Megyn Kelly is wrong: Neutrality on right-wing antisemitism is immoral

Carlson and Owens don't just get it wrong regarding Judaism and Israel, but also about Ukraine, refusing to see obvious signs that Vladimir Putin has a goal of re-instituting a new Russian Empire or even a renewed Soviet Union. Also, hilariously and pathetically, Owens is now suggesting that Madame Macron of France is not biologically a woman, despite the fact that she has multiple children.

There is a point, really, where thought leaders need to say to others "your views are so far out there, we really don't have much ground for discussion."

Writing more broadly, it's very troubling to me how many so-called conservatives can't spot the flaws in Carlson and Owens' thinking, among that of others who in the 1960s would have been among the Birchers and so on. Sane conservatives at least used to recognize what it meant when troops entered a country flying the red star and hammer & sickle, installed statues of Lenin and even Stalin, etc.. We didn't play games of moral equivalence because the invaded nation wasn't perfect itself.

I have often scratched my head about the changes in the Republican party. The expansion of communism and/or Russia has been a staple of the Republican platform for decades upon decades. In one fell swoop it is swept away to contort to Trump's favoritism towards Putin and the seemingly unending desire for social media personalities to snuggle up to Trump in order to fit into his orbit or get adulations from him. It is an interesting turn of events.

While I decry antisemitism, we as a nation on both the right and the left need to evaluate more closely what Israel is doing in Gaza. A desire for too many in Israel's cabinet to eliminate Palestinians from any territory, through both death or removal, instead of focusing on the problem is troubling.

Candice Owens has a lot of crazy ideas. She is even suggesting that Tyler Robinson is not the one who killed Charlie Kirk. She is also suggesting that Kirk was about to turn on Israel when the evidence does not support that at all. There are far too many times where she has destroyed her credibility. I really liked Charlie Kirk, but it did bother me that he had not distanced himself form Owens. It was notable however that in spite of their past connections, she was not part of his memorial.

I am also bothered by Tucker Carlson's views on Israel and Putin. He is the only prominent person on the Republican side that I am aware of that is willing to "cozy up" to Putin though.

For those wondering why republicans are not calling out and distancing themselves from Owens and Carlson there is a phrase that comes to mind: "Tell me you do not understand the conservative republican movement without telling me you do not understand it." Those who are part of it have seen and heard many calling out and distancing themselves and others totally cutting off Owens and Carlson. The number of people who call themselves conservative who want nothing to do with them is growing.

You may have heard of him; Donald J. Trump. Yes, he's back and forth, but he clearly does not see the signs that Putin is a Communist--and since he was around in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, this is a serious moral failing on his part.

Yeah, if Trump could really be as forceful with Russia as he is with Portland, I would start to be a bit more supportive of him. Why he doesn't seize the Russian money held in US/EU accounts (@ $300B), he could not only 1) use it to pay back what we have given to Ukraine and 2) using the other @$200B to provide weapons to Ukraine. This would not only boost employment in the US, but it would further provide support to increasing US. manufacturing. Stop dancing around this war. Give Ukraine 1) plenty of air defense systems, 2) drones, 3) next gen aircraft and 4) tomahawk missles

I'm personally wrestling with what should be done. Let's never forget that though Hamas is thankfully not as good at killing Jews as were the Nazis, Hamas is worse in a way because they put video of their crimes on the Internet. The Nazis knew that if they put out footage of Auschwitz and such in the morning papers, they'd have had a revolt on their hands, and we didn't sweat it when German cities were leveled to deal with the Nazis.

Now I don't want all of Gaza to be leveled, but I think any sober appraisal needs to have a few basic features:

1. We need to remember that the Gaza Health Ministry is Hamas. You can't simply take their estimates at face value, and statistical analyses show that they were at times just making it up.
2. We need to remember that U.N. assistance efforts were corrupted by Hamas as well, to the point that nobody in U.N. affiliated charities spoke up when hospitals were repurposed as ammunition dumps.
3. We need to remember that peace does not follow treaties in this region. Peace rather follows when groups of Islamic militants decide that Israel has a right to exist (e.g. Anwar Sadat, etc..).

So more or less, there will be no peace there until Hamas changes its charter to decide that Israel has a right to exist, or otherwise ceases to exist. Maybe there's a smarter way of going about it than what Israel is doing, but that is unfortunately the end game.

Hamas is bad. My concern is the approach at the end of the day. 3% of the population has been killed and an additional 8% of the population has been injured as a result of Israel's incursion. Aid to the population is limited, and most children are at risk of chronic malnutrition. I am not sure it is valuable for the US to be contributing to this through the aid that we offer Israel.

Probably best to divide by three, as when someone got a better notion of the deaths, 2/3 were of military age males. So about 2/3 of deaths are of likely combatants, and that means our casualty numbers are 1% deceased/3% injured, not 3%/8%. Very comparable to the civilian deaths in Germany and Japan in WW2.

From what I've seen, total food and medical aid provided to Gaza is 1.3 million tons since October 2023. Assuming about 2/3 of the ~1200lbs of food per person (about 1.7 lbs/person-day) is things like flour and oil and powdered milk, say with an average calories per gram of 5 (mix carb/fat), we're talking about somewhere in the vicinity of 2000-3000 calories per day for every man, woman, and child in an area where 44% of the population is below the age of 15.

More or less, the only reason we're seeing anyone go hungry in Gaza is because Hamas is controlling the flow of food, and people they don't like don't get fed.

So if you've got some great ideas about how to wrest control of the food supply and economy away from Hamas, have at it, but I'm at a loss as to why anyone would blame Israel when they've allowed over a million tons of food aid to cross into Gaza.

I think there are too many conflicting reports. USAID found that Hamas was not significantly impacting aid and in some cases 28% of aid was being destroyed by Israel. (https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/politics/us-government-review-no-evidenc…)

Either way, Since Israel has essentially wiped Gaza off the map, they are the ones that are responsible for ensuring aid is setup and that civilian populations are provided the necessary aid.

First, is USAID really the right group to do an audit on....USAID? Really? Moreover, all they're arguing is that they did not find definitive evidence that Hamas was doing this....but how precisely do you do this without imprisoning the actors?

Very weak evidence, David. No doubt that Trump appointees have been seen to go fast and loose with the truth, yes, but this isn't any better.