Trump win means ‘time has come’ to annex parts of West Bank, Israeli minister says - Lemmy.World

> Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory Monday, saying that “the time has come” to extend full Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. > He made the comment a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded statement that he has spoken three times with Trump since the election and that they “see eye to eye on the Iranian threat.

Israeli government celebrates Trump's election triumph - Lemmy.World

> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters celebrated Donald Trump’s election as president, hailing what a leader of the Israeli settler movement called an ally who would support them “unconditionally”. Congratulating Republican Trump, Netanyahu said the former president had made “history’s greatest comeback”. > “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” he said in a statement, which was echoed by the leaders of the hard-right nationalist religious parties in his coalition.

Sanders: Trump will be ‘closer to Netanyahu’ on Gaza if reelected - Lemmy.World

> “To those people who are saying, ‘Well, I can’t support Harris because she disagrees [with] Trump on that issue’ … he will be closer to Netanyahu,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” > Sanders said he thinks Vice President Harris can be moved “on that issue” of the Israel-Hamas war. > Harris has called for a cease-fire deal and pushed for the war in Gaza to end, but she faces scrutiny from both sides — from people who want to see Hamas defeated and those who call for the end of the war in Gaza. > “So, if we are able to elect Harris, I think we’re going to have an opportunity to move her on that issue, to make it clear, we cannot allow children in Gaza to starve to death,” Sanders said. “She will be open to that. I doubt that Trump will.”

Trump signals support in call with Netanyahu: ‘Do what you have to do’ - Lemmy.World

> Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, “Do what you have to do,” according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information. Trump has said publicly that the two have spoken at least twice in October, with one call as recently as Oct. 19. > “He didn’t tell him what to do militarily, but he expressed that he was impressed by the pagers,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was on a call this month with Trump and Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leaders with explosive batteries inside pagers. “He expressed his awe for their military operations and what they have done.” > Graham added: “He told them, do what you have to do to defend yourself, but we’re openly talking about a new Mideast. Trump understands that very much there has to be change with the corrupt Palestinian state.”

The Trouble with the Electoral College - Lemmy.World

Friedman: What I’m Thinking About on the First Anniversary of the War - Lemmy.World

> But the lack of a good story is hurting Israel in other ways. Israelis are being asked to send their sons and daughters to fight every day against Hamas and Hezbollah foes — yet cannot be sure if they are going to war to save the state of Israel or the political career of their prime minister. > Because there is more than enough reason to believe that Bibi wants to keep this war going to have an excuse to postpone testifying in December at his corruption trial, to postpone an independent commission of inquiry as to how his government failed to prevent the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, as well as to forestall new Israeli elections and maybe even to tilt our presidential election to Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s far-right Jewish supremacist partners have told him they will topple his government if he agrees to stop the war in Gaza before an undefined “total victory” over Hamas and if he tries to bring the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, which has embraced the Oslo peace process, to help govern Gaza in the place of Hamas — something that Hamas greatly fears. > This absence of a story is also hurting Israel strategically. The more Israel has a legitimate Palestinian partner, like a reformed Palestinian Authority, the better chance it can get out of Gaza and not preside over a permanent insurgency there, the more allies will want to help create an international force to fill any vacuum in Southern Lebanon and the more any Israeli military strike against Iran would be understood as making Israel safe to try to make peace with the Palestinians — not safe for an Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, which is what some of Netanyahu’s far-right partners are seeking. > I cannot guarantee that there is a legitimate Palestinian partner for a secure peace with Israel. But I can guarantee that this Israeli government has done everything it could to prevent one from emerging — by strengthening Hamas in Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Why conservatives get suspended more than liberals on social media - Lemmy.World

>Late in Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) dodged a question about whether he and running mate Donald Trump would accept the 2024 election results by pivoting to a favorite topic: what he called the “censorship” of Americans by social media companies, terming it “a much bigger threat to democracy.” > His statement drew on a years-long Republican contention that Silicon Valley tech giants have suppressed conservative views on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. That narrative has underpinned congressional hearings, Republican fundraising campaigns, the dismantling of academic research centers, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, state laws seeking to restrict online content moderation, and multiple lawsuits that reached the Supreme Court this year. > But is it true? Well, yes and no, according to a study published Wednesday [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07942-8] in the journal Nature. > Conservatives and Trump supporters are indeed more likely to have their posts on major social media platforms taken down or their accounts suspended than are liberals and Joe Biden supporters, researchers from Oxford University, MIT and other institutions found. But that doesn’t necessarily mean content moderation is biased.

How the North Carolina Legislature Left Homes Vulnerable to Helene | Under pressure to control housing costs, Republican lawmakers rejected standards meant to protect against disasters, experts say. - Lemmy.World

> Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants. > Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state. > “The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Ms. Wooten, who works for Facilities Strategies Group, a company that specializes in building engineering. She said that state lawmakers, many of whom are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”

Fed chair Powell: ‘The time has come’ for interest rate cuts - Lemmy.World

> The Federal Reserve is ready to cut interest rates, confident that inflation is easing to normal levels and wary of any more slowing in the job market. > “The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Friday, in his most anticipated speech of the year. “The direction of travel is clear.” > Powell did not specify a timeline, or forecast how much Fed leaders were preparing to lower rates. But his remarks came as close as possible to teeing up a cut at the Fed’s next policy meeting in mid-September. Rates currently sit between 5.25 and 5.5 percent, where they have remained since July 2023. The open question now is whether officials will opt for a more aggressive cut next month — a half-point instead of a more typical quarter-point.