bridges” blueprint for a bipartisan infrastructure deal. It was the first deal to be endorsed by Republicans and Democrats during that budget cycle.^[17][18] In connection with her work with No Labels, New York Times columnist David Brooks described her in 2016 as an “undeterrable” leader.^[1]

No Labels has also been criticized of fostering a toxic environment by former employees, according to Politico.^[19]

Other Activities

Jacobson is serving as a co-chair of the 2026 Jerusalem Post Miami Summit, an event focused on strengthening support for Israel amidst rising global antisemitism. In an interview prior to the summit, Jacobson emphasized the ‘unbreakable bond’ between the U.S. and Israel, arguing that their shared democratic values and cooperation against common threats make the world safer for Americans and ‘free-thinking people everywhere’.^[20]

Editor : That Jacobson was the co-chair of the 2026 Jerusalem Post Miami Summit, an event focused on strengthening support for Israel amidst rising global antisemitism. Is demonstartive of her actual loyalties!

Political Observer.