Said BaluBalu: There is a group that includes both Christians and Jews (I am guessing more Christians than Jews) that are overzionists who are in favor of Israel’s expansion and use the US government's world power to further their cause. There are plenty of Jews who oppose that cause but not active enough that the first group gets their way.

And said Crash: in the past few years, any negative speech about the STATE of Israel has been grossly misconstrued as antisemitism.
I find, from careful, studied attention to this business through the years, that the AIPAC lobby very much gets their way when it comes to steering US Middle East policy. People from everywhere, from all cultures and faiths (or no faith) are justly concerned about the lawless apartheid expansion of Israel into land belonging to Palestinians. This is to say nothing of the destruction and genocide happening in Gaza. And by the way, while everyone is focused on Gaza, the current Zionist regime in Israel is deliberately destroying the West Bank. And expanding into Syria, even as the new gov't there is struggling to reorganize everything and rebuild. Israel has threatened the new Syrian leadership not to make their presence felt south of an arbitrary line within Syria--- which restricts Syrian control to a very small area beyond Damascus.
The Occupation began after the Six Day War. 1967. A very long time ago. The Separation Wall served to grab even more Palestinian land, and separates farmers and orchardists from their crops. With the US as an ally, Israel holds all the leverage. The US cannot be trusted to serve as an honest broker in negotiations. And the Israelis forever just find a pretext to kill negotiations.
Hamas is not a bunch of angels, for sure. Over in Ramallah, the Palestinian National Authority has zero credibility. Those are internal issues that Palestinians must un-screw-up for themselves. There has been a viable, reasonable Arab Peace Plan available since 2002. The Israeli leaders just ignore it.
The conflict goes back all the way to 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. Both Israel and Palestine have been living with the fallout ever since. ...This is not antisemitism. This is political. You will surely believe me when I assert that I have nothing against anyone for being Jewish, anywhere in the world.

Still, even if you are looking down the barrel of the next Great Depression, history shows us that the market eventually recovers.
But since the path to recovery is so uncertain, the best way to be prepared is by owning a well-diversified portfolio that fits your time horizon and risk tolerance. Investors who stay invested in the market in the long run will reap rewards that make the turmoil worthwhile.

Crash. My remarks were not about Israel but eddie’s absurd and historically anti semitic statements about Jews owning the US government. You completely missed the point. And where were H and H and the rest of the off topic cops?

The Trump administration has disbanded two expert committees that advised the government on producing accurate economic statistics. Members of one group, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), were told Tuesday that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded the committee last week because its mission “has been fulfilled,” in an email seen by The Wall Street Journal.
The Commerce Department also terminated a second expert group, the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee, which consulted on a separate group of economic stats. Both committees’ websites say that coming meetings have been canceled.
A FESAC committee member, economist Erica Groshen, said the group played a critical role in guiding the offices that track U.S. inflation, employment and economic growth. “Its work goes to the essential transparency of these statistical agencies,” Groshen said. “When you remove that transparency, then that diminishes trust.”
FFESACesac guided government statistics for 25 years. High-profile academic economists including Daron Acemoglu, John Taylor and the late Alan Krueger served as some of its past members. Current members included academic economists, think-tank researchers and executives from Wall Street and corporations.
The committees’ dismantling comes at a challenging moment for the government statistics agencies, which have faced tight budgets and falling response rates to surveys that are essential gauges of the health of the economy.
The move also follows a suggestion from Lutnick over the weekend that the government could change how it calculates the size of the economy by separating government spending, which would be a sharp departure from academic theory and international norms.
FESAC met twice a year to advise government statisticians and economists on how to improve and refine their surveys and calculations. Members weren’t paid for their work. Members who chose to attend meetings in person could be compensated for travel expenses.
Groshen, who was previously head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said FESAC had an especially important role advising on statistics that combine the work of multiple government agencies. That includes the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, the personal-consumption expenditures price index, which melds analysis from both the Labor Department and the Commerce Department.
“These advisory committees are really essential to maintaining the quality of the data going forward,” she said.

@Edmond … in response to your points
1. Scientists around the globe are concerned about climate change. It is not a conspiracy, but based on analyses of facts and measurements. I spent much of my career in air quality. I have personally observed and measured how small concentrations of air pollution can affect the environment and people’s health. Much of the opposition to climate change is funded by fossil fuel companies with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
2. This is true but context is important. Where I live, conservatives have consistently opposed land use controls to limit development in floodplains, coastal areas. Trump is also cutting funds for the US Forest Service and FEMA. National forests are located all over the US, not just California. I believe we will be experiencing more wildfires in many areas outside the West. Several years ago, we had an exceptionally dry year in North Carolina, and wildfires were occurring across the state.
3. Many areas flooded by hurricanes in North Carolina were well outside floodplains, even 500-year zones. This was true in hurricanes Fran, Floyd, Matthew, Helene and others.

Silly name calling. Ad hominem attacks. The rhetorical style reminds me when I was 10 years old on the school playground.