This blog has moved to a new address

 

This website is migrating

Due to a problem with this platform, Google Blogger, I have moved my blog to WordPress and given it a new address,  Stressline.org which you can read here.  If you don't find new blogs posted here please go to that address.

The new title of the blog is no longer halbrown.org. It is now Hal Brown's Stressline. Stressline is a term I used in the titles of two websites I published 20 years ago. I thought I'd resurrect the name since what is going on the world today is causing my friends and I a great amount of stress.

Wed, Oct 11 at 6:20 AM

This is a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and pop culture. Posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky. I’m a retired MSW clinical social worker/psychotherapist and mental health center director who was a cranberry farmer and a reserve police officer. I create images using software to illustrate my stories. If I don’t have anything original to say I try not to say anything at all.

About 20 years ago I had two Stressline websites, Cranberry Stressline and Police Stressline. Being Ocean Spray cranberry growers my wife and I started a website because we objected to poor management in the co-up we belonged to. Eventually we rallied like-minded growers and after a few years the end result was that the CEO was fired and the board of directors was replaced. This may have been the first blog (the word “blog” wasn’t even commonly used then) which had a major impact on a large company. Over the course of two years the website was featured in articles in The New York Times (read here, subscription) , Forbes, ABC News here, and local Massachusetts media.

Here’s my late wife Betty with the then CEO of Ocean Spray Tom Bullock on the front page of the Sunday NY Times business section:

The other website, Police Stressline (you can still read it here) came about because I was a reserve police officer who, as a therapist, had many police officers as clients. At the time if you did a web search for police stress it came up as the number one website on the subject and articles I posted there were republished in print police magazines.

Both websites can be found on the WayBack machine.

In 2012 I started a personal blog on Google Blogger (before Google bought it the platform was just called Blogger). Until six years ago it consisted mostly of photo essays. All of those blogs can be seen at https://www.halbrown.org.

For some reason I can no long post new stories on Google Blogger so I have started a new blog here on WordPress. For those not familiar with WordPress, it hosts almost half of all websites including the official White House website and the sites of major newspapers.

I resurrected the name Stressline because these days the state of the country is causing me, not that I need to explain why if you’re a liberal like I am, a lot of stress.

 For some reason I haven't been able to post my blog on Google Blogger until now when I was able to open the new blog and edit page using my old ChromeBook. 

I've begun posting blogs on WordPress here: stressline.org 

Unless I can use my MacBook to wrote blogs I will be posting on WordPress with the stressline.org  web address. This is because all of my blogging software is on the MacBook and this is what I am comfortable with. A Chromebook does not have the functionality I want to compose blogs.

The GOP using Hamas attack to bash Biden is un-American

Due to a problem with this platform, Google Blogger, I have moved my blog to WordPress and given it a new address,  Srressline.org which you can read here.  If you don't find new blogs posts here please go to that address.

By Hal Brown

 Trump blamed the Hamas attack on President Biden (article):

Donald Trump blamed President Joe Biden for Hamas’ attack on Israel on Saturday, claiming the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted into new violence because Biden is perceived as “weak.”

“It was a big attack with a lot of dead people all over the place,” Trump told an audience at a Waterloo, Iowa rally. “Who would think that? And the only difference, I believe, is the difference between one president and another president.”

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a graphic video showing a dead body in Israel Saturday – and used it to claim that similar attacks to those committed by Hamas were coming to the U.S.  Reference

So did the RNC chair:

RNC Chair Spots 'Great Opportunity' For GOP Candidates Following Hamas Attack

“I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel – time and time again – and Joe Biden has been weak,” McDaniel said.

“And when America is weak, the world is less safe. We’re seeing this not just with the war in Ukraine and with an emboldened China, but now with an attack on Israel.”

Here's Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador, who should know better:

'You don't have any evidence': NBC host confronts Nikki Haley for blaming Biden for Hamas attack

… Haley attacked Secretary of State Antony Blinken for denying that $6 billion slated to be returned to Iran played a part in the attacks.

"They go and spread terrorism every time they get a dollar; it doesn't go to the Iranian people; it does go to terrorist attacks, and Secretary Blinken is just wrong to imply that this money is not being moved around as we speak and yet, and that's it," Haley said.

"And yet, ambassador, there's just no proof of that," Welker pointed out, "yet this is just the hours after that immediate attack. Is it irresponsible to level that charge when you really don't have any evidence of that at this point in time?"

Haley pointed to "evidence" that was unconnected to the recent attacks.

This is how Marjorie Taylor Greene blamed Biden:

"What happened to Israel could happen to America because our country has been invaded by millions of people from over 160 countries, and we've been invaded by people we don't even know where they are." Reference

Florida GOP congressman Corey Mills posted this in Truth Social: "This war in Ukraine, attacks on Israel, and open US borders would not be happening if Pres Trump were in office. We had peace under President Trump. In 2024 don’t forget the chaos overseas and on our border is under Joe Biden."

The actual case against Biden, that is the deal with Iran to pay for the release of hostages (read article) might have helped Hamas is too obscure for most voters to grasp. Trump said that  “American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks.” Of course, Trump and others are only speculating that Iran even helped fund the attack.

This is just background noise for MAGA voters since they already hate Biden. They are like the man wearing a Let's Go Brandon hat who we sat next to at this parade in August. 

This was an old fashion partiotic small town parade:

Photos by Hal Brown

I have no doubt that this man considers himself to be an American patriot. If he'd known that the couple sitting next to him and his wife at the foot of his driveway were Democrats he'd probably consider us to be un-American.

He and his ilk who want to blame President Biden, someone who he most lilely considers to have stolen the election, are the not patriots they think they are.

Israel, for all the anti-Democratc far-right policies Netanyahu favors, is still a democracy and a staunch American ally. 

These MAGA people don't need reasons to blame Biden for the Hamas attack. It isn't a stretch to think that some of them don't particularly care about what happens in Israel and harbor antisemitic beliefs.

You can believe that Israel has been committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution against Arabs in the occupied territories and Israel itself, which is what Human Rights Watch said, (read article) and still agree that Israel has the right to defend itself against a terrorist attack. 

This is not the time for poltical blame games.

This is the time to support Israel without promoting an American political agenda. When the United States helps other democracies who have been attacked, whether it's Ukraine or Israel, both poltical parties should stand together. It's un-American not to do so. 

Alas, these people are so brainwashed that they will believe that had Trump been president none of these bad things would have happened because no country would have dared to defy the righeous Rambo whose flag they fly.

After all, Trump not only has the biggest brain, he has the biggest gun.

Addendum/Update:

Democratic comrgessman James Crow just pointed out to Jen Psaki that because the GOP doesn't have a Speaker of the House they can't hold an emergency session to approve aide for Israel.