ArcaMax

Some outrages are so outrageous that I don't even want to talk about them. But that's when we must speak out.

Indeed, let's rage against our government's wholly unprincipled embrace of (and direct participation in) the Israeli government's ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.

-- Israel's ruthless, two-year invasion of Gaza has already killed 59,000 Palestinian civilians -- more than half of whom are women and children.

-- That's as many killings as our soldiers suffered during the entire Vietnam War.

-- Israel's military has forced nearly all of Gaza's two million citizens to abandon their homes and towns, herding them into distant camps, many without food, water, toilets, etc.

-- Excruciating death by starvation -- especially among children -- is now at epidemic levels in Gaza, creating a dystopian horror.

-- When masses of desperate Palestinians rush to sporadic and inadequate deliveries of humanitarian aid, Israeli snipers and other forces have opened fire on them -- just since May, more than a thousand unarmed Palestinians have been assassinated in such ambushes.

Yes, fiendish Hamas terrorists, who literally operate underground in Gaza, are guilty of sadistic brutality against Israelis. But moral retribution requires going after Hamas, not mounting an inhumane onslaught to wipe the Palestinian people off the Earth.

A majority of Israelis are now openly rebelling against their government's barbaric abandonment of their people's best values. But what about us? Those sniper bullets and rockets have your and my names on them; those wasted children who're dying in the agony of starvation belong to us; and it's our politicians who're propping up Israel's corrupt prime minister and war machine. To stop this perversion of our own humanitarian values, go to International Rescue Committee: rescue.org.

ARE YOU REALLY A "WINNER" IF YOU HAVE TO RIG THE RULES TO WIN?

If you want to learn how to play the game, boys and girls, forget all that old-fashioned stuff like "do your best," "be a good sport" and "respect the game."

No, no, that's loser talk. Today, the name of the game is winning. You're Number One, or you're nothing, so forget fair play and do whatever it takes to WIN! Of course, the gold medal champion of gaming the system is President Donald Trump, and to see the master in action, look at his current electoral manipulation in Texas.

With only a slim majority in the U.S. House, and with his job-approval rating plummeting, Trump recently realized he's in danger of losing his iron grip on Congress in next year's mid-term elections. Gosh, what to do? Simple -- rig the election! And no place is better at that than Texas.

So, Lord Donald ordered Greg Abbott, the right-wing partisan hack who is governor of this once-proud Lone Star State, to convene a special legislative session to redraw our congressional districts. Never mind that the districts had already been gerrymandered by Abbott only four years ago, Trump is demanding that voters be herded like cattle into even more convoluted districts. The goal is to oust five Texas Democrats from the House, thus stacking the Congressional deck with more Republicans so he can keep ruling the place. It's political game-playing at its worst, disrespecting voters and the very idea of a House of Representatives.

Of course, there is an honorable way for the GOP to elect more of its own without engaging in political perversion: Stop trying to push far-right-wing nonsense that the great majority of voters don't want. Instead, put up decent candidates who don't need a Trump script to know what they stand for ... and don't need a Trump map to find the district that they supposedly "represent."

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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