The downpayment requirements are much looser now then they used to be. Pretty much anyone in the US can get as low as 3 to 3.5% down, which means the down payment can easily be less than all the other home buying expenses (closing cost, inspection, title insurance, loan origination, moving, transfer taxes, …). You also typically have a month before you need to make your first principle repayment, which helps offset the down payment.

Veterans, active service members, and people buying in qualified rural areas can get 0 down mortgages.

Depending on where you live, there might be further assistance available. Around here, the county offers (means tested) down-payment assistance loans that cover 100% the minimum down payment, and has an interest rate that is at least 2% lower than that of the main loan. They also wave all transfer taxes for all first time buyers.

Just because someone says something does not make it true.

Blinken is releasing the reports thr president wants released. The actual intelligence is provided in classified reports provided to the president and some members of Congress. What gets made public is a policy decision that flows down from the top.

Short term yes, but it is a strategic risk long term.

Part of the reason Democrats are turning on Netenyahu (and, by association, Israel) is genuine policy concerns and grassroot pressure.

However, another part of his problem with Democrats is that he has spent the past decade inserting himself into US politics as a Republican alligned figure. That both makes Democratic politicians more willing to oppose him, and gives the Democratic base a permission structure for opposing him.

This is aid through the Karem Shalom border crossing, which is at the border of Gaza, Egypt, and Israel. Egypt does not, and never has, controlled this crossing. The checkpoint into Gaza is on the Israeli side of the Egypt/Israel border and has always been administered by Israel.

Egypt, of course, controls its borders, and so is able to prevent aid from reaching the crossing through Egypt. However, Egypt has no control over aid that reaches the crossing through Israel.

This is in contrast to the Rafah crossing, which is entirely on the Egypt/Gaza border, and so would require Egypt’s cooperation to open. That crossing remains closed.

It is good that Egypt is allowing aid to Karem Shalom; and their refusal to allow it through the Rafah crossing would be a warcrime but for the technicality that they are not a party to the war.

However, the same benefit to this move could be accomplished by passing aid through Israel. Israel is a party to this war, and so is under a legal requirement to allow aid in. US law also requires that Israel do so in order to receive military assistance [0]. Further, Israel is under specific instructions from the ICJ to allow in humanitarian aid. And Israeli leadership is likely to be issued a warrent by the ICC for (among other things) blocking tge delivery of humanitarian aide.

Israel requirement to allow humanitarian aide to Gaza through Israel is not some new concept. Nor is it asking for some unheard of generousity from the Israeli people to their enemy. It is simply their longstanding obligation for waging a war in compliance witg international law. An obligation they claim (externally at least) that they are meeting. So, Egypts assistance should be completely irrelevant to the Karem Shalom crossing.

The reason we need Egypt here is that Israel is not complying with its obligations. Part of the difficulty is a minority of Israeli citizens taking matters into their own hands. To the Israeli government’s credit, they are providing some security to protect aid deliveries from Israeli protesters.

To their detriment, this protection is opposed by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, who has also said I am against the fact that they attack and burn trucks, it is the cabinet which should stop the trucks

There has also been reporting of IDF members leaking aid movements to protesters; although I am not sure hiw widespread that is.

[0] A requirement that the US is not enforcing.

So, what problem does this pier solve?

It gets aid to the border of Gaza. But once that aid is at the border it still needs to be loaded onto trucks and distributed by land.

In contrast, we have been able to get aid to the border by land for decades.

What is the problem that land based deliveries faced, that maritime based deliveries will not?

Same as the last time. The US has been clear that no US boots will be on the ground in Gaza, so we will either: A) wag are finger and request an Israeli investigation if it appears the rocket came from Israel or B) issue a strongly worded statement condemming Hamas for the deliberate attack.

Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a nobel prize for attempted chemistry?!?

I’m aware of that. What I’m not aware of is how a pier helps. Israel has not conducted strikes in Egypt, or in Israel, so Israeli strikes are not a reason to have aid avoid either of those countries. The Israeli strikes have hit aid groups traveling within Gaza. It doesn’t matter if aid gets to gaza at a land border, or an sea border. It still needs to be transported within Gaza, so it still has all of the same problems.

No we don’t. There is 0 reason to build a humanitarian relief pier in Gaza. Most of Gaza’s border is our “close ally” in this conflict. The other border is willing to aid to pass through their territory. Both countries are advanced, and have more than enough logistical infastructure to facilitate all the aid transfers that are nessasary.

The land corridor is more than capable of facilitating aid deliveries. The pier is a PR stunt to make it look like we are working on the problem.

That’s what happens when you take dozens of gods that never agreed with other and collapse them into a single all knowing god. None of your stories make sense anymore, and any moral lesson they taught is lost.

And Israel has been attacking Hezbollah and Hamas.

Iran has been surprisingly restrained in not getting directly involved. However, directly attacking an Iranian embassy forces their hand in a way that retaliating against their proxies does not.

This is not some abstract notion about ethics. It is simply a basic strategic observation. The fact that Iran is attacking Israel directly, is a direct and predictably consequence of an strategic decision that Israel made.

No. It is the equivalent of a PC maker going “yeah. I don’t think we are going to put in a CD drive anymore because the DVD drive we have been including for years can do CDs as well”

Does you website you linked have any relationship with the research being discussed in the article?

Generally, mortgages for your primary residence offer more favorable terms then ones for investment properties. The issue in the above story is likely related to the friend. If they had tried the same thing, their offer would likely have been even worse than what they got for a primary residence with a cosigner. Assuming they got an offer at all.

Operation Prosperity Guardian is already underway. Unfourtuantly, modern drone technology tilts the scales in favor of the attacker in this sort of situation relative to where it was a decade ago; and commercial shipping companies are not in the bussiness of shipping through active combat zones.