Now

Updated 1/1/2024

Hello! My name is Khalid Elassaad. I'm a 27-year-old Lebanese-American living in Seattle, WA.

Hello! Nice to meet you!

This is what my life is like these days / TL;DR:

• 🇵🇸 Free Palestine!
• 🥋 Blue Belt Jiujiteiro @ FrameworkBJJ
• ♟️ Chess Player
• 👨‍🏫 Teacher
• 🛼 Roller-Blader
• ⛰️ Nature Enthusiast
• 🐕 Dog Dad
• 🚫 Say No to Mainstream News

🇵🇸 Free Palestine!

From October 7 to December 27, 2023, the Israeli genocide of Gaza has killed 11,422 children. That is an average of 141 children a day. Source: EuroMed Human Rights Monitor

Israeli nazism is a crime against humanity that every human being of conscience must reject and condemn. Israel's ideology of zionism is a facist and racist ideology that brutalizes and destroys indigenous Palestinian land, people, and culture, while using the sacred world religion of Judaism as cover for its atrocious crimes. Judaism is NOT zionism. Israeli Jews who stand against Israeli brutality and violence are themselves brutalized and violated by Israeli security forces.

Israel enjoys unlimited propaganda cover and arms support from the United States. YOUR taxes, from YOUR hard work, that should be funding YOUR education, YOUR healthcare, YOUR prosperity and wellbeing, are being sent to Israel to fund the slaughter of children and the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Enough is enough!

I've been working on a project to showcase Israeli nazism and refute the egregious and dishonest Israeli propaganda that proliferates Western news. Enough of the mainstream media lies. Enough of the outrageous headlines and white-washing corporate journalists telling you how to think and what to feel. Judge Israel by its words and actions. From genocidal intent to Israeli fratricide on October 7th, learn the truth about Israel's destructive brutality and shameless inhumanity, in their own words, at israelquotes.com, or follow our instagram page, @israelquotesdotcom.

🕊️🇵🇸 Free Palestine! 🇵🇸🕊️

At the protest in Pike Place Market, Seattle, on December 16, 2023.

🥋 Blue Belt Jiujiteiro @ FrameworkBJJ

I train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu @ FrameworkBJJ. I'm a blue belt and I absolutely love it. It's really fun to learn how to defend yourself and control others. It's empowering, humbling, and thrilling. It helps me think rationally when stressed, find inner peace during conflict, feel confident in myself, and feel secure in my ability to assert my physical boundaries against others.

Jiu-jitsu is basically deadly hugging.

♟️ Chess Player

I originally got into jiu-jitsu because of chess! I love chess, and I was looking for a physical hobby that would fulfill the same level of mental engagement and stimulation. Analysis, tactics, strategy, risk and reward, baits and gambits, tricks and traps, the works... jiu-jitsu's got it all!

I've never beaten Ben at chess, but he let's me win at jiu-jitsu sometimes.

It's incredible how many parallels there are between Chess and Jiu-Jitsu.

• Positional Advantage:
  • Chess: if you control the center, you control the board.
  • Jiu-Jitsu: if you control inside position, you control your opponent.
• Priority #1:
  • Chess: King Safety. Avoid checkmate at all costs. If saving the Queen means the King dies, you must let her go.
  • Jiu-Jitsu: Stay Alive. Defending against submissions is more important than escaping an inferior position. You can't escape if you aren't alive.
• Forks & Dilemmas:
  • Chess: A strong tactic is the fork. Attack 2 pieces with one of your own. If the opponent can only defend one threat, the other is yours to exploit.
  • Jiu-Jitsu: If you want to attack an arm, threaten a choke first. When your opponent uses their hands to defend, they'll expose the insides of their arms, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

One key difference, however, between jiu-jitsu and chess is that, in jiu-jitsu, it's quite advantageous to be 260 lbs and 6' 8" tall. 😆🦒

I haven't been playing chess as much lately, but I do love the game.

👨‍🏫 Teacher

As I've gained more experience in both chess and jiu-jitsu, I've started to spend time teaching beginners, helping them grapple with the introductory concepts.

I'm learning that I really value teaching and I feel extremely fulfilled when I help others further their understanding. Packaging ideas thoughtfully for effective communication is a deeply engaging and rewarding endeavor. That's been nice to learn about myself!

🧠 > ➡️📦 > 🗣️ > 👂 > 📦➡️ > 🧠

🛼 Roller-Blader

I also love rollerblading! Like jiu-jitsu, it's an opportunity to move in new ways, to find flow and rhythm in the mechanics of a different ruleset. It's creative and relaxing and great exercise. It's become a moving meditation for me. Since moving into a new home at the beginning of 2022, I haven't been rollerblading as much, and I'm trying to change that, because rollerblading is amazing for the body and mind.

My brother Matt and I were inspired to start skating by Slomo. Maybe he'll inspire you, too!

⛰️ Nature Enthusiast

Once a year, I go on long backpacking adventures (3-4 days, 30-40 miles) with my brothers from university. I really look forward to these trips. Quality time with chosen family spent moving and living through nature. No screens, no city noise, nothing to do but breathe, walk, talk, laugh, and live. I can't wait for the next one!

⛰️ ~ Wish You Were Here!~ 🏔️

Days spent in nature are the best of my life, without a doubt. There's not much more to say there - you just have to do it!

🐕 Dog Dad

I live with a beautiful little 4-year-old Havanese dog named Hammer! Hammer is so smart, endearing, clever, confident, social, enthusiastic, relaxed, and companionable. He makes my day regularly!

🔨 Hammer handling some urgent business matters. 🔨

He's a special little dude and I'm stoked to have him in my life! 💚

🚫 Say No to Mainstream News

Be warned, reader, this is where I "go off", as the young'uns like to say. These are my personal views and opinions. They may not agree with you. I respect you regardless!

For current events and news, I largely avoid mainstream media. In America, Red Team and Blue Team mainstream politics (and by extension, mainstream media) tend to promptly and quietly agree and mislead on the issues I'm most concerned with (America's horrific and wasteful foreign policy, education for all, healthcare for all) while focusing countless hours on poorly debating and distracting with the most pointless issues (identity politics, culture war, sensationalist controversy).

I believe that, in a healthy democracy, the people should be able to rely on media to be critical of government and those in power. This criticism should apply to one's political opponents and political representatives. This reporting should be factual, principled, critical of all sides, accountable to its errors, and financially divorced from power and government. How else can the people stay informed enough to adequately represent their needs to government in democratic society?

Unfortunately, in the States, mainstream news gives you two options: Red Team narrative or Blue Team narrative. Both are bought and owned by the corporations, plutocrats, and special interest groups who also buy and own our politicians and elected representatives. No surprise, then, that I find mainstream media outlets to be insufficiently critical, failing to uphold their role in a democratic system.

Media should be a vigilant watch-dog, not a propaganda loudspeaker, and certainly not running interference and cover for the exploits and corruption of the establishment.

To give a recent example, most everyone has heard about the government acknowledgement and congressional hearings of UFOs and alien activity. All eyes on that!

[🟥🟦🎥👽🛸] 👀👀👀👀 [📜🖊️🏛️💸📉]

However... almost nobody knows that, when President Biden signed H.R.3746 (CTRL+F for "Sec. 401") into law (White House press release), he didn't raise the debt limit - he eliminated it altogether (until January 1, 2025).

Here you go, sweetheart, here's a card you can't max out 💳😘

Mainstream news won't tell you this information. Check out the search results for "debt ceiling" on MSNBC (Blue Team News) and FOX (Red Team News). Dear reader, I defy you to find reports about the ABOLITION of the debt ceiling anywhere in either of these sites. If you can find it, I'll buy you a coffee! ☕ I'd love to hear about how you tracked it down.

Why should people care about UNLIMITED BORROWING? Simply put: record-high inflation is killing the value of the dollar, raising the cost of living, and wiping out the value of savings and retirement accounts of hard-working Americans.

Meanwhile, salaries and wages are not rising to match, meaning people are making less money from work and paying more money for goods and services.

At work, we trade our lives for money. For this to be a fair exchange, we must be accurately informed about the value of that money, as well as threats to its value.

Inflation of the US dollar is the highest it's ever been, and it's hurting the 99%. The government is supposed to be enacting quantitative tightening (QT) to fight inflation.

However, they've chosen to steer into the debt spiral we're in by abolishing the debt limit, leading to increased borrowing, which leads to printing money to pay back obligations, and which leads to increasing inflation. Not only that, money is currently being printed to bail out the non-FDIC-insured deposits at failed banks (SVB, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, etc).

"There is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve." -Neel Kashkari

Wild. Anyway, enough about the phantom recession we're in. Make yourself recession-proof.

"Invest in you, that's what it's best to do." -Nas

How do I find truth these days?

I turn a critical ear to independent media for news and principled perspective. Here's who I listen to these days, as well as the Wikipedia pages used to discredit them:

• Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, et al. @ The Grayzone
• Jimmy Dore @ The Jimmy Dore Show
• Abby Martin & Mike Prysner @ The Empire Files
• GDFofficial @ their YouTube Channel
• Dr. John Campbell @ his YouTube Channel
• Glenn Greenwald @ SYSTEM UPDATE

Be advised, reader, it is YOUR responsibility to be critical of any propaganda you consume, whether corporate-origin or independent. Keep your eyes open for external and internal bias.

The truth of each and every statement is a direct property of the statement itself. A statement's truth or falsehood isn't defined by who spoke it, but instead by what was said.

Thanks so much for reading! You know who I am now!

What's a "now" page? Find out here!