John Drake

I'm RT-ing my response to someone yesterday. Our government wasn't like this, even 30 yrs ago. There's one main reason why it's this way. It doesn't have to be. Federally fund campaigns. twitter.com/TheRealNumber6…

Source tells me that Naval Special Warfare teams were also given deployment orders yesterday, as well as a bunch of Tier 1 operators. That plus the 82nd Airborne deployment plus Netanyahu's obvious feint that he expects a ceasefire agreement this weekend suggests all the pieces are in place for a ground operation within day.

"Man in military fatigues" is a new one.

"Ron Santo's very first 'Opening Day" in the broadcasting booth, they go live and his partner starts into whatever his scripted opening was going to be. But Ron Santo spills his hot coffee into his lap and shouts "God dammit" on the air and that's what welcomes Cubs fans into that new season." "I think Ron taught everyone, diabetics and others, how to handle your physical situations later in life. Everyone is going to have problems and everyone dies, but some handle that process better than others, and Ronnie handled it better than anyone. The battle that I witnessed him fight over the last 10 years was absolutely unbelievable, and I think he was a great leader and extremely inspirational in that regard." Pat Hughes.

Babe Ruth with the Yankees batboy before the first game ever played at Yankee Stadium, 1923. Photo by Mark Rucker. Ruth hit a 3-run home run in front of the 74,000 fans.

Bear with me for a personal story that sheds light on this 'antisemitic hate crime' issue. Last year I was invited to deliver a lecture on state violence to a conference. I used Gaza as the main example. A Jewish woman confonted me in the refreshments queue. She accused me of selecting an inappropriate example. I replied that I'm against Netanyahu's regime and I hope you are too. She said nothing and returned to her seat. That was it. Nothing more. The following morning, the conference organiser rang to inform me that I had been reported to the regional police service as the perpetrator of an antisemitic hate crime. NFA, of course, but the incident has still been registered and the university informed. So it's on the statistics. How often is this happening? Genuine question, because I really don't know.

@FoxmanAbraham "How dare you object to our directing the votes of your representatives with campaign money and intimidation!"

It is outrageous that so many prominent democrats are distancing themselves from and demonizing AIPAC.AIPAC is part of an established and respected American tradition of lobbying and it is being portrayed as un-American and immoral -as if the money is coming from the KKK! Politicians who are opposed to NRA , don’t take money from the NRA but do not proclaim “ I will not take money from NRA….” What’s next , I will not take money from Jews? Time to stop this demonization of AIPAC!!!

A chilling story leading the Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning this morning. ICE agents followed Minnesota Democratic lawmakers who had been critical of ICE in the state, stopping multiple times to take pictures of their houses. This is what a police state does

@AIPAC @yechielleiter The government backs up the settlers in their attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. THAT'S how seriously they take it. I will never again vote for a candidate who receives money from AIPAC, no matter how well you disguise it.

Must read interview with Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. @yechielleiter. “I’m so angry about the issue of Jewish riots in Judea and Samaria….The government is mobilizing to do what needs to be done. They understand the severity of the situation.” timesofisrael.com/israels-us-env…

During the 1920's, New York Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert once described his perfect afternoon at Yankee Stadium: 'It's when the Yankees score eight runs in the first inning and then slowly pull away.'" Peter Golenbock. Opening day of the re-modeled Yankee Stadium. April 15, 1976.

@notglum831 @JesseBrown @TheAtlantic Looks like Al Goldstein.

@JesseBrown @TheAtlantic There is a hotline for this

I wrote a piece for @TheAtlantic about how Jews are being purged from public life. I call it the Polite Pogrom. theatlantic.com/international/…

Going with the word “pogrom” at a time when Jewish settlers in the West Bank are launching dozens of actual violent pogroms a day seems like a deliberate choice to declare that Jewish feelings matter more than physical Palestinian safety

Tenth grader Arnoldo Bazan and his father were stopped by ICE at a McDonalds, when their car was rammed by unidentified ICE agents. The two were taken into custody and brutally beaten. According to the teenager, the ICE agents also repeatedly called him slurs, stole his phone and pawned it for $250.

NEW: Republican senators reportedly sold the White House on a plan Monday night to pass the SAVE America Act through a reconciliation package after enacting a funding bill for most of the DHS, which has been shut down for over a month now. democracydocket.com/news-alerts/wh…

"Babe Ruth had three more games to outdo himself. Number fifty-seven was a grand slam off Lefty Grove in Philadelphia. Numbers fifty-eight and fifty-nine came at home against the Washington Senators. The record-tying home run—a grand slam!—came off a rookie pitcher, Paul Hopkins, making his major-league debut. His catcher told him to throw only curves, so that’s what Hopkins did. The curveball Babe Ruth hit, Hopkins told Sports Illustrated in 1998, was: "Was so slow Ruth started to swing and then hesitated, hitched on it and brought the bat back. And then he swung, breaking his wrists as he came through it. What a great eye he had! He hit it at the right second. Put everything behind it." "The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created" Jane Leavy.

We stopped hearing about the hostage crisis because all of the hostages left are Palestinian.

ICYMI — 🇺🇸 citizen: “I hid in a horse stall… armed men barged in… started grabbing me without letting me know what was going on… threatened to blow my head off… 5 threw me to the ground, kicked and punched me, zip tied me… I said I needed to get to my kids, they laughed…”

"There are no innocent civilians in Jenin, there are no innocent children in Jenin" - MK Yitzik Kroizer comments on the killing of the Palestinian family by security forces: "I support the IDF fighters in every situation, even if the incidental cost is children or women"

Israeli MK Yitzik Kroizer on the killing of a Palestinian family in Jenin: “There are no innocent civilians in Jenin, no innocent children. I support IDF soldiers in every situation, even if the cost is children or women.” A call for extermination

So let me get this straight. The previous administration criminally prosecuted Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn pleaded GUILTY to the charges. Then Trump 2.0 pardons Michael Flynn. Flynn sues the previous administration for politically motivated prosecution. ...And the current Trump administration is settling the lawsuit with taxpayer dollars an UNDISCLOSED amount of $. There needs to be a law against this kind of self-dealing. This is absolutely maddening.

Donald Trump got the Director of the US Patent and Trade Office to apply for trademarks for the Board of Peace—something it does for no other entity and which is not allowed under federal law. Then he waived the fee for registration. Now he’ll decide whether to grant the application he submitted! No one knows what this Board of Peace is or where the billions of dollars gathered from corrupt foreign states will go. We're exposing this devious scheme.